ent was represented by His Excellency
Senor Don Enrique C. Creel, ambassador at Washington, and
the United States by Honorable William I. Buchanan.

At the opening session of the conference Mr. Root made the
following address:

ADDRESS OPENING THE CENTRAL AMERICAN PEACE CONFERENCE, DECEMBER 13, 1907

Usage devolves upon me as the head of the Foreign Office of the country
in which you are assembled to call this meeting together; to call it to
order and to preside during the formation of your organization. I wish
to express to you, at the outset, the high appreciation of the
Government of the United States of the compliment you pay to us in
selecting the city of Washington as the field of your labors in behalf
of the rule of peace and order and brotherhood among the peoples of
Central America. It is most gratifying to the people of the United
States that you should feel that you will find here an atmosphere
favorable to the development of the ideas of peace and unity, of
progress and mutual helpfulness, in place of war and revolution and the
retardation of the principles of liberty and justice.

So far as a sincere and friendly desire for success in your labors may
furnish a favorable atmosphere, you certainly will have it here. The
people of the United States are sincere believers in the principles that
you are seeking to apply to the conduct of your international affairs in
Central America. They sincerely desire the triumph and the control of
the principles of liberty and order everywhere in the world. They
especially desire that the blessings which follow the control of those
principles may be enjoyed by all the people of our sister republics on
the western hemisphere, and we further believe that it will be, from the
most selfish point of view, for our interests to have peaceful,
prosperous, and progressive republics in Central America.

The people of the United Mexican States and of the United States of
America are now enjoying great benefits from the mutual interchange of
commerce and friendly intercourse between the two countries of Mexico
and the United States. Prosperity, the increase of wealth, the success
of enterprise--all the results that come from the intelligent use of
wealth--are being enjoyed by the people of both countries, through the
friendly intercourse that utilizes for the people of each country the
prosperity of the other. We in the United States should be most happy if