Latin America and the United States Part 21

What we are doing now, because the time has come for it to be done, is to help in our day and generation in the creation of a public opinion in America which shall approve all that is good in national character and national conduct and punish all that is wrong with that most terrible penalty, the disapproval of all America. As that process approaches its perfection, the work of our friends, of the armies and navies of America, will have been accomplished.

It is not a work of selfishness; it is a work for universal civilization. It is a work by which we will repay to France and Portugal and to Sweden--to all our mother lands across the Atlantic--all the gifts of civilization, of literature, of art, of the results of their long struggles upward from barbarism to light, with which they have endowed us. For in the vast fields of incalculable wealth that the American continents offer to the enterprise and the cultivation of the world, the older nations of Europe will find their wealth, and opportunity for the exercise of their powers in peace and with equality.

It was a great pleasure to me--it was a cause of pride to me--to hear so distinguished an English scholar as the Amba.s.sador from France speak the beautiful language of France so perfectly tonight. It is a great pleasure for me to find that throughout the United States the young men are in constantly increasing numbers learning to speak not only French, but Spanish and Portuguese. It was a great pleasure to find throughout South America last summer so many, not merely of the most distinguished and highly cultivated men, speaking English, but so large a number of the people in the cities that I visited.

It all makes for that attrition, that practical intercourse, which is the process of civilization; and in destroying the isolation, the separation of American states from each other, in building up an American public opinion, we are preparing ourselves the more perfectly to unite with our friends of Europe in a world public opinion, which shall establish the reign of justice and liberty and humanity throughout the world by slow, practical, untiring processes of intercourse and friends.h.i.+p in place of the rules of brutal force.

THE PAN AMERICAN UNION

There has been, especially in recent years, a very strong feeling that the points which the American republics have in common greatly exceed their differences and that stated conferences of the American republics would not only tend to accentuate the points in common but would enable them to take common action in matters of common interest, remove unwarranted suspicions which often exist between and among peoples which do not come into contact, and tend to lessen the very differences.

In 1881, the Honorable James G. Blaine, then secretary of state of the United States, stated that in the opinion of the President of the United States "the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the good-will and active cooperation of all the states of the western hemisphere, both north and south, in the interest of humanity and for the common weal of nations."[7] Mr. Blaine proposed on behalf of the President, that a congress meet in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton. The congress or conference actually took place in that city in 1889-1890, during the secretarys.h.i.+p of state of Mr. Blaine. This is commonly called the International American Conference. All of the American countries, with the exception of Santo Domingo, were represented, and they agreed upon "the establishment of an American International Bureau for the collection, tabulation, and publication, in the English, Spanish, and Portuguese languages, of information as to the productions and commerce, and as to the customs laws and regulations of their respective countries; such bureau to be maintained in one of the countries for the common benefit and at the common expense, and to furnish to all the other countries such commercial statistics and other useful information as may be contributed to it by any of the American republics."[8]

This was the origin of the International Bureau of the American Republics, out of which has grown the Pan American Union, "a voluntary organization of the twenty-one American republics, including the United States, maintained by their annual contributions, controlled by a governing board composed of the diplomatic representatives in Was.h.i.+ngton of the other twenty governments and the secretary of state of the United States, who is chairman _ex officio_, and devoted to the development and conservation of peace, friends.h.i.+p, and commerce between them all."[9]

Modestly housed at first, the success of the Union required larger quarters for the performance of its work. Advantage was taken of this need to erect the building which was to be the visible and worthy symbol of Pan Americanism. Mr. Andrew Carnegie, a delegate on behalf of the United States to the first Pan American Conference in Was.h.i.+ngton, contributed $950,000 towards the construction of this building, the United States contributed the land, and the other American republics their respective quotas.

The circ.u.mstances under which the funds for the erection of this building were obtained appear in the records of the Governing Board of the Pan American Union, from which the following resolutions and correspondence have been obtained:

_Resolution of the Third International Conference at Rio de Janeiro, adopted August 13, 1906_

The undersigned, Delegates of the Republics represented in the Third International American Conference, duly authorized by their Governments, have approved the following Resolution:

The Third International American Conference _Resolves_:

1. To express its gratification that the project to establish a permanent centre of information and of interchange of ideas among the Republics of this Continent, as well as the erection of a building suitable for the Library in memory of Columbus has been realized.

2. To express the hope that, before the meeting of the next International American Conference the International Bureau of American Republics will be housed in such a way as to permit it to properly fulfil the important functions a.s.signed to it by this Conference.

Made and signed in the City of Rio de Janeiro, on the thirteenth day of the month of August, nineteen hundred and six, in English, Portuguese and Spanish, and deposited in the Department of Foreign Relations of the Government of the United States of Brazil, in order that certified copies thereof be made, and forwarded through diplomatic channels to each one of the Signatory States.

For Ecuador.--Emilio Arevalo, Olmedo Alfaro.

For Paraguay.--Manoel Gondra, a.r.s.enio Lopez Decoud, Gualberto Cardus y Huerta.

