The real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay

by J. A. Hammerton

On the other hand, there is an abundance of good journalism, and neither New York nor London can produce more profitable mediums of commercial publicity than several of the daily papers already named, or such weeklies as Caras y Caretas, Fray Mocho, and P. B. T. Relatively, the advertising rates in all these journals are higher than in American or British publications of the same circulation, but the ready response to the advertisements in them not only compensates for the difference in cost, but makes them work out cheaper mediums of publicity than the average in North America or Great Britain.

From every point of view, the Argentine offers to the man of business almost unequalled opportunities, but, as I have endeavoured to illustrate in this chapter, it has the defects of its merits, and he who imagines it a veritable gold mine where there is no more to do than pick up the nuggets and bring them home, is the most deluded of optimists. It will give rich return for industry, for intelligence, and for honest merit, but while the business man in search of new fields of enterprise may reasonably expect to do relatively better in the wonderful Argentine than in most other markets of the world, what I have written may show that business life in Buenos Ayres is not entirely a bed of roses.

CHAPTER XIII
THE ARGENTINE AT HOME

As we make no distinction in English between the name of the country and that of its native, referring to both as “the Argentine,” I am continually finding little difficulties present themselves in the progress of my writing, involving circumlocutions which are obviated in the Spanish. The Spaniard can never doubt the intention of a writer about the Argentine, la Argentina being the name of the country, or of a female native, while el Argentino indicates the male native. In the English, we have to depend entirely on the context of the sentence to make clear whether the reference is to the country or to a native thereof. In the present chapter, of course, the title sufficiently indicates that we are to look at the Argentine native in his domestic relationships, and I must confess the subject is one that does not admit of very extensive treatment, for the reason set forth by M. Jules Huret in one of his admirable studies. The French writer observes (I translate from the Spanish translation):

Only strangers of high social or official standing are received with any active sympathy. It is a matter of pride to be able to make these visitors realise the great progress of the metropolis and to introduce them to two or three salons, which are all precisely alike. But if the stranger, although he be of good family, arrive at Buenos Ayres provided with letters of introduction to real criollos (natives with generations of Argentine pedigree) he will receive cards in reply, and not always that courtesy; rarely a word of friendship or welcome. He will hear repeated on all hands mi casa es suya (“my house is yours”); there will even be the usual courtesies with him should they meet, and he may even be asked to go to the Jockey Club, if his stay in Buenos Ayres is not to be a long one. With few exceptions, he will not be able to penetrate into the intimacy of the “home” or of a family of criollos. Argentine family life, especially of the better class, retains many of the habits of the Spaniards and something of the customs of the Arabs.

This is correctly observed, and if an amiable Frenchman found such difficulty as M. Huret evidently experienced in penetrating within the outer walls of Argentine domesticity, how shall the Anglo-Saxon succeed where a Latin had to confess failure? It is to be borne in mind, however, that this refers chiefly to the old families, who affect to despise the motley rabble of newcomers, and while profiting enormously by the industry and enterprise of the Gringo,—who has developed and exploited the riches of their country, making them rich in the process,—do not wish to be vulgarised by intercourse with the merely money-making element of the population. The exclusiveness of such families is notorious, and maintaining as they do the ancient patriarchal relationships, they are sufficient unto themselves, so that any foreigner who seeks to force himself into their small and narrow-minded circle is an ill-advised mortal who will surely be snubbed for his pains. They are as truly republican, these criollos, as the families of the Doges of Venice, but politically, and even socially they are being overwhelmed by the great tide of commercial prosperity on which all sorts and conditions of people and the motliest mixtures of nationalities have floated into wealth and power. Yet there is something austerely attractive in their dignified isolation, their cold contempt of the ruck of the community. Like the creole families of Louisiana, they are landmarks of the past, mouldering memorials of a social system that has served its day and is ceasing to be.

We have really to go further back than Spanish origins to trace the influences that have moulded the Argentine criollo into what we find him. Just as it is a recognised law of heredity that certain characteristics are apt to skip one generation and reappear in the next, so do we find among these peoples of South America features that are more Moorish than Spanish. In modern times, while the Spaniards at home have been ridding themselves of many traces of the old Moorish dominion, those who settled in their American colonies retained customs and habits of thought which were disappearing in the home country, and owing to the isolated and circumscribed colonial life, tendencies toward exclusiveness have become emphasised to the point of exaggeration. Thus, in certain directions, the dusky hand of the Moor is even more noticeable in South America to-day than in Spain itself. This is a point of view which few Argentine writers would be willing to endorse, as it is the claim of the Argentine that his civilisation is purely European, though distinctive in its individuality. The fact remains, however, that the position of the womenkind, legally and socially, though now showing signs of rapid change, conforms more to Moorish notions than to European ideals; the very arrangement of the house is Moorish, disguised, it is true, by progression through Spanish and French styles; the tribal dignity of the head of the family is nearer to Arabic life than to anything still surviving in European civilisation.

It will be at once obvious to the reader that in a country where we find the very latest ideas of intellectual and industrial progress warring with social conceptions which we have long come to esteem as essentially oriental, we must have a very complex and unfamiliar system of family life to consider. Indeed, while there is but little for the writer to deal with, who confines himself to a record of familiar experiences, the subject is extremely fascinating and capable of treatment at great length. My present purpose, however, is to deal with the obvious, with “things seen,” rather than to attempt in any detail the tracing of origins of the Argentine social system. But the slight suggestion I have thrown out will show the bent of my thought in this connection, and perhaps help the reader to a better understanding of what is to follow.

It must be understood that the foreign resident actively engaged in business affairs might not, in the whole course of a lifetime, come in contact with any of the real criollos. Nor would it be matter for surprise if he seldom or never encountered a real Argentine. Personally, it was my good fortune to meet several gentlemen of eminent position and influence in Buenos Ayres who were natives of the country, whose parents in some instances had even been born there, and all were intensely proud to be Argentines. It would be difficult, however, to determine to what extent any one of them, had England been the scene of their lives, would have been regarded as an Englishman. The extraordinary power of the country to assimilate all races under the sun, the speed with which even the most unpromising material of immigration seems to be transformed into Argentine nationality, presents one of the greatest difficulties to the foreigner in his search for national characteristics. I was told by various English residents that they had only been able to make their children grow up with the English tongue by thrashing them when they spoke Spanish, and M. Huret mentions the typical case of a Frenchman whose sons absolutely refused to learn their father’s language, and were proud to speak only Spanish. He also tells how two sons of a wealthy German resident in Rosario, who had been sent to a German University, while staying at the Plaza Hotel in Buenos Ayres on their return, on being mistaken for Germans, felt so mortified that they wept!