The symbol of peace.

• Author: Kiernan, James Patrick
• Position: LATITUDES

The one photo that best captures the moment and the spirit of the 1910 inauguration of the House of the Americas is the picture of US President Howard Taft planting the "Peace Tree." The building represented different things to the many spectators, but the business of peace was a major preoccupation for all.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The day that the House of the Americas was formally dedicated was a day filled with speeches, long and short. Many addressed the building's unique combination of beauty and utility and reflected that the headquarters of the Bureau of American Republics (soon to be the Pan American Union) served as a hemispheric information center. John Barrett, the first Director General of the Pan American Union, observed that, "while this building is admittedly beautiful and striking in architecture, the impression must not be carried away that it has not abundant and practical office space. It has all the facilities of a modern office building, set, however, in an unconventional and attractive environment. In short, it comprises, possibly more than all the public buildings, in Washington, the useful and the pleasing--a most appropriate condition . for housing an institution which has about it so much that is alike, practical and sentimental."

US Senator Elihu Root, formerly the Secretary of State of the United States, added that "this building is to be in its most manifest utilitarian service a convenient instrument for the association and growth of mutual knowledge among the peoples of the different American republics. The library maintained here, the books and journals accessible here, the useful and interesting publications produced here, the enormous correspondence carried on with seekers for...