To elevate the moral level of this great international democracy which you have proclaimed, and of which our America should be the prototype, there is but one means, namely, to elevate the level of all and every one of the units which compose it, and to stimulate in all and every one of them a consciousness of and pride in their own destiny, an undying love for the abstract idea of country, and a deep conviction that in the sphere of peoples, just as in that of the orbs, there is no star, no matter how powerful, which can perturb the gravitation of the other stars; for over the entire body of the worlds stands the immutable law which governs them, and over this law is the sovereign will of the Supreme Legislator of orbs and of souls.
This was the echo in my mind, Mr. Secretary, of what you said at Rio de Janeiro and are confirming among us. Your words were great and good because they were yours, without any doubt; but they were so, above all, because they were in accord with the ideal of justice in pursuit of which humanity is slowly marching--with that solemn diapason hung between heaven and earth which furnishes the pitch from time to time to men and peoples and worlds, in order that they may not depart from the universal harmony.
Your words have reverberated like a friendly voice in the depths of the soul of this people, which has acclaimed you without reserve because it has understood you, sir. And for this reason, because I have thought that I interpreted all the generous intensity of your attitude and of your speeches, I have not told you at this time, as would have appeared natural, how much we in Uruguay love and admire your wonderful American country, whose stars shine perhaps without precedent in the sky of human history, but rather how much we respect and with what a passion we love our good Uruguayan mother-country, whose sun is also a star; how glad we are to see it honored by your visit, and how we cherish the hope that you will bear away a remembrance of us as a sincerely friendly people--a people very conscious of its own destinies, of its rights, and of its duties; in a word, a people very much in accord with that grand harmony which exists among sovereign states which respect and love one another, and which you have proclaimed in the name of your country as the supreme ideal of our free America.