REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL. 73 



DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: HIS EXCELLENCY A. P^REZ PER- 

 DOMO, ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY AND MINISTER PLENI- 

 POTENTIARY. 



Mr. Vice President, Mr. Secretary of State, Mr. President of the Congress, 



Ladies and Gentlemen: 



The delegation of the Dominican Republic shares the just satisfaction 

 and praiseworthy interest shown by all the other delegations present 

 at this function, whose unquestioned importance is duly appreciated in 

 all its colossal magnitude. 



The Congress we are now attending, as well as the financial conference 

 which met in this Capital City, thanks to the happy initiative of the honor- 

 able the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury of the United States, Mr. 

 Robert Lansing and Mr. W. G. McAdoo ; the several Pan American confer- 

 ences previously held, and the splendid exposition at San Francisco, Cal. ; 

 these gatherings are, in a sense, but the tangible form of the progressive 

 evolution of the beautiful American ideal. Pan Americanism. 



So, at this moment — at this great historical moment in the life of the 

 Americas — we are true co- laborers in a work whose beneficent influence 

 on the future destiny of these peoples we all perfectly understand. We 

 are striving for an effective development of our moral and material forces 

 through rational cooperation, the only cooperation capable of producing 

 the desired advantageous and harmonious results. We are endeavoring 

 to enlarge the horizon of our young nationalities through a constant 

 interchange of relations, interests, and ideas, in the firm belief that this 

 will necessarily crystallize at no distant day into the perfect balance of 

 an effective prosperity for all the countries of this hemisphere. 



For the Dominican delegation the heart of that supreme ideal of Pan 

 Americanism — such as we understand it — contains nothing but a boun- 

 tiful promise of welfare. Every one of the nations, whether large or 

 small, which believe in that ideal, will surely give, to receive it back in 

 exchange, that moral, intellectual, or material cooperation which one 

 free nation may give to another free nation as a token of honest reci- 

 procity. The political, juridical, and international status of every one of 

 those peoples, far from being impaired by that encouraging common 

 action, will be further strengthened day by day under the protection of 

 the mutual respect which will necessarily shape the real form of that 

 noble idea, and also because of a sense of the unswerving solidarity which 

 will naturally grow among all as their hearts come closer together because 

 of the identity of their aims. 



