Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1912
File No. 033.1100 K77/115.
[Untitled]
Sir: I have the honor to inform you that the Secretary of State and his party left San José for Puntarenas on the morning of March 4, where he embarked for Corinto on the U.S.S. Maryland. The trip to Puntarenas was made on a special train of private cars furnished by the Govenment. Mr. Knox was accompanied to Puntarenas by the Minister of Foreign Relations, other members of the Cabinet, various Government officials and myself.
The program for Mr. Knox’s visit as prepared by the Government and which I submitted to the Department in my dispatch of February 26, was most successfully carried out in all of its details. * * * The most important function of the Secretary’s visit was the banquet of one hundred and fifty covers given by President Jimenez in honor of Mr. Knox. This entertainment is said to have been the most elaborate ever given in this country. The foyer of the National Theater was especially fitted up, even so far as having special kitchens erected.
I have the honor to transmit herewith clippings giving the speech of President Jimenez together with the reply of Mr. Knox.* * * In extending to Mr. Knox the hospitality of this little country there was nothing that could be done that was neglected by its Government. He was most cordially received and the greatest good will was manifested on all occasions. The visit of the Secretary to Costa Rica can only be considered as a very great success. The expression of his views and the personal knowledge which the officials of this country have gained of his character and ability should create a better understanding and greatly strengthen the friendly relations which exist between the two countries.
I have [etc.]
Toast of President of Costa Rica to the Secretary of State.
You are welcome to Costa Rica, distinguished representative of the United States of America, that friendly country that from remote times and in a variety of ways has exercised such a far-reaching influence over the destinies of this Republic.
[Page 232]A little time after the thirteen colonies, according to the terms of your Declaration of Independence, “assumed, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them,” the Spanish colonies, stirred up by the revolutionary fermentation of the north and encouraged by your noble example, repeated and made good your words, applying them to themselves, declaring that “they were, and of right ought to be, free and independent States”; and so it was, sir, that Costa-Rica, without hatred toward and even without disaffection for Spain, and carried along by the wave of emancipation that swept over the New World from Massachusetts to the Argentine, abandoned her secular vassalage and assumed the sovereign arbitration of her destiny.
Nevertheless, it was very possible, above all in Central America, that our exercise of sovereignty would only have been a momentary eclipse of European domination of this or that State, if it had not been for the joint Anglo-American action and if the United States had not pronounced in 1823, through the mouth of President Monroe, its formidable veto. The American Eagle then spread its wings over this continent and in its flight joined that of the “nopal” and the condors of the south. And from that epoch the schemes of conquest or reconquest of the ancient colonies were consigned to the dominions of things past and gone forever.
But there is another benefit that we owe to your country, the greatest of all, without which all others would be mere dross: We have cast our institutions in the moulding-sand of yours. In our first attempts in the exercise of self-government—the only kind that deserves the decorous respect of men—we learned to spell in your famous document of Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and consistent with these fundamental principles, as incontrovertible now at the beginning of the twentieth century as they were at the end of the eighteenth, we regulated our political system, and within that system the smallest Republic of this hemisphere lives happily, “without envying others or being envied by them,” in the same manner as your wonderful country, enjoying all the privileges of that same system, also lives felicitously, a palpable demonstration that self-government, with powers distributed and limited, with liberty of speech and a free press, of effective and extensive individual rights, a government that derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, is beneficent everywhere—at least in America—with that same universality of the mathematical laws that are equally appropriate for fixing the course of the planets as they are for arranging the most humble transactions of men.
I hope, sir, that the personal knowledge of our institutions and customs may excite in you a feeling of true pride and pleasure on seeing many of the seeds of good government bearing fruit in this little corner of America, snatched from your fields of liberty by the winds that carry civilization from country to country, and dropped by them here and there in all parts of the world.
There will be perpetual peace between the United States and the Republic of Costa Rica! These were the prophetic words of Daniel Webster, stamped on the treaty of 1851, which bears his signature. Consecrated by the lapse of time the things that have happened since then have confirmed this prophesy. Our mutual relations of countrymen with countrymen have grown in a constant manner. We sell in the markets of the United States 60 per cent of our exportations, and in exchange we buy in them 60 per cent of the articles that Costa Rica imports. This present condition of reciprocity is an excellent sign that prognosticates the firmness of our future relations. In negotiating, we enter into mutual relations with others, and to have amicable intercourse with others is to be known, to be appreciated, and to consolidate friendships. Attracted by the fertility of our soils and the riches of our mines, and, I presume, attracted also by our peacefulness and by the respect we show to strangers, their properties and creeds, you will find here a great number of your fellow countrymen managing large capitals of their own or of persons who reside in the United States. Far from frowning upon their good luck, we are pleased to see it; and as their gains are not derived through legislative favors, their prosperity does not diminish, but, on the contrary, helps to augment vigorously the prosperity of the nation.
Lastly, Mr. Secretary, it is not possible to pass over in silence that share which, through our initiative and confident acts, your country has taken in the [Page 233] limitation of the territory of this Republic. An American hand, the just hand of Mr. Cleveland, of blessed memory, marked our boundaries on the north; and another American hand, the hand of Mr. White, in which hangs, happily for you and also for us, the scales of justice, will trace our southern frontier. In the arrangement that Costa Rica and Panama made to this effect, you put, out of consideration to both parties, the valuable contingent of your skill, your benevolence and friendly interest, and I am delighted to be able to take advantage of this occasion to express to you by word of mouth the profound gratitude that from that time we Costa Ricans owe to you, a gratitude that expands, now that we find ourselves honored with your visit. And I am confident that this advent of yours will leave in us a wake of fellow feeling, not like that made by the furrow that the ship forms in the waters, to be destroyed by them immediately afterwards, but a wake as wide and luminous as it is permanent.
