Music and drama flourish during the winter in Montevideo; uncounted cinemas perpetrate their piffle in and out of season. An excellent Italian dramatic company, headed by the emotional actress Lyda Borelli, sometimes, and probably not unjustly, called the successor of Duse, was playing at the “Solis” during my visit—and bringing out in pitiless contrast the insufferable barnstormers usually seen on the South American stage. The opera season is in August, when that half of stars and troupe who do not cross to Santiago de Chile are on their way back from Buenos Aires to New York or Europe. Orchestra seats are then at least $12 each and boxes from $80 up, but as one must have a box for the season or be rated a social nonentity, there are sad rumors of Fluvense families scrimping all the rest of the year in order to buy their opera tickets. Naturally this makes them somewhat exacting and capable of giving an unpleasant reception to singers tired out at the end of a long season. Caruso himself has been roundly hissed in Montevideo. Plays and the opera begin at twenty-one o’clock. As in Italy and Brazil, and more recently in the Argentine, the law requires the use of the excellent twenty-four-hour system in all public buildings, and many a private timepiece has followed suit. The decree was new and throughout the city were many pasted-over signs such as:
Museum open from 12 to 16 o’clock.
Somewhere in South America I met a Dane who contended that a small country, like a man of modest wealth, is better off than a great nation. Uruguay bears out the statement. We have been accustomed to speak of the “A.B.C.” countries of South America as having the only stable and progressive governments in that continent. Only its slight size, as compared with its gigantic neighbors, has caused Uruguay to be overlooked in the formation of that list. As its near neighbor and relative, Paraguay, is perhaps at the bottom of the scale governmentally, so Uruguay, by its national spirit, its energetic character, and its advanced legislation is probably at the top, more nearly fulfilling the requirements of an independent state than any other nation south of the United States. Certainly it is superior to both Chile and Brazil in everything but size, and it is doubtful whether even the Argentine is governed with more intelligence and general honesty. Once as troublesome a state as any in Latin-America, Uruguay has settled down and developed her natural resources until she is noted for her financial stability, and revolutions are memories of earlier generations. Were she a large country, instead of being merely a choice morsel of land smaller than some counties of Texas, there is little doubt that she would stand at least as high as any of her neighbors—or would size, always an obstacle to good government in Latin-America, bring her down from her high level?
Uruguay has not always been a small country, nor for that matter a country at all. In the olden days the Banda Oriental, or “Eastern Bank,” of the River Uruguay was a province of the viceroyalty of Buenos Aires. To this day the official name of the country is “La República Oriental del Uruguay,” and the people still call themselves “Orientals.” In 1800 the whole “Eastern Bank” had but 40,000 inhabitants, of whom 15,000 lived in Montevideo. When Napoleon overran Spain and the viceroyalty of Buenos Aires revolted, the Banda Oriental remained loyal, thus opening the first breach between the two sections of the colony. Not long afterward the “grito de libertad” sounded in the interior of the province, and the man who was destined to become the national hero of Uruguay, the “First Oriental,” the “Protector of the Oriental Provinces,” soon took the head of the revolt.
José Gervasio Artigas was a mere estanciero of the “Eastern Bank” until he took up soldiering, some time before the “cry of liberty.” In 1811 he left the Spanish army and fled to Buenos Aires, but soon became an advocate of complete Uruguayan independence, a patriot or a traitor, according to the side of the Plata on which the speaker lives. Having won their freedom from Spain, the argentinos were finally defeated by the “Oriental” general, Rivera, and Artigas became ruler not only of the present Uruguay but of the now Argentine provinces of Entre Rios, Corrientes, Santa Fé, and Córdoba, these having formed the “Federal League” in opposition to the Buenos Aires Directory. To read Uruguayan school-books, “the Tucumán congress was secretly working to establish a monarchy on the Plata, and our five provinces sent no delegates.” One by one, however, the other provinces returned to the new mother country, only the “Eastern Bank” persisting in its isolation and demand for complete autonomy. Meanwhile Artigas was in exile—and at one time was offered a pension by the United States—but finally, in 1825, a band of “Orientals” besieged Montevideo and Uruguay declared her full independence.
The Uruguayan flag remains the same as that of the Argentine, with a golden sun superimposed. The revolutions of 1863 and 1870, each two years long, are the only serious disturbances that have occurred in the “República Oriental” since its independence, and with those exceptions the country has steadily advanced in health and prosperity. Its government is more centralized than our own, more like that of the Argentine, the congress being elected by popular vote in the departments, but the executives of the latter being appointed by the federal government. Argentinos speak of Uruguay with a kind of forced condescension, as of a member of the family temporarily estranged from the rest, or as a land of no great importance yet one worthy of again being a province of what they consider the greatest country on the globe, and they pretend at least to think that the great development of the Argentine will in time inevitably bring back to the fold this one lost lamb. But the “Orientals” consider their government superior and show no tendency to make the change.
