Indian Boy Goes to SchoolINDIAN BOY GOES TO SCHOOL
This ignorance is part of our general antebellum attitude toward all the world lying south and east. In fact, we never bothered much with anybody outside of the United States. Over a century we lived on, secure in the idea that we were immune from European militaristic contagion and all-sufficient unto ourselves. The rest of the world might perchance sink into the sea, but we would go on blissfully without it. Our "free institutions" were self-sufficient and all-inclusive. And because we were able to compose our own troubles and keep out of other peoples' quarrels, more or less, we assumed that we were automatically superior to the rest of the world, "of course."
We of the United States have been likenedunto a householder living on a plot of ground rich enough to support his family. Resolving not to become entangled in neighborhood alliances, he constructed a hundred-foot wall about his property and lived securely within. The righthand neighbor might be an anarchist and the man on the left a cannibal. If the man in the rear were a polygamist and the dweller across the street had a habit of using firearms indiscriminately it mattered nothing to the householder—so long as the wall held. But it came to pass that an earthquake destroyed that wall, and the said exclusive citizen suddenly found himself out on the street with his neighbors. And behold, it mattered much what sort of neighbors they were. There was nothing to do but get acquainted and help make the neighborhood a decent place in which to live.
Since the world war has battered down the wall with which we sought to separate ourselves from other nations, we have nothing left but to recognize and accept our place in the national neighborhood and do our share to make it decent.
The Latin-American has been at a disadvantage in the character of the continent in which he lives. South America is a land for promoters, organizers of industry, hardy pioneers of production, engineers, planters, and rugged explorers of commercial frontiers. The poetic and artistic temperament of the Latin has suffered an unfaircriticism because of the ill adaptation of his temperament to his environment. Sunny Italy and picturesque France and vine-clad Spain were more to his tastes and abilities. That he has done as well as he has speaks much for his adaptability to a situation better suited to a more executive type of character. Give him a chance in his own best environment and he shows capacity of high achievement.
Washday in Costa RicaWASHDAY IN COSTA RICA
Probably the two most arrogant travelers have been the Englishman and the American, but our British cousins have assumed their superiority with silent contempt, while the newly rich America globe-trotters have vaunted their ignorance from the piazzas of every tourist hotel and upon the steamerdecks of every sea. It is really not strange that we failed to notice the very considerable and important populations of countries lying at our doors.
The North Americans are not travelers. Few of us do go anywhere, and fewer still know how to travel successfully. The poorest traveler in the world is the society tourist who goes about trying to reproduce home conditions in a foreign land. So far as possible he escapes the life and message of the country in which he sojourns and returns with little else but tales of social functions, a la American, and comparative accounts of expenses at tourist hotels. From the first day out he isolates and fortifies himself against the very things that travel alone can give. He brings home a few trinkets made to sell, some cocksure criticisms of customs, people, and missionaries, and a swelled head. But he has been abroad—save the mark!
Travel is a specific for provincialism, but it must be real travel and not imitation home-swagger. Intelligent and sympathetic travel breaks up the hardening strata of thought, pushes back the narrowing horizon, loosens the set fibers of the soul, and is the surest cure yet known for mental arterial sclerosis. The right kind of travel shifts the viewpoint, readjusts life forces, and shakes up the provincialism of the man with the "township horizon." And when the disturbedatoms of character reassemble it is in a different mode and with a new cycle.
It is to be said that the South American has not taken much interest in us. Since he has made out to get along without us, he cannot be very important. The Oriental has shown some desire to move into our basement, or at least the wood-*shed or the washhouse, and we have discovered him. The European has shown his good taste by coming over and moving right in with us, and in time we cannot distinguish him from ourselves. But the South American has gone his way, and in the main has minded his own affairs, and therefore cannot amount to much. If he were a social problem, we would know him better. If he had a penchant for the police force or an itch for office among us, we would cultivate his acquaintance, and perhaps invite him to call.
During the past two decades the once despised Chinese have become popular among us. Their utter difference from ourselves, their solid human qualities, their marvelous vitality, their commercial solidarity, their response to the stimuli of the modern world, their astonishing versatility, their wonderful national history—these and a hundred other things stir our imagination, and we have rather suddenly discovered that we like the Chinese—especially at a distance.
