can accord and defeat corresponding efforts in the future. Let us go slow and with sincere piety pray that peace may come in Mexico without war between it and the United States. If the Mexican question can be settled as a result of a kindly and sympathetic attitude on the part of the United States, there is no limit to the degree of Pan-American commerce and comity which will be developed not only between the United States and Mexico but between the United States and all the other republics of the western hemisphere.

In conclusion, permit me to observe that, if what I have said here, arouses greater and further interest, among my hearers or readers, in the countries of Latin America, I hope they will not hesitate to get in touch with the PanAmerican Union, of which I have the honor to be the executive officer. As many of you have been so busy with your various activities that you have not followed with detail the work and scope of this organization, I will define it to you in a single sentence. The Pan-American Union is the international organization, with its central office in Washington, of all the twenty-one American republics, devoted to the development and advancement of friendship, good understanding, mutual acquaintance and commerce among them all, supported by their joint contributions based upon population, controlled by a governing board consisting of the diplomatic representatives in Washington of the LatinAmerican countries and the secretary of state of the United States, administered by a director-general chosen by this board and therefore performing the functions of an international officer rather than those of an officer of any particular country, and who, in turn, is assisted by a large staff of international experts, statisticians, commercial specialists, editors, translators, compilers, librarians, et al. Having its home in a building erected through the generosity of Mr. Carnegie and described by the greatest living French architect as "possessing beauty of architecture and nobility of purpose more than any other public building of its cost in the world," it invites every man of this wide world who may be interested in Pan-American development or Pan-American history to come within its doors and make use of its facilities.

A GLANCE AT LATIN-AMERICAN

CIVILIZATION

By Francisco J. Yanes, Asst. Director, and Secretary of the Governing Board, of the Pan-American Union

The civilization of peoples cannot always be gauged by set standards. There are varying factors to be taken into consideration and discrepancies to be accounted for in measuring the degree of cultural and industrial progress of a nation. Conditions growing out of racial characteristics, historical necessities, geographical position, custom and habit, on the one hand, and on the other the basic principles upon which different societies have been built, must not be lost sight of in dealing with, or rather, in endeavoring to understand the factors that have led to the progress of a given nation, or aggregate of nations of the same or similar origin.

Latin-American civilization from an Anglo-Saxon point of view may be found wanting in many respects, but the life and happiness of nations, the ideals and hopes of their peoples, their legislation and institutions, are not to be found ready made, but have to be worked out to meet peculiar wants, and in accordance with the racial, mental, moral and material resources and necessities of each.

We must deal with Latin America as a whole if we wish to cast a rapid glance at its civilization. Some of the twenty free and independent states which in their aggregate make up Latin America have developed more than others, and a few marvelously so, but whether north or south of the Panama Canal, east or west, on the Atlantic or the Pacific, on the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico, the countries of Latin America sprang from the same race the brave, hardy, adventurous, romantic and warlike Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, who fought their way through unknown territories, whether in quest of "El Dorado" or in warfare against

whole nations of Indians, as in the case of Mexico and Peru, where the native Indians had a marvelous civilization of

their own.

On the other hand, the men who founded these United States, the Pilgrims who first set foot on this new land of promise, and those who followed in the wake of the first settlers, came to this country already prepared, through years of training, to govern themselves. They came to the friendly shores of the New World in quest of freedom. They wanted a home in a new land not yet contaminated with the spirit of the Old World. They brought with them their creed, their habits of order and discipline, their love of freedom, their respect for the established principles of law. Hence from its inception Anglo-American civilization was built upon solid ground. Its subsequent developmentthe marvel of the last half of the nineteenth and this our twentieth century-is due to the solidity of their institutions, their steadfastness of purpose, their practical sense of life, and a territorial expanse where all the soils, all the wealth, all the climatic conditions of the cold, the temperate and the tropical zone can be found.

