Latin America: Its Rise and Progress

by Francisco García Calderón

They have reconciled equality with liberty, in manners and in law. Fair play, the identical chances which the Republic offers her citizens, in creating schools, in fostering the advance of self-made men in society, constitutes the firmest foundation of the life of a republic. Equity and equality prevail above the eager onrush of her citizens; equality in industrial struggles against monopolies; equality in the churches in place of intolerance; equality in school instead of the privileges created by wealth. This persistent exaltation of liberty matches the sentiment of social discipline. The Germanic sense of organisation is added to the Anglo-Saxon individualism; associations multiply and become a gigantic network spread over the entire face of the country; clubs, leagues, societies of co-operation and production and philanthropic institutions.

But this civilisation, in which men of strong vitality win wealth, invent machines, create new cities, and profess a Christianity full of energy and accomplishment, has not the majesty of a harmonious structure. It is the violent work of a people of various origin, which has not yet been ennobled by the patina of tradition and time. In the cities which restless workers hastily raise on barren soil, one can as yet perceive no definitive unity. Race antagonism disturbs North America; the negroes swarm in the South; Japanese and Orientals aspire to the conquest of the West. Neo-Saxon civilisation is still seeking its final form, and in the meantime it is piling up wealth amid the prevailing indiscipline. "We find in the United States," says M. André Chevrillon, "a political system, but not a social organisation." The admirable traditions of Hamilton and Jefferson have been subjected to the onslaught of new influences, the progress of plutocracy, the corruption of the administrative functions, the dissolution of parties, the abuse of the power of monopolies. The axis of the great nation is becoming displaced towards the West, and each step in advance marks the triumph of vulgarity.

An octopus of a city, New York, might be taken as the symbol of this extraordinary nation; it displays the vertigo, the audacity, and all the lack of proportion that characterise American life. Near the poverty of the Ghetto and the disturbing spectacle of Chinatown you may admire the wealth of Fifth Avenue and the marble palaces which plagiarise the architecture of the Tuscan cities. Opposite the obscure crowds of emigrants herded in the docks you will see the refined luxury of the plutocratic hotels, and facing the majestic buildings of Broadway, the houses of the parallel avenues, which are like the temporary booths of a provincial fair. Confusion, uproar, instability—these are the striking characteristics of the North American democracy. Neither irony nor grace nor scepticism, gifts of the old civilisations, can make way against the plebeian brutality, the excessive optimism, the violent individualism of the people.

All these things contribute to the triumph of mediocrity; the multitude of primary schools, the vices of utilitarianism, the cult of the average citizen, the transatlantic M. Homais, and the tyranny of opinion noted by Tocqueville; and in this vulgarity, which is devoid of traditions and has no leading aristocracy, a return to the primitive type of the redskin, which has already been noted by close observers, is threatening the proud democracy. From the excessive tension of wills, from the elementary state of culture, from the perpetual unrest of life, from the harshness of the industrial struggle, anarchy and violence will be born in the future. In a hundred years men will seek in vain for the "American soul," the "genius of America," elsewhere than in the indisciplined force or the violence which ignores moral laws.

Among the Anglo-Saxon nations individualism finds its limits in the existence of a stable home; it may also struggle against the State, according to the formula consecrated by Spencer, "the man versus the State." It defends its jealous autonomy from excessive legislation, from the intervention of the Government in economic conflicts or the life of the family. And it is precisely the family spirit which is becoming enfeebled in North America, under the pressure of new social conditions. The birth-rate is diminishing, and the homes of foreign immigrants are contributing busily to the formation of the new generations; the native stock inheriting good racial traditions would seem to be submerged more and more by the new human tide. A North American official writes that "the decrease in the birth-rate will lead to a complete change in the social system of the Republic."[[2]] From this will result the abandonment of the traditional austerity of the race, and the old notions of sacrifice and duty. The descendants of alien races will constitute the nation of the future. The national heritage is threatened by the invasion of Slavs and Orientals, and the fecundity of the negroes; a painful anxiety weighs upon the destinies of the race.

The family is unstable, and divorces are increasing at an extraordinary rate. Between 1870 and 1905 the population doubled; during the same period the divorces increased sixfold and the marriages decreased. There is no fixity in the elements of variety, and the causes of this state of transition will not disappear, as they are intimately allied with the development of the industrial civilisation which has brought with it a new ideal of happiness. By emancipating men and women from the old moral principles it has modified sexual morality; by accelerating social progress it has brought an additional bitterness into the social mêlée, a greater egoism into human conflict.

Excessive and heterogeneous immigration prevents any final crystallisation; in the last ten years 8,515,000 strangers have entered into the great hospitable Union. They came from Germany, Ireland, Russia, or Southern Italy. It is calculated that the United States are able to assimilate 150,000 to 200,000 immigrants each year, but they certainly cannot welcome such an overwhelming host without anxiety.

Criminality increases; the elaboration of a common type among these men of different origin is proceeding more slowly. Doubtless beneath the shelter of the political federation of the various States a confused agglomeration of races is forming itself, and this justifies the query of Professor Ripley: "The Americans of the North," he says, "have witnessed the disappearance of the Indians and the buffalo, but can they be certain to-day that the Anglo-Saxons will survive them?"

In seeking to imitate the United States we should not forget that the civilisation of the peoples of the North presents these symptoms of decadence.

Europe offers the Latin-American democracies what the latter demand of Anglo-Saxon America, which was formed in the school of Europe. We find the practical spirit, industrialism, and political liberty in England; organisation and education in Germany; and in France inventive genius, culture, wealth, great universities, and democracy. From these ruling peoples the new Latin world must indirectly receive the legacy of Western civilisation.