Uruguay retains, in Europe, at least, an unenviable reputation as a hotbed of revolutions, and I am far from supposing that we have seen the last of these. But forces are at work which will make the upheavals of the future more decorous than those of the past. During our summer in Montevideo, all the elements of a first-class revolution were in existence, but they spent themselves in a wordy warfare among the newspapers, in public demonstrations and counter demonstrations; not a shot was fired, though the President’s suburban retreat at Piedras Blancas, a few miles from the city, was continually under strong military guard.
“You will still hear much talk of revolution among our young men at the cafés,” said Uruguay’s most famous philosopher and litterateur to me on one of the many occasions when we discussed the entertaining politics of his country. “That is one of their amusements, and will continue to be so for some time yet, but every new batch of emigrants that lands in the port of Montevideo helps to banish further the revolutionary era, and if we could but divert some portion of the great stream of emigration that rolls past our shores each year into the Argentine, nothing would be more effective in producing a peaceful and prosperous Uruguay.”
These were the words of Señor José Enrique Rodó—el gran Rodó, as he is affectionately termed throughout Latin-America—and therein we have the explanation of the bellicose history of this charming little country. Uruguay was left too much to itself, its people so long content to let the natural fruitfulness of their land supply their simple needs, that the only outlet for their energies was to quarrel among themselves, and thus grew up the two political camps, the Blancos and the Colorados, concerning which I do not recall any approximately accurate description in the writings of any foreign author on Uruguayan politics. Even so skilled an observer, so admirable a student of political conditions, as Viscount Bryce, late British Ambassador to the United States, fell into absurd misstatements of facts in what he wrote of Uruguayan affairs in his “South America: Observations and Impressions.” As I have not had an opportunity of reading Lord Bryce’s well-known work, and personally know it only through numerous extracts translated into the native journals of the Argentine, Uruguay, and Chili, it would be ungracious of me to say anything in criticism of it, beyond the passages thus coming to my notice. Certainly his explanation of the two parties into which Uruguay is divided is no better than the nonsense one hears talked among casual visitors on whom some local resident has been performing the operation known as “pulling his leg.” Translating from one of several articles on the work in question, which appeared in La Tribuna Popular of Montevideo, Lord Bryce is made to write to this effect:
The children of Uruguay are born little Blancos or little Colorados. It is the political heritage of the early days of Independence. Scarcely any ever desert their colours. In a White district it is dangerous to wear a red necktie, just as it is in Yolanda (? Irlanda—Ireland) to show an English badge.
This is described by the editor as “a very pretty paragraph,” and here is another which he quotes as “a curious paragraph that might be regarded as an example of Mr. Bryce’s Yankee humour” (for he is under the impression that the literary Viscount is a “Yankee Constitutionalist”):
General Oribe mounted on one occasion a spirited white horse. On seeing this, all his sympathisers followed his example by mounting themselves on beautiful white steeds. Hence came the name of the White Party. General Rivera, the irreconcilable enemy of Oribe, mounted himself in turn on a superb horse of a reddish colour, in contrast to his terrible rival. The Riveraists then sought for coloured steeds, and mounted on these followed their chief. Henceforward the Red Party disputed successfully for power with the White Party.
This, of course, is mere moonshine. It may possibly have originated in one of these fertile Uruguayan imaginations of which we have heard, but it lacks historical truth. I have already indicated that Blancos and Colorados (the latter word, by the way, does not mean “coloured,” but signifies “red,” or “ruddy”) may live together in perfect amity. So incorrect is the statement that every child is born a Blanco or a Colorado, that there are numerous families in the country divided in politics, and in my own short experience I have met instances of brothers who adhered to different parties. I recall in particular two brothers who, in a perfectly friendly discussion, admitted that they took no real interest in the politics of the country and were largely indifferent to the course of affairs, so long as Uruguay continued to prosper, but who, before the evening had gone, were disputing so hotly the respective merits of the two parties that they almost came to blows, the one being clearly a pronounced Blanco and the other an equally tenacious Colorado.
Another very curious misstatement of fact is cited from Lord Bryce’s book by the Tribuna, which observes that the paragraph is a revelation of “the rich imagination of its author.” Our eminent publicist is alleged to have written to this effect with reference to revolutions in Uruguay:
When a revolutionary movement is about to break out in Uruguay, the organisers make an appointment to meet, mounted, at a certain place and on a day agreed upon beforehand. The Government always knows well in advance of this, and is able to possess itself of all the horses in the country, keeping those in a safe place so that they may not fall into the power of the revolutionaries. The latter, therefore, remain perforce on foot. The horse is the soul of Uruguayan revolutionists. It is the heroic tradition of the glorious epoch of the gauchos. Without horses the rebels are lost.