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. 
