Remarks at the Palace of the National Administrative Council of Uruguay in Montevideo
Excellency:
I am grateful for your generous reception and for the good wishes you have extended to me and my country.
I have been much interested in your part in the Government of Uruguay. You have undertaken a new experiment in the organization of democracy. Our democracies make progress by experiments not alone in those measures which directly advance human welfare, but in those which perfect the administrative functions of government. In every country, we will profit by your experience. True democracy is not dependent upon any special form of organization. The dual purposes of organization are public will and efficiency in administration, and these may be successful in many patterns.
There are much more weighty reasons for the independence of nations, but one of them is the benefits that come to all from the independent discoveries which they make in methods of human welfare.
The ideals of democracy have been exemplified in your country over these many years and have contributed greatly to keep alight the sacred flame of self-government.
NOTE: President-elect Hoover spoke at the Palace of the National Administrative Council of Uruguay in Montevideo in response to remarks by Luis C. Caviglia, President of the Council. A translation of Mr. Caviglia's remarks follows:
Excellency:
The National Administrative Council has received with sincere pleasure the visit of the President-elect of the United States of America.
The purpose of his journey harmonizes with the sentiments of this Council in that it permits the fostering, by means of personal contact, of the moral bonds which exist between both peoples.
It is for this reason that the Council, grateful for the presence of the President-elect in its center of activities, entertains the hope that his stay in the country will enable him to appreciate the constructive character of the Uruguayan people, as, also, its fraternal spirit toward all men, especially those of America.
The maintenance of international relations belongs constitutionally, among us, to the President of the Republic, but the natural application is incumbent upon his Executive Body, which, while collaborating within a well defined governmental policy, does not, however, preclude the most ample intercourse in economic relations and the most frank cordiality in social contacts with the outside world.
The National Council begs the illustrious visitor to carry home to his country the expression of the most faithful sentiment of admiring friendship toward the democracy which has designated him its exalted Executive. It also begs the President to accept the good wishes of the Council members for his personal happiness and for the greatest measure of success in his administration.
Herbert Hoover, Remarks at the Palace of the National Administrative Council of Uruguay in Montevideo Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/372885
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