Peru receives them with the affection of brothers, with the traditional and courteous nobleness of our race, with the sympathetic and respectful admiration which the example of the great and lofty North American virtues awaken in our mind.
A people which has itself worked up in its own laboratory such a colossal fermentation of greatness, a people which owes everything to the efforts, to the activity, to the work, to the initiative of its men, a people which has not forsworn the splendid incentives of its ideals, and which carries within itself as a secret impulse to irradiate its spirit beyond its natural boundaries, is a people which raises in all others the warm and ample admiration which the Americans have experienced in the entire course of their voyage.
The powerful fleet which to-day reaches our shores, the most formidable and splendid which has stemmed the waters of this continent, does not come on a war footing or as a menace. A high sense of political prevision, the most eminent virtue of a statesman, induced President Roosevelt to order the movement of the Atlantic fleet to the Pacific coast. The illustrious governor who carries on his shoulders the enormous responsibility of directing this great people has proved himself worthy of his post, contemplating with serenity and firmness all future eventualities, and consistent with his pacific intentions, which do not exclude designs of warlike prudence, has prepared himself by this spirited parade of force to prevent a war.
No technical authority, either military or diplomatic, believes in the probability or imminence of a great war. The United States have many efficacious resources for dissolving or removing indefinitely the threatening and apocalyptic spectre of a universal conflagration such as would take place in the world, given the present aggrupations of factors.
Their economic strength, their marvellous industrial richness, their bullion reserves, their growing population, their formidable means of attack and defence which we contemplate to-day, all these are so many conservative encouragements which will help to check audacity and outside ambition.
This welcome is presented to show how Lima and the editors of the Diario really tried to make the Americans feel at ease. Of course the printed English translation failed to do full credit to the excellent Castilian of the original, but there could be no mistaking the genuineness of the welcome.
It was sincere all right, and no doubt there was a proud man in Lima as he contemplated the mass of fine words he had piled up. As soon as the paper came out and the Americans had passed the word along that it was great there was a rush to get it. The visitors stopped one another on the street corners to read it aloud and the general comment was:
"Fine! It makes us feel as if we were right back in Brooklyn. No such language as that can be read in a newspaper in any other place in the world except Brooklyn. Of course we are used to such expressions as 'colossal fermentation of greatness,' 'threatening and apocalyptic spectre,' 'aggrupations of factors' and the like of that in Brooklyn, but who would have imagined that we'd meet 'em so far from home?"
And as if that wasn't enough to make it plain to the Americans that the freedom of the place was theirs they were met at the terminal of the trolley line from Callao with men who distributed a pamphlet of information got out by a firm with American names, makers and purveyors of a popular libation. The title page bore this inscription: