The use of nicknames has a certain significance. In South America a North American or Englishman is popularly called a "Gringo," as in North America a person speaking Italian or Spanish or Portuguese is vulgarly called a "Dago." Neither term has any eulogistic flavour.
Thus we return to the question whence we started, and ask again whether there is any sort of unity or community in the two Americas. Are the peoples of these continents a group by themselves, nearer to one another than they are to other peoples, possessing a common character, common ties of interest and feeling? Or does the common American name mean nothing more than mere local juxtaposition beyond the Atlantic? Is it, in fact, anything more than a historical accident?
The answer would seem to be that Teutonic Americans and Spanish Americans have nothing in common except two names, the name American and the name Republican. In essentials they differ as widely as either of them does from any other group of peoples, and far more widely than citizens of the United States differ from Englishmen, or than Chileans and Argentines differ from Spaniards and Frenchmen.
Nevertheless, juxtaposition has induced contact, though a contact which we shall find to have been rather political than intellectual or social. It is worth while to examine the attitude of each to the other.
When the Spanish colonies revolted[136] against the Crown of Spain, the sympathy of the United States went out to them profusely, and continued with them throughout the war and long after. Their victories were acclaimed as victories won for freedom and for America, and children were called after the name of Simon Bolivar, whose exploits in Venezuela had early fixed upon him the attention of the world, and have given him a fame possibly beyond his merits.
The struggling colonists were cheered by this as by the similar sympathy that came to them from England. They were, as already observed, grateful for the support given them by the diplomacy of Canning and John Quincy Adams, and when they framed their constitutions, took that of the United States for their model. Their regard for the United States, and confidence in its purposes, never quite recovered the blow given by the Mexican War of 1846 and the annexation of California; but this change of sentiment did not affect the patronage and good-will extended to them by the United States, whose people, and for a time the English Whigs also, maintained their touching faith that countries called republics must needs be graced by republican virtues and were entitled to favour whenever they came into collision with monarchies. This tendency of mind, natural in the days when the monarchies of continental Europe were more or less despotic, has begun to die down of late years, as educated men have come to look more at things than at names, and as United States statesmen found themselves from time to time annoyed by the perversity or shiftiness of military dictators ruling Spanish-American countries. The big nation has, however, generally borne such provocations with patience, abusing its strength less than the rulers of the little ones abuse their weakness. For many years after the achievement by the Spanish colonies of their independence, a political tie between them and the United States was found in the declared intention of the latter to resist any attempt by European Powers either to overthrow republican government in any American state or to attempt annexation of its territory. So long as any such action was feared from Europe, the protection thus promised was welcome, and the United States felt a corresponding interest in their clients. But circumstances alter cases. To-day, when apprehensions of the old kind have vanished, and when some of the South American states feel themselves already powerful, one is told that they have begun to regard the situation with different eyes. "Since there are no longer rain-clouds coming up from the east, why should a friend, however well-intentioned, insist on holding an umbrella over us? We are quite able to do that for ourselves if necessary." In a very recent book by one of the most acute and thoughtful of North American travellers, there occurs a passage which presents this view:—
"Many a Chileno and Argentino resents the idea of our Monroe Doctrine applying in any sense to his country and declares that we had better keep it at home. He regards it as only another sign of our overweening national conceit: and on mature consideration it does seem as though the justification for the doctrine both in its original and in its present form had passed. Europe is no longer ruled by despots who desire to crush the liberties of their subjects. As is frequently remarked, England has a more democratic government than the United States. In all the leading countries of Europe the people have practically as much to say about the government as they have in America. There is not the slightest danger that any European tyrant will attempt to enslave the weak republics of this hemisphere. Furthermore, such republics as Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, Chile, and Peru, no more need our Monroe Doctrine to keep them from being robbed of their territory by European nations, than does Italy or Spain. If it be true that some of the others, like the notoriously lawless group in Central America, need to be looked after by their neighbours, let us amend our outgrown Monroe Doctrine, as already suggested by one of our writers on International Law, so as to include in the police force in the Western Hemisphere those who have shown themselves able to practise self-control."[137]
There is truth in this. The talk often heard in the United States about the Doctrine has injured and is injuring her influence in South America. It excites suspicion and alarm. It is taken to imply an intent to claim a sort of protectorate over the other American republics, than which nothing could more offend Spanish-American sentiment. The wisest among American foreign ministers, such as Mr. Hay and Mr. Root, are those who have least frequently referred to the Doctrine. To examine this subject, however, would lead me into the field of politics, and with politics I have nothing to do, seeking only to indicate the influences of interest, of intellectual affinity, and of temperamental sympathy which draw the peoples of Spanish America towards one or other of the great peoples of the Northern Hemisphere.[138]
As regards the United States there is a balance between attraction and suspicion. The South Americans desire good relations, and recognize the value of her diplomatic action in trying to preserve peace between those of their republics whose smouldering enmities often threaten to burst into flame. On the other hand, as already observed, they are jealous of their own dignity, not at all disposed to be patronized, and quick to resent anything bordering on a threat, even when addressed, not to themselves, but to some other republic. It is as the disinterested, the absolutely disinterested and unselfish, advocate of peace and good will, that the United States will have most influence in the Western Hemisphere, and that influence, gently and tactfully used, may be of incalculable service to mankind.
The matters in which these republics are wont to imitate or draw lessons from the United States are education, especially scientific and technical education, and engineering. Of the influence upon their constitutions of the North American Federal Constitution I have already spoken. Their publicists continue to follow with attention the decisions given upon the application of its principles to new conditions as they arise, and attach value to the opinions of North American international jurists. Otherwise, there is little intellectual affinity, and still less temperamental sympathy. The South Americans do not feel that the name "American" involves any closer community or co-operation with the great Teutonic republic of the north than it does with any other people or peoples. They are just as much a race or group of peoples standing by themselves as if the lands they occupy had been that entirely detached continent out in the southern seas, supposed to lie far away from all other continents, to which the name of Amerigo Vespucci was first applied.