Uruguay’s reputation as perhaps the most progressive republic in South America is largely based on her advanced legislation, most of it fathered by a recent president. Under his guidance stern minimum wage and maximum hour laws have been enacted, and many doctrines of the milder radicals have been put into modified practice. The legislators forbade bull-fights, cock-fights, and prize-fights in one breath. Uruguay is the only country in South America with a divorce law, and the church has been shorn of the militant power it still has in most of Spanish-America. Montevideo bids fair to become the Reno of the continent, as well as its only summer-resort capital. Dissatisfied husbands or wives move over from Buenos Aires; Spanish and Italian actors look forward to their Uruguayan engagement as an opportunity to air their conjugal grievances—though they are not “aired” in the American yellow-journal sense, for here divorce is strictly an affair between the parties concerned and the judge and lawyers, rarely being so much as mentioned even in the back pages of a provincial newspaper. Priests are comparatively rare sights in the Banda Oriental; religious festivals and public processions have been abolished, and the influence of the church on the government reduced to a minimum. Montevideo is the seat of an archbishop, but he exists only on paper, for the party in power is not friendly to the clergy and the papal appointment must be confirmed by congress. There are, to be sure, many crude superstitions left, especially among the poorer classes and in the rural districts, but they give Rome no such income as it derives from similar sources in the rest of the continent. Several Protestant churches have been built in Montevideo, and all faiths enjoy a freedom that would seem astounding on the West Coast. Indeed, comparative indifference to sect lines makes it an ordinary experience for Protestant ministers traveling in rural districts to be asked by persons professing themselves devout Catholics to baptize their children. “For one thing,” as one such rustic put it, “it is cheaper than when the priest does it.” It may seem a matter of slight importance to those who have never known the suffering inflicted by the infernal din of hand-beaten clappers against disguised kettles in the church towers of the Andes that on the evening of my first day in Uruguay real church bells, of a musical tone I had almost forgotten, were ringing in a way that must have been genuine music to the ocean-battered old windjammer just creeping into the harbor. Far off in the autumn twilight the sound was still carried softly to my ears by the wind before which gray clouds were scurrying like a battalion in broken ranks of defeat, toward the western sky, stained blood-red by the already dead sun.
Politically the Uruguayans are blancos or colorados, “whites” or “reds.” It is a splendid distinction. For one thing, the parties can print their arguments and their lists of candidates in posters of their own color and even the stranger has no difficulty in deciding which side is speaking. Townsmen can announce their political affiliation by wearing a red or a white cravat, or a bit of ribbon in their lapels; countrymen, by the color of their neckerchiefs. There is contrast enough between the two colors to obscure the lack of any other real difference between the two parties. In theory the “reds” are “advanced” and the “whites” more conservative. Evidently there are no neutrals in Uruguayan politics; everyone is either “red” or “white” from the cradle, not because Uruguayans take a greater interest in political matters than average republican societies, but because it is bad form, and lonesome, to be outside the ranks; and men who do not vote are fined. How an Uruguayan becomes attached to this or that party is a mystery; almost none of them can give any real reason for their affiliation. Evidently, like “Topsy,” they are “jes’ born” in their natural colors.
It is now fifteen years since the “reds” came to power on the heels of Uruguay’s last revolution. Possession is nine points, even in so progressive a corner of Latin-America, and the “whites” have been the “outs” from that day to this. Yet one often hears blancos speak of “when we start our new revolution,” for it seems to be taken for granted that the “whites” will come back some day with bullets, and virtually every man in the country is prepared to fight on short notice for one side or the other. Roughly speaking, “big business,” large estate owners, and the church, in other words the predatory classes, are “whites,” though neckcloths of that color are by no means rare on the peons and gauchos of the more backward country districts. The leader of the “reds,” now a private citizen merely because the constitution does not permit the same man to be president twice in succession, has often been described as “a mixture of idealist and predatory politician,” but he knows the secret of imposing his will upon the government and is generally credited with most of Uruguay’s progressive legislation. For all his efforts and many real results, however, there is still much that is rotten in the Republic of Uruguay. The most advanced laws are of doubtful use when they are administered by the bandits in office who still flourish throughout the rural districts. In contrast with the brave modern theories of government is the practice in such things as permitting scores of the lowest forms of brothels to flourish in the very heart of the capital. I cannot recall a more disgusting public sight in the western hemisphere than the long rows of female wrecks in scant attire who solicit at the doors of several streets radiating from the Anglican church, while veritable mobs of men and youths march back and forth to “look ’em over,” amid laughter, ribald witticisms, and worse.
Contrary to the usual custom in South America, there is no military conscription in Uruguay; recruits are enticed by posters covered with glowing promises. Yet for all the “advanced” principles of equality reputed to reign in the little republic, its army is largely made up of the poorer and more ignorant element of the population. It is not a dangerous military force, but it is very useful to the party in power not only in preserving law and order but for discouraging “white” revolutions. Whether or not only “reds” are recruited, or whether those placed on the government payroll automatically become “reds,” whether indeed youths in the political-ridden interior do not have redness thrust upon them, is a question not to be determined during a brief visit. As to the “national navy” of Uruguay, it consists, if my semi-official informant is trustworthy, of one gunboat, two cruisers, four steamers, and a transport, all of which, when they are not absent on one of the frequent “official missions” that make life in the Uruguayan navy just one festival after another, may be seen anchored in the harbor of Montevideo, their eyes turned rather toward the “whites” on shore than toward foreign foes.