Based in these antecedents is inspired the cordiality with which I drink your health, Mr. Secretary, and also that of President Taft, and in the same way the health of the people of the United States; and as that great country does not now see in any quarter a cloud that may darken the splendor of its power, I hope that it may never see the refulgent sun of justice eclipsed on its horizons, so that its greatness and moderation, without losing their force for a moment, may continue shining over the world until the end of time.
To your health, Mr. Secretary.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentemen: It is indeed a pleasure for me, Mr. President, to acknowledge how deeply I appreciate the generous sentiment you have proposed and the honor you do me, and through me the American people, by showering upon me your bounteous and cordial hospitality, thereby evincing your sympathetic response to the spirit which has inspired my mission to you. I know that I am acknowledging no feigned friendship or simulated courtesy, but that the great heart of Costa Rica has responded to the heart of her most northern sister republic. The similarity of our political organizations, our geographical proximity, the tendency of our commercial and industrial interests and policies, and our traditional and long-continued relations of friendship and good will inspired in the President of the United States the sincere desire that our sympathies, cooperation, and good understanding should increase, and for that reason he directed me to visit the Republic of Costa Rica and our other sister republics in the region of the Caribbean Sea, in order that I might carry to them a message of good will from the people and Government of the United States, and, further, that I might make that personal acquaintance with your public men and hospitable peoples to the end that such direct personal knowledge and understanding and appreciation might result in mutual advantage and cooperation for the advancement of our common interests.
It was with a feeling of genuine wonder and admiration that I arrived at your capital city after the marvelous ride from the coast, along the wonderful Revantazon, following its tortuous and difficult windings through the most beautiful tropical foliage until, arriving at the highlands, the verdure of the Temperate Zone at once met the eye. The ability to make this journey in so much comfort was, Mr. President, a suggestion of what the Costa Ricans have accomplished along other lines, and fully prepared me for the abundant evidences of the industry, thrift, tenacity, and culture of your people which I met at every hand.
It is with a feeling of gratified expectancy that one finds at every turn expressions of the traditional love of your people for education, not only in its practical forms, but for the higher arts, notably architecture and music, and to see in the happy and radiant faces of the children the reflection of the beauty of their mothers and sturdy qualities of their fathers.
It is given to few countries to make the just boast that within her borders the school-teachers outnumber the soldiers and that resting upon her bosom in the very center of America is the first perfect type of an international court of arbitral justice.
The attitude of the Government of the United States toward the peaceful settlement of international disputes, of which this court forms a model, has been consistently maintained since the foundation of our Government, as is [Page 234] evidenced by the Treaty of Ghent. The attitude of the Republic of Costa Rica has likewise been consistent and is amply evidenced by the course adopted for the settlement of the century-old boundary dispute with Panama. I repeat, Mr. President, that the people of Costa Rica may justly felicitate themselves that in their very midst is the home of the Central American Court of Justice, the one tribunal before which one nation may bring another—yes, before which an individual may bring a nation—to determine before the bar of impartial justice the differences that exist between them. My Government and, I am sure, the Government of Mexico feel proud of the part played by them in the Central American Peace Conference, convoked under their auspices, out of which grew this international forum, which is the prototype of the court it has long been the desire of the United States to see established by the nations of the earth. In this connection, Mr. President, let me express the feeling of profound satisfaction that the people and Government of the United States entertain, not only because of the rapidly increasing prosperity of Costa Rica, but because of her love for peace, because of the respect she inspires in the family of nations, because she has laid the foundations of perpetual freedom upon the eternal rock of justice and occupies an exceptional and enviable position among the American republics and to the general distribution of property among her people, and because of the constantly increasing intimacy and friendliness between her people and our own.
It is but a short time, Mr. President, until at Panama a new highway of commerce will be opened to the world. That event, so conspicuous and significant, will remove the countries of the Caribbean Sea from their comparative isolation and place them upon the greatest highway on the globe, a highway from the northern to the southern, from the western to the eastern world. The republics of this hemisphere will be thrown into a new day and a new condition. It would be folly to enter that new day without a proper conception of its opportunities and possibilities for our common good. We should go into the new epoch as befits it, with new aspirations and enthusiasms and with greater promise. The casual relations which once marked our intercourse are now happily not casual, but they must be closer and more friendly still—so close, indeed, that as we labor to better human conditions this common end will be a bond of trust and hope.
I bear you, then, not only a message of good will, but one bespeaking a mutual understanding and union in aspiration and effort toward furthering the progress of the Western World through deeds of reciprocal helpfulness.
The free and equal republics which have established themselves upon this hemisphere have a singular harmony of destiny, and that is to bring their common form of government to the highest point of efficiency for the maintenance of popular rights. The greatest strength of these republics, whose heritage is so wonderful, lies in unity of aim and effort.
While we will all be more or less, in the future as in the past, engrossed in questions affecting our internal development and our own acute problems, it is wise to seize every opportunity to impress upon the world and upon ourselves that ours is a Pan-American union of lofty Pan-American public opinion, doing justice and exacting justice, disclaiming ignoble suspicion, and putting to scorn international acts of unworthiness when, unhappily, they may be found among us.
Ladies and gentlemen, I propose the health, the happiness, and the prosperity of the President and people of Costa Rica.