^ Lun rAM, . AMER. M The PAN AMERICAN UNION I JOHN BARRETT . . Director General FRANCISCO J. YANES . Assistant Director W09gggg0t0S0M»0tM0t»»00»0§a»t»»00000»t»§0ta§Stttt§tt00ttttt§00tt0000000000Mt00000000»a00Mt00»00f0000t00000000000000»M&0000t0»00r»M0» 1 Contrast 1 In the Development of Nationality 1 § IN 1 Anglo America and Latin America ! 1 BY 1 Federico Alfonso Pezet 1 1 1 > / ^A4 § 1 [u § 1 1 \r ^ ! 1 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. 1 WASHINGTON, D. C. 1 iqi6 § 1 ^0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000m00000000000000000000t ■k CONTRAST IN THE DEVELOPMENT OE NATIONALITY IN ANGLO AMERICA AND LATIN AMERICA^ I have chosen as my subject a question that is most important at this time, when there is a growing tendency to know better and to under- stand the peoples of the Latin xLmerican nations; to get closer to them by establishing bonds of friendship through commercial relations based on mutual respect and confidence, as is evidenced by this Conference, and by the recent utterances of the President of the United States in his memorable declarations at Mobile. In order to properly determine the relative positions and conditions of the two great groups of individuals that people this American world, north and south of the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico, we must first study the contrasts in the development of nationality in these two groups that, for expediency, I shall denominate or class as “Anglo American” and “Latin American.” No man can truly appreciate another if he does not know him. No nation can feel friendship towards 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 individuals together, and this is also true of nations. International relations are necessary. They are cultivated for many reasons, but they do not necessarily mean friendship. Nations, like individuals, live on good terms with their neighbors because it behooves them to do so, but this does not imply that they are friends, that there is any closer relation between them, other than one of courteous deference towards each other. Such neighbors, whether they be individuals or nations, do not know each other, much less do they understand each other. There is, con- sequently, no true friendship between them; no bond of union. Therefore, if such people wish to become friendly, they must begin by knowing each other, becoming acquainted through intercourse and thus discover their respective trdits and characteristics, so that, in course of time, a sentiment of understanding is born, which, being reciprocal, eventually gives way to friendship, and, in like manner, to amity between nations. 'An address delivered by Senor Don tederico Alfonso Pezet, Minister of Peru, before Clark University, Worcester, Mass., November 21, 1913. (2j contrasts — ANGLO AND LATIN AMERICA 3 Therefore, as a first essential to the study of the subject matter of these remarks, we must place ourselves in a position to perfectly under stand the very peculiar conditions of settlement and growth of Latin America, before we can obtain any fair estimate of present-day Latin America. These conditions were very different from those that have been found in Anglo America. This is a most important point and one that should be made clear to all who in this nation, and eslewhere, are trying to know and to understand Latin America and its people. When this point becomes apparent to all, then I shall expect to see another attitude towards our people. I contend, that the average Anglo American does not appreciate us because he invariably wants to measure us by his own standards, regardless of the fact that those standards do not happen to fit our special type of humanity. Physically we are more or less similar, but in a moral sense each has special traits of character that mark the peculiar idiosyncrasies in each. Therefore, if we reverse the process and we Latin Americans measure you Anglo Americans by our standards, we, likewise, would find you as below par, according to our estimate, which proves my premises, that, firstly, secondly and lastly, we have to thoroughly understand each other, if there is to be any reciprocal appreciation, and it behooves us to be forebearing, generous and to accept the other’s idiosyncrasies as absolutely exact traits of character, born with the individual, or developed in him through environment. In order to make this point clear, I must ask you to consider two things : first, the relative conditions at the time of the discovery, by Christopher Colum- bus, of the territories that constitute what is known today as the United States of North America, and of those that constitute Latin America; second, the class and type of white men who became the first settlers in either section of the American Continent, on your ter- ritory, and on ours. Your territory, at the time of the advent of the white man from Europe, was more or less of a virgin territory, 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, semi-civilized, densely populated, and concentrated in a manner to make for cohesion. Mayas, Aztecs and Toltecs, Caras, Chimus, Incas, Aymaras and Quichuas, and other tribes, less known, overran our territory and presented marked contrast with conditions in yours. As the news of the discovery of the New