May 6, 1901
PRESIDENTIAL PARTY REACHED THE BORDER CITY AT 8 O’CLOCK, NO PARADES SUNDAY
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GREETING FROM DIAZ
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AND PRESIDENT’S RESPONSE – PRESIDENT ATTNEDED CHURCH IN THE MORNING
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SERENADE BY MEXICAN BAND
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In the Evening – Bull Fight in Juarez Not Attended by Any of the Party – Programme Today
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May 5 – The presidential party reached El Paso, the gateway to Mexico, at 9 o’clock this morning, and will remain here until noon tomorrow. President Diaz of Mexico had hoped to meet the President here, and shake hands with him across the border, but as the Mexican Congress is in session, he could not leave the capital. He sent a personal message to the President, however, and also dispatched General Juan Hernandez, the commander of the Second Military zone of the State of Chihuahua, to present personally his good wishes to the President of the United States. Governor Miguel Amuhada of Chihuahua, the most northerly State of Mexico, also traveled to El Paso to pay his respects, and these distinguished Mexican officials, accompanied by General Hernandez’s staff, in full uniform, were received by the President in his car at the station. After exchanging felicitations, the President requested General Hernandez to convey to President Diaz his personal good wishes for his health and happiness and for a continuation of the cordial relations at present existing between the two countries. President Diaz’ message was as follows:
“City of Mexico, May 5, 1901 – To the President of the United States of America, El Paso: When you arrive this day at the frontier of Mexico, I wish I might shake hands with you, but I send you greetings as corresponds with the cordial relations which exist between the two Republics of North America. I also send General Hernandez to express to you the same feeling. “Profirio Diaz.”
To this the President sent the following response:
“El Paso, Tex., May 5 – To His Excellency, General Porfirio Diaz, President of the Republic of Mexico City of Mexico: It gives me great pleasure to reciprocate the courteous greeting s of your Excellency and to express my most cordial good wishes for your health and happiness and for the continued prosperity of the Mexican Republic, in which we are bound by so many ties of mutual interest and friendship. “William McKinley.”
It being Sunday, the President had requested the local committee here not to arrange any programme for the day. His wishes were respected, and the military parade and official exercises were postponed until tomorrow. The President and Mrs. McKinley and the members of the Cabinet attended the State Street Methodist Church in the morning, and in the afternoon the party went for a drive. After the return the Mexican band, which had been brought from the City of Mexico by General Hernandez serenaded the President and Mrs. McKinley at the trains. No horns or drums were used, but the soft ingenious Spanish ulrs. strummed on guitars and mandolins in the cool of the evening.
While it was a comparatively quiet day in El Paso notwithstanding the large number of strangers in town, it was otherwise in the Mexican City of Juarez, just across the River Rio Grande. May 5 is the anniversary of the defeat of the French invaders at Puebla, and is celebrated as our Fourth of July. The Mexicans are not particular in their observance of the Sabbath. Indeed, Sunday is always a fete day with them. Today the great feature of the celebrations was a Spanish bull fight. A famous matador had come to Juarez from the City of Mexico for the occasion. None of the members of the President’s immediate party attended, but bull fighting is the national sport in Mexico, as in Spain, and General Hernandez and the Governor of Chihuahua occupied a box over the large arena. The fight proved to be more than usually bloody and brutal. There were four bulls disposed of, four horses killed and one torredor severely but not fatally wounded, as he was helped over the fence surrounding the arena, by a maddened bull.
Tomorrow Governor Murray of Arizona and staff will participate in the formal greetings. One of the features of the programme tomorrow is to be a Mexican breakfast, with the typical Spanish dishes for the ladies of the party.
May 7, 1901
NO NEED TO BE ALARMED
President McKinley Talks to the People at El Paso About Militarism and Imperialism
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GREETING AT EL PASO
At El Paso, Tex., this morning the American and Mexican flags were intertwined in the decorations of the plaza where the official greeting of President McKinley and his cabinet took place. The presence on the stand of Gen. Hernandez, personal representative of President Diaz, and the Governor of the State of Chihuahua gave an international significance to the event. There were thousands of Mexicans in the vast concourse of people to whom the president spoke, and their enthusiasm was almost as wild as that of the Americans.
