gle with superior
forces.

"I do not recall, in the annals of man, a meeting of the selected
representatives of any nations with nobler aims or with greater
opportunity for good than this conference of American states. You
seek to prevent war by peaceful negotiations and arbitration; you
seek to promote intercourse with each other by land and by sea;
you seek, as far as the wants and interests of each nation will
permit, to remove unnecessary restrictions to trade and commerce;
you seek to bring into closer union sixteen republics and one
empire, all of them governed by free institutions. You do not
unite to conquer, but to help each other in developing your resources
and in exchanging your productions.

"If your conference deals wisely with your opportunity you will
light a torch that will illuminate the world. You will disband
armies, you will convert ships of war into useful agencies of
commerce; you will secure the construction of a continuous line of
railways from New York to Buenos Ayres, with connections to the
capital city of every American country; you will contribute to the
construction of the Nicaraguan Canal and all other feasible methods
of transportation between the Atlantic and Pacific; you will unite
in a generous rivalry of growth and progress all the American
states. And, more important than all, you will pave the way for
a congress in which all these states will be represented in a
greater than an Amphictyonic council, with broader jurisdiction
and scope than the rulers of ancient Greece conceived of.

"Is this to be only a dream? I do not think so. The American
states are now more closely united in interest than any other part
of the world. Our institutions are similar. We nourish no old-
time feuds to separate us. Our productions do not compete with,
but supplement, each other. Their direct exchange in American
vessels is the natural course of trade. The diversity of language
is less marked than in any other continent. The sentiment is
universal in America that America belongs to Americans, that no
European power should vex us with its policy or its wars; that all
parts of America have been discovered and are not open to further
discovery; each country belongs to the people who occupy it, with
the clear and unquestioned right of home rule. Such, at least, is
the feeling in the United States.

"And now, looking back with pride over a century of growth, exhibiting
to you, as we are