the states of Central America might move with greater rapidity along the
pathway of such prosperity, of such progress; to the end that we may
share, through commerce and friendly intercourse, in your new
prosperity, and aid you by our prosperity.

We cannot fail, gentlemen, to be admonished by the many failures which
have been made by the people of Central America to establish agreement
among themselves which would be lasting, that the task you have before
you is no easy one. The trial has often been made and the agreements
which have been elaborated, signed, ratified, seem to have been written
in water. Yet I cannot resist the impression that we have at last come
to the threshold of a happier day for Central America. Time is necessary
to political development. I have great confidence in the judgment that
in the long course of time, through successive steps of failure, through
the accompanying education of your people, through the encouraging
examples which now, more than ever before, surround you, success will be
attained in securing unity and progress in other countries of the new
hemisphere. Through the combination of all these, you are at a point in
your history where it is possible for you to take a forward step that
will remain.

It would ill become me to attempt to propose or suggest the steps which
you should take; but I will venture to observe that the all-important
thing for you to accomplish is that while you enter into agreements
which will, I am sure, be framed in consonance with the most peaceful
aspirations and the most rigid sense of justice, you shall devise also
some practical methods under which it will be possible to secure the
performance of those agreements. The mere declaration of general
principles, the mere agreement upon lines of policy and of conduct, are
of little value unless there be practical and definite methods provided
by which the responsibility for failing to keep the agreement may be
fixed upon some definite person, and the public sentiment of Central
America brought to bear to prevent the violation. The declaration that a
man is entitled to his liberty would be of little value with us in this
country, were it not for the writ of habeas corpus that makes it the
duty of a specific judge, when applied to, to inquire into the cause of
a man's detention, and set him at liberty if he is unjustly detained.
The provision which declares that a man should not be deprived of his
property wi