We all remember the words that Ibsen has placed in the mouth of his "Enemy of the People" about papers being edited by their readers. No doubt the gazette, nowadays, seeks less to establish an idea than to conform to the supposed feelings of the masses in whose hands is the key of success. Its educational influence has, of course, been in consequence greatly reduced; still, a remnant exists. The culture, slow but inevitable, of the masses must in time have a good influence on the Press that caters for them. Photography, when genuine, and the cinematograph, which vitalises it, have a real educational value. The trouble is that nothing is sacred to the Argentine photographer. He is omnipresent and enjoys the execrable privilege of being at home in all homes. You give a dinner-party to friends or relations. With the dessert there appear some pale persons, draped in black, who disturb servants and guests to set up their complicated lenses on the spot that strikes their fancy. Then comes the blinding flash and a poisonous puff of smoke, and the master of the house hastens to thank the intruders for the outrage. The diable boiteux, who lifted the roofs of houses, has been surpassed. When an unfortunate Argentino wants to offer his heart (always accompanied by his hand) to the lady of his choice, let him begin by doubly locking all the doors and hermetically closing the shutters, if he wishes to be safe from intrusion!
I alluded just now to the voting of the Law of Literary Property. [28] As may be supposed, such an excellent Act was not carried through without long preparation. I could give a list of men who, on both sides of the ocean, worked in favour of this act of justice and literary honesty. From the moment that Argentine statesmen realised that purely intellectual labour had proprietary rights in the same way as every other kind, and that to defraud its owners of the proceeds was to place themselves outside the pale of civilisation, they made it a point of honour to yield to the representations made to them from all parts of the world. Is it not extraordinary that a law which was diametrically opposed to the interests of persons particularly well placed to defend them should have been voted unanimously without a single protest? All honour to the Argentine Republic, not only for the act itself, but for the nobility with which it was performed.
It would be an affectation on my part to pass over in silence the public which did me the honour to come to listen to my lectures on democratic evolution as it manifests itself in history and in contemporary events. The subject is not wildly amusing. It is, however, one of those that are of surpassing importance to-day, and none can ignore it. Unfortunately, the general public cannot acquire any trustworthy knowledge of it by scrappy reading indulged in between the hours of the day's work; and if in the tumult of party passion the public are to be of any real service to their Government in solving it, the problem calls for more than a hasty and summary judgment founded on insufficient data. And yet was it not too much to expect of people who are engrossed all day by their own affairs to come to listen to the statements of a public man, against whom there must necessarily be some prejudices on a question of pure doctrine? The majority of workers are not free of an afternoon, and the "upper classes," even the most cultured—in Europe, at least,—are too distrustful of democratic movements in general to waste an hour on a subject that worries them. Happily, the history of American peoples has never been embittered by race hatred engendered by centuries of oppression, and revolts of which it is to be hoped that we have now seen the end. In the North, as in the South, a formula frightens nobody. Society has been built up on a new idea embodied in language that was once the terror and scandal of the Old World. When put in practice, however, these ideas and their verbal expression have stood the test of a century of trial; and the "practical" men of the new continent, while no less alive to social needs than any others, are, perhaps, more ready than the rest of us to make an experiment that can be recommended by right and by reason. There is here neither middle class nor aristocracy in the sense that we attach to those terms in the Old World. All are workers who, having reached the top rung of the ladder, are ready to hold it steady for other feet to climb, rather than to overturn it and retard the advance of those behind.
Thus, beside the small aristocracy formed of the last vestiges of the original Spanish colony, I had the pleasure and honour of finding a large public of European culture and wide intelligence, eager to hear what any European might have to say about an idea whose course he was honestly seeking to trace, whether bearing on the political and social experiences of Europe or on the more or less rational experiments of which their own land is the theatre. Their unbiassed criticism and independent opinions are all one could hope to find in an audience one is trying to influence. The very best public possible, prepared to surrender or resist according to the intrinsic value of the arguments presented. The element of resistance came, perhaps, from the feminine section, slightly actuated by snobbishness, and either holding itself aloof by way of protest against the possible utterance of ideas too bold to be acceptable, or attending the lectures in order to get some understanding of the subject so as to discuss it afterwards.
As regards language, there was no difficulty. Every one here understands French, reading and speaking it like the speaker himself, and showing by their gestures that no shade of meaning was lost on them. What better could one wish? By the grace of winged words the mind of France has flown across the ocean, and we may rejoice in the fact and found great hopes for the future on it. It is therefore with the greatest pleasure that I offer my heartfelt gratitude to this admirable audience for their constant kindliness and for the encouragement that I found in their remarkable idealism and determination.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] I take this opportunity of thanking M. and Mme. Thiébaud for the friendly welcome I found at the French Legation.
[24] If to Argentine diplomacy the rigidity of our famous chapel on the Quai d'Orsay be unknown, they have none the less given us first-class men—such, for instance as the present Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Ernesto Bosch, who is much esteemed in the French political world, and his worthy successor in Paris, M. Enrique Rodriguez Larreta.
[25] It pleases me to note the triumph of pride over vanity shown in the fact that the Argentinos have deliberately renounced the childish folly of orders.
[26] Thanks to the difference in the clocks, the Buenos Ayres newspapers are able to publish in their morning editions news appearing at the same time in London and Paris.