Mr. President, gentlemen:
I thank you for the reception you have given my colleagues and myself and I thank you for the high terms in which you have spoken of my country. I feel gratified that you should think so well of the country which we love. We are proud of many sturdy virtues of our people but we know full well our own weaknesses. The progress in the building of government for the people and by the people is a long process of trial and error. We in the United States have made progress and we have attained a great degree of prosperity, but we have made failures. Yet if we survey the experiences of the whole Western Hemisphere both in failure and in success I believe we can say that we should be of good faith and confident in the future.
I have known of the great economic difficulties which have devastated Ecuador since the Great War. The whole world has suffered from its unspeakable losses. No one profited by it, whether combatant or neutral. The apparent gains at the time were illusions. The mutuality of economic life in the world is such that only losses can come from the destruction of war. But 10 years is but a minute span in the history of nations. Our adversities are the refining fires of experience from which comes the pure metal of progress. The world as a whole is now recovering rapidly from the destruction of the war and the great tide of prosperity which I believe now lies before us cannot fail to bear its blessings to this Republic.
I would that I could find the appropriate words to express the esteem and the good will toward all our sister republics which I know lie in the hearts of the people of the United States. Democracy is more than a form of political organization; it is a human faith. True democracy is not and cannot be imperialistic. The brotherhood of this faith is the guarantee of good will. It is the guarantee of respect which comes only from equals in a common struggle to upbuild human welfare. I have been deeply touched by the welcome of your schoolchildren and their teachers.
I trust that our relations, of so friendly a character over all these years since the birth of our republics, may continue to strengthen mutual esteem and respect.
I come as the symbolic visit of one neighbor to another that I may learn more of your country, your problems, and your men, so that I may be well prepared for the task that lies before me.
To you, Mr. President, I wish to express my special respects. In our country we know of the great work of reorganization which you have brought about. Not only have you lifted the credit of your country, but you have enhanced its reputation, and, more precious than all, you have aroused the spirit of progress and hope in the people of Ecuador. That is leadership to which the whole world gives real homage.
NOTE: President-elect Hoover spoke at the Metropolitan Club in Guayaquil, in response to remarks of welcome by President Isidro Ayora. A translation of President Ayora's remarks follows:
Excellency:
The sovereign will of the people of the United States of America has elected you to guide the destinies of the great Republic, as being the most worthy, at this time, to hold the exalted office honored by the patriotic virtues of Washington, the austere civic virtues of Lincoln, and the idealistic, ardent fervor of Wilson.
Upon your election by popular suffrage you have hastened to place yourself in direct contact with the other states of the New World, undertaking a momentous trip for peace, understanding, and concord.
The Republic of Ecuador, Mr. President-elect, fully appreciates, as do her other American sisters, your noble decision, because this trip affords abundant evidence that you have an exalted concept of the relations of friendship and cooperation which must bind the Americas for the continent's advancement and to the end that its work of culture and civilization may leave a deep impression on the life of mankind.
The inevitable reality of facts demands effective, mutual, and reciprocal inter-dependence among all the peoples of the universe. These ties become closer and firmer among the countries that have particular cause for sincere and cordial relations.
And in order that this international solidarity may be effective and real, in order that its action may have creative vitality, it must be founded upon scrupulous respect for the rights of all the states, in the express recognition of absolute juridical equality for all the states, in the effective proclamation of the unrestricted rule of justice and right.
Because we know that these essential principles which govern international life are those which will guide your foreign policy, because we know that you are eminently responsive to the mandates of justice, to the commands of law, to the norms of equity, and the dictates of intelligent understanding, we, the peoples you have honored with your visit, receive you with brotherly rejoicing and friendly enthusiasm, because you represent a great democracy, a model of organization, legality and strength, and also, because you personally symbolize in its various public and private activities the complete and complex, rich and resplendent, life of the United States of America.
In the name of the Ecuadorian people, like yours a patriotic and free people, in the name of my Government, which follows with admiration the development of the administrative life of your country, and in my own name, I express fervent and sincere wishes for the ever growing prosperity of the United States of America, for the personal happiness of its illustrious President-elect, and that you may retain a pleasant memory of the short time you have spent with us.
To your health!
Herbert Hoover, Remarks in in Guayaquil, Ecuador Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/372891
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