CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTH AMERICANS 589 



our Latin neighbors and for which they have to make allowance in 

 dealing with us. 



In offering these adverse criticisms of the South American as he 

 appears to me to-day, I must beg not to be misunderstood. There are 

 naturally many exceptions to the rule. I know personally many indi- 

 viduals that do not have any of the characteristics here attributed to 

 South Americans in general. I have in mind one South American, a 

 resident of a much despised republic, whose ancestors fought in one 

 of the great battles of the Wars of Independence, who has as much 

 push and energy as a veritable New York captain of industry. He has 

 promoted a number of successful industrial enterprises. He keeps up 

 with the times; he meddles not in politics; he enjoys such sports as 

 hunting with hounds and riding across country. The difference be- 

 tween him and the New Yorker is that he speaks three or four lan- 

 guages where the New Yorker only speaks one or two and he has sense 

 enough to take many holidays in the year where the New Yorker takes 

 but few. I know another, a cultured young Chilean lawyer who 

 gives dinner parties where the food is as good, the manners as refined, 

 the conversation as brilliant and the intellectual enjoyment as keen as 

 any given anywhere. He, too, speaks four languages fluently and 

 could put to shame the average New York lawyer of his own age in the 

 variety of topics upon which he is able to converse, not only at his ease 

 but brilliantly and with flashes of keen wit. I know another, a dis- 

 tinguished historian, who has been described by a well-known American 

 librarian, himself the member of half a dozen learned societies, as the 

 "most scholarly and most productive" bibliographer in either North 

 or South America. 



Such men are worth cultivating. We have much to learn from them, 

 especially of the value of polite language and courteous intercourse. 

 At close range we may dislike some of their manners and customs, but 

 not any more so than European critics disliked ours half a century ago. 

 And not any more so, be it remembered, than the South American dis- 

 likes ours at the present day. 



The South Americans of to-day have so many of the faults of the 

 Americans of yesterday that all our dealings with them should be 

 marked by appreciative understanding and large-minded charity. Any 

 feeling of superiority, like that " certain condescension " which we have 

 noted (and hated) in foreigners, will only make our task the harder, 

 and international goodwill more difficult to achieve. 



