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goes on, however, the opposition grows in strength; it becomes harder to manage. The party in power resorts to violence and terror, and thus invites its own eventual overthrow.

Although this system of government often produces tyrannical dictators, the traditions of the French Revolution so far hold sway as to compel the observance of democratic forms and the fiction of popular liberty. The Argentine gauchos fought heroically under their infamous dictator, Rosas, and the people of Paraguay fought under their tyrant, Lopes, until they were almost exterminated - in each case under the banner of 'Independence and Freedom.' Furthermore, the customs and manners of the people in private life are democratic; so that even republics ruled by an oligarchy appear on the surface more democratic than truly free governments on a much higher plane of social evolution.

Under this oligarchical régime patriarchal economic feudalism prevails, ranging all the way from the mildest form of serfdom to outright slavery. The forms which this labor relationship assumes in South and Central America are most varied, and are governed largely by the amount of colored blood in the lower classes. While the Argentine estanciero still is measurelessly above his peons in social rank and legal privileges, and occupies a most envimost enviable position in the eyes of a European employer, he associates with his laborers after work on a footing of complete equality, as a gentleman among gentlemen. While the servant recognizes his master as his patrón, he would retaliate for a blow from him with a knifethrust.

On the other hand, in many parts of Chile and Brazil the owner of a great estate might venture to use corporeal punishment on his laborers, and in Bolivia the haciendero has a right

recognized by law thus to punish his Indian dependents.

Such a society, in which the masses of the people, even under the most favorable conditions, receive only enough to keep them alive, while politically privileged land-owners receive huge revenues, can survive only so long as the people are ignorant and illiterate, means of communication are primitive, and enlightenment cannot enter from abroad. Consequently the forces to which South America owes its rapid development, and its ruling classes in no small degree their fabulous fortunes, - immigration, railways, and foreign capital, have undermined the political monopoly of the old governing families. To-day both oligarchical government and patriarchal control of labor are on the decline. You find them intact only in remote countries, like Bolivia, and even there modern currents are astir. On the other hand, traces of them still survive even in the most modern republics, and indeed show greater vitality than one might imagine.

Throughout the continent the oligarchy is engaged in a life-and-death struggle to maintain its privileges. Even where it has been overthrown, it is still vigorous and hopes to recover its old advantages. This struggle was at first exclusively political; but it is gradually expanding into a social struggle. The situation is still further complicated by the fact that modern capitalism has flooded South America within a few years, superimposing itself most inharmoniously upon the former patriarchal system. A Chilean public man said to me: 'In the same way that we have suddenly jumped from a primitive mechanical civilization to a modern mechanical civilization, dropping our brush-hooks and wooden ploughs to mount automobile tractors, so we are clearing several centuries at a

bound in our political development. We have neither majority Socialists nor Independent Socialists, nor any middle parties. As soon as our serfs up at the mines and the saltpetre works get a glimmering of Socialist ideas, they go over bag and baggage to the Bolsheviki.'

In all large industrial cities of South America, like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, there are to be found among the

working people radical Socialists, Bol-
sheviki, and Anarchists. Still every
Latin-American republic remains up to
the present overwhelmingly a farming
and grazing country; so that, however
radical the agitation in industrial
centres may be, it is much less impor-
tant than the Socialist movements oc-
curring among the rural population.
(To be concluded)

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ABC STATES

BY DR. ALBERT HAAS

From Deutsche Politik, July 2

(GERMAN NATIONALIST WEEKLY)

THE foreign policy of the American fact that some have advanced further republics began with their declarations than their neighbors along this common of independence. Those were docu- path. ments of protest against the contemporary colonial policy of Europe, which treated territories conquered and settled in the New World as mere dependencies of their mother-country. Both England and Spain considered their oversea settlers people of inferior status, to be ruled solely in the political interest of Europe, and to be exploited for the profit of the home-country.

