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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hispanic Nations of the New World, by 
+William R. Shepherd
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Hispanic Nations of the New World
+       Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series
+
+Author: William R. Shepherd
+
+Editor: Allen Johnson
+
+Posting Date: February 1, 2009 [EBook #3042]
+Release Date: January, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISPANIC NATIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's
+University, Dianne Bean, Joseph Buersmeyer, and Alev Akman
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD,
+
+A CHRONICLE OF OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS
+
+By William R. Shepherd
+
+New Haven: Yale University Press
+
+Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co.
+
+London: Humphrey Milford
+
+Oxford University Press
+
+1919
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     I. THE HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
+
+     II. "OUR OLD KING OR NONE"
+
+     III. "INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH"
+
+     IV. PLOUGHING THE SEA
+
+     V. THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS
+
+     VI. PERIL FROM ABROAD
+
+     VII. GREATER STATES AND LESSER
+
+     VIII. "ON THE MARGIN OF INTERNATIONAL LIFE"
+
+     IX. THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA
+
+     X. MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
+
+     XI. THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN
+
+     XII. PAN-AMERICANISM AND THE GREAT WAR
+
+     BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+
+
+THE HISPANIC NATIONS OF THE NEW WORLD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE HERITAGE FROM SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
+
+At the time of the American Revolution most of the New World still
+belonged to Spain and Portugal, whose captains and conquerors had
+been the first to come to its shores. Spain had the lion's share, but
+Portugal held Brazil, in itself a vast land of unsuspected resources.
+No empire mankind had ever yet known rivaled in size the illimitable
+domains of Spain and Portugal in the New World; and none displayed such
+remarkable contrasts in land and people. Boundless plains and forests,
+swamps and deserts, mighty mountain chains, torrential streams and
+majestic rivers, marked the surface of the country. This vast territory
+stretched from the temperate prairies west of the Mississippi down to
+the steaming lowlands of Central America, then up through tablelands in
+the southern continent to high plateaus, miles above sea level, where
+the sun blazed and the cold, dry air was hard to breathe, and then
+higher still to the lofty peaks of the Andes, clad in eternal snow or
+pouring fire and smoke from their summits in the clouds, and thence to
+the lower temperate valleys, grassy pampas, and undulating hills of the
+far south.
+
+Scattered over these vast colonial domains in the Western World were
+somewhere between 12,000,000 and 19,000,000 people subject to Spain, and
+perhaps 3,000,000, to Portugal; the great majority of them were Indians
+and negroes, the latter predominating in the lands bordering on the
+Caribbean Sea and along the shores of Brazil. Possibly one-fourth of
+the inhabitants came of European stock, including not only Spaniards and
+their descendants but also the folk who spoke English in the Floridas
+and French in Louisiana.
+
+During the centuries which had elapsed since the entry of the Spaniards
+and Portuguese into these regions an extraordinary fusion of races had
+taken place. White, red, and black had mingled to such an extent that
+the bulk of the settled population became half-caste. Only in the more
+temperate regions of the far north and south, where the aborigines were
+comparatively few or had disappeared altogether, did the whites remain
+racially distinct. Socially the Indian and the negro counted for little.
+They constituted the laboring class on whom all the burdens fell and for
+whom advantages in the body politic were scant. Legally the Indian under
+Spanish rule stood on a footing of equality with his white fellows,
+and many a gifted native came to be reckoned a force in the community,
+though his social position remained a subordinate one. Most of the
+negroes were slaves and were more kindly treated by the Spaniards than
+by the Portuguese.
+
+Though divided among themselves, the Europeans were everywhere
+politically dominant. The Spaniard was always an individualist. Besides,
+he often brought from the Old World petty provincial traditions which
+were intensified in the New. The inhabitants of towns, many of which had
+been founded quite independently of one another, knew little about their
+remote neighbors and often were quite willing to convert their ignorance
+into prejudice: The dweller in the uplands and the resident on the coast
+were wont to view each other with disfavor. The one was thought heavy
+and stupid, the other frivolous and lazy. Native Spaniards regarded the
+Creoles, or American born, as persons who had degenerated more or less
+by their contact with the aborigines and the wilderness. For their part,
+the Creoles looked upon the Spaniards as upstarts and intruders, whose
+sole claim to consideration lay in the privileges dispensed them by the
+home government. In testimony of this attitude they coined for their
+oversea kindred numerous nicknames which were more expressive than
+complimentary. While the Creoles held most of the wealth and of the
+lower offices, the Spaniards enjoyed the perquisites and emoluments of
+the higher posts.
+
+Though objects of disdain to both these masters, the Indians generally
+preferred the Spaniard to the Creole. The Spaniard represented a distant
+authority interested in the welfare of its humbler subjects and came
+less into actual daily contact with the natives. While it would hardly
+be correct to say that the Spaniard was viewed as a protector and the
+Creole as an oppressor, yet the aborigines unconsciously made some
+such hazy distinction if indeed they did not view all Europeans with
+suspicion and dislike. In Brazil the relation of classes was much the
+same, except that here the native element was much less conspicuous as a
+social factor.
+
+These distinctions were all the more accentuated by the absence both
+of other European peoples and of a definite middle class of any race.
+Everywhere in the areas tenanted originally by Spaniards and Portuguese
+the European of alien stock was unwelcome, even though he obtained a
+grudging permission from the home governments to remain a colonist. In
+Brazil, owing to the close commercial connections between Great Britain
+and Portugal, foreigners were not so rigidly excluded as in Spanish
+America. The Spaniard was unwilling that lands so rich in natural
+treasures should be thrown open to exploitation by others, even if the
+newcomer professed the Catholic faith. The heretic was denied admission
+as a matter of course. Had the foreigner been allowed to enter, the risk
+of such exploitation doubtless would have been increased, but a middle
+class might have arisen to weld the the discordant factions into a
+society which had common desires and aspirations. With the development
+of commerce and industry, with the growth of activities which bring
+men into touch with each other in everyday affairs, something like a
+solidarity of sentiment might have been awakened. In its absence the
+only bond among the dominant whites was their sense of superiority to
+the colored masses beneath them.
+
+Manual labor and trade had never attracted the Spaniards and the
+Portuguese. The army, the church, and the law were the three callings
+that offered the greatest opportunity for distinction. Agriculture,
+grazing, and mining they did not disdain, provided that superintendence
+and not actual work was the main requisite. The economic organization
+which the Spaniards and Portuguese established in America was naturally
+a more or less faithful reproduction of that to which they had
+been accustomed at home. Agriculture and grazing became the chief
+occupations. Domestic animals and many kinds of plants brought from
+Europe throve wonderfully in their new home. Huge estates were the rule;
+small farms, the exception. On the ranches and plantations vast droves
+of cattle, sheep, and horses were raised, as well as immense crops.
+Mining, once so much in vogue, had become an occupation of secondary
+importance.
+
+On their estates the planter, the ranchman, and the mine owner lived
+like feudal overlords, waited upon by Indian and negro peasants who also
+tilled the fields, tended the droves, and dug the earth for precious
+metals and stones. Originally the natives had been forced to work under
+conditions approximating actual servitude, but gradually the harsher
+features of this system had given way to a mode of service closely
+resembling peonage. Paid a pitifully small wage, provided with a hut of
+reeds or sundried mud and a tiny patch of soil on which to grow a
+few hills of the corn and beans that were his usual nourishment, the
+ordinary Indian or half-caste laborer was scarcely more than a beast of
+burden, a creature in whom civic virtues of a high order were not likely
+to develop. If he betook himself to the town his possible usefulness
+lessened in proportion as he fell into drunken or dissolute habits, or
+lapsed into a state of lazy and vacuous dreaminess, enlivened only by
+chatter or the rolling of a cigarette. On the other hand, when employed
+in a capacity where native talent might be tested, he often revealed a
+power of action which, if properly guided, could be turned to excellent
+account. As a cowboy, for example, he became a capital horseman, brave,
+alert, skillful, and daring.
+
+Commerce with Portugal and Spain was long confined to yearly fairs and
+occasional trading fleets that plied between fixed points. But when
+liberal decrees threw open numerous ports in the mother countries
+to traffic and the several colonies were given also the privilege of
+exchanging their products among themselves, the volume of exports
+and imports increased and gave an impetus to activity which brought a
+notable release from the torpor and vegetation characterizing earlier
+days. Yet, even so, communication was difficult and irregular. By sea
+the distances were great and the vessels slow. Overland the natural
+obstacles to transportation were so numerous and the methods of
+conveyance so cumbersome and expensive that the people of one province
+were practically strangers to their neighbors.
+
+Matters of the mind and of the soul were under the guardianship of the
+Church. More than merely a spiritual mentor, it controlled education and
+determined in large measure the course of intellectual life. Possessed
+of vast wealth in lands and revenues, its monasteries and priories, its
+hospitals and asylums, its residences of ecclesiastics, were the finest
+buildings in every community, adorned with the masterpieces of sculptors
+and painters. A village might boast of only a few squalid huts, yet
+there in the "plaza," or central square, loomed up a massively imposing
+edifice of worship, its towers pointing heavenward, the sign and symbol
+of triumphant power.
+
+The Church, in fact, was the greatest civilizing agency that Spain
+and Portugal had at their disposal. It inculcated a reverence for
+the monarch and his ministers and fostered a deep-rooted sentiment of
+conservatism which made disloyalty and innovation almost sacrilegious.
+In the Spanish colonies in particular the Church not only protected the
+natives against the rapacity of many a white master but taught them the
+rudiments of the Christian faith, as well as useful arts and trades. In
+remote places, secluded so far as possible from contact with Europeans,
+missionary pioneers gathered together groups of neophytes whom they
+rendered docile and industrious, it is true, but whom they often
+deprived of initiative and selfreliance and kept illiterate and
+superstitious.
+
+Education was reserved commonly for members of the ruling class.
+As imparted in the universities and schools, it savored strongly of
+medievalism. Though some attention was devoted to the natural sciences,
+experimental methods were not encouraged and found no place in lectures
+and textbooks. Books, periodicals, and other publications came under
+ecclesiastical inspection, and a vigilant censorship determined what was
+fit for the public to read.
+
+Supreme over all the colonial domains was the government of their
+majesties, the monarchs of Spain and Portugal. A ministry and a council
+managed the affairs of the inhabitants of America and guarded their
+destinies in accordance with the theories of enlightened despotism
+then prevailing in Europe. The Spanish dominions were divided into
+viceroyalties and subdivided into captaincies general, presidencies,
+and intendancies. Associated with the high officials who ruled them were
+audiencias, or boards, which were at once judicial and administrative.
+Below these individuals and bodies were a host of lesser functionaries
+who, like their superiors, held their posts by appointment. In Brazil
+the governor general bore the title of viceroy and carried on the
+administration assisted by provincial captains, supreme courts, and
+local officers.
+
+This control was by no means so autocratic as it might seem. Portugal
+had too many interests elsewhere, and was too feeble besides, to keep
+tight rein over a territory so vast and a population so much inclined
+as the Brazilian to form itself into provincial units, jealous of the
+central authority. Spain, on its part, had always practised the good old
+Roman rule of "divide and govern." Its policy was to hold the balance
+among officials, civil and ecclesiastical, and inhabitants, white and
+colored. It knew how strongly individualistic the Spaniard was and
+realized the full force of the adage, "I obey, but I do not fulfill!"
+Legislatures and other agencies of government directly representative of
+the people did not exist in Spanish or Portuguese America. The Spanish
+cabildo, or town council, however, afforded an opportunity for the
+expression of the popular will and often proved intractable. Its
+membership was appointive, elective, hereditary, and even purchasable,
+but the form did not affect the substance. The Spanish Americans had
+an instinct for politics. "Here all men govern," declared one of the
+viceroys; "the people have more part in political discussions than in
+any other provinces in the world; a council of war sits in every house."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. "OUR OLD KING OR NONE"
+
+The movement which led eventually to the emancipation of the colonies
+differed from the local uprisings which occurred in various parts
+of South America during the eighteenth century. Either the arbitrary
+conduct of individual governors or excessive taxation had caused the
+earlier revolts. To the final revolution foreign nations and foreign
+ideas gave the necessary impulse. A few members of the intellectual
+class had read in secret the writings of French and English
+philosophers. Others had traveled abroad and came home to whisper to
+their countrymen what they had seen and heard in lands more progressive
+than Spain and Portugal. The commercial relations, both licit and
+illicit, which Great Britain had maintained with several of the colonies
+had served to diffuse among them some notions of what went on in the
+busy world outside.
+
+By gaining its independence, the United States had set a practical
+example of what might be done elsewhere in America. Translated into
+French, the Declaration of Independence was read and commented upon by
+enthusiasts who dreamed of the possibility of applying its principles
+in their own lands. More powerful still were the ideas liberated by the
+French Revolution and Napoleon. Borne across the ocean, the doctrines of
+"Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" stirred the ardent-minded to thoughts
+of action, though the Spanish and Portuguese Americans who schemed
+and plotted were the merest handful. The seed they planted was slow to
+germinate among peoples who had been taught to regard things foreign as
+outlandish and heretical. Many years therefore elapsed before the ideas
+of the few became the convictions of the masses, for the conservatism
+and loyalty of the common people were unbelieveably steadfast.
+
+Not Spanish and Portuguese America, but Santo Domingo, an island which
+had been under French rule since 1795 and which was tenanted chiefly
+by ignorant and brutalized negro slaves, was the scene of the first
+effectual assertion of independence in the lands originally colonized
+by Spain. Rising in revolt against their masters, the negroes had
+won complete control under their remarkable commander, Toussaint
+L'Ouverture, when Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, decided to
+restore the old regime. But the huge expedition which was sent to reduce
+the island ended in absolute failure. After a ruthless racial warfare,
+characterized by ferocity on both sides, the French retired. In 1804 the
+negro leaders proclaimed the independence of the island as the "Republic
+of Haiti," under a President who, appreciative of the example just set
+by Napoleon, informed his followers that he too had assumed the august
+title of "Emperor"! His immediate successor in African royalty was the
+notorious Henri Christophe, who gathered about him a nobility garish
+in color and taste--including their sable lordships, the "Duke of
+Marmalade" and the "Count of Lemonade"; and who built the palace of
+"Sans Souci" and the countryseats of "Queen's Delight" and "King's
+Beautiful View," about which cluster tales of barbaric pleasure that
+rival the grim legends clinging to the parapets and enshrouding the
+dungeons of his mountain fortress of "La Ferriere." None of these black
+or mulatto potentates, however, could expel French authority from
+the eastern part of Santo Domingo. That task was taken in hand by the
+inhabitants themselves, and in 1809 they succeeded in restoring the
+control of Spain. Meanwhile events which had been occurring in South
+America prepared the way for the movement that was ultimately to banish
+the flags of both Spain and Portugal from the continents of the New
+World. As the one country had fallen more or less tinder the influence
+of France, so the other had become practically dependent upon Great
+Britain. Interested in the expansion of its commerce and viewing the
+outlying possessions of peoples who submitted to French guidance as
+legitimate objects for seizure, Great Britain in 1797 wrested Trinidad
+from the feeble grip of Spain and thus acquired a strategic position
+very near South America itself. Haiti, Trinidad, and Jamaica, in fact,
+all became Centers of revolutionary agitation and havens of refuge for.
+Spanish American radicals in the troublous years to follow.
+
+Foremost among the early conspirators was the Venezuelan, Francisco
+de Miranda, known to his fellow Americans of Spanish stock as the
+"Precursor." Napoleon once remarked of him: "He is a Don Quixote, with
+this difference--he is not crazy.... The man has sacred fire in his
+soul." An officer in the armies of Spain and of revolutionary France
+and later a resident of London, Miranda devoted thirty years of his
+adventurous life to the cause of independence for his countrymen. With
+officials of the British Government he labored long and zealously,
+eliciting from them vague promises of armed support and some financial
+aid. It was in London, also, that he organized a group of sympathizers
+into the secret society called the "Grand Lodge of America." With it,
+or with its branches in France and Spain, many of the leaders of the
+subsequent revolution came to be identified.
+
+In 1806, availing himself of the negligence of the United States and
+having the connivance of the British authorities in Trinidad, Miranda
+headed two expeditions to the coast of Venezuela. He had hoped that his
+appearance would be the signal for a general uprising; instead, he was
+treated with indifference. His countrymen seemed to regard him as a tool
+of Great Britain, and no one felt disposed to accept the blessings
+of liberty under that guise. Humiliated, but not despairing, Miranda
+returned to London to await a happier day.
+
+Two British expeditions which attempted to conquer the region about
+the Rio de la Plata in 1806 and 1807 were also frustrated by this
+same stubborn loyalty. When the Spanish viceroy fled, the inhabitants
+themselves rallied to the defense of the country and drove out the
+invaders. Thereupon the people of Buenos Aires, assembled in cabildo
+abierto, or town meeting, deposed the viceroy and chose their victorious
+leader in his stead until a successor could be regularly appointed.
+
+Then, in 1808, fell the blow which was to shatter the bonds uniting
+Spain to its continental dominions in America. The discord and
+corruption which prevailed in that unfortunate country afforded
+Napoleon an opportunity to oust its feeble king and his incompetent son,
+Ferdinand, and to place Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. But the master
+of Europe underestimated the fighting ability of Spaniards. Instead of
+humbly complying with his mandate, they rose in arms against the usurper
+and created a central junta, or revolutionary committee, to govern in
+the name of Ferdinand VII, as their rightful ruler.
+
+The news of this French aggression aroused in the colonies a spirit of
+resistance as vehement as that in the mother country. Both Spaniards and
+Creoles repudiated the "intruder king." Believing, as did their comrades
+oversea, that Ferdinand was a helpless victim in the hands of Napoleon,
+they recognized the revolutionary government and sent great sums of
+money to Spain to aid in the struggle against the French. Envoys from
+Joseph Bonaparte seeking an acknowledgment of his rule were angrily
+rejected and were forced to leave.
+
+The situation on both sides of the ocean was now an extraordinary
+one. Just as the junta in Spain had no legal right to govern, so the
+officials in the colonies, holding their posts by appointment from a
+deposed king, had no legal authority, and the people would not allow
+them to accept new commissions from a usurper. The Church, too,
+detesting Napoleon as the heir of a revolution that had undermined the
+Catholic faith and regarding him as a godless despot who had made
+the Pope a captive, refused to recognize the French pretender. Until
+Ferdinand VII could be restored to his throne, therefore, the colonists
+had to choose whether they would carry on the administration under
+the guidance of the self-constituted authorities in Spain, or should
+themselves create similar organizations in each of the colonies to take
+charge of affairs. The former course was favored by the official element
+and its supporters among the conservative classes, the latter by the
+liberals, who felt that they had as much right as the people of the
+mother country to choose the form of government best suited to their
+interests.
+
+Each party viewed the other with distrust. Opposition to the more
+democratic procedure, it was felt, could mean nothing less than
+secret submission to the pretensions of Joseph Bonaparte; whereas the
+establishment in America of any organizations like those in Spain surely
+indicated a spirit of disloyalty toward Ferdinand VII himself. Under
+circumstances like these, when the junta and its successor, the council
+of regency, refused to make substantial concessions to the colonies,
+both parties were inevitably drifting toward independence. In the phrase
+of Manuel Belgrano, one of the great leaders in the viceroyalty of La
+Plata, "our old King or none" became the watchword that gradually shaped
+the thoughts of Spanish Americans.
