GERMAN INFLUENCE IN LATIN AMERICA 151 



Panama cathedral was arrayed in black and even her head was covered 

 with a black manta; there being no pews, she knelt on the stone floor 

 throughout the service. Since the French began the work of the canal, 

 the church has been supplied with pews and the women are wearing in 

 the services the hats and bonnets of Parisian fashion with gowns and 

 wraps a la mode. 



German influence, on the contrary, so far as I have discovered, 

 seems not to have affected the fashions of dress or social customs of 

 the people, but is revolutionary to an extraordinary degree in its effect 

 on the mental attitude towards the elements of civilization in politics 

 and religion and the education of the youth. Many native fathers 

 send their sons to Heidelberg, rather than to Freiburg, the school of 

 their faith, though generally scientific students begin their studies at 

 the technical institutions of the United States and finish them with 

 two years at the Polytechnic School of Paris. 



Notwithstanding the fact that German antagonism to mental and 

 spiritual tyranny is awaking the popular sense to freedom, the molding 

 of social conditions and the philosophic thought are distinctly French. 

 The truth is the Latin spirit is French rather than German, so that 

 Paris and not Berlin is shaping the social life of Latin America. The 

 civilized world regards in wonder the spectacle of 60,000,000 people, 

 who have thrown off the yoke of Spain, suffering in sullen silence the 

 tyrannical imposition of an institution more strictly Spanish than any 

 political monarchism they had ever known. 



But the church in Latin America is to-day brought face to face with 

 an army of organized thought, invulnerable to the senile bulls of 

 ecclesiasticism. As Victor Emanuel was able in the interest of Italian 

 unity to discuss the forbidden questions of the usurpation of civil power, 

 in the privacy of the Masonic Lodge with his brother princes of Italy, 

 so masonry is to-day, throughout Latin America, the safe and sacred 

 cradle of liberty, an important instrument aiding to emancipate the 

 state from priestly tyranny. 



Masonry is making great strides in all the republics since the estab- 

 lishment of the new kingdom of Italy, which has been a lesson in 

 method to the advocates of liberty of opinion, who have learned its 

 value in freeing them from the espionage of those who mold and bind 

 the shackles of thought. Its adherents are everywhere the advocates 

 of the separation of church and state. Visible progress towards this 

 desirable end is slow, but as sure as the irresistible march of time. 



In this developing menace, the German has been the grandly potent 

 factor throughout those regions. Everywhere he is the active leader 

 in freedom of thought and in the conduct of masonic lodges. As it is 

 not permitted to teach protestantism, a German, the grand master of 

 the Peruvian orient, has established a newspaper in Lima, the capital 

 city of Peru, which he calls the Libre Pensador, which is doing 



