Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

In the economic discussion of the social movement, citations will be made of the lack of thrift on the part of the roto classes, and their unwillingness to do anything for themselves. This is loose assumption, which is not warranted. On the seacoast he may be reckless with his wages, but in the interior this is not true, and I question myself whether it is true to the extent claimed even in the seaports. In Santiago the Caja de Ahorros, or Savings Bank, has between 49,000 and 59,000 accounts. The total deposits, as shown in a late annual report, amounted to $3,625,000. Out of nearly 50,000 depositors, only 355 had balances of $1,000 and more. Of the depositors under that sum, 1,409 were soldiers; 730 were private employees; 311, servants; 1,020, students; 342, seamstresses; 255, merchants; 102, farmers; 144, shoemakers; 67, laundresses; and 3,225 were set down as without profession. Presumably this meant unskilled laborers. Santiago and its suburbs have a population of 300,000. While the aggregate of the deposits is not great, the very fact that the Savings Bank carries 50,000 small accounts, and some of them very small indeed, indicates no lack of thrift on the part of the mass of the population.

In seeking the horizon of the social question one blot which may be remedied has been laid bare. This is the excessive mortality. A cause of the physical sturdiness of the roto who reaches manhood is undoubtedly to be found in the survival of the fittest. That brutal doctrine is exemplified in him. He endures harsh conditions of life, lack of comforts, want of everything that is decent and helpful, and when he does grow up it is as a robust animal only half tamed by nature.

The figures on this subject are startling. The annual death rate has been placed as high as 70 per 1,000 and frequently it is given as 50 per 1,000. This is correct for the majority of the towns and cities, but does not apply to the country as a whole. The official statistics for a period of ten years, which I examined, did not exceed an average of 35 per 1,000. But even that is nearly double the normal death rate in temperate countries; and Chile, not being in the torrid zone, is not subject to yellow fever and similar tropical epidemics. The figures showed that the birth rate and the death rate were almost balanced, since the birth rate ranged from 35 to 37 per 1,000. In 1895 the total births reported were 110,000, and the deaths 92,000, leaving an excess of 18,000 births over deaths. In 1898 the birth excess was a little larger. But in 1901 the births were 116,000 and the deaths 111,000, giving an excess of only 5,000. In previous years the births were not larger and even have fallen below the deaths. In a subsequent year a more normal condition was shown, the births numbering 115,813 and the deaths 88,607. In the two big cities no natural increase was contributed to the population. In Valparaiso Province with 243,000 inhabitants, during a twelvemonth period there were 9,475 births and 9,674 deaths. One year an epidemic of measles caused frightful ravages. In the year 1900, in the city of Valparaiso, the births were 5,610 and the deaths 7,170, and of the latter 2,245 were infants under one year of age. During this annual period the death rate per 1,000 in Valparaiso was 54.4. In Santiago Province, with a total population of 434,000, the births numbered 16,074, and the deaths 17,798. This excess was due to the city of Santiago, where there were 11,000 births and 12,500 deaths in a total urban population of 262,000. The mean average death rate is a little higher than in Valparaiso, though the latter is subject to the vicissitudes of seaports. In a given year only one city of more than 10,000 inhabitants showed a death rate of less than 50 for each 1,000. This was Antofagasta, in which the proportion was 44 out of every 1,000.

Indifference to personal comfort and the inevitable results of unsanitary living have helped to brutalize the roto, but it is wide of the mark to say that he prefers this existence. Cleanly and sanitary living are not so repugnant to him. What he needs is guidance and example.

On the part of the State there is a remedy for this condition. University settlements and similar movements for bettering the condition of the poor through individual initiative are not yet practicable. In a government where Spanish paternalism is inherited, hygiene and sanitation are emphatically the province of the State and of the municipalities which depend on it, since they do not enjoy a large measure of home rule. A perception of this truth has been shown in the disposition to treat the roto’s grievances as a social question rather than as a political issue. When this perception is translated into definite measures, his discontent with the existing order will become less menacing. For the government the lowering of the death rate and the increase of the birth rate per thousand has both economic and political significance.[13]

13 A cabinet minister was thus quoted on this subject in a foreign journal:

“‘You may put in the most up-to-date drainage, and introduce the most admirable sanitary improvements, but you cannot induce the low-class peons, such as form the bulk of the residents of this and other Chilean cities, to use them. The housing arrangements of the poorer classes are simply indescribable, and they live like animals, crowded together in miserable rooms for which they pay an exorbitant price. The people—and especially the respectable class of employees—find it is impossible to secure clean and wholesome accommodation. Even the smallest rooms in the most unattractive houses are set out at absurdly high rentals—say from $10 to $15 (15s. 10d. to 22s. 9d.) a month each room.

“‘Does the Government, then, do nothing to improve or control the conditions of the poor classes and protect them from the extortions and ill-treatment of the landlords?

“‘Unfortunately, no kind of sanitary or habitation laws exist at the present moment; but I have often talked over the matter with the President of the Republic, and both he and I are determined to do something, if we can, later on. Things move slowly in Chile, you know, and, although it may appear rather strange to you, coming from a European country, Chileans are not accustomed to see, and do not expect, radical alterations effected in their country. However, you have touched upon a most important social question, and one which I have had much at heart myself. Perhaps we may be able to do something in the direction of improvement.’”

But is the economic and industrial relation of the roto to the State understood? Yes. How often I heard it discussed, how often I listened to the assertion made by Chileans, that Chile as a nation has a rotten core, that the anomaly of a government riotously rich through a single source of revenue and of a people superlatively poor, cannot long continue!