CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTH AMERICANS 587 



cism. It makes him fairly froth at the mouth, as it did the Americans 

 in the days of Charles Dickens's first visit. So the pleasant-faced gen- 

 tleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Bevan, told young Martin Chuzzlewit: 

 If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of 

 any man, American born and bred, who has anatomized our follies as a people, 

 and not as this or that party; and has escaped the foulest and most brutal 

 slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange 

 name in my ears, believe me. In some cases, I could name to you, where a native 

 writer has ventured on the most harmless and good-humored illustrations of 

 our vices or defects, it has been found necessary to announce, that in a second 

 edition the passage has been expunged, or altered, or explained away, or patched 

 into praise. 



There is a story in Santiago de Chile of a young American scholar 

 who spent some time there studying localisms. When he returned to 

 New York he ventured to publish honest but rather severe criticisms 

 of society, as he saw it, in that most aristocratic of South American 

 republics. As a result, the university from which he came received a 

 bad name in Chile and his visit is held in such unpleasant memory that 

 his welcome, were he to return there, would be far from friendly. This 

 seems narrow-minded and perverse, but is exactly the way we felt not 

 long ago toward foreigners who spent a few months in the states and 

 wrote, for the benefit of the European public, sincere but caustic criti- 

 cisms. American sensitiveness became a byword in Europe. Possibly 

 it is growing less with us. However that may be, South American 

 sensitiveness is no keener to-day than ours was fifty years since. 



It is particularly important that we should realize that the political 

 conditions of the larger republics are very much more stable than our 

 newspaper- and novel-reading public are aware of. Lynchings are 

 unheard of. Serious riots, such as some of our largest American cities 

 have seen within the past generation, are no more common with them 

 than with us. It is true that the Latin temperament finds it much 

 more difficult to bow to the majesty of the law and to yield gracefully 

 to governmental decrees than the more phlegmatic Teuton or Anglo- 

 Saxon. But the revolutions and riots that Paris has witnessed during 

 the past century have not kept us from a serious effort to increase our 

 business with France. The occasional political riot that takes place, 

 of no more significance than the riots caused by strikers with which 

 we are all too familiar at home, is no reason why we should be afraid 

 to endeavor to capture the South American market. 



Climatic conditions and difficulties of rapid transportation have had 

 much to do with the backwardness of the South American republics. 

 With the progress of science, the great increase in transportation facili- 

 ties and the war that is being successfully waged against tropical dis- 

 eases, a change is coming about which we must be ready to meet. 



There is not the slightest question that there is a great opportunity 

 awaiting the American manufacturer and exporter when he is willing 



