THE UNITY OF
THE AMERICAS
ROBERT-E- SPEE
The Unity of the Americas
A DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL,
COMMERCIAL, EDUCATIONAL, AND
RELIGIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OF
ANGLO-AMERICA AND
LATIN AMERICA
BY
ROBERT E. SPEER
SECRETARY, BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT
NEW YORK
1916
F/-4I?
Published jointly by
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
and
LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT
Bancroft Library
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION v
I. POLITICAL i
II. COMMERCIAL 33
III. EDUCATIONAL 63
IV. RELIGIOUS 89
INTRODUCTION
THIS small volume is* merely a sketch of some of the
material which the average man may not have at hand
regarding Latin- American conditions and of some of
the facts and principles which ought to be before him
in order that he may think intelligently and sympatheti-
cally on the highly important matter of our relations to
our Latin-American neighbors. If, as these studies seek
to show, we have some things which can be of service
to our neighbors, they also have something to teach
us of kindness and courtesy and high idealism in the
face of great discouragements. There is less unity be-
tween them and us than there ought to be. It is the
aim of this little book to quicken the desire for more.
POLITICAL
THE unity of the Americas is an aspiration against
the facts. Happily not all the facts divide the American
peoples, but our easy and optimistic view of the homo-
geneity and community of sentiment of the American
nations needs to be confronted with its untruth.
Diverse Heredities. The Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic
nations of North America and the Latin nations of North
and South America have diverse political and social
ancestries and are divided by the consequences of their
unlike inheritances. Senor Pezet, Minister of Peru to
the United States in 1913, set forth some of these facts
in an address on "Contrast in the Development of Nation-
ality in Anglo-America and Latin America," in which
he pointed out the dissimilar character, nature, surround-
ing physical conditions, encountered difficulties, racial
habits, political ideals, and family life of the two bodies
of colonists:
"Your territory, at the time of the advent of the white
man from Europe, was more or less of a virgin terri-
tory, inhabited by savage and semi savage nomadic tribes,
thinly scattered all over a very vast area; while our
territory was, to a very great extent, organized into states
in a measure barbaric, but nevertheless, semicivilized,
densely populated, and concentrated in a manner to
make for cohesion. . . .
"As the news of the discovery of the New World
2 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
invaded the European countries, two types, that were to
mold the destinies of the wonderlands beyond the seas,
were brought into play ; the one formed of the oppressed
and persecuted by religious intolerance, the other of
the adventurous soldiers of fortune, in quest of gold and
adventures.
"Both of these started out with set purposes ; the op-
pressed and persecuted came to the New World to build
up new homes, free from all the troubles left behind;
while the adventurous came bent on destroying and carry-
ing away everything they could lay their hands on. So
here we have the true genesis of the formation of na-
tionality in Anglo- and Latin America in the two great
classes, the permanent and the temporary, the one to build
up, the other to tear down and destroy. The one came
with reverence, the other with defiance; both with an
equally set purpose, but the one with humility in his heart,
the other proud and overbearing: the one full of tender-
ness born of his religious zeal, the other cruel and un-
scrupulous. . . .
"Let us glance," continues Senor Pezet, "at the types
of men who came to your and to our sections of the
continent. The colonists of Anglo-America came from
those countries of northwestern Europe where there was
the greatest freedom, the nearest approach to republican
institutions and government of the people and by the
people, existent at the time. England, Scotland, and
Wales, the Netherlands, French Huguenots, Scandina-
vians, and Germans were the stock from which were
evolved the American colonies,
"The conquerors of Latin America were militarists
from the most absolute monarchy in western Europe,
POLITICAL 3
and with these soldiers came the adventurers. And
after the first news of their wonderful exploits reached
the mother country, and the first-fruits of the conquest
were shown in Spain, their most Catholic majesties,
Ferdinand and Isabella, felt it their duty to send to the
new kingdoms, beyond the seas, learned and holy monks
and friars, men of science, and scions of noble families.
With these came men of means and of great power at
home. They brought a very large clerical force, com-
posed mainly of younger sons of the upper classes ;
each one eager to obtain a sinecure, trusting to his rela-
tives and powerful sponsors to better his condition, and
in time, get his promotion to more important and more
lucrative positions. . . .
"Our men did not bring their women and families
until many years after the conquest. In consequence,
the Spaniards from the very commencement took to
themselves Indian women and their offspring became the
mestizos, a mixed race that the haughty and pure Cas-
tilians in Spain never countenanced, although they were
of their own flesh and blood. Later on, when conditions
became more settled, the Spaniards brought their families,
and after a time the Creoles came into existence. These
were the offspring of European parents born in the New
World."1
Racial Confusion. How could anything but differ-
ence of racial character develop out of such difference
of ancestry? The Indian blood in the United States has
practically disappeared. In 1900 the population of the
United States was made up roughly of one half of British
*Don Federico Alfonso Pezet, "Contrast in the Development
of Nationality in Anglo- America and Latin America," 4-7.
4 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
strain, three eighths of other European strains, and one
eighth Negro. The dominant blood was European un-
mixed with either Indian or Negro. In Latin America,
as Senor F. Garcia Calderon says: "the three races —
Iberian, Indian, and African — united by blood, form the
population. ... In the United States union with the
aborigines is regarded by the colonists with repugnance ;
in the South [Latin America] miscegenation is a great
national fact; it is universal.
"It is always the Indian that prevails, and the Latin
democracies are mestizo or indigenous. The ruling
class has adopted the costume, the usages, and the laws
of Europe, but the population which forms the national
mass is Quichua, Aymara, or Aztec. ... Of the total
population of Peru and Ecuador the white element only
attains to the feeble proportion of 6 per cent., while the
Indian element represents 70 per cent, of the population
of these countries, and 50 per cent, in Bolivia. In Mexico
the Indian is equally in the majority, and we may say
that there are four Indian nations on the continent:
Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. . . .
"The invasion of Negroes affected all the Iberian
colonies, where, to replace the outrageously exploited
Indian, African slaves were imported by the ingenuous
evangelists of the time. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Vene-
zuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the
total population. In Brazil 15 per cent, of the popula-
tion is composed of Negroes, without counting the im-
mense number of mulattoes and sambos.1 Bahia is half
an African city. . . .
"A sambo or sambo is the offspring of a Negro and a mulatto
or an Indian. The latter union is here meant.
POLITICAL 5
"Is unity possible with such numerous castes? Must
we not wait for the work of many centuries before a
clearly American population be formed?"1
Divergent Political Ideals. The Latin and Anglo-
Saxon nations of America have had also wholly different
political discipline. The latter were real colonies of the
mother countries. The former were not. "Absolutism
in government, monopoly in matters of commerce and
finance, intolerance in questions of dogma and morality,
tutelage and rigorous isolation: these were the founda-
tion of Spanish colonization/'2 says Calderon, and he
thinks the methods practised by the Dutch and English
in their colonies were not essentially different. But
there were many and fundamental differences. In Latin
America, Lord Bryce observes, "there were no elected
assemblies or elected officials. All power came from
above ; the people had nothing to do with administration,
and were not enough permitted to subject it to public
criticism. ... In the English North American colonies
the management of church affairs belonged to the laity
as well as to the clergy; and the New England Congre-
gational churches in particular, founded on the principles
of liberty, became direct exponents of popular feeling."
When independence came in South America, "the in-
habitants, accustomed to be ruled by others in state and
in church, had never been given a chance of learning to
think of government as their own business nor of them-
selves as responsible for public order. When a long
and sanguinary war had destroyed the habit of obedience
*F. Garcia Calderon, Latin America: Its Rise and Progress,
356-360.
2 Ibid., 51.
6 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
to constituted authority, they were remitted — constitution
or no constitution — to that primitive state of things in
which force prevails. . . . Whoever travels through
these countries, — I include Mexico and Central America,
but not Chile or Argentina, — and whoever, having thus
obtained some knowledge of their physical and racial
character, studies their history, finds himself driven to
three conclusions. The first is that these states never
have been democracies in any real sense of the word.
The second is that they could not have been real democra-
cies. To expect peoples so racially composed, very small
peoples, spread over a vast area, peoples with no practise
in self-government, to be able to create and work demo-
cratic institutions was absurd, though the experience
which their history has furnished to the world was needed
to demonstrate the absurdity. The third conclusion is
that injustice is done to the Spanish Americans by cen-
sures and criticisms which ignore these fundamental
facts. . . . To understand these countries, one must
think of them as having, under the rule of the Spanish
crown and of the church, dropped two centuries behind
the general march of civilized mankind/'1
Among the leaders of Latin America and the leading
foreign students of Latin-American conditions, there are
many who frankly advocate oligarchical government.
Professor Bingham expresses his sympathy with this
view: "The great San Martin foresaw the advantages
of oligarchy or monarchy and advocated something of
the kind for the Spanish provinces of South America
when they secured their independence. Unfortunately,
Barnes Bryce, South America: Observations and Impressions,
535, 537, 539, 549-
POLITICAL 7
his farsighted statesmanship ran counter to the bom-
bastic notions of 'liberty* held by the uneducated Creoles
who had secured control of the reins of government and
the result was the creation of republics."1
And Calderon, speaking for himself, says frankly, "a
young Venezuelan critic, Senor Machado Hernandez,
having studied the history of his country, rent as it has
been by revolutions, considers that the best form of gov-
ernment for America2 is that which reinforces the at-
tributions of the executive and establishes a dictatorship.
In place of the Swiss referendum and the federal organi-
zation of the United States, autocracy is, it seems to us,
the only practical means of government." He allows
exceptions, however: "In some states in which the eco-
nomic life is intense, as in the Argentine, Chile, Brazil,
and Uruguay, benevolent despotism does not mark the
high- water limit of national development; there new
parties are forming themselves, and the caudillos [politi-
cal bosses of the old, military type] will soon disappear."3
The Latin-American Spirit and Character. Such a
racial and political ancestry has produced a Latin-Ameri-
can spirit and society unlike the spirit and society of
Anglo-Saxon America. "The absence of that class of
intelligent small landowners, which is the soundest and
most stable element in the United States and in Switzer-
1 Hiram Bingham, Across South America, 155.
2 North American readers should note that throughout the book,
in the quotations from Sr. Calderon, "America" and "Americans"
are used as referring to Latin or South America, showing that
the monopoly of the name by the United States is not accepted
by Latin Americans.
* Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 374, 372.
8 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
land, and is equally stable, if less politically trained, in
France and parts of Germany/' says Lord Bryce, "is
a grave misfortune for South and Central America."1
Says Professor Ross: "In each of these republics there
are men of purpose as high and ideas as sound as one
will find anywhere. But, in the absence of an intelligent
self-assertive commonalty to respond to their appeals
and to clothe them with power, this type come into office
only by accident, so that in general the man who rules
is either the army officer with troops to place and keep
him in authority, or else the politician who has gathered
about himself a great number of followers animated by
the prospect of capturing political jobs and of being let
in on such graft as the country may be made to yield."2
And what of Latin-American character? Is there such
a character, a real Latin- American" personality? Sr.
Calderon answers for the higher critical thought of
Latin America itself; he quotes Bolivar: "We are not
Europeans, nor Indians either, but a kind of halfway
species between the aborigines and the Spaniards ; Amer-
ican by birth, European by right, we find ourselves forced
to dispute our titles of possession with the natives, and
to maintain ourselves in the country which saw our birth
in spite of the opposition of invaders: so that our case
is all the more extraordinary and complicated. . . .
Let us be careful not to forget that our race is neither
European nor North American; but rather a composite
of America and Africa, than an emanation from Europe,
since Spain herself ceased to be European by virtue of
her African [Arab] blood, her institutions, and her
1 South America: Observations and Impressions, 533*
2Edward A. Ross, South of Panama, 332, 333.
POLITICAL 9
character." And Calderon himself analyzes keenly the
Latin- American spirit. It "is not a thing apart; it is
formed of characteristics common to all the Mediterra-
nean peoples. French, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese, and
Spaniards find therein the fundamental elements of their
national genius, just as in antiquity the Greek women
found in Helen the reflection of their own beauty. To
this spiritual synthesis Spain contributes her idealism;
Italy, the paganism of her children and the eternal sug-
gestion of her marbles; France, her harmonious edu-
cation.
"In the Iberian democracies an inferior Latinity, a
Latinity of the decadence prevails ; verbal abundance, in-
flated rhetoric, oratorical exaggeration, just as in Roman
Spain. The qualities and defects of the classic spirit
are revealed in American life; the persistent idealism,
which often disdains the conquests of utility; the ideas
of humanity and equality, of universality, despite racial
variety ; the cult of form ; the Latin instability and vivac-
ity; the faith in pure ideas and political dogmas: all
are to be found in these lands oversea, together with the
brilliant and superficial intelligence, the Jacobinism, and
the oratorical . facility. Enthusiasm, sociability, and
optimism are also American qualities.
"These republics are not free from any of the ordinary
weaknesses of the Latin races. The state is omnipotent ;
the liberal professions are excessively developed ; the
power of the bureaucracy becomes alarming. The charac-
ter of the average citizen is weak, inferior to his imagina-
tion and intelligence; ideas of union and the spirit of
solidarity have to contend with the innate indiscipline of
the race. These men, dominated by the solicitations of
io THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
the outer world and the tumult of politics, have no inner
life; you will find among them no great mystics, no
great lyrical writers. They meet realities with an exas-
perated individualism.
"Indisciplined, superficial, brilliant, the South Amer-
icans belong to the great Latin family; they are the
children of Spain, Portugal, and Italy by blood and by
deep-rooted tradition, and by their general ideas they
are the children of France. A French politician, M.
Clemenceau, found in Brazil, the Argentine, and Uru-
guay, 'a superabundant Latinism; a Latinism of feeling,
a Latinism of thought and action, with all its immediate
and superficial advantages, and all its defects of method,
its alternatives of energy and failure in the accomplish-
ment of design.5 "x
National Distinctions. The governments which the
Latin-American race and spirit have established and
conducted cannot be indiscriminately generalized with-
out injustice. "There is as great a difference between
the best and the worst of them as there is between the
best and the worst of European monarchies. . . .
"We may distinguish three classes of states. The first
consists of those in which republican institutions, pur-
porting to exist legally, are a mere farce, the government
being, in fact, a military despotism, more or less op-
pressive and corrupt, according to the character of the
ruler, but carried on for the benefit of the executive am:
his friends. The second includes countries where ther<;
is a legislature which imposes some restraint upon th<
executive and in which there is enough public opinioi
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 75, 287, 288.
POLITICAL li
to influence the conduct of both legislatures and execu-
tive. In these states the rulers, though not scrupulous in
their methods of grasping power, recognize some re-
sponsibility to the citizens and avoid open violence or
gross injustice. The third class are real republics, in
which authority has been obtained under constitutional
forms, not by armed force, and where the machinery of
government works with regularity and reasonable fair-
ness, laws are passed by elected bodies under no executive
coercion, and both administrative and judicial work goes
on in a duly legal way."1
The general Latin- American principle is not federation
but unity. As to political fraud and oligarchical domi-
nation and revolutions the facts are not denied. "In
Chile," says Professor Ross, "the reliance of the oli-
garchy is not on force at the ballot-box but on fraud."
"Educated in the Roman Church," says Calderon, "Amer-
icans bring into politics the absolutism of religious dog-
mas; they have no conception of toleration. The domi-
nant party prefers to annihilate its adversaries, to realize
the complete unanimity of the nation ; the hatred of one's
opponents is the first duty of the prominent politician.
The opposition can hardly pretend to fill a place of
influence in the assemblies, or slowly to acquire power.
It is only by violence that the parties can emerge from
the condition of ostracism in which they are held by the
faction in power, and it is by violence that they return to
that condition. Apart from the rule of the caudillos the
political lie is triumphant; the freedom of the suffrage
is only a platonic promise inscribed in the constitution;
1 Bryce, South America: Observations and Impressions, $26,
54i, 542.
12 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
the elections are the work of the government; there is
no public opinion. Journalism, almost always oppor-
tunist, merely reflects the indecision of the parties.
Political statutes and social conditions contradict each
other ; the former proclaim equality, and there are many
races; there is universal suffrage, and the races are
illiterate ; liberty and despotic rulers enforce an arbitrary
power. ... It is to the excessive simplicity of the
political system, in which opinion has no other means of
expression than the tyranny of oligarchies on the one
hand and the rebellion of the vanquished on the other,
that the interminable and sanguinary conflicts of Spanish
America are due.J>1
American Disunity. Many of the political weak-
nesses of Latin America have equivalents in the United
States, but it is clear that Latin and Teutonic America are
fundamentally separate and unlike. But where is there
unity anywhere in North and South America? It is not
in Canada. From the beginning the Dominion has been
troubled by a radical racial discord and its geographical
configuration is such that each of the three great divisions
of Canada has closer natural relations southwards than
it has with its neighboring Canadian people. It is not
in the United States. For the first seventy-five years
of our history our politics centered in an issue of division
and, since the Civil War, besides the Negro problem we
have had increasingly the problem of immigrant assimila-
tion, and again and again our national political cam-
paigns have been waged over supposed conflicting sec-
tional interests. It is not in any Latin-American land.
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 369-371.
POLITICAL 13
Each one of these is a strange composite of race stratifica-
tion and indiscriminate race blending. There is no
unified race in any Latin-American -people. The unity
is not to be found within any nation, north or south.
And it does not exist between nations. The United
States and Canada m are more distinctly separated to-day
than ever in their history. Between the different Latin-
American nations, in spite of innumerable proposals for
consolidation, there is no prospect of union and though
there is now creditable peace, there have been bitter wars
and there are deep jealousies and divisions. Their
political traditions and favorable geographical condi-
tions made the union of the United States possible. The
South American colonists were never so united as to be
able to make one great nation. " Scattered over an enor-
mous area, separated by the greatest natural boundaries
that nature has produced, it was scarcely to be expected
that they too should not follow the traditions of their
race and build up local governments instead of forming
a federation. The historical and geographical reasons
that prevent the formation of confederations have also
militated against the building up of strong national
governments."1
And their relations to-day do not greatly converge. On
the other hand, Calderon says, "we observe among them
a tendency toward further disagreement, toward an
atomic disintegration. Originally a different and a
wider movement, in the sense of the close union of similar
nationalities, did manifest itself. The contrary principle
prevails to-day, and it results in the separation of
'Bingham, Across South America, 58, 59.
I4 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
complementary provinces and the conflict of sister
nations. . . .
"To-day these peoples do not know one another. Paris
is their intellectual capital, where their poets, thinkers,
and statesmen meet. In America everything makes for
separation."1 As against our easy rhetorical glorification
of our imaginary American unity it is well to recall
these facts.
It is necessary, if we are to do true thinking and to
be fitted to deal with duty, that we should remember
the unlikeness and disunity of Latin and Anglo-Saxon
America. "Teutonic Americans and Spanish Americans
have nothing in common except two names, the name
American and the name republican. In essentials they
differ as widely as either of them does from any other
group of peoples, and far more widely than citizens of
the United States differ from Englishmen, or than
Chileans and Argentines differ from Spaniards and
Frenchmen/'2 The present leading Latin Americans
emphasize this difference. "Essential points of differ-
ence," says Calderon, "separate the two Americas. Dif-
ferences of language and therefore of spirit; the differ-
ence between Spanish Catholicism and the multiform
Protestantism of the Anglo-Saxons; between the Yankee
individualism and the omnipotence of the state natural
to the nations of the South. In their origin, as in their
race, we find fundamental antagonisms; the evolution of
the North is slow and obedient to the lessons of time, to
the influences of custom the history of the southern
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 336, 344.
2 Bryce, South America: Observations and Impressions, 507.
POLITICAL 15
peoples is full of revolutions, rich with dreams of an
unattainable perfection. . . .
"Instead of dreaming of an impossible fusion the Neo-
Latin peoples should conserve the traditions which are
proper to them. The development of the European in-
fluences which enrich and improve them, the purging of
the nation from the stain of miscegenation, and immigra-
tion of a kind calculated to form centers of resistance
against any possibilities of conquest, are the various
aspects of this Latin-Americanism/'1
The United States Distrusted. And it is just as well
for us in the United States and Canada to realize that
Latin America does not love us and is not occupied
in gazing with longing upon our prosperity and with
admiration upon our blameless political righteousness.
