Prowling about Panama

by George A. Miller

What the West Indian needs is not more vigorous swaying of congregations nor more loudly shouting enthusiasts, but a program of Christian living that will enlarge the boundaries of life and push back the horizons of interest. Debating societies, reading courses, study clubs, extension lectures, night schools, vocational training, good moving picture programs—all of these will do much to break the spell of the past and introduce new ideas where they will take root and bear harvest. Here is a fertile field for a Christian settlement, but the settlement worker should be a resident of the community. One difficulty with the mission work now conducted is that it is done from the top down, and from the outside in. Any attempt toward higher education will need some endowment. It is a tragedy that these people, out of their wretched poverty, are compelled to pay tuition fees for the meager education that their children receive. Some of the plans now being formulated for a broader work in these communities deserve every encouragement and support.

It is greatly to the credit of the West Indian that he nearly always manages in some way to send his children to school, cost what it may. Considering his opportunities, he does well. If the American people were suddenly asked to pay one or two dollars a month for each child sent to school, there would be educational revolution.

It is the intention of the Canal Zone government to house its employees on the Zone as soon as quarters can be provided, but this will require some time. As all "silver" employees are charged a monthly rent for these quarters, the project is a business matter for the Zone. Twelve families are usually quartered in one two-story house, two rooms and a porch section to the family, with two wash rooms and sanitary quarters for the whole house. At five dollars per month rent for each family, the house yields an income of eight hundred and forty dollars per year. In a building of about the same size four white families would be quartered rent free.

THREE IN A ROW

MOTHER, HOME, AND—THE SIMPLE LIFE

There is abundant opportunity in the Republic of Panama for the organization of agricultural colonization schemes. Good land is plentiful. Families could be placed on the land without much housing expense, and if food could be supplied them for a few months, self-support would soon be established. Some philanthropist might render valuable service and open up new opportunities for a large number of these people by placing them out on the land where each family could have its own house and where better conditions prevail. A colony of one thousand souls grouped about a central church and school and store would afford new hope and better living to these dwellers in the crowded tenements.

What may be the future of the West Indian on the Isthmus is not yet clearly established, and the Canal Zone authorities have heretofore regarded the "silver" men as more of a temporary necessity than permanent residents. As industrial conditions on the Zone become more stable, however, it appears that there always will be needed a large labor force with a minimum of about twenty thousand people; and unless some new factor appears or is imported, the West Indian is going to supply this labor demand for years to come. This being the case, the laborer is worthy of his hire and should be paid a fair wage for what he does. And the missionaries and social workers who are interested in the welfare of these people need a coordinated and unified program of religious and educational advance. So long as the present disjointed and unconnected methods are followed, scattering and sometimes inharmonious results will appear.

So long as there is work for a laborer in Panama, so long the Caribbean man will be found here in such numbers as may be needed, and so long as he is here he at least deserves good treatment.