LATIN AMERICA 
 
 THE LAND 
 THE PEOPLE 
 THE PROBLEMS 
 
 OUTLINE OF AN ADDRESS 
 BY THE REV' WEBSTER E' 
 BROWNING'PH'D'OF 
 SANTIAGO DE GHILE 
 
 MARCH ’^NINETEEN HUNDRED 6? THIRTEEN 
 
LATIN AMERICA^ THE LAND 
 THE PEOPLE 'THE PROBLEM 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Latin America, that portion of the West- 
 ern Hemisphere which stretches from the 
 Rio Grande to Cape Horn, and includes three 
 small republics in the West Indies group, is 
 that part of the world which is least known, 
 least understood, and from which least is ex- 
 pected by Europeans and North Americans. 
 What ideas we have entertained of that semi- 
 mysterious part of the globe have often been 
 comic or bizarre, as colored by the writers of 
 light journalism, and in them deadly fevers 
 and all too frequent revolutions, in play re- 
 publics, have held a large place. The ex- 
 ploits of the Spanish conquistadores, those 
 wonderful free-booters, whose strenuous deeds 
 won for their king a new world, and the haze 
 of mediaeval romanticism, that, since their 
 day, has hung over the Spanish Main, seem 
 to have called those lands into notice only 
 to shroud them again from the public gaze, 
 and they have counted for but little in the 
 history of the world while Europe and Teu- 
 tonic America have pursued their empire- 
 building ways. 
 
 Our ideas as to the various countries that 
 form Latin America have, in general, been 
 based on the reports in our daily press, which 
 with wearying regularity, have told of Cen- 
 tral American revolutions and border war- 
 fare, or of the uprising of an Indian tribe in 
 Tehuantepec or in Patagonia. We have come 
 to consider that these mimic wars, that have 
 had about as much influence on the world at 
 large as a battle of kites generated by school- 
 boys, are characteristic of all our Latin 
 neighbors. Yet there is a very great differ- 
 ence between Chile and Nicaragua, or between 
 the Argentine and Guatemala, though, to the 
 average European or North American, they 
 may seem to be of equal non-importance. 
 
 I 
 
tarred with the same brush, and offering al- 
 lurements only to venturesome spirits who 
 would go forth in search of the lost “El 
 Dorado’^ or the fabled fountain of youth. 
 
 There are several reasons that explain, at 
 least in part, why Latin America, and, espe- 
 cially, that part known as South America, has 
 so long been “The Neglected Continent,’’ 
 unknown and unappreciated by the rest of 
 the busy world. 
 
 In the first place, it lies to the far South, * 
 entirely off the usual lines of travel. Even 
 our own Northern and Southern Cities and 
 States are less known than those that lie 
 along the great transcontinental railways. 
 The Twin Cities and New Orleans are less 
 advantageously placed than Philadelphia, 
 Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Kansas City, and 
 Denver, the gateways to the East or the West. 
 
 Our American tourists are more ubiquitous 
 than those of any other country. They visit 
 even the most recondite corners of Europe 
 and of the far East, climb to the roof of the 
 world in the Himalayas, wander through the 
 vales of Cashmere, and lose themselves among 
 the isles of the sea. But few of them swing 
 to the South to make a personal acquaintance 
 with the lands and peoples that lie down be- 
 yond the rim of the earth, where the South- 
 ern Cross blazes overhead; the Fourth of July 
 is celebrated in mid-winter; and Christmas 
 in the heat of summer. 
 
 The lack of great diplomatic problems have » 
 also contributed toward making and keeping 
 Latin America a land of mystery. We have 
 comparatively little commerce below the Rio 
 Grande, and our benevolent Monroe Doc- 
 trine has prevented the European powers 
 from making of Latin America a battle 
 ground for new territory. The wars of the 
 Latin states have not jeopardized, in general, 
 the lives or properties of foreigners and our 
 own State department and the chancellories 
 of Europe have not been called upon to in- 
 terfere or to exercise their good ofdces in the 
 making of peace, — as has been done in the 
 Russo-Japanese conflict, the Italo-Turkish 
 imbroglio, or the more recent Balkan con- 
 flagration. Consequently, our people have not 
 
 2 
 
been educated by the public press as to the 
 geography, area, and possible value of Latin 
 lands, and they have been left to work out 
 their destiny in practically their own way. 
 As regards our own Government and its re- 
 lations to its weaker brothers to the South, 
 too often an ultimatum is issued without 
 proper investigation, or a debt is forcibly 
 collected from a small and frightened gov- 
 ernment, — and the enmity of a people in- 
 curred to the detriment of our social and com- 
 mercial prestige for many years to come. 
 
 Still another explanation of the lack of 
 exact knowledge, in regard to conditions that 
 prevail in Latin America, may be found in 
 the fact that comparatively slight emphasis 
 has been laid on the work that our Protestant*^ 
 churches are doing in Eoman Catholic coun- 
 tries. There are many excellent people, not 
 a few of them in our own communion, who, 
 because of this lack of knowledge of the 
 real religious conditions that prevail in Latin, 
 and, hence. Catholic America, do not sympa- 
 thize with the work our Mission Boards are 
 doing among our Roman Catholic neighbors. 
 Acquainted with the work and influence of 
 the Roman Catholic church only in this land, 
 possibly only in their own village, where it 
 is hedged about and kept within certain 
 bounds by an overwhelming Protestant tra- 
 dition and sentiment: considering its exten- 
 sive and well managed philanthropic institu- 
 tions, and the restraining influence that its 
 priesthood, — which in this country, is, gen- 
 erally, comparatively cultured, temperate, and 
 moral, — has upon the great number of illit- 
 erate and vicious Catholic workmen who come 
 to us from Southern Europe; remembering 
 certain godly men and women, of Catholic 
 faith, who are honored members of the com- 
 munity; in a word, judging the whole Catho- 
 lic system by what can be observed in a very 
 limited sphere, many are quick to conclude 
 that Catholicism as seen in Protestant Amer- 
 ica or England is the same that maintains in 
 other lands. Hence, they claim, there is small 
 need of our sending missionaries to subvert 
 that faith and establish Protestant work 
 among Roman Catholic peoples. 
 
 3 
 
This view of individuals has become so 
 generalized that it is almost impossible to 
 introduce into missionary conventions a dis- 
 cussion or presentation of the needs of Eoman 
 Catholic lands. 
 
 In view of the widespread and eminently 
 successful attempt on the part of Eome to 
 keep concealed her real doctrines and inten- 
 tions, as well as the disastrous effect these 
 doctrines and teachings have had on the 
 peoples that have been so unfortunate as to 
 fall under her control, it is not strange that 
 Protestant America has been deceived and 
 led to look upon the great and pow^srful 
 Eoman Catholic organization as a part of 
 the federation of Christian churches. Many 
 do not know that even Eoman Catholics from 
 the United States do not recognize their own 
 church as they find it in Latin America, and 
 have no hesitancy in saying that in those 
 lands it has failed to live up to a splendid 
 opportunity and, as it exists to-day, is not 
 worthy their loyalty and support. And, yet, 
 it is in the republics of Latin America, as 
 in Spain and Portugal, the mother countries, 
 that Eoman Catholicism has given full fruit- 
 age, and it is by its fruits in those lands 
 that one must judge the system. In this 
 paper it shall be the object of the writer 
 to interest his readers in Latin America by 
 showing that it is a land of splendid possi- 
 bilities and of unusual promise; that the peo- 
 ples who inhabit it merit our kindest con- 
 sideration and our most distinterested coun- 
 sel; and that the many and vexing problems 
 which are to be met in those lands can be 
 solved by the people only through help that 
 must go to them from this our own great 
 Protestant Christian America. 
 
 4 
 
I 
 
 THE LAND 
 
 According to the statistics published by 
 the Pan-American Union, of Washington, the 
 total area of the twenty-one American re- 
 publics is, approximately, 12,000,000 square 
 miles. Of this total, 9,000,000 square miles 
 belong to the twenty Latin republics and the 
 remaining 3,000,000 to the Anglo-American 
 republic, the United States of America. In 
 other words, Latin America has three times 
 the area of our own country, instead of being, 
 as some one has expressed it, “a mere hand- 
 ful of little warring republics.” 
 
