Excellency:
I wish to thank you for your words of welcome and to thank the people of the Argentine for the cordial reception which they have given me. I come with two simple purposes, to convey the spirit of friendship and to extend my knowledge of our sister republics.
It is indeed a privilege to have traversed this great empire and to have seen this amazing city. For it is a wonderful chapter in human endeavor to have created this beautiful capital and to have raised it to among the first in the world in practically a quarter of a century. Its splendid buildings, its institutions, its parks, the culture of its people, all demonstrate the virility and capacity of a great and growing nation.
Mr. President, I should be proud could I use this occasion to sound a convincing note of faith and hope in the future of humanity. It has been no part of mine to build castles of the future but rather to measure the experiments, the actions, and the progress of men through the cold and uninspiring microscope of fact, statistics, and performance. But from these, I believe not alone that the fundamental forces in the world are making for progress but that the world today and particularly the Western World stands upon the threshold of a new era of advancement. Never before has the outlook been brighter for the march of peace, for economic progress, for the growth of ordered liberty and of liberal institutions, for opportunity of achievement among men, and the growth of those things which dignify and ennoble life.
Economic prosperity is not the sole object of government or of effort. It is the foundation upon which we may build the finer edifice of life, because release from poverty is the release of spirit. And I believe, Mr. President, that we can look forward with equal optimism to the improvement of the political, social, and cultural edifice.
The liberalism which was born of the American continents has stirred all humanity with aspiration for freedom and for that ordered liberty which gives full opportunity for individual accomplishment. The hope and fate of humanity lie in its success. I am one who has full confidence in the ultimate ability of the great American experiment of peoples to govern themselves. I know it is a long, toilsome path of trial and errors, but, Mr. President, the fact that this ideal has spread steadily through the world over a century and a half should itself give us confidence. And when we survey broadly the unparalleled advance in human welfare of the Western Hemisphere over this period, we should be confident in our optimism for the future of these institutions and ideals.
And the outlook socially, as well as economically and politically, is hopeful. Education and learning, decrease in poverty, and the ideal of equal opportunity are providing the impulses of ambition in our peoples. For these reasons, I do not fear the social decay which has been traditional in the ancient nations of the past who possessed other institutions and ideals.
And from all our systems whether political, social, or economic, we shall have failed if we do not secure those satisfactions which come from the cultivation of the charms and graces of life, the advancement of moral and spiritual character of our peoples. And with the vast increase in numbers freed from the degradation of poverty who receive through education the touch and inspiration of science or art, and of literature, may we not rightfully expect that we shall uncover more of those rare flowers of humanity whose genius lifts all the world with their discoveries, their development of human thought, and their touch of the Divine through art and poetry.
I know, Mr. President, that the preservation of these institutions and ideals in a world of increasing complexity requires constant vigilance. It requires that there be many nations, and not a few, in order that each may receive refreshment from the experience of the other. And of those to whom the Western World looks with confidence for its contribution to the future, the Argentine Republic occupies an eminent place.
NOTE: President-elect Hoover spoke at the Government Palace in Buenos Aires in response to remarks of welcome by President Hipolito Irigoyen. A translation of President Irigoyen's remarks follows:
Your Excellency, Mr. President-elect:
You have had the kindness to include the Argentine Republic among the countries of South America which you purposed to visit; and this country, duly appreciating your courtesy, has tendered you its warmest homage. And now its Government, faithful interpreter of the national sentiments and aspirations, offers you its most cordial greeting.
Bound to the United States of North America by friendly ties which date back to the dawn of our independence—since it was from the example of the illustrious founders of your Republic we learned the first lessons in democracy, and the wisdom of your constitutional law which determined the structure of our federal institutions—we do not doubt that your spontaneous visit will strengthen the relations established between the two peoples and harmoniously maintained over a period of time now beyond the century line.
Argentina—but why not say America and the world?—expects that your nation, now in the zenith of its greatness and at the very summit of its power and expansion, will continue to be the center of lofty spiritual and pacific ideals, such as that which—after the tragic hecatomb of our contemporaneous civilization—induced your eminent late President to convoke all the nations to the end that, at Geneva, as within the sanctuary of a solemn basilica, they might reaffirm the luminous and eternal precept enunciated by the Divine Master: Love one another.
Such are the ideals of the South American peoples, who aspire to constant advancement in the path of perfecting themselves for the mission which the designs of Providence, as recorded by history, have vouchsafed them; fulfilling themselves as entities ruled by such high ethical standards that their power can never be a menace to justice, nor cast even a shadow across the sovereignty of other states. Inspired by these devoted wishes, I raise my glass to wish you, sir, a most happy return to the bosom of your enlightened and great country.
Herbert Hoover, Remarks in Buenos Aires, Argentina Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/372887
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