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To Roosevelt by Ruben Dario Ruben Dario wrote "To Roosevelt" (for Teddy) shortly after the Spanish American War, when the rest of the Americas feared U.S. imperialism. It remains a strong statement about American power and the potential abuse of that power.
To Roosevelt
The voice that would reach you, Hunter, must speak in Biblical tones, or in the poetry of Walt Whitman. You are primitive and modern, simple and complex; you are one part George Washington and one part Nimrod. You are the United States, future invader of our naive America with its Indian blood, an America that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish. You are strong, proud model of your race; you are cultured and able; you oppose Tolstoy. You are an Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar, breaking horses and murdering tigers.
(You are a Professor of Energy, as current lunatics say). You think that life is a fire, that progress is an eruption, that the future is wherever your bullet strikes. No.
The United States is grand and powerful. Whenever it trembles, a profound shudder runs down the enormous backbone of the Andes. If it shouts, the sound is like the roar of a lion.
--Translated by Lysander Kemp
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