The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-10-25
The Colonel Delivers His First
South American Speech
At the Government University
at Rio de JaneirO.
REAFFIRMS MONROE DOCTRINE
Welcomes the Advent of Brazil
Among Powerful Nations.
Now Stands on Equal Footing
With United States.


Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 25.-Relations
between North and South America
are certain to become much closer in
the future; the development of South
America will be the most striking
growth feature of the twentieth CEN
tury as the development of North
America was the most striking growth
feature of the nineteenth; the only de-
sire of the United States towards its
neighbors of the western world is to
see them stable, orderly and prosper
ous-such are the highlights of Theo-
dore Roosevelts first speech in South
America, delivered today at the gov
eminent university here.
Every American nation, Colonel
= Roosevelt said, had reason to con-
graduate itself upon the stability and
prosperity of it's sister nations. Any
country, he continued, whose people
conducted themselves in stable and
orderly fashion could place among its
assets the hearty and practical friend
ship of the United States. Chronic
wrongdoing, however, might force
ultimately in America, as elsewhere,
intervention by some strong and stable
civilized nation in the exercise of an
international police power.
"Such a duty asserted Colonel
Roosevelt, sis thankless, irksome and
unpleasant, whether it be performed
by England, France or the United
States; whether in Algiers, in Egypt or
the Isthmus of Panama. And
therefore we all hail with delight the
advent to real power of such nations
as Brazil, the Argentine and Chile"
Colonel Roosevelt's address teemed
with expression of good will for
South America and admiration for the
proWess of her leading nations in
building the foundations for their ca
reers. Brazil and other nations of the
south, he said. stood on equal footing
now with the United States among the
council of nations. And one cardinal
doctrine on which all nations of Amer
lea agreed, he asserted, a doctrine OF
vital concern to the American family
of powers, was the principle that the
western world should not be treated
as offering ground for fresh colonial
ton or territorial aggrandizement by
any Old World power.
His Speech in Full.
Colonel Roosevelts speech was as
follows:
1.-The western hemisphere is slowly
working out for itself its own theory
of that part of international policy
which concerns both the attitude of
all the American commemorative in
the face of the rest of the world, and
also their dealings with one another
You, my hosts and hearers, and your
guest, and all our fellOwcOuntryme
alike, belong to the young nations of
the New World. Because of the fact
that it is a new world, and that we
disadvantages and have certain pecu-
liar difficulties of our own to face.
Nevertheless, also because of these |
very facts, we enjoy compromising adj |
vantages which more than outweigh |
the disadvantages. Prominent among
these advantages is the fact that we
have an almost free hand for fair |
dealing in American International re- |
lations, being fettered by comparative
1y few of the wide inequalities of Gull
ture and civilization, and the bitter
memories of history, which of neces-
sity prevent any community of feeling
among races which stand at the OPP
posite poles of human existence;
whereas in the Old World, in the huge
continental mass composed of Europe,
ASIA and Africa, there exist many vast
and populous regions sundered from
one another by the wellnigh impassa-
BILE CULTS which lie between civiliza-
ton and barbarism, and between bar
barism and pure Savagery.
Here in America the civilized ma
items do not have tc fear huge military
barbarisms. Neither do we have to
face the presence of vast tracts of
country peopled by savages, which the
civilized nations must bring under con-
troll, and which, If not possessed by
one efficient civilized nation, merely
become the property of some other eff
fcient and civilized nation. Under such
conditions 1t is practically impossible
to reach a general working agreement
of any kind about international con-
duct; fer the communities European.
Atiatic and African-stand on planes of
culture and conduct which are hopeless
" far apart
A Common Heritage.
In the two Americas, on the con-
trary, there are no such wide divisions.
With negligible exceptions, all the i'm
portant nations possess a common
heritage of Occidental civilization, and, |
as compared with the other divergen-
cies in the Old World, they possess sub
stantially similar governmental forms
and religious and cultural ideas. Again,
with negligible exceptions, there are
no great waste spaces tenanted only
by savages, which are open to settle
ment by, and are the potential causes
of quarrel among, the civilized powers:
the remaining tracts of land open to
settlement and development-and no
where are they larger or more inviting
than here in Brazil-are Substantially