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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



the Gaucho and finds a likeness to Arabs 

 he himself had known. 



THE CARRANZAS AND VILLAS OF A BYGONE) 

 GENERATION 



In the wars of independence, 1810- 

 18 1 6, the Gaucho played an important 

 part under General San Martin and Gen- 

 eral Belgrano ; in the civil wars that fol- 

 lowed he fought- under captains of more 

 or less authority, such as Carranza, Villa, 

 and Orozco are today ; and in the tyrant 

 Rosas, 1830-1852, he became the dictator 

 over the lives and fortunes of the higher 

 classes of society. 



It would be of interest in a study of 

 Rosas to compare and contrast him with 

 Diaz of Mexico, Guzman Blanco of 

 Venezuela, Francia and Lopez of Para- 

 guay, and many others of his kind, who 

 represent the natural product of anarchy, 

 the tyrannical "caudillo," or chief ; but in 

 Argentine and Chilean history the tyrant 

 belongs to a vanished past. 



Under the presidents who have suc- 

 ceeded, from Mitre, in 1862, to Saenz 

 Pena, in 1910, the government of the Re- 

 public has been held by those who felt 

 themselves entitled to rule by virtue of 

 their education, intelligence, and ability. 



WHEN REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT WILL 

 DAWN 



Saenz Pena took the patriotic stand 

 that he was president of the nation, not 

 of a party only ; he carried sound elec- 

 tion laws and enforced them, with the re- 

 sult that the administration was antago- 

 nized, the congressional majority was dis- 

 organized, and the law-making body was 

 paralyzed by party strife, which is not yet 

 ended. Meanwhile the radical and social- 

 ist vote grows with each election, and 

 may become a serious menace in a coun- 

 try where there is no considerable middle 

 class of conservative property owners — 

 citizens between the wealthy land-owners 

 and the peons. 



Immigration and the occupation of 



lands by the small farmer proprietor are 

 means working toward the establishment 

 of the middle class, without which so- 

 called republican government in Argen- 

 tina or elsewhere must always remain a 

 figment of reality. The government 

 wisely seeks to promote immigration, and 

 there are laws designed to favor the in- 

 crease of small holdings, the principal one 

 being the inheritance law, which tends 

 toward the division of large estates. 



But immigration is not large. It is off- 

 set by emigration, amounting, in 191 1, 

 1912, and 1913, to about 50 per cent of 

 the immigrants. And the net annual re- 

 sult is an increase of only about 2 per 

 cent in the population. Considering the 

 great extent of territory, the small popu- 

 lation, and the wealth of the nation, this 

 is not a favorable showing. Spanish and 

 Italian immigrants form about 80 per 

 cent of the total, and entering, as many 

 of them do, merely as laborers for the 

 harvest season, they form an even larger, 

 proportion of the emigrants. 



The attachment of these peasants to 

 their homes in Spain and Italy is one rea- 

 son for their return migration ; but there 

 is a deeper cause for emigration and for 

 the small net increase in population by 

 immigration. There is no room in Ar- 

 gentina, except in remote territories, for 

 the man with small capital unless he is 

 willing to remain a laborer. Liberal im- 

 migration laws do not help him. His way 

 to independence as a farmer is barred by 

 the great landed proprietors. 



In Argentina, as in all other Spanish- 

 American countries, the prevalence of 

 great estates, the condition of the "lati- 

 fundia," the old Roman curse, is the 

 greatest obstacle to citizenship and good 

 government. To pursue this topic would 

 lead us too far afield ; but it is pertinent 

 to the contrasting of North and South 

 America to remind ourselves that the Re- 

 public is founded in that body of intelli- 

 gent and independent citizens who own 

 their homes. They alone govern steadily. 