World invaded the European countries, two types, that were to mould the destinies of 4 THE PAN AMERICAN UNION 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 oppressed and per- secuted came to the New World, to build up new homes, free from all the troubles left behind; while the adventurous came bent on destroy- ing and carrying away everything they could lay their hands on. So here we have the true genesis of the formation of nationality in Anglo and Latin America. In the two great classes, the permanent and the temporar}^ 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 tenderness born of his religious zeal, the other cruel and unscrupulous. Thus we find that Anglo America was settled by austere men, seeking religious freedom, men who were fleeing from states with laws prejudicial to their beliefs and practices, men dissatisfied with the political conditions in their own countries, who did not wish to go so far as to sever their connection entirely with the fatherland, but who sought in the new colonies ameliorated conditions under their own flag ; men who came to build homes in a new land, eager to remain because, full of energy, they saw in the very newness of the land the great opportunities it offered them to build a greater commercial and political future for themselves. Besides these good elements there came, as a matter of course, a few adventurous outlaws, and others attracted to the New Land by the prevalent “Wanderlust” of the times — the latter, a decided minority. Let us now turn to Latin America. To her went the soldiers of fortune, valiant but ignorant, adventurous and daring yet unscru- pulous. They came principally from a country where religious bigotry was rampant. They were an admixture of virtues and vices. They came to conquer, to flght if necessary; their one aim was to better their lot, regardless of by what means or as to the consequences. The companions of Pizarro, Hernando Cortez, de Soto, Almagro, Pedrarias, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, were in marked contrast to the men who came to the shores of New England with the Pilgrim Fathers. To us came the militarists seeking a field for new exploits, and in their wake came adventurous outlaws seeking gold and riches. Of course, there also came some good men, some who would have been willing to preserve what they found, but these were a minority, and besides, the existing conditions throughout our territories prevented CONTRASTS — ANGLO AND LATIN AMERICA 5 this. Because while in your territory there were nothing but nomadic, savage and semi-savage tribes, without fixed settlements, in our terri- tory, the vSpaniards came upon organized states, having a certain civilization of their own. So we have it, that in Anglo America the whites arrived and settled peacefully, acquiring the ownership of the land from the native Indians, either by right of purchase, by peaceful treaty negotiations, or in some instances by forceful occupation, after actual warfare with the aborigines, which ended with the conquest of the land, but not of its inhabitants, who in each case were driven westward. In Latin America the whites came as a militarily organized force. They overran the countries they discovered, fighting their way from the very outset right into the heart of the unknown territories that they seized, destroying everything, plundering wholesale and making a display of force and rare indomitable courage so as to cower the astonished natives. In Latin America the white men overthrew the native governments and established themselves as the governing class, reducing the Indian to a state bordering on actual slavery that, in many instances, was slavery. Every cruelty was resorted to by the con- querors. No pity nor mercy was ever shown unto the defenceless tribes. From the very first it was a question of asserting his supe- riority as a master, and making the Indian feel that he was but a mere tool in his master’s hands. From the foregoing, it can readily be seen that while your territory was being colonized, in the strictest sense of the word, by your fore- fathers, ours was being conquered by the white man, in such a manner as to be most detrimental to posterity. Now', let us glance 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, Scandinavians, 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, 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 conquests 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 fam- 6 THE PAN AMERICAN UNION ilies. With these came men of means and of great power at home. They brought a very large clerical force, composed mainly of younger sons of the upper classes; each one eager to obtain a sinecure, trust- ing to his relatives and powerful sponsors to better his condition, and in time, get his promotion to more important and more lucrative positions. It was a veritable army of Bureaucrats, of office-seekers, of penni- less and spendthrift young men, that overran our territory; men who had never done any work at home; men who by reason of birth, or by reason of the conditions existing in the mother country at the time, had never had to do any work, men whose one and only ambition was a high salary, because they had never had occasion to learn a profes- sion nor to earn a livelihood through industry and toil. From sources so widely different in their components sprang the Anglo American and the Latin American. Your men formed an unmixed mass, because, although being of divers nationalities and coming from divers social classes, they were of pure race and main- tained this condition with very rare exception. Besides, they came with intent of bettering themselves by becoming independent in a measure, if not of the Governments, at least of the laws that had oppressed them at home. They came determined to settle down, and so they brought their families with them and a great many of their belongings, and thus, from the very beginning, they established homes and organized properly constituted communities of workers. 