Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remarks at a Banquet Given by President Getulio Vargas of Brazil at Rio de Janeiro.

November 27, 1936

I cannot quite believe I am actually leaving Rio de Janeiro tonight because the wish is very much the father of the thought. Now that I have come to know your city and a little part of this great Republic, I should like very much to stay a week, indeed many weeks.

Your reception today, which is a reception not to me alone but to a sister Nation, has touched me very deeply. It has been a great privilege for me to make the acquaintance of your President. I have had the privilege of knowing some of his family before today and I hope that in the not too distant future we shall be able to welcome President Vargas at Washington as a visitor in the United States.

May I say a word about communications? I have always felt that the advent of the airplane and the advent of quicker steam ship service are going to make a large difference in the future relationships of the Americas because science is going to make it easier for us to get to know each other better, and people who know each other well can be friends. So in the days to come I hope very much that we shall have more news of Brazil in the United States.

You have done much to help us in the United States in many ways in the past. We, I think, have done a little to help you, and may I suggest that you, with this great domain of many millions of square miles, of which such a large proportion is still open to human occupation, can learn much from the mistakes we have made in the United States.

So I invite you to come and benefit not only from the good things we have done but also from the errors we have committed in the past.

I am leaving you tonight with great regret. There is one thing, however, that I shall remember, and that is that it was two people who invented the New Deal—the President of Brazil and the President of the United States. So I am going to ask you to rise with me and drink to the health of my good friend President Vargas and to the great Republic of Brazil, our sister Nation.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Remarks at a Banquet Given by President Getulio Vargas of Brazil at Rio de Janeiro. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208504

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