It was a great pleasure to me--it was a cause of pride to me--to hear so distinguished an English scholar as the Ambassador from France speak the beautiful language of France so perfectly tonight. It is a great pleasure for me to find that throughout the United States the young men are in constantly increasing numbers learning to speak not only French, but Spanish and Portuguese. It was a great pleasure to find throughout South America last summer so many, not merely of the most distinguished and highly cultivated men, speaking English, but so large a number of the people in the cities that I visited. It all makes for that attrition, that practical intercourse, which is the process of civilization; and in destroying the isolation, the separation of American states from each other, in building up an American public opinion, we are preparing ourselves the more perfectly to unite with our friends of Europe in a world public opinion, which shall establish the reign of justice and liberty and humanity throughout the world by slow, practical, untiring processes of intercourse and friendship in place of the rules of brutal force. THE PAN AMERICAN UNION There has been, especially in recent years, a very strong feeling that the points which the American republics have in common greatly exceed their differences and that stated conferences of the American republics would not only tend to accentuate the points in common but would enable them to take common action in matters of common interest, remove unwarranted suspicions which often exist between and among peoples which do not come into contact, and tend to lessen the very differences. In 1881, the Honorable James G. Blaine, then secretary of state of the United States, stated that in the opinion of the President of the United States "the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the good-will and active coöperation of all the states of the western hemisphere, both north and south, in the interest of humanity and for the common weal of nations."[7] Mr. Blaine proposed on behalf of the President, that a congress meet in the city of Washington. The congress or conference actually took place in that city in 1889-1890, during the secretaryship of state of Mr. Blaine. This is commonly called the International American Conference. All of the American countries, with the exception of Santo Domingo, were represented, and they agreed upon "the establishment of an American International Bureau for the collection, tabulation, and publication, in the English, Spanish, and Portuguese languages, of information as to the productions and commerce, and as to the customs laws and regulations of their respective countries; such bureau to be maintained in one of the countries for the common benefit and at the common expense, and to furnish to all the other countries such commercial statistics and other useful information as may be contributed to it by any of the American republics."[8]