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 Castilians 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. It is a well-known fact that many of the Conquistadores took unto themselves women of the Indian race, of the governing class; especially did this occur in Mexico and in Peru, which included at the time what is today Ecuador and Bolivia, as there existed in Mexico and Peru a semi-civilized race organized into castes. One of the best known of the early chroniclers of Peru, and who has been considered as an authority on the history of the Inca Empire, was Inca Garcilaso, the son of a Spanish nobleman, Garcilaso de la Vega, who came to Peru in 1534, and who married dona Isabel Palla Huailas Nusta, daughter of Palla Mama Occllo and of Huallpa Tupac contrasts — ANGLO AND LATIN AMERICA 7 Inca Yupanqui, fourth son of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, brother of Huaina Capac, one of the reigning Incas. This mixing of the races, white and Indian, after a time was not frowned upon by the haughty Spanish Monarchy, but, on the contrary, it was encouraged, it being considered the best possible means of establishing a uniform race; the idea being to create a great middle class that would in time make useful and loyal subjects of the Crown. Many of the Conquistadores thus married or entangled themselves with princesses of the existing dynasties and with the daughters and relatives of the Casiques or Chieftains. And, following this example, the soldiery and the retinues of these leaders were allowed a very large amount of liberty so promiscuous that by the end of the eighteenth century the “Mestizo” population of Peru had exceeded a quarter of a million. Some of these Mestizos, by right of their parentage, were given the best education and in many instances they were brought up with the Creole children, but, by far the vast majority were kept in ignorance, and made to do menial work, or at most allowed to apprentice them- selves to some trade. The Anglo American colonist, when he established himself on the shores of America, was already somewhat schooled in self-government. He was a man of discipline, of order, and, above all else, he was a worker. He emigrated because he sought to improve his condition, because he saw in the new land beyond the seas a new life, and at the very first opportunity he proved himself able to take care of himself. With such men it is not to be wondered at that the New Colonies should have been more or less successful from the start, and that the science of self-government should have been so readily acquired. Your forefathers came over, bringing in their hearts the desire to accomplish great things. As they found everything in an undeveloped state, they were obliged to take the initiative and try to help themselves. From the first, it was a great cooperative effort, everyone working for himself, but at the same time lending a helping hand to his neighbor. With us it was otherwise. The sight of such great wealth as the Conquistadores found in some of our countries, the existence of organ- ized states where the ceremonies were carried on with pomp and splendor, dazzled the more or less ignorant adventurers, who were the first comers, and completely demoralized them. I firmly believe that had those brave men, for brave they certainly were, found in our countries the conditions that the Anglo-Saxon found in this, they would surely have developed qualities that might have been on a par with some of the ones exhibited by your pioneers. 8 THE PAN AMERICAN UNION There is no telling what would have resulted from altered conditions in our respective territories. The news of the riches to be found in the New World, attracted to it men from all over Europe. To our countries came a very large number of the riffraff soldiers who had been warring all over Europe; men courageous, but unscrupulous. From the beginning, these men quarrelled among themselves, over the spoils; their leaders distrusted each other; they organized themselves into separate camps and from the moment the Conquest was consummated an actual state of anarchv prevailed throughout the new dominions of the Spanish Monarch; a seed that unquestionably bore fruit, to judge from the history of our countries with their perennial upheavals and continued discontent and unrest. During the first fifty years after the Conquest by the Spaniards many attempts were made by the Crown to establish good government in the newly acquired possessions, but it was to no avail. The fact is, that the men who came to us were