We are well aware of Japan, not so much through any perceptions of our own as throughJapan's insistence upon attention. We can on short notice make out a rather comprehensive list of Japanese characteristics, and, in truth, we find Japan interesting. The marvelous energy of her people, her high ambitions, her Oriental viewpoint, her great commercial and military successes, her artistic setting, her marvelous skill of hand, and, not least, her abundant interest in our own affairs—these and other items make it quite the thing to be interested in Japan. But who cares anything about a lot of dirty peons? They are not in good form.
But this interest in the Orient is more curiosity than it is race sympathy. There is a great gulf fixed between the yellow man and the white, and racially that gulf can never be bridged. The occasional marriages between the East and West need no comment; they tell their own story. Neither China nor Japan can ever become American in any racial sense. When Chinese and Japanese come to America for any but educational and temporary purposes, they set up Chinatown and little Japan wherever they go. American character is a most complicated composite of many races, but from Tokyo to Bombay there is no Oriental factor that will blend with the mixture of races that makes up America.
Our Oriental interest is confined to the races that have impressed themselves upon our imagination. The Philippines, in spite of our nationalrelation to the islands, do not seem to us very real nor very important. They will soon be keeping house for themselves, and then we shall forget them except as an interesting historical incident. And as for India, that is British, and about all we know is that the Hindu wears a turban, maintains a very undemocratic caste, exists in unaccountable numbers, is subject to annoying and frequent famines, and on the whole is a rather helpless lot, except as some bearded fakir entertains companies of badly balanced American society women with hyperbolated essence of sublimated nonsense.
Riverside PlantationRIVERSIDE PLANTATION
But the Latin-American is blood of our blood, kin of our kind, and lives on the same continental street, which is why we are so little interested in him. He is neither quaint, curious, nor crazy. He is not good for first-page headlines exceptwhen he breaks out in revolution or forgets our Monroe Doctrine. There is no fixed gulf of difference between him and us, and in the final fusing of American character he must contribute a large part.
To ignore the Latin-American is to be convicted of historical ignorance. From Dante to the great South American leaders and scholars of to-day the Latin races have been neither sleeping nor idle. During the last five hundred years more than one half of Western history has been made by Latin races. It was a Latin who discovered America. Another first sailed around the globe. Latin peoples explored, conquered, and settled both Western continents, and gave a language which has become the permanent speech of two thirds of the Western world. To call the roll of artists, painters, sculptors, poets, dramatists, novelists, musicians, explorers, missionaries, and scientists for the past five centuries is to prove that a majority of the names mentioned in the world's illustrious hall of fame are from Latin races. To mention Curé, Pasteur, and Marconi is to remind us of the scientific progress of modern Latin minds, and to speak of France and Italy as pioneers in democracy is to keep within the facts. It was in Italy that Browning and Tennyson and George Eliot and a host of other writers found inspiration and material to feed the fires of genius.
Whatever may be said of the modern degeneracy of the dominant religious system of Latin-American countries, it is true that the sixteenth century saw in Spain one of the most virile and comprehensive missionary movements of all history. Never before nor since have missionary efforts been projected on so vast a scale or by so powerful procedure. Monks and priests went out and established the cross and the confessional through the Western world and in the islands of the sea, and, whatever else we may say, there can be no disparagement of the permanency of the results of these conquests. The Latin world is still dominantly Roman in its religious life, and shows very positive preferences for the religion of the conquistadores. To give a language and a religion to two thirds of the American continents is not the work of weaklings nor of degenerates.
This Latin neighbor of ours not only lives on the same street but he lives in a bigger and better house than ours. To the "lick-all-creation" type of Fourth-of-July American this is rank heresy, but facts have little regard for fireworks. With twenty-eight per cent of the population of the Americas, the Latin holds sixty-five per cent of the territory and fully the same proportion of natural resources. His soil, his rivers, his mountains, his harbors, his mines are as good as ours, and he has more of them. In the western hemispherehe controls the longest rivers, the highest mountains, the largest area of habitable land, the longest sea-coast, and the entire inexhaustible fertility of the tropics. His untouched and uncharted natural resources are beyond computation. His estate is second to none in the entire world, and he could spare enough for the crowded millions of India or the swarming islands of Japan and never miss it. All of this we would have discovered sooner but for the world war, which focused all attention on the main issue and postponed the direct results of the successful completion of the Panama Canal. With a normal supply of shipping, the west coast alone of South America would keep the Canal busy much of the time and affect American markets profoundly.