+
+When, therefore, in 1810, the news came that the French army had overrun
+Spain, democratic ideas so long cherished in secret and propagated so
+industriously by Miranda and his followers at last found expression in
+a series of uprisings in the four viceroyalties of La Plata, Peru,
+New Granada, and New Spain. But in each of these viceroyalties the
+revolution ran a different course. Sometimes it was the capital
+city that led off; sometimes a provincial town; sometimes a group of
+individuals in the country districts. Among the actual participants
+in the various movements very little harmony was to be found. Here
+a particular leader claimed obedience; there a board of self-chosen
+magistrates held sway; elsewhere a town or province refused to
+acknowledge the central authority. To add to these complications, in
+1812, a revolutionary Cortes, or legislative body, assembled at Cadiz,
+adopted for Spain and its dominions a constitution providing for
+direct representation of the colonies in oversea administration. Since
+arrangements of this sort contented many of the Spanish Americans who
+had protested against existing abuses, they were quite unwilling to
+press their grievances further. Given all these evidences of division
+in activity and counsel, one does not find it difficult to foresee the
+outcome.
+
+On May 25, 1810, popular agitation at Buenos Aires forced the Spanish
+viceroy of La Plata to resign. The central authority was thereupon
+vested in an elected junta that was to govern in the name of Ferdinand
+VII. Opposition broke out immediately. The northern and eastern parts
+of the viceroyalty showed themselves quite unwilling to obey these
+upstarts. Meantime, urged on by radicals who revived the Jacobin
+doctrines of revolutionary France, the junta strove to suppress in
+rigorous fashion any symptoms of disaffection; but it could do nothing
+to stem the tide of separation in the rest of the viceroyalty--in
+Charcas (Bolivia), Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental, or East Bank, of
+the Uruguay.
+
+At Buenos Aires acute difference of opinion--about the extent to
+which the movement should be carried and about the permanent form
+of government to be adopted as well as the method of establishing
+it--produced a series of political commotions little short of anarchy.
+Triumvirates followed the junta into power; supreme directors alternated
+with triumvirates; and constituent assemblies came and went. Under one
+authority or another the name of the viceroyalty was changed to "United
+Provinces of La Plata River"; a seal, a flag, and a coat of arms were
+chosen; and numerous features of the Spanish regime were abolished,
+including titles of nobility, the Inquisition, the slave trade, and
+restrictions on the press. But so chaotic were the conditions within and
+so disastrous the campaigns without, that eventually commissioners were
+sent to Europe, bearing instructions to seek a king for the distracted
+country.
+
+When Charcas fell under the control of the viceroy of Peru, Paraguay
+set up a regime for itself. At Asuncion, the capital, a revolutionary
+outbreak in 1811 replaced the Spanish intendant by a triumvirate,
+of which the most prominent member was Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de
+Francia. A lawyer by profession, familiar with the history of Rome, an
+admirer of France and Napoleon, a misanthrope and a recluse, possessing
+a blind faith in himself and actuated by a sense of implacable hatred
+for all who might venture to thwart his will, this extraordinary
+personage speedily made himself master of the country. A population
+composed chiefly of Indians, docile in temperament and submissive for
+many years to the paternal rule of Jesuit missionaries, could not fail
+to become pliant instruments in his hands. At his direction, therefore,
+Paraguay declared itself independent of both Spain and La Plata. This
+done, an obedient Congress elected Francia consul of the republic and
+later invested him with the title of dictator. In the Banda Oriental two
+distinct movements appeared. Montevideo, the capital, long a center
+of royalist sympathies and for some years hostile to the revolutionary
+government in Buenos Aires, was reunited with La Plata in 1814.
+Elsewhere the people of the province followed the fortunes of Jose
+Gervasio Artigas, an able and valiant cavalry officer, who roamed
+through it at will, bidding defiance to any authority not his own.
+Most of the former viceroyalty of La Plata had thus, to all intents and
+purposes, thrown off the yoke of Spain.
+
+Chile was the only other province that for a while gave promise of
+similar action. Here again it was the capital city that took the lead.
+On receipt of the news of the occurrences at Buenos Aires in May, 1810,
+the people of Santiago forced the captain general to resign and, on the
+18th of September, replaced him by a junta of their own choosing.
+But neither this body, nor its successors, nor even the Congress that
+assembled the following year, could establish a permanent and effective
+government. Nowhere in Spanish America, perhaps, did the lower classes
+count for so little, and the upper class for so much, as in Chile.
+Though the great landholders were disposed to favor a reasonable amount
+of local autonomy for the country, they refused to heed the demands
+of the radicals for complete independence and the establishment of a
+republic. Accordingly, in proportion as their opponents resorted to
+measures of compulsion, the gentry gradually withdrew their support and
+offered little resistance when troops dispatched by the viceroy of
+Peru restored the Spanish regime in 1814. The irreconcilable among the
+patriots fled over the Andes to the western part of La Plata, where they
+found hospitable refuge.
+
+But of all the Spanish dominions in South America none witnessed so
+desperate a struggle for emancipation as the viceroyalty of New Granada.
+Learning of the catastrophe that had befallen the mother country, the
+leading citizens of Caracas, acting in conjunction with the cabildo,
+deposed the captain general on April 19, 1810, and created a junta
+in his stead. The example was quickly followed by most of the smaller
+divisions of the province. Then when Miranda returned from England to
+head the revolutionary movement, a Congress, on July 5, 1811, declared
+Venezuela independent of Spain. Carried away, also, by the enthusiasm
+of the moment, and forgetful of the utter unpreparedness of the country,
+the Congress promulgated a federal constitution modeled on that of the
+United States, which set forth all the approved doctrines of the rights
+of man.
+
+Neither Miranda nor his youthful coadjutor, Simon Bolivar, soon to
+become famous in the annals of Spanish American history, approved of
+this plunge into democracy. Ardent as their patriotism was, they knew
+that the country needed centralized control and not experiments in
+confederation or theoretical liberty. They speedily found out, also,
+that they could not count on the support of the people at large. Then,
+almost as if Nature herself disapproved of the whole proceeding, a
+frightful earthquake in the following year shook many a Venezuelan town
+into ruins. Everywhere the royalists took heart. Dissensions broke out
+between Miranda and his subordinates. Betrayed into the hands of his
+enemies, the old warrior himself was sent away to die in a Spanish
+dungeon. And so the "earthquake" republic collapsed.
+
+But the rigorous measures adopted by the royalists to sustain their
+triumph enabled Bolivar to renew the struggle in 1813. He entered upon
+a campaign which was signalized by acts of barbarity on both sides.
+His declaration of "war to the death" was answered in kind. Wholesale
+slaughter of prisoners, indiscriminate pillage, and wanton destruction
+of property spread terror and desolation throughout the country.
+Acclaimed "Liberator of Venezuela" and made dictator by the people of
+Caracas, Bolivar strove in vain to overcome the half-savage llaneros,
+or cowboys of the plains, who despised the innovating aristocrats of
+the capital. Though he won a few victories, he did not make the cause
+of independence popular, and, realizing his failure, he retired into New
+Granada.
+
+In this region an astounding series of revolutions and
+counter-revolutions had taken place. Unmindful of pleas for cooperation,
+the Creole leaders in town and district, from 1810 onward, seized
+control of affairs in a fashion that betokened a speedy disintegration
+of the country. Though the viceroy was deposed and a general Congress
+was summoned to meet at the capital, Bogota, efforts at centralization
+encountered opposition in every quarter. Only the royalists managed to
+preserve a semblance of unity. Separate republics sprang into being and
+in 1813 declared their independence of Spain. Presidents and congresses
+were pitted against one another. Towns fought among themselves. Even
+parishes demanded local autonomy. For a while the services of Bolivar
+were invoked to force rebellious areas into obedience to the principle
+of confederation, but with scant result. Unable to agree with his fellow
+officers and displaying traits of moral weakness which at this time as
+on previous occasions showed that he had not yet risen to a full sense
+of responsibility, the Liberator renounced the task and fled to Jamaica.
+
+The scene now shifts northward to the viceroyalty of New Spain. Unlike
+the struggles already described, the uprisings that began in 1810 in
+central Mexico were substantially revolts of Indians and half-castes
+against white domination. On the 16th of September, a crowd of natives
+rose under the leadership of Miguel Hidalgo, a parish priest of the
+village of Dolores. Bearing on their banners the slogan, "Long live
+Ferdinand VII and down with bad government," the undisciplined crowd,
+soon to number tens of thousands, aroused such terror by their behavior
+that the whites were compelled to unite in self-defense. It mattered not
+whether Hidalgo hoped to establish a republic or simply to secure for
+his followers relief from oppression: in either case the whites could
+expect only Indian domination. Before the trained forces of the whites a
+horde of natives, so ignorant of modern warfare that some of them tried
+to stop cannon balls by clapping their straw hats over the mouths of the
+guns, could not stand their ground. Hidalgo was captured and shot, but
+he was succeeded by Jose Maria Morelos, also a priest. Reviving the
+old Aztec name for central Mexico, he summoned a "Congress of Anahuac,"
+which in 1813 asserted that dependence on the throne of Spain was
+"forever broken and dissolved." Abler and more humane than Hidalgo, he
+set up a revolutionary government that the authorities of Mexico failed
+for a while to suppress.
+
+In 1814, therefore, Spain still held the bulk of its dominions.
+Trinidad, to be sure, had been lost to Great Britain, and both Louisiana
+and West Florida to the United States. Royalist control, furthermore,
+had ceased in parts of the viceroyalties of La Plata and New Granada.
+To regain Trinidad and Louisiana was hopeless: but a wise policy
+conciliation or an overwhelming display of armed force might yet restore
+Spanish rule where it had been merely suspended.
+
+Very different was the course of events in Brazil. Strangely enough,
+the first impulse toward independence was given by the Portuguese royal
+family. Terrified by the prospective invasion of the country by a French
+army, late in 1807 the Prince Regent, the royal family, and a host of
+Portuguese nobles and commoners took passage on British vessels and
+sailed to Rio de Janeiro. Brazil thereupon became the seat of royal
+government and immediately assumed an importance which it could never
+have attained as a mere dependency. Acting under the advice of the
+British minister, the Prince Regent threw open the ports of the colony
+to the ships of all nations friendly to Portugal, gave his sanction to
+a variety of reforms beneficial to commerce and industry, and even
+permitted a printing press to be set up, though only for official
+purposes. From all these benevolent activities Brazil derived great
+advantages. On the other hand, the Prince Regent's aversion to popular
+education or anything that might savor of democracy and the greed of
+his followers for place and distinction alienated his colonial subjects.
+They could not fail to contrast autocracy in Brazil with the liberal
+ideas that had made headway elsewhere in Spanish America. As a
+consequence a spirit of unrest arose which boded ill for the maintenance
+of Portuguese rule.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III "INDEPENDENCE OR DEATH"
+
+The restoration of Ferdinand VII to his throne in 1814 encouraged the
+liberals of Spain, no less than the loyalists of Spanish America, to
+hope that the "old King" would now grant a new dispensation. Freedom of
+commerce and a fair measure of popular representation in government, it
+was believed, would compensate both the mother country for the suffering
+which it had undergone during the Peninsular War and the colonies for
+the trials to which loyalty had been subjected. But Ferdinand VII was
+a typical Bourbon. Nothing less than an absolute reestablishment of
+the earlier regime would satisfy him. On both sides of the Atlantic,
+therefore, the liberals were forced into opposition to the crown,
+although they were so far apart that they could not cooperate with each
+other. Independence was to be the fortune of the Spanish Americans, and
+a continuance of despotism, for a while, the lot of the Spaniards.
+
+As the region of the viceroyalty of La Plata had been the first to
+cast off the authority of the home government, so it was the first to
+complete its separation from Spain. Despite the fact that disorder was
+rampant everywhere and that most of the local districts could not or
+would not send deputies, a congress that assembled at Tucuman voted
+on July 9, 1816, to declare the "United Provinces in South America"
+independent. Comprehensive though the expression was, it applied only to
+the central part of the former viceroyalty, and even there it was little
+more than an aspiration. Mistrust of the authorities at Buenos Aires,
+insistence upon provincial autonomy, failure to agree upon a particular
+kind of republican government, and a lingering inclination to monarchy
+made progress toward national unity impossible. In 1819, to be sure, a
+constitution was adopted, providing for a centralized government, but in
+the country at large it encountered too much resistance from those who
+favored a federal government to become effective.
+
+In the Banda Oriental, over most of which Artigas and his horsemen
+held sway, chaotic conditions invited aggression from the direction of
+Brazil. This East Bank of the Uruguay had long been disputed territory
+between Spain and Portugal; and now its definite acquisition by the
+latter seemed an easy undertaking. Instead, however, the task turned out
+to be a truly formidable one. Montevideo, feebly defended by the forces
+of the Government at Buenos Aires, soon capitulated, but four years
+elapsed before the rest of the country could be subdued. Artigas fled to
+Paraguay, where he fell into the clutches of Francia, never to escape.
+In 1821 the Banda Oriental was annexed to Brazil as the Cisplatine
+Province.
+
+Over Paraguay that grim and somber potentate, known as "The Supreme
+One"--El Supremo--presided with iron hand. In 1817 Francia set up a
+despotism unique in the annals of South America. Fearful lest contact
+with the outer world might weaken his tenacious grip upon his subjects,
+whom he terrorized into obedience, he barred approach to the country and
+suffered no one to leave it. He organized and drilled an army obedient
+to his will.. When he went forth by day, attended by an escort of
+cavalry, the doors and windows of houses had to be kept closed and
+no one was allowed on the streets. Night he spent till a late hour
+in reading and study, changing his bedroom frequently to avoid
+assassination. Religious functions that might disturb the public peace
+he forbade. Compelling the bishop of Asuncion to resign on account of
+senile debility, Francia himself assumed the episcopal office. Even
+intermarriage among the old colonial families he prohibited, so as to
+reduce all to a common social level. He attained his object. Paraguay
+became a quiet state, whatever might be said of its neighbors!
+
+Elsewhere in southern Spanish America a brilliant feat of arms brought
+to the fore its most distinguished soldier. This was Jose de San Martin
+of La Plata. Like Miranda, he had been an officer in the Spanish army
+and had returned to his native land an ardent apostle of independence.
+Quick to realize the fact that, so long as Chile remained under royalist
+control, the possibility of an attack from that quarter was a constant
+menace to the safety of the newly constituted republic, he conceived
+the bold plan of organizing near the western frontier an army--composed
+partly of Chilean refugees and partly of his own countrymen--with which
+he proposed to cross the Andes and meet the enemy on his own ground.
+Among these fugitives was the able and valiant Bernardo O'Higgins,
+son of an Irish officer who had been viceroy of Peru. Cooperating with
+O'Higgins, San Martin fixed his headquarters at Mendoza and began to
+gather and train the four thousand men whom he judged needful for the
+enterprise.
+
+By January, 1817, the "Army of the Andes" was ready. To cross the
+mountains meant to transport men, horses, artillery, and stores to an
+altitude of thirteen thousand feet, where the Uspallata Pass afforded
+an outlet to Chilean soil. This pass was nearly a mile higher than
+the Great St. Bernard in the Alps, the crossing of which gave Napoleon
+Bonaparte such renown. On the 12th of February the hosts of San Martin
+hurled themselves upon the royalists entrenched on the slopes of
+Chacabuco and routed them utterly. The battle proved decisive not of the
+fortunes of Chile alone but of those of all Spanish South America. As a
+viceroy of Peru later confessed, "it marked the moment when the cause of
+Spain in the Indies began to recede."
+
+Named supreme director by the people of Santiago, O'Higgins fought
+vigorously though ineffectually to drive out the royalists who,
+reinforced from Peru, held the region south of the capital. That
+he failed did not deter him from having a vote taken under military
+auspices, on the strength of which, on February 12, 1818, he declared
+Chile an independent nation, the date of the proclamation being changed
+to the 1st of January, so as to make the inauguration of the new era
+coincident with the entry of the new year. San Martin, meanwhile, had
+been collecting reinforcements with which to strike the final blow. On
+the 5th of April, the Battle of Maipo gave him the victory he desired.
+Except for a few isolated points to the southward, the power of Spain
+had fallen.
+
+Until the fall of Napoleon in 1815 it had been the native loyalists who
+had supported the cause of the mother country in the Spanish dominions.
+Henceforth, free from the menace of the European dictator, Spain
+could look to her affairs in America, and during the next three years
+dispatched twenty-five thousand men to bring the colonies to obedience.
+These soldiers began their task in the northern part of South America,
+and there they ended it--in failure. To this failure the defection of
+native royalists contributed, for they were alienated not so much by the
+presence of the Spanish troops as by the often merciless severity that
+marked their conduct. The atrocities may have been provoked by the
+behavior of their opponents; but, be this as it may, the patriots gained
+recruits after each victory.
+
+A Spanish army of more than ten thousand, under the command of Pablo
+Morillo, arrived in Venezuela in April, 1815. He found the province
+relatively tranquil and even disposed to welcome the full restoration
+of royal government. Leaving a garrison sufficient for the purpose
+of military occupation, Morillo sailed for Cartagena, the key to
+New Granada. Besieged by land and sea, the inhabitants of the town
+maintained for upwards of three months a resistance which, in its
+heroism, privation, and sacrifice, recalled the memorable defense of
+Saragossa in the mother country against the French seven years before.
+With Cartagena taken, regulars and loyalists united to stamp out the
+rebellion elsewhere. At Bogoth, in particular, the new Spanish viceroy
+installed by Morillo waged a savage war on all suspected of aiding the
+patriot cause. He did not spare even women, and one of his victims was a
+young heroine, Policarpa Salavarrieta by name. Though for her execution
+three thousand soldiers were detailed, the girl was unterrified by her
+doom and was earnestly beseeching the loyalists among them to turn their
+arms against the enemies of their country when a volley stretched her
+lifeless on the ground.
+
+Meanwhile Bolivar had been fitting out, in Haiti and in the Dutch island
+of Curacao, an expedition to take up anew the work of freeing Venezuela.
+Hardly had the Liberator landed in May, 1816, when dissensions with his
+fellow officers frustrated any prospect of success. Indeed they obliged
+him to seek refuge once more in Haiti. Eventually, however, most of the
+patriot leaders became convinced that, if they were to entertain a
+hope of success, they must entrust their fortunes to Bolivar as supreme
+commander. Their chances of success were increased furthermore by
+the support of the llaneros who had been won over to the cause of
+independence. Under their redoubtable chieftain, Jose Antonio Paez,
+these fierce and ruthless horsemen performed many a feat of valor in the
+campaigns which followed.