untutored in the science of govern- ment. They knew how to rule, but they did not know how to govern. So for two centuries and more the European and the Creole exploited and ruled the land, and the Mestizos and the Indians, for the benefit of the mother country. The Indian was kept in a state of abject servitude; he was turned into a beast of burden. The Mestizo physiologically is nearer to the Caucasian than to the Indian. Physically and morally he is superior to the Indian, and although of less active intelligence than the Euro- pean or the Creole, he is more strong-willed and more persevering and painstaking in all his undertakings. In the early days after the Conquest the Mestizo who happened to have one parent of lineage or rank was given every facility to improve and was placed on an equal footing with the Creoles, but as the years advanced, and the Mestizos became more and more numerous, the vSpaniards began to look on them with distrust, and, fearing that too much education would give them certain power in the administration, they forbade them to occupy certain positions and prevented them from acquiring too much knowledge. But many of them, notwithstanding these drawbacks, opened a way for themselves, through well-regulated homes and families, and placed themselves on a level with their acknowledged masters. During these years the Indians were continually oppressed by the European, the Creole, and even by the Mestizo. But, at times, some of the latter would join in the rebellions against their cruel masters, only to be crushed the more, and made to feel the distance that CONTRASTS — ANGLO AND LATIN AMERICA 9 separated each race. And so it was, for more than two hundred years, these two people, the Conquerors and the Conquered, subsisted side by side, living in hatred and distrust of each other, until eventually out of sheer exhaustion they became apparently reconciled to their respective conditions when gradually a sort of colonial nationality was evolved. This nationality formed of Creoles and Mestizos might have been beneficial to our countries if it had had time to develop. But unfor- tunately, just about the time when the Spanish American was begin- ning to find himself and to make himself understood, a wave of freedom swept over the northern portion of the American Continent, and Spain, fearing that the example would be followed in her dominions, tightened her hold on her unfortunate subjects. The splendid results of the independence of Anglo America; the advent of new ideas through the French Revolution; the invasion of Spain by Napoleon; all tended to engender in Latin American coun- tries the desire for Independence. No longer was it the rebellion of the Indians. These unfortunates had been thoroughly crushed into submission. It was the Creoles and the Mestizos who conspired against the authority of the mother country. The people demanded freedom. They sought to have liber- ties, to be allowed to have a direct voice in the government and the administration of the affairs of the countries. Spain, notwithstanding her gradual loss of power in Europe, stub- bornly refused to listen to the cry of her subjects. The men who in her own Parliament voiced an opinion in favor of the Americans, were denounced as traitors to their country and as friends of the French invader. From 1804 the unrest in Latin America was most evident. It broke out into revolution, first in one section, then in another, until in 1810 several of the countries established their independence, organizing a Republican form of government. But there was no preparation for self-government, such as the Anglo American Commonwealths had had. They decided on this form of government because a wave of Republicanism had swept over them. The ideas and principles that they adopted were taken from you, from the French, a little from each, and they simply adopted them without studying their own condition, without having any real instinct for self-government, without having any fitness or being ready for such a state. The Anglo-American passed from the condition of a good Colonial subject to that of a citizen of an independent Comipon wealth. It was a gradual development. He took with him from one state into the THE PAN AMERICAN UNION lO other the experience of years, and a thorough study of the needs of his country and of its people. On the contrary, our people were totally unprepared for self- government. The number of our people who had risen to positions of distinction, while not unappreciable, was scattered over a very large area from Mexico to the confines of South America. In each of our countries there were racial divisions. Their popula- tions were made up of Creoles, who, together with the Spaniards, formed the governing class, the Mestizos striving to be on an equal footing with them, and, a long way down in the scale, the Indians, considered inferior even to the imported African slaves. The three centuries of Spanish domination had been, with but few intervals, years of exploitation, of misrule, of neglect. I do not blame Spain, absolutely. I think that this condition was the natural outcome of the manner in which the Conquest was effected. Many unfortunate circumstances militated to bring about in Latin America conditions that did not occur in Anglo