Jungle ProductsJUNGLE PRODUCTS
In material achievements our neighbor has not been idle, though some of his attempts have resulted in failure orfiasco. He has built great and beautiful cities, he has constructed long and difficult railroads over tortuous mountain systems, he has developed huge industries and organized big commercial enterprises. He has produced a civilization in keeping with his character, artistic, homogeneous, progressive, and on a high intellectual plane. His libraries, theaters, and public buildings are a credit to his taste and skill, and his churches are massive and stately as the rock-ribbed mountains that tie together the whole system from El Paso to Patagonia.
We have heard more or less of a Pan-Americanism, but we have never taken it seriously. As subject for diplomatic papers, magazine articles, and after-dinner oratory the all-America idea has been a refuge of word-venders. But so long as the bulk of South American trade was with Europe our brand of fraternal talk was harmless—also helpless; and the reason for our failure to do business with South America has not been entirely the neglect of our shippers. The larger exports of South America have all been to Europe, and with ships loaded both ways the American exporter was hopelessly handicapped in his effort to secure favorable freight rates. When American salesmen tried to compete with German and French and Spanish exporters they always failed to secure freight rates that gave them an even chance.
For years American manufacturers ignored the Orient and lagged far behind European dealers in the same class of goods, to their own large loss. The same neglect has produced the same result in South America. Germany pursued a very different policy. Without trumpet or flag Germany sent her agents to practically every Latin-American center and seaport, and there the unostentatious German proceeded to control as much business as possible, and generally get hold of the situation. Often he took unto himself a wife of the country, but never for one day did he forget that he was a representative of the Vaterland. His house, his furniture, his methods, his ideas were one hundred per cent German. An American ship doctor went ashore from a German liner in a small South American seaport and stumbled upon the inevitable German man of business. He was invited home to dinner and shown through the house with much pride by the half-German children. One after the other, furniture, books, pictures, clothing even were exhibited and with every article was repeated the formula, "Es war in Deutschland gemacht." It was a great game, and it was working along smoothly until things slipped in Europe, and now the end no man can see. But there is going to be a great chance for American capital and enterprise and business energy in the years when German energy will be needed at home.
In one of the Central American republics an American, while present at a social function, remarked casually to a friend that in his opinion the cure for the political upheavals of that country would be in the polite but firm intervention of the United States. A German business man, overhearing the remark, hastily interposed, "Not at all, sir; that is what Germany is in this country for." With a concerted and well-considered policy of business extension in South American countries Germany deserved the commercial advantages that she had gained in the twenty-five years preceding the war period.
When questioned as to the remarkable success of the German commercial propaganda, South American leaders rarely fail to mention the fact that the German business man in Latin lands invariably speak the language of the country. Catalogues are issued in Spanish or Portuguese, as local conditions require. Measures, technical terms, and methods of handling goods are all adapted to local usage, and the South American merchant is considered and consulted in all the mechanism of exchange and handling of goods. Contrasted with North American ignorance of conditions and ignoring of language and custom, it is not strange that Europe has controlled the trade of Latin-America.
In view of all that is involved of national development, international entanglements, commercialexpansion, and racial affinity, it would seem to be about time that we become acquainted with our neighbors, or, rather, in our neighborhood. If we are going to live on this great American highway, it may be well to be on good terms with the rest of the folks.
Aside from commercial and linguistic considerations, there are four reasons for our ignorance of the lands and people south of the United States.
1. The American people are not well acquainted with any other people on earth. Geographical isolation has had much to do with this, and racial self-sufficiency has had still more effect upon our lack-of-thinking about our neighbors. Had South and Central American countries been pouring millions of immigrants into our cities, we would know something about them, but the Latin has had no need to immigrate, since he has more room in his own house than he could find in ours.
2. American travel abroad has been practically all to Europe, with an increasing number who have seen something of the Far East. And it is impossible to be anything but densely ignorant of any people whose faces we have never seen, whose country we have never visited, whose history we have ignored, and whose language we cannot understand. No real interest is possible without knowledge, and the main trouble between the American and his neighbors is plain ignorance.
3. The war with Spain in 1898 resulted in much indifferent prejudice on our part against everything Spanish. Spain was not prepared for the blow that fell upon her, and perhaps her colonial system deserved the destruction that was administered, but we came out of the war with a more or less good-natured contempt for anything and everything that savored of Spain. We escaped with little or no spirit of hatred or lust of conquest, but we marked down the Latin world at bargain prices—and then let Europe walk away with the bargain. As a matter of fact, Spain has little to do with the American situation. Spain herself in the past fifteen years has made rapid strides forward, but in the average American mind anything Spanish cannot be very efficient.
