For the kindly spirit that actuated the Mexican Government in breaking in upon the official program for the entertainment of its guest—our countryman—and placing him in our hands for this occasion, we are extremely grateful. For the graceful act of the Mexican Country Club in permitting us the use of this magnificent building in which to entertain our guest there is no lack of appreciation.
As Americans, knowing our own people and our own country as we do, and keenly alive to everything that may obtain for its weal or its woe, our very absence from it making our hearts grow fonder of it, the joy we feel in welcoming one who has held the bright banner of our country full high advanced, is greater than any words of mine can express.
We love our country; we love it as the blessed consummation of human hopes. The world has been full of sorrow. The tearful eyes of humanity have never been dry; but in this western world, on this new continent, stretching from ocean to ocean, in the maturity of the ages has come forth a nation whose institutions and example shall aid in lifting the nations of the world into the sunlight of God's glorious liberty.
We have no king, no royal family upon which can be centered the loyal emotions of a great people. To us the only representative of the whole people is the glorious banner "thick sprinkled" with stars and striped with vivid red and white.
You, sir, have held aloft that banner. You have added to the glory of our country.
On the sacred field of Gettysburg, ground consecrated by torrents of American blood, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, gave to us a classic which will live while our country exists. You, sir, in your exposition of the attitude of the United States toward other countries, have enunciated a classic that also will live and be a bond of friendship between us and all the nations of this hemisphere.
Gentlemen, I will read to you that classic:
We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except our own; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire; and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights or privileges or powers that we do not freely concede to every American republic.
With such dignified sentiments resounding in our ears, have we not reason to be proud of our guest?
And now, sir, in the name of the American colony of Mexico, I bid you welcome. Yes, thrice welcome! May every choice blessing attend upon you and those you hold dear.