To find practical definite methods by which you shall make it somebody's duty to see that the great principles you declare are not violated, by which if an attempt be made to violate them the responsibility may be fixed upon the guilty individual—those, in my judgment, are the problems to which you should specifically and most earnestly address yourselves.
I have confidence in your success because I have confidence in your sincerity of purpose, and because I believe that your people have developed to the point where they are ready to receive and to utilize such results as you may work out. Why should you not live in peace and harmony? You are one people in fact; your citizenship is interchangeable—your race, your religion, your customs, your laws, your lineage, your consanguinity and relations, your social connections, your sympathies, your aspirations, and your hopes for the future are the same.
It can be nothing but the ambition of individuals who care more for their selfish purposes than for the good of their country, that can prevent the people of the Central American states from living together in peace and unity.
It is my most earnest hope, it is the hope of the American Government and people, that from this conference may come the specific and practical measures which will enable the people of Central America to march on with equal step abreast of the most progressive nations of modern civilization; to fulfill their great destinies in that brotherhood which nature has intended them to preserve; to exile forever from that land of beauty and of wealth incalculable the fraternal strife which has hitherto held you back in the development of your civilization.
ADDRESS CLOSING THE CENTRAL AMERICAN PEACE CONFERENCE, DECEMBER 20, 1907
I beg you, gentlemen, to accept my hearty and sincere congratulations. The people of Central America, withdrawn to a great distance from the scene of your labors, may not know, but I wish that my voice might reach each one of them to tell them that during the month that has passed their loyal representatives have been doing for them in sincerity and in the discharge of patriotic duty a service which stands upon the highest level of the achievements of the most advanced modern civilization. You have each one of you been faithful to the protection of the interests of your several countries; you have each one of you exhibited patience, kindly consideration, regard for the rights and feelings of others, and a willingness to meet with open mind the opinions and wishes of your fellow-countrymen; you have pursued the true method by which law, order, peace, and justice are substituted for the unrestrained dominion of the strong over the weak, and you have reached conclusions which I believe are wise and are well adapted to advance the progress of each and all of the Central American republics toward that much-to-be-desired consummation in the future of one great, strong, and happy Central American republic.
May the poor husbandman who cultivates the fields of your five republics, may the miner who is wearing out his weary life in the hard labors of your mines, may the mothers who are caring for the infant children who are to make the peoples of Central America in the future, may the millions whose prosperity and happiness you have sought to advance here, may the unborn generations of the future in your beloved countries, have reason to look back to this day with blessings upon the self-devotion and the self-restraint with which you have endeavored to serve their interests and to secure their prosperity and peace.
With this hope the entire body of my countrymen will join, and with the expression of this hope I declare the Peace Conference of the Republics of Central America, convened in the city of Washington in this year nineteen hundred and seven, to be now adjourned.