 If we compare the two grand divisions of 
 land, North America and South America, 
 which is the bulk of Latin America, we will 
 find that there is but little difference in 
 area. But, if we eliminate from North Amer- 
 ica all that part made uninhabitable because 
 of the extreme cold, we will find that there 
 is a larger habitable area in the Southern 
 half of the continent than in the Northern. 
 
 In this connection it may also be noticed 
 that what we call South America, while it 
 lies South, is also East, of North America. 
 This easting of the Southern half of the 
 Western Continent, a feature that is gener- 
 ally overlooked by those who are not espe- 
 cially interested in American history and 
 geography, is due to the fact that the Isthmus 
 of Panama runs almost East and West. 
 Consequently, the Panama Canal will run 
 almost North and South, rather slightly from 
 Northwest to Southeast. 
 
 Another result of this easting of South 
 America is the placing of its Eastern coasts 
 near the markets and influences of the old 
 world. And still another is the making of 
 almost a direct route from New York, our 
 principal port, to the West coast of South 
 America, when the canal is finished. Panama 
 lies two thousand miles almost due South of 
 New York, and Valparaiso de Chile, the prin- 
 cipal port on the Western littoral of South 
 America, three thousand miles south of Pan- 
 ama. in almost the same straight line, exactly 
 in the longitude of Boston. 
 
 5 
 
And here it may be said, as we think of 
 the probable influence of the Panama Canal 
 on our commercial relations with South 
 America, that our exports to the Latin re- 
 publics are $200,000,000 a year less than our 
 neighbors to the South succeed in selling us. 
 During the last year for which statistics 
 are available, we exported only $247,000,- 
 000 in products and manufactures, while we 
 bought from Latin America to the value of 
 $444,000,000. 
 
 Not only is Latin America, as a whole, of 
 surprising and unexpected interest, but the 
 individual states have each an attractive- 
 ness unnoticed by the casual observer. 
 
 Brazil, the largest of the Latin republics, 
 and which occupies one half of all South 
 America, is as large as the United States, 
 or the whole of Europe. Its great river sys- 
 tem, that of the Amazon, offers to the world 
 50,000 miles of navigable water, — or twice 
 the distance around the earth on the equator. 
 It ranks fourth in size among the countries 
 of the world, forms one flfth of the Western 
 Hemisphere, and one flfteenth of the world's 
 total land area. There are in its interior 
 vast unexplored districts, inhabited by can- 
 nibal tribes of Indians of whose numbers 
 only conjectures can be made, since their 
 hunting grounds are a bourne from whence 
 no white traveller has ever returned. The 
 population of the entire republic is estimated 
 to be between flfteen and twenty millions, 
 but no exact figures can be given. Brazil 
 •is a land of “magnificent distances,” and so 
 widely separated are some of its districts 
 that their respective inhabitants know less 
 of each other than they know of some of the 
 European countries. The forests produce not 
 only the famous brazil wood, from which the 
 country received its name, but also mahog- 
 any and other fine woods which are as com- 
 mon in the uses of the country as are the 
 ash or the oak with us; while its coffee 
 plantations could supply the world with a 
 “cup that cheers but inebriates not,” and 
 its diamond fields vie with the Kimberley 
 mines of South Africa in the production of 
 precious stones. The capital city, Rio de 
 
 6 
 
Janeiro, with its million inhabitants, is a 
 city of peculiar attractiveness, and is situ- 
 ated on what is called the most splendid 
 harbor in the world. 
 
 Uruguay, a small republic to the South, 
 boasts a dollar that is worth more, intrin- 
 sically, than the American dollar; while 
 Paraguay, in the interior, where the women 
 exceed the men in population, sometimes as 
 four to one, is noted for the famous mate, 
 a kind of tea that is the South American 
 beverage. 
 
 Across the Kio de la Plata, the Silver 
 River, and to the South, lies one of the most 
 interesting of all the Latin nations, the 
 Argentine Republic. Larger than Russia in 
 Europe and equal to about one third the 
 area of the United States, it embraces all 
 kinds of climate, from the tropical to the 
 antarctic, and all conditions of life. To the 
 North and West lies the Gran Chaco. 
 
 “The Gran Chaco, a great country, still, 
 for the most part, a wilderness, is a region 
 of dim tropical forest, where the parrots, 
 birds of paradise, and brilliant butterflies 
 vie with those of the Amazon; a hot re- 
 gion where the monkey and the land 
 crab flourish exceedingly, and where the 
 savage Indians stiU hunt down with primi- 
 tive weapons, the jaguar and the puma.”* 
 South of the Gran Chaco are spread out the 
 great pampas, or plains, where one may ride 
 for hours over a railway as straight as a line 
 and see only the rolling prairies, with here 
 and there the whitewashed walls of the 
 estancia buildings to break the monotony; 
 great herds of cattle, that seem to roam at 
 will, standing knee deep in richest pastures; 
 fields of grain that equal those of our own 
 great middle West; until at last the railway 
 sets one down in the midst of a splendid 
 capital city of 1,300,000 inhabitants, that 
 presents all the comforts and commodities, 
 most of the virtues and all the vices, of the 
 great European Capitols. 
 
 And still further South extend the barren 
 steppes of Patagonia, reaching down to the 
 
 * Martin Hume, in introduction to “Argen- 
 tine,” by W. A. Hirst. 
 
 7 
 
waters of Magellan’s Straits, where a few 
 miserable Indians still manage to live in the 
 midst of conditions that make of life one 
 long struggle for mere existence, and reduce 
 human beings to the absolute level of the 
 beasts that inhabit the caves in the hills, 
 their four-footed comrades in misery. Ko 
 country in the world, to-day, gives promise 
 of such a splendid future as does the Ar- 
 gentine Eepublic. Its cereal products are 
 being poured into Europe to such an extent 
 that it is already called “The Granary of 
 Europe.” Special lines of steamers carry 
 its meats, many of these vessels built to 
 store away in their vast interiors as many 
 as 145,000 carcasses of sheep. These great 
 refrigerator boats are scheduled to reach the 
 Thames with the regularity of express trains, 
 for Great Britain, and, particularly London, 
 with its seven millions of inhabitants, de- 
 pend on them for a large part of their 
 meat supply. This meat reaches the con- 
 sumer in perfect condition and costs him 
 about ten cents a pound less than our meats 
 cost us in the cities of the United States, 
 thanks to our benign protective tariff. 
 
 Chile lies to the West of the Argentine 
 and is separated from it by the high wall 
 of the Andes Mountains, which, in hoary 
 Aconcagua, reach the second highest point on 
 the Earth’s surface and form the very roof 
 of the Western Hemisphere, more than 
 23,000 feet above the waters of the Pacific 
 that roll below. Of Aconcagua we might 
 say, using Byron’s description of Mont 
 Blanc: 
 
 “Aconcagua is the monarch of mountains; 
 They crowned him long ago. 
 
 On a throne of rocks, with a robe of clouds, 
 And a diadem of snow. 
 
 Around his waist are forests braced. 
 
 The avalanche in his hand. 
 
 Yet, ere it fall, that pondrous ball 
 Must pause for my command. 
 
