nse affection which can be shown to a welcome guest,
that of opening to you the door of our home, that of introducing you
into the affections of our household.

Yes, we are glad, sir, not only because we have the honor of knowing you
to be a gentleman and an illustrious personage who is a glory among the
glories of our America, but because--I must be very frank with you
now,--because we are convinced that this visit of yours will redound to
the honor as well as the benefit of that which is dearest to us, of that
which we love above all else on earth, our good mother-country, Uruguay,
this good sovereign mother of ours who is the mistress of our life and
whom we cannot help believing, under pain of ceasing to be her sons, to
be the greatest, the most beautiful and the most amiable of mothers,
just as you think of yours, sir; just as you feel regarding your
excellent American land. We, sir, being perhaps carried away by an
ingenuous filial illusion, are persuaded that to know our Uruguay is to
love her; and for this reason we have desired that you should know her;
for this reason we cherish the hope that, when you have returned to your
country and recall the sum of reminiscences of your memorable voyage,
pleasant and lucid recollections will burst forth of this people which
has been the first to shake your hand upon your setting foot on the soil
of a republic of sub-tropical America, and which offers you its bread
and drinks with you the wine of friendship in a sincere transport of
enduring sympathy.

We thought, Mr. Secretary, that we saw you respectfully kiss the brow of
our mother when, in a moment which should be considered historical, you
defined at the Pan American Congress of Rio de Janeiro the object and
character of your visit to the Spanish-American republics, to these
favorite daughters who are advancing slowly but surely up the steep
mountain at whose summit the ideal of self-government, freedom, and
order, and the reign of internal justice and peace awaits them; these
are the foundation and real guaranty of the reign of international
justice and peace, to which we aspire.

Yes, Mr. Secretary, you spoke the truth in your memorable speech at Rio
de Janeiro, and your words seem like corner stones. Sovereign states are
not merely coexisting on the face of the earth, but are members of one
great palpitating organism, collective persons who, obeying the same
natural law which groups together physical persons into