+
+Once again on Venezuelan soil, Bolivar determined to transfer his
+operations to the eastern part of the country, which seemed to offer
+better strategic advantages than the region about Caracas. But even here
+the jealousy of his officers, the insubordination of the free lances,
+the stubborn resistance of the loyalists--upheld by the wealthy and
+conservative classes and the able generalship of Morillo, who had
+returned from New Granada--made the situation of the Liberator all
+through 1817 and 1818 extremely precarious. Happily for his fading
+fortunes, his hands were strengthened from abroad. The United States had
+recognized the belligerency of several of the revolutionary governments
+in South America and had sent diplomatic agents to them. Great Britain
+had blocked every attempt of Ferdinand VII to obtain help from the Holy
+Alliance in reconquering his dominions. And Ferdinand had contributed
+to his own undoing by failing to heed the urgent requests of Morillo for
+reinforcements to fill his dwindling ranks. More decisive still were
+the services of some five thousand British, Irish, French, and German
+volunteers, who were often the mainstay of Bolivar and his lieutenants
+during the later phases of the struggle, both in Venezuela and
+elsewhere.
+
+For some time the Liberator had been evolving a plan of attack upon the
+royalists in New Granada, similar to the offensive campaign which San
+Martin had conducted in Chile. More than that, he had conceived the
+idea, once independence had been attained, of uniting the western part
+of the viceroyalty with Venezuela into a single republic. The latter
+plan he laid down before a Congress which assembled at Angostura in
+February, 1819, and which promptly chose him President of the republic
+and vested him with the powers of dictator. In June, at the head of 2100
+men, he started on his perilous journey over the Andes.
+
+Up through the passes and across bleak plateaus the little army
+struggled till it reached the banks of the rivulet of Boyaca, in the
+very heart of New Granada. Here, on the 7th of August, Bolivar inflicted
+on the royalist forces a tremendous defeat that gave the deathblow to
+the domination of Spain in northern South America. On his triumphal
+return to Angostura, the Congress signalized the victory by declaring
+the whole of the viceroyalty an independent state under the name of
+the "Republic of Colombia" and chose the Liberator as its provisional
+President. Two years later, a fundamental law it had adopted was
+ratified with certain changes by another Congress assembled at Rosario
+de Cucuta, and Bolivar was made permanent President.
+
+Southward of Colombia lay the viceroyalty of Peru, the oldest, richest,
+and most conservative of the larger Spanish dominions on the continent.
+Intact, except for the loss of Chile, it had found territorial
+compensation by stretching its power over the provinces of Quito and
+Charcas, the one wrenched off from the former New Granada, the other
+torn away from what had been La Plata. Predominantly royalist
+in sentiment, it was like a huge wedge thrust in between the two
+independent areas. By thus cutting off the patriots of the north from
+their comrades in the south, it threatened both with destruction of
+their liberty.
+
+Again fortune intervened from abroad, this time directly from Spain
+itself. Ferdinand VII, who had gathered an army of twenty thousand men
+at Cadiz, was ready to deliver a crushing blow at the colonies when in
+January, 1890, a mutiny among the troops and revolution throughout the
+country entirely frustrated the plan. But although that reactionary
+monarch was compelled to accept the Constitution of 1819, the Spanish
+liberals were unwilling to concede to their fellows in America anything
+more substantial than representation in the Cortes. Independence they
+would not tolerate. On the other hand, the example of the mother country
+in arms against its King in the name of liberty could not fail to give
+heart to the cause of liberation in the provinces oversea and to hasten
+its achievement.
+
+The first important efforts to profit by this situation were made by the
+patriots in Chile. Both San Martin and O'Higgins had perceived that the
+only effective way to eliminate the Peruvian wedge was to gain control
+of its approaches by sea. The Chileans had already won some success
+in this direction when the fiery and imperious Scotch sailor, Thomas
+Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, appeared on the scene and offered to
+organize a navy. At length a squadron was put under his command. With
+upwards of four thousand troops in charge of San Martin the expedition
+set sail for Peru late in August, 1820.
+
+While Cochrane busied himself in destroying the Spanish blockade, his
+comrade in arms marched up to the very gates of Lima, the capital, and
+everywhere aroused enthusiasm for emancipation. When negotiations, which
+had been begun by the viceroy and continued by a special commissioner
+from Spain, failed to swerve the patriot leader from his demand for a
+recognition of independence, the royalists decided to evacuate the town
+and to withdraw into the mountainous region of the interior. San Martin,
+thereupon, entered the capital at the head of his army of liberation and
+summoned the inhabitants to a town meeting at which they might determine
+for themselves what action should be taken. The result was easily
+foreseen. On July 28, 1821, Peru was declared independent, and a few
+days later San Martin was invested with supreme command under the title
+of "Protector."
+
+But the triumph of the new Protector did not last long. For some reason
+he failed to understand that the withdrawal of the royalists from the
+neighborhood of the coast was merely a strategic retreat that made the
+occupation of the capital a more or less empty performance. This blunder
+and a variety of other mishaps proved destined to blight his military
+career. Unfortunate in the choice of his subordinates and unable to
+retain their confidence; accused of irresolution and even of cowardice;
+abandoned by Cochrane, who sailed off to Chile and left the army
+stranded; incapable of restraining his soldiers from indulgence in
+the pleasures of Lima; now severe, now lax in an administration that
+alienated the sympathies of the influential class, San Martin was indeed
+an unhappy figure. It soon became clear that he must abandon all hope of
+ever conquering the citadel of Spanish power in South America unless he
+could prevail upon Bolivar to help him.
+
+A junction of the forces of the two great leaders was perfectly
+feasible, after the last important foothold of the Spaniards on the
+coast of Venezuela had been broken by the Battle of Carabobo, on July
+24, 1821. Whether such a union would be made, however, depended upon two
+things: the ultimate disposition of the province of Quito, lying
+between Colombia and Peru, and the attitude which Bolivar and San Martin
+themselves should assume toward each other. A revolution of the previous
+year at the seaport town of Guayaquil in that province had installed
+an independent government which besought the Liberator to sustain its
+existence. Prompt to avail himself of so auspicious an opportunity of
+uniting this former division of the viceroyalty of New Granada to his
+republic of Colombia, Bolivar appointed Antonio Jose de Sucre, his
+ablest lieutenant and probably the most efficient of all Spanish
+American soldiers of the time, to assume charge of the campaign. On his
+arrival at Guayaquil, this officer found the inhabitants at odds among
+themselves. Some, hearkening to the pleas of an agent of San Martin,
+favored union with Peru; others, yielding to the arguments of a
+representative of Bolivar, urged annexation to Colombia; still
+others regarded absolute independence as most desirable. Under these
+circumstances Sucre for a while made little headway against the
+royalists concentrated in the mountainous parts of the country despite
+the partial support he received from troops which were sent by the
+southern commander. At length, on May 24, 1822, scaling the flanks of
+the volcano of Pichincha, near the capital town of Quito itself, he
+delivered the blow for freedom. Here Bolivar, who had fought his way
+overland amid tremendous difficulties, joined him and started for
+Guayaquil, where he and San Martin were to hold their memorable
+interview.
+
+No characters in Spanish American history have called forth so much
+controversy about their respective merits and demerits as these two
+heroes of independence--Bolivar and San Martin. Even now it seems quite
+impossible to obtain from the admirers of either an opinion that does
+full justice to both; and foreigners who venture to pass judgment are
+almost certain to provoke criticism from one set of partisans or the
+other. Both Bolivar and San Martin were sons of country gentlemen,
+aristocratic by lineage and devoted to the cause of independence.
+Bolivar was alert, dauntless, brilliant, impetuous, vehemently
+patriotic, and yet often capricious, domineering, vain, ostentatious,
+and disdainful of moral considerations--a masterful man, fertile in
+intellect, fluent in speech and with pen, an inspiring leader and one
+born to command in state and army. Quite as earnest, equally courageous,
+and upholding in private life a higher standard of morals, San Martin
+was relatively calm, cautious, almost taciturn in manner, and slower in
+thought and action. He was primarily a soldier, fitted to organize
+and conduct expeditions, rather than, a man endowed with that supreme
+confidence in himself which brings enthusiasm, affection, and loyalty in
+its train.
+
+When San Martin arrived at Guayaquil, late in July, 1822, his hope of
+annexing the province of Quito to Peru was rudely shattered by the news
+that Bolivar had already declared it a part of Colombia. Though it was
+outwardly cordial and even effusive, the meeting of the two men held out
+no prospect of accord. In an interchange of views which lasted but a
+few hours, mutual suspicion, jealousy, and resentment prevented their
+reaching an effective understanding. The Protector, it would seem,
+thought the Liberator actuated by a boundless ambition that would not
+endure resistance. Bolivar fancied San Martin a crafty schemer plotting
+for his own advancement. They failed to agree on the three fundamental
+points essential to their further cooperation. Bolivar declined to give
+up the province of Quito. He refused also to send an army into Peru
+unless he could command it in person, and then he declined to undertake
+the expedition on the ground that as President of Colombia he ought
+not to leave the territory of the republic. Divining this pretext, San
+Martin offered to serve under his orders--a feint that Bolivar parried
+by protesting that he would not hear of any such self-denial on the part
+of a brother officer.
+
+Above all, the two men differed about the political form to be adopted
+for the new independent states. Both of them realized that anything like
+genuine democracies was quite impossible of attainment for many years
+to come, and that strong administrations would be needful to tide the
+Spanish Americans over from the political inexperience of colonial days
+and the disorders of revolution to intelligent self-government, which
+could come only after a practical acquaintance with public concerns on
+a large scale. San Martin believed that a limited monarchy was the best
+form of government under the circumstances. Bolivar held fast to the
+idea of a centralized or unitary republic, in which actual power should
+be exercised by a life president and an hereditary senate until the
+people, represented in a lower house, should have gained a sufficient
+amount of political experience.
+
+When San Martin returned to Lima he found affairs in a worse state than
+ever. The tyrannical conduct of the officer he had left in charge had
+provoked an uprising that made his position insupportable. Conscious
+that his mission had come to an end and certain that, unless he gave
+way, a collision with Bolivar was inevitable, San Martin resolved to
+sacrifice himself lest harm befall the common cause in which both had
+done such yeoman service. Accordingly he resigned his power into the
+hands of a constituent congress and left the country. But when he found
+that no happier fortune awaited him in Chile and in his own native
+land, San Martin decided to abandon Spanish America forever and go into
+selfimposed exile. Broken in health and spirit, he took up his residence
+in France, a recipient of bounty from a Spaniard who had once been his
+comrade in arms.
+
+Meanwhile in the Mexican part of the viceroyalty of New Spain the cry
+of independence raised by Morelos and his bands of Indian followers had
+been stifled by the capture and execution of the leader. But the cause
+of independence was not dead even if its achievement was to be entrusted
+to other hands. Eager to emulate the example of their brethren in South
+America, small parties of Spaniards and Creoles fought to overturn
+the despotic rule of Ferdinand VII, only to encounter defeat from the
+royalists. Then came the Revolution of 1820 in the mother country.
+Forthwith demands were heard for a recognition of the liberal regime.
+Fearful of being displaced from power, the viceroy with the support of
+the clergy and aristocracy ordered Agustin de Iturbide, a Creole
+officer who had been an active royalist, to quell an insurrection in the
+southern part of the country.
+
+The choice of this soldier was unfortunate. Personally ambitious and
+cherishing in secret the thought of independence, Iturbide, faithless
+to his trust, entered into negotiations with the insurgents which
+culminated February 24, 1821, in what was called the "Plan of Iguala."
+It contained three main provisions, or "guarantees," as they were
+termed: the maintenance of the Catholic religion to the exclusion of
+all others; the establishment of a constitutional monarchy separate from
+Spain and ruled by Ferdinand himself, or, if he declined the honor,
+by some other European prince; and the union of Mexicans and Spaniards
+without distinction of caste or privilege. A temporary government also,
+in the form of a junta presided over by the viceroy, was to be created;
+and provision was made for the organization of an "Army of the Three
+Guarantees."
+
+Despite opposition from the royalists, the plan won increasing favor.
+Powerless to thwart it and inclined besides to a policy of conciliation,
+the new viceroy, Juan O'Donoju, agreed to ratify it on condition--in
+obedience to a suggestion from Iturbide--that the parties concerned
+should be at liberty, if they desired, to choose any one as emperor,
+whether he were of a reigning family or not. Thereupon, on the 28th of
+September, the provisional government installed at the city of Mexico
+announced the consummation of an "enterprise rendered eternally
+memorable, which a genius beyond all admiration and eulogy, love and
+glory of his country, began at Iguala, prosecuted and carried into
+effect, overcoming obstacles almost insuparable"--and declared the
+independence of a "Mexican Empire." The act was followed by the
+appointment of a regency to govern until the accession of Ferdinand VII,
+or some other personage, to the imperial throne. Of this body Iturbide
+assumed the presidency, which carried with it the powers of commander in
+chief and a salary of 120,000 pesos, paid from the day on which the Plan
+of Iguala was signed. O'Donoju contented himself with membership on the
+board and a salary of one-twelfth that amount, until his speedy demise
+removed from the scene the last of the Spanish viceroys in North
+America.
+
+One step more was needed. Learning that the Cortes in Spain had rejected
+the entire scheme, Iturbide allowed his soldiers to acclaim him emperor,
+and an unwilling Congress saw itself obliged to ratify the choice. On
+July 21, 1822, the destinies of the country were committed to the charge
+of Agustin the First.
+
+As in the area of Mexico proper, so in the Central American part of the
+viceroyalty of New Spain, the Spanish Revolution of 1820 had unexpected
+results. Here in the five little provinces composing the captaincy
+general of Guatemala there was much unrest, but nothing of a serious
+nature occurred until after news had been brought of the Plan of Iguala
+and its immediate outcome. Thereupon a popular assembly met at the
+capital town of Guatemala, and on September 15, 1821, declared the
+country an independent state. This radical act accomplished, the patriot
+leaders were unable to proceed further. Demands for the establishment
+of a federation, for a recognition of local autonomy, for annexation to
+Mexico, were all heard, and none, except the last, was answered. While
+the "Imperialists" and "Republicans" were arguing it out, a message
+from Emperor Agustin announced that he would not allow the new state
+to remain independent. On submission of the matter to a vote of the
+cabildos, most of them approved reunion with the northern neighbor.
+Salvador alone among the provinces held out until troops from Mexico
+overcame its resistance.
+
+On the continents of America, Spain had now lost nearly all its its
+possessions. In 1822 the United States had already acquired East Florida
+on its own account, led off in recognizing the independence of the
+several republics. Only in Peru and Charcas the royalists still battled
+on behalf of the mother country. In the West Indies, Santo Domingo
+followed the lead of its sister colonies on the mainland by asserting in
+1821 its independence; but its brief independent life was snuffed out
+by the negroes of Haiti, once more a republic, who spread their control
+over the entire island. Cuba also felt the impulse of the times. But,
+apart from the agitation of secret societies like the "Rays and Suns of
+Bolivar," which was soon checked, the colony remained tranquil.
+
+In Portuguese America the knowledge of what had occurred throughout the
+Spanish dominions could not fail to awaken a desire for independence.
+The Prince Regent was well aware of the discontent of the Brazilians,
+but he thought to allay it by substantial concessions. In 1815 he
+proceeded to elevate the colony to substantial equality with the mother
+country by joining them under the title of "United Kingdom of Portugal,
+Brazil, and the Algarves." The next year the Prince Regent himself
+became King under the name of John IV. The flame of discontent,
+nevertheless, continued to smolder. Republican outbreaks, though quelled
+without much difficulty, recurred. Even the reforms which had been
+instituted by John himself while Regent, and which had assured freer
+communication with the world at large, only emphasized more and more the
+absurdity of permitting a feeble little land like Portugal to retain its
+hold upon a region so extensive and valuable as Brazil.
+
+The events of 1820 in Portugal hastened the movement toward
+independence. Fired by the success of their Spanish comrades, the
+Portuguese liberals forthwith rose in revolt, demanded the establishment
+of a limited monarchy, and insisted that the King return to his people.
+In similar fashion, also, they drew up a constitution which provided for
+the representation of Brazil by deputies in a future Cortes. Beyond this
+they would concede no special privileges to the colony. Indeed their
+idea seems to have been that, with the King once more in Lisbon, their
+own liberties would be secure and those of Brazil would be reduced to
+what were befitting a mere dependency. Yielding to the inevitable, the
+King decided to return to Portugal, leaving the young Crown Prince to
+act as Regent in the colony. A critical moment for the little country
+and its big dominion oversea had indubitably arrived. John understood
+the trend of the times, for on the eve of his departure he said to his
+son: "Pedro, if Brazil is to separate itself from Portugal, as seems
+likely, you take the crown yourself before any one else gets it!"
+
+Pedro was liberal in sentiment, popular among the Brazilians, and
+well-disposed toward the aspirations of the country for a larger
+measure of freedom, and yet not blind to the interests of the dynasty of
+Braganza. He readily listened to the urgent pleas of the leaders of the
+separatist party against obeying the repressive mandaes of the Cortes.
+Laws which abolished the central government of the colony and made
+the various provinces individually subject to Portugal he declined to
+notice. With equal promptness he refused to heed an order bidding him
+return to Portugal immediately. To a delegation of prominent Brazilians
+he said emphatically: "For the good of all and the general welfare of
+the nation, I shall stay." More than that, in May, 1822, he accepted
+from the municipality of Rio de Janeiro the title of "Perpetual and
+Constitutional Defender of Brazil," and in a series of proclamations
+urged the people of the country to begin the great work of emancipation
+by forcibly resisting, if needful, any attempt at coercion.
+
+Pedro now believed the moment had come to take the final step. While on
+a journey through the province of Sao Paulo, he was overtaken on the 7th
+of September, near a little stream called the Ypiranga, by messengers
+with dispatches from Portugal. Finding that the Cortes had annulled
+his acts and declared his ministers guilty of treason, Pedro forthwith
+proclaimed Brazil an independent state. The "cry of Ypiranga" was echoed
+with tremendous enthusiasm throughout the country. When Pedro appeared
+in the theater at Rio de Janeiro, a few days later, wearing on his arm a
+ribbon on which were inscribed the words "Independence or Death," he was
+given a tumultuous ovation. On the first day of December the youthful
+monarch assumed the title of Emperor, and Brazil thereupon took its
+place among the nations of America.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. PLOUGHING THE SEA
+
+When the La Plata Congress at Tucuman took the decisive action that
+severed the bond with Spain, it uttered a prophecy for all Spanish
+America. To quote its language: "Vast and fertile regions, climates
+benign and varied, abundant means of subsistence, treasures of gold
+and silver... and fine productions of every sort will attract to our
+continent innumerable thousands of immigrants, to whom we shall open a
+safe place of refuge and extend a beneficent protection." More hopeful
+still were the words of a spokesman for another independent country:
+"United, neither the empire of the Assyrians, the Medes or the Persians,
+the Macedonian or the Roman Empire, can ever be compared with this
+colossal republic."
+
+Very different was the vision of Bolivar. While a refugee in Jamaica he
+wrote: "We are a little human species; we possess a world apart... new
+in almost all the arts and sciences, and yet old, after a fashion, in
+the uses of civil society.... Neither Indians nor Europeans, we are a
+species that lies midway .... Is it conceivable that a people recently
+freed of its chains can launch itself into the sphere of liberty without
+shattering its wings, like Icarus, and plunging into the abyss? Such a
+prodigy is inconceivable, never beheld." Toward the close of his
+career he declared: "The majority are mestizos, mulattoes, Indians,
+and negroes. An ignorant people is a blunt instrument for its own
+destruction. To it liberty means license, patriotism means disloyalty,
+and justice means vengeance." "Independence," he exclaimed, "is the only
+good we have achieved, at the cost of everything else."
