It is proper to state, in this connection, that all the American republics were invited to attend and to participate in the Second Hague Peace Conference and that the Conference was set for 1906. Mr. Root was unwilling that either conference should interfere with the other, and through his intervention with the European Powers the Second Hague Peace Conference was postponed to the summer of 1907, in order not to interfere with the Pan American Conference held at Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1906, and the participation of the American republics in that conference. Only three American republics were invited to the First Hague Peace Conference, namely, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. Through the efforts of the United States, and particularly through Mr. Root's efforts as Secretary of State, all of the American republics were invited to the Second Hague Peace Conference. The noble passage in Mr. Root's address as honorary president of the conference, proclaiming the equality of American states, and quoted by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress, reproduced in the preface to this volume, was constantly referred to by Latin American delegates in the Hague Peace Conference, and was quoted by Mr. Ruy Barbosa, the Brazilian delegate, who added, "These words reverberated through the length and the breadth of our continent, as the American evangel of peace and of justice."[1] SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY JOAQUIM NABUCO AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY FROM THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PRESIDENT OF THE CONFERENCE You do not come here tonight as a stranger to take your place as an honorary president of this conference. You were the first to express a desire that the conference should meet this year; it was you who, in Washington, brought to a happy conclusion the difficult elaboration of its program and of its rules. Neither can we forget that at one time you expected to be one of us, a plan you abandoned in order that you might divide your time among all the republics that claimed the honor of your visit. The meeting of this conference is thus to a great extent your own work. In nothing else since you came to your high post have you taken a more direct and personal interest. You seem to divine in the spirit that animates you with regard to our continent the mark that your name will leave in history. I believe that you and the conference understand each other fully. The periodical meeting of this body, exclusively composed of American nations, assuredly means that America forms a political system separate from that of Europe--a constellation with its own distinct orbit.