 I am the spirit of the place, 
 
 Could make this mountain bow 
 And tremble to its serried base, — 
 
 And what with me wouldst thou! ” 
 
 8 
 
The republic of Chile, whose inhabitants are 
 known as “the English, “ or “the Yankees, 
 of South America, “ stretches from north to 
 south, along the Western coast of South 
 America, through more than 38° of latitude, 
 or almost three thousand miles. It is more 
 than four times the length of California, 
 though it has but twice the area of that 
 state and varies in width from 65 to 185 
 miles. The Northern extremity lies in the 
 torrid zone and the coast stretches thence 
 southward to the Land of Fire and Cape 
 Horn, where the two seas tumultuously meet, 
 “Three thousand miles of a sunset littoral. “ 
 The wonderful nitrate beds of the North have 
 already poured into the coffers of the State, 
 in a little more than thirty years, more than 
 $425,000,000 in gold, or 60% of the income 
 of the government. Central Chile is given 
 over to agriculture and fruit raising, and 
 the far South is admirably fitted for sheep- 
 raising, especially the hills of Southern Pata- 
 gonia and the territory adjacent to the 
 Straits of Magellan. A small dot in the sea, 
 to the West of Valparaiso, marks the island 
 of Juan Fernandez, the home of Defoe ^s 
 Robinson Cruso, whose story, translated into 
 many tongues, has delighted millions of boy 
 readers all round the world. 
 
 North of Chile is Bolivia, “the Hermit 
 Republic,’^ perched up among the crags and 
 mountain plateaus, sharing with Paraguay 
 the doubtful advantage of having no coast 
 line to protect in case of war. The Capital 
 City, La Paz, lies at an altitude of 12,470 
 feet above the sea, the highest capital city 
 in the world, while just above the city, on 
 the border between Bolivia and Peru, lies 
 a great inland sea, more than two miles ver- 
 tically above the Pacific, about as high as 
 the Jungfrau, and with the area of Lake 
 Erie, on which one can sail out of sight of 
 land. This great lake, Titicaca, lies 12,645 
 feet above the sea and is one of the sources 
 of the Amazon, which thus runs almost from 
 sea to sea, practically cutting the continent 
 in two. 
 
 On the plateau of Titicaca are to be found 
 the wonderful ruined temples of the pre* 
 
 9 
 
Tnean civilization, one of the inexplainable 
 mysteries of the prehistoric ages. “The Mys- 
 tery consists in the existence of mins of a 
 great city on the Southern side of the Lake, 
 the builders being entirely unknown. The 
 City covered a large area, built by highly 
 skilled masons, and with the use of enormous 
 stones. One stone is 36 feet long by 7, weigh- 
 ing 170 tons; another 26 feet by 16 by 6. 
 Apart from the monoliths of ancient Egypt, 
 there is nothing to equal this in any other 
 part of the world. ’ ’ * 
 
 Continuing to the North from Bolivia one 
 conies to Peru, the goal of the ambitions of 
 the illegitimate swineherd Pizarro, El Dorado 
 of the Spanish conquistadores who, with 
 sword on hip and cross in hand, with the 
 “name of Cristo and Maria on their lips; 
 with oath and prayer, with cross and steel” 
 turned the prow of their unwieldy caravels 
 to the West and South, where there were em- 
 pires to be plucked as ripe fruit, and where 
 they expected to find gold as common as coal. 
 And perhaps in those hills and mines, to- 
 day, there still lie hidden riches that excel 
 the world’s wildest dreams, that rival the 
 fabulous wealth of Anaconda: 
 
 “Far away, in some region old. 
 
 Where rivers wander o’er sands of gold. 
 Where the burning rays of the ruby shine 
 And the diamond lights up the secret mine.” 
 
 It is in Peru, also, that American engi- 
 neers built what is the highest railroad in 
 the world, the Oroya Eailway, that reaches 
 an elevation of 15,665 feet above the sea. 
 
 Lima, the capital of Peru, was the seat of 
 the Spanish Viceroys, and there a branch 
 of the Inquisition did valiant service for the 
 Mother Church. The Council Chamber of 
 that benevolent body, as well as many of the 
 instruments of torture, and a life-size image 
 of the Christ, that by means of cords, in- 
 geniously manipulated, nodded the head and 
 condemned to death the unfortunate offender 
 against the doctrines of Rome, may still be 
 seen. It is worthy of note that there were 
 
 * Sir Clements Markham, “The Incas of 
 Peru,” pa^’e 23. 
 
 10 
 
no cords by which the figure could be made 
 to give a negative vote. But the modern 
 Peruvians have changed the name of “La 
 Plaza de la Inquisicion, “ one of the principal 
 public squares in the city, and are not proud 
 of their city’s connection with the musty and 
 bloody past. 
 
 The Northwestern corner of South Amer- 
 ica is occupied by Ecuador and the two 
 larger republics, Venezuela and Colombia. All 
 are backward, with few of the elements that 
 tend to make a modern progressive nation. 
 They should be the first to receive new im- 
 pulses from the Panama Canal, which is soon 
 to be opened in their immediate vicinity, by 
 which they will be brought into closer 
 touch with “La Gran Republica del Norte.” 
 But many years must pass before they are 
 worthy of comparison with the republics fur- 
 ther South. 
 
 Ecuador was ruled dictatorially for a num- 
 ber of years by General Alfaro, the Porfirio 
 Diaz of his country, and some progress was 
 made toward modern ideas and the introduc- 
 tion of new methods of instruction in the 
 schools of the state. It is said that General 
 Alfaro was influenced in his own life and in 
 his statecraft by the reading of a Bible 
 which was given him by a Protestant mis- 
 sionary who met him on one of the coast 
 boats. But the liberal party in Ecuador was 
 overthrown in a recent revolution and Gen- 
 eral Alfaro and all his immediate advisers 
 were barbarously butchered in the streets of 
 Quito, the capital of the republic, with all 
 that wealth of cruelty and ferocious aban- 
 don which so often characterize Latin mobs. 
 
 Panama, the youngest of the Latin repub- 
 lics, may be said to be of hybrid birth, since 
 the mother, Colombia, was a Latin, and the 
 father, the United States, a “Yankee” — 
 for it is known that it is due only to the 
 well intentioned efforts of our own land 
 that a part of Colombia seceded from the 
 mother country and declared itself a free 
 and independent republic. 
 
 It is in this same newest republic that the 
 world 's greatest engineering task is being 
 brought to a conclusion. Human ants with 
 
Cyclopean energies are digging and tunnel- 
 ling through the rock ribs of the Culebra 
 cut, and soon the two oceans will be united 
 by a completed Panama Canal that is ex- 
 pected to be a surprising factor in world 
 progress. 
 
 To the north and west of Panama, along 
 a coast line that stretches 800 miles to the 
 Isthmus of Tehuantepec, lie the other five 
 small Central American republics; and, still 
 farther north, the ancient empire of the 
 Aztecs, now the republic of Mexico. The 
 six republics occupy a most fertile territory 
 and should be prosperous nations. Yet their 
 almost continuous wars and revolutions have 
 kept them back in the march toward na- 
 tional stability and real progress, and their 
 future still looks dark. 
 
 Lying just across the Rio Grande, Mexico, 
 more than any other Latin republic, has felt 
 the uplifting influence of our own Anglo- 
 Saxon civilization. Yet recent events have 
 shown that Mexico, like all the Latin nations 
 of our hemisphere, still lacks those great 
 moral qualities that alone can make a na- 
 tion permanently great. Its boasted prog- 
 ress and seeming superiority among the other 
 Latin republics, have proved to be but a 
 thin veneer that has fallen away when sub- 
 jected to the fierce heat of civil dissension 
 and strife. 
 
 With the forced withdrawal from the coun- 
 try of Mexico’s ‘‘Grand Old Man,” Porfirio 
 Diaz, the entire country has fallen into a 
 state of civil war and has been handed over 
 for pillage by this or that pretender to 
 power, until it seems possible that its hither- 
 to comparatively stable government has 
 fallen to rise no more. And, although Mex- 
 ico has seemed to be prosperous and stable, 
 it may well be doubted whether the Indians 
 and peon class of that land, who form the 
 great bulk of the population, enjoy life any 
 more, or have any clearer conception of God 
 and the life to come, after almost four hun- 
 dred years of Latin rule, than the ancient 
 Aztecs did during the unnumbered centuries 
 that hoary Popocatapetl looked down on the 
 worship of pagan deities, until the hosts of 
 
 13 
 
Montezuma were overwhelmed by the free- 
 booters from Spain and the worship of a 
 Christless cross supplanted that of Huitzilo- 
 potchli, the chief of their many deities. 
 
