Although, because of the slight seasonal changes, the average temperature of the low-lying lands of the tropical sections is somewhat trying to the resident of northern bringing up, yet under the influence of modern methods of sanitation and practical methods of living, they are being transformed into healthful sections of growing population, commerce, and influence. The example which the United States has set at Panama, and the demonstration which this government is giving there of the possibility of white men thriving in the tropics, is having its influence throughout the tropical belt of our sister republics and great changes are resulting.
The approaching completion and opening of the Panama Canal gives a special interest to this work of Mr. Van Dyke’s. Only the person who has thoroughly studied what the Panama Canal means, its effect not only upon the commerce of the world but upon the commerce and influence of the United States, and what it will do for the Latin American countries, as well as for the United States, can appreciate fully how important to the future of the relations of North and South America is the completion of this mighty waterway. Its opening should be followed not only by a great development of the export trade of the United States to those countries but of their export trade to this country. It should cause a remarkable increase in the travel between North and South America. There is no better influence for commerce and friendship than that of mutual acquaintance of peoples of different countries. When the Canal is completed there should be a great increase in the number of North Americans going to South America and of South Americans coming to the North.
When the shipping of the world goes through the Canal, it will have direct access to a remarkable coast line which heretofore has been so isolated that it could only be reached from the eastern part of the United States and the western part of Europe by the long journey around South America. The coast line which is made immediately accessible by the Canal reaches for eight thousand miles from the California-Mexican line south to Cape Horn, three thousand miles from Panama northwest to San Diego in California and five thousand miles south from Panama to Punta Arenas. This coast, without the Canal and in its isolated position, conducts now an average foreign commerce valued at four hundred million dollars ($400,000,000). With the opening of the Canal this should be doubled or trebled in the next ten years. It is a safe prediction that the Panama Canal will have the same influence upon the western shore, comprising the following countries: Mexico, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, which the construction of the transcontinental railways had upon the Pacific coast of the United States. The fact that their population and their commercial and industrial development to-day is somewhat limited is no argument against their possibilities in the future. There was a time when the best experts and judges in the public and official life of the United States declared that the Pacific coast of the United States was not only of little value but never would be of great consequence. There were, however, some wise men like Seward who recognized the mighty potentialities of our Pacific coasts and of the Pacific seas. There is every reason to believe that western or Pacific Latin America, in view of its varieties of resources and climate, will, under the influence of the Panama Canal, experience a development and progress that will astonish the world.
In conclusion, a word can be added of personal appreciation of our sister republics which I believe will be shared by all those who read this book and later visit Latin America and study carefully its possibilities and potentialities. It was my privilege, before being elected by the vote of all these countries to the position of Director-General of the Pan American Union five years ago, to have served as Minister of the United States in such representative countries of South America as Argentina, Panama, and Colombia. My association with the officials and the rank and file of the peoples of these countries, and my travels both in a public and private capacity throughout the Latin American countries, have developed in me a regard for them that approaches real affection. The more I have learned and seen of them, the more I have admired them. They have their faults and weaknesses, as have the government and the people of the United States; but they have a great many virtues and numerous favorable features which are too often overlooked by the critics who have not studied Latin America from a sympathetic standpoint.
If we of the United States will remember that they are our sister republics, that they gained their independence under our example, that they have written their constitutions upon that of the United States, and that they will learn to love or hate us according as our attitude is that of sympathy and love or of selfishness and material concern, we shall in turn gain their confidence and sympathy and they will join with us in that spirit of Pan American unity and of solidarity which will make the Western Hemisphere the world’s leader in civilization, in business, and in enduring friendship among all nations.
John Barrett.
Washington, June 1, 1912.