368 To the River Plate and Back 



any interposition for the purpose of oppressing the 

 states of South America or controlling in any other 

 manner their destiny by any European power in any 

 other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly 

 disposition toward the United States." This whole 

 matter of 'perils," which is consuming so much space 

 in the columns of the sensational journalism of the 

 day, is beginning to be monotonous to intelligent 

 readers, who know their world. It might be dismissed 

 with laughter, were it not for the fact that its endless 

 reiteration has a tendency to provoke genuine irritation, 

 which is not pleasant. 



Our French friends, since the eclipse of Spain as a 

 world-power, have in recent years come to feel that 

 they in a certain sense hold the hegemony among the 

 so-called Latin nations, and there has been a great deal 

 of friendly camaraderie and pleasant interchange of 

 compliments between them and the politicians of the 

 South American republics. It is all very delightful 

 and in certain aspects it is amusing. The prediction 

 made by a recent writer that the day may come when 

 the center of Latin culture will be removed from the 

 banks of the Seine to the banks of the Rio de la Plata, 

 and that Buenos Aires will become the home of the 

 arts, as Paris and Rome have been in the past, involves 

 a rather bold flight of the imagination. Among culti- 

 vated circles in South American lands the representative 

 arts are indeed appreciated; but, so far as the writer 

 could ascertain, on the practical side there is as yet 

 very little effort being made to cultivate these arts. 

 The statuary and pictures to be found in galleries and 

 the homes of the wealthy are principally importations, 

 as they are to a very large degree also in the United 

 States of America. The number of sculptors and 



