In modern progress, the régime of privilege and of force can no longer create rights nor lend security for the future or the aggrandizement of nations; and nowadays those individuals do not render a service to their native land who, while they sacrifice permanent interests, think they can calculate the meridian of their country by the artificial reflections of a moment, transitory and perishable.
The régime of force or of armed peace consumes the vital forces and the resources of nations; and then from the abyss of inequality, of affliction, and danger produced, bursts forth once more the social and political problem demanding, with threats, the reform of the evil, and laying down the maxim that only the ideal of justice, of liberty, and of human solidarity can possibly stand forth, firm and unshaken, amidst the ruins in which the wild ideas of greatness held by the military powers of the world will remain buried forever.
It is not by means of a régime of force, but by that of liberty, peace, and labor, that the United States of America has been enabled to form a marvelous abode of vitality and human progress; and its government, with a perfect insight into the greatness of that country and of its destiny, today addresses the present and the future of our world, and with special interest explains to America the only paths that will lead the nations to the attainment of tranquillity and well-being.
Once that existence is obtained, you have said, Mr. Root, that it is necessary to live and advance worthily and honorably,—and that this object cannot be attained by a régime of domestic oppression and of privilege, nor by the external one of isolation or of war, but by that of liberty, order, justice, economical progress, moral improvement, intellectual advance, respect for the rights of others, and a feeling of human solidarity. You have clearly stated:
No nation can live unto itself alone and continue to live. Each nation's growth is a part of the development of the race.... A people whose minds are not open to the lessons of the world's progress, whose spirits are not stirred by the aspirations and achievements of humanity, struggling the world over for liberty and justice, must be left behind by civilization in its steady and beneficent advance.
In the life of nations there must always prevail an ideal and a harmony of right, of liberty, of peace, and fraternity, although this can only be obtained by persevering efforts, by sacrifices, and by a long and distressing march. It is necessary to "labor more for the future than for the present" and unite together all the nations engaged in the same great task, inspired by a like ideal and professing similar principles.
Peru has read your words, Mr. Root, with profound attention. She is proud to say that in the modest sphere she occupies in the concert of nations, she accepts your ideas as her own, and declares that they also constitute her profession of faith as regards her international policy.
With your superior judgment you have exactly comprehended the difficulties, critical moments, and convulsions which the countries of this continent have undergone in order to establish a republican government, together with a régime of liberty and democracy. They are still in the first period of their development and have yet many problems to solve.
To develop the immense resources and wealth with which nature has so wonderfully endowed these countries; to render their territory accessible to labor and civilization by opening up means of communication, granting all facilities and giving security for the life, health, and welfare of their inhabitants; to obtain the population which their immense territories require: to educate and instruct the people, making them understand their liberty, their duties, and their rights; to develop their faculties and energies, their labor forces, their industrial and commercial capacity and power; to elevate their moral dignity; to consolidate and strengthen the national unity; to insure definitely the government of the people, in justice, in order, and in peace; to attract capital and foreign immigration; to develop and give impulse to commercial relations with other countries; to maintain a frank and true international harmony and solidarity; to respect all mutual and reciprocal rights and settle all disagreements by friendly, just, and honorable means—to perform, in short, the work of human civilization; these are undoubtedly the points which ought to occupy, first of all, the thoughts of the administration of these countries, in order to secure their tranquillity, their welfare, and their aggrandizement, just as the United States have secured theirs by the genius of their people and the power of their ideals.
If the nations of America, instead of living apart from each other and separated by distrust, threats, and quarrels—which unsettle them, rendering their energy and development fruitless, just as they have kept up a state of anarchy, for a long time, in their internal existence—would unite themselves together by the natural ties which the community of their origin, of their civilization, of their necessities, and their destinies clearly indicate, we should then witness the realization of the ideal you have conceived of a great, prosperous, and happy America; the union of sister republics, free, orderly, laborious, lovers of justice, knowledge, sciences, and arts, coöperating, each one and all of them worthily and effectively, for the realization of the great work of human civilization and culture.