1 68 REPORT OP THE SECRETARY GENERAL. 



predecessor, Theodore Dwight Woolsey, centered around the experience of 

 Latin America, and how he impressed upon us as students of intemationa 

 law the importance of knowing the facts of this history and understanding 

 its bearings on the future of our country and of the world. 



"There was a time when this essential community of interest was 

 partly lost out of sight; when each separate nation of America, having 

 achieved its independence and in some measure settled its immediate 

 problems of political liberty, turned toward that part of Europe with 

 which it was most nearly connected by race and sympathy, and neglected 

 for the moment those common interests which have united and ought to 

 unite the different parts of our great continent. That day is past. We 

 shall indeed continue to maintain our close relations with the nations of 

 Europe to which we owe our origin. But we have renewed and are,. I 

 trust, cementing each year more firmly our close relations with one 

 another in industry and in politics. I take this gathering as a token that 

 we are also renewing our intellectual relations no less than our political 

 and industrial ones; and that the day is close at hand when we shall have 

 not only arbitration of international disputes and active trade between 

 the several nations of America, but in the true sense of the word an 

 American republic of letters — a community of understanding and of intel- 

 lectual achievement." 



Former President Taft, professor of the Yale law school, was unable to 

 be present, but the following letter from him, which had beeri translated 

 into Spanish, was read by Prof. Bingham : 



"My dear Mr. Stokes: It is a source of real regret to me that I 

 can not be with you on Friday of this week to join in the welcome to the 

 distinguished delegates to the Pan American Scientific Congress which 

 has just closed its sessions in Washington. I have the deepest sympathy 

 in every movement to bring the two Americas together and to unite as 

 a real force in determining the international policies of the world, all the 

 nations of this hemisphere. I am quite in accord with the suggestions 

 of the present Secretary of State to this end, and I sincerely hope that 

 out of his suggestions some closer bond between those nations may be 

 created. I have had so much in my official life to do with the peoples 

 who trace their descent to Spain, Italy, Portugal, and the other Latin 

 countries, that I count it a great personal loss not to be able to be present 

 and testify in every way possible to my great admiration. for them, and 

 my appreciation of the debt which the world owes to them in many of 

 the most important branches of human activity. I count it a most 

 foitunate circumstance that Yale university is to have the opportunity 



