Exchange of Remarks With President Hipolito Irigoyen on the Inauguration of Direct Radiotelephonic Communication Between Argentina and the United States.
Mr. President:
I am happy to have the pleasure of speaking with you on the occasion of the inauguration of the radiotelephone service between Argentina and the United States. I avail myself, for this purpose, of one of the most signal achievements of science and commerce, whereby radiotelephonic communication over the vast distances that separate our two countries has become a reality.
I cannot but recall, as I converse with you now without leaving my office in Washington, the long days during which I had voyaged southward by sea and the wonderful journey by rail over the Andes and across the famous and fertile plains of Argentina before it was possible for me to speak with you on another occasion.
It has often truly been said that in the measure that peoples enjoy personal acquaintance with one another, so do the intangible but none the less effective barriers which separate them dissolve. This new means of communication, therefore, which permits individuals separated in the almost insuperable physical manner in which residents of the Argentine Republic and of the United States now are, to converse, actually to speak and to hear the spoken word, must inevitably contribute to an extraordinary degree to the further destruction of those barriers.
Mr. Bliss 1 has brought to me gratifying reports of the continuing and ever-increasing prosperity and social advancement which are being enjoyed by the Argentine Nation, and it is my hope that the perfecting of this additional means of communication between our two States will by fostering that interchange of ideas and of commerce which constitute the relationship of states bring benefit to both.
1 Robert Woods Bliss was United States Ambassador to Argentina.
Mr. President, I repeat that it gives me great satisfaction to be reminded on this occasion of the most cordial reception you accorded me last year. The many courtesies and the sincere hospitality which you extended to me during my visit to Buenos Aires will always be remembered by me with sentiments of true appreciation.
Note: A translation of President Irigoyen's response follows:
Mr. President:
This happy opportunity, suggested by you, is a source of great pleasure to me as it revives in my mind the interviews which we had on the occasion of your never-to-be-forgotten visit during which we agreed in our opinions as to the form in which international problems should be faced and solved in accord with those immutable principles which constitute the fundamental ethics of universal creation. I am filled with satisfaction at your generous compliments as also for the reports of Mr. Bliss. I am with you in stating that this new means of communication will be an additional factor in the expansion of communication between our two nations.
But I must also say to you, as my conviction in this matter becomes ever greater, that uniformity in thought and human feeling cannot be guaranteed so much by the advances of the exact and positive sciences as by concepts which like inspirations from heaven must constitute the reality of life. At the moment when we thought that humanity was completely assured by its own moral guarantees we were surprised by an hecatomb so great that no one could describe it in all its magnitude. It was right to suppose that the most profound condemnation would fall upon such a catastrophe and that this would mark the rebirth of a more spiritual and sensible life.
To sum up, Mr. President, this welcome conversation reaffirms my evangelical beliefs that man must be consecrated for man and peoples for peoples and that in common concert they must reconstruct the work of centuries on the basis of a more ideal culture and civilization of a more solid confraternity and more in harmony with the mandates of divine providence.
Accept, Mr. President, my warmest greetings.
Herbert Hoover, Exchange of Remarks With President Hipolito Irigoyen on the Inauguration of Direct Radiotelephonic Communication Between Argentina and the United States. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210385
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