We know that you are the metropolis of a people who carry the art of agriculture to the highest degree of efficiency, a people frugal, industrious, and of domestic virtue. We have seen with gratification that you are becoming also the metropolis of a people capable of winning from your mountains the inexhaustible wealth they contain, the metropolis of a great mining people; and within the past few years we have rejoiced to see that you are also on the road to become the metropolis of a great manufacturing people. We have read, too, the story of your struggles--first for independence, then for liberty, then for justice and order and peace; and with the memory of our own struggles for liberty and justice, with the experience of our own trials and difficulties, rejoicing in our own success and prosperity, Mr. Mayor, the feeling of sympathy and rejoicing in your success in overcoming the obstacles that have stood in your way, in your growth in capacity for self-government, in the continuing strength of all the principles of justice and of order and of peace, is universal in my country and among my people. So I come to you not to make friends, but as a friend among friends. I thank you with all my heart, both for myself and for my people, for the kindness of your welcome and for what I know to be the sincerity of your friendship. RECEPTION BY THE SENATE SPEECH OF SENATOR BARRIOS At an Extraordinary Session, September 13, 1906 The Senate of Peru, honored by your official visit, greets you as the representative of a great democratic people, whose juridical methods, founded on liberty and equality, are a model for all the American parliaments. I regard your visit to our young republic as one of most important and lasting effect in the history of the continent. When these peoples have reached the power and development which the United States of America enjoys; when the citizens and the public authorities keep within the bounds imposed by the legitimate demands of liberty and justice and the requirements of order and progress; when all this is obtained by means of social well-being, of economic strength, and the political predominance which passes beyond the native land--then the legitimate and noble influence exercised on the life of other peoples is based, not on narrow schemes of national egotism, but on the broad and humane qualities of civilization. This your government has understood in sending a full representation to these republics, in harmony with the American idea of union and progress, which the illustrious statesman who today presides over the glorious destinies of the American people--to the admiration and respect of all--expounds and accomplishes by his thoughtful work.