Photos below

I wish to thank the Rotary Club, its President Hector Rubio Sica and Ambassador Julio Cesar Jaureguy for having carried out this wonderful project of reinstalling the Monument to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They deserve full credit for honoring the memory of a great American President.

Why has President Roosevelt so inspired Uruguayans that they have placed memorials to him in Uruguay? Is it because he visited here and spoke to the people of Uruguay on December 3rd, 1936? Perhaps, but other United States Presidents have visited Uruguay without being so honored. It may be because President Roosevelt enacted policies designed to aid the poorest and most neglected in our society, the sort of policies that Uruguayan governments have championed for decades. That too may be part of the reason that President Roosevelt is honored in Uruguay. But every American president since Roosevelt has worked to insure social justice in the United States.

I think the reason that President Roosevelt is so honored in Uruguay is because during an era when Americans were isolationists he recognized that the United States had to be engaged with the rest of the world. He established the Good Neighbor policy with Latin America, respecting the dignity and sovereignty of our neighbors while working with them to solve common problems. In the midst of the greatest depression in world history President Roosevelt resisted the cry for protectionism and pushed for free trade. He praised hemispheric efforts at free trade saying, “The resolution adopted at the Inter-American Conference in Montevideo indorsing the principles of liberal trade policies has shone forth like a beacon in a storm.”

More importantly, President Roosevelt recognized that a great evil was rising in the world. He took efforts to halt it before it could arm, rallying the countries of this hemisphere to collective security. And when the battle came he fought it in defense of the values the countries of this hemisphere share until victory was achieved. That is why there are statues of President Roosevelt in Uruguay, in Latin America, in the United States, and around the world.

Today, the United States continues in the policy traditions of President Roosevelt. We wish to be good neighbors, we want the beacon of free trade to shine upon the hemisphere, and we call upon our friends and allies in this hemisphere in joining us in collective defense against those who would use terror as a weapon to attack democracy and freedom.

In the name of the people of my country, I want to reiterate my thanks to the Rotary Club for repairing and reinstalling the monument to one of the greatest Presidents of the United States.

 

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