drink to the progress of the Pan American cause in the person of its
great leader, the Secretary of State.

MR. ROOT

I thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for the too flattering expression with
which you have characterized the efforts that, by the accident of
position, I have been enabled to make in the interpretation of that
spirit which in the fullness of time has ripened, developed and become
ready for universal expression and influence.

It is a great pleasure for me to look again into the tropical forests of
Brazil; to come under the magic influence of your part of the solar
spectrum; and to be introduced again to the delightful influences of
your language through the words of the representative of King Carlos of
Portugal.

I think any one who is trying to do something is at times--perhaps most
of the time--inclined to become despondent, because any single man can
do so little. But if the little that one man can do happens to be in the
line of national or world tendencies, he may count himself happy in
helping forward the great work.

How many thousands of men, born out of time, give their lives to causes
which are not ripe for action! I think that we, my friends, are doing
our little; happy in contributing to a cause that has fully ripened. I
confess that in passing from the courts to diplomacy; from the argument
of causes, the conclusion of which would be enforced by the power of the
marshal or the sheriff, having behind him the irresistible power of the
nation--passing from such arguments to the discussion that proceeds
between the foreign offices of independent powers, I found myself
groping about to find some sanction for the rules of right conduct which
we endeavor to assert and maintain.

It has long been a widely accepted theory that the only sanction for the
right conduct of nations, for those rules of conduct which nations seek
to enforce upon each other, is the exercise of force; that behind their
diplomatic argument rests, as the ultimate argument, the possibility of
war. But I think there has been developing in the later years of
progress in civilization that other sanction, of the constraining effect
of the public opinion of mankind, which rests upon the desire for the
approval of one's fellowmen. The progress of which you have spoken, Mr.
Ambassador, in American international relations, is a progress along the
pathway that leads from the rule of force as the ultimate sanction of
argument to the rul