Their common grievances and abuses gave the American nations similar domestic and foreign policies. In spite of differences of climate, race, temperament, civilization, religion, and political tradition, all the governments of the Western Hemisphere belong to a class by themselves. All of them, without exception, have passed through the same stages of political and economic development, and such differences as do exist among them are caused by the

To understand political conditions in the American republics, it is desirable first of all to impress the analogies in their history upon our minds. The people of the United States secured their independence by a protracted war late in the eighteenth century; their descendants look back upon this period as the heroic age of their country; the citizens of the young Republic long cherished an intense dislike for their defeated mother-land; and the ideals of France and the French Revolution exercised a strange glamour over them for a generation or more. A little later the people of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America reacted in precisely the same way, though with different degrees of intensity, toward the European nations to which they owe their origin. George Washington is honored as the Father of his Country in the

United States. Belgrano, San Martin, and Simon Bolivar are similarly honored in South America. And the hostility toward the former mother-country, which lingered so long in the United States, is only now beginning to disappear in the republics of Spanish America.

After their wars of independence, an era ensued in both the United States and in Latin-American nations, when their people were absorbed in the task of consolidating their domestic affairs and fixing their frontiers. Since all pioneer peoples are prone to direct action and self-help, most of these conflicts were naturally settled by force of arms. To be sure, the people of the United States inherit from their English forbears remarkable political selfrestraint and coolheadedness. Nevertheless, it took a bloody civil war to settle their constitutional controversies and to ensure the ascendency of the central government over the individual states. The people of the Union have always been inclined, by both political tradition and spontaneous sympathies, to secure such accessions of territory as they desired by treaty rather than by force. In spite of that, however, they owe an important part of their national domain to a successful war against their Mexican neighbors.

The history of the other American governments is very similar. It is hardly necessary to point out the weighty rôle that revolutions and civil wars have played in the domestic history of those countries. Either in connection with these domestic frays, or independently of them, nearly every Central and South American state has fought bloody wars with its neighbors over boundary disputes. It is sufficient to cite a single example — the last war which Chile fought with Peru and Bolivia, which ended with a still unsettled territorial controversy. Argentina

fought Brazil in 1827 and 1828, until the conflict was ended by erecting Uruguay as a buffer state between them.

The emergence of the American nations from this pioneer period of evolution, during which they were absorbed mainly in domestic problems and in controversies with their nextdoor neighbors, was signalized by the Washington government suddenly appearing on the world-stage as by reason of its immense resources and political prestige- the most powerful member in the consortium of nations. True to type, the South American governments, especially the so-called ABC states, — Argentina, Brazil, and Chile,

- are following in the footsteps of their Northern neighbor. They have come forward with a policy no longer determined, as formerly, by hereditary hostility to their mother-country, but by definite political and economic aims and a new consciousness of their weight in the community of nations. To be sure, these governments still draw a sharp line between European and American questions. But they no longer do this for the purpose of protecting themselves against the colonizing and subjugating ambition of the European powers. Rather, Pan-American policies have passed from a defensive to an offensive pose. In order to ensure themselves a free hand in dealing with European questions, the American governments demand that no European power shall presume to concern itself with questions of purely American importance.

Inasmuch as the people of the Union were the first American nation to plunge into world-politics, they needed only to settle things with Europe, which they did in a most thorough manner. It was not necessary for them to take into consideration their LatinAmerican neighbors, except to make sure that they would meet no opposition

from them, and if possible would receive tural and intellectual claims to that nation.

their support.

However, the South American powers must first come to a definite understanding with their North American neighbor, before they can make overtures outside of their continent. That explains the origin of the ABC entente. In 1914, when American troops were landed at Vera Cruz, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, the most progressive and powerful nations of Latin America, volunteered to intercede for Mexico at Washington. In that instance, however, the issue between the two North American republics was settled in another manner.

This emergency A B C entente, which never attained the solidity of an alliance, fell to pieces during the World War. The policies of these three governments during that great struggle, as well as those of the other Latin-American states, were shaped in no small degree by Washington, though sentimental ties between them and Europeespecially France - also played a part.

