CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTH AMERICANS 583 



mixture of fifty races, and it is hard to say who has the right to be 

 considered the typical Bostonian or New Yorker, he of English or 

 Dutch extraction or he of Irish or Jewish ancestry. 



Things are not quite so bad in South America, for most of the re- 

 publics have seen but comparatively little immigration and the politics 

 of South America are to-day directed by men of Spanish and Indian 

 descent. Even in Argentina, where the census shows a more cosmo- 

 politan population than in any other republic, the game of politics is 

 controlled almost exclusively by Argentinos whose ancestors were Span- 

 iards and Indians. In another generation this may be changed, for, 

 thanks to an increasing and extensive immigration, the Argentine type 

 is becoming more and more Europeanized. In Bolivia and Peru, on the 

 other hand, owing to the scarcity of available and accessible agricul- 

 tural lands and the consequent lack of immigration, the typical poli- 

 tician is nearer a simple cross between Spaniard and Indian. In 

 Chile there is more Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic blood, while in Ven- 

 ezuela and Colombia there is very much less. In Brazil there is more 

 African. In fact, one is almost inclined to leave the Brazilians out of 

 the case, for their ancestors have been of a very different stock from 

 that in the Spanish-speaking republics; Portuguese instead of Spanish, 

 Amazonian Indian instead of mountain Indian, and far more African 

 blood than in any other republic. Nevertheless, they too, by the very 

 fact of their being a mixture of Caucasian, American Indian and Afri- 

 can, living under similar geographical conditions, have many of the 

 same traits that are found elsewhere on the continent. 



Making due allowance then for the exceptions, what are the char- 

 acteristics of the South Americans of to-day ? 



As one travels through the various South American republics, be- 

 comes acquainted with their political and social conditions, reads their 

 literature and talks with other American travelers, there are a num- 

 ber of adverse criticisms that frequently arise. I shall attempt here to 

 enumerate some of them, to account for a few, and to compare others 

 with criticisms that were made of the people of the United States half 

 a century ago by a distinguished English visitor. 



Although it is true that the historical and geographical background 

 of the South Americans is radically different from ours, it is also true 

 they have many social and superficial characteristics very like those 

 which European travelers found in the United States fifty years ago. 

 The period of time is not accidental. The South American republics 

 secured their independence nearly fifty years later than we did. More- 

 over, they have been hampered in their advancement by natural diffi- 

 culties and racial antipathies much more than we have. Although the 

 conditions' of life in the United States as depicted by foreign critics- 

 seventy-five years after the battle of Yorktown, were decidedly worse 

 than the conditions of life in South America seventy-five years after 



