An Awakened Continent 



63 



per cent from $134,062,000, in 1894, to 

 $223,101,000, in 1905. In ten years the 

 exports of Argentina have increased one 

 hundred and sixty-eight per cent from 

 $115,868,000, in 1895, to $311,544,000, in 



This is only the beginning; the coffee 

 and rubber of Brazil, the wheat and beef 

 and hides of Argentina and Uraguay, 

 the copper and nitrates of Chile, the cop- 

 per and tin of Bolivia, the silver and gold 

 and cotton and sugar of Peru, are but 

 samples of what the soil and mines of 

 that wonderful continent are capable of 

 yielding. Ninety-seven per cent of the 

 territory of South America is occupied by 

 ten independent republics living under 

 constitutions substantially copied or 

 adapted from our own. Under the new 

 conditions of tranquillity and security 

 which prevail in most of them, their eager 

 invitation to immigrants from the old 

 world will not long pass unheeded. 



ARGENTINE RECEIVES 200,000 IMMI- 

 GRANTS ANNUALLY 



The pressure of population abroad will 

 inevitably turn its streams of life and 

 labor towards those fertile iields and val- 

 leys ; the streams have already begun to 

 flow ; more than two hundred thousand 

 immigrants entered the Argentine Re- 

 public last year; they are coming this 

 year at the rate of over three hundred 

 thousand. Many thousands of Germans 

 have already settled in southern Brazil. 

 They are most welcome in Brazil ; they 

 are good and useful citizens there as they 

 are here; I hope that many more will 

 come to Brazil and every other South 

 American country, and add their vigor- 

 ous industry and good citizenship to the 

 upbuilding of their adopted home. 



With the increase of population in 

 such a field, under free institutions, with 

 the fruits of labor and the rewards of 

 enterprise secure, the production of 

 wealth and the increase of purchasing 

 power will afford a market for the com- 

 merce of the world worthy to rank even 

 with the markets of the Orient as the 

 goal of business enterprise. 



SOUTH AMERICANS ARE COMPLEMENTARY 

 TO US 



The material resources of South Amer- 

 ica are in some important respects com- 

 plementary to our own ; that continent is 

 weakest where North America is strong- 

 est as a field for manufactures ; it has 

 comparatively little coal and iron. 



In many respects the people of the two 

 continents are complementary to each 

 other; the South American is polite, 

 refined, cultivated, fond of literature and 

 of expression and of the graces and 

 charms of life, while the North American 

 is strenuous, intense, utilitarian. Where 

 we accumulate, they spend. While we 

 have less of the cheerful philosophy which 

 finds sources of happiness in the existing 

 conditions of life, they have less of the 

 inventive faculty which strives contin- 

 ually to increase the productive power 

 of man and lower the cost of manufac- 

 ture. The chief merits of the peoples of 

 the two continents are different ; their 

 chief defects are different. Mutual in- 

 tercourse and knowledge cannot fail to 

 greatly benefit both ; each can learn from 

 the other ; each can teach much to the 

 ether, and each can contribute greatly to 

 the development and prosperity of the 

 other. A large part of their products 

 finds no domestic competition here ; a 

 large part of our products will find no 

 domestic competition there. The typical 

 conditions exist for that kind of trade 

 which is profitable, honorable and bene- 

 ficial to both parties. 



The relations between the United 

 States and South America have been 

 chiefly political rather than commercial or 

 personal. In the early days of the South 

 American struggle for independence, the 

 eloquence of Henry Clay awakened in 

 the American people a generous sympathy 

 for the patriots of the South as for 

 brethren struggling in the common 

 cause of liberty. The clear-eyed, judi- 

 cious diplomacy of Richard Rush, the 

 American Minister at the Court of St 

 James, effected a complete understanding 

 with Great Britain for concurrent action 



