Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

regulation, for bettering the conditions under which the railroads are operated and for making them more useful servants of the country as a whole. It seems to me that it might be the part of wisdom, therefore before further legislation in this field is attempted, to look at the whole problem of co-ordination and efficiency in the full light of a fresh assessment of circumstance and opinion, as a guide to dealing with the several parts of it.

For what we are seeking now, what in my mind is the single thought of this message, is national efficiency and security. We serve a great nation. We should serve it in the spirit of its peculiar genius. It is the genius of common men for self-government, industry, justice, liberty, and peace. We should see to it that it lacks no instrument, no facility or vigor of law, to make it sufficient to play its part with energy, safety, and assured success. In this we are no partisans but heralds and prophets of a new age.

ADDRESS BEFORE
BEFORE THE PAN
THE PAN AMERICAN

SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS, WASHINGTON,

JANUARY 6, 1916

The Second Pan American Scientific Congress met in the City of Washington, December 27, 1915-January 8, 1916, and was composed of official and scientific representatives from all of the American Republics. The First Congress had met at Santiago, Chile, December 25, 1908-January 5, 1909, and a resolution was adopted then and there that the Second should convene in Washington as the guest of the United States. The Congress was divided into nine sections dealing with Anthropology (Section I), Astronomy, Meteorology, and Seismology (Section II), Conservation of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Irrigation, and Forestry (Section III), Education (Section IV), Engineering (Section V), International Law, Public Law, and Jurisprudence (Section VI), Mining, Metallurgy, Economic Geology, and Applied Chemistry (Section VII), Public Health and Medical Science (Section VIII), and Transportation, Commerce, Finance, and Taxation (Section IX). The subject-matter of the various divisions was discussed in conference, and the resolutions adopted by the Congress embodied in a Final Act, which, accompanied by an interpretative commentary, was issued in the United States in 1916.

MR. AMBASSADOR, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN :

It was a matter of sincere regret with me that I was not in the city to extend the greetings of the Government to this distinguished body, and I am very happy that I have returned in time at least to extend to it my felicitations upon the unusual interest and success of its proceedings. I wish that it might have been my good fortune to be present at the sessions and instructed by the papers that were read. I have somewhat become inured to scientific papers in the course of a long experience, but I have never ceased to be instructed and to enjoy them.

The sessions of this congress have been looked forward to with the greatest interest throughout this coun

try, because there is no more certain evidence of intellectual life than the desire of men of all nations to share their thoughts with one another.

I have been told so much about the proceedings of this congress that I feel that I can congratulate you upon the increasing sense of comradeship and intimate intercourse which has marked its sessions from day to day; and it is a very happy circumstance in our view that this, perhaps the most vital and successful of the meetings of this congress, should have occurred in the Capital of our own country, because we should wish to regard this as the universal place where ideas worth while are exchanged and shared. The drawing together of the Americas, ladies and gentlemen, has long been dreamed of and desired. It is a matter of peculiar gratification, therefore, to see this great thing happen; to see the Americas drawing together, and not drawing together upon any insubstantial foundation of mere sentiment.

After all, even friendship must be based upon a perception of common sympathies, of common interests, of common ideals, and of common purposes. Men cannot be friends unless they intend the same things, and the Americas have more and more realized that in all essential particulars they intend the same thing with regard to their thought and their life and their activities. To be privileged, therefore, to see this drawing together in friendship and communion based upon these solid foundations affords everyone who looks on with open eyes peculiar satisfaction and joy; and it has seemed to me that the language of science, the language of impersonal

« PředchozíPokračovat »