4. Our Monroe Doctrine has begotten a certain arrogance of attitude toward all our southern neighbors. Our attention has been called southward only when revolution or anarchy or European interference has compelled us to take a hand for our own ultimate self-protection. It is only when our neighbors have failed to keep the peace and have threatened to carry their quarrels into our yard, or have been in danger of being beaten up by European military police, that we have taken the trouble to notice them. From this situation it was inevitable that an attitude of patronage should arise, and patronage is not a basis of national cooperation or mutual understanding.
When came this Latin-American? Is he a mystery, a complex, or a racial conundrum defying analysis and baffling understanding? So many people have said. Others have reported a something impossible to name or describe about this man from the southlands—all of which is nonsense. There are few human mysteries when once we have the key. Any people may be understood if we know their racial origin, social history, and reaction-power. Such knowledge usually explains these so-called race peculiarities.
As North Americans we are ourselves the present product of social forces that have driven us for centuries past. With a northern European race origin we have been mixed in many molds and infused with many tinctures till we emerge a new blend of blood. This new and vigorous stock shows a reaction-power that has made much of educational, scientific, and material opportunities, but, after all, these traits themselves are largely the result of the social stimuli of the past five hundred years. Had our ancestors in the sixteenth century removed to Spain, we should all now be Spanish dons.
If we could know the social, religious, intellectual, domestic, industrial, and political environment of a people, we could account for ninety per cent of race characteristics. And this social history measures, not only potent forces and compelling sanctions, but itself in turn registers reactive power and character values.
San Blas Indian ChiefSAN BLAS INDIAN CHIEF
The Latin-American has no cause to apologize nor explain when we inquire into his racial antecedents. Out of the remote ages of antiquity a branch of the human family moved westward, and on the Italian peninsula developed a civilization and founded a city that in time dominated the world. The lust of conquest and the intoxication of power debauched the rulers of Rome, but the rising Christian Church took over the scepter, and for fifteen hundred years Rome dominated the civilization of the world. Fundamentally, there was no difference between the blood of southern and western Europe, and but for the corrupt and demoralizing influence of the papacy and its trailing blight upon the human spirit Rome might still have been the dominant power of European civilization. The abuses that compelled the Reformationalso vitiated the Latin spirit. The wakening life of the sixteenth century shifted the center westward but the blight of papal despotism kept the Latin races from their full share in the developments and democracy of the modern age. And now that the Teutonic peoples of the north have become the victims of the most deadly despotism that the world has yet produced, it is possible that the center and motive of progressive thought in continental Europe may again swing to the southern peoples.
No Race Suicide HereNO RACE SUICIDE HERE
No one can trace the splendid march of the Latin races through the conquests and explorations and discoveries of the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and then read the record of achievements down to the present time and still maintain that there is anything decadent about the Latin races. Had the Roman yoke been broken from the Latin neck as it was from the Teuton, we should have had a very differenttale to tell, and the dominant civilization of the twentieth century might have been Latin instead of Saxon.
A closer examination of the social factors that have dominated the Latin-American world and produced the present composite result on the western hemisphere reveals three decisive factors that have in combination produced our neighbors.
All Latin-America reflects a European background. Nearly all relations of life are defined in European terms. Out of the more or less subconscious inheritance and ideals of European origin arise the sanctions of social relations. Ideals of politics, business, education, home life, social customs, and religion all come from this fountain of associations. The church in South America is the church in southern Europe. The collegio is not the North American college, but the European school which grants a Bachelor of Arts degree at what corresponds to the end of the freshman year in an American college. South American "republics" have their "prime ministers," and the electorate is on the European basis. The presidents of some of these republics exercise more arbitrary power than the king of England or the entire executive of the United States. They are European "presidents." Revolution is not the incurable habit of the "people" but the profession of a few adventurers who oppress and afflict the long-suffering and usually silentpopulace. This is not saying that revolution is a characteristic of European political procedure, but that the forms of representative government imposed upon the ideals of dictatorship and monarchy produced the curious mixture of revolutionary political progress known as a South or Central American "republic." South American democracy is a hybrid product of European ideals and American forms of government. Naturally enough, it is neither one thing nor the other, and will not be anything very different until new forces are brought to bear upon the political life of the Latin people.