Beyond any question, Brazil became the enemy of Germany in the World War because of her sincere love for France. The Brazilians are not only a very intelligent, but, above all, a very intellectual nation. They are likely to be influenced in political questions by artistic and literary influences. The Brazilians believed that the existence of France, and through France of civilization itself, was threatened by the war. Therefore they thought themselves morally obligated to do their part to save Paris as the intellectual capital of the globe. We may dispute the facts upon which this opinion is based, but the opinion itself must be reckoned with. France devoted decades of persistent, painstaking labor to winning the hearts of the Brazilians, at a time when Germany was indifferent to the advisability of presenting her own cul

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Moreover, the oratorical and emotional temperament of the French is more akin to that of the Brazilians than is our own. Germany was looked upon as the land of specialists, of practical common sense, and of heartlessness. Brazilians were strengthened in this opinion by the attitude of North America. They felt themselves in a sense dignified by their equal status with their big brothers in the North, when they joined them in declaring war on Germany. Furthermore, it certainly was no argument against such action that Portugal had previously taken the same course. For any antipathy to the mother-land which may have existed in Brazil was comparatively mild, and for this reason the eventual separation of the colony from the old country came later than in the case of its neighbors, and almost without a conflict.

Conditions were radically different in Argentina, where the people are of entirely different fibre. Even there, oratorical and emotional culture plays a weighty rôle, and its devotees have fought with tooth and nail to win support for France. But, side by side with this, diametrically opposite mental attitudes and cultural currents of great power exist in Argentina. Its people are generally more matter-of-fact, hard-headed, and unemotional than their Brazilian neighbors. A distinguished Brazilian author wrote not long ago that the intellectual life of the Argentine was characterized by 'naturalness and simplicity of style.' This may seem an odd expression to us Germans, whose minds deal almost exclusively with facts and their technical significance, and who disregard or despise mere style. But the Argentine temperament, as exhibited in many of the nation's thinkers and statesmen,

is even more matter-of-fact than the characterization just quoted might suggest. Its leaders demand that everything shall yield to facts, and that a strictly scientific discipline shall take the place of what they call civilización verbal-word-culture. This does not mean repudiating all the graces of the intellect, but insisting that the thinkers and orators of the nation shall constantly keep their feet on the ground.

We have this attitude to thank for the high esteem in which German learning and science are held in Argentina, particularly by army officers, physicians, and educators. The army officers, who have always regarded Germany as the great authority in their profession, number in their ranks many of the most eminent intellectual leaders of the land. They have not only studied our military literature, but they are usually intimately familiar with German thought in other fields. I recall being seated at a banquet next to an Argentine general, who discoursed for more than an hour upon the free rhythm of Goethe's lyrics. Another general, on a similar occasion, gave me a critical bibliography of all the translations of Heine's works in the Spanish language. All Argentine officers are aware that Germany's former greatness was due more to the general intellectual attainments of her military leaders, her administrators, her philosophers, her scholars, and her poets, than to the professional excellence of her recruits, officers, and engineers.

Argentine physicians and educators are equally aware of the true elements of Germany's greatness. But they are forced by circumstances to use more French than German textbooks in their work. This is due, however, to the fact that German publishers have not consulted the needs of South American students and scholars, while Frenchmen have written books especially for

South American use, some of which are published by local firms.

Added to this intellectual influence, which is naturally confined to a comparatively narrow circle, is an extraordinarily important political condition. Originally the Argentine Republic, like other Latin-American countries, was a feudal state in an economic as well as in a political sense. The Spaniards and Portuguese did not exterminate the Indians in the territories they conquered. Consequently, fifty years ago all South America consisted of immense estates. The white race owned the arable land, which was cultivated in an indifferent way by laborers of mixed blood, who were practically serfs. Argentina is the first Latin-American country to free itself from this old system. Its energetic white natives, reinforced by numerous immigrants, have grown into an independent middle class, which has successfully dethroned the great estateowners and seized the reins of power. For several decades now, the Republic has been a white man's country. It has established equal suffrage and the secret ballot, and thus put the Radicals in office. The new middle class, which has thus gained the upper hand over the old patricians, has repudiated, together with their rule, the political and literary ideology which the old oligarchy had borrowed from France.

Brazil has developed a middle class much more slowly than Argentina, on account of the large negro population. This explains why her intellectual patriciate still clings to power, and maintains its old French sympathies, while an overwhelming majority of the Argentineans are 'one-hundred-per-cent American.' The latter are ready to accept whatever Europe has to offer in the way of civilization and culture which suits their special needs. But they refuse to do homage to any single coun

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