Remarks at Antofagasta, Chile

NOTE: President-elect Hoover spoke on board the U.S.S. Maryland, at Antofagasta, Chile, in response to remarks of welcome by Alberto Palacios, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia. A translation of Minister Palacios' remarks follows:

Mr. President-elect:

The haste of your trip did not permit you to climb the Andes as far as Bolivia, but the mountain, interpreting the Arabic legend, has come to offer you a cordial welcome on a portion of your own territory. You, Mr. Hoover, as an expert miner are no stranger in Bolivia, a mining land, and I feel certain that you have understood our country better than any unacquainted with our activities as earth borers possibly could.

Your trip marks a historic moment in the fraternal relations of both Americas, and it will provide new means for comprehension and exact understanding of the spiritual and material aspirations of our continent in accordance with American thought, which faces numerous and complex problems to be solved through simple, humane, and practical methods; the more so since, as a result of the elevated policy of your country standards have been evolved which, replacing the tragic egoism's and rancor's of the past, enable us to face the future from a constructive rather than a fictitious point of view.

This attitude originated in the optimistic philosophy of your country a creative force of spiritual and material motives which finds an echo in its vigorous literature, in its formidable economic expansion and in the cult of the physical and moral development of its children, without parallel except in classical Greece. This optimism has created a new school of thought, a new attitude in the relations of the peoples. It has discovered and adopted original formulas for the solution of the never-ending problems which continually present themselves in international relations.

Belgium, isolated from the world, its resources exhausted in the emergencies of the European conflagration, was enabled to survive, thanks to the happy initiative of a man who, judging humanity to be nobler than she herself had believed, succeeded in mobilizing her, thus preserving for the country its orienting concept of culture and civilization. That man was Hoover.

When the gigantic conflict had come to an end, Germany was reduced to economic destruction. To save her, the greatest minds of the time combined to discover the new philosopher's stone which would rebuild the economic structure of one of the most powerful empires of the world. And their failure was probably due to the profound pessimism in which Europe was then submerged. It was then that Dawes, the well known North American economist, formulated his famous plan, which, applied to realities, redeemed the country from chaos.

The sad experience of the war prompted the world's thinkers to seek a formula that would save humanity from new wars, but among numberless theories, no solution at once practical and humane could be found. Once more, another North American, this time Hughes, found the key to the most difficult of world problems: the limitation of naval armaments. Your present Secretary of State Kellogg, with sincerity and courage, has set forth equitable plans to settle the conflicts that may arise among nations. Seen through the crystal of prejudice and tradition such conflicts appear impossible of solution, but considered from the point of view of equality and fraternity, and with sound utilitarian understanding, they become questions of easy solution.

Your visit, Mr. Hoover, cannot fail to make flourish in Hispanic America those optimistic ideals of sound understanding and actual accomplishment which will enable us earnestly to seek international harmony among ourselves.