The discussion of Latin-American civilization is of vast importance, since it deals with the history and development of twenty republics lying beyond the Mexican border, and covering an aggregate area of about 9,000,000 square miles, with a total population of over 70,000,000, of which 48,000,000 speak the Spanish language, 20,000,000 Portuguese in Brazil, and 2,000,000 French in Haiti. This general division brings us at once to deal, under the same classification, with peoples and civilization springing from different sources-Spanish, Portuguese and French. Even among the Spanish-speaking countries there are conditions, depending on the province of origin of the first Spanish colonizers and settlers, who came mainly from Biscay, Andalusia, Castile, Aragon, and Extremadura, which further tend to establish other slight differences, just as the various states of this country show differences due to the sources of their population.

For our purpose, a general survey of the twenty countries.

called Latin America is not amiss. Geographically, Latin America begins beyond the Rio Grande, with Mexico, at the southern boundary of which extends what is called Central America, consisting of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, the historic five Central American states; Panama, the gateway to the Pacific on the west and to the Caribbean and the Atlantic on the east; South America proper, embracing Venezuela on the Caribbean, Colombia on that sea and partly on the Pacific; Ecuador, Peru and Chile, bordering on the Pacific; Bolivia and Paraguay, inland states in the heart of South America; Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil on the Atlantic; and, lastly, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, islands in the Caribbean Sea. So we see that Latin America extends from the north temperate zone to Cape Horn, near the Antarctic Ocean, which means that all climatic conditions are found in that enormous area over which the pole star, the Southern Cross, and the constellations brightening the South Pole keep nightly watch, from the cool regions of northern Mexico to the tropical heat of the torrid zone and again to the cold lands of Patagonia. This is indeed a world of wealth where all the products of the entire globe can be successfully cultivated, where all races of mankind can live and thrive, because the Mexican and Central American cordilleras, and further south the mighty Andean range, offer an unbroken chain of lofty peaks, wide valleys, and extensive tablelands, affording all climates and zones, all kinds of soils and minerals, the only limitations to the development of these lands being human endurance. The water supply is plentiful in most parts of Mexico and the Central American republics, and there is nothing in the world which can be compared to the hydrographic areas of northern and central South America, consisting of the Orinoco basin with its 400 affluents, offering a total navigable length of about 4000 miles; the mighty Amazon having three times the volume of the Mississippi and navigable for over 2000 miles, and the network of great rivers emptying into it; the Paraná and the River Plata, with twice the volume of the Mississippi, and a thou

sand other streams too numerous to mention in detail, but which can be found on any fairly good map, showing a feasible water route from the mouth of the Orinoco in Venezuela to the Amazon and the very heart of South America, and thence to the Paraná and finally to the River Plata.

We all know how Columbus discovered this New World which today bears the name of America (although the application of that name is quite restricted in this country to the United States)—we have all heard of the hardships Columbus and his followers had to endure, their sufferings, their hopes, and their faith in some supernatural fate, a trait begotten by the influence of Moorish ancestors in Spain through the mingling of both races during the occupation wars which lasted over eight centuries. The discovery of America has a tinge of romance, such as inspires the soul of the adventurer and the buccaneer. It was a romance that began at the Rábida, grew in the presence and with the help of good Queen Isabella, developed into a mad desire for adventure at Palos, and ended with the planting of the Spanish standard on the shores of Guanahani, now called Watling's Island. From here Columbus went to what is today called Cuba, thence to Hispaniola-now divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where his remains now rest in the Cathedral at Santo Domingo-and in this latter island founded the first white settlement in the New World. We cannot follow Columbus' voyages or his adventures step by step, but we must feel that the discovery of America is an epic poem worthy of the mettle of the great discoverer and his men.

And so the civilization of what is called Latin America began with the first Spanish settlement, the first Indian blood shed by the greed of the white conqueror, and the first attempt to Christianize the inhabitants of the new-found land. The inevitable features of conquest-war, treachery, destruction, fire, sword, deeds of valor but little known, and endurance almost superhuman-marked along the trail of the discoverers the birth and first steps of the New World. And in the midst of this turmoil, bravely battling against unknown odds, the Spanish missionary fathers worked un