America. Summing these up, as shown in the foregoing, I can but say that you were more fortunate than we in the beginning, at the very foundation, and that, consequently, when each of us set out in life for himself, all the advantaged were with you. Geographically and climatically you have been in better condition to prosper than we, and to develop your natural resources. The original thirteen States, situated on the east coast of the northern hemisphere of the Continent, nearer to Europe, were in a position to receive an ever-increasing influx of the most desirable emigrants from western Europe. You could offer them climatic conditions more or less similar to theirs; institutions in advance of theirs, but with which they were familiar, if only in principle; a language that was the surest vehicle for the development of trade-relations; religious and political freedom, and a virgin country rich in natural resources, a land of opportunities, holding out every possible kind of incentive to those who came to its shores, and inviting them to remain to better their condition and satisfy their ambitions. Latin America, situated in great part in the southern hemisphere, with many of its centers of population within the tropics, on the Pacific slope, or on the high table lands of the Andes Mountains, has been more or less inaccessible to European emigration. So while you have had a constant flow of immigrants to your shores, immigrants who have helped to develop your country and its resources, we have been dragging out our existence trying to free ourselves from the effects of inherent conditions that were drawbacks to our develop- CONTRASTS — ANGLO AND LATIN AMERICA II merit. Whereas Republican institutions and a knowledge of true self- government were the direct inheritance of the Anglo American Colonies at their birth as a nation; Latin America, at the time of its inception into the family of nation, was a group of dissociated military nations, utterly unschooled in self-government, and inhabited in greater part by unfused races. With these conditions at the time of our political emancipation it is not to be wondered at that our first steps in the phth of freedom and our first attempt at self-government should have been disastrous in every respect. Our educated men, and we had throughout Latin America many men of mark and distinction, were mostly scholars, theorists and thinkers, but unpracticed in the science of government. Moreover, they were idealists and unpractical, generally fine orators, with great versatility ; in our Parliaments, Congresses and Assemblies they vied with each other in scholarly and cultured debate. All of the great principles that had taken centuries to ripen, in the nations of the Old World, were adopted by us, at a stroke of the pen and by acclamation. Without having inborn in us any of the principles of true democracy, we became, overnight, as it were, democratic and representative republics. From despotism and servitude we jumped into the most advanced form of government. Of course, there were many men who would have been great men in this or in any other country. There were men who, under other con- ditions and with different environments, would have risen to great heights, but I am dealing with facts and not with suppositions; conse- quently, the lack of proper training, owing to the conditions under which our countries had lived since the Conquest, and the class of men who had been responsible for the government and administration of them, as also the nature of their inhabitants, were all conducive to the state that followed immediately the political emancipation of Latin America. Your thirteen original States had already a growing trade with Europe, and even with the Orient, at the time of your Independence. Latin America, for three centuries, had been supplying to ever- needy Spain the precious metels obtained from its mines by the enforced hard labor of the poor natives. The mother country did not permit her American possessions to trade with other countries. The produets of our soils were sent to Spain, or were consumed at home, or exported to the other dominions of our Master. The trade was in the hands of Spaniards, and Spanish ships earried it. England, always far-seeing, always alert to improving her com- mercial supremacy, saw a great future for her commerce and trade in 12 THE PAN AMERICAN UNION Spanish America, and, while she was the ally of Spain, assisting her to overthrow the Napoleonic invasion of the Peninsula, she was, at the same time, urging upon Spain to grant to her restless and dis- contented possessions certain freedom and autonomy. England knew that Spain had no longer the financial power to develop those coun- tries; she foresaw the day when they would become independent, and she decided to get for herself a trade that would be of very great con- sequence at some future date. During the time that our countries were fighting the mother country we received great moral and material assistance from Great Britain. It is often said that nations are wont to be ungrateful, and that they seldom remember the services rendered by other nations or by aliens who embrace their cause. I trust that this will never be said of Spanish America, because we do remember the assistance that Great