+
+Whether the abounding confidence of the prophecy or the anxious doubt of
+the vision would come true, only the future could tell. In 1822, at all
+events, optimism was the watchword and the total exclusion of Spain from
+South America the goal of Bolivar and his lieutenants, as they started
+southward to complete the work of emancipation which had been begun by
+San Martin.
+
+The patriots of Peru, indeed, had fallen into straits so desperate that
+an appeal to the Liberator offered the only hope of salvation. While the
+royalists under their able and vigilant leader, Jose Canterac, continued
+to strengthen their grasp upon the interior of the country and to uphold
+the power of the viceroy, the President chosen by the Congress had been
+driven by the enemy from Lima. A number of the legislators in wrath
+thereupon declared the President deposed. Not to be outdone, that
+functionary on his part declared the Congress dissolved. The malcontents
+immediately proceeded to elect a new chief magistrate, thus bringing
+two Presidents into the field and inaugurating a spectacle destined to
+become all too common in the subsequent annals of Spanish America.
+
+When Bolivar arrived at Callao, the seaport of Lima, in September, 1823,
+he acted with prompt vigor. He expelled one President, converted the
+other into a passive instrument of his will, declined to promulgate a
+constitution that the Congress had prepared, and, after obtaining from
+that body an appointment to supreme command, dissolved the Congress
+without further ado. Unfortunately none of these radical measures had
+any perceptible effect upon the military situation. Though Bolivar
+gathered together an army made up of Colombians, Peruvians, and remnants
+of San Martin's force, many months elapsed before he could venture upon
+a serious campaign. Then events in Spain played into his hands. The
+reaction that had followed the restoration of Ferdinand VII to absolute
+power crossed the ocean and split the royalists into opposing factions.
+Quick to seize the chance thus afforded, Bolivar marched over the
+Andes to the plain of Junin. There, on August 6, 1824, he repelled an
+onslaught by Canterac and drove that leader back in headlong flight.
+Believing, however, that the position he held was too perilous to risk
+an offensive, he entrusted the military command to Sucre and returned to
+headquarters.
+
+The royalists had now come to realize that only a supreme effort could
+save them. They must overwhelm Sucre before reinforcements could reach
+him, and to this end an army of upwards of ten thousand was assembled.
+On the 9th of December it encountered Sucre and his six thousand
+soldiers in the valley of Ayacucho, or "Corner of Death," where the
+patriot general had entrenched his army with admirable skill. The result
+was a total defeat for the royalists--the Waterloo of Spain in South
+America. The battle thus won by ragged and hungry soldiers--whose
+countersign the night before had been "bread and cheese"--threw off the
+yoke of the mother country forever. The viceroy fell wounded into their
+hands and Canterac surrendered. On receipt of the glorious news,
+the people of Lima greeted Bolivar with wild enthusiasm. A Congress
+prolonged his dictatorship amid adulations that bordered on the
+grotesque.
+
+Eastward of Peru in the vast mountainous region of Charcas, on the
+very heights of South America, the royalists still found a refuge. In
+January, 1825, a patriot general at the town of La Paz undertook on his
+own responsibility to declare the entire province independent, alike of
+Spain, Peru, and the United Provinces of La Plata. This action was too
+precipitous, not to say presumptuous, to suit Bolivar and Sucre. The
+better to control the situation, the former went up to La Paz and the
+latter to Chuquisaca, the capital, where a Congress was to assemble
+for the purpose of imparting a more orderly turn to affairs. Under the
+direction of the "Marshal of Ayacucho," as Sucre was now called,
+the Congress issued on the 6th of August a formal declaration of
+independence. In honor of the Liberator it christened the new republic
+"Bolivar"--later Latinized into "Bolivia"--and conferred upon him the
+presidency so long as he might choose to remain. In November, 1896, a
+new Congress which had been summoned to draft a constitution accepted,
+with slight modifications, an instrument that the Liberator himself had
+prepared. That body also renamed the capital "Sucre" and chose the hero
+of Ayacucho as President of the republic.
+
+Now, the Liberator thought, was the opportune moment to impose upon
+his territorial namesake a constitution embodying his ideas of a stable
+government which would give Spanish Americans eventually the political
+experience they needed. Providing for an autocracy represented by a life
+President, it ran the gamut of aristocracy and democracy, all the way
+from "censors" for life, who were to watch over the due enforcement of
+the laws, down to senators and "tribunes" chosen by electors, who in
+turn were to be named by a select citizenry. Whenever actually present
+in the territory of the republic, the Liberator was to enjoy supreme
+command, in case he wished to exercise it.
+
+In 1826 Simon Bolivar stood at the zenith of his glory and power. No
+adherents of the Spanish regime were left in South America to menace the
+freedom of its independent states. In January a resistance kept up for
+nine years by a handful of royalists lodged on the remote island of
+Chiloe, off the southern coast of Chile, had been broken, and the
+garrison at the fortress of Callao had laid down its arms after a
+valiant struggle. Among Spanish Americans no one was comparable to the
+marvelous man who had founded three great republics stretching from the
+Caribbean Sea to the Tropic of Capricorn. Hailed as the "Liberator"
+and the "Terror of Despots," he was also acclaimed by the people as the
+"Redeemer, the First-Born Son of the New World!" National destinies
+were committed to his charge, and equestrian statues were erected in
+his honor. In the popular imagination he was ranked with Napoleon as a
+peerless conqueror, and with Washington as the father of his country.
+That megalomania should have seized the mind of the Liberator under
+circumstances like these is not strange.
+
+Ever a zealous advocate of large states, Bolivar was an equally ardent
+partisan of confederation. As president of three republics--of
+Colombia actually, and of its satellites, Peru and Bolivia, through his
+lieutenants--he could afford now to carry out the plan that he had long
+since cherished of assembling at the town of Panama, on Colombian soil,
+an "august congress" representative of the independent countries of
+America. Here, on the isthmus created by nature to join the continents,
+the nations created by men should foregather and proclaim fraternal
+accord. Presenting to the autocratic governments of Europe a solid front
+of resistance to their pretensions as well as a visible symbol of unity
+in sentiment, such a Congress by meeting periodically would also promote
+friendship among the republics of the western hemisphere and supply a
+convenient means of settling their disputes.
+
+At this time the United States was regarded by its sister republics with
+all the affection which gratitude for services rendered to the cause
+of emancipation could evoke. Was it not itself a republic, its people a
+democracy, its development astounding, and its future radiant with
+hope? The pronouncement of President Monroe, in 1823, protesting against
+interference on the part of European powers with the liberties of
+independent America, afforded the clearest possible proof that the
+great northern republic was a natural protector, guide, and friend
+whose advice and cooperation ought to be invoked. The United States was
+accordingly asked to take part in the assembly--not to concert military
+measures, but simply to join its fellows to the southward in a solemn
+proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine by America at large and to discuss
+means of suppressing the slave trade.
+
+The Congress that met at Panama, in June, 1826, afforded scant
+encouragement to Bolivar's roseate hope of interAmerican solidarity.
+Whether because of the difficulties of travel, or because of internal
+dissensions, or because of the suspicion that the megalomania of the
+Liberator had awakened in Spanish America, only the four continental
+countries nearest the isthmus--Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and
+Peru--were represented. The delegates, nevertheless, signed a compact
+of "perpetual union, league, and confederation," provided for mutual
+assistance to be rendered by the several nations in time of war, and
+arranged to have the Areopagus of the Americas transferred to Mexico.
+None of the acts of this Congress was ratified by the republics
+concerned, except the agreement for union, which was adopted by
+Colombia.
+
+Disheartening to Bolivar as this spectacle was, it proved merely the
+first of a series of calamities which were to overshadow the later years
+of the Liberator. His grandiose political structure began to crumble,
+for it was built on the shifting sands of a fickle popularity. The
+more he urged a general acceptance of the principles of his autocratic
+constitution, the surer were his followers that he coveted royal honors.
+In December he imposed his instrument upon Peru. Then he learned that
+a meeting in Venezuela, presided over by Paez, had declared itself in
+favor of separation from Colombia. Hardly had he left Peru to check this
+movement when an uprising at Lima deposed his representative and led
+to the summons of a Congress which, in June, 1827, restored the former
+constitution and chose a new President. In Quito, also, the government
+of the unstable dictator was overthrown.
+
+Alarmed by symptoms of disaffection which also appeared in the western
+part of the republic, Bolivar hurried to Bogota. There in the hope
+of removing the growing antagonism, he offered his "irrevocable"
+resignation, as he had done on more than one occasion before. Though the
+malcontents declined to accept his withdrawal from office, they insisted
+upon his calling a constitutional convention. Meeting at Ocana, in
+April, 1828, that body proceeded to abolish the life tenure of the
+presidency, to limit the powers of the executive, and to increase
+those of the legislature. Bolivar managed to quell the opposition in
+dictatorial fashion; but his prestige had by this time fallen so low
+that an attempt was made to assassinate him. The severity with which he
+punished the conspirators served only to diminish still more the popular
+confidence which he had once enjoyed. Even in Bolivia his star of
+destiny had set. An outbreak of Colombian troops at the capital forced
+the faithful Sucre to resign and leave the country. The constitution was
+then modified to meet the demand for a less autocratic government, and a
+new chief magistrate was installed.
+
+Desperately the Liberator strove to ward off the impending collapse.
+Though he recovered possession of the division of Quito, a year of
+warfare failed to win back Peru, and he was compelled to renounce all
+pretense of governing it. Feeble in body and distracted in mind, he
+condemned bitterly the machinations of his enemies. "There is no good
+faith in Colombia," he exclaimed, "neither among men nor among nations.
+Treaties are paper; constitutions, books; elections, combats; liberty,
+anarchy, and life itself a torment."
+
+But the hardest blow was yet to fall. Late in December, 1829, an
+assembly at Caracas declared Venezuela a separate state. The great
+republic was rent in twain, and even what was left soon split apart.
+In May, 1830, came the final crash. The Congress at Bogota drafted a
+constitution, providing for a separate republic to bear the old Spanish
+name of "New Granada," accepted definitely the resignation of Bolivar,
+and granted him a pension. Venezuela, his native land, set up a congress
+of its own and demanded that he be exiled. The division of Quito
+declared itself independent, under the name of the "Republic of the
+Equator" (Ecuador). Everywhere the artificial handiwork of the Liberator
+lay in ruins. "America is ungovernable. Those who have served in the
+revolution have ploughed the sea," was his despairing cry.
+
+Stricken to death, the fallen hero retired to an estate near Santa
+Marta. Here, like his famous rival, San Martin, in France, he found
+hospitality at the hands of a Spaniard. On December 17, 1830, the
+Liberator gave up his troubled soul.
+
+While Bolivar's great republic was falling apart, the United Provinces
+of La Plata had lost practically all semblance of cohesion. So broad
+were their notions of liberty that the several provinces maintained a
+substantial independence of one another, while within each province the
+caudillos, or partisan chieftains, fought among themselves.
+
+Buenos Aires alone managed to preserve a measure of stability. This
+comparative peace was due to the financial and commercial measures
+devised by Bernardino Rivadavia, one of the most capable statesmen of
+the time, and to the energetic manner in which disorder was suppressed
+by Juan Manuel de Rosas, commander of the gaucho, or cowboy, militia.
+Thanks also to the former leader, the provinces were induced in 1826 to
+join in framing a constitution of a unitary character, which vested in
+the administration at Buenos Aires the power of appointing the local
+governors and of controlling foreign affairs. The name of the
+country was at the same time changed to that of the "Argentine
+Confederation"(c)-a Latin rendering of "La Plata."
+
+No sooner had Rivadavia assumed the presidency under the new order of
+things than dissension at home and warfare abroad threatened to destroy
+all that he had accomplished. Ignoring the terms of the constitution,
+the provinces had already begun to reject the supremacy of Buenos
+Aires, when the outbreak of a struggle with Brazil forced the contending
+parties for a while to unite in the face of the common enemy. As
+before, the object of international dispute was the region of the Banda
+Oriental. The rule of Brazil had not been oppressive, but the people
+of its Cisplatine Province, attached by language and sympathy to their
+western neighbors, longed nevertheless to be free of foreign control. In
+April, 1825, a band of thirty-three refugees arrived from Buenos Aires
+and started a revolution which spread throughout the country. Organizing
+a provisional government, the insurgents proclaimed independence of
+Brazil and incorporation with the United Provinces of La Plata. As soon
+as the authorities at Buenos Aires had approved this action, war was
+inevitable. Though the Brazilians were decisively beaten at the Battle
+of Ituzaingo, on February 20, 1827, the struggle lasted until August 28,
+1828, when mediation by Great Britain led to the conclusion of a treaty
+at Rio de Janeiro, by which both Brazil and the Argentine Confederation
+recognized the absolute independence of the disputed province as the
+republic of Uruguay.
+
+Instead of quieting the discord that prevailed among the Argentinos,
+these victories only fomented trouble. The federalists had ousted
+Rivadavia and discarded the constitution, but the federal idea for
+which they stood had several meanings. To an inhabitant of Buenos Aires
+federalism meant domination by the capital, not only over the province
+of the same name but over the other provinces; whereas, to the people of
+the provinces, and even to many of federalist faith in the province
+of Buenos Aires itself, the term stood for the idea of a loose
+confederation in which each provincial governor or chieftain should be
+practically supreme in his own district, so long as he could maintain
+himself. The Unitaries were opponents of both, except in so far as their
+insistence upon a centralized form of government for the nation would
+necessarily lead to the location of that government at Buenos Aires.
+This peculiar dual contest between the town and the province of Buenos
+Aires, and of the other provinces against either or both, persisted for
+the next sixty years. In 1829, however, a prolonged lull set in, when
+Rosas, the gaucho leader, having won in company with other caudillos
+a decisive triumph over the Unitaries, entered the capital and took
+supreme command.
+
+In Chile the course of events had assumed quite a different aspect.
+Here, in 1818, a species of constitution had been adopted by popular
+vote in a manner that appeared to show remarkable unanimity, for the
+books in which the "ayes" and "noes" were to be recorded contained
+no entries in the negative! What the records really prove is that
+O'Higgins, the Supreme Director, enjoyed the confidence of the ruling
+class. In exercise of the autocratic power entrusted to him, he now
+proceeded to introduce a variety of administrative reforms of signal
+advantage to the moral and material welfare of the country. But as the
+danger of conquest from any quarter lessened, the demand for a more
+democratic organization grew louder, until in 1822 it became so
+persistent that O'Higgins called a convention to draft a new fundamental
+law. But its provisions suited neither himself nor his opponents.
+Thereupon, realizing that his views of the political capacity of the
+people resembled those of Bolivar and were no longer applicable, and
+that his reforms had aroused too much hostility, the Supreme Director
+resigned his post and retired to Peru. Thus another hero of emancipation
+had met the ingratitude for which republics are notorious.
+
+Political convulsions in the country followed the abdication of
+O'Higgins. Not only had the spirit of the strife between Unitaries and
+Federalists been communicated to Chile from the neighboring republic
+to the eastward, but two other parties or factions, divided on still
+different lines, had arisen. These were the Conservative and the
+Liberal, or Bigwigs (pelucones) and Greenhorns (pipiolos), as the
+adherents of the one derisively dubbed the partisans of the other.
+Although in the ups and downs of the struggle two constitutions were
+adopted, neither sufficed to quiet the agitation. Not until 1830, when
+the Liberals sustained an utter defeat on the field of battle, did the
+country enter upon a period of quiet progress along conservative lines.
+From that time onward it presented a surprising contrast to its fellow
+republics, which were beset with afflictions.
+
+Far to the northward, the Empire of Mexico set up by Iturbide in 1822
+was doomed to a speedy fall. "Emperor by divine providence," that
+ambitious adventurer inscribed on his coins, but his countrymen knew
+that the bayonets of his soldiers were the actual mainstay of his
+pretentious title. Neither his earlier career nor the size of his
+following was sufficiently impressive to assure him popular support if
+the military prop gave way. His lavish expenditures, furthermore, and
+his arbitrary replacement of the Congress by a docile body which would
+authorize forced loans at his command, steadily undermined his position.
+Apart from the faults of Iturbide himself, the popular sentiment of a
+country bordering immediately upon the United States could not fail to
+be colored by the ideas and institutions of its great neighbor. So, too,
+the example of what had been accomplished, in form at least, by their
+kinsmen elsewhere in America was bound to wield a potent influence on
+the minds of the Mexicans. As a result, their desire for a republic grew
+stronger from day to day.
+
+Iturbide, in fact, had not enjoyed his exalted rank five months when
+Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, a young officer destined later to become a
+conspicuous figure in Mexican history, started a revolt to replace
+the "Empire" by a republic. Though he failed in his object, two of
+Iturbide's generals joined the insurgents in demanding a restoration of
+the Congress--an act which, as the hapless "Emperor" perceived, would
+amount to his dethronement. Realizing his impotence, Iturbide summoned
+the Congress and announced his abdication. But instead of recognizing
+this procedure, that body declared his accession itself null and void;
+it agreed, however, to grant him a pension if he would leave the country
+and reside in Italy. With this disposition of his person Iturbide
+complied; but he soon wearied of exile and persuaded himself that he
+would not lack supporters if he tried to regain his former control
+in Mexico. This venture he decided to make in complete ignorance of a
+decree ordering his summary execution if he dared to set foot again on
+Mexican soil. He had hardly landed in July, 1824, when he was seized and
+shot.
+
+Since a constituent assembly had declared itself in favor of
+establishing a federal form of republic patterned after that of the
+United States, the promulgation of a constitution followed on October 4,
+1824, and Guadalupe Victoria, one of the leaders in the revolt against
+Iturbide, was chosen President of the United Mexican States. Though
+considerable unrest prevailed toward the close of his term, the new
+President managed to retain his office for the allotted four years. In
+most respects, however, the new order of things opened auspiciously. In
+November, 1825, the surrender of the fortress of San Juan de Ulua, in
+the harbor of Vera Cruz, banished the last remnant of Spanish power,
+and two years later the suppression of plots for the restoration
+of Ferdinand VII, coupled with the expulsion of a large number of
+Spaniards, helped to restore calm. There were those even who dared to
+hope that the federal system would operate as smoothly in Mexico as it
+had done in the United States.
+
+But the political organization of a country so different from its
+northern neighbor in population, traditions, and practices, could not
+rest merely on a basis of imitation, even more or less modified. The
+artificiality of the fabric became apparent enough as soon as ambitious
+individuals and groups of malcontents concerted measures to mold it into
+a likeness of reality. Two main political factions soon appeared. For
+the form they assumed British and American influences were responsible.
+Adopting a kind of Masonic organization, the Conservatives and
+Centralists called themselves Escoceses (Scottish-Rite Men), whereas
+the Radicals and Federalists took the name of Yorkinos (York-Rite Men).
+Whatever their respective slogans and professions of political faith,
+they were little more than personal followers of rival generals or
+politicians who yearned to occupy the presidential chair.
