78 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL. 



I find myself in the presence of the prominent men who are delegates 

 from the twenty-one Republics of the continent, who gather here for the 

 purpose of seeking through science to establish a stronger friendship, a 

 more binding solidarity, a better balanced progress among all. I am now 

 in the presence of charming ladies who lend to this gathering the dignity 

 of a continental academy, and I see the flags of all the countries of the 

 Americas, resplendent in all the colors of the heavens and the earth, 

 bound together by garlands of flowers. These are the flags of Washing- 

 ton, Bolivar, and Morazan, symbols of independence, liberty, and federa- 

 tion, placed among olive branches and laurel wreaths, gracing the Capitol 

 City with its starry flag. 



Ladies and gentlemen, I shall use to express my thoughts on this sol- 

 emn occasion the language of Cervantes, the language of Spain, the 

 mother country, after having heard the chaste prose of the language of 

 Shakespeare, Camoens, and Victor Hugo. But if I can not understand 

 well the master language of progress, common law, and science, I do 

 readily understand the universal language of conscience, right, and peace. 



In this Memorial Continental Hall, where we can not forget the Daugh- 

 ters of the American Revolution, there come to me, like a smile of promise 

 of success, at the very moment when classic Europe is engaged in an 

 epic — not a romantic — war, now, as in the Pan American Union, which 

 represents international unity, there come to my ears, I say, the strains 

 of the Pan American Hymn, which is a poem to science, peace, and union. 



The Scientific Congress which meets here this day, as well as the 

 scholarly Congress of Americanists and other learned American societies 

 which will also collaborate in its success, following in the wake of the 

 Scientific Congresses of Santiago in Chile, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, 

 and Rio de Janeiro, will devote its energies principally to science, which 

 Goethe, the genius of Germany, defined as "light, and more light." 

 The American Institute of International Law^ which I consider foremost 

 in every respect, will labor for right and peace. When the Institute of 

 Ghent — European or universal — consisting mainly of belligerents, can 

 not speak impartially in the name of justice, the American Institute of 

 W^ashington, consisting solely of neutrals, may perhaps have a right to 

 speak. The Second Pan American Congress, even more than the First, 

 although the First has greater merit for being such, is an honor and will 

 prove a benefit to the Great Republic we all sincerely admire, and to 

 the rest of the American Republics that we all love without distinction 

 of cotmtry or race — for Pan America, in short — because it also serves 

 humanity and civilization. 