 The three small republics of the West In- 
 dies complete the list of the Latin nations 
 of the Western Hemisphere. But these three 
 — Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Hayti — lying, as 
 they do, close to our own shores, are more 
 intimately known by our own people. This 
 is particularly true of Cuba, ‘ ‘ the Pearl of 
 the Antilles,’^ through its connection with 
 the Spanish-American War of 1898. The 
 other two, weak and badly governed, have 
 demanded a paternal interest on the part of 
 our government and will probably never have 
 internal peace and prosperity until they find 
 them under the protecting folds of our flag. 
 
 II 
 
 THE PEOPLE 
 
 The inhabitants of Latin America may be 
 divided into three classes of individuals: the 
 Indians, the lower or peon class, descended 
 from Latin ancestors, who were immigrants, 
 though often mixed with Indian blood, and 
 the upper or aristocratic, landed class. 
 
 The Indians are to be found in varying, 
 and often diminishing, numbers, in all the 
 Latin republics from the Rio Grande to Cape 
 Horn. They are the descendants of what 
 were formerly strong tribes or nations — such 
 as the Aztecs, in Mexico; the Incas, in Peru; 
 and the Arancanians, in Chile. During four 
 centuries of Latin rule, those who have come 
 under the domination of their conquerors have 
 fallen far from the high state of daring and 
 rugged health which they once held, and have 
 become mere hewers of wood and drawers 
 of water; while other tribes, as yet un- 
 touched by the white man’s civilization, still 
 lead the savage life they have led for un- 
 numbered centuries, even to the practice of 
 cannibalism on their conquered foes. 
 
 The total number of Indians in Latin 
 America is largely a matter of conjecture. 
 Some writers place the estimate as high as 
 
 13 
 
twenty millions, though fifteen millions 
 would be a more probable maximum. For 
 it must be remembered in this connection 
 that there are vast unexplored tracts of ter- 
 ritory in central South America, larger than 
 the unexplored portions of Africa. Of the 
 inhabitants of this great territory, of its 
 scenic wonders, of its flora and its fauna, 
 we can have no exact knowledge. But we 
 know that on its borders, where the wave 
 of so-called civilization has rolled up from 
 the coasts, and where the white man has 
 established himself by force of arms, the 
 Indians are bought and sold as slaves; and 
 recent investigations by the British and 
 American authorities have revealed atroci- 
 ties that equal the crimes committed on the 
 indefensive inhabitants of the Congo in the 
 name and by authority of the King of the 
 Belgians. 
 
 A friend of the writer of these lines, for 
 some time an employe in the Beni rubber 
 district, has told of seeing men and women 
 and little children sold into slavery for a 
 mere song. He, himself, he said, bought a 
 little Indian girl, trading for her a gun, and, 
 having brought her down to the coast, had 
 her baptized in the Catholic faith and gave 
 her over to a Peruvian officer to be edu- 
 cated. 
 
 This same young man recounted the depri- 
 vations and perils one faces who goes into 
 that mortiferous region in search of that 
 which will bring one gold; relating, among 
 other things, that the only meat obtainable 
 was monkey flesh, and adding that he never 
 overcame a certain squeamishness at finding 
 in the soup or hash a little human-like hand! 
 
 For, while men, and even women, will leave 
 home and the comforts of civilization, and 
 risk almost certain disease and probable 
 death, in their pursuit of the yellow lure, 
 few are to be found who will go into those 
 fever-infected districts in order to carry to 
 those silent, suffering, dark-skinned children 
 of the tropics the Story which they have 
 never heard. Only a few sporadic attempts 
 are being made by Protestant churches to 
 reach and evangrelize the Indian population 
 
 U 
 
of Latin America, and the Roman Catholic 
 church does nothing until goaded into action 
 by Protestant successes. And even Catholic 
 writers have confessed that the Indians who 
 have come into touch with the Europeans 
 are in a worse condition, morally and phys- 
 ically, than they were before the coming of 
 the representatives of the Spanish Church 
 and State, almost four centuries ago. 
 
 The Christian churches of North America 
 do well to think of the pagan lands that lie 
 across the seas. But we do not have to 
 leave our own continent to find pagans — 
 millions of them — men, women and little chil- 
 dren — sitting on our own doorstep and hun- 
 gering for the spiritual crumbs that fail 
 from our loaded tables. The missionary 
 world has no greater need to-day than that 
 of consecrated messengers of the Cross who 
 shall carry the Gospel Story to these mil- 
 lions of fellow Americans who are born and 
 live and die in the midst of pagan, even 
 cannibal, darkness and go down to the gates 
 of death with no knowledge of the life be- 
 yond or of the Christ who died to open wide 
 its portals. 
 
 Slightly above the Indian comes the lower 
 class descendant of the European stock, the 
 peon or working class. In many cases, as 
 shown by the swarthy complexion, the 
 straight black hair, the piercing eye, and the 
 general bodily build, the vintage of old Spain 
 has been enriched and strengthened by a 
 generous addition of the Inca, the Arauca- 
 nian, the Aztec, or other Indian blood. The 
 result is a race of men that can stand the 
 hardest work, carry the heaviest burdens, 
 live on the most meagre diet, in the midst 
 of squalor and filth indescribable, and at the 
 same time look out on life with a fatalistic 
 joyousness that has rarely, if ever, been 
 equalled in the history of the human race. 
 
 The Chilean roto, for example — ^literally, 
 the “ragged man” — if he could be freed 
 from the thrall of alcohol and it's kindred 
 vices, and the ills that go with them, would 
 be unequalled as a laborer, as he has already 
 proved that he has no superior in war. With 
 a jest on his lips and joy in his heart he 
 
 15 
 
has gone forth to certain death at the can- 
 non ’s mouth, glad to die with the certainty 
 that another will close the ranks and carry 
 his flag of the solitary star to a post of honor 
 on the enemy’s highest ramparts. 
 
 And yet this same laboring class, the pro- 
 letariat of Latin America, by the inexorable 
 social conditions of those lands, is doomed 
 to a position of perpetual peonage. Its men 
 and women of to-day are called upon to do 
 the most menial and degrading work, and 
 their children can but look forward to the 
 same unvarying round in the years to come. 
 Neither Church nor State has, to any ex- 
 tent, interested itself in bettering their con- 
 dition. In the foul atmosphere of filthy tene- 
 ment houses, or in the thatched hovels of 
 the villages and farms, in bamboo huts along 
 the great rivers of the tropics, men and 
 women cohabit and families are brought into 
 being, with no sanction or hindrance on the 
 part of civil or ecclesiastical authorities; and 
 the landed proprietors of Latin America do 
 not hesitate to say that they do not favor 
 the education of its laboring class, the Helot 
 of modern times. Its present position, much 
 like that of the serfs in the feudal system, 
 keeps it in subjection, while education by 
 the inculcation of new ideas, would tend to 
 raise it above its present level, and higher 
 wages and better conditions of living would 
 be demanded from the employer. But there 
 are signs that this great class of oppressed 
 human beings is beginning to awake, that it is 
 beginning to feel its enormous strength. And 
 when organized labor comes to be a reality 
 in Latin America, may God help those who 
 have been its oppressors through all these 
 hundreds of years. 
 
 Between this working lower class of citi- 
 zens and the upper ruling class there is a 
 great gulf fixed which with difficulty is 
 crossed, save it be on a bridge of gold. The 
 accidental discovery of a mine has more than 
 once lifted a family of the peon class to the 
 exclusive circles of the favored few; yet the 
 aristocracy of birth, together with the pos- 
 session of riches, forms an almost insur- 
 mountable barrier to those who would climb 
 
 i6 
 
from the lower levels. The land and the 
 wealth of most communities is in the hands 
 of a few. Chile ’s tillable soil is held by 
 seven per cent, of the population. Though 
 republics in name, the rule in general is that 
 of an oligarchy, the principal offices rarely 
 going to one outside of a particular circle of 
 connected families. Wealth is necessary to 
 the holding of office. Votes are openly bought 
 and sold, and no shame is attached to the 
 fact that a Congressman-elect, or even the 
 President, holds his place because of the 
 careful and judicious distribution of his own 
 or his family’s money. Senate committees 
 to investigate the purchase of votes have 
 not yet come into vogue along the equator. 
 
