FOREWORD
There are two Americas. In the north, the "Outre-Mer" of Bourget, is a powerful industrial republic, a vast country of rude energies, of the "strenuous life." In the south are twenty leisurely states of unequal civilisation, troubled by anarchy and the colour problem. The prestige of the United States, their imperialism, and their wealth, have cast a shade over the less orderly Latin republics of the south. The title of America seems to be applied solely to the great imperial democracy of the north.
Yet among these American nations are wealthy peoples whose domestic organisation has been greatly improved, such as the Argentine, Brazil, Chili, Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay. They must not be confounded with the republics of Central America, with Hayti or Paraguay. French writers and politicians, such as M. Anatole France, M. Clemenceau, and M. Jaurès, who have visited the Argentine, Brazil, and Uruguay, have remarked there not only an established Latin culture, but noble efforts in the direction of augmenting the internal peace of the nations, and extraordinary riches. They are agreed in declaring that these young countries possess economic forces and an optimism which will yield them a brilliant future.
Several of these states have lately celebrated their first centenary. Their independence was won during the first decade of the nineteenth century. The year 1810 was the beginning of a new epoch, during which autonomous republics were formed, not without tragedy, upon the remnants of the Spanish power.
The time has come, it would seem, to study these peoples, together with their evolution and progress, unless we are willing to take it as proved that the United States of North America are the sole focus of Transatlantic civilisation and energy.
We propose to draw up the balance-sheet of these South American republics. This is the object of this book. We must seek in the history of these states the reason of their inferiority and the data which relate to their future.
First of all we must study the conquering race which discovered and colonised America. We must analyse the Spanish and Portuguese genius, the Iberian genius, half European, half African. After the conquest new societies sprang up under the stern domination of Spain and Portugal. They were over-seas theocracies, jealously guarded from all alien trade. Unlike Saxon America, where the Dutch and English immigrants held themselves sternly apart from the Indians, pursuing them and forcing them westward, in South America conquerors and conquered intermingled. The half-castes became the masters by force of numbers, conceiving a thirst for power and a hatred of the proud and overbearing Spaniards and Portuguese. War broke out between the Iberians and the Americans; it was a civil war. Then new states were rapidly formed, without traditions of government or established social classification.
These states were dominated by military chieftains, by caudillos. From barbarism and periodic anarchy proceeded the Dictators. We shall be able to study some of the representative personalities of this period, and to disentangle from the monotonous development of events the history of certain nations, such as Brazil, in which the social medley has been dominated by the principle of authority. In the Argentine, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Chili we shall perceive a new industrial order, by means of which political life grows less disturbed and the caudillos lose their authority (Books I. and II.).
The study of intellectual evolution shows us how great is the power of ideology in these rising democracies. They imitate the French Revolution; they submit themselves to the influence of the ideas of Rousseau and the Romantics, and of the doctrines of the individualists. America, Spanish and Portuguese by origin, is becoming French by culture (Book III.).
Here we proceed to the study of the part played by the Latin spirit in the formation of these peoples, and the perils which threaten them, whether these proceed from the United States, from Germany, or from Japan, and to consider the faults and the qualities of this spirit (Book IV.). Then follows an analysis of the problems and the future of Latin America (Book V.).
The conclusion to be drawn from this examination is that the political life of the Ibero-American peoples is as yet chaotic, but that some of them have already cast off the fetters of an unfortunate heredity. Across the ocean liberty and democracy are steadily becoming realities. In the battles of the future the support of America will be valued by the great peoples of the Mediterranean who are struggling for the supremacy of the Latin race.
CONTENTS
THE CONQUERING RACE
Its psychological characteristics—Individualism and its aspects—The sentiment of equality—African fanaticism.
THE COLONIES OVERSEA
The conquerors—The conquered races—The influence of religion in the new societies—Colonial life.
THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
I. Economic and political aspects of the struggles—Monarchy and the Republic—The leaders: Miranda, Belgrano, Francia, Iturbide, King Pedro I., Artigas, San Martin, Bolivar—Bolivar the Liberator: his ideas and his deeds.
II. Revolutionary ideology—Influence of Rousseau—The rights of man—The example of the United States—English ideas in the constitutional projects of Miranda and Bolivar—European action: Canning—Nationalism versus Americanism.
MILITARY ANARCHY AND THE INDUSTRIAL PERIOD
Anarchy and dictatorship—The civil wars: their significance—Characteristics of the industrial period.
VENEZUELA: PAEZ—GUZMAN-BLANCO
The moral authority of Paez—The Monagas—The tyranny of Guzman-Blanco—Material progress.
