588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



to grasp it with intelligent persistence and determination. South 

 America is ready to take American goods in very large quantities as 

 soon as we are ready to take time to give attention to her needs. As 

 Mr. Lincoln Hutchinson aptly says : 



There is no quick and easy remedy; money must be spent, thoroughly 

 equipped export managers must be employed, export houses specializing on South 

 American trade must be established, efficient travelers must be sent out, technical 

 experts employed, agencies established, credits be given, minutiae of orders at- 

 tended to, and, above all, trade connections adhered to in spite of allurements 

 of the home market, if we would succeed in the face of our competitors. Half- 

 way measures can accomplish but little, and that only temporary. 



Germany teaches her young business men Spanish or Portuguese 

 and sends them out to learn conditions in the field. American univer- 

 sities long ago learned the advantage of adopting Germany's thorough- 

 going methods of scientific research. American business men have 

 hitherto failed to realize the importance of adopting Germany's thor- 

 ough-going methods of developing foreign commerce. It is high time 

 that they took a leaf out of the experience of the " unpractical " 

 universities. 



Finally, a word of caution to those in search of information regard- 

 ing the history, politics or geography of South America. The most 

 unfortunate result of the seven centuries during which Arab, Moorish 

 or Mohammedan rule dominated a part or the whole of the Spanish 

 peninsula, is the truly Oriental attitude which the Spaniard and the 

 Spanish American maintains towards reliable information, or what we 

 tall " facts." The student of the East realizes that orientals, including 

 Turks and celestials, have no sense of the importance of agreeing with 

 fact. They have, furthermore, a great abhorence of a vacuum. If they 

 do not know the reply to a question they answer at random, preferring 

 anything to the admission of ignorance. If they do know, and have no 

 interest in substituting something else for what they know, they give 

 the facts. When they have no facts they give something else. They 

 not only deceive the questioner, they actually deceive themselves. The 

 same thing is true to a certain degree in South Americans. Sometimes 

 I have thought they were actually too polite to say " I don't know." 



In South America as in the East it is of primary importance to reach 

 the men who know and to pay no attention to any one else. No one 

 really knows, who is not actually on the spot, in contact with the facts. 

 The prudent observer must avoid all evidence that is not first hand and 

 derived from a trustworthy source. 



I do not bring this as a charge against the South Americans. I 

 state it as a condition which I have found to be nearly universally true. 

 So far as the South Americans are concerned it is an inherited trait 

 and one which they are endeavoring to overcome. They are not to be 

 blamed for having it, any more than we are to be blamed for having in- 

 herited traits from our Anglo-Saxon ancestors which are unpleasant to 