For Bolivia.--Alberto Gutierrez, Carlos V. Romero.

For Colombia.--Rafael Urbe Urbe, Guillermo Valencia.

For Honduras.--Fausto Davila.

For Panama.--Jose Domingo de Obaldia.

For Cuba.--Gonzalo de Quesada, Rafael Montoro, Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza.

For the Dominican Republic.--Emilio C. Joubert.

For Peru.--Eugenio Larabure y Unanue, Antonio Miro Quesada, Mariano Cornejo.

For El Salvador.--Francisco A. Reyes.

For Costa Rica.--Ascension Esquivel.

For the United States of Mexico.--Francisco Leon de La Barra, Ricardo Molina-Hubbe, Ricardo Garcia Granados.

For Guatemala.--Antonio Batres Jauregui.

For Uruguay.--Luis Melian Lafinur, Antonio Maria Rodriguez, Gonzalo Ramirez.

For the Argentine Republic.--J. V. Gonzalez, Jose A. Terry, Eduardo L.

Bidau.

For Nicaragua.--Luis F. Corea.

For the United States of Brazil.--Joaquim Aurelio Nabuco de Araujo, Joaquim Francisco de a.s.sis Brasil, Gasto de Cunha, Alfredo de Moraes Gomes Ferreira, Joo Pandia Calogeras, Amaro Cavalcanti, Joaquim Xavier da Silveira, Jose P. da Graca Aranha, Antonio da Fontoura Xavier.

For the United States of America.--William I. Buchanan, L. S. Rowe, A.

J. Montague, Tulio Larrinaga, Paul S. Reinsch, Van Leer Polk.

For Chile.--Anselmo Hevia Riquelme, Joaquin Walker Martinez, Luis Antonio Vergara, Adolfo Guerrero.

_Resolution of the Governing Board and letter of the Secretary of State, Mr. Elihu Root, to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, approved at the meeting of December 19, 1906_

Whereas, the Chairman of the Governing Board of the International Bureau of the American Republics has laid before this, the said Board, the following letter sent by him as chairman to Mr. Andrew Carnegie and has asked for the approval thereof by the Board--that is to say:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, December 4, 1906.

MR DEAR MR. CARNEGIE: Your active and effective cooperation in promoting better communication between the countries of America as a member of the commission authorized by the Second Pan American Conference held in Mexico, your patriotic citizens.h.i.+p in the greatest of American Republics, your earnest and weighty advocacy of peace and good will among the nations of the earth, and your action in providing a suitable building for the International Tribunal at The Hague embolden me to ask your aid in promoting the beneficent work of the Union of American Republics, which was established by the Conference of Was.h.i.+ngton in 1889, continued by the Conference of Mexico in 1902, and has now been made permanent by the Conference of Rio de Janeiro in 1906. There is a general feeling that the Rio Conference, the South American journey of the Secretary of State, and the expressions of courtesy and kindly feeling which accompanied them have given a powerful impulse to the growth of a better acquaintance between the people of all the American countries, a better mutual understanding between them, the establishment of a common public opinion, and the reasonable and kindly treatment of international questions in the place of isolation, suspicion, irritation, strife, and war.

There is also a general opinion that while the action of the Bureau of American Republics, designed to carry on this work from conference to conference, has been excellent so far as it has gone, the scope of the Bureau's work ought to be enlarged and its activity and efficiency greatly increased.

To accomplish this, a building adequate to the magnitude and dignity of the great work to be done is indispensable. With this view the nations const.i.tuting the Union have expressed their willingness to contribute, and some of them have contributed, and the Congress of the United States has, at its last session, appropriated, to the extent of $200,000, funds available for the purchase of a suitable site in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton. With this view also the Conference at Rio de Janeiro, on the 13th of August, 1906, adopted resolutions looking to the establishment of a 'permanent center of information and of interchange of ideas among the Republics of this Continent as well as a building suitable for the library in memory of Columbus,' and expressed the hope that 'before the meeting of the next International American Conference the International Bureau of American Republics shall be housed in such a way as to permit it to properly fulfill the important functions a.s.signed to it by this conference.'

Those functions are, in brief, to give effect to the work of the conference; to carry out its resolutions; to prepare the work of future conferences; to disseminate through each American country a knowledge of the affairs, the sentiments and the progress of every other American country; to promote better communication and more constant intercourse; to increase the interaction among all the Republics of each upon the others in commerce, in education, in the arts and sciences, and in political and social life, and to maintain in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton a headquarters, a meeting place, a center of influence for the same peaceful and enlightened thought and conscience of all America.

I feel sure of your hearty sympathy in the furtherance of this undertaking, so full of possibilities for the peace and the prosperity of America and of mankind, and I appeal to you in the same spirit that has actuated your great benefactions to humanity in the past to provide for the erection, upon the site thus to be supplied by governmental action, of a suitable building for the work of the Union, the direction and control of which has been imposed by our respective Governments upon the Governing Board, of which I have the honor to be Chairman.

With great respect and esteem, I am, my dear Mr. Carnegie,

Very sincerely yours,

ELIHU ROOT,