+
+Upon the downfall of Iturbide, the malcontents in Central America
+bestirred themselves to throw off the Mexican yoke. On July 1,1823, a
+Congress declared the region an independent republic under the name of
+the "United Provinces of Central America." In November of the next year,
+following the precedent established in Mexico, and obedient also to
+local demand, the new republic issued a constitution, in accordance
+with which the five little divisions of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador,
+Nicaragua, and Costa Rica were to become states of a federal union, each
+having the privilege of choosing its own local authorities. Immediately
+Federalists and Centralists, Radicals and Conservatives, all wished, it
+would seem, to impose their particular viewpoint upon their fellows.
+The situation was not unlike that in the Argentine Confederation. The
+efforts of Guatemala--the province in which power had been concentrated
+under the colonial regime--to assert supremacy over its fellow states,
+and their refusal to respect either the federal bond or one another's
+rights made civil war inevitable. The struggle which broke out among
+Guatemala, Salvador, and Honduras, lasted until 1829, when Francisco
+Morazan, at the head of the "Allied Army, Upholder of the Law," entered
+the capital of the republic and assumed dictatorial power.
+
+Of all the Hispanic nations, however, Brazil was easily the most stable.
+Here the leaders, while clinging to independence, strove to avoid
+dangerous innovations in government. Rather than create a political
+system for which the country was not prepared, they established a
+constitutional monarchy. But Brazil itself was too vast and its interior
+too difficult of access to allow it to become all at once a unit, either
+in organization or in spirit. The idea of national solidarity had as yet
+made scant progress. The old rivalry which existed between the provinces
+of the north, dominated by Bahia or Pernambuco, and those of the south,
+controlled by Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo, still made itself felt. What
+the Empire amounted to, therefore, was an agglomeration of provinces,
+held together by the personal prestige of a young monarch.
+
+Since the mother country still held parts of northern Brazil, the
+Emperor entrusted the energetic Cochrane, who had performed such valiant
+service for Chile and Peru, with the task of expelling the foreign
+soldiery. When this had been accomplished and a republican outbreak
+in the same region had been suppressed, the more difficult task of
+satisfying all parties by a constitution had to be undertaken. There
+were partisans of monarchy and advocates of republicanism, men of
+conservative and of liberal sympathies; disagreements, also, between the
+Brazilians and the native Portuguese residents were frequent. So far as
+possible Pedro desired to meet popular desires, and yet without imposing
+too many limitations on the monarchy itself. But in the assembly called
+to draft the constitution the liberal members made a determined effort
+to introduce republican forms. Pedro thereupon dissolved that body and
+in 1826 promulgated a constitution of his own.
+
+The popularity of the Emperor thereafter soon began to wane, partly
+because of the scandalous character of his private life, and partly
+because he declined to observe constitutional restrictions and chose his
+ministers at will. His insistent war in Portugal to uphold the claims
+of his daughter to the throne betrayed, or seemed to betray, dynastic
+ambitions. His inability to hold Uruguay as a Brazilian province, and
+his continued retention of foreign soldiers who had been employed in the
+struggle with the Argentine Confederation, for the apparent purpose of
+quelling possible insurrections in the future, bred much discontent. So
+also did the restraints he laid upon the press, which had been infected
+by the liberal movements in neighboring republics. When he failed
+to subdue these outbreaks, his rule became all the more discredited.
+Thereupon, menaced by a dangerous uprising at Rio de Janeiro in 1831, he
+abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Pedro, then five years of age,
+and set sail for Portugal.
+
+Under the influence of Great Britain the small European mother country
+had in 1825 recognized the independence of its big transatlantic
+dominion; but it was not until 1836 that the Cortes of Spain authorized
+the Crown to enter upon negotiations looking to the same action in
+regard to the eleven republics which had sprung out of its colonial
+domain. Even then many years elapsed before the mother country
+acknowledged the independence of them all.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS
+
+Independence without liberty and statehood without respect for law are
+phrases which sum up the situation in Spanish America after the failure
+of Bolivar's "great design." The outcome was a collection of
+crude republics, racked by internal dissension and torn by mutual
+jealousy--patrias bobas, or "foolish fatherlands," as one of their own
+writers has termed them.
+
+Now that the bond of unity once supplied by Spain had been broken, the
+entire region which had been its continental domain in America dissolved
+awhile into its elements. The Spanish language, the traditions and
+customs of the dominant class, and a "republican" form of government,
+were practically the sole ties which remained. Laws, to be sure, had
+been enacted, providing for the immediate or gradual abolition of
+negro slavery and for an improvement in the status of the Indian and
+half-caste; but the bulk of the inhabitants, as in colonial times,
+remained outside of the body politic and social. Though the so-called
+"constitutions" might confer upon the colored inhabitants all the
+privileges and immunities of citizens if they could read and write,
+and even a chance to hold office if they could show possession of a
+sufficient income or of a professional title of some sort, their usual
+inability to do either made their privileges illusory. Their only share
+in public concerns lay in performing military service at the behest of
+their superiors. Even where the language of the constitutions did
+not exclude the colored inhabitants directly or indirectly, practical
+authority was exercised by dictators who played the autocrat, or by
+"liberators" who aimed at the enjoyment of that function themselves.
+
+Not all the dictators, however, were selfish tyrants, nor all the
+liberators mere pretenders. Disturbed conditions bred by twenty years
+of warfare, antique methods of industry, a backward commerce, inadequate
+means of communication, and a population ignorant, superstitious, and
+scant, made a strong ruler more or less indispensable. Whatever his
+official designation, the dictator was the logical successor of
+the Spanish viceroy or captain general, but without the sense of
+responsibility or the legal restraint of either. These circumstances
+account for that curious political phase in the development of the
+Spanish American nations--the presidential despotism.
+
+On the other hand, the men who denounced oppression, unscrupulousness,
+and venality, and who in rhetorical pronunciamentos urged the
+"people" to overthrow the dictators, were often actuated by motives of
+patriotism, even though they based their declarations on assumptions
+and assertions, rather than on principles and facts. Not infrequently a
+liberator of this sort became "provisional president" until he
+himself, or some person of his choice, could be elected "constitutional
+president"--two other institutions more or less peculiar to Spanish
+America.
+
+In an atmosphere of political theorizing mingled with ambition for
+personal advancement, both leaders and followers were professed devotees
+of constitutions. No people, it was thought, could maintain a real
+republic and be a true democracy if they did not possess a written
+constitution. The longer this was, the more precise its definition
+of powers and liberties, the more authentic the republic and the more
+genuine the democracy was thought to be. In some countries the notion
+was carried still farther by an insistence upon frequent changes in the
+fundamental law or in the actual form of government, not so much to meet
+imperative needs as to satisfy a zest for experimentation or to suit the
+whims of mercurial temperaments. The congresses, constituent assemblies,
+and the like, which drew these instruments, were supposed to be faithful
+reproductions of similar bodies abroad and to represent the popular
+will. In fact, however, they were substantially colonial cabildos,
+enlarged into the semblance of a legislature, intent upon local or
+personal concerns, and lacking any national consciousness. In any case
+the members were apt to be creatures of a republican despot or else
+delegates of politicians or petty factions.
+
+Assuming that the leaders had a fairly clear conception of what they
+wanted, even if the mass of their adherents did not, it is possible to
+aline the factions or parties somewhat as follows: on the one hand, the
+unitary, the military, the clerical, the conservative, and the moderate;
+on the other, the federalist, the civilian, the lay, the liberal, and the
+radical. Interspersed among them were the advocates of a presidential or
+congressional system like that of the United States, the upholders of a
+parliamentary regime like that of European nations, and the supporters
+of methods of government of a more experimental kind. Broadly speaking,
+the line of cleavage was made by opinions, concerning the form of
+government and by convictions regarding the relations of Church and
+State. These opinions were mainly a product of revolutionary experience;
+these convictions, on the other hand, were a bequest from colonial
+times.
+
+The Unitaries wished to have a system of government modeled upon that
+of France. They wanted the various provinces made into administrative
+districts over which the national authority should exercise full sway.
+Their direct opponents, the Federalists, resembled to some extent the
+Antifederalists rather than the party bearing the former title in the
+earlier history of the United States; but even here an exact
+analogy fails. They did not seek to have the provinces enjoy local
+self-government or to have perpetuated the traditions of a sort of
+municipal home rule handed down from the colonial cabildos, so much
+as to secure the recognition of a number of isolated villages or small
+towns as sovereign states--which meant turning them over as fiefs to
+their local chieftains. Federalism, therefore, was the Spanish American
+expression for a feudalism upheld by military lordlets and their
+retainers.
+
+Among the measures of reform introduced by one republic or another
+during the revolutionary period, abolition of the Inquisition had been
+one of the foremost; otherwise comparatively little was done to curb
+the influence of the Church. Indeed the earlier constitutions regularly
+contained articles declaring Roman Catholicism the sole legal faith as
+well as the religion of the state, and safeguarding in other respects
+its prestige in the community. Here was an institution, wealthy, proud,
+and influential, which declined to yield its ancient prerogatives and
+privileges and to that end relied upon the support of clericals and
+conservatives who disliked innovations of a democratic sort and viewed
+askance the entry of immigrants professing an alien faith. Opposed
+to the Church stood governments verging on bankruptcy, desirous of
+exercising supreme control, and dominated by individuals eager to put
+theories of democracy into practice and to throw open the doors of the
+republic freely to newcomers from other lands. In the opinion of these
+radicals the Church ought to be deprived both of its property and of its
+monopoly of education. The one should be turned over to the nation,
+to which it properly belonged, and should be converted into public
+utilities; the other should be made absolutely secular, in order to
+destroy clerical influence over the youthful mind. In this program
+radicals and liberals concurred with varying degrees of intensity,
+while the moderates strove to hold the balance between them and their
+opponents.
+
+Out of this complex situation civil commotions were bound to arise.
+Occasionally these were real wars, but as a rule only skirmishes or
+sporadic insurrections occurred. They were called "revolutions," not
+because some great principle was actually at stake but because the term
+had been popular ever since the struggle with Spain. As a designation
+for movements aimed at securing rotation in office, and hence control of
+the treasury, it was appropriate enough! At all events, whether serious
+or farcical, the commotions often involved an expenditure in life and
+money far beyond the value of the interests affected. Further, both
+the prevalent disorder and the centralization of authority impelled the
+educated and well-to-do classes to take up their residence at the seat
+of government. Not a few of the uprisings were, in fact, protests on
+the part of the neglected folk in the interior of the country against
+concentration of population, wealth, intellect, and power in the Spanish
+American capitals.
+
+Among the towns of this sort was Buenos Aires. Here, in 1829, Rosas
+inaugurated a career of rulership over the Argentine Confederation,
+culminating in a despotism that made him the most extraordinary figure
+of his time. Originally a stockfarmer and skilled in all the exercises
+of the cowboy, he developed an unusual talent for administration. His
+keen intelligence, supple statecraft, inflexibility of purpose, and
+vigor of action, united to a shrewd understanding of human follies and
+passions, gave to his personality a dominance that awed and to his word
+of command a power that humbled. Over his fellow chieftains who held the
+provinces in terrorized subjection, he won an ascendancy that insured
+compliance with his will. The instincts of the multitude he flattered
+by his generous simplicity, while he enlisted the support of the
+responsible class by maintaining order in the countryside. The desire,
+also, of Buenos Aires to be paramount over the other provinces had no
+small share in strengthening his power.
+
+Relatively honest in money matters, and a stickler for precision and
+uniformity, Rosas sought to govern a nation in the rough-and-ready
+fashion of the stock farm. A creature of his environment, no better
+and no worse than his associates, but only more capable than they,
+and absolutely convinced that pitiless autocracy was the sole means of
+creating a nation out of chaotic fragments, this "Robespierre of
+South America" carried on his despotic sway, regardless of the fury of
+opponents and the menace of foreign intervention.
+
+During the first three years of his control, however, except for the
+rigorous suppression of unitary movements and the muzzling of the press,
+few signs appeared of the "black night of Argentine history" which was
+soon to close down on the land. Realizing that the auspicious moment had
+not yet arrived for him to exercise the limitless power that he
+thought needful, he declined an offer of reelection from the provincial
+legislature, in the hope that, through a policy of conciliation, his
+successor might fall a prey to the designs of the Unitaries. When this
+happened, he secretly stirred up the provinces into a renewal of the
+earlier disturbances, until the evidence became overwhelming that Rosas
+alone could bring peace and progress out of turmoil and backwardness.
+Reluctantly the legislature yielded him the power it knew he wanted.
+This he would not accept until a "popular" vote of some 9000 to 4
+confirmed the choice. In 1835, accordingly, he became dictator for the
+first of four successive terms of five years.
+
+Then ensued, notably in Buenos Aires itself, a state of affairs at once
+grotesque and frightful. Not content with hunting down and inflicting
+every possible, outrage upon those suspected of sympathy with the
+Unitaries, Rosas forbade them to display the light blue and white colors
+of their party device and directed that red, the sign of Federalism,
+should be displayed on all occasions. Pink he would not tolerate as
+being too attenuated a shade and altogether too suggestive of political
+trimming! A band of his followers, made up of ruffians, and called the
+Mazorca, or "Ear of Corn," because of the resemblance of their close
+fellowship to its adhering grains, broke into private houses, destroyed
+everything light blue within reach, and maltreated the unfortunate
+occupants at will. No man was safe also who did not give his face a
+leonine aspect by wearing a mustache and sidewhiskers--emblems, the one
+of "federalism," and the other of "independence." To possess a visage
+bare of these hirsute adornments or a countenance too efflorescent
+in that respect was, under a regime of tonsorial politics, to invite
+personal disaster! Nothing apparently was too cringing or servile to
+show how submissive the people were to the mastery of Rosas. Private
+vengeance and defamation of the innocent did their sinister work
+unchecked. Even when his arbitrary treatment of foreigners had compelled
+France for a while to institute a blockade of Buenos Aires, the wily
+dictator utilized the incident to turn patriotic resentment to his own
+advantage.
+
+Meanwhile matters in Uruguay had come to such a pass that Rosas saw an
+opportunity to extend his control in that direction also. Placed
+between Brazil and the Argentine Confederation and so often a bone of
+contention, the little country was hardly free from the rule of the
+former state when it came near falling under the domination of the
+latter. Only a few years of relative tranquillity had elapsed when two
+parties sprang up in Uruguay: the "Reds" (Colorados) and the "Whites"
+(Blancos). Of these, the one was supposed to represent the liberal and
+the other the conservative element. In fact, they were the followings
+of partisan chieftains, whose struggles for the presidency during many
+years to come retarded the advancement of a country to which nature had
+been generous.
+
+When Fructuoso Rivera, the President up to 1835, thought of choosing
+some one to be elected in constitutional fashion as his successor, he
+unwisely singled out Manuel Oribe, one of the famous "Thirty-three" who
+had raised the cry of independence a decade before. But instead of a
+henchman he found a rival. Both of them straightway adopted the colors
+and bid for the support of one of the local factions; and both appealed
+to the factions of the Argentine Confederation for aid, Rivera to the
+Unitaries and Oribe to the Federalists. In 1843, Oribe, at the head of
+an army of Blancos and Federalists and with the moral support of Rosas,
+laid siege to Montevideo. Defended by Colorados, Unitaries, and numerous
+foreigners, including Giuseppe Garibaldi, the town held out valiantly
+for eight years--a feat that earned for it the title of the "New Troy."
+Anxious to stop the slaughter and destruction that were injuring their
+nationals, France, Great Britain, and Brazil offered their mediation;
+but Rosas would have none of it. What the antagonists did he cared
+little, so long as they enfeebled the country and increased his
+chances of dominating it. At length, in 1845, the two European powers
+established a blockade of Argentine ports, which was not lifted
+until the dictator grudgingly agreed to withdraw his troops from the
+neighboring republic.
+
+More than any other single factor, this intervention of France and Great
+Britain administered a blow to Rosas from which he could not recover.
+The operations of their fleets and the resistance of Montevideo had
+lowered the prestige of the dictator and had raised the hopes of
+the Unitaries that a last desperate effort might shake off his hated
+control. In May, 1851, Justo Jose de Urquiza, one of his most trusted
+lieutenants, declared the independence of his own province and called
+upon the others to rise against the tyrant. Enlisting the support
+of Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, he assembled a "great army of
+liberation," composed of about twenty-five thousand men, at whose head
+he marched to meet the redoubtable Rosas. On February 3,1852, at a spot
+near Buenos Aires, the man of might who, like his contemporary Francia
+in Paraguay, had held the Argentine Confederation in thralldom for so
+many years, went down to final defeat. Embarking on a British warship he
+sailed for England, there to become a quiet country gentleman in a land
+where gauchos and dictators were unhonored.
+
+In the meantime Paraguay, spared from such convulsion as racked its
+neighbor on the east, dragged on its secluded existence of backwardness
+and stagnation. Indians and half-castes vegetated in ignorance and
+docility, and the handful of whites quaked in terror, while the
+inexorable Francia tightened the reins of commercial and industrial
+restriction and erected forts along the frontiers to keep out the
+pernicious foreigner. At his death, in 1840, men and women wept at his
+funeral in fear perchance, as one historian remarks, lest he come
+back to life; and the priest who officiated at the service likened the
+departed dictator to Caesar and Augustus!
+
+Paraguay was destined, however, to fall under a despot far worse than
+Francia when in 1862 Francisco Solano Lopez became President. The new
+ruler was a man of considerable intelligence and education. While a
+traveler in Europe he had seen much of its military organizations, and
+he had also gained no slight acquaintance with the vices of its capital
+cities. This acquired knowledge he joined to evil propensities until
+he became a veritable monster of wickedness. Vain, arrogant, reckless,
+absolutely devoid of scruple, swaggering in victory, dogged in defeat,
+ferociously cruel at all times, he murdered his brothers and his best
+friends; he executed, imprisoned, or banished any one whom he thought
+too influential; he tortured his mother and sisters; and, like the
+French Terrorists, he impaled his officers upon the unpleasant dilemma
+of winning victories or losing their lives. Even members of the American
+legation suffered torment at his hands, and the minister himself barely
+escaped death.
+
+Over his people, Lopez wielded a marvelous power, compounded of
+persuasive eloquence and brute force. If the Paraguayans had obeyed
+their earlier masters blindly, they were dumb before this new despot
+and deaf to other than his word of command. To them he was the "Great
+Father," who talked to them in their own tongue of Guarani, who was
+the personification of the nation, the greatest ruler in the world, the
+invincible champion who inspired them with a loathing and contempt for
+their enemies. Such were the traits of a man and such the traits of a
+people who waged for six years a warfare among the most extraordinary in
+human annals.
+
+What prompted Lopez to embark on his career of international madness and
+prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision
+of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause
+Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he
+disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his
+imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two
+huge neighbors and threatened with suffocation between their overlapping
+folds, may well have suggested the wisdom of conquering overland a
+highway to the sea. At all events, he assembled an army of upwards of
+ninety thousand men, the greatest military array that Hispanic America
+had ever seen. Though admirably drilled and disciplined, they were
+poorly armed, mostly with flintlock muskets, and they were also
+deficient in artillery except that of antiquated pattern. With this
+mighty force at his back, yet knowing that the neighboring countries
+could eventually call into the field armies much larger in size equipped
+with repeating rifles and supplied with modern artillery, the "Jupiter
+of Paraguay" nevertheless made ready to launch his thunderbolt.