Jungle GuideJUNGLE GUIDE
A second factor in the making of the Latin-American is his isolation for three hundred years from the currents of Western economic and political life. Practically all our North American stock of ideas and social sanctions has been developed since the Pilgrims landed in New England. The great basic impulse that sent men and women westward in search of religious liberty has persisted and widened and developed a homogeneous system of political ideal that has become the unquestionedbackground of our whole political system. From free consciences have come free institutions, free schools, free votes, and as long as it lasted, free land, unrestricted economic opportunity, and a welcome to the world. Upon this foundation have been reared American independence, modern democracy, higher education, the feminist movement, scientific advance, and American Protestantism.
One Use for a HeadONE USE FOR A HEAD
Certain influences from this stream have affected Latin-American life. The nomenclature of South American politics is that of the United States, and many constitutions contain provision for every modern practice. But these model constitutions are like a beautiful and costly piano imported into a home where no one knows how to use it. It takes a democratic spirit to get democracy out of a democratic constitution. The best piano yields only discord, and the most advanced constitution does not prevent revolution if there be no musicians or statesmen to play and administer. Peopleliving beside the stream of democratic progress have caught the names and forms drifting on the current, but only those people have advanced with the current who have not been tied to the shore by moral and intellectual despotism.
The influence of geographical nearness is slight beside that of historical background and social relations. Mexico is much closer to Spain than to the United States. After twenty years of successful administration of the Philippines on the most colossal scale of national benevolence that the world has ever seen, nearly all the Filipinos who had reached maturity in 1898 are still Spanish at heart and out of sympathy with American ideals and administration. If the United States can hold the islands until every person who was ten years old or over in 1898 is thoroughly dead and safely buried, there will be a chance for some form of democracy, but the old-time leaders will retain so long as they live the ideals derived from three hundred years of Spanish administration.
If there are in the mountains of the South isolated neighborhoods that have been passed by in the current of modern American progress, and are to-day practically ignorant of all that makes up American life, even though surrounded on all sides by the march of a virile and restless race, what must be the results of the isolation from this stream of North American development, of the whole Latin-American race, while maintainingclose and vital connections with European standards and ideals?
But Latin Americanism can never be explained merely by its European background and its isolation from the progress of North America. The keynote to the present product in Latin lands is to be found in that system of religious despotism that has checked the free growth of every people whose life it has dominated.
Beggars and CathedralsBEGGARS AND CATHEDRALS
Jesuitism is what is the matter with the civilization southward. We have had Romanism and Jesuitism in the United States, but people who have never seen any form of these forces except that which has developed in the free air of North America have much to learn. Romanism checked and balanced by a virile Protestantism and a democratic political life is an altogether differentinstitution from Romanism dominant, degenerate, and intolerant. The latter becomes the religion of the bound Bible, the chained spirit, and the crippled conscience. It is the center of spiritual infection and the microbe of moral weakness. No land has ever advanced under its leadership. Like a blight on the human spirit, it has cast its spell of ignorance and superstition over the millions of men and women who have had no other ethical code or spiritual leadership.
It has been claimed that the rigors of New England winters had something to do with the sturdy New England conscience. But the Pilgrims brought their consciences with them, and the climate came near exterminating the colony. If the Pilgrims had landed in Cuba and the Spanish in Boston, civilization might be very different to-day. If rigorous climates produce vigorous men, how is it that some of the most terrible of men sailed the Caribbean sea and devastated the whole mid-American world, while the northern coasts of the Atlantic never saw a pirate's sail? The tropical zephyrs of the Bay of Panama never softened the tempers or dispositions of the bloodthirsty men who came near exterminating whole populations and left a trail of blood and terror behind them. And these same unconscionable scoundrels used to attend mass and plant wooden crosses wherever they went.
The effort to account for South American civilizationby climate falls to pieces before the splendid and bracing altitudes of the Andes, the ideal conditions of Argentine, Uruguay, and Chile, and the delightful regions of the higher elevations of Central America. There is nothing inherently demoralizing in the climate of lands inhabited by the Latin peoples in America, but there is something distinctly vitiating in the moral miasma breathed by these peoples for three hundred years. If cold climates produced inflexible consciences, the Eskimos ought to be the most conscientious people on earth. But the moral climate of Jesuitism has produced a uniform effect everywhere that it has supplied the soil for soul-growth.