Britain gave us, in quite the same manner as you remember what France did for you during your own great war, and, moreover, we have not forgotten that in the days of our struggle, we had the sympathy and the aid of many noble soldiers and sailors from the cradle of Amer- ican liberty, your own country. So you see, that while you, in Anglo America, had everything con- ducive to national welfare, we were laboring under the stress of great difficulties. . We had no money. We had no foreign trade, to speak of. We had no internal developments. Slavery had been introduced into many of our countries, and the same laxity that had allowed a promiscuous intercourse between Creole, white man and Indian, permitted the mixing of the African with the other races. Certainly no worse conditions for the formation of a nationality could exist. From the very outset we followed in the footsteps of our late masters; in fact, many of these became our first and foremost citizens. They applied the democratic republican theories and practices to a people who were unprepared for them, and, as was natural, the result was license, misrule and finally chaos. As things went wrong under one man, another was tried, and as he could not improve the condition, the reason for which did not depend on the man, but was the natural sequence to all that had gone before, the consequence was continual unrest, dissatisfaction and perpetual changes of political leaders, with the result that the nations became impoverished, the inhabitants, instead of improving, degenerated and became, in many instances, next to worthless as a national asset. The general state of national bankruptcy that was prevalent in Latin America a few years after the final overthrow of Spanish rule CONTRASTS — ANGLO AND LATIN AMERICA 13 in 1821, served as an incentive to European money lenders and finan- ciers of a more or less obscure class, who came forward to offer their services for all and every conceivable object, from a mere money loan to the building of public works and the development of the mineral and agricultural resources of the land. Many men of shady reputations, with pasts that would not bear a very close scrutiny and investigation, flocked to the newly constituted States, offering their services, and ready to take up anything in the shape of a concession, which they immediately took to Europe to finance there. In this manner Latin America was duped and swindled. Loans were raised, the proceeds of which were used up in paying commissions and expenses, but the unfortunate state had to meet the obligation or default. It is a very long story, this history of the financial struggles of many of the young Latin American Republics, and it is a very pitiful story. In like manner, and as we had started out with the wrong foot at the time of the Conquest, the same misfortune befell us when we launched out into independent statehood. In other words, we ran before we walked. We wrote before we learnt our A. B. C. We assumed a developed stage without first having had the preliminaries. How different this was in your case! Yet how very few people are there who think of this when discussing and criticising us ! How many are there among you who think of this and stop to consider to what extent the Latin American countries and their people have been handicapped? We have been misjudged. We have been misrepresented at all times. And all because our critics have failed to look into our early histories and ascertain the why and wherefore of the present state of affairs. They have sought in our countries for practically the same conditions as exist in other more fortunate lands, where the evolution of nationality has been gradual and logical, because there has been a foundation for it. It is impossible to build where the foundation is not solid; where the ground has not first been well broken and prepared. As I stand here before you and think that I come from the country that is proud to possess the oldest trace of prehistoric civilization on the Continent, the Nation that boasts the most ancient seat of learning in the Americas, it grieves me to consider that, notwithstanding the age of my country and the venerableness of that seat of learning, the University of San Marcos, we still are, as a nation, in our infancy. And it is so because only now are we developing our true nationality. And we know now that the formative period may be considered as well over, and we feel 14 THE PAN AMERICAN UNION ready to face the future with full confidence in ourselves, and in our country. Some of the countries of Latin America have already made won- derful strides along the path of progress, material and intellectual. Some have already crossed their Rubicon and are forging ahead at a rapid pace. Argentina, in which conditions are more analogous to those of the United States, has already attained a greater material growth than any other Latin American Nation. The tide of immigra- tion from the European countries has been for some years steadily flowing towards the southern part of our Continent. Brazil and, more specially, Argentina have been receiving in increased numbers Euro- pean settlers. In Argentina, the blending of the races is taking place, and a condition similar to that which occurred in the United States is