It distrusts and misbelieves our purposes. It derides
our commercialism. It looks to France, not to us, for
ideas and ideals. £ "It is evident," says Manuel Ugarte,
"that nothing attracts us toward our neighbors of the
North. By her origin, her education, and her spirit,
South America is essentially European. We feel our-
selves akin to Spain, to whom we owe our civilization,
and whose fire we carry in our blood ; to France, source
and origin of the thought that animates us ; to England,
who sends us her gold freely; to Germany, who supplies
us with her manufactures ; and to Italy, who gives us
the arms of her sons to wrest from the soil the wealth
which is to distribute itself over the world. But to the
United States we are united by no ties but those of dis-
trust and fear/'2 Sr. Calderon calls us "the great plutoc-
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 311, 312.
2 John Bigelow, American Policy, 23.
16 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
racy of the North," "The Yankee peril;" our policy
toward Chile he calls "indecisive, turbid, Machiavelic."
He monopolizes "America" as a term of speech applied
to South America, as we have monopolized it for the
United States. To be unified with the North American
spirit would be racial suicide, he thinks. "Where Yankees
and Latin Americans intermingle, you may better observe
the insoluble contradictions which divide them. The
Anglo-Saxons are conquering America commercially and
economically, but the traditions, the ideals, and the soul
of these republics are hostile .to them." He declares,
"To save themselves from Yankee imperialism the Amer-
ican democracies would almost accept a German alliance,
or the aid of Japanese arms ; everywhere the Americans
of the North are feared." He sees no real unity in the
United States. He does see "the triumph of vulgarity,"
the increase of divorce and criminality, "plebeian
brutality, excessive optimism, violent individualism, con-
fusion, uproar, instability." It is with Europe, and not
with the United States and Canada., that Latin America
would identify its commercial, political, and cultural
interests. "We find," he says, "practical mind, industrial-
ism, political liberty in England; organization and in-
struction in Germany; in France, inventive genius,
culture, wealth, great universities, democracy. From
these dominating people the New World should receive
the legacy of Western civilization directly. Europe
offers to the Latin- American democracies what they ask
of Saxon America, which was itself formed in the
schools of Europe."1
The people of the United States think of themselves
1Bigelow, American Policy, 24.
POLITICAL 17
as so animated with the spirit of justice and good-will
that they cannot conceive how other people should mis-
trust them. But in the case of Latin America we gave
opportunity enough for distrust in our war with Mexico
alone, of which General Grant said that it was "one of
the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a
weaker nation."
The Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is the
most familiar principle in our relation to Latin America.
It had been foreshadowed in declarations of Washing-
ton, Jefferson, and Madison, but it received its form and
name from President Monroe in 1823. It grew out of
a dispute with Russia over the limits of her possessions
in the Northwest and alarm at the possible extension to
America of the purpose of the Holy Alliance of Prussia,
Austria, and Russia. It declared ( I ) that "the American
continents, by the free and independent conditions which
they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to
be considered as subjects for future colonization by any
European power;" (2) that it did not comport with our
policy to take part "in the wars of the European powers
in matters relating to themselves;" (3) that the European
and American systems of government are essentially
different and that the European system cannot be ex-
tended to America. With existing colonies or depen-
dencies the United States would not interfere, but the
United States could not countenance any extension and
"with the governments who have declared their inde-
pendence and maintained it, and whose independence we
have, on great consideration and on just principles, ac-
knowledged, we could not view any interposition for the
purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other
i8 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
manner their destiny, by any European power, in any
light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposi-
tion toward the United States." This was the original
doctrine. It has been given successive interpretations,
however, which at one time narrowed and at another
broadened its scope. Mr. Seward, at the time of the
Maximilian Empire in Mexico, made no reference to it
in his discussions with the French government. And
President Polk in 1845, while he pushed out the meaning
of the declaration in some regards, yet mentioned only
North America. Bigelow in his excellent little book on
American Policy traces the development of the Doctrine
and its distinctions from and its confusion with the
Bolivar idea of a Latin- American alliance, the Washing-
ton precept of isolation of the United States from Euro-
pean politics, the dominance of the United States in the
western hemisphere, and the idea of Pan- Americanism.
For many years the Doctrine was a bond of good-will
between Latin America and the United States. The
Latin-American nations gratefully accepted the strength
and protection which it gave. But two things among
others have tended to make the Doctrine a rock of of-
fense. One was its extension, in the political thought of
the United States, to cover the claim of the United States
to practical sovereignty over all the western hemisphere.
Can we blame Latin America for resenting this attitude
of mind? The other ground of objection to the Monroe
Doctrine to-day is the feeling of Latin America that
it is able to look after its own affairs, that it prefers
European relationships to the domination of the United
States, and that the influence of the United States is
more to be feared than any other peril. There are some
POLITICAL 19
who would abrogate the Doctrine or let it fall into
abeyance. Others would have the United States invite
Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to unite with the United
States in maintaining it. Others would let history stand
and would have the United States continue to act alone,
doing what is right and serving others as it can, while
they would cultivate to the fullest extent the develop-
ment of good-will and confidence and common under-
standing through the growth of Pan-Americanism, that
tightening of bonds which the Pan-American Union has
done so much to promote.
American Unity a Reality. Enough has been said
about the elements of American disunity. Let us look
away from these to the elements of union. There are
many of these and they are far stronger than such writers
as Calderon and Ugarte, representative though they be
of the thought of Latin America, are ready to allow.
Latin America and Anglo-Saxon America do already
have more in common than either has with Europe as
a whole. What are some of these things? (i) The
principle of democracy. It is true that Latin America
thinks the United States to be a plutocracy and that we
think the Latin-American nations to be oligarchies, but"
as a matter of fact the democratic principle is inveterate
in each. No Latin-American nation has ever been in
danger of turning monarchy, however autocratic and
prolonged its presidential dictatorship. Sr. Pezet says
that without having inborn in them any of the principles
of true democracy, the Latin-American nations became
over night as it were democratic and representative re-
publics. But there was more democracy there than Sr.
Pezet allows, and the Latin-American spirit to-day is
20 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
immovably democratic. Titles and rank and dynastic
interests are alien to it. It loves freedom. It is more
akin to the spirit of the United States than to the spirit
of France or any European race. (2) Latin America
and Anglo-Saxon America have the common charac-
teristics which came from the struggle to tame great
areas. Japan is one third the size of Venezuela, but its
population is as great as that of all South America.
South America has a problem of nature subjugation
more than forty-eight times that of Japan. We have
fought a good part of our battle and have the qualities
resulting from it. Latin America is just entering a
nature discipline. (3) Our political community of in-
terest is real and fundamental. Drago and Calvo of
Argentina and Rio Branco and Ruy Barbosa of Brazil
have striven as notably as our own statesmen "for the
development and institution of an American international
law." All the American nations deplore and must seek
together to- protect themselves against the system of state
relationships an.d diplomacy which has plunged Europe
into the ruin and carnage of its present war. (4) The
American nations have a common, traditional love of in-
'ternational peace. They have never built up great arma-
ments or sought to preserve peace with one another by
rivalry in arming each against the other. Before the
European War it was said; "The twenty armies of
Latin America aggregate on a war footing about 1,5.00,-
ooo men. Taking the army of the United States, in-
cluding the militia and volunteers, as 2,000,000, we get
3,500,000 as the total of the American military coali-
tion. This force, hardly capable of united action, is less
than the war army of any one of the three leading military
POLITICAL 21
powers of Europe — France, Germany, Russia."1 There
have been wars in Latin America and periods of revolu-
tion and anarchy and bloody dictatorship, but the heart
of all America is a heart of peace. It is a different heart
from that of the militaristic peoples. (5) America is less
of a Babel than any other continent. Two languages
practically cover all America. Portuguese is, of course,
different from Spanish, but they are mutually intelligible.
There are Indian dialects by the score, but these will die
away writh popular education. English is taught through-
out Latin America, and Spanish increasingly in the
United States. And what is more significant, we have
more common thought by far than binds any other two
continents. (6) We are united by a common faith in
and zeal for education. (7) We are also united by a
common spirit of hope. We are all Americans. "Seldom
in Spanish America does one hear any one speak of the
place his ancestors came from. . . . Seldom do South
Americans or Mexicans seem to visit Spain. . . . For
the Spanish Americans there seems to be no past at all
earlier than their own war of independence."2 It is true
that France has supplanted Spain, and that France means
Paris, but it is not the past of Paris that appeals. The
Latin- American people are a people of the future. They
and we are moving forward together into new things.
Common Problems. Above all, the Latin-American
people and ourselves are facing great common problems.
Immigration. The section on "The Significance of
Latin America to the Life of the World in Domiciling
1 Bigelow, American Policy, 155.
2Bryce, South America: Observations and Impressions, 514,
515.
22 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
now Overcrowded Populations" in the Report of the
Commission on Survey and Occupation to the Congress
on Christian Work in Latin America at Panama in Febru-
ary, 1916, sets forth the facts with regard to immigra-
tion and they cannot be better stated.
"Latin America is one of the few remaining large
sections of the world at once productive and yet sparsely
occupied. History is repeating itself in the turning hither
of many to find homes under more favorable economic
conditions than those under which they have been liv-
ing. With an area of about 8,500,000 square miles it
has a population of about 80,000,000, or less than ten
persons to each square mile. Argentina, with an area
of 1,153,000 square miles, has a population of about
7,500,000, or less than seven to the square mile. New
York state with 49,000 square miles has a population of
9,000,000. In other words, Argentina has twenty-three
times the area of New York state and about seven ninths
of the population. If Argentina were as densely popu-
lated as New York state, her people would number 220,-
000,000. Brazil has over 200,000 square miles of terri-
tory in excess of the whole of continental United States,
but has less than one fourth as many people. Chile, with
a territory nearly as large as Norway and Sweden, has
less than one half the population. . . .
"About 1,000,000 immigrants entered the Latin- Amer-
ican countries in 1913, of whom about 45 per cent, re-
turned. Italy and Spain supply most of the immigrants.
Many Portuguese, Russians, French, Germans, Syrians,
Britons, Austrians, Swiss, Japanese, Chinese, East In-
dians, and other people are also entering. While the
number departing may appear large, it is not excessive
POLITICAL 23
when compared with the corresponding ebb in the United
States from which twenty-five per cent, reemigrated in
1913 and forty per cent, in 1912. The French, Spanish,
and Portuguese do not have to change their type of civili-
zation and are soon absorbed into the life of the people.
The English, Germans, and North Americans retain
their national habits more tenaciously, but in the second
and third generations are assimilative. . . .
"Latin America had a population of 15,000,00x3 a cen-
tury ago; to-day it has about 80,000,000. Formerly
immigration was restricted to the Latin race. With
transportation facilities multiplying and cheapened and
the Panama Canal open, these lands face all the congested
areas in the world. On the east their doors open to
Europe and Africa; on the west, to the millions of Asia.
Latin America will have its day in the twentieth century.
Calderon predicts a population of 250,000,000 by the
end of the century. There are many who believe it can
maintain a population of 500,000,000 or one third the
world's present total. Reclus makes the statement that
Latin America can feed one hundred persons per kilo-
meter, or over 2, 000,000,000.' n
Social Problems. This immigration must be assimi-
lated, and, while the climatic pressures are of course
automatically active, Latin America lacks the assimilative
agency of universal elementary education. The elements
which constitute the labor class in Argentina and Chile
are economically restless. "Not long ago," says Pro-
fessor Ross, "Enrico Ferri, the Italian sociologist, told
the Santiaguans that the social question will find Chile
^Report of Commission I on Survey and Occupation, 14-17.
24 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
*
worse prepared to meet it than any other country. He
was right. Blind to the signs of the times, the masters
have neglected popular education, so that once these be-
nighted masses come to feel a sense of wrong they will
turn savage and destructive. The most thoughtful men
in Chile anticipate the outbreak within fifteen or twenty
years of a bloody labor revolt, which even the soldiers
will not be able to quell because it will be universal."1
Latin America has a huge battle to fight against bad
sanitation and hygienic conditions which needlessly in-
crease the death-rate and impair national efficiency. In
Lima the infant death-rate is double that of Hamburg or
New York. In Chile one third of the children die under
one year of age. It ought to be one of the most beautiful
lands in the world. In Concepcion 46 per cent, of the
babies die. What can be done to abate disease has
been shown in Rio de Janeiro, which has been trans-
formed from a place of death into one of the loveliest
cities in the world. Latin America is awaking to the
necessity of fighting alcoholism which combines with
unhealthful living conditions to debase some of the Latin-
American nations. Of Chile, Professor Ross says : "The
neglect of public hygiene may be measured from the
fact that in one of the finest climates in the world the
death-rate equals that of Russia, being more than twice
that of the United States and Western Europe and a
half more than the mortality of Brazil and Argentina.
The avarice of the great wine growers has prevented any
state check to an alcoholism which cannot be matched
elsewhere on the globe."2 North and South America
^South of Panama, 376.
2 Ibid., 373-
POLITICAL 25
have the same battle to fight against this immeasurable
evil.
Sr. Pezet has spoken of the lax moral ideals brought
by the early conquerors. And Sr. Calderon is even more
outspoken with regard to the ethical inheritance which
Latin America has had to transcend. "Sensuality and
mysticism were the pleasures of the colonists. . . .
Away from home, a host of illegitimate unions, of concu-
bines, of clandestine amours." Latin America comments
with just horror on our divorce evil. And at home it has
to struggle with the marriage problem and illegitimacy,
the latter calling for more lenient judgment than could
be claimed where civil marriage prevails or the fees
for ecclesiastical marriage are less exacting. Accord-
ing to the census of Brazil in 1890, 2,603,489 or be-
tween one fifth and one sixth of the population are
returned as illegitimate. Mr. W. E. Curtis says that in
Ecuador more than one half of the population are of
illegitimate birth. At one time in Paraguay, after the
long wars, it was estimated that the percentage of illegiti-
mate births was over 90 per cent. In Venezuela, accord-
ing to the official statistics for 1906, there were that year
47,606 illegitimate births, or 68.8 per cent. In Chile the
general percentage is 33 per cent., and the highest in
any department a little over 66 per cent. In England the
percentage is 6 per cent., and in France and Belgium,
7 per cent. In Uruguay, in 1906, 27^2 per cent, of the
births were illegitimate. The statistics would seem to
show that the moral conditions in Brazil are better than
in any other South American land unless it be the Argen-
tine, for which no statistics of illegitimate births are
available.
26 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
The Plenary Council of the Latin-American Bishops
held in Rome in 1899, unflinchingly described the moral
conditions which it deplored in Latin -America. In its
Acts and Decrees the Council declared : "The widespread
pollution of fornication is to be deplored and condemned,
but especially the most foul pest of concubinage, which,
increasing both in public and in private, in great cities
as well as in country villages, is leading not a few men
of every station to eternal destruction."
The Advanced Nations. Thus far we have spoken
of Latin America as a whole, but, as was suggested in
a previous section, it is no more a complete unity than
the United States. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uru-
guay are so much more advanced and stable than the
other republics as to form a group by themselves. Argen-
tina is the strongest and at present the richest and most
progressive. Its society has shifted most from the old
colonial order. The Italian element ranks close to the
Spanish in the national character. Its capital is the
largest city of the world south of the equator. It is
the Latin-American Paris. "The forces contending for
the soul of the Argentine people are the same that we
know so well — democracy and plutocracy. The problem
is how to transform the spirit of the Creole society with-
out at the same time losing the poise, the self-restraint,
the sense of honor, and the idealism fostered in the
dominant element of the old regime, just as they were
fostered in the bygone planter aristocracy of the old
South. . . . Our people ought to feel a sisterly sym-
pathy with this new motley people, engaged in subduing
the wilderness and making it the seat of civilization. We
ought to understand the problems forced upon them by
POLITICAL 27
the disposal of a vast public domain, the urgent need of
means of transportation, the exclusive reliance upon
foreign capital, excessive dependence upon oversea
markets, heterogeneous immigration, sudden fortunes,
the spread of the get-rich-quick spirit, wastefulness in
government expenditures, and the reign of sordid in-
terests in public life. Have we not had them all?"1
Brazil is the largest Latin-American land. Its area
is 3,290,564 square miles. It is one half of South
America. It is nearly as large as Europe and larger than
Australia plus Germany. It has more than one third the
population of South America. It is the most oppressively
taxed land in South America; next to Argentina it has
been most affected by immigration; it has the largest
Negro population ; it ranks second in trade ; its people
are singularly friendly and amiable, and they have done
more by themselves to develop their country than any
other South American people.
Chile is, in Calderon's judgment, "a republic of the
Anglo-Saxon type." The names of influential Chilean
families show how much Anglo-Saxon blood is in the
nation. It is, like Argentina, a land of great estates held
chiefly by absentees and the produce of the fields flows
into the cities. This is better at least than in Argentina
where the wealth flows out to England and Germany.
No Latin- American land exceeds Chile in energy or
stamina. "Neither lottery nor bull-fight has ever struck
root in Chile." The Indian strain has given it a touch
of truculence. The nitrate finds taken from Peru have
relieved it of the burden of normal taxation. Property
ss, South of Panama, 137, 138.
28 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
under $2,000 is not taxed, and on property above that the
maximum tax rate is three mills per dollar, or about one
tenth of what we pay in many communities in the United
States.
Mexico. Sr. Calderon has drawn an unbiased pic-
ture of Mexico as Diaz left it: "He reorganized the
finances. In 1876, at the beginning of Diaz's rule, the!
Mexican imports amounted to 28,000,000 pesos (silver)
and the exports to 32,000,000; in 1901 the amount of the
former was 143,000,000 and of the latter 148,000,000.
The imports, a proof of the wealth of the country, had
increased fivefold ; the exports, a sign of agricultural and
mineral production, had increased almost in proportion.
In twenty years (1880-1900) the yield of the mining
industry increased from 24,000,000 to 60,000,000 and in
the same period twenty banks were founded. . . .
"He governed with the aid of the 'scientific' party — a
group which believes in the virtue and power of science,
exiles theology and metaphysics, denies mystery, and
confesses utilitarianism as its practise and positivism as
its doctrine. The Mexican politicians, in renouncing
Catholicism after the Reformation and the passing of
the Jacobin laws, have not abandoned dogma and absolu-
tism in doctrine and in life. As in modern Brazil, posi-
tivism is becoming the official doctrine. . . .
"The scientific party, intoxicated by an orgy of utili-
tarianism, has not sought to arrest the great plutocracy
of the North by means of European alliances.
"Unity, wealth, peace: these are the magnificent fea-
tures of modern Mexico, the admirable work of the
dictatorship. The Yankee peril; lay dogmas which
fetter intellectual evolution; a level of utilitarian medi-
POLITICAL 29
ocrity without ideals of expansion, without culture, with-
out the true Latin characteristics ; popular ignorance and
fresh revolutions : these are the disturbing aspects of this
long period of tutelage."1 What inevitably followed
•this autocratic substitution for democracy we all know.
The democracy reasserted itself, and needs help from
friends. It is absurd for us to assume that poor Mexico,
denied education and gripped in the monopolistic absorp-
tion of a "scientific" oligarchy, must be dealt with as
a stable and developed state, now that the untrained peo-
ple have uprisen. Instead of hostility and misjudgment
she needs from us constructive help in projecting a new
agricultural democracy and a system of national in-
dustries and moral education.
Progress Inevitable. Sooner or later a new situation
will arise in every Latin- American land, either by proc-
ess of peaceful development or through revolution and
war. These lands are not standing still. We misjudge
them if we regard them as unaffected by the same ideals
and hopes which animate us. It is true that there have
been many revolutions and that lands like Colombia and
Ecuador can remember greater and freer days than they
know now. But, as Lord Bryce says : "Argentina is now,
like Chile, a constitutional republic, whose defects, what-
ever they may be, are the defects of a republic, not of a
despotism disguised under republican forms. The ex-
amples of these two countries prove that there is nothing
in South American air or Spanish blood to prevent re-
publican institutions from working. If the working is
not perfect, neither is it perfect anywhere else in the
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress , 159-163.
