Excellency:
Words are always a poor vehicle for expression of the response of our hearts for such courtesy and welcome as my colleagues and I have received this day. No citizen of the United States could have listened to your eloquent statement without a quickening of pride in his own country that it has deserved so great a tribute from the record of its relations with Costa Rica during all the years of our common national life. Your Excellency, good will between nations is not a policy—it is a deduction arising from a series of actions. It is not a diplomatic formula; it is an aspiration which flows from the ideals of a people. So generous a recognition by you that the spirit of the people of the United States has ever been steadfast in resolution to act not only with justice to its neighbors, but that they do aspire to cooperate with them for the making of good will, will find a deep response from the very hearts of my countrymen.
You have paid a glowing tribute to the accomplishments of my country under the stimulus of our common democracy. But nowhere do I know of a greater and more proved example of the beneficence to mankind of our common institutions than that which has been accomplished through the hands of the people of Costa Rica. Their advancement of human welfare is well known in my own country. As a student of social and cultural advancement, I have long wished to confirm with my own eyes the progress which you have made. You have given a leadership in the solution of important social questions for the distribution of land, and home ownership is such that, mathematically, almost every family owns a farm or a home. The spread of universal free education from primary school to university; the development of art and drama as symbolized by this great institution; and your contributions to literature have not only enriched the lives but have stimulated the thought of your people and have added to the world's pool of culture. To have accomplished all these things and at the same time to have maintained national integrity and national dignity with a military establishment less in number of soldiers than one-fourth the number of your schoolteachers is a national attainment which speaks not only of the beneficences of fundamental institutions of democracy but for the character of the people and the leadership of Costa Rica.
You are an example of the advantage of having many separate units of government. There are over 20 nations on our Western Continent, in which each can be a laboratory working out separate successes in government, in culture, and in art under varying conditions, successes from which all the others can profit.
You have thought to give emphasis to your welcome through the schoolchildren of your capital city. I know of no method by which the kindliness and courtesy of a nation could be so evidenced as by these masses of children who have welcomed us this day. That is the voice of aspiring democracy.
I have come on a visit as a neighbor. I have thought that perhaps I might symbolize the good will which I know my country holds toward your own. My hope and my purpose and my aspiration is that better acquaintance, larger knowledge of our sister republics of Latin America, and the personal contact of government, may enable me to better execute the task which lies before me. And a large part of that task is the cooperation with other nations for the common upbuilding of prosperity and of progress throughout the world.
NOTE: President-elect Hoover spoke at the National Theatre in San Jose in response to remarks of welcome by President Cleto Gonzalez Viquez. A translation of those remarks follows:
Excellency:
The people and the Government of Costa Rica extend to you, through me, as well as to your distinguished wife and to the members of your party, respectful and warm greetings. Welcome, Your Excellency, to this friendly land which this day delights in and feels extremely honored by the visit of the illustrious statesman, of the world-famed organizer who within a brief period will preside over the destinies of one of the most powerful, most prosperous, and most independent nations of the globe; of an exemplary nation in which democracy is a tangible reality and over which, for that reason and with a popular unanimity never before surpassed, a man was called to govern, a man who, elevated by his own efforts, has been chosen by his fellow citizens to fill the highest post in reward of the eminent services rendered by him to his country and to humanity, and in recognition of his singular merits and lofty virtues.
Yours was a happy inspiration when, as a means of resting from the fatigue incident to an active electoral campaign, you decided upon a trip to the nations of Latin America. This voyage which you have begun, half study and half recreation, will have, as we all hope, the greatest, most fruitful, and most positive results for the political and economic relations between the United States and the other peoples of our continent; because, even though rapid, it will permit one of your superior culture and adequate preparation to learn accurately the conditions and aspirations of the Latin American countries, their special mentality, their resources available to the prodigious commerce and industry of the United States, and their needs which may be supplied through the same means; how these countries may contribute to the progress of the world and how, finally, for the benefit of all, a foundation may be laid on the basis of mutual confidence, a more perfect comprehension and a more frank and solid friendship between these people and your country, known and esteemed above all for its invariable spirit of justice.
Costa Rica, Your Excellency, not only professes a deep admiration for the American people and for its public and private institutions; not only does she contemplate and applaud the enormous progress which has raised your country to the category of a colossus; but it maintains for the United States and for its statesmen an immense gratitude. The names of President Cleveland and of Chief Justices White and Taft will always live in our memory, because it was they who rendered decisions in our favor and recognized our rights in the most delicate disputes sustained by Costa Rica in the international field.
In addition to this, which in itself would be sufficient to establish a grateful friendship with the people of the United States, your government has always favored us with just treatment and has rendered us aid of every description in our difficulties. What, then, could be more logical than the sentiment of sympathy which unites us with the people over which you are so soon to govern! What could be more natural than the desire of my government to maintain and strengthen the good relations which fortunately link our two peoples! The task will be an easy one if the North American Government continues the favorable attitude of the past—an attitude already traditional—and if it continues to entrust its diplomatic representation, as now, to the expert and discreet hands of a citizen of spotless character, of serene judgment and of friendly disposition.
Excellency, permit me to express on this occasion my best and most fervent wishes for your felicity and for the complete success of your administration. May your name be mentioned with those of the great Presidents of the American Union, with those of Washington and Lincoln, Cleveland and Wilson. May your voyage be a most happy one, and may we and the United States, as well as all the countries of our Latin America, derive the greatest benefit from it.
Herbert Hoover, Remarks in in San Jose, Costa Rica Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/372892
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