 With the wealth of this ruling class goes 
 also a large degree of culture and luxury. 
 There are splendid mansions, splendidly fur- 
 nished, and many families that lead an ideally 
 affectionate home life. Parents and children 
 have travelled and it is no unusual accom- 
 plishment to speak correctly three or more 
 foreign tongues. The toilettes and the car- 
 riages of the evening drive in many of the 
 South American capitals compare very favor- 
 ably, if they do not even equal, those seen 
 in the Bois de Boulogne, Rotten Row, Unter 
 den Linden, or on Fifth Avenue. 
 
 The two extremes of poverty and wealth 
 exist side by side, but there is no bond of 
 union between them. In time of war, the 
 lower class citizens do the fighting, generally 
 without knowing just why, but their officers, 
 whether on land or sea, come from the upper 
 or near rich class. The men of meaner mold 
 are considered as proper food for the can- 
 non, but always in the interest of their more 
 fortunate fellows. There are few things more 
 touching in history than the devotion and 
 loyalty with which the lower class of Latin 
 America has blindly followed and fought for 
 now this or that upstart politician, who 
 thought to wrest the rule from one who had 
 already gained it at the urns, or by revolu- 
 tion. And whether their leader has succeed- 
 ed or failed, the low-caste soldiers have re- 
 turned to their miserable huts — those who 
 remain after the fighting is over — and to the 
 
 17 
 
same round of unvarying hunger and rags 
 until another aspirant for power enlists their 
 services. 
 
 The negro of the United States, especially 
 in the Northern States, occupies a position 
 of greater promise, as regards his future, 
 among his white fellow citizens, than does 
 the lower class Latin among those of his own 
 blood and color. The peon’s life is atune to 
 a minor note and he sings a miserere more 
 often than a jubilate. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE PROBLEMS 
 
 The population of Latin America, accord- 
 ing to statistics published by the Pan-Amer- 
 ican Union, is seventy millions as against 
 ninety millions in the United States. To 
 determine the Latin population of the twenty- 
 one republics in the Western Hemisphere, 
 however, we must add to the 70,000,000, who 
 live south of the Eio Grande, the 8,000,000 
 who live in the United States, and we will 
 have 78,000,000 Latins and 82,000,000 non- 
 Latins. To make the division on religious 
 grounds, we would have to add to the 70,- 
 000,000 of Eoman Catholics in Latin America 
 the 15,000,000 which that church claims in 
 the United States, and we will have 85,000,000 
 of Eoman Catholics, as against 75,000,000 
 non-Catholics — it being remembered that of 
 the 75,000,000 of non-Catholics not more than 
 one third, or 25,000,000, are connected with 
 the Protestant churches of the United States. 
 
 For Latin America is practically 99% Eo- 
 man Catholic. Millions of the Indians have 
 never heard the Gospel, and millions of those 
 of European descent have heard it but par- 
 tially and in a debased form. But the Holy 
 Eoman Catholic Apostolic Church claims all 
 our Southern continent as its own, resents 
 any intrusion on the part of Protestant 
 churches — and hence must bear the respon- 
 sibility of the religious conditions and needs 
 of the people whom it claims as its children. 
 The problems, then, that are found in Latin • 
 America have their source in the almost un- 
 limited influence of the Eoman Catholic hier- 
 
 i8 
 
archy; in the conditions of society that have 
 grown out of that church’s untrammeled 
 power during almost four centuries, in which 
 it has molded as it would the plastic natures 
 of the kind-hearted and easily-influenced 
 Latin peoples. 
 
 For it must be again remembered that when 
 the Spanish conquerors took possession of the 
 wide lands which by conquest of arms they 
 had won for their king, they flung to the 
 breeze not only the royal colors of their 
 monarch, Charles the Fifth, but they also 
 set up the standard of the Pope of Kome. 
 Three hundred years later, inspired by the 
 example set by the English colonies of North 
 America, and to escape absorption by the 
 would-be world empire of the Little Corsican, 
 the colonies thus founded by Spain shook off 
 her yoke and declared themselves to be free 
 and independent nations. But the yoke of 
 Rome had been too firmly riveted on their 
 shoulders and, even in the hour of their seem- 
 ing freedom, they showed their real bondage 
 by allowing their religious masters to in- 
 scribe in the pages of their new-born consti- 
 tutions these fateful words: “The religion of 
 this state shall be the Holy Roman Catholic, 
 to the exclusion of all others.” 
 
 To-day liberal statesmen, in most of the 
 republics, give a liberal interpretation to this 
 clause of the constitution, and Protestant 
 services are permitted — even protected — in 
 private houses, or in buildings that do not 
 too closely resemble churches in their outward 
 construction. And, in some of the more ad- 
 vanced republics, even churcET buildings are 
 being erected, with the tolerance of liberal 
 governments; but the State Church is ever 
 awake to guard its own interests, and its 
 priests foment persecution of Protestant work 
 whenever possible. The dedication of a Pres- 
 byterian church, on a prominent corner, in 
 Santiago de Chile, recently called forth a 
 pastoral letter from the Archbishop of the 
 country, in which he bitterly denounced all 
 Protestants and warned his people against 
 attending heretical services, the reading of 
 pernicious Protestant literature, and the lend- 
 ing of children to Evangelical school!. 
 
 19 
 
And the Archbishop of Venezuela has re- 
 cently voiced his lament at Protestant prog- 
 ress in that stronghold of Eoine and recom- 
 mends as an antidote to such heretical errors 
 the reading of a book which he has titled 
 “Protestantism Bankrupt,’’ and which he de- 
 scribes as “pure gold, quickly read, written 
 for all grades of intelligence, and leaves every 
 Protestant objection not a single leg to stand 
 on! ’ ’ 
 
 The question is often asked, in all sincerity, 
 by members of our churches in America, “Are 
 missionaries doing a legitimate and necessary 
 work in Latin, that is to say, Eoman Cath- 
 olic, America?” 
 
 The question might be answered dogmat- 
 ically and in the afdrmative by all mission- 
 aries and non-prejudiced travellers who un- 
 derstand the social and religious conditions 
 of Latin America; but such a reply would 
 convince no one. In the following pages a 
 few of the needs of Latin America will be 
 given in the barest outlines, and readers may 
 judge as to the necessity of Christian work 
 among its peoples. 
 
 A. The great need of Latin America is the 
 Word of God. In all Catholic lands, and 
 wherever that Church has power to work its 
 will, the Bible is a prohibited book. There » 
 are versions, as the Douay in English. But 
 such versions are made to suit the church, 
 not the church to conform in its teachings 
 to the Word of God. They are not true to 
 the original. The Word is deliberately gar- 
 bled and perverted to uphold the false teach- 
 ings of Eome. Peter said he was an “elder,” 
 but this version (the Douay) says “priest.” 
 Paul tells Timothy he was ordained by the 
 laying on of the hands of the “presbytery,” 
 but this version says “priesthood.” Christ 
 said: “Except ye repent ye shall likewise 
 perish,” but this version says, “Except ye 
 do penance.” Thus, the Scriptures are per- 
 verted so that the priesthood may have power 
 over the people and exact from them their 
 tribute in the way of money for penance, in 
 the salvation of souls.* And not only is a 
 
 ♦ “The Herald and Presbyter,” of Cincinnati, 
 Ohio. 
 
 20 
 
garbled Word taught in pseudo Bibles, but 
 also on the walls of churches and in the 
 references to the saints. On a tablet beside 
 the door of the Jesuit Church in Cuzco one 
 may read what, at first, seem to be the words 
 of the wondrously sweet Royal Invitation of 
 our Lord. But one, in reality, reads: “Come 
 to Mary, all you who are laden with works, 
 and weary beneath the weight of your sins, 
 and she will alleviate you.” 
 
