e of
the greatest statesmen of modern America.

Amongst the institutions of education of this city there is the Normal
School, which has always tried to follow the methods and systems in use
in your great country.

In the name of this institution and representing my colleagues, I come
before you, sir, to repeat, with all my heart, the words you have heard
so many times in Brazil: "Welcome, Mr. Root!"

SPEECH OF MR. GAMA, JR., OF THE COMMERCIAL SCHOOL

A representative of a peaceful people is always welcome to Brazil. You
know already our traditional policy. From the beginning of our existence
as a nation we have accustomed ourselves to see in your glorious country
the nation which, first of all, substituted for military imperialism the
beneficent and civilizing policy of free commercial expansion, joining
producers and consumers without any link of dependence.

We followed with ardent sympathy your liberal and eminently humane
action in the Chinese Empire, at the moment when that monarchy seemed
doomed to dismemberment.

And you, sir, were the first to make understood the need of the
maintenance of the administrative and territorial _status quo_ of that
empire, to which, as well as to other nationalities of the Far East, you
are today the securest guaranty of national integrity.

You come to us, therefore, with the credentials of a peaceful people,
and of a people that respects the autonomy of other nations, no matter
how weak they may be.

In this quality we open to you our arms, and we heartily meet your
wishes in the assurance that we contribute to the development of the
ideas of peace and steadiness, without which the evolution of a people
can only be accomplished imperfectly and at the cost of many centuries
of hard effort.

The United States of Brazil acknowledged the advantages of a perfect
communion of views in commercial matters with their great sister of
North America. They were aware that essentially opposite points of view
regarding commercial interchange separate them from some of the nations
of the Old World.

So long as on the other side of the Atlantic an almost invincible
barrier of customs duties impedes the entry of our products into markets
naturally hostile to South American productions, our country has only
two alternatives: either to continue the very irksome commercial
relations with those markets, or to look for others with evident loss of
a part of the harmony that ought to exist