30 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
world. . . . Taking the eleven South American states
as a whole, their condition is better than it was sixty
years ago. . . . Their difficulties were greater than any
European people had to face, and there is no need to be
despondent for their future/'1
Our Duty. The Panama Canal is a sign and a pledge
of our unity with Latin America. The motto of the
Canal Zone is "The Land Divided, the World United,"
and that motto has its deep moral significance. If the
canal is thought of simply as an agency of gain and
advantage to the United States and as necessitating the
extension of our sovereignty over adjoining territories
it will increase the suspicion and fear which Latin
America already feels. If it is thought of as our con-
tribution to the welfare and unity of all the American
nations, as a means of common enrichment, and as a bond
of friendship and understanding, we may go forward
into a new day.
It must be a day of acquaintance. As Sr. Pezet has
said: "No man can truly appreciate another if he does
not know him. No nation can feel friendship toward
another if it does not know it. But to know should imply
understanding, without which there can be nothing in
common, and understanding is essential to draw in-
dividuals together, and this is also true of nations. . . .
"Therefore, if such peoples wish to become friendly,
they must begin by knowing each other, becoming ac-
quainted through intercourse, and thus discover their
respective traits and characteristics, so that, in course of
time, a sentiment of understanding is born, which, being
1 South America: Observations and Impressions, 545, 548, 551.
POLITICAL 31
reciprocal, eventually gives way to friendship, and, in
like manner, to amity between nations."1
It must be a day of service. We can begin with the
thousand Latin-American students now in the colleges
and universities of the United States and we must go out
into all the Latin-American lands. There are in these
lands, as the Commission on Survey and Occupation
said at Panama, "all the conditions maturing for great
movements and consequences. Crowded populations
made aware of productive, unoccupied lands tend to
migrate. The progressive stabilization of the govern-
ments calls forth capital formerly reluctant. Railroads
throw open regions hitherto inaccessible and idle. The
advance of scientific sanitation renders the old cities and
new territories safely habitable. Education overtaking
illiteracy turns the weakness of nations into strength,
raising reciprocally the ambitions, the productivity, and
the economic consumption of millions. The resulting
civilization, like that of the North, will be a congeries of
many peoples and races with variety, yet essential unity.
This civilization, fronting East and West, reaching out
to all the continents, is veritably seated at a cross-roads
of the world. Nations, like individuals, cannot mingle
in the markets and exchanges, sit together in world
councils, learn one another's languages, interblend their
stock, without sharing ideas, ideals, and institutions.
The people of Latin America, for their own sake, are
eminently worthy to receive the maximum ministry Chris-
tianity has to offer. The multiplying and strengthening
relations binding them to all the world render imperative
1 "Contrast in the Development of Nationality in Anglo-
America and Latin America," 3.
32 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
and fitting their inclusion and identification with what-
ever forces are joining efforts for the establishment of
the kingdom of God on earth."1
The Latin Americans and ourselves are neighbors on
these two continents by the will of God. They are not
we, and we are not they. God might have ordered that
all this Western world should be theirs or ours. He
set us both here with our diverse racial inheritance and
political, educational, and national spirit and character,
separated by wide and deep divergencies which have pro-
duced distrust and suspicion and mis judgments. But his
will is a will of concord and unity, not of strife and dis-
sension, and the various gifts of the diverse races are
all meant for his use and are to be brought into his king-
dom. More powerful, accordingly, than all the elements
of dissension are his purposes of brotherhood and the
forces by which all of the peoples of these Western con-
tinents are being educated for a common service. Our
similar equipment of natural resources, our kindred prob-
lems in mastering nature and in creating honest, gener-
ous, and purified societies, and our common duty to God
and the world, mark out before us a common way. To-
gether we need to seek and to tread that way, to offer and
to accept all brotherly help, to sympathize and to under-
stand and to trust, and to build in simple purpose and
in sincere faith the enduring house of the commonwealth
of God.
Report of Commission I on Survey and Occupation, 87.
II
COMMERCIAL
Latin America's Handicap. In trade and industry
as in politics, the Latin- American nations have an inherit-
ance to reckon with. The Manifesto "Addressed to all
nations of the earth by the General Constituent Congress
of the United Provinces of South America, respecting
the treatment and cruelties they have experienced from
the Spaniards, and which have given rise to the Declara-
tion of Independence," adopted at Buenos Aires, October
25, 1817, sets forth in the wholesale style of such docu-
ments some of the commercial injustices which the
Latin-American peoples suffered. "The Spaniards,"
declared these sons of Spain who had breathed the
air of American freedom, "placed a barrier to the popu-
lation of the country. They prohibited, under laws the
most rigorous, the ingress of foreigners, and in every pos-
sible respect limited that of even Spaniards themselves,
although in times more recent the emigration of
criminal and immoral men, outcasts, was encouraged,
of men such as it was expedient to expel from the
Peninsula. . . .
"Hundreds of leagues do we still behold, unsettled and
uncultivated, in the space intervening from one city
to another. Entire towns have, in some places, dis-
appeared, either buried in the ruins of mines, or their
inhabitants destroyed by the compulsive and poisonous
33
34 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
labor of working them; nor have the cries of all Peru,
nor the energetic remonstrances of the most zealous minis-
ters, been capable of reforming this exterminating sys-
tem of forced labor, carried on within the bowels of the
earth. . . .
"Commerce has at all times been an exclusive monopoly
in the hands of the traders of Spain and the consignees
they sent over to America. . . . She carried on an ex-
clusive trade because she supposed opulence would make
us proud and inclined to free ourselves from outrage.
She denied to us the advancement of industry in order
that we might be divested of the means of rising out of
misery and poverty ; and we were excluded from offices
of trust in order that Peninsulars only might hold influ-
ence in the country, and form the necessary habits and
inclinations, with a view of leaving us in such a state
of dependence as to be unable to think or act, unless
according to Spanish forms."1
The picture is doubtless of deeper shade because of
the earnestness of the men who drew it, but it is not
surprising that they set forth the facts bitterly.
Modern Financial History. And the more modern
commercial development of Latin America has had un-
happy features also. Sr. Calderon sets forth the eco-
nomic problems with criticism as competent and unspar-
ing as that which he applies to the political conditions :
"Unexploited wealth abounds in America. ... By
means of long-sustained efforts, an active race would
have won financial independence. The Latin Amer-
icans, idle, and accustomed to leave everything to the
aHezekiah Butterworth, South America, 72-77*
COMMERCIAL 35
initiative of the state, have been unable to effect the
conquest of the soil, and it is foreign capital that exploits
the treasure of America. . . . Loans accumulated, and
very soon various states were obliged to solicit the simul-
taneous reduction of the capital borrowed and the rate
of interest paid. The lamentable history of these
bankrupt democracies dates from this period. Little by
little these financial contracts lost all semblance of serious
business. In the impossibility of obtaining really solid
guaranties the bankers imposed preposterous conditions,
and issue at a discount became the rule with the new
conventions. A series of interventions in Buenos Aires,
Mexico, Santo Domingo, and Venezuela, diplomatic con-
flicts, and claims for indemnity resulted from this pre-
carious procedure. Moreover, thanks to the protection'
accorded by their respective countries, foreigners ac-
quired a privileged position. The Americans were sub-
jected to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, before
which they could demand the payment of their claims on
the state; foreigners enjoyed exceptional treatment. A
statute was enacted in their favor, and their govern-
ments supported them in the recovery of unjustifiable
claims. Sir Charles Wyke, English minister to Mexico,
wrote to the Foreign Office in 1862: 'Nineteen out of
twenty foreigners who reside in this unfortunate coun-
try have some claim against the government in one way
or another. Many of these claims are really based on
the denial of real justice, while others have been fabri-
cated throughout, as a good speculation, which would
enable the claimant to obtain money for some imaginary
wrong; for example, three days' imprisonment which
was intentionally provoked with the object of formulat-
36 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
ing a claim which might be pushed to an exorbitant
figure/
"In face of the string of debts which arose from the
loans themselves, or from claims for damages suffered
during the civil wars, the governments could only suc-
cumb. The immorality of the fiscal agents and the
greed of the foreigner will explain these continual bank-
ruptcies, which constitute the financial history of Amer-
ica. . . .
"On the one hand the budget is loaded to create new
employments in order to assuage the national appetite
for sinecures, while the protective tariffs are raised to
enrich the state. Thus the forces of production dis-
appear, life becomes dearer, and poverty can only in-
crease. America has until lately known little of pro-
ductive loans intended for use in the construction of
railways, irrigation works, harbors, or for the organiza-
tion of colonies of immigrants.
"The product of the customs and other fiscal dues
is not enough to stimulate the material progress of a
nation. So application is made to the bankers of London
or Paris ; but it is the very excess of these loan operations
and the bad employment of the funds obtained that im-
poverishes the continent. . . .
"The budgets of various states complicate still further
a situation already difficult. They increase beyond all
measure, without the slightest relation to the progress
made by the nation. They are based upon taxes which
are one of the causes of the national impoverishment,
or upon a protectionist tariff which adds greatly to the
cost of life. The politicians, thinking chiefly of appear-
ances, neglect the development of the national resources
COMMERCIAL 37
for the immediate augmentation of the fiscal revenues;
thanks to fresh taxes, the budgets increase. These re-
sources are not employed in furthering profitable under-
takings, such as building railroads or highways, or in-
creasing the navigability of the rivers. The bureaucracy
is increased in a like proportion, and the budgets, swelled
in order to dupe the outside world, serve only to support
a nest of parasites. . . .
"To sum up, the new continent, politically free, is
economically a vassal. This dependence is inevitable;
without European capital there would have been no
railways, no ports, and no stable government in Amer-
ica. But the disorder which prevails in the finances
of the country changes into a real servitude what might
otherwise have been a beneficial relation. By the ac-
cumulation of loans frequent crises are provoked, and
frequent occasions of foreign intervention/'
And yet Sr. Calderon closes with this hopeful view:
"Latin America may already be considered as independ-
ent from the agricultural point of view ; it possesses riches
which are peculiar to it: coffee to Brazil, wheat to the
Argentine, sugar to Peru, fruits and rubber to the tropics.
Its productive capacity is considerable. It may rule the
markets of the world. The systematic exploitation of its
mines will reveal treasures which are not even suspected.
We may say, then, that even without great industries the
American continent, independent in the agricultural
domain, and an exporter of precious metals, may win a
doubtless precarious economic liberty."1
Area. South America, both in its physical geogra-
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 378-382, 386.
38 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
phy and in its people, presents vivid contrasts with our
own continent. The two continents do not vary greatly
in size. The areas of North America and South Amer-
ica, according to the figures of the Pan-American Union,
are 8,559,000 and 7,598,000 square miles respectively.
But the two continents are of strikingly different con-
figuration, and in the matter of river systems South
America is more richly equipped than any other con-
tinent. This water system renders the development of
interior South America far simpler than the development
of interior Africa. It can be made to do for these
republics what China's water system, much of it artificial,
has done for China.
We can best appreciate the greatness of these South
American nations by comparing them with our own
states. Brazil exceeds the whole United States in size
by an area of 200,000 square miles, or four times the
state of New York.
"In Argentina, located in the south temperate zone,
with a climate like that of the United States, could be
placed all that part of our country east of the Mississippi
River plus the first tier of states west of it.
"Bolivia is comfortably half a dozen times larger than
the combined area of New. York, New Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, and Delaware.
"Into Chile could be put four Nebraskas.
"Peru would obscure, if placed over them on the map,
California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Utah,
and Idaho.
"Paraguay is only four times bigger than the state of
Indiana, while little Uruguay could wrap within its
limits North Dakota.
COMMERCIAL 39
"Texas could be lost twice in Venezuela and still leave
room for Kentucky and Tennessee.
"On the globe, Ecuador does not spread like a giant,
but it could hold all New England, New York, and
New Jersey.
"Finally, there is Colombia, a land of splendid promise
and mighty resources, whose nearest port is only 950
miles from the nearest port of the United States. This
republic has an area as great as that of Germany, France,
Holland, and Belgium combined."1
Population, The population of South America is
less than one half of that of North America. North
America has about 136,000,000 people, of whom less than
100,000,000 are white, and South America has approxi-
mately 55,000,000 inhabitants, of whom less than 20,000,-
ooo are of pure white blood. South America is more
thinly settled, with the population scattered over an
immense area, than any other part of the world. Its
population has grown less rapidly than that of any
other portion of the world unless it is Africa.
The 80,000,000 of Latin Americans can be roughly
divided into the following racial groups :
Whites 18,000,000
Indians 17,000,000
. Negroes 6,000,000
Mixed White and Indian 30,000,000
Mixed White and Negro 8,000,000
Mixed Negro and Indian 700,000
East Indian, Japanese, and Chinese 300,000
80,000,000
The population per square mile of some of the differ-
^John Barrett, "Latin America, the Land of Opportunity," 28.
40 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
ent countries of the world will show the opportunity for
development in South America. The following figures
are based on statistics published in the Statesman's
Year Book and the World Almanac. They are for the
most part for the years 1914, 1915, or 1916, but allow-
ance should be made for the fact that areas and popula-
tions of many of the countries now at war have varied
greatly in the past two years.
Belgium 652 Mexico 19
England and Wales 633 Chile 12
Japan 364 Brazil 7.3
France 189 Argentina 6.9
Guatemala 43 Peru 6.6
United States 34 Bolivia 3.4
Natural Resources. It is customary to speak with
unlimited wonder of the wealth and resources of South
America. It is not to be doubted that the continent has
immense riches of agricultural product and mineral
treasure waiting to be developed, but the general im-
pression produced upon the observant visitor is disap-
pointing. There are deserts more barren than the worst
of ours. The tropical forests and vegetation are coarse
and oppressive. The rain and warmth produce luxuriant
growths, but tender things, green grass, and little flowers
die in the shadows or are scorched in the heat. The
table-lands of the Andes above the timber line and with
too high an altitude for corn or wheat, the rainless
stretches of arid soil, the sandy wastes even in the
tropics, the swamps and miasmic forests must all be
measured when we talk of the agricultural possibilities
of South America. The great broken ranges of the
Andes make many of the mineral resources almost in-
COMMERCIAL 41
accessible and the engineering problems involved in
railways are far more difficult than with us.
This is an overconservative way of stating the case.
A much brighter view is possible. The Report of the
Panama Congress Commission on Survey and Occupa-
tion gives it to us :
"Here are vast quantities of raw material with which
to supply the world. Latin America has large areas
to be eliminated from this reckoning. . . . But on the
whole it is apparent that most of the agricultural soil
has been little used where broken at all, while the mining
resources have been scarcely touched. As soon as the
countries are more adequately settled and scientifically
developed, raw materials will pour forth in tremendous
volume. The fertility of enormous sections in Brazil,
Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Central America,
Mexico, Cuba, and Porto Rico cannot be surpassed any-
where in the world. The habitable, cultivable area south
of the United States exceeds that of the remaining por-
tion of the western hemisphere. It extends from the
north temperate zone to Cape Horn, and hence has all
the climatic conditions from tropical heat to arctic cold.
All the varied products of the entire globe can be culti-
vated."1
A land like Argentina justifies such a view. Already
the foreign exports of the Argentine far exceed the
exports of all the rest of South America combined, ex-
cepting Brazil. As a commercial country it rivals Canada
and outranks Japan, China, Mexico, Australia, and
Spain. The country is still thinly settled, about 7 to the
^Report of Commission I to the Panama Congress, 12.
42 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
square mile as compared with 34 in the United States
and 633 in England, and its agricultural resources are
only on the threshold of development. There are 21,-
ooo miles of railroad as compared with 15,272 in Brazil,
with new lines building in both countries.
"The producing capacity of the country is steadily
increasing, and in cereal production its status is evidenced
by the fact that as a corn exporter the Argentine Re-
public took first rank in 1908, occupying the place
formerly held by the United States. In the production
of this foodstuff the country ranks third, and as a wheat
grower fifth. It is first as an exporter of frozen meat
and second as a shipper of wool.
"In the number of its cattle the republic holds third
place among the nations, being ranked with India and
the United States. Russia and the United States exceed
it in the number of horses, and Australia alone has a
greater number of sheep."1
The facts for the rest of Latin America are well
summarized in the Panama Congress Report:
"Brazil is also an agricultural country, producing
sugar, cotton, tobacco, timber, rubber, cocoa, and nuts.
At least two thirds of the world's coffee supply and
one third of the crude rubber come from Brazil. In
1913 it had about 70,000,000 head of cattle, pigs, sheep,
horses, and mules. The state of Pernambuco has forty-
seven sugar factories. Brazilian foreign commerce,
amounting in 1913 to about $641,000,000, is still in its
infancy. The imports in 1913 exceeded the exports, but
in the ten years previous to 1913 the excess of exports
"The Argentine Republic, 1909," 11, 15, 17, 18.
COMMERCIAL 43
over imports amounted to $768,000,000. The country
offers a great market for hardware, implements, and
clothing. The mining territory has been only partially
explored. Agricultural possibilities are enormous. States
like Sao Paulo are proceeding to realize them. Virgin
forests are full of rosewood and of other valuable hard-
woods. The potential 'white coal' in the mighty Brazil-
ian rivers as they drop from the plateaus is incalculable.
The development of a single light and power company
represents millions of dollars of capital.
"The total area of Chile's agricultural land, most of
which must be irrigated, is 95,000,000 acres, but less than
2,000,000 acres are under cultivation. There are also
nearly 40,000,000 acres of forest'land which when cleared
will become splendid farming land. The remainder of
Chile is sterile, but Chile's ready wealth at present is in
its sterile land, because of its great nitrate beds and
varied mineral veins. Chile's greatest industry is the
mining of nitrates. The value of this export alone was
about $120,000,000 in 1913. Her foreign commerce for
the same year amounted to $270,000,000 or about three
eighths as much as that of Japan.
"Uruguay is agricultural and pastoral, exporting wool,
wheat, flour, corn, linseed, barley, hay, and tobacco. It
has a total of about 35,000,000 head of livestock. The
foreign trade in 1913 approximated $120,000,000.
"Paraguay produces a native tea and tobacco. Bolivia
exports tin, copper, silver, and rubber. She has extensive
tracts of timber in the eastern section. Further agri-
cultural development, perhaps remote, will open up mil-
lions of acres in the lower levels of the interior. Peru
produces gold, silver, copper, cotton, coffee, and sugar,
44 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
and is now beginning to yield valuable rubber, hard-
woods, and medicinal vegetable products. Its foreign
commerce in 1913 amounted to $75,000,000. Peru's
arable area is equal to the combined areas of Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, and California, with only seven per
cent, of its surface under development. Ecuador pro-
duces cocoa, Panama hats, ivorynuts, coffee, and rice.
Colombia yields coffee, cocoa, bananas, rubber, salt, coal,
and iron, and has probably some of the richest mineral
areas in the world. The foreign commerce amounted
to about $60,000,000 in 1913. Venezuela has an immense
area and great resources including mountain forests. It
can grow a large variety of cereals, though its principal
exports have been cattle, cocoa, rubber, and hides.
"Mexico is well suited to agriculture, having both a
temperate and a tropical climate. Here can be raised
all the products grown in the United States and Germany,
as well as those grown in central Africa and Ceylon. It
produces corn, wheat, rubber, and coffee, and has rich
mining territory and what are considered among the
richest deposits of petroleum in the world. The mining
output has reached about $90,000,000 annually. Foreign
commerce before the recent revolution amounted to
nearly $250,000,000 annually.