Far from the Madding CrowdFAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
It is impossible to grow liberty of life, apart from its natural soil and necessary nourishment. If we are to have free institutions, we must first have free men. We cannot have a stream of water without a flowing fountain, nor ripe fruit without a living tree. Political liberty is impossible without moral freedom, and it is idle to expect independence of political action without the established right to think for oneself. When consciences are forced into fixed and prescribed molds it is useless to ask that men turn about and practice the principles of a free democracy. Majority rule is meaningless where the confessional dominates the consciences of men. If we apply these factors in the social history and life of the Latin-American to the traits of his development most subject to criticism, we find much illumination. Out of all the discussion three items emerge, each significant and each closely related to the factors just mentioned.
The Latin mind is given to an idealism that reaches out for large things but often stops short of large actual realization. Out of this tendency grow weak initiative and superficial standards. As evidence of this characteristic may be cited the tendency in education to stress the superficial and showy features of the curriculum, leaving in the background the foundations and essentials of the intellectual life. Anything that makes a goodappearance is given place over the less spectacular realities. In architecture, a florid ornamentation is achieved, even at the expense of good plaster and proper surface stone, later with the resultant unsightliness.
Seawall Church and School, PanamaSEAWALL CHURCH AND SCHOOL, PANAMA
Deductive processes of thought are much in evidence. In outlining a plan of provincial government, or a system of national education, the paper plans will include every needed feature of a complete and theoretical system, without much regard for the local needs and actual conditions under which the full scheme is to be realized, which in all probability it will never be. To have projected and announced a grand undertaking in any department of human life is as important as to have accomplished something. It is the grand-piano constitution and the one-finger administration. It is not hard to find automobile undertakings and wheelbarrow accomplishments.
Now, all this is not cause for railing accusation but for thoughtful analysis. And the dominant cause is not far to seek. Where effort to translate ideals into realities is met by a barrier of official indifference, it is not strange if men give their time to dreaming rather than actualizing their visions. Where belief and conduct are prescribed and commercialism dominates the moral lives of men, it is easy to see that initiative is crippled at its source. Where a people is divested of responsibility for the final outcome and taught to pay the price and "believe or be damned," it is a rash spirit that will try to do more than dream dreams and write books and project utopias. Without the incentive of encouragement to produce practical results, no real efficiency has ever appeared among any people. There are accusations of moral duplicity among Latin-American peoples. More serious and fundamental than impotent idealism, this defect registers itself in perversion of public trust, in the degradation of public office to the uses of private gain, in deception, graft, and greed. Promises are easy, but performances are delayed until the would-be enterprising citizen gives up in despair.
In regard to this two things are to be said. In the first place, our own records as a people will not bear any too close inspection. Aside from race riots and labor disturbances, our Civil War furnishes our only revolution, except the onethat produced the original United States. But when it comes to political prostitution of public office and the invention of grafting schemes, large and small, our own history does not give us much ground for boasting. And many a "revolution" has caused less bloodshed than a North American labor row.
Mandy Did Her ShareMANDY DID HER SHARE
The Canal DiggerTHE CANAL DIGGER
Further, so far as there is a difference between the conduct of the North and South, the explanation is not far to seek. Once admit the validity of the principle that it is right to do wrong for a good end, and a whole stream of moral duplicity is turned loose in public and private life. Jesuitism will account for almost any moral lapse in a land where all thinking has come under the spell of a creed in which the end justifies the means.
Let this principle be ever so carefully guarded and proscribed, so long as human nature remains what it is, where personal interests are at stake the individual is going to be his own final judge of the value of the end for which the means are devised. And on the basis of every man adapting means to his own ends we have moral chaos.
Much has been said of the personal immoralityof many people of these southern lands. That the Latin-American is in any whit behind his northern neighbor in the integrity of his personal and domestic life remains to be proven. That his deflections from the straight and narrow path are much less concealed and by him are regarded as of small account is to be conceded. Here, again, the cause is not far to seek. With a sacerdotal example loose and irresponsible, it would be strange indeed if the men of South America showed a higher personal chastity than their spiritual leaders and moral guides.
The third accusation brought against our neighbors is that of political undemocracy. Government by revolution is said to be the rule, and an election in which the "outs" win a victory over the "ins" is practically unknown. Victorious majorities are governed in size only by the discretion of the dominant power, and the Latin mind seems a stranger to the fundamental principle of accepting a majority decision as binding until the next election.