+
+The primary object at which he aimed was Uruguay. In this little state
+the Colorados, upheld openly or secretly by Brazil and Argentina, were
+conducting a "crusade of liberty" against the Blanco government at
+Montevideo, which was favored by Paraguay. Neither of the two great
+powers wished to see an alliance formed between Uruguay and Paraguay,
+lest when united in this manner the smaller nations might become too
+strong to tolerate further intervention in their affairs. For her part,
+Brazil had motives for resentment arising out of boundary disputes with
+Paraguay and Uruguay, as well as out of the inevitable injury to its
+nationals inflicted by the commotions in the latter country; whereas
+Argentina cherished grievances against Lopez for the audacity with which
+his troops roamed through her provinces and the impudence with which his
+vessels, plying on the lower Parana, ignored the customs regulations.
+Thus it happened that obscure civil discords in one little republic
+exploded into a terrific international struggle which shook South
+America to its foundations.
+
+In 1864, scorning the arts of diplomacy which he did not apparently
+understand, Lopez sent down an order for the two big states to leave the
+matter of Uruguayan politics to his impartial adjustment. At both Rio
+de Janeiro and Buenos Aires a roar of laughter went up from the press at
+this notion of an obscure chieftain of a band of Indians in the tropical
+backwoods daring to poise the equilibrium of much more than half a
+continent on his insolent hand. But the merriment soon subsided, as
+Brazilians and Argentinos came to realize what their peril might be
+from a huge army of skilled and valiant soldiers, a veritable horde of
+fighting fanatics, drawn up in a compact little land, centrally located
+and affording in other respects every kind of strategic advantage.
+
+When Brazil invaded Uruguay and restored the Colorados to power, Lopez
+demanded permission from Argentina to cross its frontier, for the
+purpose of assailing his enemy from another quarter. When the permission
+was denied, Lopez declared war on Argentina also. It was in every
+respect a daring step, but Lopez knew that Argentina was not so well
+prepared as his own state for a war of endurance. Uruguay then entered
+into an alliance in 1865 with its two big "protectors." In accordance
+with its terms, the allies agreed not to conclude peace until Lopez had
+been overthrown, heavy indemnities had been exacted of Paraguay, its
+fortifications demolished, its army disbanded, and the country forced to
+accept any boundaries that the victors might see fit to impose.
+
+Into the details of the campaigns in the frightful conflict that
+ensued it is not necessary to enter. Although, in 1866, the allies had
+assembled an army of some fifty thousand men, Lopez continued taking
+the offensive until, as the number and determination of his adversaries
+increased, he was compelled to retreat into his own country. Here he and
+his Indian legions levied terrific toll upon the lives of their enemies
+who pressed onward, up or down the rivers and through tropical swamps
+and forests. Inch by inch he contested their entry upon Paraguayan
+soil. When the able-bodied men gave out, old men, boys, women, and girls
+fought on with stubborn fury, and died before they would surrender. The
+wounded escaped if they could, or, cursing their captors, tore off
+their bandages and bled to death. Disease wrought awful havoc in all the
+armies engaged; yet the struggle continued until flesh and blood could
+endure no more. Flying before his pursuers into the wilds of the north
+and frantically dragging along with him masses of fugitive men, women,
+and children, whom he remorselessly shot, or starved to death, or left
+to perish of exhaustion, Lopez turned finally at bay, and, on March 1,
+1870, was felled by the lance of a cavalryman. He had sworn to die for
+his country and he did, though his country might perish with him.
+
+No land in modern times has ever reached a point so near annihilation as
+Paraguay. Added to the utter ruin of its industries and the devastation
+of its fields, dwellings, and towns, hundreds of thousands of men,
+women, and children had perished. Indeed, the horrors that had befallen
+it might well have led the allies to ask themselves whether it was worth
+while to destroy a country in order to change its rulers. Five years
+before Lopez came into power the population of Paraguay had been
+reckoned at something between 800,000 and 1,400,000--so unreliable were
+census returns in those days. In 1878 it was estimated at about 230,000,
+of whom women over fifteen years of age outnumbered the men nearly four
+to one. Loose polygamy was the inevitable consequence, and women became
+the breadwinners. Even today in this country the excess of females over
+males is very great. All in all, it is not strange that Paraguay should
+be called the "Niobe among nations."
+
+Unlike many nations of Spanish America in which a more or less
+anticlerical regime was in the ascendant, Ecuador fell under a sort
+of theocracy. Here appeared one of the strangest characters in a story
+already full of extraordinary personages--Gabriel Garcia Moreno,
+who became President of that republic in 1861. In some respects the
+counterpart of Francia of Paraguay, in others both a medieval mystic
+and an enlightened ruler of modern type, he was a man of remarkable
+intellect, constructive ability, earnest patriotism, and disinterested
+zeal for orderliness and progress. On his presidential sash were
+inscribed the words: "My Power in the Constitution"; but is real power
+lay in himself and in the system which he implanted.
+
+Garcia Moreno had a varied career. He had been a student of chemistry
+and other natural sciences. He had spent his youth in exile in Europe,
+where he prepared himself for his subsequent career as a journalist and
+a university professor. Through it all he had been an active participant
+in public affairs. Grim of countenance, austere in bearing, violent of
+temper, relentless in severity, he was a devoted believer in the Roman
+Catholic faith and in this Church as the sole effective basis upon which
+a state could be founded or social and political regeneration could be
+assured. In order to render effective his concept of what a nation
+ought to be, Garcia Moreno introduced and upheld in all rigidity an
+administration the like of which had been known hardly anywhere since
+the Middle Ages. He recalled the Jesuits, established schools of the
+"Brothers of the Christian Doctrine," and made education a matter wholly
+under ecclesiastical control. He forbade heretical worship, called the
+country the "Republic of the Sacred Heart," and entered into a concordat
+with the Pope under which the Church in Ecuador became more subject to
+the will of the supreme pontiff than western Europe had been in the days
+of Innocent III.
+
+Liberals in and outside of Ecuador tried feebly to shake off this
+masterful theocracy, for the friendship which Garcia Moreno displayed
+toward the diplomatic representatives of the Catholic powers of Europe,
+notably those of Spain and France, excited the neighboring republics.
+Colombia, indeed, sent an army to liberate the "brother democrats of
+Ecuador from the rule of Professor Garcia Moreno," but the mass of the
+people stood loyally by their President. For this astounding obedience
+to an administration apparently so unrelated to modern ideas, the
+ecclesiastical domination was not solely or even chiefly responsible.
+In more ways than one Garcia Moreno, the professor President, was a
+statesman of vision and deed. He put down brigandage and lawlessness;
+reformed the finances; erected hospitals; promoted education; and
+encouraged the study of natural science. Even his salary he gave over to
+public improvements. His successors in the presidential office found it
+impossible to govern the country without Garcia Moreno. Elected for a
+third term to carry on his curious policy of conservatism and reaction
+blended with modern advancement, he fell by the hand of an assassin in
+1875. But the system which he had done so much to establish in Ecuador
+survived him for many years.
+
+Although Brazil did not escape the evils of insurrection which retarded
+the growth of nearly all of its neighbors, none of its numerous
+commotions shook the stability of the nation to a perilous degree. By
+1850 all danger of revolution had vanished. The country began to enter
+upon a career of peace and progress under a regime which combined
+broadly the federal organization of the United States with the form of
+a constitutional monarchy. Brazil enjoyed one of the few enlightened
+despotisms in South America. Adopting at the outset the parliamentary
+system, the Emperor Pedro II chose his ministers from among the liberals
+or conservatives, as one party or the other might possess a majority
+in the lower house of the Congress. Though the legislative power of the
+nation was enjoyed almost entirely by the planters and their associates
+who formed the dominant social class, individual liberty was fully
+guaranteed, and even freedom of conscience and of the press was allowed.
+Negro slavery, though tolerated, was not expressly recognized.
+
+Thanks to the political discretion and unusual personal qualities of
+"Dom Pedro," his popularity became more and more marked as the years
+went on. A patron of science and literature, a scholar rather than a
+ruler, a placid and somewhat eccentric philosopher, careless of the
+trappings of state, he devoted himself without stint to the public
+welfare. Shrewdly divining that the monarchical system might not survive
+much longer, he kept his realm pacified by a policy of conciliation.
+Pedro II even went so far as to call himself the best republican in the
+Empire. He might have said, with justice perhaps, that he was the best
+republican in the whole of Hispanic America. What he really accomplished
+was the successful exercise of a paternal autocracy of kindness and
+liberality over his subjects.
+
+If more or less permanent dictators and occasional liberators were the
+order of the day in most of the Spanish American republics, intermittent
+dictators and liberators dashed across the stage in Mexico from 1829
+well beyond the middle of the century. The other countries could show
+numerous instances in which the occupant of the chief magistracy held
+office to the close of his constitutional term; but Mexico could not
+show a single one! What Mexico furnished, instead, was a kaleidoscopic
+spectacle of successive presidents or dictators, an unstable array of
+self-styled "generals" without a presidential succession. There were
+no fewer than fifty such transient rulers in thirty-two years, with
+anywhere from one to six a year, with even the same incumbent twice in
+one year, or, in the case of the repetitious Santa Anna, nine times
+in twenty years--in spite of the fact that the constitutional term of
+office was four years. This was a record that made the most turbulent
+South American states seem, by comparison, lands of methodical
+regularity in the choice of their national executive. And as if this
+instability in the chief magistracy were not enough, the form of
+government in Mexico shifted violently from federal to centralized, and
+back again to federal. Mad struggles raged between partisan chieftains
+and their bands of Escoceses and Yorkinos, crying out upon the
+"President" in power because of his undue influence upon the choice of a
+successor, backing their respective candidates if they lost, and waiting
+for a chance to oust them if they won.
+
+This tumultuous epoch had scarcely begun when Spain in 1829 made a final
+attempt to recover her lost dominion in Mexico. Local quarrels were
+straightway dropped for two months until the invaders had surrendered.
+Thereupon the great landholders, who disliked the prevailing Yorkino
+regime for its democratic policies and for favoring the abolition
+of slavery, rallied to the aid of a "general" who issued a manifesto
+demanding an observance of the constitution and the laws! After Santa
+Anna, who was playing the role of a Mexican Warwick, had disposed of
+this aspirant, he switched blithely over to the Escoceses, reduced the
+federal system almost to a nullity, and in 1836 marched away to conquer
+the revolting Texans. But, instead, they conquered him and gained their
+independence, so that his reward was exile.
+
+Now the Escoceses were free to promulgate a new constitution, to abolish
+the federal arrangement altogether, and to replace it by a strongly
+centralized government under which the individual States became mere
+administrative districts. Hardly had this radical change been effected
+when in 1838 war broke out with France on account of the injuries which
+its nationals, among whom were certain pastry cooks, had suffered during
+the interminable commotions. Mexico was forced to pay a heavy indemnity;
+and Santa Anna, who had returned to fight the invader, was unfortunate
+enough to lose a leg in the struggle. This physical deprivation,
+however, did not interfere with that doughty hero's zest for tilting
+with other unquiet spirits who yearned to assure national regeneration
+by continuing to elevate and depose "presidents."
+
+Another swing of the political pendulum had restored the federal system
+when again everything was overturned by the disastrous war with the
+United States. Once more Santa Anna returned, this time, however,
+to joust in vain with the "Yankee despoilers" who were destined to
+dismember Mexico and to annex two-thirds of its territory. Again Santa
+Anna was banished--to dream of a more favorable opportunity when he
+might become the savior of a country which had fallen into bankruptcy
+and impotence.
+
+His opportunity came in 1853, when conservatives and clericals indulged
+the fatuous hope that he would both sustain their privileges and lift
+Mexico out of its sore distress. Either their memories were short
+or else distance had cast a halo about his figure. At all events,
+he returned from exile and assumed, for the ninth and last time,
+a presidency which he intended to be something more than a mere
+dictatorship. Scorning the formality of a Congress, he had himself
+entitled "Most Serene Highness," as indicative of his ambition to become
+a monarch in name as well as in fact.
+
+Royal or imperial designs had long since brought one military upstart to
+grief. They were now to cut Santa Anna's residence in Mexico similarly
+short. Eruptions of discontent broke out all over the country. Unable to
+make them subside, Santa Anna fell back upon an expedient which recalls
+practices elsewhere in Spanish America. He opened registries in which
+all citizens might record "freely" their approval or disapproval of
+his continuance in power. Though he obtained the huge majority of
+affirmative votes to be expected in such cases, he found that these
+pen-and-ink signatures were no more serviceable than his soldiers.
+Accordingly the dictator of many a day, fallen from his former estate
+of highness, decided to abandon his serenity also, and in 1854 fled the
+country--for its good and his own.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. PERIL FROM ABROAD
+
+Apart from the spoliation of Mexico by the United States, the
+independence of the Hispanic nations had not been menaced for more
+than thirty years. Now comes a period in which the plight of their big
+northern neighbor, rent in twain by civil war and powerless to enforce
+the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, caused two of the countries to become
+subject a while to European control. One of these was the Dominican
+Republic.
+
+In 1844 the Spanish-speaking population of the eastern part of the
+island of Santo Domingo, writhing under the despotic yoke of Haiti, had
+seized a favorable occasion to regain their freedom. But the magic word
+"independence" could not give stability to the new state any more than
+it had done in the case of its western foes. The Haitians had
+lapsed long since into a condition resembling that of their African
+forefathers. They reveled in the barbarities of Voodoo, a sort of snake
+worship, and they groveled before "presidents" and "emperors" who rose
+and fell on the tide of decaying civilization. The Dominicans unhappily
+were not much more progressive. Revolutions alternated with invasions
+and counter-invasions and effectually prevented enduring progress.
+
+On several occasions the Dominicans had sought reannexation to Spain
+or had craved the protection of France as a defense against continual
+menace from their negro enemies and as a relief from domestic turmoil.
+But every move in this direction failed because of a natural reluctance
+on the part of Spain and France, which was heightened by a refusal
+of the United States to permit what it regarded as a violation of the
+Monroe Doctrine. In 1861, however, the outbreak of civil war in the
+United States appeared to present a favorable opportunity to obtain
+protection from abroad. If the Dominican Republic could not remain
+independent anyway, reunion with the old mother country seemed
+altogether preferable to reconquest by Haiti. The President, therefore,
+entered into negotiations with the Spanish Governor and Captain General
+of Cuba, and then issued a proclamation signed by himself and four of
+his ministers announcing that by the "free and spontaneous will" of
+its citizens, who had conferred upon him the power to do so, the nation
+recognized Queen Isabella II as its lawful sovereign! Practically
+no protest was made by the Dominicans against this loss of their
+independence.
+
+Difficulties which should have been foreseen by Spain were quick to
+reveal themselves. It fell to the exPresident, now a colonial
+governor and captain general, to appoint a host of officials and, not
+unnaturally, he named his own henchmen. By so doing he not only aroused
+the animosity of the disappointed but stimulated that of the otherwise
+disaffected as well, until both the aggrieved factions began to plot
+rebellion. Spain, too, sent over a crowd of officials who could not
+adjust themselves to local conditions. The failure of the mother country
+to allow the Dominicans representation in the Spanish Cortes and
+its readiness to levy taxes stirred up resentment that soon ended
+in revolution. Unable to check this new trouble, and awed by the
+threatening attitude of the United States, Spain decided to withdraw
+in 1865. The Dominicans thus were left with their independence and
+a chance--which they promptly seized--to renew their commotions. So
+serious did these disturbances become that in 1869 the President of
+the reconstituted republic sought annexation to the United States but
+without success. American efforts, on the other hand, were equally
+futile to restore peace and order in the troubled country until many
+years later.
+
+The intervention of Spain in Santo Domingo and its subsequent withdrawal
+could not fail to have disastrous consequences in its colony of Cuba,
+the "Pearl of the Antilles" as it was proudly called. Here abundant
+crops of sugar and tobacco had brought wealth and luxury, but not many
+immigrants because of the havoc made by epidemics of yellow fever.
+Nearly a third of the insular population was still composed of negro
+slaves, who could hardly relish the thought that, while the mother
+country had tolerated the suppression of the hateful institution in
+Santo Domingo, she still maintained it in Cuba. A bureaucracy, also,
+prone to corruption owing to the temptations of loose accounting at the
+custom house, governed in routinary, if not in arbitrary, fashion.
+Under these circumstances dislike for the suspicious and repressive
+administration of Spain grew apace, and secret societies renewed their
+agitation for its overthrow. The symptoms of unrest were aggravated by
+the forced retirement of Spain from Santo Domingo. If the Dominicans
+had succeeded so well, it ought not to be difficult for a prolonged
+rebellion to wear Spain out and compel it to abandon Cuba also. At this
+critical moment news was brought of a Spanish revolution across the
+seas.
+
+Just as the plight of Spain in 1808, and again in 1820, had afforded a
+favorable opportunity for its colonies on the continents of America to
+win their independence, so now in 1868 the tidings that Queen Isabella
+had been dethroned by a liberal uprising aroused the Cubans to action
+under their devoted leader, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. The insurrection
+had not gained much headway, however, when the provisional government of
+the mother country instructed a new Governor and Captain General--whose
+name, Dulce (Sweet), had an auspicious sound--to open negotiations with
+the insurgents and to hold out the hope of reforms. But the royalists,
+now as formerly, would listen to no compromise. Organizing themselves
+into bodies of volunteers, they drove Dulce out. He was succeeded by one
+Caballero de Rodas (Knight of Rhodes) who lived up to his name by trying
+to ride roughshod over the rebellious Cubans. Thus began the Ten Years'
+War--a war of skirmishes and brief encounters, rarely involving a
+decisive action, which drenched the soil of Cuba with blood and laid
+waste its fields in a fury of destruction.
+
+Among the radicals and liberals who tried to retain a fleeting control
+over Mexico after the final departure of Santa Anna was the first
+genuine statesman it had ever known in its history as a republic--Benito
+Pablo Juarez, an Indian. At twelve years of age he could not read
+or write or even speak Spanish. His employer, however, noted his
+intelligence and had him educated. Becoming a lawyer, Juarez entered
+the political arena and rose to prominence by dint of natural talent
+for leadership, an indomitable perseverance, and a sturdy patriotism. A
+radical by conviction, he felt that the salvation of Mexico could never
+be attained until clericalism and militarism had been banished from its
+soil forever.
+
+Under his influence a provisional government had already begun a
+policy of lessening the privileges of the Church, when the conservative
+elements, with a cry that religion was being attacked, rose up in arms
+again. This movement repressed, a Congress proceeded in 1857 to issue
+a liberal constitution which was destined to last for sixty years. It
+established the federal system in a definite fashion, abolished special
+privileges, both ecclesiastical and military, and organized the country
+on sound bases worthy of a modern nation. Mexico seemed about to enter
+upon a rational development. But the newly elected President, yielding
+to the importunities of the clergy, abolished the constitution,
+dissolved the legislature, and set up a dictatorship, in spite of the
+energetic protests of Juarez, who had been chosen Chief Justice of the
+Supreme Court, and who, in accordance with the terms of the temporarily
+discarded instrument, was authorized to assume the presidency should
+that office fall vacant. The rule of the usurper was short-lived,
+however. Various improvised "generals" of conservative stripe put
+themselves at the head of a movement to "save country, religion, and the
+rights of the army," drove the would-be dictator out, and restored the
+old regime.