"The Central American nations in 1913 had a total
foreign commerce of $85,000,000. Cuba gives up al-
most its entire energies to the production of tobacco and
sugar, and is therefore obliged to import nearly every-
thing else needed. Her total foreign commerce in 1913
amounted to $300,000,000. Porto Rico's commerce with
the United States and foreign countries in 1914 reached
nearly $400,000,000. The principal products are sugar,
COMMERCIAL 45
tobacco, coffee, and fruit. Cuba and Porto Rico will
increasingly supply the United States with vegetables,
fruits, sugar, and other table articles. Haiti and the
Dominican Republic have a combined foreign trade of
about $45,000,000; while that of the British, French, and
Dutch colonies in Latin America amounts to about $35,-
ooo/xxx"1
A tabular statement will show the comparative de-
velopment of the various American lands, and will also
indicate the distinction between the progressive and back-
ward republics by the separate grouping of Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Central America and the
other Latin states are also so grouped. The following
statistics are a compilation from the Bulletin of the Pan-
American Union, Koebel's The South Americans, the
Statesman's Year Book, the World Almanac, and the
Foreign Trade Department of the National City Bank.
In all cases the figures given above are the latest
available, varying from 1913 to 1915 for trade statistics,
and for populations, in many cases earlier, on account
of the in frequency of censuses. It should be remem-
bered that the foreign trade of practically all the Latin-
American republics has undergone a serious reduction
as a consequence of the European war. The export
trade of the United States and Canada are practically
the only items in this table which have increased on
account of the war, while in the case of every country
without exception, whose official statistics are at hand,
a larger percentage of its imports for 1915 were drawn
from the United States than in 1913.
^Report of Commission I to the Panama Congress, 12, 13.
46 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN COUNTRIES
Area
(in Thou-
sands of
Square
Miles)
Popula-
tion
(in
Millions)
Railroad
Mileage
Total
Imports
(Millions
of
Dollars)
Total
Exports
(Millions
of
Dollars)
Argentina
1,139
7 9
21,000
219
538
Brazil
3,218
24 3
15272
146
257
Chile
291
3 5
5,000
56
117
Uruguay
72
1 3
1 600
36
62
Total
4 720
37 0
42 872
457
974
Paraguay .
171
8
232
2.3
5 4
Bolivia
514
2 2
756
7 7
33
Peru
679
4 5
1,800
23
42
.Ecuador
116
1 5
365
8
12
Colombia
438
5 5
700
18
29
Venezuela
393
2 6
633
11
21
British Guiana . .
89
3
103
8
13
French Guiana
32
.05
o
2
1.9
Dutch Guiana
46
08
37
2 5
2 5
Total
2 478
17 53
4 626
82 5
159 8
Panama
32
.42
202
9.6
5
Costa Rica . .
23
42
430
7 5
10
Nicaragua
49
5
171
4.0
4.8
Salvador
7
1 7
263
4 8
10
Guatemala
48
2 1
502
5.7
11
Honduras
46
6
150
5 9
3 9
British Honduras
8 5
04
25
2 9
2.9
Total
213 5
5 78
1,743
40 4
47 6
IVlexico
765
15
16,000
94
145
Cuba
44
2 4
2,200
155
251
Haiti
10
2
70
4
4.2
Santo Domingo .
19
7
150
4.4
10
Porto Rico
3.6
1.1
220
33
49
Lesser Antilles
13 4
2 28
336
58
58
Total
855 0
23 48
18,976
348.4
517 2
United States
3 616
102
263,547
1,778
3,547
Canada & Newfoundland . .
3,892
8.3
31,670
464
629
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. These four
republics include two thirds of the population, but they
carry on seven eighths of the trade of the continent.
Practically all of the immigration to South America has
been to these four countries, and it is not without shame
that we note that the parts of South America farthest
COMMERCIAL 47
from the United States are the most prosperous parts.
Europe has done far more to develop South American
trade and resources than we have done, and the best
life of South America to-day is the life which has been
most touched by northern European influence.
The total population of South America is about
55,000,000, its exports in 1915 were about $i, 134,000,000
gold, and its imports about $540,000,000. The great
excess of exports over imports would be a good sign but
for the fact that a great deal of the capital engaged in
producing the exports is foreign capital and that the
earnings of this capital go out of the country. The same
thing is true of most of the railway earnings. If it were
not for Brazil and Argentina and Chile, these immense
territories would show a commerce less than Denmark's
alone. Even poor Persia has an export and import trade
exceeding that of Paraguay, Ecuador, and Colombia.
There are great resources in South America, but they are
not easily developed. The local populations are incom-
petent to develop them. Commercially, the continent is
dependent upon energy and capital from without. When
these are introduced, however, what has already been
done in Argentina and Brazil shows what may be ex-
pected in the development of South American resources.
The total foreign trade1 (in millions of dollars) of the
four republics commonly grouped together as the ad-
vanced states, has grown in the period 1894-1915 as
follows :
Argentina from 194 to 757
Brazil from 217 to 4o3
Chile from 1 18 to 17,
Uruguay from 61 to
Koebel, The South Americans, 358.
48 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
In every case both the imports and exports of these
countries have shown a decided falling off in the period
since the beginning of the European war. Yet the amaz-
ing per capita trade of Argentina and Uruguay is still
from 40 to 80 per cent, greater than that of the United
States. Brazil, with a population of 24,000,000, exports
as much as China, with a population of more than 320,-
000,000. Argentina, with a population of 7,000,000, has
exports and imports exceeding by $140,000,000 the total
exports and imports of Japan, with a population seven
times that of the Argentine. The exports of Brazil and
Argentina combined, with a population of 31,000,000,
exceed by $180,000,000 the combined exports of Japan
and China, with a population of 380,000,000, twelve
times the combined population of Brazil and the Argen-
tine. In proportion, Chile far exceeds in her foreign
trade both Japan and China. If Japan exported as much
in proportion to her population as Chile does, Japan's
exports would amount not to $353,000,000, but to more
than $2,400,000,000, while China's would amount, not to
$260,000,000, but to more than $10,000,000,000! From
such facts one may gain some impression of the un-
developed trade of the Far East, especially when he
reminds himself that the trade of South America is only
beginning.
R is in large part because of the woeful undevelop-
ment of indigenous manufacture that the imports of
South America are so great. She exports agricultural
and mineral products and imports all else, and some of
the South American countries have to import foodstuffs
also, although there is not one of them that could not
amply supply a population many times as great as its own.
COMMERCIAL 49
Inter-American Trade. One of the greatest trade
opportunities of the United States is in Latin America.
In the first eight months of the government fiscal year
1909-10 our exports to Asia were $72,000,000, a loss
of $2,000,000 as compared with the preceding year,
while our trade with the rest of the western hemisphere
was $300,000,000, a gain of $60,000,000. Our trade with
Porto Rico was greater than our trade with either China
or Japan, and our trade with Cuba exceeded our trade
with China and Japan combined. In 1899, our exports
to South America were $15,000,000 less than to Asia,
but in 1909 they were $10,000,000 greater. The Hon.
John Barrett has stated vividly the facts as to the extent
of South America's trade and our inadequate but in-
creasing share in it.
"The latest data compiled in the Pan-American Union
disclose the imposing fact that the twenty Latin-Amer-
ican countries of North America and South America
conducted, in 1913, a foreign commerce valued at the
vast total of $2,843,178,575, or nearly $3,000,000,000.
Of this amount they imported products valued at $i,-
304,261,763. Of this total, in turn, there came from
Great Britain products valued at $322,036,347; from
Germany, $216,010,418; from France, $103,220,223;
from Italy, $55,494,413; from Belgium, $48,747,164;
from Austria-Hungary, $9,026,478; from the Nether-
lands, $8,293,859; from Switzerland, $6,189,050; and
from all other countries, excepting the United States,
$217,920,517. . . . The United States supplied pro-
ducts valued at $317,323,294. This means that Latin
America in 1913 bought from countries other than the
United States imports valued at $986,938,469, and that
So THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
of this total approximately $718,000,000 came from
countries now engaged in a great war, the manufactur-
ing, exporting, and financial facilities of which are to-
day either paralyzed or greatly lessened in efficiency of
operation and production.
"Considering next the exports of Latin America, we
have an even greater field of mingled responsibility and
opportunity for the legitimate activity of the United
States. It would be selfish indeed and cold-blooded in
such a crisis for the business interests of the United
States to think only of selling to Latin America and not
of buying from her so as to provide a market for her
accumulating raw products and other exports that usu-
ally go to Europe. Fair exchange is no robbery, and
in this unique situation it may develop comity and confi-
dence as well as commerce. All Latin America, in 1913,
exported products valued at $1,538,916,812. Of this
total the share of Great Britain was $316,419,914; Ger-
many, $192,394,702; France, $120,907,415; Belgium,
$62,557,566; Netherlands, $43,277,631; Italy, $27,964,-
ooi ; Austria-Hungary, $23,294,991 ; and all other coun-
tries, excepting the United States, $247,722,380. . . . The
share of the United States in the exports of Latin Amer-
ica was larger than that of any other country and
amounted to $504,378,212. While it may surprise the
average man that the United States buys to this extent
from Latin America, he must not forget that there re-
mained the large total of $1,034,538,600 purchased by
other countries. Of this big total, $715,474,588 were
bought by those lands which are at present engaged in
desperate warfare. If then in some way the United
States can enlarge its purchases from Latin America it
COMMERCIAL 51
will greatly aid in reducing the unproductive congestion
and relieving the financial strain that must otherwise
characterize the principal exporting centers of Latin
America."1
The course of trade has turned now from Europe to
the United States, and is gaining steadily. In the four
years, 1909 to 1912, our trade with South America in-
creased from $277,000,000 to $373,000,000.
Exports from the United States increased during the
four years, to Chile 140 per cent.; to Venezuela, 116 per
cent. ; to Brazil, 104 per cent. ; to Colombia, 94 per cent. ;
to Uruguay, 82 per cent.; to Argentina, 41 per cent.;
and to Peru, 36 per cent.
In dollars the trade to Brazil shows the largest in-
crease, having jumped from $20,000,000 in 1909, to
$41,000,000 in 1912. In Argentina it increased from
$36,000,000 to $51,000,000; in Chile from $7,000,000 to
$15,000,000; and in Venezuela from $2,500,000 to $5,-
700,000.
"Imports from these countries increased to much
larger totals, but not in as great proportion as the ex-
ports to them. From Brazil this country imported in
1909 goods valued at $134,000,000 and in 1912 at $173,-
000,000; from Argentina, $64,000,000 and $85,000,000;
from Chile, $23,000,000 and $38,000,000 ; from Colombia,
$12,000,000 and $21,000,000; and from Venezuela, $10,-
000,000 and $i7,cxx),ooo."2
In January, 1916, our exports to South America were
more than double those of January, 1915, and for the
seven months ending with January, 1916, were more
Barrett, "The Pan-American Era," 3, 5.
2 Boston Herald, March 3, 1913.
52 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
than double those for the corresponding months preced-
ing. The "General Survey of Latin- American Trade in
1913," published by the Pan- American Union, declares:
"The United States controls nearly three tenths of all
Latin-American trade. This is over one third to one
half more than that controlled by its nearest rival, the
United Kingdom, and double or more than double the
proportion of Germany. To many Americans this state-
ment sometimes causes surprise. . . .
"In the northern group of states, Mexico, Central
America, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, to
which are added Venezuela and Colombia in South Amer-
ica, the United States controls about 60 per cent, of the
whole trade of these twelve countries, as is shown by
the following table:
1913 Imports Exports Total
Total trade $350,697,079 $455,051,491 $795,748,570
Share of the United States, 174,419,399 300,549,379 474,968,778
Per cent, of the United States, 49.7 67.5 59.6
"In addition to the countries mentioned, the United
States leads in the total trade of Ecuador, in Peru it leads
in imports, and is a close second to the United Kingdom
in total trade. In Brazil it has a commanding lead in
exports, its takings from Brazil being more than twice
that of any other two countries. In the five countries not
mentioned the trade of the United States ranks below
that of both the United Kingdom and Germany.
"For a number of years the United States has been
the leading country in Latin- American exports ; that is,
it has taken more of the products of these republics than
has any other country of the world, but heretofore it has
always been second to the United Kingdom [in imports].
COMMERCIAL 53
In 1913, for the first time in history, the United States
led in Latin-American imports as well as in exports.
This is the most significant fact to be derived from the
study of the figures for that year. So far from being
distanced by Europe, the United States has in fact gained
more rapidly than any of its rivals, not only in the north-
ern or near-by group of countries, but also in the southern.
Under normal conditions and if the European war had
never occurred, everything pointed to the belief that
the great bulk of the trade, both in imports and in ex-
ports, for nearly every one of the Latin-American coun-
tries, would in a few years move north and south and
not east and west"1
Foreign Capital. Foreign capital is absolutely
essential to the development of Latin America, and yet
the introduction of foreign capital has the disadvantages
referred to by Sr. Calderon. It introduces the risk of
political complications. It is often wasted. It leaves in
Latin America wages, permanent improvements, and
accessory benefits, but it transfers to the investing lands
the profits on the investment. This needs to be kept in
mind in thinking of the agricultural and mineral pro-
ducts of these lands. We can easily deceive ourselves as
to their prosperity. When we realize the facts we can
sympathize with the unreflecting and indiscriminate
antagonism to foreign capital sometimes displayed. The
facts regarding British investments in South America
and the question which they present to the Christian
conscience are set forth in a leaflet of the South Amer-
ican Missionary Society of Great Britain as follows :
^Bulletin of the Pan-American Union, 1914, 981, 982.
54 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
"The South American Journal, after careful investi-
gations, gives the following as the present amount (1910)
of British capital invested in the republics of South
America together with the actual figures of the interest
received in that year by British investors. Bolivia does
not appear in the list, there being no British capital as
yet invested there.
Capital Interest
Argentina £280,732,026 £13,206,149
Brazil 140,246,278 6,990,292
Chile 47,694,815 2,326,097
Uruguay 44,691,257 1,904,088
Peru 23,014,000 419,800
Venezuela 7,148,109 186,434
Colombia 5,826,976 202,103
Ecuador 2,973,800 152,512
Paraguay 2,814,780 49,555
Totals £555,142,041 £25,437,030
"Argentina leads easily. In the above figures banks
and shipping are not included, as they cannot be con-
sidered as relating to any particular country. Nearly
one half of the total is concerned with the railways,
about one third is concerned with the bonds of the
various governments and municipalities, the remainder
being invested in miscellaneous securities.
"What percentage of this immense annual revenue is
devoted by its recipients to the spiritual welfare of the
lands and peoples where those dividends are earned?
Surely those dividends bring with them a weighty re-
sponsibility/'
Our bankers have urged larger investments from the
United States. And many Latin-American bankers are
soliciting such investment. An Argentine banker
recently visiting New York puts it this way :
COMMERCIAL 55
"American traders must realize that the powerful
hold Europe has had in the past in Argentina was
through the money invested in local industries and public
utility companies, which naturally gave the preference
in their orders to the country to which their directors
and shareholders belonged. This circumstance has in
former years told against American trade. The time
to remedy this situation has arrived. It is here now.
"According to my calculation, foreign capital in
Argentina amounts to $3,000,000,000, of which almost
half is invested in railways, 15 per cent, in mortgages,
and the balance in land, public utilities, and pastoral
pursuits. Much of this capital will be compulsorily with-
drawn from Argentina, owing to the necessities of the
situation. It is certain that the European nations will
need their money at home, while the heavy war taxes are
an element in the situation."1
But if we bind more closely the ties between Latin
America and ourselves in this way, three responsibilities
need to be remembered : ( i ) to invest honestly in worthy
things; (2) to use our investments for the real economic
advantages of Latin America; and (3) to accompany
our investments of money with our friendship and our
moral help.
Taxation. The burden of taxation in the South
American states is very uneven. In Chile it is exceed-
ingly light, as we have seen. In Argentina it is heavier.
In Buenos Aires there are imposts upon street-cars,
carriages, dogs, theaters, bill-boards, billiard-halls, tele-
graph and telephone messages, the use of spaces under
JNew York Times, April 6, 1916.
56 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
city streets, on provisions and wagons conveying them
about the city, pedlers, hotels, cellars, etc. But in Brazil
the burden is heaviest of all. There are large import
duties, and the internal revenue levies are almost crush-
ing to industry. Everything is taxed. Even the poor
farmer bringing his goods to market is taxed at the city
gate or in the market. Prices in Brazil and Argentina,
accordingly, are higher than anywhere else in South
America, and many forms of trade are intolerably
burdened. In Brazil especially a wise and frugal and
honest political administration would undoubtedly re-
sult in such an expansion of industry and eommerce as
would double the prosperity of the land.
Immigration. The expansion of trade and prosperity
in South America is proportionate to the introduction
of energy and capacity and character from without.
South American progress is not indigenous. It is im-
ported. Those countries which have received no immi-
gration are almost as stagnant "now as they have been
for generations. The northern and western nations, that
is, from Venezuela around to Bolivia, together with
Paraguay, are the backward nations. There are no rail-
roads, no banks, no great business interests in all these
republics which do not depend somewhere upon foreign
character and ability. And even in Chile foreign enter-
prise and integrity are employed in every great com-
mercial enterprise. Even on the ships of the Chilean
corporation, the Compania Sud-Americana de Vapores,
all the captains and responsible officers are foreign. And
it is the scarcity of this foreign element in . all these
lands which accounts for their backwardness.
There has been no immigration to any but the four
COMMERCIAL 57
leading republics, of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uru-
guay. In Venezuela, in 1894, the latest reliable figures
show that there were 44,129 foreign residents, of whom
13,179 were Spaniards, 11,081 Colombians, 6,154 British,
3,179 Italians, 2,545 French, 962 Germans, 55 North
Americans. In Bolivia there are only 1,441 Europeans.
In Peru about 70,000 people enter the country annually
and 60,000 leave, a net gain of 10,000 per annum, but
few of them are Europeans. And yet it is the European
and American element that is to be credited with almost
all of Peru's commercial and industrial advancement.
Paraguay, which claims to be able to support a popula-
tion of 69,000,000 and has an estimated population of
800,000, reports only 4,000 Europeans, although it en-
courages immigration. Contrast with these lands the
four more prosperous states. Brazil received 76,292
colonists in 1901, while the total number who came from
1855 to 1901 was 2,023,693. The number of immigrants
is less now than it was twenty years ago. In 1891, due
in part to a crisis in the Argentine which lessened the
immigration there, 277,808 people came to Brazil, of
whom 116,000 were Italians. The Statesman's Year
Book estimates that there are 1,000,000 Germans in
Brazil, which is probably an overestimate. Sao Paulo
is almost a foreign city, and the result is seen in its
growth from 28,000 in 1872 to 64,000 in 1890, to 239,-
ooo in 1900, its present population being estimated at
400,000. In Chile the number of Germans and English
in 1907 was over 20,000, with as many Spaniards, and
representatives of almost every other European nation-
ality. The Argentine, which is the South American
wonderland in wealth and development, is predominantly
58 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
foreign. Even the Spanish element has been almost
overmastered by the Italian, and the Italian stock has
been a good one. Argentina is becoming a new Italy,
while British and German capital, and, with the capital,
men to supervise it, have been poured in like water.
With us it is now the native stock that dominates and
improves the imported blood. In South America the
imported blood dominates and improves the native stock.
Economic Value of Immigration. Students of Latin
America's economic condition see that immigration is
indispensable. "The only thing that can make these
countries progress is a large white immigration/' says
Professor Ross. And Sr. Calderon points out the vital
relation of immigration to the whole economic problem :
"The increase of alien wealth in nations which are not
fertilized by powerful currents of immigration constitutes
a real danger. To pay the incessantly increasing inter-
est of the wealth borrowed, fresh sources of production
and a constant increase of economic exchanges are
necessary; in a word, a greater density of population.
The exhaustion of the human stock in the debtor nations
creates a very serious lack of financial equilibrium, which
may result, not only in bankruptcy but also in the loss
of political independence by annexation. The solution
of the financial problem depends, then, upon the solution
of the problem of population. Immigrants will solve it
by increasing the number of productive units, by accumu-
lating their savings, by irresistible efforts which lay the
foundations of solid fortunes."1
Already where the immigrant has come in he has
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 383.
COMMERCIAL 59
poured fresh energy and powers into the nations and
lifted them from the depression of mestizo domination.