To accept gracefully a majority decision against himself or his party is an art slowly acquired by any politician. On the playgrounds we see this trait; in amateur clubs and literary societies we find it; in the arena of political strife it does its worst and results in a state of affairs in which revolution becomes the general substitute for elections.
I stood one day on the campus of a Christian college in a Latin republic. The young men were playing baseball, and they were playing it well. I discovered that baseball was a regular part of their curriculum, that they were required to play so many games per week, and that they received credit for the games, provided they were played according to rules. When I inquired as to the reason for this I was informed by the efficient director of the school that baseball was in his opinion one of the most important subjects in the course. "There are two things that we can teach through baseball better than any other way. One is team work—a fellow can't play the game alone; and the other is the art of accepting defeat gracefully. Half of the boys must be defeated every day, which is an invaluable drill for them."
The Town Pump, Interior VillageTHE TOWN PUMP, INTERIOR VILLAGE
Even as we discussed the matter, a tall fellow got into a dispute with the umpire, and after a dramatic flourish swung his arms in the air and shouted, "No juego mas" ("I will play no more").
"There—do you hear that?" remarked the director. "That is what we are trying to cure."
As far as my observation has gone, nobody except the educational missionary is trying very hard to cure this most unfortunate trait in an otherwise very fine character.
Wayside Cemetery in the JungleWAYSIDE CEMETERY IN THE JUNGLE
Here, again, it is not difficult to trace this stream to its sources. We understand much better since 1914 whence came this political peculiarity. The ideals of European politics have been transferred across the Atlantic and their fruits on foreign soil have not been tempered by the vigor of free institutions grown strong in the processes of centuries. If Central-American republics are only constitutional monarchies in which the monarch governs the constitution, there is very good reason for the anomaly. If it is true that there is not a single republic on Americansoil south of "the line," then it is to be said that there never can be such a republic until Latin-America ceases to think in terms of European history and Jesuitism is broken from its hold on the moral consciousness of the men who make and unmake republics in the Latin world. Successful republics have been developed in that turbulent but onmoving stream of Western and modern ideals that has found its most complete expression in the United States, but which has also tinctured the thinking and influenced the political processes of practically every country on earth except Prussia. We ourselves are not perfect yet, and it behooves us to withhold the stones from our neighbors until we can show a clean record. We will have some distance to go before democracy is a finished product, and it will be a good plan to take the neighbors along with us.
Much misunderstanding has been due to faulty methods of approach to our southern neighbor. Political diplomacy, commercial competition, and military displays will never get to the core of this international apple. The Latin-American is a man of heart, and until we recognize this fact we shall fail to understand him. Sympathy and courtesy will avail more than battleships and boycotts. This man is a born diplomat and has high intellectual development, but the deep and dominant motives of his life are his friendships and affections.
If we know the ruling motives of men and races, we may avoid nearly all the misunderstandings and incriminating accusations that arise when we occupy different points of view, but matters look very different when we get at them from the viewpoint of the other man.
Seeming contradictions dissolve and weaknesses appear as unsuccessful aspirations. Our complaints of low initiative become more reserved when we remember that spiritual slavery is a certain antidote for the pioneering spirit. The presence of a high though fruitless idealism amidinsurmountable difficulties attests a virile and buoyant spirit, captive and caged. Where toil has been treated with contempt for ages nothing short of economic helplessness can follow.
As for financial faithlessness, who shall throw the first stone? If once we begin to justify the means by the end, commercial life is going to suffer. If we begin to complain about the insecurity of political institutions, we need to remember that democracy is one of the first and finest fruits of a free mind and heart. And we have not yet ourselves arrived sufficiently to do any boasting.
To know our Latin-Americans as personal friends is to attain a new viewpoint on the whole Pan-American problem. We may not blind our eyes to their defects more than to our own—there are plenty of both; but understanding brings explanation of many things, and if we know all and understand fully, we may come to a different verdict. The southern man far surpasses us in certain traits of which we have taken small account and in which we are racially deficient. When given free opportunity, satisfactory response appears to the stimuli of democracy and initiative.
To know personally the Spanish-American is to become aware of his keen intuitions, his high personal charm, his strong sympathies, his constructive imagination, and his hearty idealism; and whatever else he may be, he is loyal to hisfriends and their interests. He may not be so intent on doing something, but he has time for social graces and arts, and possesses an innate refinement and grace of character that we take pride in having neglected.