 Every attempt is made by the Church to 
 prevent the sale of Bibles. When a colpor- 
 teur has succeeded in selling portions of the 
 Sacred Book, or the Bible entire, or even 
 Evangelical literature, the priest of the vil- 
 lage or town will, if possible, collect the 
 same and burn them. One such colporteur 
 narrowly escaped being thrown into the 
 flames with his Bibles, a few years ago, in 
 Cochabamba, the most cultured city of Bo- 
 livia. And two years ago, Ricardo Nunez, a 
 humble convert to Protestantism, in Chile, in 
 the attempt ti give the Bible to his fanati- 
 cal countrymen in the mountain districts, was 
 foully slain. And, although the Presbyterian 
 Mission in Chile pointed out the assassin that 
 sped the bullet, no attempt was made by the 
 Catholic judge to punish him. [Even to this 
 extent of murder does Rome go in her attempt 
 to keep from the people the Bread of Life.] 
 “The South American religion is the one re- 
 ligion in the world which has no Sacred Book 
 for the people. In China, the great ambition 
 of the whole nation for centuries has been to 
 master the Classics. In Moslem lands, the 
 Koran is the most exalted of all books and 
 the ideal of the educated man has been to 
 be able to read it in Arabic, in its miraculous 
 purity. Hindus and Buddhists have had their 
 sacred books open to all who would study 
 them. But in South America we have had 
 the phenomenon of a land in the complete 
 control of a church which has, so far as it 
 could, sealed its sacred Scriptures to the 
 people.” * 
 
 Dr. Penzotti, an Italian by birth, was con- 
 verted some years ago in Montevideo and 
 immediately began selling the Scriptures in 
 
 * R. E. Speer, in “South American Problems.” 
 
 21 
 
South and Central American lands. He has 
 travelled very extensively, suffered all man- 
 ner of hardships, including eight months in 
 prison in Peru, and to-day as head agent of 
 the Bible Society, in Buenos Ayres, still puts 
 forth every effort to give the Word to needy 
 Latin America. He says: “It is well known 
 that the Roman Catholic clergy persecute the 
 Scriptures more than Saul persecuted David, 
 and they were able to destroy perhaps three 
 quarters of the copies we distributed in our 
 earlier trips.” Then he adds: “I have no- 
 ticed that while the priests burn the Bibles, 
 the people take their images of all sorts and 
 sizes and put them into the fire, at the same 
 time abandoning their sins.” * 
 
 To be sure, the Church of Rome claims that 
 it circulates the Bible, in its approved ver- 
 sion, and that it may be freely bought by 
 the people. This may be true, in certain 
 localities, and due to the influence of ex- 
 ceptional priests, but is far from being uni- 
 versally true. A missionary long resident in 
 Chile recently tried to buy a copy of the 
 Catholic Bible, in Spanish, in the capital of 
 that republic. He searched through all the 
 book-stores of that city of half a million in- 
 habitants and even consulted the authorities 
 of the Church. At last he found one copy 
 of the Bible, with the usual explanatory notes, 
 in five volumes, and priced at eleven dollars 
 American gold. Evidently, the poor work- 
 ing class of that great city has no access 
 to the Word of God through the efforts of 
 the Church of Rome. 
 
 That Rome deprives her people of the 
 Bread of Life, through prohibitive prices, is 
 true, not only of Latin America, but even in 
 the United States, where the claim is made 
 by many of the priesthood that the reading 
 of the Bible is encouraged by the Church nf 
 Rome. A recent search for a Catholic Bible 
 in the city of Lowell. Mass., resulted in find- 
 ing but one copy in a second-hand book-store, 
 and that was priced at $2.75. 
 
 B. Because of the suppression of the Word 
 of God, the people have had no clear vision 
 of either God the Father or God the Son, 
 ♦ Quoted by Bishop Neely in “South America.” 
 
 22 
 
and the hierarchy has been able to make 
 Mariolatry the national cult. The image that 
 occupies the niche of honor inside the tem- 
 ple or on its highest pinnacle or flying but- 
 tress, is that of the Virgin. Mary is patron 
 saint of armies and navies, and Victory is 
 supposed to perch on her banner as it did on 
 that of Nike, centuries ago, on the plains 
 and hills of Hellas. The Son is represented 
 as a child in his mother’s arms, as dead on 
 the cross, or, bloody and inert, lying in the 
 tomb. To represent Him as our risen Lord, 
 triumphant over death, would lessen the 
 glory that is Mary’s, who is supposed to be 
 our intercessor in Heaven. “Notre Dame de 
 Lourdes,’’ of Europe, has many shrines, un- 
 der other names, in America. “Our Lady of 
 Guadelupe,’’ in Mexico; “Our Lady of An- 
 dacoUo,’’ in Chile; and “Our Lady of Co- 
 pacabana,’’ on the shores of Titicaca, are 
 but distinct names for the same Mary, “The 
 Mother of God,’’ the “Queen of Heaven.’’ 
 Of Mary the people are taught to say: “We 
 have seen the star, and are come to adore 
 her.’’ Many French dolls have been 
 pressed into service to represent the “Aug- 
 ust Mother of God,’’ and these images, 
 whether they be found in the Eternal City; 
 among the villages or cities of poor fallen 
 Spain or Portugal; watched over by the peas- 
 antry of Catholic France; or in the shrines 
 of Latin America, are loaded with jewels 
 and precious stones whose price has been 
 wrung from the millions of pillaged poor, 
 who, in their giving, have sought in vain a 
 solace for their sorrows. 
 
 C. When Christ is presented to the people 
 it is under the form of a hideous image, with 
 blood oozing from spear thrust and thorn 
 prick, or as the wafer god, which, according 
 to the Council of Trent, has all the nature, 
 all the substance and personality of Christ. 
 In that small disc of wheaten flour, over 
 which a priest, — whether he be good or bad, 
 pure or impure, — has pronounced certain 
 ritualistic words, there is not only the spir- 
 itual but also the physical substance of our 
 Lord, — the bones and muscles, the nerves and 
 blood, the hair and skin and nails. In the 
 
 23 
 
procession of Corpus Christi, this wafer god 
 is carried about the public squares or 
 streets, attended by a guard of soldiers; it 
 is elevated on altars erected for the purpose 
 in order that all may see; and the thousands 
 of deluded devotees fall down before it and 
 worship it as a real manifestation of the Son 
 of God.* “Body of Christ, the feast is 
 named! Think of it well, dear homeland 
 friends, who know only a Catholicism modi- 
 fied by Protestantism; think of it, you dear 
 missionary-hearted Christians, who have 
 prayed for China and India, and worked for 
 Africa and the Isles of the Sea, but neglected 
 Roman Catholic South America.’’ 
 
 D. As a result of this open idolatry, this 
 shameful insult to a reasoning, thoughtful 
 mind, a large per cent, of the educated men 
 of South America are atheists. They cannot 
 accept a religion which is so palpably absurd. 
 Consequently, they have sought help in this 
 or that philosophy, only to end in blank 
 atheism. Conduct and thought are completely 
 divorced from religion. “Both the intellect- 
 ual life and the ethical standards of these 
 countries seem to be entirely divorced from 
 religion. The women are almost universally 
 ‘practising’ Catholics, but the men of the 
 upper or educated class appear wholly indif- 
 ferent to theology and to Christian worship. 
 It has no interest for them — they think it 
 does not concern them and may be left to 
 women and peasants. In the more advanced 
 parts of South America it (the Church) 
 seems to be regarded merely as a harmless 
 Old World affair which belongs to a past or- 
 der 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. 
 The absence of a religious foundation for 
 thought and conduct is a grave misfortune 
 for Latin America.’’ t 
 
 E. The number of illiterates in Latin 
 America is so appalling that there can be no 
 question as to the need of missionary 
 
 * Guinness, “Peru,” page 323; Bryce, “South 
 America,” page 582. 
 
 t Bryce, “South America,” page 582. 
 