Gen. Hernandez addressed the President on behalf of his president, extending the latter’s congratulations. The Governor of Chihuahua also warmly welcomed the President at the border. In responding to the addresses, President McKinley spoke as follows:
PRESIDENT’S SPEECH AT EL PASO
Mr. Mayor, Gen. Hernandez Gov. Ahumada and my Fellow Citizens: For the hospitality of the people of El Paso which has been as delicate and considerate as it has been sumptuous. I beg to return my most sincere thanks. I am glad to be in this cosmopolitan city. I am glad to know that assembled here within your gates are the men of all races, all nationalities and all creeds, but under one flag, the glorious Stars and Stripes. Acknowledging allegiance to no other Government but the United States of America, and giving willing sacrifice at any time, the country may call for the honor of our Nation and the glory of our republic I am glad to know that this city believes in expansion. That it has been doing a great deal of itself in the last four years. That it has more than doubled its population in the last half of the present decade and given promise of still greater advancement and prosperity in the decade now at hand. You have here, my fellow citizens, the true national spirit, the spirit of enterprise, of development of progress, of building the structure of liberty and free Government on the broad and deep foundations of intelligence, virtue, morality and religion.”
THANKS FOR DIAZ
This is the gateway to the Mexican republic, and I want in this connection to express my great satisfaction with the cordial salutations tendered me by that great and distinguished President of our sister republic President Diaz. I thank his representative for the cordial word with which he has presented the feeling of respect and regard of his illustrious President of the Government of the United States and I beg that he will convey to his President the warm regards and the personal esteem which I have for his Chief. Magistrate which is shared by the whole American people, and my wish for still further prosperity and advancement among his people I cannot fail also to recognize the cordial welcome that has been given to me by the Governor of the neighboring State of the Mexican republic. I cannot go there, but he can come over here and we bid them welcome with open hearts. I can look into their country but there is something in the traditions of this republic, something in its precedents that does not permit the President to go outside the United States during his term of office. But as we do not hold office all the time here we will have an opportunity of going there in the future.
ARE A UNITED PEOPLE
My fellow citizens, if there was ever any doubt about ours being a united people, if you could have traveled with me 2800 miles form the capital at Washington to the city of El Paso, that doubt would have been completely dispelled. There was never such unity in the United States as there is at this hour. There was never so much for a Nation of 75,000,000 of people to be proud of as at this hour. We have sent our army and our navy to distant seas and they have only added glory in our flag. They have brought no shame upon the American name. We sent them to China to rescue our beleaguered representatives and they did the work and did it magnificently with the approval of the civilized world.
NOT A WAR-LIKE PEOPLE
But it is not in the art of war that we take our greatest pride. We are not a war-like people. We are not a military people. We never go to war unless we have to make peace. Our pride is in the arts of peace, in material and intellectual development, in the growth of our country, in the advancement of our people in civilization, in the arts, in the sciences and in manufactures. This is the great pride of the American people. Here we are on the border line between the United States and another great republic and on this side of the line we have 35 American soldiers, and on that side of the line there are less than 150 Mexican soldiers. So that we are dwelling in peace and amity and causing “peace on earth and god will to men.”
NO ALARM ABOUT MILITARISM
We want to settle our differences if we ever have any with the powers of the world by arbitration. We want to exhaust every peaceable means for settlement before we go to war, and while we have authority to raise 100,000 troops, the necessity does not exist for that number and we do not propose to raise but 55,000. So don’t be alarmed about militarism or imperialism. We know no imperialism in the United States except the imperialism of a sovereign people.
Having said this much, I only want to again express the pleasure which all of us feel at having been received so cordially and hospitably by this people and to thank you for having given us on Sunday as quiet and reposeful a time as though we had spent it at home.
LOOKED OVER INTO MEXICO
Members of the Cabinet also spoke at the conclusion of the address, the party, including the Mexican officials, went for a drive. The President expressed a desire to take a look over into Mexico and was driven down to the international bridge. There, at the American customs office, he alighted and chatted for some time with those around him. The old church of Guadalupe, over three hundred years old, the Spanish prison and other interesting buildings in Juarez were pointed out to him. From the bridge he could plainly see the Sierra Madre mountains, sixty miles to the southward. President Harrison in 1891 went half way across the bridge, but President McKinley did not so much as set foot upon the structure. On the way back to the city the party stopped and cheered the Mexican Consulate.
BREAKFAST TENDERED LADIES
The exercises in the plaza were preceded by a military parade. The ladies of the Cabinet crossed the Rio Grande into Juarez, where they were tendered a breakfast by Juan Ochoa, a prominent Mexican banker. Mrs. McKinley did not attend the breakfast, but enjoyed a short drive during the morning. At noon the Presidential party resumed its journey westward.
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