At the Annual Convention in the City of Mexico, July 8th, 1907

With the most sincere and profound regret I realize that, all efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, circumstances have persistently shaped themselves in such a way as to make it impossible for me to attend this Convention and to exchange the customary greetings and felicitations with the members of the Society and our hosts, who so kindly and urgently have invited us to hold our Thirty-ninth Annual Convention in the City of Mexico, the Capital of our Sister Republic, which city, let it be remembered, is the oldest permanent city on the American Continent, for it had its organized government, its courts of justice, its sculptured structures, and a people who had advanced in the development of order, skill, and knowledge, centuries before the Europeans even discovered their existence.