PERU: GENERAL CASTILLA—MANUEL PARDO—PIEROLA
The political work of General Castilla—Domestic peace—The deposits of guano and saltpetre—Manuel Pardo, founder of the anti-military party—The last caudillo—Pierola: his reforms.
BOLIVIA: SANTA-CRUZ
Santa-Cruz and the Confederation of Peru and Bolivia—The tyrants Belzu, Molgarejo—The last caudillos: Pando, Montes.
URUGUAY: LAVALLEJA—RIVERA—THE NEW CAUDILLOS
The factions: Reds and Whites—The leaders: Artigas, Lavalleja, Rivera—The modern period.
THE ARGENTINE: RIVADAVIA—QUIROGA—ROSAS
Anarchy in 1820—The caudillos: their part in the formation of nationality—A Girondist, Rivadavia—The despotism of Rosas—Its duration and its essential aspects.
MEXICO: THE TWO EMPIRES—THE DICTATORS
The Emperor Iturbide—The conflicts between Federals and Unitarians—The Reformation—The foreign Emperor—The dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz—Material progress and servitude—The Yankee influence.
CHILI: A REPUBLIC OF THE ANGLO-SAXON TYPE
Portales and the oligarchy—The ten-years' Presidency—Montt and his influence—Balmaceda the reformer.
BRAZIL: THE EMPIRE—THE REPUBLIC
The influence of the Imperial régime—A transatlantic Marcus Aurelius—Dom Pedro II.—The Federal Republic.
PARAGUAY: PERPETUAL DICTATORSHIP
Dr. Francia—The opinion of Carlyle—The two Lopez—Tyranny and the military spirit in Paraguay.
COLOMBIA
Conservatives and Radicals—General Mosquera: his influence—A statesman: Raphael Nuñez, his doctrines political.
ECUADOR
Religious conflicts—General Flores and his political labours—Garcia Moreno—The Republic of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
THE ANARCHY OF THE TROPICS—CENTRAL AMERICA—HAYTI—SAN-DOMINGO
Tyrannies and revolutions—The action of climate and miscegenation—A republic of negroes: Hayti.
POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
Conservatives and Liberals — Lastarria — Bilbao — Echeverria — Montalvo — Vigil — The Revolution of 1848 and its influence in America—English ideas: Bello, Alberdi—The educationists.
THE LITERATURE OF THE YOUNG DEMOCRACIES
Spanish classicism and French romanticism—Their influence in America—Modernism—The work of Ruben Dario—The novel—The conte or short story.
THE EVOLUTION OF PHILOSOPHY
Bello—Hostos—The influence of England—Positivism—The influence of Spencer and Fouillée—-The sociologists
ARE THE IBERO-AMERICANS OF LATIN RACE?
Spanish and Portuguese heredity—Latin culture—The influence of the Roman laws, of Catholicism, and of French thought—The Latin spirit in America: its qualities and defects.
THE GERMAN PERIL
German Imperialism and the Monroe doctrine—Das Deutschtum and Southern Brazil—What the Brazilians think about it.
THE NORTH AMERICAN PERIL
The policy of the United States—The Monroe doctrine: its various aspects—Greatness and decadence of the United States—The two Americas, Latin and Anglo-Saxon.
A POLITICAL EXPERIMENT: CUBA
The work of Spain—The North-American reforms—The future.
THE JAPANESE PERIL
The ambitions of the Mikado—The Shin Nippon in Western America—Pacific invasion—Japanese and Americans.
THE PROBLEM OF UNITY
The foundations of unity: religion, language, and similarity of development—Neither Europe, nor Asia, nor Africa presents this moral unity in the same degree as Latin America—The future groupings of the peoples: Central America, the Confederation of the Antilles, Greater Colombia, the Confederation of the Pacific, and the Confederation of La Plata—Political and economical aspects of these unions—The last attempts at federation in Central America—The Bolivian Congress—The A.B.C.—the union of the Argentine, Brazil, and Chili.
THE PROBLEM OF RACE
The gravity of the problem—The three races, European, Indian, and negro—Their characteristics—The mestizos and mulattos—The conditions of miscegenation according to M. Gustave Le Bon—Regression to the primitive type.
THE POLITICAL PROBLEM
The caudillos: their action—Revolutions—Divorce between written Constitutions and political life—The future parties—The bureaucracy.
THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM
Loans—Budgets—Paper money—The formation of national capital.
AMERICA AND THE FUTURE OF THE LATIN PEOPLES
The Panama Canal and the two Americas—The future conflicts between Slavs, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, and Latins—The role of Latin America.