If in disparagement of our modesty, yet in recognition of our gratitude, the delegates from the United States have just requested me to express our profound appreciation of the extraordinary courtesy you have extended to our country in the person of her distinguished and able Secretary of State, whose wise and exalted address we have all heard with delight and satisfaction. However, the honors you have paid him, and which come so graciously from a polite and hospitable people, convey a deeper meaning, for in them we must see a gratifying evidence of that American solidarity which unites our republics in the common development of popular government, energized by liberty, illumined by intelligence, steadied by order, and sustained by virtue. The liberty of law, and the opportunity for duty, and the dignity of responsibility come to us by the very genius of our institutions. Therefore, in recognition of the fraternity which inspires the greatest tasks which have yet fallen to the lot of so many peoples, working together for a common end, we receive your compliment to our country, and for this purpose I have thus detained you to hear this imperfect expression of our thanks. SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY BARON DO RIO BRANCO MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL HONORARY PRESIDENT OF THE CONFERENCE I have risen merely to make a statement which I am sure will be received with pleasure by this illustrious assembly. His Excellency the President of the Republic, in remembrance of the visit paid by His Excellency President Roosevelt to this building in St. Louis, and in order to perpetuate the memory of the coming of the distinguished Secretary Elihu Root to this country, has resolved by a decree bearing today's date to give to this edifice in which the International Pan American Conference is now in session the name of Palacio Monroe. [The Conference then adjourned.] BANQUET OF THE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY BARON DO RIO BRANCO MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS Rio de Janeiro, July 28, 1906 The enthusiastic and cordial welcome you have received in Brazil must certainly have convinced you that this country is a true friend of yours. This friendship is of long standing. It dates from the first days of our independence, which the Government of the United States was the first to recognize, as the Government of Brazil was the first to applaud the terms and spirit of the declarations contained in the famous message of President Monroe. Time has but increased, in the minds and hearts of successive generations of Brazilians, the sympathy and admiration which the founders of our nationality felt for the United States of America.