52 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY GENERAL. 



and of the rising sun mingle, and that it is not possible to tell when one 

 day is ended and another is begun. It strikes me, however, that this 

 convention marks an era in the history of mankind. One may think I 

 am convinced that old things have passed away and all things have be- 

 come new. But I am convinced that the awful cataclysm in Europe has 

 set aside all that we have known as being the safe and sure charts upon 

 the seas of human life. I believe that it is not possible to take the old 

 charts by which Governments and men guided and controlled their own 

 lives and the destinies of their own people and prepared for the hours of 

 the future. Upon the contrary, I think it is necessary once again for 

 some new Columbus to sail over uncharted seas and discover a new 

 America, and I want to congratulate you upon the fact that I believe that, 

 metaphorically speaking, in this chamber to-day there is some new 

 Columbus who will discover for us this new America, the several parts 

 of which will not be bound together by ties of personal and private 

 interest, but as a common whole of the Western Hemisphere. 



May I be permitted to speak just one word as to what I believe this 

 Republic of ours stands for ? May I tell you that I think it does not rest 

 upon the Constitution of the United States, upon the shoulders of the 

 President, of Congress, or of the Supreme Court of the United States? 

 Whether this Republic has been guided or not, I can not say, but I 

 know that its foundation stone was intended to be the Golden Rule, 

 "Whatsoever we would that men should do unto us we would also 

 do unto them." I think that the parlous years of the past are gone 

 in the Western Hemisphere. I think that there is to be no mere 

 personal, political, or national ambition that will ever again set the 

 peoples of the Western Hemisphere the one against the other. I believe 

 that the hour has come when Pan Americanism shall spell friendship, 

 peace, and concord among all the peoples of the western world. 



It may not be known to you, because what the Vice President of the 

 United States says is not even important to his wife, it may not be known 

 to you, but I am one of those in these United States who believe in the 

 preparation of this country for war. Not that I want war, because the 

 dream and the prayer of my life is that the hour shall come when every 

 difl&culty among the nations of the world shall be settled not by the tramp 

 of hostile armies, but by the sway of the same heavenly harmonies which 

 aroused the drowsy shepherds of the rock-founded city of Bethlehem, 

 proclaiming, "Peace on earth, good will to men." But I know myself; 

 and I have no way of measuring other men save by my own standard. 

 I have not yet attained, however, that high altitude when I am willing 

 to have some ruffian interfere with the things which I believe to be my 



