Animated by the sincere desire to work for the maintenance of general peace.
Resolved to promote by all the efforts in their power the friendly settlement of international disputes.
Recognizing the solidarity uniting the members of the society of civilized nations.
Desirous of extending the empire of law and of strengthening the appreciation of international justice.
That is the meaning of this building for the republics of America. That sentiment which all the best in modern civilization is trying to live up to, we have written here in marble for the people of the American continents.
The process of civilization is by association. In isolation, men, communities, nations, tend back towards savagery. Repellent differences and dislikes separate them from mankind. In association, similarities and attractions are felt and differences are forgotten. There is so much more good than evil in men that liking comes by knowing. We have here the product of mutual knowledge, coöperation, harmony, friendship. Here is an evidence of what these can accomplish. Here is an earnest of what may be done in the future. From these windows the governing board of the International Union will look down upon the noble river that flows by the home of Washington. They will sit beneath the shadow of the simple and majestic monument which illustrates our conception of his character, the character that, beyond all others in human history, rises above jealousy and envy and ignoble strife. All the nations acknowledge his preëminent influence. He belongs to them all. No man lives in freedom anywhere on earth who is not his debtor and his follower. We dedicate this place to the service of the political faith in which he lived and wrought. Long may this structure stand, while within its walls and under the influence of the benign purpose from which it sprang, the habit and the power of self-control, of mutual consideration and kindly judgment, more and more exclude the narrowness and selfishness and prejudice of ignorance and the hasty impulses of super-sensitive amour propre. May men hereafter come to see that here is set a milestone in the path of American civilization towards the reign of that universal public opinion which shall condemn all who through contentious spirit or greed or selfish ambition or lust for power disturb the public peace, as enemies of the general good of the American republics.
One voice that should have spoken here today is silent, but many of us cannot forget or cease to mourn and to honor our dear and noble friend, Joaquim Nabuco. Ambassador from Brazil, dean of the American Diplomatic Corps, respected, admired, trusted, loved, and followed by all of us, he was a commanding figure in the international movement of which the erection of this building is a part. The breadth of his political philosophy, the nobility of his idealism, the prophetic vision of his poetic imagination, were joined to wisdom, to the practical sagacity of statesmanship, to a sympathetic knowledge of men, and to a heart as sensitive and tender as a woman's. He followed the design and construction of this building with the deepest interest. His beneficent influence impressed itself upon all of our actions. No benison can be pronounced upon this great institution so rich in promise for its future as the wish that his ennobling memory may endure and his civilizing spirit may control, in the councils of the International Union of American Republics.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Foreign Relations of the United States, 1881, p. 14.
[8] The Pan American Union, pp. 81, 82.