THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
759
With a deep sense of gratitude to Spain for having made it possible for Columbus to discover America, where so many millions of people find free and happy homes, there is a tinge of regret that her own offspring in the New World has been surpassed in achievement and enterprise by her twin sister, North America. Columbus was not a Spaniard. He owed his nativity to that land that has produced poets, painters, sculptors and men of letters, where they breathe an atmosphere filled with inspiration. Columbus felt its influence, and it stirred his pious soul to its very depths. He felt God had given him a mission, but he was looked upon at home and abroad as an impracticable dreamer, until a woman, who understood and interpreted his dream, lent a helping hand, and that woman was a Spaniard.
When Columbus landed on the shores of the New World, he claimed it in the name of his benefactors; when he planted the cross, he dedicated it to Christianity. Since then thousands of people who have been persecuted for opinion’s sake have here sought refuge and found a home.
With the dawn of the twentieth century may our Spanish-American neighbors, who are bound to us by natural ties, be still closer bound by bands of steel, bearing the cars of progress laden with a higher civilization. May there be a transfusion of Anglo-Saxon blood to quicken their sluggish veins, to lift them to a higher and better condition materially and spiritually.