The Argentine in the Twentieth Century

by Alberto B. Martínez; Maurice Lewandowski

The national Territories are: La Pampa, Misionès, Nequen, Rio Negro, Chaco, Formosa, Chubut, Santa Cruz, the Andes, and Tierra del Fuego.

To present a complete picture of the Argentine, it is not enough to describe its configuration, its great rivers, its climate, its population, its forms of agriculture, and the value of its soil; all this is a dead letter, and will by no means yield us the secret of the country’s future, unless we first resolve one question of a sociological character: Is there an Argentine nationality, and what does it signify in respect of the territory which it occupies? Could one, for instance, estimate the importance of the United States merely from the point of view of their agricultural and mineral wealth, without taking into account the work and the character of the admirable Anglo-Saxon race, which has adapted itself to American soil, and has succeeded in obtaining from it its full value?

And could we explain the fact that certain countries of South America, which also, thanks to their natural wealth, have all the elements of rapid development, have remained stationary, and hardly count as nations, if the question of race did not throw light on the mystery, showing us that with the most favourable factors of the soil, a ferment is essential to start the growth of the seed?

Concerning the Argentine, this then is the problem which we have to consider, if we wish to see further than the present moment, and to judge in what measure its progress may be consolidated and even accelerated. In other terms, we must understand whether the Argentine must depend upon a fortuitous grouping of individuals brought together by the various streams of immigration, and having no common tie but the desire to enrich themselves, or whether these various elements are destined to become fused, and in time to form a true nationality, with its own traditions, its own ideal.

This latter is naturally the end to be pursued by the Argentine Government, if it wishes to prepare for the future by making moral and material progress go hand in hand. Its role is not to manage the country like a directing syndicate, but to direct all individual efforts, all initiative, and all other available forces, to the same national and patriotic end.

It was this idea that a President of the Republic, Señor Quintana, felt it his duty to enunciate, when, upon assuming the Presidential authority, he stated, in his inaugural message: “I am the head of a nation which has in America an ideal”; and he added: “There is one common characteristic among us that was discovered as early as the colonial period, in the magnitude of plans of campaign, in the clamour of intestine conflict, in the government of the constitutional period; it is, that we all bear in our hearts the sense of our future greatness.”

How far can these aspirations be translated into facts? That is a question we must examine seriously and with an absolutely unbiassed judgment.

We cannot study this question of the Argentine nationality in books; for a country which has been so rapidly carried away on the tide of material progress has but

little time to examine itself. Neither has it been able to form a literature or a sociology which might reflect the dominant characteristics of the generation; it is only by an inquiry and an analysis of the facts that we can isolate this element of nationality from the various foreign elements which have contributed to its formation.

One factor that facilitates our task is the clear-sightedness of the Argentines themselves, who are the first to recognise, with abundant good-temper, their own shortcomings. They are almost exaggerated in their self-criticisms when depicting themselves; and our work has been cut out for us in avoiding too hasty generalisations and in softening certain too rigorous judgments, although these emanated from men who were certainly in a position to understand the tendencies of their generation.