+
+Juarez now proclaimed himself acting President, as he was legally
+entitled to do, and set up his government at Vera Cruz while one
+"provisional president" followed another. Throughout this trying time
+Juarez defended his position vigorously and rejected every offer
+of compromise. In 1859 he promulgated his famous Reform Laws which
+nationalized ecclesiastical property, secularized cemeteries, suppressed
+religious communities, granted freedom of worship, and made marriage
+a civil contract. For Mexico, however, as for other Spanish American
+countries, measures of the sort were far too much in advance of their
+time to insure a ready acceptance. Although Juarez obtained a great
+moral victory when his government was recognized by the United States,
+he had to struggle two years more before he could gain possession of the
+capital. Triumphant in 1861, he carried his anticlerical program to the
+point of actually expelling the Papal Nuncio and other ecclesiastics
+who refused to obey his decrees. By so doing he leveled the way for
+the clericals, conservatives, and the militarists to invite foreign
+intervention on behalf of their desperate cause. But, even if they had
+not been guilty of behavior so unpatriotic, the anger of the Pope over
+the treatment of his Church, the wrath of Spain over the conduct of
+Juarez, who had expelled the Spanish minister for siding with the
+ecclesiastics, the desire of Great Britain to collect debts due to her
+subjects, and above all the imperialistic ambitions of Napoleon III, who
+dreamt of converting the intellectual influence of France in Hispanic
+America into a political ascendancy, would probably have led to European
+occupation in any event, so long at least as the United States was slit
+asunder and incapable of action.
+
+Some years before, the Mexican Government under the clerical and
+militarist regime had made a contract with a Swiss banker who for a
+payment of $500,000 had received bonds worth more than fifteen times the
+value of the loan. When, therefore, the Mexican Congress undertook to
+defer payments on a foreign debt that included the proceeds of this
+outrageous contract, the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Spain
+decided to intervene. According to their agreement the three powers were
+simply to hold the seaports of Mexico and collect the customs duties
+until their pecuniary demands had been satisfied. Learning, however,
+that Napoleon III had ulterior designs, Great Britain and Spain withdrew
+their forces and left him to proceed with his scheme of conquest. After
+capturing Puebla in May, 1863, a French army numbering some thirty
+thousand men entered the capital and installed an assemblage of notables
+belonging to the clerical and conservative groups. This body thereupon
+proclaimed the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under an
+emperor. The title was to be offered to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria.
+In case he should not accept, the matter was to be referred to the
+"benevolence of his majesty, the Emperor of the French," who might then
+select some other Catholic prince.
+
+On his arrival, a year later, the amiable and well-meaning Maximilian
+soon discovered that, instead of being an "Emperor," he was actually
+little more than a precarious chief of a faction sustained by the
+bayonets of a foreign army. In the northern part of Mexico, Juarez,
+Porfirio Diaz,--later to become the most renowned of presidential
+autocrats,--and other patriot leaders, though hunted from place to
+place, held firmly to their resolve never to bow to the yoke of the
+pretender. Nor could Maximilian be sure of the loyalty of even his
+supposed adherents. Little by little the unpleasant conviction intruded
+itself upon him that he must either abdicate or crush all resistance in
+the hope that eventually time and good will might win over the Mexicans.
+But do what they would, his foreign legions could not catch the wary
+and stubborn Juarez and his guerrilla lieutenants, who persistently wore
+down the forces of their enemies. Then the financial situation became
+grave. Still more menacing was the attitude of the United States now
+that its civil war was at an end. On May 31, 1866, Maximilian received
+word that Napoleon III had decided to withdraw the French troops.
+He then determined to abdicate, but he was restrained by the unhappy
+Empress Carlotta, who hastened to Europe to plead his cause with
+Napoleon. Meantime, as the French troops were withdrawn, Juarez occupied
+the territory.
+
+Feebly the "Emperor" strove to enlist the favor of his adversaries by a
+number of liberal decrees; but their sole result was his abandonment
+by many a lukewarm conservative. Inexorably the patriot armies closed
+around him until in May, 1867, he was captured at Queretaro, where he
+had sought refuge. Denied the privilege of leaving the country on a
+promise never to return, he asked Escobedo, his captor, to treat him
+as a prisoner of war. "That's my business," was the grim reply. On the
+pretext that Maximilian had refused to recognize the competence of the
+military court chosen to try him, Juarez gave the order to shoot him.
+On the 19th of June the Austrian archduke paid for a fleeting glory
+with his life. Thus failed the second attempt at erecting an empire in
+Mexico. For thirty-four years diplomatic relations between that country
+and Austria-Hungary were severed. The clerical-military combination had
+been overthrown, and the Mexican people had rearmed their independence.
+As Juarez declared: "Peace means respect for the rights of others."
+
+Even if foreign dreams of empire in Mexico had vanished so abruptly, it
+could hardly be expected that a land torn for many years by convulsions
+could become suddenly tranquil. With Diaz and other aspirants to
+presidential power, or with chieftains who aimed at setting up little
+republics of their own in the several states, Juarez had to contend for
+some time before he could establish a fair amount of order. Under his
+successor, who also was a civilian, an era of effective reform began. In
+1873 amendments to the constitution declared Church and State absolutely
+separate and provided for the abolition of peonage--a provision which
+was more honored in, the breach than in the observance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. GREATER STATES AND LESSER
+
+During the half century that had elapsed since 1826, the nations of
+Hispanic America had passed through dark ages. Their evolution had
+always been accompanied by growing pains and had at times been arrested
+altogether or unduly hastened by harsh injections of radicalism. It was
+not an orderly development through gradual modifications in the social
+and economic structure, but rather a fitful progress now assisted and
+now retarded by the arbitrary deeds of men of action, good and bad, who
+had seized power. Dictators, however, steadily decreased in number and
+gave place often to presidential autocrats who were continued in office
+by constant reelection and who were imbued with modern ideas. In 1876
+these Hispanic nations stood on the threshold of a new era. Some were
+destined to advance rapidly beyond it; others, to move slowly onward;
+and a few to make little or no progress.
+
+The most remarkable feature in the new era was the rise of four
+states--Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile--to a position of eminence
+among their fellows. Extent of territory, development of natural
+resources, the character of the inhabitants and the increase of their
+numbers, and the amount of popular intelligence and prosperity, all
+contributed to this end. Each of the four nations belonged to a fairly
+well-defined historical and geographical group in southern North
+America, and in eastern and western South America, respectively. In
+the first group were Mexico, the republics of Central America, and the
+island countries of the Caribbean; in the second, Brazil, Argentina,
+Uruguay, and Paraguay; and in the third, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. In a
+fourth group were Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela.
+
+When the President of Mexico proceeded, in 1876, to violate the
+constitution by securing his reelection, the people were prepared by
+their earlier experiences and by the rule of Juarez to defend their
+constitutional rights. A widespread rebellion headed by Diaz broke
+out. In the so-called "Plan of Tuxtepec" the revolutionists declared
+themselves in favor of the principle of absolutely no reelection.
+Meantime the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court handed down a decision
+that the action of the Congress in sustaining the President was illegal,
+since in reality no elections had been held because of the abstention
+of voters and the seizure of the polls by revolutionists or government
+forces. "Above the constitution, nothing; above the constitution, no
+one," he declared. But as this assumption of a power of judgment on
+matters of purely political concern was equally a violation of the
+constitution and concealed, besides, an attempt to make the Chief
+Justice President, Diaz and his followers drove both of the pretenders
+out. Then in 1876 he managed to bring about his own election instead.
+
+Porfirio Diaz was a soldier who had seen active service in nearly every
+important campaign since the war with the United States. Often himself
+in revolt against presidents, legal and illegal, Diaz was vastly more
+than an ordinary partisan chieftain. Schooled by a long experience,
+he had come to appreciate the fact that what Mexico required for its
+national development was freedom from internal disorders and a fair
+chance for recuperation. Justice, order, and prosperity, he felt, could
+be assured only by imposing upon the country the heavy weight of an iron
+hand. Foreign capital must be invested in Mexico and then protected;
+immigration must be encouraged, and other material, moral, and
+intellectual aid of all sorts must be drawn from abroad for the
+upbuilding of the nation.
+
+To effect such a transformation in a land so tormented and impoverished
+as Mexico--a country which, within the span of fifty-five years had
+lived under two "emperors," and some thirty-six presidents, nine
+"provisional presidents," ten dictators, twelve "regents," and five
+"supreme councilors"--required indeed a masterful intelligence and a
+masterful authority. Porfirio Diaz possessed and exercised both. He was,
+in fact, just the man for the times. An able administrator, stern and
+severe but just, rather reserved in manner and guarded in utterance,
+shrewd in the selection of associates, and singularly successful in
+his dealings with foreigners, he entered upon a "presidential reign" of
+thirty-five years broken by but one intermission of four--which brought
+Mexico out upon the highway to new national life.
+
+Under the stable and efficient rulership of Diaz, "plans,"
+"pronunciamentos," "revolutions," and similar devices of professional
+trouble makers, had short shrift. Whenever an uprising started, it was
+promptly quelled, either by a well-disciplined army or by the rurales,
+a mounted police made up to some extent of former bandits to whom the
+President gave the choice of police service or of sharp punishment for
+their crimes. Order, in fact, was not always maintained, nor was justice
+always meted out, by recourse to judges and courts. Instead, a novel
+kind of lynch law was invoked. The name it bore was the ley fuga, or
+"flight law," in accordance with which malefactors or political suspects
+taken by government agents from one locality to another, on the excuse
+of securing readier justice, were given by their captors a pretended
+chance to escape and were then shot while they ran! The only difference
+between this method and others of the sort employed by Spanish American
+autocrats to enforce obedience lay in its purpose. Of Diaz one might say
+what Bacon said of King Henry VII: "He drew blood as physicians do, to
+save life rather than to spill it." If need be, here and there, disorder
+and revolt were stamped out by terrorism; but the Mexican people did not
+yield to authority from terror but rather from a thorough loyalty to the
+new regime.
+
+Among the numerous measures of material improvement which Diaz undertook
+during his first term, the construction of railways was the most
+important. The size of the country, its want of navigable rivers, and
+its relatively small and widely scattered population, made imperative
+the establishment of these means of communication. Despite the
+misgivings of many intelligent Mexicans that the presence of foreign
+capital would impair local independence in some way, Diaz laid the
+foundations of future national prosperity by granting concessions to
+the Mexican Central and National Mexican companies, which soon began
+construction. Under his successor a national bank was created; and
+when Diaz was again elected he readjusted the existing foreign debt and
+boldly contracted new debts abroad.
+
+At the close of his first term, in 1880, a surplus in the treasury was
+not so great a novelty as the circumstance altogether unique in the
+political annals of Mexico-that Diaz turned over the presidency
+in peaceful fashion to his properly elected successor! He did so
+reluctantly, to be sure, but he could not afford just yet to ignore his
+own avowed principle, which had been made a part of the constitution
+shortly after his accession. Although the confidence he reposed in that
+successor was not entirely justified, the immense personal popularity
+of Diaz saved the prestige of the new chief magistrate. Under his
+administration the constitution was amended in such a way as to deprive
+the Chief Justice of the privilege of replacing the President in case
+of a vacancy, thus eliminating that official from politics. After his
+resumption of office, Diaz had the fundamental law modified anew, so
+as to permit the reelection of a President for one term only! For this
+change, inconsistent though it may seem, Diaz was not alone responsible.
+Circumstances had changed, and the constitution had to change with them.
+
+Had the "United Provinces of Central America," as they came forth from
+under the rule of Spain, seen fit to abstain from following in the
+unsteady footsteps of Mexico up to the time of the accession of Diaz to
+power, had they done nothing more than develop their natural wealth and
+utilize their admirable geographical situation, they might have become
+prosperous and kept their corporate name. As it was, their history
+for upwards of forty years had little to record other than a
+momentary cohesion and a subsequent lapse into five quarrelsome little
+republics--the "Balkan States" of America. Among them Costa Rica had
+suffered least from arbitrary management or internal commotion and
+showed the greatest signs of advancement.
+
+In Guatemala, however, there had arisen another Diaz, though a man quite
+inferior in many respects to his northern counterpart. When Justo Rufino
+Barrios became President of that republic in 1873 he was believed
+to have conservative leanings. Ere long, however, he astounded his
+compatriots by showing them that he was a thoroughgoing radical with
+methods of action to correspond to his convictions. Not only did he
+keep the Jesuits out of the country but he abolished monastic orders
+altogether and converted their buildings to public use. He made marriage
+a civil contract and he secularized the burying grounds. Education
+he encouraged by engaging the services of foreign instructors, and he
+brought about a better observance of the law by the promulgation of
+new codes. He also introduced railways and telegraph lines. Since
+the manufacture of aniline dyes abroad had diminished the demand for
+cochineal, Barrios decided to replace this export by cultivating coffee.
+To this end, he distributed seeds among the planters and furnished
+financial aid besides, with a promise to inspect the fields in due
+season and see what had been accomplished. Finding that in many cases
+the seeds had been thrown away and the money wasted in drink and
+gambling, he ordered the guilty planters to be given fifty lashes, with
+the assurance that on a second offense he would shoot them on sight.
+Coffee planting in Guatemala was pursued thereafter with much alacrity!
+
+Posts in the government service Barrios distributed quite impartially
+among Conservatives and Democrats, deserving or otherwise, for he had
+them both well under control. At his behest a permanent constitution was
+promulgated in 1880. While he affected to dislike continual reelection,
+he saw to it nevertheless that he himself should be the sole candidate
+who was likely to win.
+
+Barrios doubtless could have remained President of Guatemala for
+the term of his natural life if he had not raised up the ghost of
+federation. All the republics of Central America accepted his invitation
+in 1876 to send delegates to his capital to discuss the project. But
+nothing was accomplished because Barrios and the President of Salvador
+were soon at loggerheads. Nine years later, feeling himself stronger,
+Barrios again proposed federation. But the other republics had by this
+time learned too much of the methods of the autocrat of Guatemala, even
+while they admired his progressive policy, to relish the thought of a
+federation dominated by Guatemala and its masterful President. Though
+he "persuaded" Honduras to accept the plan, the three other republics
+preferred to unite in self-defense, and in the ensuing struggle the
+quixotic Barrios was killed. A few years later the project was revived
+and the constitution of a "Republic of Central America" was agreed upon,
+when war between Guatemala and Salvador again frustrated its execution.
+
+In Brazil two great movements were by this time under way: the total
+abolition of slavery and the establishment of a republic. Despite the
+tenacious opposition of many of the planters, from about the year 1883
+the movement for emancipation made great headway. There was a growing
+determination on the part of the majority of the inhabitants to remove
+the blot that made the country an object of reproach among the civilized
+states of the world. Provinces and towns, one after another, freed
+the slaves within their borders. The imperial Government, on its part,
+hastened the process by liberating its own slaves and by imposing upon
+those still in bondage taxes higher than their market value; it fixed a
+price for other slaves; it decreed that the older slaves should be set
+free; and it increased the funds already appropriated to compensate
+owners of slaves who should be emancipated. In 1887 the number of slaves
+had fallen to about 720,000, worth legally about $650 each. A year later
+came the final blow, when the Princess Regent assented to a measure
+which abolished slavery outright and repealed all former acts relating
+to slavery. So radical a proceeding wrought havoc in the coffee-growing
+southern provinces in particular, from which the negroes now freed
+migrated by tens of thousands to the northern provinces. Their places,
+however, were taken by Italians and other Europeans who came to work the
+plantations on a cooperative basis. All through the eighties, in fact,
+immigrants from Italy poured into the temperate regions of southern
+Brazil, to the number of nearly two hundred thousand, supplementing the
+many thousands of Germans who had settled, chiefly in the province of
+Rio Grande do Sul, thirty years before.
+
+Apart from the industrial problem thus created by the abolition of
+slavery, there seemed to be no serious political or economic questions
+before the country. Ever since 1881, when a law providing for direct
+elections was passed, the Liberals had been in full control. The old
+Dom Pedro, who had endeared himself to his people, was as much liked
+and respected as ever. But as he had grown feeble and almost blind,
+the heiress to the throne, who had marked absolutist and clerical
+tendencies, was disposed to take advantage of his infirmities.
+
+For many years, on the other hand, doctrines opposed to the principle of
+monarchy had been spread in zealous fashion by members of the military
+class, notable among whom was Deodoro da Fonseca. And now some of the
+planters longed to wreak vengeance on a ruler who had dared to
+thwart their will by emancipating the slaves. Besides this persistent
+discontent, radical republican newspapers continually stirred up fresh
+agitation. Whatever the personal service rendered by the Emperor to the
+welfare of the country, to them he represented a political system which
+deprived the provinces of much of their local autonomy and the Brazilian
+people at large of self-government.
+
+But the chief reason for the momentous change which was about to take
+place was the fact that the constitutional monarchy had really completed
+its work as a transitional government. Under that regime Brazil had
+reached a condition of stability and had attained a level of progress
+which might well enable it to govern itself. During all this time the
+influence of the Spanish American nations had been growing apace.
+Even if they had fallen into many a political calamity, they were
+nevertheless "republics," and to the South American this word had a
+magic sound. Above all, there was the potent suggestion of the success
+of the United States of North America, whose extension of its federal
+system over a vast territory suggested what Brazil with its provinces
+might accomplish in the southern continent. Hence the vast majority of
+intelligent Brazilians felt that they had become self-reliant enough
+to establish a republic without fear of lapsing into the unfortunate
+experiences of the other Hispanic countries.
+
+In 1889, when provision was made for a speedy abdication of the Emperor
+in favor of his daughter, the republican newspapers declared that a
+scheme was being concocted to exile the chief military agitators and
+to interfere with any effort on the part of the army to prevent the
+accession of the new ruler. Thereupon, on the 15th of November, the
+radicals at Rio de Janeiro, aided by the garrison, broke out in open
+revolt. Proclaiming the establishment of a federal republic under
+the name of the "United States of Brazil," they deposed the imperial
+ministry, set up a provisional government with Deodoro da Fonseca at its
+head, arranged for the election of a constitutional convention, and bade
+Dom Pedro and his family leave the country within twenty-four hours.
+
+On the 17th of November, before daybreak, the summons was obeyed. Not
+a soul appeared to bid the old Emperor farewell as he and his family
+boarded the steamer that was to bear them to exile in Europe. Though
+seemingly an act of heartlessness and ingratitude, the precaution was
+a wise one in that it averted, possible conflict and bloodshed. For the
+second time in its history, a fundamental change had been wrought in
+the political system of the nation without a resort to war! The United
+States of Brazil accordingly took its place peacefully among its fellow
+republics of the New World.
+
+Meanwhile Argentina, the great neighbor of Brazil to the southwest, had
+been gaining territory and new resources. Since the definite adoption
+of a federal constitution in 1853, this state had attained to a
+considerable degree of national consciousness under the leadership of
+able presidents such as Bartolome Mitre, the soldier and historian,
+and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the publicist and promoter of popular
+education. One evidence of this new nationalism was a widespread
+belief in the necessity of territorial expansion. Knowing that Chile
+entertained designs upon Patagonia, the Argentine Government forestalled
+any action by conducting a war of practical extermination against the
+Indian tribes of that region and by adding it to the national domain.