developing there. Southern Brazil and Uruguay, on the Atlantic, and Chile, on the Pacific, are developing strong nationalities. In the latter country climatic conditions and a more homogeneous race have been favorable. The Panama Canal will open the west coast of Latin America to European immigration. It will help to open to trade the countries on the Pacific Slope. Through the new waterway, Peru will be in a direct line of communication with Europe and the Gulf and Atlantic ports of the United States. The Canal will be the great gateway through which will flow to our shores a stream of progress, carrying along with it men with capital, men with energy and activity, men who will come to us in the spirit that the pioneers from these New England States went into the West of this great country and founded there a greater empire of wealth than even the Pilgrim Fathers founded in this section of your country. There is a happy faculty that is common to the whole of America, of being able to readily assimilate diverse foreign immigrants and turn them into good citizens. The melting pot does not exist only in your country. In each of the Latin American nations it is doing the work of fusing into one great nationality the stray elements from all over Europe. Anyone who takes up a directory of any of the Latin American countries will be astonished to read the number of names of English, Scotch, French, Irish, German, Dutch, Slav and Italian origin that are to be found, and he will be even more astonished when he learns that the Edwards, the McKennas, the Gallaghers, the Joneses, the Browns, the Smiths, the Whites, the Carters, the Henrys, the Blacks, the Washbournes, the Mullers, the Cawthorns, the Milanovitz, the Gosdinkys, the O’Donnells, the Elmores, the Lynches, the Lefevres, the Dubois, the Canevaros, the Figari, the Hemmerde, the Schaffers, CONTRASTS — ANGLO AND LATIN AMERICA 15 the V^on der Heyde, the Jacobys, the Salomons, the Dreyfus, the Bergmans, the Schreit-Mullers, the Schriebens, the Hahns, etc., etc., etc., are Latin Americans of two or more generations. At present in Peru our President is Senor Billinghurst, and two members of the Supreme Court are Justice Elmore and Justice Wash- bourne; the President of the Lima Chamber of Commerce is Senor Gallagher, the Assistant Secretary of State is Senor Althous, the Consul General in New York is Senor Higginson, one of our most dis- tinguished Generals is Senor Canevaro, one of the leaders in Congress is Senor Salomon, and all of these are Peruvian citizens by right of birth. The native Indian population, so long neglected, is now a matter of deep concern to many of our countries, and in Peru, where we have a very large percentage of pure Indian and of Mestizos, we are doing everything that is possible to undo the evil and the many injustices that have been done unto them since their country was wrested from them at the time of the Conquest. This is a problem of the greatest importance and one that is receiv- ing the greatest attention in my country from the men who have at heart the welfare, prosperity and the future of the Nation. In the foregoing I have attempted to present the many drawbacks that the Latin American Nations have had in the development of nationality. I would beg 5rou to consider this question when you are judging the Latin American. Bear in mind what I have tried to make clear to you, and if you do this, you will be better able to understand his idiosyncrasy and, in time, you will perhaps look upon him as a com- panion and a fellow-worker in the great cause of human uplift. We are all striving for a common goal. Our methods may differ, but our aspirations are the same, and the earnest endeavor of each is' worthy of the respect of the other. T he pan AMERICAN UNION is the inter- national organization and office maintained in Washington, D. C., by the twenty-one American republics, as follows: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Domini- can Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Salva- dor, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. It is devoted to the development and advancement of commerce, friendly intercourse, and good under- standing among these countries. It is supported by quotas contributed by each country, based upon the population. Its affairs are administered by a Direc- tor General and Assistant Director, elected by and responsible to a Governing Board, which is com- posed of the Secretary of State of the United States and the diplomatic representatives in Washington of the other American governments. These two executive officers are assisted by a staff of inter- national experts, statisticians, commercial special- ists, editors, translators, compilers, librarians, clerks and stenographers. The Union publishes a Monthly Bulletin in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, which is a careful record of Pan American progress. It also publishes numerous special reports and pam- phlets on various subjects of practical information. Its library, the Columbus Memorial Library, con- tains 36,000 volumes, 18,000 photographs. 132,000 index cards, and a large collection of maps. The Union is housed in a beautiful building erected through the munificence of Andrew Carnegie. Press of Gibson Brother* Washington