740.00119 European War 1939/614
The President of Chile (Aguirre Cerda) to President Roosevelt
Mr. President: As the representative of a nation which is small and little known to the world, one of the lesser sister nations of America, I am addressing Your Excellency in a spontaneous impulse, removed from any special interest of my country, in order to make to you a suggestion which I submit to your superior knowledge as a statesman, which I profoundly admire, in the event that this suggestion might seem to you opportune and worthy of acceptance.
As a professor and teacher of the university, I have educated myself in a school of veneration for those great world powers which have inculcated in us love for science, respect for morality both public and private, and the consistent ambition of contributing towards human perfection.
But the events in Europe, even if we believe that we appreciate duly all of their aspects, have filled us with anxiety because of the breakdown of civilization which they presage; before the idea that science, which should be at the service of human progress and comprehension, in these present moments is contributing to the destruction of the moral atmosphere which tradition has formed and in which we would wish to educate both present and future generations, and is threatening to destroy that standard of love which we teachers have wished to forge into the soul of youth in order that a spirit of universal brotherhood might permit that kind of cooperation which would make individuals as well as nations more comprehensive and generous in their progressive impulsion towards well-being and justice.
Your Excellency is the spiritual leader of a great nation, which we admire and which we love, and which is justly respected by the world and directed by your own lofty spirit of morality and knowledge—would it not be possible for you to assist us in bringing about a conjunction [Page 771] of these small peoples of Latin America in order to suggest the possibility of peace which Chile would initiate in the desire of arresting the horrible destruction of science and civilization which is daily being aggravated.
As a Chilean I possess a national pride which may perhaps be primitive and untamed, but it is certainly not through fear that I am moved to suggest to you this idea. On the contrary, in the imminence of the certain destruction of the scientific gains of humanity, it is because of my hope that we may prevent peoples everywhere from becoming convinced that we have moved back to the primitive aspect of the troglodyte.
Forgive the fact, Your Excellency, that perhaps the most modest leader of the American peoples, drawn as he is by the most cordial spirit of cooperation of your great country, and who has a most sincere admiration for the noble and humanitarian work of government of Your Excellency, should submit the suggestion above set forth, with no other implication than the desire that human dignity may be respected in the manner in which such respect has been shown so altruistically by Your Excellency.
It was of course my thought that this suggestion would be entirely confidential and that it would be conveyed by me to the other Latin nations of the Americas only in the event that it merited your high support.
Accept [etc.]