In Argentina he is the dominant factor. He arrives as
an artisan or trader. His son becomes a merchant or
banker or capitalist. In Argentina "of 1,000 inhabit-
ants there are 128 Italians and only 99 Argentines who
own land. These Latins are prolific; in 1904, 1,000
Argentina women gave life to 80 infants; 1,000 Spanish
women to 123; and 1,000 Italian women to 175. "l
The statistics in the following table2 of immigration
to Argentina were obtained from the Argentine govern-
ment:
Immigrants since Immigrants
Nationality 1857 for 1912
Italians 2,133,508 165,662
Spanish 1,298,122 80,583
French 206,912 S,i8o
Russians 136,659 20,832
Syrians and Turks 109,234 1 9,792
Austrians and Hungarians 80,736 6,545
Germans 55,o68 4,337
English 51,660 3,134
Swiss 31,624 1,005
Belgians 22,186 405
Portuguese 21,378 4,959
Danes 7,686 1,316
Dutch 7,120 274
North Americans 5,509 499
Swedes 1,702 94
Other Nations 79,251 8,786
Totals 4,248,355 323,403
Does Latin America have moral and spiritual forces
adequate to the assimilation and education of this immi-
gration? And is Latin America likely to be able to
1 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 364.
2 Koebel, The South Americans, 16, 17.
60 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
secure an adequate increase ? And even if it is, will the
lands that need it most be able to secure any part of it?
Agriculture and Manufacture. It is in these things
that Latin America chiefly needs development. It has
been agriculture which has given Argentina its great
wealth. But in most of the other Latin-American lands
agriculture is pitifully undeveloped or perverted. In
Chile what were fine wheat lands are now devoted to
wine production. In Brazil, apart from coffee, there
has been little development, and the rubber industry is
unscientifically conducted. Comprehensive and com-
petent plans of agricultural education and development
are indispensable. And small landownership must be
encouraged. The system of immense properties, farmed
by peon labor and profiting an absentee landlord class,
which has ruined Mexico, is growing in Chile, and in
Argentina the total number of landholdings is only 227,-
ooo, of which 1,000 are above 125,000 acres each, and
9,233 above 6,250 acres. On the other hand in Argen-
tina one fifth of all the holdings are in small lots of less
than 25 acres.
Manufactures are few in Latin America. Almost
everything is imported except the articles of house-manu-
facture, and importations are steadily cutting in upon
these.
Latin America needs sound, internal economic develop-
ment, and to that end three things are absolutely indis-
pensable— immigration, education, and the influence of
sound and real religion. In some of these things we can
help Latin America and we shall ourselves be helped.
And trade connections should minister to these higher
interests. The United States Commissioner of Educa-
COMMERCIAL 61
tion, in transmitting to the Secretary of the Interior Dr.
Brandon's admirable review of "Latin American Uni-
versities and Special Schools," said: "the value of com-
mercial relations, . . . the exchange of ideas, the feel-
ing of interdependence, the sentiments of friendship,
fellowship, and brotherhood, and the broader outlook and
fuller and richer life which come to the people of both
countries are, or should be, no less important than the
exchange of the products of mines, fields, forests, and
factories, and the material wealth gained thereby."1
North America's Obligation. Mere commercial
relations have far less enlightening and uniting power
than men once supposed they possessed. Apparently
flourishing trade may rest upon false economic founda-
tions and work moral destruction. Purchasing power
acquired by borrowing money and exercised to the eco-
nomic debilitation of the purchaser cannot be long ad-
vantageous either to the buyer or to the seller. Good
trade needs to rest on a sound moral basis, to minister
to the development in thought and industry and charac-
ter of all engaged in it, to strengthen good government,
to support just taxation, to procure the wise develop-
ment and expenditure of natural resources, to promote
international confidence and good feeling, to advance
the well-being of all mankind. The Christian mind is
fundamentally essential to the right development of
world trade and world wealth. We do ourselves and
Latin America and humanity a deep wrong if we do not
bring commercial relations with our Southern neighbors
under that mind.
United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1912, No. 30, 7.
Ill
EDUCATIONAL
"The educational traditions of Latin Europe/' says the
Report of Commission III on Education, to the Con-
gress on Christian Work in Latin America, "differed
from those of northern Europe in that the formal edu-
cation of the schools was considered of importance only
for the limited few. This favored class included those
possessing superior intellectual ability or force of charac-
ter and those with social position and influence. The
masses of the people might have their education, but it
was of and through the church and the home, not the
school. This tradition Latin America took over and pre-
served well into the nineteenth century. Indeed, this
view is even yet maintained in most if not in all of her
countries by influential portions of society. On the other
hand, it is to be noted that the state school system was
founded by the Latin-American republics quite as early
as it was in most of the commonwealths of the North
American Union — aside from those of New England —
and earlier than in many of the European countries. The
development of these public school systems, however,
has been very slow; and there is now an illiterate popu-
lation varying from forty to eighty per cent. This re-
tarded development is partly explained by the traditional
disbelief of the Latin population in the scholastic educa-
tion of the masses ; partly by the attitude of the church ;
partly by the same factors that caused a slow develop-
63
64 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
ment in Anglo-Saxon America — vast territory, sparse
population, diverse racial elements, the hardships of
pioneer life, and the primal necessity of conquering the
natural environment. A further explanation of this be-
lated educational development is found in the greater
power of race assimilation of the Iberian peoples as
compared with the Anglo-Saxons. A more homogeneous
population has thus been produced in various areas, but
at the sacrifice of certain traits and essentials of mass
advancement."1
I. HIGHER EDUCATION
The Ecclesiastical Universities. In his admirable re-
port on Latin- American universities, Dr. Edgar E. Bran-
don gives an account of the foundation and character of
the institutions of higher learning which were estab-
lished at the outset of the Spanish occupation for the
training of the leaders of society. "The Spanish settle-
ments in America," says he, "were provided with the
means of higher education with celerity equal to if not
greater than that shown in the English colonies. In less
than a half century from the date of the first permanent
settlement, schools for advanced education, as education
was then regarded, had been established in due and
permanent form, and by the end of the century there
existed a chain of colleges or universities extending from
Mexico and the West Indies to the southernmost colony
of Argentina. From that time to the present, Spanish
America has been zealous in the establishment of in-
stitutions for training in the liberal professions, and dur-
^Report of Commission III to the Panama Congress, 8,
EDUCATIONAL 65
ing the past century Portuguese America has kept pace
with her neighbor/'
The dates of the establishment of these colonial uni-
versities were: Mexico and Lima, 1551 ; Santo Domingo,
1558; Bogota, 1572; Cordoba, 1613; Sucre, 1623; Guate-
mala, about 1675; Cuzco, 1692; Caracas, 1721; Santiago
de Chile, 1738; Havana, 1782; Quito, 1787.
"The church was the prime mover in their establish-
ment, although influential laymen holding high political
positions contributed notably to their foundation. The
principal object of each university was to promote the
cause of religion in the colonies by providing an edu-
cated clergy numerous enough to care for the spiritual
welfare of the settlers and to further the work of evan-
gelization among the natives. The central department
of the institution was the faculty of letters and philoso-
phy, through which all students must pass on their way
to the professional schools. The latter were exceed-
ingly limited in the colonial university. There was a
department of civil and canon law, but the former was
overshadowed in the ecclesiastical organization of the
institution, and had to await the era of national inde-
pendence before coming to its own. The university
usually contained a professorship of medicine, but prior
to the nineteenth century it was the medicine of the
medieval school men, academic and empirical. The one
professional school that flourished was the faculty of
theology. It was for it that the university was created,
and to it led all academic avenues.
"Clerical in its origin and purpose, the colonial uni-
versity was also clerical in its government. Theoretically
the corporation enjoyed large autonomy, since it formu-
66 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
lated its rules and regulations, chose its officers, and
selected professors for vacant chairs. But this autonomy
was largely illusory. The professors were almost ex-
clusively members of the priesthood, and as such owed
implicit obedience to the bishop, and, in addition, the
election of officers and new professors required the
confirmation of the prelate. University autonomy was,
therefore, carefully circumscribed by church preroga-
tive, and this equivocal form of government has been
transmitted with little change to modern times, except
that the state has taken the place of the church/'1 all
these universities being now state institutions.
The Secular Universities. A second group of insti-
tutions originated in the era of national independence.
The greatest of these is the University of Buenos Aires.
In the university establishments of this period, "the
church had no part, at least not as an organization. It
was to secular influence that the universities and pro-
fessional schools of the early part of the nineteenth cen-
tury owe their existence, and from the first they have
depended upon civil authority, either local or national.
In this same period the old universities were taken over
more or less completely by the state, and in many added
importance was at once given to the subjects of medicine
and civil law. By their break with the mother country
the Spanish states were thrown upon their own resources
in matters educational. The continuous stream of gov-
ernors, judges, administrators, and physicians that had
flowed for three centuries from the metropolis into the
colonies was suddenly arrested. The supply must here-
1 United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1912, No. 30,
II, 12.
EDUCATIONAL 67
after come from native sources. Moreover, in the flush
of newborn independence there was engendered an in-
tense feeling of local pride and a determination to be-
come self-sufficient in culture as well as in politics. The
rapid extension of law schools, the increased importance
ascribed to this branch of study in the older universities,
and the dominant position it has ever since held in the
Spanish- American university, is in great measure the.
result of influence that gathered and pressed upon the
public consciousness in those early years of national in-
dependence. Society was to be reconstituted, a govern-
ment to be organized, colonial thraldom to be replaced
by civil and political liberty. What nobler mission for
the sons of a new commonwealth than to prepare them-
selves by a study of jurisprudence and political sciences
for their country's service ! While ancient principles of
law still subsisted and court procedure remained much
the same, new codes were made in the several states and
republican ideals were substituted for monarchical tradi-
tions. It was absolutely necessary for the young re-
publics to train their lawgivers, jurists, and public officials
in the atmosphere of democratic institutions. National
self-preservation demanded national schools of juris-
prudence. Consequently, in the old universities, as well
as in the newly created ones, the faculty of law and
political sciences assumed such importance that it soon
overshadowed the other faculties and came to be con-
sidered by far the most important department of higher
education.
"The definitive organization of the medical faculty as
a distinct department of the university dates also from
the same period as that of law. It has been stated that
68 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
the schools of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia were founded
in 1808. The medical faculty of Guatemala places its
beginning in the year 1804, Lima considers 1811 the date
of its final organization, and Caracas counts from the
revised statutes of the university in 1826. In Buenos
Aires a school of medicine was founded in 1801 and en-
larged in 1813. In 1821 it amalgamated with the new
university. Political independence did not have the
same overwhelming influence on medical studies that
it did on the study of law, but separation from the mother
country could not fail to encourage the development of
local institutions in a subject so important as that of
medicine."
Scientific faculties were soon developed also. Their
origin, Dr. Brandon says, "owes nothing to political or
national development, but is rather to be traced to the
academic influence of the Encyclopedlstes of France,
who urged the importance of mathematical and scientific
studies, and whose ideas were in great part incorporated
into the French system of education under the First
Republic, to be imitated later in the Spanish republics of
America. In fact, it may be affirmed that the dominant
influence in the educational life of Latin- American coun-
tries since their emancipation, as well as in their social
and political life, has been French and not Spanish."
A third group of higher institutions, founded more
recently, owes its origin to various circumstances. "The
University of Montevideo, beginning with a law school
in 1849, marks the final crystallization of Uruguayan
nationality." Many provincial or state professional
schools have developed. This has been the tendency in-
stead of a nationalizing policy, whereas the need in some
EDUCATIONAL 69
sections would seem to be now for international uni-
versities. For example, in Central America, Dr. Bran-
don says, "no one of the five small republics is populous
enough or rich enough to maintain a complete first-class
university. A solution of the problem of higher educa-
tion there might be found in the reestablishment of the
old federation and the exercise of the policy of distribut-
ing the various branches of the federal government among
the states in order to allay local jealousies, as has
recently been done so successfully in British South
Africa/'1
Latin-American Universities Unlike Those of the
United States. The report of the Panama Congress
Commission on Education calls attention to several points
of differentiation between the universities of Latin Amer-
ica and the United States and Canada.
(1) The former, with a few exceptions, are composed
of professional faculties only. There is nothing cor-
responding to the North American college. To compen-
sate, the curricula of the professional faculties are much
broader than those of professional schools in the United
States, and the theoretical length of their courses is often
six or even seven years.
(2) The Latin- American universities have generally
no physical unity. As there are only diverse professional
faculties no central plant is required.
(3) There is no permanent, professional teaching
staff. The faculties are composed of professional men
who give a small part of their time to lectures. "This
scheme has certain advantages. It keeps the instruction
United States Bureau of Education- Bulletin, 1912, No. 30,
13-15, 18.
70 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
in close touch with the actual problems and interests of
life. It brings the student into familiar contact with the
actual practitioner of his profession. It freshens and
vivifies the instruction. But it misses all of those in-
direct and subsidiary advantages of the college and uni-
versity life which are most significant for the American
or the English boy."
(4) There is little or no university organization or
machinery.
(5) "The Latin- American universities possess a dis-
tinct advantage over similar institutions in the United
States in that they form the sole gateway to the profes-
sions. The various professional schools not only have
the duty of training for the practise of the profession,
but as administrative departments of the governments,
they are charged with licensing practitioners in the
various lines."
(6) The Latin-American universities are controlled
and conducted by the state. "The minister of education
has immediate control. Appointments are often if not
usually made directly by the executive head of the gov-
ernment. Such appointments include all lectureships,
the few administrative officers, and even the most menial
assistant. The state also controls the curriculum ; it is
responsible, so far as responsibility exists, for the living
conditions and the conduct of the students as well as for
the physical plant and its upkeep. This also explains
the fact that whatever influence the student body has in
the way of control is exerted through public or political
agitation and directly upon the government. Thus
student demonstration or agitation concerning political
and religious matters is the chief occasion for the expres-
EDUCATIONAL 71
sion of opinion or the exercise of influence by the student
body."
(7) "As a consequence of all these features, there
results one final characteristic of the Latin-American
institutions, viz., that there is no unified student life.
There is no campus, no dormitory, no class organization,
no faculty. There are few common student interests,
and students have no means of exercising any control
over the university life."1
Prestige of the Universities. The Latin-American
nations hold their universities and university degrees in
the highest honor. Dr. Brandon says : "The rapidly
increasing enrolment in institutions of higher learning
is a phenomenon as striking in several countries of Latin
America as it is in the United States. The only differ-
ence' is that in the latter country the faculty of letters,
philosophy, and pure science shares in the increase, while
in the former the drift is wholly toward the professional
faculties. Chile, with a population of only 3,000,000,
enrolls annually almost 2,000 students in the national
university and upward of 700 in the Catholic university,
a gain of 50 per cent, in a decade. Argentina, with a
population of 7,500,000, enrolls in her four universities
7,000 students, of whom about 5,000 are matriculated
in the University of Buenos Aires alone. A quarter of
a century ago the total university population was less
than 800 and the enrolment at Buenos Aires 600. At
Lima there are 1,100 students in the university and in
the detached schools of engineering and agriculture,
while the three provincial universities of Peru add about
1 Report of Commission. Ill to the Panama Congress, 13-15.
72 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
400 more. In Brazil the number of law and medical
students is disproportionately large, and the government
is seeking some practicable method of checking the con-
stant increase. . . . Other Latin-American nations in
proportion to their population show a large student
enrolment, and the number is everywhere a surprise
when one considers the economic, social, and racial dis-
advantages under which some countries labor."1
II. SECONDARY EDUCATION
"The secondary schools/' called liceos or colegws,
says the Panama Congress Report, "form the most im-
portant and most flourishing part of the educational
system of all Latin-American countries. Being the sole
gateway to the universities and to the professions, and
especially adapted to the interests and needs of the rul-
ing classes, they are the objects of peculiar interest to
both state and church, by which they are generously
supported. Additional reasons for their importance are
to be found also in the indifferent and undeveloped
character of elementary schools ; in the diverse racial
elements composing the population ; in the preponderance
of the Indian and mixed races (Argentina, Chile, and
Uruguay excepted) ; in the aristocratic structure of
society and the aristocratic character of education." The
secondary schools are state-administered like the uni-
versities. They are not directly related to the elementary
schools. There are more permanent regular teachers
than in the universities. The course is six years.
Comparison with the United States. "In comparison
1 United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1912, No. 30,
21.
EDUCATIONAL 73
with the secondary programs of the United States the
following points may again be emphasized: (i) slight
attention given to the classics; (2) greater time given
to the national language and literature; (3) great em-
phasis on modern languages ; (4) the presence of philoso-
phy, logic, psychology, ethics, and sociology; (5) similar
attention to drawing, geography, and military exercises/'
"The age of the liceo graduate/! says Dr. Brandon, "is
about the same as that of the American boy when he
finishes the high school. The Latin American is per-
haps superior in breadth of vision, cosmopolitan sym-
pathy, power of expression, and argumentative ability,
but, on the other hand, perhaps inferior in the powers
of analysis and initiative and in the spirit of self-re-
liance/'1
Secondary School Attendance. As the proportion of
university students is high, so, to our view, the propor-
tion of secondary school students is very low. Colombia,
with a population of 4,000,000, reports, says Professor
Ross, "229 schools (colegios or liceos) with an attend-
ance of 19,000. Two thousand lads are studying in
Ecuador in 19 such schools. Peru has 27 state coleglos
with an attendance of 2,000 and enough private colegios
— most of them belonging to religious orders — to round
out the number to 50. Bolivia has 14 such schools — 8
of them government institutions — with 1,800 pupils.
Chile has 61 government colegios, two thirds of them
for boys, and subsidizes 67 private secondary schools.
Argentina records 28 national colegios with an attend-
ance of 8,000. Her number of secondary pupils alto-
1 Report of Commission III to the Panama Congress, 16, 18, 19.
74 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
gather does not exceed 15,000. Such a proportion is
amazingly low. In Salta, a province of 160,000, only 339
persons are in high school. In Rosario, a city as big as
St. Paul, there is one national high school with 450
students. Pennsylvania, with about the same population
as Argentina, has six times as many pupils in her high
schools, although the number of years is four as against
six for the colegios of the southern republic.
Obstacles to Secondary Education. "The public high
school is obliged to make its way against the opposition
of pay schools, some of them with a strong commercial
bent like our 'business colleges/ others maintained by the
teaching orders — Jesuits, Salesians, Dominicans, Merce-
darians, Sacred Heart or Christian Brothers — and
favored by the wealthy either as more religious or more
exclusive than the free public high schools. The high
school, moreover, is not, as with us, the people's college.
It is a fitting school for the university and the profes-
sional schools. Eighty per cent, of its graduates go on to
pursue higher studies. It belongs, therefore, on the whole
to the upper class, while the great bulk of the people
never aspire to advance their children beyond the ele-
mentary school. There is a deep gulf between the two
grades of education and between the teachers of the two
grades, so that both pupils and teachers are drawn from
different social classes."1
III. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
"The elementary school," says the Panama Congress
Report, "is the least developed part of the educational
1 South of Panama f 286.
EDUCATIONAL 75
system of Latin America. This fact explains many of
the political, social, and intellectual conditions in these
countries. But the educational situation is in turn ex-
plained by the political and social conditions, to which
should be added the influence of natural environment and
of historical tradition." And the report proceeds to
state some of the elements of the situation which affect
the work of elementary schools.
(1) Racial elements. "The populations of no other
countries of modern civilization have racial elements so
diverse as those of the Latin- American republics, and
there are none in which the backward races are so numer-
ous.
(2) "Even with a homogeneous racial composition,
sparse settlements and vast extent of territory may
make universal education well-nigh impossible. In many
regions of agricultural Argentina, with its white popula-
tion, one hundred square miles would not furnish the
children for a school."
(3) Class organization and social traditions. "Both
of these factors operate against a popular elementary
school system. Where such schools exist they are seldom
attended by children of the influential and better-to-do
classes.
"The traditions of the Latin races have few of the
democratic elements common to the Anglo-Saxons of the
north, out of which grew the common school system.