 24 
 
schools. The Roman Catholic Church, su- 
 preme, in every sense, for almost four cen- 
 turies, has dictated the educational policies 
 of the Latin American states and, in some 
 of them, even ^ until to-day it exercises the 
 right of censorship as regards methods and 
 text-books. Some of the more advanced gov- 
 ernments, under the lead of liberal states- 
 men, have sought help from European educa- 
 tors, and some from those of the United 
 States, and have established modern sys- 
 tems of education that promise better things 
 for the coming generations. But the sorrow- 
 ful influence of the Church in past centuries 
 may be judged from the fact that even the 
 two most advanced republics of South Amer- 
 ica, Chile and the Argentine, still report that 
 sixty per cent, of their population is illiterate. 
 Others, as Bolivia and Ecuador, have as high 
 as eighty-five per cent, of illiterates. The 
 enormity of this lack of education may be 
 more fully understood if we compare these 
 statistics with those of our own country. 
 Kansas, and some of its neighboring states, 
 report a total illiterate population equal to 
 about two per cent, of the whole. Louisiana, 
 which has the greatest negro population of all 
 our states, reports 38% of illiterates. The 
 average for all of the United States, accord- 
 ing to a recent report of the Census Direc- 
 tor, is about seven per cent, of our popula- 
 tion, and this in spite of our negro popula- 
 tion and our tremendous annual immigration 
 from the most illiterate States of Europe. 
 Among children of school age in the United 
 States, only 4.1% are illiterate. In Peru 
 only about 20% of the children of school age 
 go to school, leaving 80% of illiterates. In 
 Bolivia, only 30,000 out of 2,000,000 popula- 
 tion are in school. While Kansas and other 
 of our states have one-fourth of their popu- 
 lation in school, some of the South American 
 republics have but one-thirtieth of theirs un- 
 der instruction. Any exact percentage of 
 illiterates for Latin America cannot be de- 
 termined, but it is probably 'not far from 
 75% of the entire population, or about the 
 same as that of Spain, the mother land from 
 which most of these states are sprung. 
 
 25 
 
President Patton, of Princeton, it is said, 
 once remarked: “I thank God that the Pres- 
 byterian Church has been a schoolhouse and 
 college-building Church, and not a builder of 
 Cathedrals. ’ ’ And this is true of all the 
 Protestant churches of North America. One 
 cannot travel far in a train in the United 
 States without seeing the little red or white 
 schoolhouses that dot the whole country, 
 while our villages and towns and cities are 
 full of buildings in which the young are be- 
 ing educated and trained to be useful citi- 
 zens of this great republic. Nor are church 
 edifices lacking; for the educated man or 
 woman knows that mind and heart need 
 equal attention. Catholic America has built 
 many churches and many splendid cathedrals, 
 most of which to-day stand practically empty. 
 But it has built few schools. One might 
 travel for thousands of miles through the 
 heart of South and Central America, and see 
 no schoolhouse, except in the towns or cities. 
 Wayside crosses and images of the saints are 
 to be found at every turn, and there are 
 splendid piles of brick and stone that house 
 the immense companies of monks and nuns, 
 many of these people, even, illiterate; but 
 the traveller’s eye misses the friendly sim- 
 ple school architecture, that marks a nation 
 in the making, and that is one of the char- 
 acterists of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Amer- 
 ica. 
 
 Some of the most backward republics of 
 Latin America are now trying to shake off 
 this incubus of ignorance and are engaging 
 foreign teachers for the reorganization of 
 their school system, the implanting of Nor- 
 mal Schools and Pedagogical Institutes. Bo- 
 livia, a few years ago, offered a Presbyterian 
 missionary the position of head of its educa- 
 tional system with full powers to reorganize 
 the same along modern lines. Ecuador called 
 in a Methodist preacher to help in its Nor- 
 mal Schools; and Peru is to-day utilizing the 
 help of American educators in the state 
 schools. 
 
 F. The lands that are so woefully deficient 
 in matters of education cannot produce the 
 highest type of citizens. Few names of 
 
 26 
 
Latin America are known outside their own 
 states. Few world statesmen have been pro- 
 duced south of the Kio Grande. This must 
 be true where a Church arrogates to itself 
 prerogatives superior to those of the State 
 and strives to build itself up at the expense 
 of the civil power, teaching its citizens that 
 so long as they obey the precepts of their 
 religious leaders the civil laws and the larger 
 interests of the State are of little im- 
 portance. In an Encyclical issued in Eng- 
 land during the past century we may find 
 the words; “The State has not the right to 
 deny the Church the use of force or the pos- 
 session of either a direct or an indirect tem- 
 poral power. The Church has the right to 
 deprive the Civil Government of the sole con- 
 trol of public schools. She has the right to 
 require that the Catholic religion shall be the 
 only religion of the State, to the exclusion 
 of all others. She has the right of requiring 
 the State not to permit free expression of 
 opinion.” Whatever has been gained of 
 civil freedom in Eoman Catholic lands, has 
 been gained in opposition to the Church of 
 Rome. And where there is a civil marriage 
 law, as in Chile and Bolivia, adherents of the 
 Church are openly counselled by the priest- 
 hood to disobey the law, although, by so do- 
 ing, they know that all children born to those 
 not married by the State must be classed as 
 illegitimate in the eyes of the law. It may 
 be that in this disrespect for law that is in- 
 culcated by the Church we find a cause for 
 the frequent political uprisings in some of the 
 Latin American republics. For in all these 
 States there is a church party, ever zealous 
 of the prerogatives of that power that sits on 
 the Seven Hills, and would fain rule the na- 
 tions with a rod of iron. Would it be too 
 much to suggest, even, that in this subver- 
 sion of civil power by the Church authori- 
 ties, we have an explanation of the fact that 
 the most notorious criminals have come from 
 that communion where they have been reared 
 and nurtured in an atmosphere that incul- 
 cated disrespect for the law? [Is it by mere 
 chance that John Wilkes Booth, the slayer 
 of Abraham Lincoln; Guiteau, the assassin 
 
 27 
 
of Garfield; Czolgosz, who murdered McKin- 
 ley; and Schrank, the would-be slayer of 
 Roosevelt, — not to mention the regicides of 
 Europe, — were all trained by the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church?] 
 
 Less than fifty years ago, the only legal 
 marriage in Chile was that performed by a 
 Roman Catholic priest, and Protestants could 
 not be buried in holy ground. The heretics 
 were compelled to inter their dead at night, 
 in order that the very Catholic senses of the 
 city might not be offended, and an abandoned 
 rocky hill served for years as the unmarked 
 resting place of the Protestant dead. When 
 this hill was finally turned into a park, the 
 pious Catholic mayor caused to be erected 
 over the spot where the heretical bones were 
 found this benevolent inscription: “To the 
 memory of those who are exiled from Heaven 
 and Earth!” 
 
 The liberal legislation of Chile is due, in 
 large part, to the influence of Protestant mis- 
 sionaries, and to-day the civil marriage is 
 the only legal marriage, and the civil ceme- 
 tery opens its doors to the dead of any or no 
 faith. 
 
 The Jesuits, who are the power behind the 
 papacy, have always been the enemies of 
 progress and have been expelled from almost 
 all civilized nations at one time or another. 
 Only within a few days the Chancellor of the 
 German Empire has said they have been op- 
 posed by both Catholic and Protestant lands 
 because of “their militant activity in poli- 
 tics, the church and the schools, their inter- 
 national character, and their opposition to 
 the growth of the State.” Victor Hugo has 
 admirably defined this spirit of antagonism 
 to all progress. Speaking -of the Clerical 
 party in France, he says: “This it is which 
 has found for the truth those two marvel- 
 lous supporters, ignorance and error. This it 
 is which forbids to Science and Genius the 
 going beyond the Missal, and wishes to clois- 
 ter thought in dogmas. Every step which the 
 intelligence of Europe has taken has been in 
 spite of it. Its history is written in the his- 
 tory of human progress, — but it is written 
 on the back of the leaf. It is opposed to all. 
 
