Fellow citizens:
I deeply appreciate your welcome and I am extremely glad of the opportunity to visit you and learn more about your problems. I am glad to visit the only part of the United States visited by Columbus. We regard it as the oldest part of the United States.
It is also a great satisfaction to confer with your able Governor, whose distinguished father was the first to promote the welfare of this island. I have been greatly impressed by the courage with which you have faced your difficulties. I only wish I could stay longer and enlarge the acquaintance of my fellow citizens here.
Note: The President spoke at approximately 8 a. m. from a balcony at Ponce City Hall in response to welcoming remarks of Mayor Emilio Fagot and Governor Theodore Roosevelt. Following the welcoming ceremony, the President went by motorcade to San Juan.
As printed above, this item follows the text set forth in a contemporary news account.
Herbert Hoover, Remarks at Ponce, Porto Rico. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/211854