The public elementary school system of Latin America
was an importation, the work of the political and revolu-
tionary idealists influential during different periods of the
nineteenth century. . . . The temporary economic in-
terests of the classes are not conserved by popular educa-
76 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
tion, while the masses do not have and could not be
expected to have an interest in popular education or an
appreciation of its value. Such public mass education
as they have must come as a gift of the enlightened few.
"This characterization is true when viewed by the
Anglo-Saxon. A truer statement, no doubt, is that there
is a type of democracy which is Anglo-Saxon and a type
which is Latin. Each possesses factors which the other
lacks."
(4) Attitude of the Roman Church and of the clergy.
In few countries does the Roman Catholic Church retain
so great a political influence over the government and
over the ruling classes in society as in Latin America,
and in few do the governments so protect the church.
"This remains true notwithstanding the facts that in
several the church has been disestablished, that in nearly
all, the schools have been taken from the control of the
church, that in some no religious instruction whatever is
allowed in the schools, and that in all a large class of 'in-
tellectuals' of great political and social influence is irrev-
ocably committed to hostility to the church. Previous
to the establishment of the republican form of govern-
ment in the first half of the nineteenth century (except
in Brazil), the church controlled all education. For the
masses it provided for education in religious, ceremonial,
and catechetical instruction, with industrial training for
very limited regions and groups. At the present time the
church believes in little if any more for the masses,
Literary education will be of no advantage to them, it
believes, and may be of very great disadvantage — as
witness the intellectuals. Hence on the part of the most
powerful social institution there is indifference at best
EDUCATIONAL 77
and often active hostility to public elementary education.
This situation is rendered no less acute by the fact that
the church still remains powerful in the public school
system, controlling it in countries like Colombia and
Ecuador. Practically all the countries allow religious
instruction in the public schools by the established or
dominant church. Of the three countries most advanced
in public education Chile commands such religious in-
struction in the public schools, Argentina permits it,
Brazil alone forbids it."1
The facts with regard to the relation of the church to
the state and education may be briefly summarized as
follows :
Roman Catholicism is the state religion or enjoys
state support in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Salva-
dor, and Haiti. In these republics there are varying
degrees of religious instruction, Chile and Colombia mak-
ing it compulsory in the public schools; Bolivia, Ecuador,
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and
Haiti making it optional or requiring study of the cate-
chism. In Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia secondary
education practically belongs to the church.
In Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico,
Panama, Porto Rico, and Cuba there is entire separation
of state and church. Religious instruction is not per-
mitted in the schools, except that it is optional in Panama
and in various parishes in Cuba.
(5) Illiteracy. These factors help to explain the
neglect of popular elementary education in Latin Amer-
^Report of Commission III to the Panama Congress, 19-21.
78 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
ica. And that neglect and the reasons for it are responsi
ble for the dead weight of illiteracy and ignorance which
the Latin-American republics have to carry and which
retard and depress their life and progress. There is no
escaping the facts. The Boston Pilot (September 6,
1913) says in an editorial entitled "Slanderers," "The
percentage of illiteracy [in South America] is only a
little larger than in the majority of the states of North
America." On the contrary, the largest percentage of
illiteracy in the United States is in Louisiana where the
rate is 38 per cent. In Latin America the best estimates
are: Brazil, 71 per cent.; Argentina, 50 per cent, of per-
sons six years of age and older; Chile, 63 per cent.;
Colombia, 80 per cent. ; Uruguay, 40 per cent, of persons
six years of age and older; and Mexico, 63 per cent, of
persons over 12.
Marrion Wilcox, a friend and student of the Latin-
American people, writes frankly, "One is obliged to
concur in the judgment of the Latin Americans them-
selves who admit that it [education] is neglected. While
it is true that in most of the countries attendance at
school is compulsory, none of the governments enforce
the law in this respect owing to the lack of funds. The
percentage of school attendance based on the population
is as follows: Argentina, 10; Uruguay, 7; Chile, 3.7;
Paraguay, 3.5; Peru, 2.36; Brazil, 2; Bolivia, 2."1
The issue of June 23, 1909, of O Estado de Sao Paulo,
the leading newspaper in Sao Paulo, contained a letter
from a cor respondent bemoaning the delinquency of Brazil
in the education of her people. In Brazil, he said, only
1 The Student World, January, 1909, 5.
EDUCATIONAL 79
'28 out of each 1,000 of the population were in school;
in Paraguay, 47 ; in Chile, 53 ; in Uruguay, 79 ; in Argen-
tina, 96. In the Argentine, out of a population (then)
of 6,200,000, 597,203 or 9.632 per cent, were in school ;
in Brazil, out of 19,910,646 (his figures) only 565,942 or
2.842 per cent. In the United States, 19 per cent, of the
entire population are in school ; in Germany, over 16
per cent. ; in Japan, over 12 per cent. In other words,
about four times as large a proportion of the American
population are in school as of the entire population of
South America. Latin America has no greater social
need than the education of the masses of the people. Re-
publics cannot be built upon illiteracy, and the hopeful
nations of the South are paralyzed in their highest
progress by the dead weight of ignorance which clogs
their every step. The Mexico of to-day could never
have been had the common people been educated.
IV. EDUCATIONAL NEEDS
i. Thoroughness. There is much good work done in
higher institutions, and in some countries like Chile and
Argentina, in lower schools also, but the educational
system is top-heavy and as Sr. Nelson of Argentina says,
"theoretical." Much work is showy rather than solid
and real. All this is part of the situation to be met.
Mr. Wilcox says: "It is absolutely necessary to realize
certain characteristics of the Latin-American mind in
order to understand present conditions in education in
South America. In these matters, our friends in the
Southern republics are not self-reliant but dependent,
and their attainments are apt to be showy rather than
substantial. They themselves characterize their enthu-
8o THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
siasms as 'fire in straw/ blazing up quickly but not usually
supplying force for sustained effort. As for strength
of intellectual fiber, that is always and everywhere a ques-
tion of character. In Chile, for example, native boys
and young Englishmen work side by side in the same busi-
ness houses. The former quite outstrip the latter, show-
ing more ability while they are still quite young, but fall-
ing behind in the long race simply because they have not
learned lessons of self-reliance and self-control. When
a solid foundation of good habits shall take the place of
irregularity, self-indulgence, and the vices that are too
often acquired in the South American home and school,
the latent talent of these peoples will command world
wide attention."1
At the same time it is to be remembered that, as Mr.
J. H. Warner of Pernambuco says of the Brazilian
students: "We are not dealing, as some believe, with
men of inferior intellect. In linguistic ability especially,
it is probable that no students excel the Latins. It is no
uncommon thing to meet an educated Brazilian audience
which is capable of appreciating fully a literary program
comprising, besides numbers in Portuguese, selections
from Italian, Spanish, French, English, and German
literature. In such an audience many are able to speak
as well as understand several of these languages. With
so many avenues of intercourse and such mental agility,
it is not surprising that the Brazilian student is extremely
sensitive to any influence that may be brought to bear
upon him.2 .
1 The Student World, January, 1909.
2 "Religion among Brazilian Students," The Student World,
January, 1909.
EDUCATIONAL 81
What is true of the Brazilian is true of others. The
South American young men are quick, alert, responsive.
They are deserving of all our friendship and assistance.
But they need, as we do, moral bottom, character, stability
— just the qualities which only robust, ethical, open-
minded and fearless religious principle can give them.
2. Modern Methods. There are three great general
deficiencies which Professor Rowe sets forth in his paper,
published by the United States Commissioner of Educa-
tion, on "Educational Progress in the Argentine Republic
and Chile:" (i) The "tendency to impose the same course
of study on every boy and girl, quite irrespective of their
taste or subsequent vocations." (2) The lack of a trained
"corps of professional teachers for the liceos, or high
schools." (3) The neglect of the education of women.1
3. Elementary Teachers. Latin America needs an
army of trained elementary school teachers who will do
their work in the highest spirit of patriotism and fidelity.
And where the problem of woman's work and training
is such a difficult problem the provision of such an army
of teachers is no small task. Argentina and Brazil gladly
accepted our help in it in early years. And we owe other
Latin-American nations all the friendly aid we can give.
4. Industrial Education. Industrial and agricultural
education is a great need. The more progressive states
are interested in providing such education and the Sale-
sian Fathers have done good work in this field. It is the
kind of education needed by the great mass of the agricul-
tural and industrial body of the nations.
5. Professional Training. There is need, as every-
aReport of the Commissioner of Education for 1909, 325, 326,
327.
82 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
where, for more thorough and efficient normal educa-
tion. A teacher in the state of Parana, Brazil, writes —
and what he says is typical of education in many Latin-
American lands:
"I wish to speak of the tremendous educational need
of this part of the world. The superintendent of public
instruction says in his official report, 'We have professors
without competence and without calling/ He speaks of
the fact that ten years ago the law allowed most any one
without training to teach provisionally, as this was the
only way to get teachers. There scarcely existed trained
teachers. These unfortunately later received regular
appointment. They were not appointed because they
were capable but because they were docile instruments
of the local political machine. When the time for exami-
nation came no one feared that he would be turned down.
There was a ratifying en masse of professors almost
illiterate, except for few and honorable exceptions. The
other day a man who was talked of in the papers as timber
for vice-governor of the state, told me that where he
lives a teacher drew salary continually, and for more than
a year did not so much as open the door of the school-
house. The teacher is politically protected. This case
represents a large per cent, indeed of all the public em-
ployees of this part of Brazil. The idea of a graded
school is almost unknown here. The superintendent
further declares, 'We have to-day in the most important
cities of the state, schoolhouses where four independent
schools function, each one with an excessive number of
pupils, distributed in four classes/ It is not unusual for
a teacher to have 50 or 60 pupils of all grades. Now
when you remember the quality of these teachers and
EDUCATIONAL 83
their excessive number of pupils all thrown together (the
classification is based on the pupils' preference of
teacher), and the fact which our authority cites that
there are only 20 per cent, of the children of school age
in these inefficient schools, you get some idea of the
educational opportunity and duty in Parana. For 120,-
ooo children there are only 504 schools. Prepared and
efficient teachers are almost unknown. I refer, of course,
only to this part of the country. Some states are much
worse and some, better."
6. Rational Attitude toward Atheism. The Roman
Catholic Church distrust of higher state education justi-
fies itself by pointing to the almost universal unbelief
among the "intellectuals" in all the Latin-American
nations. Mr. Charles J. Ewald of Buenos Aires writes :
"The National University at Buenos Aires has enrolled
over 4,000 young men of the influential classes of the
Argentine Republic. At least half of them come from
the smaller cities and towns and live in the boarding
houses of the city. The atmosphere in which these
students live is not conducive to moral vigor. There
is every encouragement to immorality and gambling which
are the great vices and, unfortunately, the great majority
have no conscience on these sins.
"As regards religion, I would say that not over 10
per cent, of them are more than nominally identified
with Roman Catholicism, which is the state religion.
Another 10 per cent, takes a hostile attitude toward the
Roman Church. This hostility does not mean, however,
that there is any sympathy with Protestantism, in the
best sense of that word. They are in sympathy with
a Protestantism that protests but they have had no con-
84 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
tact with evangelical Christianity. Christianity and
Romanism, indeed, mean to them one and the same thing.
The great mass of students are indifferent, never hav-
ing given any thought to religious questions. They be-
lieve in nothing."1
And Mr. Warner has set forth also from personal
knowledge the conditions in Brazil :
"Senhor Argymiro Galvao was at one time lecturer on
philosophy in the law school in Sao Paulo, in many
respects the leading law school in Brazil. One of his
lectures, 'The Conception of God/ was published as a
tract as late as 1906. I quote the following from the
lecture: 'The Catholic faith is dead. There is no longer
confidence in Christian dogma. The supernatural has
been banished from the domain of science. The con-
quests of philosophy have done away with the old pre-
conception of spirituality. Astronomy, with Laplace,
has invaded the heavenly fields and in all celestial space
tiiere has not been found a kingdom for your God. . . .
We are in the realm of realism. The reason meditates
not on theological principles, but upon facts furnished
by experience. God is a myth, he has no reality, he is
not an object of science. . . . Man invented gods and
God that the world might be ruled. These conceptions
resulted from his progressive intelligence. The simple
spirit refrains from all criticism and accepts the idea of
God without resistance. The cultured spirit repels the
idea in virtue of its inherent contradictions/
"Galvao is only one of many educators in the best
schools of Brazil who have broken with the church, and,
1 The Student World, January, 1909, 7, 8.
EDUCATIONAL 85
of all the hundreds of students that annually sit under
these teachings, very few could be found who would
question the accuracy of this line of thought or seek to
justify the Christian faith.
"The great difficulty that confronts the laborer in this
field is not that of tearing men away from an old faith.
The great majority have already repudiated their old
faith. The pity of it is that they think they have repudi-
ated Christianity."1
There is urgent need of agencies which will reach
these students with the gospel.
7. International Cooperation. There is great need of
educational cooperation among the Latin-American
nations, in the study of their common problems, the pro-
vision of text-books, the training of teachers, and the
achievement of ideals. There is no such unity. As Dr.
Brandon says, with regard to the need of school texts:
"Spanish America is not one unit. On the contrary, it
is broken up into 20 different units, widely separated as
regards distance and more widely still as regards inter-
communication. Difference of climate and local condi-
tions are also important elements. National rivalries
and animosities are causes of isolation. To a great ex-
tent, and certainly to a greater extent than is imagined in
North America, each state has led a separate existence.
All have been separated from the mother country on
account of their remoteness, lack of communication, and
want of mutual sympathy. All have been aided in their
material advancement by foreign capital and energy,
but in those intellectual matters that concern the mother
Students and the Present Missionary Crisis, Report of the
Rochester Student Volunteer Convention, 327f.
86 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
tongue each nation has been forced to march alone. All
this has constituted a serious handicap in the matter
of school texts.
"If the entire Spanish-speaking world with its 75,000,-
ooo inhabitants formed an iatellectual unit, it would
provide a public that would appeal to talent and to the
publishing industries. If even the Spanish- American
countries, with their more than 50,000,000, formed such
a unit, the incentive would be all-powerful. . . .
"Another method, however, would be an easier, more
logical, more rapid, and more patriotic solution of the
difficulty, viz., an intellectual union, not official, but
based entirely on intellectual sympathy, between the
various Spanish-speaking communities. Such a move-
ment will come sooner or later. Already there are signs
of its advent. Recent years have witnessed a decided
rapprochement between Spain and the Spanish repub-
lics. The intellectual life of the two branches of the
Spanish family has everything to gain in this tendency,
and the schools would be among the first to profit. The
softening of national asperities in Spanish America, the
advance in means of rapid intercommunication, and the
remarkable enthusiasm in favor of education, now so
noticeable in almost all nations, will undoubtedly bring
about a community of interest in intellectual matters."
But Dr. Brandon recognizes that " there are two serious
obstacles to an early consummation of this program:
first, the bitter hostility existing between some countries
on account of acute boundary disputes ; second, the fact
that the most progressive nations in matters of general
education are at the two extremities of the long stretch
of Spanish-speaking territory that extends from the
EDUCATIONAL 87
islands and the Rio Grande on the north to Cape Horn.
However, several boundary disputes as threatening as
any that remain have been settled amicably in recent
years; more accurate geographical knowledge will make
some others easier of solution ; and the nations are learn-
ing that the surest aggrandizement will come through
internal development and the universal education of their
population."1
8. The Press. One of the greatest educational
agencies in Latin America is the press. Its influence
would be still greater if the percentage of literacy could
be increased. And no force at work in these lands ought
more zealously to strive for popular education. Some of
the best papers published on the western hemisphere are
issued in Latin America, papers like the Jornal do
Comer do of Rio, La Prensa of Buenos Aires and El
Mercurlo of Santiago. And many of the Latin- American
republics encourage reading and printing by carrying all
printed matter free in the mails.
9. Literature. The problem of clean, helpful litera-
ture is one of the most pressing problems in Latin Amer-
ica. "Old Spain," says Lord Bryce, "never supplied to
her colonies through books anything approaching the
volume of that perennial stream of instruction and stimu-
lation which English-speaking writers have for nearly
four centuries supplied to those who can read English
all over the world, and which France has likewise sup-
plied to all who can read her language. In South
America, men now learn French in increasing numbers,
1 United State's Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1912, No. 30,
141-143-
88 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
but they are still a small percentage of the educated popu-
lation of Spanish America."1
Dr. Brandon says that probably more than half of
the books in the university medical libraries are French.
And the book stalls are full of French fiction. This
fiction is of the most pernicious character and the tone
of too much Latin- American literary production in
Spanish during the nineteenth century is set forth by
Sr. Calderon. Among its notes as he describes them,
some of the most frequent phrases are : "restless passion,"
"the intoxicating sensuality of the tropics," "the melan-
choly of the flesh." Dario's verse possesses "the sensu-
ality of a faun." Ricardo Palma "has described in a
sumptuous style the life of all Spanish colonies, devout
and sensual," with subtle irony and in "joyous and some-
what licentious narrative." The tone of "decadent art"
prevails. This is Calderon's representation. It is obvious
that the Latin Americans like ourselves have war to wage
against the processes of rot and defilement which operate
through literature. Not only do more Latin-American
people need to read but they want a greater abundance of
clean and wholesome popular literature.
10. Ideals. Throughout the Latin-American nations
there are earnest and able men who never for a moment
relinquish the highest intellectual and moral ideals for
their people. Surely these men have a right to look for
sympathy and cooperation to the men of Canada and
the United States who cannot sustain political and com-
mercial relations to Latin America without increased
responsibility also for its moral and intellectual advance-
ment.
1 South America: Observations and Impressions, 576.
IV
RELIGIOUS
The best setting forth of the missionary service which
the churches of the United States and Canada can and
ought to render in Latin America, and of the manner
and spirit in which this service should be extended is
found in the Report of Commission I on Survey and
Occupation, and the Report of Commission II on Mes-
sage and Method, presented at the Congress on Chris-
tian Work in Latin America, held at Panama in Febru-
ary, 1916.
The Report of Commission I dealt first with "The
Significance of Latin America to the Life of the World,''
"i. In respect to culture ; 2. In natural material resources ;
3. In domiciling now overcrowded populations; 4. As
the seat of rising democracies; 5. In the formation of a
new world race or races." The report then proceeded to
consider
I. THE CLAIMS OF PRESENT-DAY LATIN AMERICA ON THE
MESSAGE AND SERVICE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS
AND CHURCHES.
We cannot do better in this chapter than summarize
and make available for the men taking these studies the
material of this Report. What are these claims?
i. Arising from Immigration and Commerce. The
facts as to immigration and trade have already been pre-
89
90 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
sented. What moral and religious obligations do they
entail ?
"One of the frightful costs of migration the world over
relates to the field of morals and religion. If it be some-
times pointed out that a weakness of organized Chris-
tianity is exposed by the faithlessness of adherents when
away from its authority and conventions, the remedy is
not the abandonment of institutions, ordinances, in-
struction and worship, but the paralleling of immigrants
to the ends of the earth with the forms and spirit of
Christianity which at home held and inspired them.
"This is the place to pay tribute to the many faithful
men and women from foreign lands who are proving in
Latin America that their morals and faith are real and
abiding and not the creatures of custom, climate or
convenience. Nothing less than glorious are the pure
domestic circles, the family altars, the volunteer Sunday-
schools, the unshakable business integrity, the dignified
and kindly consideration of employees and business
associates which mark here and there souls, who, like
Abraham, left not God when they journeyed to the lands
of strangers. Full recognition must likewise be given to
the number and strength of the temptations that over-
whelm the weaker and less faithful. All the evils of the
lands they left came along with them or preceded them.
Everywhere the evils of a new land are more in evidence
and aggressive than are the good and restraining influ-
ences. In actual isolation of camp, mine, or mill, or in
the yet more demoralizing loneliness of a great alien city,
away from home, where no one that counts with them
will know and where nobody seems to care — this is the
stage on which are enacted the moral tragedies of coloni-
RELIGIOUS 91
zation and commerce. It is national material enrichment
at the price of national character, for the stream swirls
back and bears homeward the worst it found and helped
to create.
