Herbert Hoover and Vicente Mejía Colindres, The Relations of Good Neighbors, 1929
Immediately following his election in 1928, Herbert Hoover took an extended trip to Latin America
in which he met with political leaders of ten different nations. In his public speeches, such as the
one reproduced here from an early stop in Honduras, he used the phrase, ‘good neighbors’ to
explain how his administration would engage Latin America. His host in Honduras, Vicente Mejía
Colindres, like Hoover, had just won a presidential election, but had yet to take office.
Herbert Hoover to Vicente Mejía Colindres:
I come to pay a call of friendship. In a sense I represent on this occasion the people of the United States
extending a friendly greeting to our fellow democracies on the American continent. I would wish to
symbolize the friendly visit of one good neighbor to another. In our daily life, good neighbors call upon
each other as the evidence of solicitude for the common welfare and to learn of the circumstances and
point of view of each, so that there may come both understanding and respect which are the cementing
forces of all enduring society. This should be equally true amongst nations. We have a desire to maintain
not only the cordial relations of governments with each other but the relations of good neighbors.
Through greater understanding that comes with more contact we may build up that common respect and
service which is the only enduring basis of international friendship. It is also my desire to learn more of
our common problems in the Western Hemisphere that I may be better fitted for the task which lies before
me. And we are all of us in the west interested in one great common task. That task is the advancement of
the welfare of the people of our respective countries. We are each of us pledged through the blood of our
forefathers to national independence, to self-government, to the development of the individual through
ordered liberty as the only sound foundation of human society. We know it is the only true road to human
progress and we know that the nations and the institutions we have created can flourish only in peace and
mutual prosperity. In turn, we know that these institutions and these ideals themselves form the greatest
security of peace. We of the Western Hemisphere, all of us, believe in these principles with a devotion
which has arisen from the proofs of our century of common experience.
We of this hemisphere have not been free from the misfortune of war, but the record of a century shows
we have been vastly more free from it than any other part of the world. Each of our nations has developed
in its own traditions, its own pride of country under these great doctrines. Each of our democracies has
become a laboratory of human welfare, the daily experience of which is a common contribution to the
advancement of all of our nations. We in the United States have gained much from the experience of our
Latin American neighbors. And we in turn take pride in our contributions to the common pool of human
advancement in these 150 years.
Therefore, I have felt that the larger personal acquaintance, both with our neighboring countries, and with
their points of view, and above all with the men who have been elected to responsibility in their
governments, would be valuable in the task which lies before me. It would perhaps enable me to better
cooperate with you. Those who know the United States know also that we have only one desire and that is
to cooperate to a constantly improving understanding, to common progress, and to common attainment.
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Vicente Mejía Colindres to Herbert Hoover:
Welcome to Honduran soil—a soil which in the generous sense of continental solidarity is as much yours
as it is ours.
Your visit to Honduras has for us the highest significance; it is the herald of an even better time than the
present, a time when the friendship of your Government and our Government, of your people and our
people, will be more cordial, will be more fruitful and better understood. Your visit, moreover, constitutes
a great step forward in the noble work of Pan Americanism, whose aspirations in this way become living,
palpitating flesh and blood.
In the name of the Honduran people, who have elected me President of the Republic for the coming term,
I have the high honor of congratulating in your most worthy person the people of the United States of
America who, today, as in the past, have had the wisdom to elect to the office of Chief Magistrate of the
nation the foremost of its citizens.
Your Excellency, when you are again in your own great country—great in its magnificent economic
potentialities, great in its stupendous progress, and superlatively great in that its people have achieved that
best of rights in the life of a democracy, the right of being free—when you, I repeat, are once more in
your own country, pause a moment, Sir, in your labors as statesman, to recall that you are being
remembered in Honduras with admiration and affection.
I beg, Most Excellent Mr. Hoover, to express my most fervent good wishes for the prosperity of your
great nation, for God’s guidance in your administration of the Government which you will within a short
time assume, and for your personal happiness.
“Address of the Honorable Herbert Hoover, President-Elect of the United States of America,” and
“Address of His Excellency, Vicente Mejía Colindres, President-Elect of Honduras,” November 26, 1928,
Addresses Delivered During the Visit of Herbert Hoover, President-Elect of the United States, to Central
and South America, November-December 1928 (Washington: Pan-American Union, 1929).