94 REPORT OP THB SECRETARY GENERAL. 



pleasure of hearing him, I shall now take the honor to call upon His 

 Excellency the President of the United States. 



(His Excellency the Ambassador of Brazil, Senhor Da Gama, dehvered 

 in Spanish the text of the foregoing address of the president of the 

 congress.) 



THE ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 



STATES. 



Mr. Ambassador, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



It was a matter of sincere regret with me that I was not in the city 

 to extend the greetings of the Government to this distinguished body, 

 and I am very happy that I have returned in time at least to extend to 

 it my felicitations upon the unusual interest and success of its proceed- 

 ings. I wish that it might have been my good fortune to be present at 

 the sessions and instructed by the papers that were read. I have some- 

 what become inured to scientific papers in the course of a long experience, 

 but I have never ceased to be instructed and to enjoy them. 



The sessions of this congress have been looked forward to with the 

 greatest interest throughout this country, because there is no more 

 certain evidence of intellectual life than the desire of men of all nations 

 to share their thoughts with one another. 



I have been told so much about the proceedings of this congress that I 

 feel that I can congratulate you upon the increasing sense of comradeship 

 and intimate intercourse which has marked its sessions from day to day; 

 and it is a very happy circumstance in our view that this, perhaps the 

 most vital and successful of the meetings of this congress, should have 

 occurred in the Capital of our own country, because we should wish to 

 regard this as the universal place where ideas worth while are exchanged 

 and shared. The drawing together of the Americas, ladies and gentle- 

 men, has long been dreamed of and desired. It is a matter of peculiar 

 gratification, therefore, to see this great thing happen; to see the Americas 

 drawing together, and not drawing together upon anv insubstantial 

 foundation of mere sentiment. 



After all, even friendship must be based upon a perception of common 

 sympathies, of common interests, of common ideals, and of common 

 purposes. Men can not be friends unless they intend the same things, 

 and the Americas have more and more realized that in all essential 

 particulars they intend the same thing with regard to their thought and 

 their life and their activities. To be privileged, therefore, to see this 

 drawing together in friendship and communion based upon these solid 

 foundations affords everyone who looks on with open eyes peculiar 



