The active interest of President Taft and Secretary Knox is evidence that the policy of Pan American friendship, re-inaugurated by the sympathetic genius of Secretary Blaine, is continuous and permanent in the United States; and the harmony in which the members of the governing board have worked to this end is a good omen for the future.
This building is to be, in its most manifest utilitarian service, a convenient instrument for association and growth of mutual knowledge among the people of the different republics. The library maintained here, the books and journals accessible here, the useful and interesting publications of the bureau, the enormous correspondence carried on with seekers for knowledge about American countries, the opportunities now afforded for further growth in all these activities, justify the pains and the expense.
The building is more important, however, as the symbol, the ever-present reminder, the perpetual assertion, of unity, of common interest and purpose and hope among all the republics. This building is a confession of faith, a covenant of fraternal duty, a declaration of allegiance to an ideal. The members of The Hague conference of 1907 described the conference in the preamble of its great arbitration convention as:
Animated by the sincere desire to work for the maintenance of general peace.
Resolved to promote by all the efforts in their power the friendly settlement of international disputes.
Recognizing the solidarity uniting the members of the society of civilized nations.
Desirous of extending the empire of law and of strengthening the appreciation of international justice.
That is the meaning of this building for the republics of America. That sentiment which all the best in modern civilization is trying to live up to, we have written here in marble for the people of the American continents.
The process of civilization is by association. In isolation, men, communities, nations, tend back towards savagery. Repellent differences and dislikes separate them from mankind. In association, similarities and attractions are felt and differences are forgotten. There is so much more good than evil in men that liking comes by knowing. We have here the product of mutual knowledge, coöperation, harmony, friendship. Here is an evidence of what these can accomplish. Here is an earnest of what may be done in the future. From these windows the governing board of the International Union will look down upon the noble river that flows by the home of Washington. They will sit beneath the shadow of the simple and majestic monument which illustrates our conception of his character, the character that, beyond all others in human history, rises above jealousy and envy and ignoble strife. All the nations acknowledge his preëminent influence. He belongs to them all. No man lives in freedom anywhere on earth who is not his debtor and his follower. We dedicate this place to the service of the political faith in which he lived and wrought. Long may this structure stand, while within its walls and under the influence of the benign purpose from which it sprang, the habit and the power of self-control, of mutual consideration and kindly judgment, more and more exclude the narrowness and selfishness and prejudice of ignorance and the hasty impulses of super-sensitive _amour propre_. May men hereafter come to see that here is set a milestone in the path of American civilization towards the reign of that universal public opinion which shall condemn all who through contentious spirit or greed or selfish ambition or lust for power disturb the public peace, as enemies of the general good of the American republics.