Speech of His Excellency Don Diego M. Chamorro, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua, at a banquet tendered to Mr. Knox at Managua, March 6, 1912.
Mr. Secretary, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
Animated by sentiments of the most legitimate satisfaction, I have the great honor to offer this homage of high appreciation and good will to his excellency the Secretary of State of the United States of America, Mr. Philander C. Knox.
The people and Government of Nicaragua, Mr. Secretary, feel a lively pleasure in the visit that you make to our country, where your illustrious land is alternately appreciated and admired, and with unfeigned rejoicing we celebrate the happy occasion of your presence among us, which has permitted you to know personally how sincere and enthusiastic are the sympathies we cherish for the great Republic of the north, sympathies which increase every day in the glow of the inalterable confidence which your interest for the well-being and prosperity of Nicaragua inspires in us, and in the perseverance with which we labor in the same work of liberty and of justice, which is the aspiration of our people and the generous ideal of your nation and of your Government.
Peoples, like individuals, more than by their own resources, live by the interests common to other peoples, and no nation, without placing in danger its well-being and its existence, can draw away from that sociological law which compels all individuals and all nationalities to live together in a general concert which tends to the highest development of their forces in the material, the economic, and the moral order.
Profoundly affected by this truth and by the exceptional importance which the relations will assume in the near future, without doubt, between the United States and other nations of the world and all the countries surrounding the Panama Canal, we, in the agreements celebrated with the United States, without any reserve or vacillation, have followed the inspirations of a far-sighted and patriotic policy that counsels us not to lag behind the other nations on the ascending road of progress, civilization, and culture, but to assure, once for all, our position among the nations of the world.
You, most excellent sir, are not a stranger among us. Your name is familiar to our people, and everywhere it is accompanied by the respect and the affection with which entire Nicaragua greets you and receives you as an old and true friend. Your illustrious personality and the eminent representative character vested in you give to your pleasant visit a significance superabundantly honorable for Nicaragua, because you come in the name of a great people to whom we are bound not only by the material ties of an active commerce ever on the increase, but by the better and indestructible moral bonds of the same political ideals, and by your historical traditions closely connected with all our struggles for independence.
With your beautiful Declaration of July, 1776, you awakened in all the people of America the love for liberty. Your sympathies accompanied us in our strivings for emancipation, and before any other country it was your people who recognized us as sovereign nations. [Page 1125] Your international doctrines then gave stability and strength to those conquests of right, assuring forever our existence as republics, unhampered by foreign interference. We owe to you the restoration of our territory, and to-day more than ever we place confidence in the friendship and solicitude of your people for the maximum development, which all Nicaraguans desire, of republican institutions and practices of which your country is, par excellence, the highest exponent in the world.
In the paternal house we learnt from childhood to know and admire your great forefathers. The lives of Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin were heroic legends of the home and their salient and stirring deeds were held up before us constantly by our elders as the most beautiful examples of virtue and patriotism worthy of admiration; and so, used to living in communion with your heroes, we never have and never will accustom ourselves to regard them as strangers, since they are not and can not be such for any free man, whatever the place of his nationality in the world. If your language be unknown to us, the language of liberty and justice, which by its example pointed the way to the attainment of the greatest and most perfect political institution that human endeavor has been able to bring about, so took possession of our minds that it is not surprising that, as men, in contemplating the stupendous altitude which your country has reached in all the spheres of activity and civilization, we should continue rendering that same heartfelt tribute of our admiration to those famous men who initiated such work and to the heirs of those virtues and warders of such great institutions.
In witnessing the public demonstrations and your reception by the Nicaraguan people in their fold, and in considering how the prejudices and misunderstandings among the nations of this continent are quickly blotted out by the frequent celebration of our Pan-American Congresses, of the lofty policy of which your visit to our countries of Central America is one of the most expressive signs, Ave can not fail to recall the notable words which one of your most illustrious men, John Adams, wrote with prophetic vision to his wife on signing your magnificent Declaration of Independence. He said:
Yesterday, the greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men. * * * But the day is past. The second of July 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.
Remembering these beautiful words of him who was your second President, the clear-sightedness of the statesman is surprising who, from that memorable date, understood the whole compass of your revolution for the entire world, and with the vision of his soul assisted, and caused his contemporaries to assist, in the contemplation of the colossal development of his country, free, rich, and happy after more than an age of existence; who discerned, and caused others to discern, the edifying and magnificent spectacle of America separated in numerous republics, but all united in a single ideal of justice, of liberty, and’ of respect for the independence and sovereignty of each one of them.
[Page 1126]Permit me, gentlemen, in the name of the President of the Republic, to invite you to drink a toast to His Excellency the President of the United States, William H. Taft; to His Excellency the Secretary of State, Philander C. Knox; to his worthy wife and the distinguished ladies who accompany her, whose presence grace and honor this occasion; and to the North American people, to that great nation, the friend of peace, of liberty, and of justice.