RBPORT OF THB SECRETARY GENERAIv. 97 



of any kind amidst political jealousies, which is only another way of 

 saying that you can not commune unless you are friends, and that 

 friendship is based upon your political relations with each other perhaps 

 more than upon any other kind of relationship between nations. If 

 nations are politically suspicious of one another, all their intercourse 

 is embarrassed. That is the reason, I take it, if it be true, as I hope it is, 

 that your thoughts even during this congress, though the questions you 

 are called upon to consider are apparently so foreign to politics, have 

 again and again been drawn back to the political inferences. The object 

 of American statesmanship on the two continents is to see to it that 

 American friendship is founded on a rock. 



The Monroe doctrine was proclaimed by the United States on her own 

 authority. It always has been maintained, and always will be main- 

 tained, upon her own responsibility. But the Monroe doctrine demanded 

 merely that European Governments should not attempt to extend their 

 political systems to this side of the Atlantic. It did not disclose the 

 use which the United States intended to make of her power on this side 

 of the Atlantic. It was a hand held up in warning, but there was no 

 promise in it of what America- was going to do with the implied and 

 partial protectorate which she apparently was trying to set up on this 

 side of the water; and I believe you will sustain me in the statement that 

 it has been fears and suspicions on this score which have hitherto pre- 

 vented the greater intimacy and confidence and trust between the 

 Americas. The States of America have not been certain what the 

 United States would do with her power. That doubt must be removed. 

 And latterly there has been a very frank interchange of views between 

 the authorities in Washington and those who represented the other States 

 of this hemisphere, an interchange of views charming and hopeful, 

 because based upon an increasingly sure appreciation of the spirit in 

 which they were undertaken. These gentlemen have seen that if America 

 is to come into her own, into her legitimate own, in a world of peace 

 and order, she must establish the foundations of amity so that no one 

 will hereafter doubt them. 



I hope and I believe that this can be accomplished. These conferences 

 have enabled me to foresee how it will be accomplished. It will be 

 accomplished in the first place by the States of America uniting in guar- 

 anteeing to each other absolutely political independence and territorial 

 integrity. In the second place, and as a necessary corroUary to that, 

 guaranteeing the agreement to settle all pending boundary disputes as 

 soon as possible and by amicable process; by agreeing that all disputes 



