REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERAI.. 1 39 



In the next place, I beg to say on behalf of the endowment how grateful 

 we likewise are to the ministers of foreign affairs of the American countries 

 for the very great aid they gave us in our endeavor to select representa- 

 tive scholars, economists, and publicists who might properly claim to 

 represent their best thought and achievement. 



And, finally, I should like to express the gratitude that the authorities 

 of the endowment feel toward these gentlemen of South America and of 

 Central America who have traveled so long and so far in order to be with 

 us, and by their presence to add not merely to the interest but to the 

 value of the proceedings of this congress. 



Without attempting in any way to belittle this great gathering, or to 

 minimize its labors, let me say that a congress has a value over and above 

 anything that is said in it, anything that is done in it, anything that is 

 decided in it. I do not suppose that we have advanced or pushed very 

 far the boundaries of human knowledge. That is not the purpose, cer- 

 tainly it is not the result, of a congress. A congress means a coming 

 together. It means a getting together. It means an exchange of ideas. 

 It means a comparison of methods. It means a persona<l contact. It 

 means intercourse. It means laying the foundation of friendship. It 

 means laying the foundation of future cooperation. 



What is done outside of the program is often more valuable than that 

 which is done in accordance v/ith the program, and we have hoped that, 

 as a result of the peoples of the three Americas being here, living together 

 in this capital city of our country for the space of ten days, engaging 

 not merely in scientific discussion, but associating with one another on a 

 plane where all are equal, meeting in our houses, and thus learning to 

 know us as we are, that they may go back to their homes with a feeling 

 of kindliness, with a feeling that they know us better than they did 

 before, and that upon their return they may be, as it were, centers of 

 good feeling, which Pan Americanism needs in order to be effective. 



In times past one of the greatest troubles was — and in this regard it 

 can hardly be said that we have separated ourselves from times past — 

 that the peoples of different countries were strangers and that the word 

 stranger in the remote past was very much akin to enemy. The peoples 

 of one country disliked the peoples of another country, largely because 

 they did not know them. If they had known them they would have 

 found under the surface and at heart that they were very much like 

 themselves, and in coming into contact with them and in knowing them 

 they would have felt themselves inevitably drawn together. To the 

 Greek the foreigner was a barbarian; to the Roman the foreigner was an 

 enemy ; and so it has been almost to our own day. 