"The continent of Europe and the Anglo-Saxon race
have a plain duty to discharge in respect to the moral
welfare of Latin America. They have undoubtedly con-
ferred certain great blessings, freely and gratefully ac-
knowledged by the beneficiaries."
Moral Consequence of Immigration. "It is more need-
ful here to recount the liabilities of the foreign impact
upon these populations. The scholarship of Europe,
notably France, in liberating the mind has maimed the
faith of thinking Latin America. The intemperance of
the west coast of South America and of Central America
is not entirely Latin or Indian, but partly foreign in
origin. Some of it represents white men with fire-water
repeating North America's ravaging of the Indians. . . .
The sordid commercial standards which too many foreign
business men have adopted will serve long to keep humble
and silent their observing and untempted fellow nationals.
If bribes have been taken by Latins they have been given
often by foreigners. Where industrial injustice is en-
trenched many representatives of foreign capital also
complacently profit by it.
"Whom does all this concern in the home lands from
which these destructive influences come? Surely all
men who love fairness and to whom this knowledge
comes. The situation presents a familiar phenomenon
of the modern world wherever there are confluent civili-
zations interacting on each other through the contacts
of trade, ideas, institutions, habits, and personalities. The
92 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
closer relationships are not to be condemned or deplored.
They are inevitable and will be multiplied and cemented
by mutual consent. The duty of Christians is to abate
the attendant evils. Common honor demands that wher-
ever one race destroys character in another, it shall seek
to upbuild. Where one's countrymen exploit he must
serve. The materials of one society are bestowed upon
another for loss, not gain, if in the process the spirit
and inner life be withheld. The character-building forces
of nations that export the products of their breweries
and distilleries and other agencies of debauchery may
not remain insular in their outreach. While others press
forward with their commercialism and all its strain upon
integrity, who that are just would withhold or give grudg-
ingly the tested conserving processes in their possession
by which corruptions are resisted and good reinforced?
When neutral or evil personalities go from one people to
another, the sending forth of a few hundreds embodying
that nation's finest spiritual and moral sense is dictated
by the consideration of national self-respect."
2. Because of the Imminent Peril to Faith Among
Entire Peoples. "The urgency in the religious condi-
tion of Latin Americans arises out of the impending
collapse of their traditional Christian faith and the feeble-
ness of remedial effort. The peril is imminent, indeed
well advanced. It is already coextensive with the in-
tellectuals. Serious as is that fact of itself, the implica-
tions and sequences of it are as appalling as they are
inevitable unless arrested. Given practically universal
unbelief as far as modern learning has proceeded ; popular
education progressing rapidly under the stronger govern-
ments and avowed to be the program of all the govern-
RELIGIOUS
93
ments; the dominant religious leaders devoting their
energies to impeding the irresistible currents of un-
trammeled learning instead of Christianizing them ; given
these, and to all Christians who know the facts and their
significance, who care about them, and whose faith has
life, power, and appeal to meet such a crisis, the call
comprehends every element of obligation and immediacy.
"The rise of modern learning in the nineteenth century
brought a crisis upon the religious world, Christendom
not excepted. Christian thought has been facing a new
rationalism, materialism, and pessimism in every form of
subtlety and virulence. In so far as the church is found
or proves herself willing to become ethically solvent,
politically unallianced, and intellectually honest, Christian
faith and works are emerging more vital and more com-
pelling, purified and fortified by the tests. Wherever
she condones and continues disposed to cling to decadent
morals, identifies her interests with absolutism and
oppression, and flouts her scholars, however reverent,
students and other possessors of the scientific spirit and
method are either enmeshed by doubt or openly avow
their unbelief."
The Roman Church Static. "To maintain perspective
here, it must be taken into account that the Roman Catho-
lic Church in Latin America profited little from the
Reformation, being the projection of national bodies that
reacted from the prospect of religious freedom to the
excesses of the Inquisition. Intellectually, most of the
clergy languish in the conceptions of the middle ages.
Even the most moderate wing of the loyal modernist
movement among European Roman Catholics has failed
to gain a hearing either from laity or clergy, so that the
94 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
thinking men are without any program to point the
for them to be at once Christians and yet true to the
laws of the mind and to the accepted facts of modern
knowledge with which their best institutions of higher
learning are abreast.
"Any strength, therefore, of organized Christianity in
learned Latin America lies for the most part entirely
outside the personal allegiances which spring from faith
in God, the lordship and saviorhood of Jesus Christ, a
love' of the church, and the ministry to human need
as citizens of the kingdom of God. As a political insti-
tution, the Roman Catholic Church is generally found
in league with what are now remnants or successors of
the old Spanish oligarchies. In about half the republics
this alliance is in control but is hotly contested, and
decade by decade, with the advance of education and
other liberal policies, it is forced to yield ground. Politi-
cal expediency, class interest and inherited religious
sentiment are still powerful in holding many to outward
form and obedience after vital faith and love have de-
parted or indeed where they never existed. Moreover,
with the loyalty of the women generally unshaken,
Roman Catholicism remains the axis on which turns the
elite social order in most of the countries. These domestic
and related bonds retain many in polite conformity.
Underneath the entire structure of religion, however,
beating against the foundations are tides of disapproval
ranging in degree from lack of confidence, through in-
difference, .to the most violent repudiation of the validity
of Christianity in all its forms and manifestations.
"There are jour groups to be borne in mind, varying
numerically in proportion to each other in the several
RELIGIOUS . 95
countries. No group is absent from any one. These are ;
(i) a violent anticlerical party, many of whom carry
their opposition to religion of every form; (2) the more
or less well-reasoned atheists and skeptics who look in-
dulgently upon religion as harmless for women and for
the lower classes, but who are themselves indifferent to
its claims upon them personally; (3) the dissatisfied, if
not disillusioned, and groping companies of souls who
soon pass on to cynicism and hardness of heart ; (4)
those whose period of doubt and breaking away is ahead
of them as they are overtaken by free education. Al-
ready large defections have proceeded beyond the scholar
class, and the turning to various cults has begun. The
undermining of belief proceeding on a national scale in
every division of the field is patent to all observers/'
3. Because Commissioned to Carry the Gospel to
Unevangelized Populations. "Large numbers of the
native Indians and Negro ex-slave descendants in given
sections of Latin America are pagan, in some areas with-
out any contact whatever with Christianity, and in many
others with too little to affect appreciably either their
religious conceptions, their character, or their low eco-
nomic state. They constitute a field of pure missionary
endeavor as apostolically conceived, which no body of
Christians can ignore who accept responsibility for the
world's evangelization. Scarcely less appealing are the
spiritual needs of even more numerous bodies of peoples
who are without any commensurate means for entrance
upon Christian discipleship, instruction, and growth."
4. In Consideration of the Contributions of Spiritual
Freedom to Individual and National Character. "The
progressive rapprochements of many of the great Chris-
96 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
tian communions are teaching this generation that isola-
tion and aloofness are inimical to spiritual f ruitfulness ;
and also that each body has some God-given contribution
to make in the discovery and appropriation by all of the
Christian message and ideal in their fullness. By as much
as faithful adherents of the Roman Catholic Church,
obedient to her sense of mission, establish her institutions
and minister side by side with those of other communions
on the continent of Europe, in the British Isles, in North
America and elsewhere, so millions of Christians of the
other communions conceive that they may not withhold
from Latin America, or from any other part of the
world, those aspects of Christian truth and life which
have been revealed to them as among the supreme bless-
ings of the faith. Without undertaking to exhaust the
category, these are named as obligations heavily laid
upon evangelical Christians in behalf of the whole world:
the establishment of intellectual freedom; the opening,
circulation and study of the Scriptures; the recognition
of the right and value of democracy in ecclesiastical
government. . . .
"Liberty of conscience and opinion, moreover, is the
mother of toleration and mutual respect, without the
sacrifice of conviction or of principle. There can be
differences and even opposition without bitterness.
Evangelical Christianity, though not yet without bigots,
has sufficiently learned the lessons of history, many of
them painful, to throw the preponderance of its strength
into the scale for freedom of intellect and conscience.
It seeks this boon for Latin America in good faith, be-
lieving that the acceptance and observance of the princi-
ple by all communions in those lands would serve there
RELIGIOUS 97
\
as elsewhere the cause of true religion and the related
interests of humanity far better than do the voice of
authority and the machinery of suppression."
Latin-American Testimony. "Latin Americans, liter-
ate and unlearned alike, are practically cut off from this
moral and spiritual fountain. The earnest educator,
statesman, and others in public and private life condemn,
deplore, and exhort in the presence of a situation felt
to be deplorable. In El Sur, of Arequipa (Peru),
November 14, 1914, in an article headed 'Ruin/ the
writer says : That which cannot be cured, and which fore-
shadows death is moral failure. And this is the evil of
this country. . . . We breathe a fetid atmosphere and
are not sickened. The life of the country is poisoned,
and the country needs a life purification. In the state in
which we are, the passing of the years does not change
men, it only accentuates the evil. A purging and a strug-
gle are absolutely necessary/ The vice-rector of La
Plata University, Argentina, in his opening address of
the college year, called upon the university to recognize
its obligation to develop character in the young men who
pass through its halls. 'It is with great sadness that I
witness the steady decrease in the number of unselfish,
idealistic, genuine men ; how engulfing the tide of selfish-
ness, of rebellion, of indiscipline and of insatiable ambi-
tion; impunity so commonly supplants justice that I fear
for the spiritual future of the land of my children, unless
we make haste to remedy the great evil, which is disre-
gard for the noble, and the great and unmeasured lust
for material riches/
"This man who knows what he wants, but knows not
how to get it, closed with the characteristically pessimistic
98 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
note of almost all South Americans of high ideals. He
quoted from Fogazzaro's The Saint, as follows: There
are men who believe they disbelieve in God and who,
when sickness and death approach, say, "Such is the
law of life; such is nature, such is the order of the uni-
verse. Let us bow the head, accept without a murmur,
and go on complying with our duty." ' 'Gentlemen/
said the rector to his faculty, 'such men let us form not
only in the University of La Plata, but in the great, com-
plex university of Argentina/ It is pathetic that such
men know not the way. It is a call in the dark — but
is an increasing loud call, an increasing earnest call, a
call that honestly wishes light. God hears that call and
will not be long in answering unless men who know the
way out are culpably slothful."
Spiritual Famine. "These are the unfailing signs of
spiritual famine to be observed universally wherever
there is neglect of the Bible. Let there be a generous
distribution and a wide use of the Scriptures from Mexico
to the Straits of Magellan, and a corresponding rise in
individual and collective conscience and volitional power
will be registered in a generation. Immanuel Kant wrote :
'The existence of the Bible as a book for the people is
the greatest benefit which the human race has ever ex-
perienced/ Millions of evangelical Christians nourished
on the Bible know this to be true. They will be false
to themselves and will fail in a solemn trust if they
do not in humility and faithfulness declare and reveal
the inexhaustible sources to whomsoever these remain
undiscovered. . . .
"Latin Americans, too, will waken to new and vigorous
religious life when both the rights and obligations of free
RELIGIOUS
99
disciples of Jesus are offered them. They are charged
with indifference to the interests of religion. Is this
surprising? When have their convictions concerning
religion been respected, or their opinions sought ? They
are said to be undependable in voluntary Christian serv-
ice. No school of experience has been in existence to
call forth and to develop responsibility in the individual.
The Inquisition was not calculated to stimulate inde-
pendence and initiative. Even capable recruits for the
national clergy have all but ceased to come forward save
in countries like Chile, where ultr^montanism was re-
sisted with considerable success. Generations forced to
stagnating conformity cannot be expected to flower with
spontaneity into self-reliant and progressive Christians.
The journey is a long one from blindly obeying human
spiritual authority to full citizenship in a Christian
democracy. Halting steps and even helplessness are
certain to mark the early stages, but once accomplished
on the part of substantial numbers, a new transforming
order of society will appear in the life of these nations,
conscious and rejoicing in their call, 'Not to be minis-
tered unto but to minister/ '
5. For the Interchange of Spirit, Principle and Meth-
ods in the Solution of Social Problems. "The un-
selfish, patriotic men and women of Europe and of both
Americas, in public and in private capacities, are hard
pressed by similar tasks of social amelioration and of
moral regeneration confronting them. The enlightened
peoples of the world are sharing with one another
acquired knowledge, experience, leadership, and financial
assistance in the advancement of health, education,
character, and other fruits of Christian civilization. Such
ioo THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
interchange should increasingly characterize the relations
between Latin America and the Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic
nations. Human suffering, ignorance, greed, and lust
are not limited to national or provincial boundaries.
'What an Italian surgeon or a German scientist discovers
to-day is applied to-morrow in the world's hospitals and
laboratories. When a Brazilian aeronaut contributes to
the conquest of the air or an Argentine statesman adds
a ne.w doctrine to the international code, civilization ac-
knowledges itself debtor. The time has come for free
trade in moral resdurces. This is a plea for an inter-
national consciousness to assert itself against Phariseeism
when a sister nation's character is reviewed and against
injured pride when the light is turned on at home/ y>
There is a field for such cooperation in education,
especially the education of the masses of the people.
"The field for cooperation in health, hygiene, and sanita-
tion is equally extensive. It is difficult to see how educa-
tion on these matters of life and death and even medical
relief can humanely be withheld from large populations
where the facilities to prevent and cure disease are alike
inadequate and often absent altogether. . . .
"The call to advance preventive medicine by education,
example, and influence is urgent. It is hardly conceiv-
able that intelligent service on the part of foreign Chris-
tians would not be welcomed by every official and citizen
interested in the promotion of playgrounds, better hous-
ing, sanitation, and in antituberculosis and kindred move-
ments. If barriers now exist, a better understanding,
approach, and working basis should be contemplated."
Social Hygiene. "Societies to combat intemperance,
social vice, Indian exploitation, and other deeply-seated
RELIGIOUS 101
evils are scarcely more than projected. . t . With
respect to sex education and antivice regulations Latin
America has yet to travel nearly the entire distance to
be abreast of contemporary Christian sentiment, social
science, and enlightened procedure. Full credit is here
given to the first steps taken forward, the more signifi-
cant because so isolated and therefore courageous. . . .
Here and there medical men are being heard and are
appearing in print and supporting the continent life as
consistent with health and virility. For generations the
youth have been instructed to the contrary, as indeed
most of them are still. The double standard of morality
for men and women is generally accepted by both sexes.
The great municipalities still put their faith in segrega-
tion, police licenses, medical inspection, and the other
futile measures against the evils of prostitution now being
repudiated and abandoned on the Continent, in Great
Britain and elsewhere as both unchristian and contribu-
tory to the harm and misery it is desired to remove. . . .
Along this whole battle line all informed lovers and
champions of the human race must offer united resis-
tance without cavil or false pride. The aggregate wis-
dom and power of all are none too strong to cope suc-
cessfully with the league of destructive forces grouped
about the social evil. Its international character calls
for the closest cooperation between the leaders in moral
reform in Latin America, Europe, and the United States.
"To the social problems enumerated above may be
added such others as child labor, the oppression and
neglect of the poor, inequitable taxation, class govern-
ment, the evils of monopolies, special privileges, and un-
fair labor conditions. All these problems must be faced
102 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
couragequsly in the light of Christian principles. But
so far in Latin America the Roman Church has con-
tributed little or no practical help toward their solution.
Nevertheless-, there are to be found here and there earnest
men, of liberal tendencies, who, for patriotic and humani-
tarian reasons, are striving for the betterment of their
country. They are the friends of education, and realize
that character is the true basis of national strength Does
not the welcome that such men are prepared to ex-
tend to the forces which develop character, constitute
a golden opportunity for the evangelical church in Latin
America?"1
A Representative Voice. One of the most striking
addresses at the Panama Congress was made by a mem-
ber of the Roman Catholic Church, Judge Emilio del
Toro of Porto Rico. His testimony and appeal were
both illustrative and representative. After speaking of
the influence of religious liberty and of the open Bible
in the United States, Judge del Toro went on:
"Latin America is coming out into the life of civiliza-
tion with a different lot. The seeds of Christianity sown
since the times of the colonizers have produced their
fruits, and wherever there has been the most liberty there
its mission has become the noblest in practise. On the
boundaries between Chile and Argentine, two of those
American nations of Spanish origin which have attained
the- highest civilization, the Christ of the Andes, with
his open arms a symbol of peace and love, shows to the
world how Christians settle their disputes. Besides, the
religious life of the Spanish- American countries has been
lReport of Commission I to the Panama Congress, 22-49.
RELIGIOUS 103
characterized by the almost absolute predominance of
the Catholic Church ; and in my judgment the same benef-
icent influence which Catholicism has exercised in the
development of its civilization would have been greater
had it been obliged to contend face to face from the
earliest times with a vigorous Protestant movement.
"Until a few years ago, the Catholic Church was, in
my native island, Porto Rico, the state religion. Among
the public expenditures those for worship were con-
spicuous. The influence of the clergy extended every-
where. And what was the result, after four centuries of
abundant opportunities? A people for the most part
indifferent or unbelieving.
"There took place a change of regime. The church
was separated from the state. A struggle began under
the protection of the free institutions of North America,
established in the island; Presbyterians, Methodists,
Lutherans, Baptists, Episcopalians began their work.
Faint-hearted Catholic priests, accustomed to the enjoy-
ment of special privileges, descried the ruin of their
church. But it was not so. The spirit of the North
entered into her and men accustomed to a life of freedom
gave her a new impetus. And to-day, separated from
the state, sustained by herself, she is realizing a nobler
and more Christian mission than in the time when her
power was absolute.
"Those who love the progress of the nations, those
who study history dispassionately, those who have faith
in the improvement of mankind, cannot but see with
deep sympathy that the reformation is spreading, that
free investigation opens broader horizons to the human
spirit, that Christianity, preached and interpreted by
104 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
all, disseminates its beneficent influence and raises the
level of society.
"Porto Rico is a case in point and is conclusive evidence
to me of the results which will be obtained in all of
Latin America from initiating and sustaining a vigorous
and altruistic Protestant movement. Not only will reli-
gious feeling grow ; not only will Christianity win con-
verts; not only will more prayer be offered in spirit
and in truth by many men; not only will it redound in
good to the Catholic Church itself, but the influence of
Christianity in the life of the Spanish-American democ-
racies will be greatly multiplied. There is something
which lives in us which is part of our very being, and
it is the heritage received from our ancestors. And
wherever the reformation goes, wherever the Protestant
minister accomplishes his mission, there it will go, there
that heritage of so many generations of peoples of the
North who strove for the freedom of many will act and
react. In his relations with the community, in his judg-
ments on public affairs, in the direction of his own insti-
tutions, in his administration of charity, in his schools
and hospitals, in his ideas of the uplift of the masses and
of the dignity of labor, in his spirit of tolerance, the
minister, if he is a legitimate representative of Christian
civilization, will be an inspiration to the people."1
II. AN OPEN DOOR
The Latin-American nations have opened the doors
wide for all sincere, friendly, and sympathetic assistance.
There was a time when they were closed, when religious
xThe Panama Star and Herald, Feb. 17, 1916.
RELIGIOUS IOS
liberty was denied, but one by one the various republics,
even where they still suppdrt the Roman Catholic Church
as the state church, have admitted or even welcomed and
invited the forces of the evangelical churches.
