On May 11, 1908, Mr. Root, then secretary of state, whose forethought and personal efforts had made its construction possible, delivered the address at the laying of the corner stone, and later, on April 26, 1910, when he was no longer secretary of state but senator of the United States and friend of the Americas, he delivered the principal address at the dedication of the building. These two addresses follow:
ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF
THE BUILDING FOR THE PAN AMERICAN UNION
WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 11, 1908
We are here to lay the corner stone of the building which is to be the home of the International Union of American Republics.[10]
The wise liberality of the Congress of the United States has provided the means for the purchase of this tract of land—five acres in extent—near the White House and the great executive departments, bounded on every side by public streets and facing to the east and south upon public parks which it will always be the care of the National Government to render continually more beautiful, in execution of its design to make the national capital an object of national pride and a source of that pleasure which comes to rich and poor alike from the education of taste.
The public spirit and enthusiasm for the good of humanity, which have inspired an American citizen, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in his administration of a great fortune, have led him to devote the adequate and ample sum of three-quarters of a million dollars to the construction of the building.[11]
Into the appropriate adornment and fitting of the edifice will go the contributions of every American republic, already pledged and, in a great measure, already paid into the fund of the Union.
The International Union for which the building is erected is a voluntary association, the members of which are all the American nations from Cape Horn to the Great Lakes. It had its origin in the first Pan American conference held at Washington in 1889, and it has been developed and improved in efficiency under the resolutions of the succeeding conferences in Mexico and Brazil. Its primary object is to break down the barriers of mutual ignorance between the nations of America by collecting and making accessible, furnishing and spreading, information about every country among the people of every other country in the Union, to facilitate and stimulate intercourse, trade, acquaintance, good understanding, fellowship, and sympathy. For this purpose it has established in Washington a bureau or office under the direction of a governing board composed of the official representatives in Washington of all the republics, and having a director and secretary, with a force of assistants and translators and clerks.
The bureau has established a rapidly increasing library of history, travel, description, statistics, and literature of the American nations. It publishes a Monthly Bulletin of current public events and existing conditions in all the united countries, which is circulated in every country. It carries on an enormous correspondence with every part of both continents, answering the questions of seekers for information about the laws, customs, conditions, opportunities, and personnel of the different countries; and it has become a medium of introduction and guidance for international intercourse.
The governing board is also a permanent committee charged with the duty of seeing that the resolutions of each Pan American conference are carried out and that suitable preparation is made for the next succeeding conference.
The increasing work of the bureau has greatly outgrown the facilities of its cramped quarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, and now at the close of its second decade and under the influence of the great movement of awakened sympathy between the American republics, the Union stands upon the threshold of more ample opportunity for the prosecution of its beneficent activity.