I30 REPORT Olf Tim SECRETARY GENERAI^. 



ner with which it has contributed to the organization, development, and 

 final success of our labors. Their thanks are likewise due to the United 

 States Government for having taken advantage of this opportunity to 

 increase the currents of Pan Americanism and to impress the international 

 policy of America with a stamp of closer and more frank confraternity. 



In this wise there is being formed for the nations of the three Americas 

 a common atmosphere; there is being built a sort of new home — the Pan 

 American home — under whose shadow and through the bonds established 

 by the drawing together of individuals we are to profit, without any 

 hindrance, on behalf of our common development, by the natural re- 

 sources of our countries, by the well-proven energy of our races, and by 

 all the means that the stupendous progress of the world during the last 

 quarter of a century offers to human life, peace, and happiness. 



Let us hope that educational enterprise and labor wdll ultimately place 

 our countries upon the same moral and intellectual level; that the great 

 material agencies of communication and rapprochements — the railroad 

 and the steamer — will link our cities and multiply our commerce; that 

 the indefatigable scouts of public health will extend the blessings of 

 sanitation and hygiene to the remotest and most dangerous corners in 

 the continent. Let us hope that the sense of justice and right shall rule 

 unhindered among our peoples and governments; let us hope that the 

 great discoveries with which talents such as Edison's have, during recent 

 times, enriched the fields of electrical, mechanical, and chemical appli- 

 cation shall be fruitfully utilized as instruments for the achievement of 

 our material progress, instead of being used, as is now unfortunately the 

 case across the waters, in precipitating the dissolution of progress and 

 the destruction of men and of nations. 



All the expectations comprised vvithin the picture I have just sketched 

 fall within the sphere of influence and of action peculiar to scientific 

 congresses, and for this reason I consider that the effort of the United 

 States for the accomplishment of the congress we have just held deserves 

 our regard and gratitude. 



I request you, gentlemen, to join me in a toast in honor of the President 

 of the United States as the highest symbol of the country which so fra- 

 ternally has been entertaining us. 



The honorable. Secretary of State introduced the chairman of the 

 official delegation of the United States, in the following words : 



Gentlemen, I thank his excellency for giving us a rope of hope, or hopes, 

 with so many strands. The more the strands the stronger the rope, and 

 the more firmly we will be bound together. But I must not forget that 