Religious Toleration. "Full recognition of re-
ligious liberty is now accorded either by the fundamental
law or through its liberal interpretation by all the repub-
lics of the western hemisphere. The last to grant this
is Peru. The fourth article of the constitution of Peru
reads: The religion of the state is the Roman Catholic
Apostolic ; the state protects it, and does not permit the
public exercise of any other/ A bill to remove the last
clause passed both houses of Congress of 1913. To be
effective it required the approval of the legislature of
1914. This was secured in the Senate, but failed to reach
a vote in the Chamber of Deputies under heavy political,
social, and even domestic pressure, until November, 1915,
when the measure was hurriedly called up and passed by
an overwhelming majority. The president permitted it
to become law by expiration of time. The law has not
permitted the erection of buildings or ownership of
property for purposes of worship unrecognized by the
state. Permission to build the Anglo-American church
in Lima was obtained only under pressure by the minis-
ters of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States,
it being stipulated that the building must convey no out-
ward appearance of a church. Nevertheless, men of
liberal tendencies have held important positions under
the government, which, at least on one occasion, was
willing to indemnify evangelical workers for losses suf-
fered. Both presidents and cabinet ministers have sus-
tained colporteurs in the right to sell Bibles.
io6 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
"In the other countries practical religious freedom is
in effect. Uniform testimony is born to the fidelity with
which the higher officials of the governments administer
the guaranties of religious freedom. Local authorities
in the more remote and less advanced regions are some-
times found lending themselves and their officers to
overt persecution and even to violence. In other areas
the clergy privately are more powerful than the local
government and are able to incite illegal opposition and
to protect offenders until the higher jurisdictions are
reached. Weapons of social ostracism, business boycott,
and political discrimination are still widely employed
against non-conforming believers. Unhappily, few, if
any peoples have not in their past history yielded to such
unchristian, undemocratic passions and misguided zeal.
Many are not yet guiltless. The extent of the abandon-
ment of these practises marks the displacing of fanaticism
and ignorance by the graces of true disciples of Jesus."
Religious Equality Still Lacking. "Religious lib-
erty, however, must not here be confused or identified
with religious equality. On this latter aspect of the case
there is much more to be recorded. In several countries
non-Catholics are under certain disabilities. Support of
the church establishment is imposed upon all taxpayers
alike save in Mexico, Bolivia, and Cuba, where separa-
tion from the state has taken place. In Colombia, chil-
dren may not attend the public schools who absent them-
selves from the services of the church. The ecclesiastical
court is above the civil courts, and any party to a non-
Roman Catholic marriage can at any time get it annulled
and be remarried in that church. Control of hospitals
by nuns in Ecuador is a decided limitation of the liberty
RELIGIOUS 107
of needy persons. These are frequently put out of the
hospital on their refusal to receive the ministrations of
the priest. Chileans and Peruvians report similar meas-
ures of compulsory confession."1
The freedom already accorded must be used, that the
people may enter into a yet larger freedom.
III. IN WHAT MANNER AND SPIRIT SHOULD THIS CALL
BE MET?
Commission II, of the Panama Congress, on Method
and Message, dealt with this question. The introduction
of its report illustrated the spirit which it advocated in
answer :
The Universality of Religion. "The commission
has assumed that in the sphere of fundamental religious
values — the spiritual, intellectual, and social needs whose
satisfaction has to do with man's right relations to God
and to his fellow-man, and with the highest welfare of
nations — iatin America does not differ from North
America, or from any other land whether nominally
Christian or non-Christian, however apparent may be the
diversities in national temperament, historical experience,
present status, and external forms of the respective civili-
zations. Beside this recognition of the identity in all
lands of fundamental religious needs growing out of
common humanity and brotherhood, the Commission
would urge the validity of the corresponding Christian
conviction that the gospel of Christ is universally identi-
cal in its essential truths and in its power to meet the
deepest needs of the soul. The gospel for Latin Amer-
*Report of Commission I to the Panama Congress, 54, 55-
io8 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
ica, as for all the world, is a message of life — sufficient,
abundant, inexhaustible. Furthermore, the commission
conceives that the right and only function, as well as
the unescapable obligation, of the evangelical churches
in Latin America, as elsewhere, is faithfully to proclaim,
to interpret and to practise the Christian gospel in its
purity and fullness, in order to secure its voluntary
acceptance by those who have not received it and to
seek the application of its principles and the communica-
tion of its spirit to individual, social, and national life."
The Religious Question Paramount. "The timeli-
ness of the theme of this commission is sufficiently indi-
cated by mention of the wide-spread solicitude concern-
ing the religious life of Latin America, which, in the
last few years, has emerged in many parts of the Chris-
tian world, a solicitude to which the strongest expression
has been given by religious leaders, both Roman Catholic
and Protestant, who are in immediate contact with the
special problems existent in the republics. Scarcely less
keen — despite much indifference to religious matters on
the part of the educated classes— has been the interest
evinced by eminent patriots, statesmen, and scholars,
especially in South America, who, while without a posi-
tive religious message themselves, are nevertheless con-
cerned as to the content and quality of the inner life of
their people, and as to the religious goal to which the
masses are tending. . . .
"The religious question not only confronts the Latin-
American peoples to-day, emerging as a vital issue from
the experiences of the past; it is discerned also as an all-
important element in the future national prosperity. As
religion is the soul of history, the character of the com-
RELIGIOUS 109
ing development of Latin civilization depends in supreme
degree upon the quality of its moral and spiritual life.
Only upon a sound religious basis can the Latin charac-
ter and the Latin culture rise to their full possibilities
and fulfil their potential mission in the western hemi-
sphere.
"At the present time when South America stands on
tiptoe, facing a new industrial era and preparing to
expand in vast commercial enterprises, when all the re-
publics are responding to the enlarging impulses of
Pan- Americanism ; when Mexico is struggling through
revolution to a larger and purer freedom; when Central
America and the Antilles are feeling the thrill of a livelier
destiny by the opening of the Panama Canal; when that
great avenue of the seas, which, while it cuts the narrow
bond that joined the two continents, thereby unites them
by the more enduring ties of mutual exchange in com-
modities and ideals, of international sympathy and friend-
ship, of common purpose and of the common mission
of Christian democracy — at such a time no question could
be more important than this : In order that the churches
may adjust themselves to the new day and be an up-
lifting and guiding force in spiritual things, what shall
be the message and the method of their ministry?"
Factors Influencing Evangelical Methods. The
Report sets forth the "relevant facts in Latin-American
civilization" which must be in view in considering the
method of help. It singles out (i) racial complexity, (2)
the Latin spirit, (3) the religious inheritance, (4) politi-
cal isolation, and (5) democratic idealism.
Of the religious inheritance it is said: "Abundant
evidence establishes the fact that the vast statistical mem-
no THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
bership of the census reports is largely nominal and
superficial. That there are immense and growing defec-
tions from the Roman Church, not only in inward con-
viction and sympathy, but in outward allegiance and
conformity, is patent beyond contradiction in every Latin-
American land. Multitudes, having become alienated
from the Roman Church, are contemptuous or antago-
nistic toward all religion; still vaster multitudes have
drifted into utter indifference regarding the teachings of
Roman Catholicism, while yielding prudential compliance
with its forms and customs.
"Scientific candor based on indisputable testimony
from both Roman Catholic and Protestant sources com-
pels the statement that in the Roman Church, Latin
America has inherited an institution which, though still
influential, is rapidly declining in power. With notable
exceptions its priesthood is discredited by the thinking
classes. Its moral life is weak and its spiritual witness
faint. At the present time it is giving the people neither
the Bible, nor the gospel, nor the intellectual guidance,
nor the moral dynamic, nor the social uplift which they
need. It is weighted with medievalism and other non-
Christian accretions."1
Divorce of Religion from Practise. Lord Bryce has
set forth temperately the judgment which he formed
after years of acquaintance with Latin America and his
personal visit: "Another fact strikes the traveler with
surprise. Both the intellectual life and the ethical stand-
ards of conduct of these countries seem to be entirely
divorced from religion. The women are almost uni-
lReport of Commission II to the Panama Congress, 7-9, 17, 18.
RELIGIOUS in
versally 'practising' Catholics, and so are the peasantry,
though the Christianity of the Indians bears only a dis-
tant resemblance to that of Europe. But men of the
upper or educated class appear wholly indifferent to
theology and to Christian worship. It has no interest
for them. They are seldom actively hostile to Chris-
tianity, much less are they offensive when they speak
of it, but they think it does not concern them, and
may be left to women and peasants. The Catholic re-
vival or reaction of the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury did not touch Spanish America, which is still under
the influence of the anti-Catholic current of the later
eighteenth. The Roman Church in Spain and Portugal
was then, and indeed is now, far below the level at which
it stands in France, Germany, and Italy. Its worship was
more formal, its pressure on the laity far heavier, its
clergy less exemplary in their lives. In Spanish America
the obscurantism was at least as great and the other
faults probably greater. There was not much persecu-
tion, partly, no doubt, because there was hardly any
heterodoxy, and the victims of the Inquisition were com-
paratively few. But the ministers of religion had ceased
not only to rouse the soul, but to supply a pattern for
conduct. There were always some admirable men to be
found among them, some prelates models of piety and
virtue, some friars devoted missionaries and humanely
zealous in their efforts to protect the Indians. Still the
church as a whole had lost its hold on the conscience and
thought of the best spirits, and that hold it has never
regained. In saying this I am comparing Catholic South
America not with the Protestant countries of Europe, but
with such Roman Catholic countries as France, Rhenish
ii2 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
Prussia, and Bavaria, in all of which the Roman Church
is a power in the world of thought and morals. In east-
ern Europe the Orthodox Church has similarly shriveled
up and ceased to be an intellectual force, but there it has
at least retained the affection of the upper class, and is
honored for its fidelity during centuries .of Mussulman
oppression. In the more advanced parts of South Amer-
ica it seems to be regarded merely as a harmless Old
World affair which belongs to a past order of things just
as much as does the rule of Spain, but which may, so
long as it does not interfere with politics, be treated with
the respect which its antiquity commands. In both cases
the undue stress laid upon the dogmatic side of theology
and the formal or external side of worship has resulted
in the loss of spiritual influence. In all the Spanish coun-
tries, the church had trodden down the laity and taken
freedom and responsibility from them more than befell
anywhere else in Christendom, making devotion consist
in absolute submission. Thus when at last her sway
vanished, her moral influence vanished with it. This
absence of a religious foundation for thought and con-
duct is a grave misfortune for Latin America."1
And Sr. Calderon sums up his own judgment in the
words :
"From Mexico to Chile the religion is the same; the
intolerance of alien cults is the same ; so are the clerical-
ism, the anti-clericalism, the fanaticism, and the super-
ficial free thought; the influence of the clergy in the
state, upon women, and the schools; the lack of true
religious feeling under the appearance of general belief .'"2
*South America: Observation and Impressions, 582, 583.
2 Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 337-
RELIGIOUS 113
IV. THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY
In the light of all the facts it is declared, and surely
with justice, that the evangelical churches have a funda-
mental obligation to extend their help to Latin America
and that evangelical Christianity need not hesitate to
declare that through the acceptance and application of
the gospel of Christ, the highest hopes of the earnest
leaders of Latin America can be fulfilled wherein they
are right, and transcended wherein they are imperfect;
and that the true welfare of the republics can be realized
in the establishment of what Jesus meant by the kingdom
of God.
What, then, should be the burden and application of
the Christian message for Latin America to-day?
The Christian Message. "First of all these democ-
racies have a right to hear, and it is the church's solemn
duty to proclaim the primary gospel of Christ, the evan-
gelical message of the New Testament, the essentials of
Christianity, primitive and pure, the clear notes of a
redeeming evangel, unencumbered either by the ecclesi-
astical accretions of Roman Catholicism or by ultra-
sectarian forms and dogmas of Protestantism, and the
confident assertion that the true Christian church is the
home and should be the propelling force of true democ-
racy. •. . .
"The leaders of the Latin- American revolutions sought
in certain forms of social idealism for the secret of
political organization and commercial order in the new
republics. They sought in vain. For no system of
government needs religious ideals, the conception of the
will of God concerning man, more than a democracy.
H4 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS
Liberty, equality, fraternity were religious principles,
elements of the life of Christian churches, before they
ever became potent war cries of revolution and ideals
of society in general. Apart from their religious origin
and inspiration, these three great ideals have neither
truth or potency. It is the Christian gospel which first
established them as working, organizing forces. From
the Christian churches they passed over into the general
consciousness of modern nations. But apart from the
Christ, and his revelation of the Father's will and purpose
concerning man, they have no reality. It is their passion
for democracy which should lead the rulers and philoso-
phers, the statesmen and lecturers of Latin America
back to Christ. For his kingship is the only real source
of that individual liberty, that mystic equality, that uni-
versal fraternity, whose glory appears in the Christian
life, whose ideals are striven after passionately by the
evangelical churches, whose partial fruits are seen in the
incomplete democracies of the modern world."1
Are not all those who perceive that these treasures
are laid up for them in Christ, and that in Christ alone
they can be found, and that men and nations alike are
hopeless without them, bound to share what they know
with other men? Whether these other men be within
our own race and nation or without it is of no conse-
quence, or whether they be of nations near by or far
away, of nations like our own, nominally Christian, or
of non-Christian nations across the seas. Ever those
who can help must help. And if any services in offering
men the clear gift of Christ undimmed by institution or
1 Report of Commission II to the Panama Congress, 22, 44, 45.
RELIGIOUS 115
tradition can be given by us to Latin America, the duty
is not more and not less because they are near and be-
cause they bear kindred names. In Bishop Brent's
biography of Bishop Satterlee is preserved a statement
of Dr. Satterlee' s at the time the Protestant Episcopal
Church was considering its relations to Mexico, and
Dr. Satterlee with others was urging that it was the
.Church's duty to go in and to give its aid. "The appeal,"
said he, "is from our brothers who are struggling out of
ignorance, superstition, and darkness into light, faith, and
knowledge, and it seems to be a strange idea, that while
we are in duty bound to carry the gospel to the heathen,
we should not go to the help of our brethren in Mexico
because they are our brethren. That which one would
think would give them a double claim upon us is made
the plea why we should recognize no claim at all/' And
Dr. Satterlee added the question which John so pene-
tratingly asks, "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth
his brother have need, and shutteth up his compassion
from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"
Is that love in us? If it is, there can be but one issue.
We shall seek, each man in the work of the body with
which he is connected, to enlarge the agencies of the
Christian churches for the preaching of the gospel of the
New Testament in Latin America, and we shall repre-
sent in all our own thoughts and attitudes toward Latin
America, and demand that our nation represent in its
declarations and in its deeds, the principles of that gospel.
MISSION STUDY COURSES
'Anywhere, provided it be FORWARD." — David Livingstone
Prepared under the direction of the
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
EDUCATIONAL, COMMITTEE: G. F. Sutherland, Chairman;
A. E. Armstrong, J. I. Armstrong, Hugh L. Burleson,
E. C. Cronk, W. E. Doughty, H. Paul Douglass, Arthur
R. Gray, R. A. Hutchison, B. Carter Millikin, John M.
Moore, John H. Poorman, James K. Quay, T, Bronson Ray.
The aim of the Movement is to publish a series of text-
books covering the various home and foreign mission fields
and problems and written by leading authorities.
The following text-books having a sale of over 1,750,000
have been published :
1. THE PRICE OF AFRICA. Biographical. By S. Earl
Taylor.
2. INTO ALL THE WORLD. A general survey of missions.
By Amos R. Wells.
3. PRINCELY MEN IN THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM. Bio-
graphical. By Harlan P. Beach.
4. SUNRISE IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM. Revised Edition.
A study of Japan. By John H. DeForest.
5. HEROES OF THE CROSS IN AMERICA. Home Missions.
Biographical. By Don O. Shelton.
6. DAYBREAK IN THE DARK CONTINENT. Revised Edi-
tion. A study of Africa. By Wilson S. Naylor.
7. THE CHRISTIAN CONQUEST OF INDIA. A study of
India. By James M. Thoburn.
8. ALIENS OR AMERICANS? A study of Immigration. By
Howard B. Grose.
MISSION STUDY COURSES
9. THE UPLIFT OF CHINA. Revised Edition. A study of
China. By Arthur H. Smith.
10. THE CHALLENGE OF THE CITY. A study of the City.
By Josiah Strong.
11. THE WHY AND How OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. A study
of the relation of the home Church to the foreign mis-
sionary enterprise. By Arthur J. Brown.
12. THE MOSLEM WORLD. A study of the Mohammedan
world. By Samuel M. Zwemer.
13. THE FRONTIER. A study of the New West. By
Ward Platt.
14. SOUTH AMERICA : Its Missionary Problems. A study
of South America. By Thomas B. Neely.
15. THE UPWARD PATH : The Evolution of a Race. A
study of the Negro. By Mary Helm.
16. KOREA IN TRANSITION. A study of Korea. By
James S. Gale.
17. ADVANCE IN THE ANTILLES. A study of Cuba and
rto Rico. By Howard B. Grose.
18. THE DECISIVE HOUR OF CHRISTIAN - MISSIONS. A
study of conditions throughout the non-Christian world.
By John R. Mott.
19. INDIA AWAKENING. A study of present conditions
in India. By Sherwood Eddy.
20. THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN COUNTRY. A study of
the problem of the Rural Church. By Warren H. Wilson.
21. THE CALL OF THE WORLD. A survey of conditions
at home and abroad of challenging interest to men. By
W. E. Doughty.
22. THE EMERGENCY IN CHINA. A study of present-day
conditions in China. By F. L. Hawks Pott.
23. MEXICO TO-DAY : Social, Political, and Religious Con-
ditions. A study of present-day conditions in Mexico.
By George B. Winton.
24. IMMIGRANT FORCES. A study of the immigrant in his
home and American environment. By William P. Shriver.
25. THE NEW ERA IN ASIA. Contrast of early and
present conditions in the Orient. By Sherwood Eddy.
26. THE SOCIAL ASPECTS OF FOREIGN MISSIONS. A study
of the social achievements of foreign missions. By
W. H. P. Faunce.
27. THE NEW HOME MISSIONS. A study of the social
achievements and social program of home missions. By
H. Paul Douglass.
28. THE AMERICAN INDIAN ON THE NEW TRAIL. A
story of the Red Men of the United States and the Chris-
tian gospel. By Thomas C. Moffett.
MISSION STUDY COURSES
29. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL GOSPEL. ' A study
of the individual in the local church and his relation to the
social message of the gospel. By Shailer Mathews.
30. RISING CHURCHES IN NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS. A
study of the native Church and its development in the
foreign mission field. By Arthur J. Brown.
31. THE CHURCHES AT WORK. A statement of the
work of the churches in the local community in the United
States. By Charles L. White.
32. EFFICIENCY POINTS. The Bible, Service, Giving,
Prayer — four conditions of efficiency. By W. E. Doughty.
33. SOUTH AMERICAN NEIGHBORS. A study of South
America, including the results of the Panama Conference.
By Homer C. Stuntz.
34. THE SOUTH TO-DAY. A study of the religious life
of the Southern States. By John M. Moore.
35. THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS. A discussion of the
relations of commerce, education, politics, and religion
between the Americas. By Robert E. Speer.
In addition to the above courses, the following have been
published especially for use among younger persons :
1. UGANDA'S WHITE MAN OF WORK. The story of
Alexander M. Mackay of Africa. By Sophia Lyon Fahs.
2. SERVANTS OF THE KING. A series of eleven sketches
of famous home and foreign missionaries. By Robert E.
Speer.
3. UNDER MARCHING ORDERS. The story of Mary Porter
Gamewell of China. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard.
4. WINNING THE OREGON COUNTRY. The story of Marcus
Whitman and Jason Lee in the Oregon country. By
John T. Paris.
5. THE BLACK BEARDED BARBARIAN. The story of
George Leslie Mackay of Formosa. By Marian Keith.
6. LIVINGSTONE THE PATHFINDER. The story of David
Livingstone. By Basil Mathews.
7. ANN OF AVA. The story of Ann Hasseltine Judson
of Burma. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard.
8. COMRADES IN SERVICE. Eleven brief biographies of
Christian workers. By Margaret E. Burton.
9. MAKERS OF SOUTH AMERICA. Sketches of twelve
epoch-making leaders in South American history. By
Margarette Daniels.
These books are published by mutual arrangement among
the home and foreign mission boards, to whom all orders
should be addressed. They are bound uniformly and are
sold at 60 cents in cloth, and 40 cents in paper; prepaid.
Nos. 21, 29, 32, and 35 are 25 cents in cloth, prepaid.
MAY 221917
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