72 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL. 



The principle of inter-American altruism to which our union is sub- 

 servient represents, however, but one of its conspicuous merits. The 

 belief that Pan Americanism is in every sense a generous doctrine and 

 by no means the egoistic policy its adversaries have sought to denounce, 

 obtains ample justification by the fact that the golden fruits of this 

 great conference are to be presented at the doors of civilization on the 

 palms of our outstretched hands, as a New Year's offering from Pan 

 America to the world. 



Men of deep learning and good will, guided by the star of science, are 

 come from every nation of our vast hemisphere to meet other equally 

 representative men of the same high description and consider together 

 and solve, perhaps, not only domestic questions of a necessarily limited 

 sphere but also great universal problems of absorbing interest to the 

 modem mind, so earnest in its profound seeking from those who study 

 the art of good government, the principles of moral conduct, and who 

 pursue the secret of creation and evolution through the mysterious realms 

 of nature's boundless empire. Marshaled here to submit to the trial of 

 scientific investigation are systems and theories, hypotheses and axioms, 

 codes and doctrines, things useful materially and things artistic, ideol- 

 ogic, and of pure sentiment, without which the divine poem of the uni- 

 verse appears as but a bewildering combination of physical energies in 

 activity whose return to chaos on the wings of time will ever be contra- 

 dicted as an ultimate scientific conclusion by the heartlif ting promises 

 of our own spiritual essence. 



Nevertheless, thought will examine and aid thought in this great 

 academy of enlightenment and mutual service. The Americas pursue 

 the benefits of union and the truths of science in an unbiased spirit and, 

 for themselves as well as for all, justice and harmony. The thunder 

 of a million cannon can not alter the dignity of our sessions nor affect the 

 sereneness of our noble purpose. In the name of Pan America we are 

 here to proclaim the wisdom of the supreme laws of life and sit in judg- 

 ment on the sources of error, pain, and death, of which scientific philoso- 

 phy has already said that man must be the conqueror, not the victim. 



It is with these ideals at heart that the delegates of Cuba are among 

 you to-day in this great congress — in which the highest mentality of the 

 Americas is so brilliantly represented — full of faith in the outcome of its 

 labor and example. 