 28 
 
This it is which caused Prinelli to he scourged 
 for having said that the stars would not fall. 
 This it is which put Campanella seven times 
 to the torture for saying that the number of 
 worlds was infinite, and for having caught a 
 glimpse at the secret of Creation. This it is 
 which persecuted Harvey for having proved 
 the circulation of the blood. In the name of 
 Jesus it shut up Galileo. In the name of St. 
 Paul, it imprisoned Christopher Columbus. 
 To discover a law of the heavens was an im- 
 piety, to find a world a heresy. It wishes to 
 be master of education, and there is not a 
 Poet, nor an Author, nor a Thinker, nor a 
 Philosopher which it accepts.” 
 
 G. The social condition of Latin America is 
 a theme of which one hesitates to write. 
 There is an entirely different standard of 
 morals south of the Eio Grande which the peo- 
 ple of the United States do not understand. 
 With our inheritance of moral sense from the 
 Pilgrim fathers, whose influence, fortunately, 
 is not yet lost on our national, as well as pri- 
 vate, life, we cannot understand what seems 
 to us to be a moral warp in the character of 
 our Southern neighbors. Few of them speak 
 with “winged, straight-flung words and 
 few,” as we do in English; not 
 
 “By open speech and simple. 
 
 An hundred times made plain;” 
 
 but the sinuosities of the ornate polished Cas- 
 tilian tongue seem to lend themselves to a 
 concealment of truth and the speaker’s real 
 motives, so that deception and falsehood 
 come to be practised as a fine art. The sin 
 of falsehood, according to the Church, is not 
 in the lie itself, but in its being found out. 
 He or she who lies artistically, merits small 
 blame. Consequently, the whole fabric of 
 social and commercial life stands upon an in- 
 secure basis. The widespread distrust which 
 every one holds toward every one else, makes 
 life a burden and progress difficult. 
 
 The most important church festivals are 
 often given over to drunken orgies that 
 would have put to shame the devotees of 
 Bacchus two thousand years ago. The 
 
 29 
 
Church encourages the production of strong 
 spirits and its representatives excel in the 
 consumption of the same. “Priests go 
 drunken to celebrate the mass, or to carry 
 extreme unction to the dying.’’ 
 
 The awful results of impurity may be 
 judged from the fact that at least half the 
 population of Latin America is of illegitimate 
 birth. Communities have been cited where 
 the total of illegitimates reached 95% of the 
 entire population, and in which a marriage 
 ceremony had never been performed. Boys 
 and girls learn through the confessional 
 things of which men and women might well 
 remain in ignorance, and children are as wise, 
 at ten years of age, in regard to the mystery 
 of life and the relation of the sexes, as are 
 our children at twice that age. Stories are 
 recounted in mixed gatherings, with children 
 present, and thinly veiled references made to 
 things that would be unmentionable among 
 us in a company of gentlemen. Blasphemy 
 is common to all, and few, even cultured 
 ladies, consider it an offense or a sin to in- 
 terlard their conversation with the names of 
 God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, or some or all of 
 the Saints. Sacred names come to have no 
 sacredness, through much use. It is no un- 
 common thing to see a store, a butcher-shop, 
 or a drinking-bar dedicated to the Saviour, to 
 the Virgin, or to the Holy Spirit. The writer 
 once saw a saloon with the sign across the 
 door, “Saloon of Jesus Christ,” this being 
 the man’s name. The “Society of the Holy 
 Name” has not yet made its influence felt 
 where Catholicism rules supreme. Sunday is 
 not a day of rest, but a day of amusement, a 
 European Sunday carried to an extreme. 
 Elections and bull-fights are scheduled for 
 Sunday, and in some countries or cities the 
 races are prohibited on other days. When 
 the morning mass is over the rest of the day 
 may be given up by the women to any form 
 of entertainment. The man does not include 
 mass in the day’s round. 
 
 These are, in outline, a few of the prob- 
 lems that the missionary in Latin America 
 is called upon to solve; some of the condi- 
 tions which make imperative the increase of 
 
 30 
 
Evangelical missionary effort in those lands. 
 The responsibility of the solution of these 
 problems and the bettering of the conditions 
 outlined in this paper, rests in an unusual 
 degree with the Evangelical churches of the 
 United States and Canada. Our benevolent 
 Monroe Doctrine prevents territorial acqui- 
 sition by European powers, and the sphere 
 of the influence of Europeans is thus, ipso 
 facto, limited to commercial conquests, that 
 only too often mean the despoiling of the 
 native races and an unpardonable waste of 
 natural resources, in order that fortunes niay 
 be quickly wrested from the lands in which 
 they have but a momentary interest. The 
 foreign merchant is little interested in bet- 
 tering the moral condition of Latin lands, 
 provided he can, under present conditions, 
 continue to realize a high interest on his in- 
 vestment. Great Britain alone, in a single 
 year, takes out of South America, as gains 
 on the investments of her citizens, more than 
 Europe and America combined, through their 
 Evangelical churches, contribute to the moral 
 and spiritual uplift of the Latin peoples, in 
 a century. 
 
 With the exception of Mexico, the com- 
 merce of the United States in Latin Amer- 
 ica is almost negligible as compared with 
 that of the European powers. When the 
 Panama Canal is completed that commerce 
 must inevitably increase. Yet, in even a 
 greater ratio, there will be an increase in 
 our already tremendous responsibility for the 
 intellectual, moral, and spiritual uplift of 
 those seventy millions of fellow Americans 
 who live south of the Eio Grande. Terri- 
 torial and commercial hegemony being also 
 a hegemony of moral responsibility that can- 
 not be lightly put aside. 
 
 When Chile and the Argentine made a treaty 
 of peace a few years ago, after decades of na- 
 tional bickerings and mutual misunderstand- 
 ings, during which war often seemed un- 
 avoidable, they erected on their common 
 frontier a gigantic statue of the Prince of 
 Peace. On the pedestal they inscribed these 
 words: — 
 
 31 
 
“Sooner shall these mountains crum- 
 ble into dust than Chileans and Ar- 
 gentines break the peace which at 
 the feet of Christ the Redeemer 
 they have sworn to maintain.” 
 
 But when they came to set up this statue 
 of ‘‘The Christ of the Andes,” they had to 
 decide this question, How should the face of 
 the Christ be turned? The warlike Chileans 
 would not consent that the Christ should 
 turn his back on Chile, and look to the east- 
 ward across the broad pampas of the Argen- 
 tine. Nor would the patriotic Argentine con- 
 sent that the Redeemer should turn His face 
 toward Chile and the broad Pacific beyond. 
 Neither Argentine nor Chilean was willing 
 that the ‘‘Christ of the Andes” should face 
 the South, where lie the tempestuous waters 
 that surge about Cape Horn, and the cold in- 
 hospitable lands that lie beyond. And so 
 they turned His face to the North. And 
 there stands to-day the ‘‘Christ of the An- 
 des,” with the upborne Cross and the up- 
 lifted hand, as though He were looking and 
 waiting for the help that must come from 
 this great Protestant Northland.* 
 
 Around and below Him, too, in the moun- 
 tain fastnesses and plateaus, and among the 
 valleys, and out on the broad plains, and 
 along those splendid rivers, await the peo- 
 ples of Latin America. The silent, impassive 
 Indian, still bearing his burden of centuries, 
 and the impulsive, light-hearted, lovable 
 Latin, in city and village and hamlet, await 
 the help that must come from their fellow 
 Americans of the North. 
 
 “By the value of souls, by the shortness 
 of time, by the greatness of the field, DO 
 SOMETHING DEFINITE FOR LATIN 
 AMERICA. If we fail, will not these mil- 
 lions rise and ask in the Great Day why we 
 left them without a knowledge of the Great 
 Shepherd?” 
 
 * See Neeley’s “South America.” 
 
 Form No. 2041. 
 
 32 
 
The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
 Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 156 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
 November 1. 1918 
 
 The Willett Press, New York