There is one other thought that comes naturally to my mind. You not only have not abandoned your duties toward your country by coming to this foreign land, but you have acquired new duties toward the community and the nation which has given you welcome and shelter and prosperity. There is underlying all the materialism and the hard practical sense of the American people regulating its own government for its own interests--there is underlying that a certain idealism which carries a conception of a missionary calling to spread through the length and breadth of the world the blessing of justice and liberty and of the institutions which we believe make for human happiness and human progress. That mission is to be fulfilled, not by making speeches and the giving of advice, the writing of books, or even the publication of newspapers; it can best be fulfilled by personal influence and intercourse of men one with another. No American who is in a foreign land can help representing his country; its honor and its good name rest upon each one of us the moment we cross the border. You not only represent your country, but you have a duty to perform toward the country in which you live, giving to her and to her people through your efforts and all your association the best contribution that your training as American citizens, that the traditions of centuries of American life enable you to give, toward the maintenance of law and order, toward the promotion of all ideas that you have been taught in your youth to consider sacred, toward holding up the hands of authority, toward the inculcation of the sentiment of loyalty, toward the perpetuity of the government which gives you security for your lives and your property in your new home. I have one prominent thought in meeting you today; it is, while you continue to be good, loyal American citizens, you should be good and loyal Mexican residents. I can no better voice the sentiment of all of my countrymen here I know, and I can no better represent the feelings of our friends who remain at home, than by asking you to rise and join me in drinking to the long continuance of life, strength, and usefulness for the man who, more than any other, or all others, has given you the opportunities that you now enjoy, President Porfirio Díaz. MEXICAN ACADEMY OF LEGISLATION AND JURISPRUDENCE SPEECH OF LICENTIATE LUIS MÉNDEZ PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMY At the Installation of Mr. Root as an Honorary Member, October 4, 1907 Honored Sir: Because of the office I am temporarily holding, I am given the unexpected honor of placing in your hands the diploma that entitles you to honorary membership in the Mexican Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence.