Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

Very sincerely yours,JOHN HAY.

Mr. J. N. Leger, &c.

That the attitude of the United States is better understood and better appreciated in the farthest countries of South America was shown during the presidential campaign of 1904, in an article on the views of the two candidates, which was published by an influential Chilean paper.[21]

21 “In reality, it is to the interests of the United States that the South American Republics should look up to them as their best friend, so that they may gradually open their markets to the enormous products of North America, and that the overflow capital of the great Republic may find good investments, so that they may hope some day to expel entirely European capital. All violent measures which may bring forth the distrust of South Americans and European intervention are entirely against the best interests of the United States, and would be considered in that country a great political blunder and an attempt against its economic development.”—El Mercurio, Santiago.

In considering the economic effect of the Canal on the West Coast countries it has not been my thought to discuss in detail its political influence. Moral influence is the better term. This is one of the great forces that counts in their industrial development. The United States is on the Isthmus. It is there to stay for all time. Its presence, rightly understood, gives no support to those who dream of territorial aggrandizement, or to the other class who see spectres and have nightmares. But its authority, fully established in the control of the Canal Zone, does give assurance of increased stability to the various governments, and this stability is the greatest inducement that they can offer to the investment of foreign capital. The Monroe Doctrine became automatic from the ownership of the interoceanic waterway by the United States; yet the influence on the Pacific coast countries will be even more beneficial in relation to their internal affairs than with reference to their protection from possible European aggression. What is needed is for the Fourth of July orator who ignorantly hints at territorial absorption, either to inform himself on the subject and to understand how the Panama Canal becomes the greatest factor in enabling the Spanish-American Republics to work out their own destinies, or else for him to confine his ambitious dreams to Canada. Let Canada be his theme, while Latin America solves her own problems.

In the analysis of the South American countries credit should be given them for what they have accomplished and are accomplishing among themselves. A very competent observer in an exhaustive volume has noted the change in the Spanish character in the South American countries, the modifying influence of environment, and the growth of the constructive element.[22]

22 Charles E. Akers, South America, 1854–1904, London, 1904.

It may be said that every boundary dispute is either settled or in process of settlement. The inheritance of these controversies from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial epochs was a grievous one, because in the vast interior regions it was impossible to have positive knowledge of the limits. The doctrine of uti possidetis was wittily translated by a Spanish diplomat as meaning that the territorial possession of the discovering nation extended from the coast as far as the eye could not see, to whatever frontier the discoverer could imagine. But no serious difficulties have arisen over the application of this principle. The respective parties in interest are settling these border disputes without going to war. All the boundaries will be delimited before the interoceanic waterway is completed.

Their limits fixed beyond dispute, the question of the permanent relation of the countries to one another becomes important. South America for South Americans is a wholesome doctrine, so long as they are willing to work in their respective spheres for the advancement of the whole continent. As some of their writers have pointed out, it never can mean a continental alliance.

While much is made at times of the distrust of the United States, a state of mind which is disappearing, it is usually overlooked that there is just as much distrust of one another among themselves. Though it cannot be said that racial antipathies exist, there are national jealousies. The little Republics fear the big ones. When the talk was loudest about an alliance of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, the other South American commonwealths refused to believe that such an agreement would not mean their own destruction. At least one of them caused representations to be made to Washington, asking whether it could not be taken under a United States protectorate. And it was a far-away Atlantic coast country, too. The smaller and weaker nations feel that, like the fowl in Voltaire’s fable, they might express their preference as to how they should be carved up, but in objecting to be carved up at all they would be told they wandered from the question.