Mr. President and gentlemen, let me assure you that in the share which the United States is taking and is to take in this work, there is and can be but one feeling and one desire toward the people of Panama. It is a feeling of friendship sincere and lasting; it is a feeling of strong desire that wisdom may control the deliberations of this assembly; that judgment and prudence and love of country may rule in all your councils and may control all your actions; it is a desire and a firm purpose that so far as in us lies, there shall be preserved for you the precious boon of free self-government. We do not wish to govern you or interfere in your government, because we are larger and stronger; we believe that the principle of liberty and the rights of men are more important than the size of armies or the number of battleships. Your independence which we recognized first among the nations of the earth, it is our desire to have maintained inviolate. Believe this, be patient with us, as we will be patient with you; and I hope, I believe, that at some future day we shall all be sailing through the canal together, congratulating each other upon our share in that great and beneficent work. FOOTNOTES: [4] "The Ethics of the Panama Question"; address before the Union League Club of Chicago, February 22, 1904--see _Addresses on International Subjects_, pp. 175-206, published by the Harvard University Press. COLOMBIA CARTAGENA ADDRESS OF THE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, HIS EXCELLENCY VÁSQUEZ-COBO At a Breakfast given to Mr. Root, September 24, 1906 Upon receiving your excellency within the confines of our heroic and glorious Cartagena, I present to you a cordial greeting of welcome, in the name of Colombia, of his excellency the President of the Republic, and in my own. You return to your own country to enjoy merited honors and laurels after a long tour, giving a hearty embrace of friendship to our sisters, the republics of the South; and in breaking your journey upon our burning shores we receive you as the herald of peace, of justice, and of concord with which the great republic of the North greets the American continent. I trust to God that these walls, the austere witnesses of our glory, will serve as a monument whereby this visit may be noted in history. The honorable Minister Barrett, the worthy and estimable representative of your excellency's Government, has just completed a journey through a large part of our vast territory; he, better than any one, will be able to tell your excellency what he has seen in our beautiful and fertile valleys and mountains, in our flourishing cities and fields, and among our five millions of lusty, high-minded, peace-loving, and hard-working inhabitants, who today think only of peace and useful and honest toil. This is the nation that greets you today and with loyalty and frankness clasps the hand of her sister of the North.