+The so-called "conquest of the desert" in the far south of the continent
+opened to civilization a vast habitable area of untold economic
+possibilities.
+
+In the electoral campaign of 1880 the presidential candidates were Julio
+Argentino Roca and the Governor of the province of Buenos Aires. The
+former, an able officer skilled in both arms and politics, had on
+his side the advantage of a reputation won in the struggle with the
+Patagonian Indians, the approval of the national Government, and the
+support of most of the provinces. Feeling certain of defeat at the
+polls, the partisans of the latter candidate resorted to the timeworn
+expedient of a revolt. Though the uprising lasted but twenty days, the
+diplomatic corps at the capital proffered its mediation between the
+contestants, in order to avoid any further bloodshed. The result was
+that the fractious Governor withdrew his candidacy and a radical change
+was effected in the relations of Buenos Aires, city and province, to the
+country at large. The city, together with its environs, was converted
+into a federal district and became solely and distinctively the national
+capital. Its public buildings, railways, and telegraph service, as well
+as the provincial debt, were taken over by the general Government. The
+seat of provincial authority was transferred to the village of Ensenada,
+which thereupon was rechristened La Plata.
+
+A veritable tide of wealth and general prosperity was now rolling over
+Argentina. By 1885 its population had risen to upwards of 3,000,000.
+Immigration increased to a point far beyond the wildest expectations.
+In 1889 alone about 300,000 newcomers arrived and lent their aid in
+the promotion of industry and commerce. Fields hitherto uncultivated or
+given over to grazing now bore vast crops of wheat, maize, linseed, and
+sugar. Large quantities of capital, chiefly from Great Britain, also
+poured into the country. As a result, the price of land rose high,
+and feverish speculation became the order of the day. Banks and other
+institutions of credit were set up, colonizing schemes were devised, and
+railways were laid out. To meet the demands of all these enterprises,
+the Government borrowed immense sums from foreign capitalists and issued
+vast quantities of paper money, with little regard for its ultimate
+redemption. Argentina spent huge sums in prodigal fashion on all sorts
+of public improvements in an effort to attract still more capital and
+immigration, and thus entered upon a dangerous era of inflation.
+
+Of the near neighbors of Argentina, Uruguay continued along the
+tortuous path of alternate disturbance and progress, losing many of its
+inhabitants to the greater states beyond, where they sought relative
+peace and security; while Paraguay, on the other hand, enjoyed freedom
+from civil strife, though weighed down with a war debt and untold
+millions in indemnities exacted by Argentina and Brazil, which it could
+never hope to pay. In consequence, this indebtedness was a useful club
+to brandish over powerless Paraguay whenever that little country might
+venture to question the right of either of its big neighbors to break
+the promise they had made of keeping its territory intact. Argentina,
+however, consented in 1878 to refer certain claims to the decision of
+the President of the United States. When Paraguay won the arbitration,
+it showed its gratitude by naming one of its localities Villa Hayes.
+As time went on, however, its population increased and hid many of the
+scars of war.
+
+On the western side of South America there broke out the struggle known
+as the "War of the Pacific" between Chile, on the one side, and Peru and
+Bolivia as allies on the other. In Peru unstable and corrupt governments
+had contracted foreign loans under conditions that made their repayment
+almost impossible and had spent the proceeds in so reckless and
+extravagant a fashion as to bring the country to the verge of
+bankruptcy. Bolivia, similarly governed, was still the scene of
+the orgies and carnivals which had for some time characterized its
+unfortunate history. One of its buffoon "presidents," moreover, had
+entered into boundary agreements with both Chile and Brazil, under which
+the nation lost several important areas and some of its territory on the
+Pacific. The boundaries of Bolivia, indeed, were run almost everywhere
+on purely arbitrary lines drawn with scant regard for the physical
+features of the country and with many a frontier question left wholly
+unsettled. For some years Chilean companies and speculators, aided by
+foreign capital mainly British in origin, had been working deposits
+of nitrate of soda in the province of Antofagasta, or "the desert
+of Atacama," a region along the coast to the northward belonging to
+Bolivia, and also in the provinces of Tacna, Arica, and Tarapaca, still
+farther to the northward, belonging to Peru. Because boundary lines were
+not altogether clear and because the three countries were all eager to
+exploit these deposits, controversies over this debatable ground were
+sure to rise. For the privilege of developing portions of this region,
+individuals and companies had obtained concessions from the various
+governments concerned; elsewhere, industrial free lances dug away
+without reference to such formalities.
+
+It is quite likely that Chile, whose motto was "By Right or by
+Might," was prepared to sustain the claims of its citizens by either
+alternative. At all events, scenting a prospective conflict, Chile had
+devoted much attention to the development of its naval and military
+establishment--a state of affairs which did not escape the observation
+of its suspicious neighbors.
+
+The policy of Peru was determined partly by personal motives and partly
+by reasons of state. In 1873 the President, lacking sufficient financial
+and political support to keep himself in office, resolved upon the risky
+expedient of arousing popular passion against Chile, in the hope that he
+might thereby replenish the national treasury. Accordingly he
+proceeded to pick a quarrel by ordering the deposits in Tarapaca to be
+expropriated with scant respect for the concessions made to the Chilean
+miners. Realizing, however, the possible consequences of such an
+action, he entered into an alliance with Bolivia. This country thereupon
+proceeded to levy an increased duty on the exportation of nitrates from
+the Atacama region. Chile, already aware of the hostile combination
+which had been formed, protested so vigorously that a year later Bolivia
+agreed to withdraw the new regulations and to submit the dispute to
+arbitration.
+
+Such were the relations of these three states in 1878, when Bolivia,
+taking advantage of differences of opinion between Chile and Argentina
+regarding the Patagonian region, reimposed its export duty, canceled the
+Chilean concessions, and confiscated the nitrate deposits. Chile then
+declared war in February, 1879, and within two months occupied the
+entire coast of Bolivia up to the frontiers of Peru. On his part the
+President of Bolivia was too much engrossed in the festivities connected
+with a masquerade to bother about notifying the people that their land
+had been invaded until several days after the event had occurred!
+
+Misfortunes far worse than anything which had fallen to the lot of its
+ally now awaited Peru, which first attempted an officious mediation and
+then declared war on the 4th of April. Since Peru and Bolivia together
+had a population double that of Chile, and since Peru possessed a much
+larger army and navy than Chile, the allies counted confidently on
+victory. But Peru's army of eight thousand--having within four hundred
+as many officers as men, directed by no fewer than twenty-six generals,
+and presided over by a civil government altogether inept--was no match
+for an army less than a third of its size to be sure, but well drilled
+and commanded, and with a stable, progressive, and efficient government
+at its back. The Peruvian forces, lacking any substantial support from
+Bolivia, crumpled under the terrific attacks of their adversaries.
+Efforts on the part of the United States to mediate in the struggle
+were blocked by the dogged refusal of Chile to abate its demands for
+annexation. Early in 1881 its army entered Lima in triumph, and the war
+was over.
+
+For a while the victors treated the Peruvians and their capital city
+shamefully. The Chilean soldiers stripped the national library of
+its contents, tore up the lamp-posts in the streets, carried away
+the benches in the parks, and even shipped off the local menagerie to
+Santiago! What they did not remove or destroy was disposed of by the
+rabble of Lima itself. But in two years so utterly chaotic did the
+conditions in the hapless country become that Chile at length had to set
+up a government in order to conclude a peace. It was not until October
+20, 1883, that the treaty was signed at Lima and ratified later at
+Ancon. Peru was forced to cede Tarapaca outright and to agree that Tacna
+and Arica should be held by Chile for ten years. At the expiration of
+this period the inhabitants of the two provinces were to be allowed to
+choose by vote the country to which they would prefer to belong, and the
+nation that won the election was to pay the loser 10,000,000 pesos.
+In April, 1884, Bolivia, also, entered into an arrangement with Chile,
+according to which a portion of its seacoast should be ceded absolutely
+and the remainder should be occupied by Chile until a more definite
+understanding on the matter could be reached.
+
+Chile emerged from the war not only triumphant over its northern rivals
+but dominant on the west coast of South America. Important developments
+in Chilean national policy followed. To maintain its vantage and to
+guard against reprisals, the victorious state had to keep in military
+readiness on land and sea. It therefore looked to Prussia for a pattern
+for its army and to Great Britain for a model for its navy.
+
+Peru had suffered cruelly from the war. Its territorial losses deprived
+it of an opportunity to satisfy its foreign creditors through a grant
+of concessions. The public treasury, too, was empty, and many a private
+fortune had melted away. Not until a military hand stronger than its
+competitors managed to secure a firm grip on affairs did Peru begin once
+more its toilsome journey toward material betterment.
+
+Bolivia, on its part, had emerged from the struggle practically a
+landlocked country. Though bereft of access to the sea except by
+permission of its neighbors, it had, however, not endured anything
+like the calamities of its ally. In 1880 it had adopted a permanent
+constitution and it now entered upon a course of slow and relatively
+peaceful progress.
+
+In the republics to the northward struggles between clericals and
+radicals caused sharp, abrupt alternations in government. In Ecuador the
+hostility between clericals and radicals was all the more bitter because
+of the rivalry of the two chief towns, Guayaquil the seaport and Quito
+the capital, each of which sheltered a faction. No sooner therefore had
+Garcia Moreno fallen than the radicals of Guayaquil rose up against the
+clericals at Quito. Once in power, they hunted their enemies down until
+order under a dictator could be restored. The military President who
+assumed power in 1876 was too radical to suit the clericals and too
+clerical to suit the radicals. Accordingly his opponents decided to make
+the contest three-cornered by fighting the dictator and one another.
+When the President had been forced out, a conservative took charge until
+parties of bushwhackers and mutinous soldiers were able to install a
+military leader, whose retention of power was brief. In 1888 another
+conservative, who had been absent from the country when elected and who
+was an adept in law and diplomacy, managed to win sufficient support
+from all three factions to retain office for the constitutional period.
+
+In Colombia a financial crisis had been approaching ever since the
+price of coffee, cocoa, and other Colombian products had fallen in the
+European markets. This decrease had caused a serious diminution in
+the export trade and had forced gold and silver practically out of
+circulation. At the same time the various "states" were increasing their
+powers at the expense of the federal Government, and the country was
+rent by factions. In order to give the republic a thoroughly centralized
+administration which would restore financial confidence and bring back
+the influence of the Church as a social and political factor, a genuine
+revolution, which was started in 1876, eventually put an end to both
+radicalism and states' rights. At the outset Rafael Nunez, the unitary
+and clerical candidate and a lawyer by profession, was beaten on the
+field, but at a subsequent election he obtained the requisite number of
+votes and, in 1880, assumed the presidency. That the loser in war should
+become the victor in peace showed the futility of bloodshed in such
+revolutions.
+
+Not until Nunez came into office again did he feel himself strong enough
+to uproot altogether the radicalism and disunion which had flourished
+since 1860. Ignoring the national Legislature, he called a Congress
+of his own, which in 1886 framed a constitution that converted the
+"sovereign states" into "departments," or mere administrative
+districts, to be ruled as the national Government saw fit. Further, the
+presidential term was lengthened from two years to six, and the name of
+the country was changed, finally, to "Republic of Colombia." Two years
+later the power of the Church was strengthened by a concordat with the
+Pope.
+
+Venezuela on its part had undergone changes no less marked. A liberal
+constitution promulgated in 1864 had provided for the reorganization
+of the country on a federal basis. The name chosen for the republic was
+"United States of Venezuela." More than that, it had anticipated Mexico
+and Guatemala in being the first of the Hispanic nations to witness
+the establishment of a presidential autocracy of the continuous and
+enlightened type.
+
+Antonio Guzman Blanco was the man who imposed upon Venezuela for about
+nineteen years a regime of obedience to law, and, to some extent, of
+modern ideas of administration such as the country had never known
+before. A person of much versatility, he had studied medicine and law
+before he became a soldier and a politician. Later he displayed another
+kind of versatility by letting henchmen hold the presidential office
+while he remained the power behind the throne. Endowed with a masterful
+will and a pronounced taste for minute supervision, he had exactly the
+ability necessary to rule Venezuela wisely and well.
+
+Amid considerable opposition he began, in 1870, the first of his
+three periods of administration--the Septennium, as it was termed. The
+"sovereign" states he governed through "sovereign" officials of his
+own selection. He stopped the plundering of farms and the dragging
+of laborers off to military service. He established in Venezuela an
+excellent monetary system. Great sums were expended in the erection
+of public and private buildings and in the embellishment of Caracas.
+European capital and immigration were encouraged to venture into a
+country hitherto so torn by chronic disorder as to deprive both labor
+and property of all guarantees. Roads, railways, and telegraph lines
+were constructed. The ministers of the Church were rendered submissive
+to the civil power. Primary education became alike free and compulsory.
+As the phrase went, Guzman Blanco "taught Venezuela to read." At the end
+of his term of office he went into voluntary retirement.
+
+In 1879 Guzman Blanco put himself at the head of a movement which he
+called a "revolution of replevin"--which meant, presumably, that he
+was opposed to presidential "continuism," and in favor of republican
+institutions! Although a constitution promulgated in 1881 fixed the
+chief magistrate's term of office at two years, the success which Guzman
+Blanco had attained enabled him to control affairs for five years--the
+Quinquennium, as it was called. Thereupon he procured his appointment to
+a diplomatic post in Europe; but the popular demand for his presence
+was too strong for him to remain away. In 1886 he was elected by
+acclamation. He held office two years more and then, finding that his
+influence had waned, he left Venezuela for good. Whatever his faults
+in other respects, Guzman Blanco--be it said to his credit--tried to
+destroy the pest of periodical revolutions in his country. Thanks to
+his vigorous suppression of these uprisings, some years of at least
+comparative security were made possible. More than any other President
+the nation had ever had, he was entitled to the distinction of having
+been a benefactor, if not altogether a regenerator, of his native land.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. "ON THE MARGIN OF INTERNATIONAL LIFE"
+
+During the period from 1889 to 1907 two incidents revealed the standing
+that the republics of Hispanic America had now acquired in the world
+at large. In 1889 at Washington, and later in their own capital cities,
+they met with the United States in council. In 1899, and again in 1907,
+they joined their great northern neighbor and the nations of Europe and
+Asia at The Hague for deliberation on mutual concerns, and they were
+admitted to an international fellowship and cooperation far beyond
+a mere recognition of their independence and a formal interchange of
+diplomats and consuls.
+
+Since attempts of the Hispanic countries themselves to realize the aims
+of Bolivar in calling the Congress at Panama had failed, the United
+States now undertook to call into existence a sort of inter-American
+Congress. Instead of being merely a supporter, the great republic of the
+north had resolved to become the director of the movement for greater
+solidarity in thought and action. By linking up the concerns of the
+Hispanic nations with its own destinies it would assert not so much its
+position as guardian of the Monroe Doctrine as its headship, if not its
+actual dominance, in the New World, and would so widen the bounds of its
+political and commercial influence--a tendency known as "imperialism."
+Such was the way, at least, in which the Hispanic republics came to
+view the action of the "Colossus of the North" in inviting them to
+participate in an assemblage meeting more or less periodically and
+termed officially the "International Conference of American States," and
+popularly the "Pan-American Conference."
+
+Whether the mistrust the smaller countries felt at the outset was
+lessened in any degree by the attendance of their delegates at the
+sessions of this conference remains open to question. Although these
+representatives, in common with their colleagues from the United States,
+assented to a variety of conventions and passed a much larger number of
+resolutions, their acquiescence seemed due to a desire to gratify their
+powerful associate, rather than to a belief in the possible utility of
+such measures. The experience of the earlier gatherings had demonstrated
+that political issues would have to be excluded from consideration.
+Propositions, for example, such as that to extend the basic idea of the
+Monroe Doctrine into a sort of self-denying ordinance, under which all
+the nations of America should agree to abstain thereafter from acquiring
+any part of one another's territory by conquest, and to adopt, also, the
+principle of compulsory arbitration, proved impossible of acceptance.
+Accordingly, from that time onward the matters treated by the Conference
+dealt for the most part with innocuous, though often praiseworthy,
+projects for bringing the United States and its sister republics into
+closer commercial, industrial, and intellectual relations.
+
+The gathering itself, on the other hand, became to a large extent a
+fiesta, a festive occasion for the display of social amenities. Much
+as the Hispanic Americans missed their favorite topic of politics, they
+found consolation in entertaining the distinguished foreign visitors
+with the genial courtesy and generous hospitality for which they
+are famous. As one of their periodicals later expressed it, since
+a discussion of politics was tabooed, it were better to devote the
+sessions of the Conference to talking about music and lyric poetry!
+At all events, as far as the outcome was concerned, their national
+legislatures ratified comparatively few of the conventions.
+
+Among the Hispanic nations of America only Mexico took part in the First
+Conference at The Hague. Practically all of them were represented at the
+second. The appearance of their delegates at these august assemblages
+of the powers of earth was viewed for a while with mixed feelings. The
+attitude of the Great Powers towards them resembled that of parents of
+the old regime: children at the international table should be "seen and
+not heard." As a matter of fact, the Hispanic Americans were both seen
+and heard--especially the latter! They were able to show the Europeans
+that, even if they did happen to come from relatively weak states, they
+possessed a skillful intelligence, a breadth of knowledge, a capacity
+for expression, and a consciousness of national character, which would
+not allow them simply to play "Man Friday" to an international Crusoe.
+The president of the second conference, indeed, confessed that they had
+been a "revelation" to him.
+
+Hence, as time went on, the progress and possibilities of the republics
+of Hispanic America came to be appreciated more and more by the world at
+large. Gradually people began to realize that the countries south of the
+United States were not merely an indistinguishable block on the map,
+to be referred to vaguely as "Central and South America" or as "Latin
+America." The reading public at least knew that these countries were
+quite different from one another, both in achievements and in prospects.
+
+Yet the fact remains that, despite their active part in these American
+and European conferences, the Hispanic countries of the New World
+did not receive the recognition which they felt was their due. Their
+national associates in the European gatherings were disinclined to admit
+that the possession of independence and sovereignty entitled them to
+equal representation on international council boards. To a greater or
+less degree, therefore, they continued to stay in the borderland where
+no one either affirmed or denied their individuality. To quote
+the phrase of an Hispanic American, they stood "on the margin of
+international life." How far they might pass beyond it into the full
+privileges of recognition and association on equal terms, would depend
+upon the readiness with which they could atone for the errors or
+recover from the misfortunes of the past, and upon their power to attain
+stability, prosperity, strength, and responsibility.
+
+Certain of the Hispanic republics, however, were not allowed to remain
+alone on their side of "the margin of international life." Though
+nothing so extreme as the earlier French intervention took place,
+foreign nations were not at all averse to crossing over the marginal
+line and teaching them what a failure to comply with international
+obligations meant. The period from 1889 to 1907, therefore, is
+characterized also by interference on the part of European powers, and
+by interposition on the part of the United States, in the affairs of
+countries in and around the Caribbean Sea. Because of the action taken
+by the United States two more republics--Cuba and Panama--came into
+being, thus increasing the number of political offshoots from Spain
+in America to eighteen. Another result of this interposition was the
+creation of what were substantially American protectorates. Here
+the United States did not deprive the countries concerned of their
+independence and sovereignty, but subjected them to a kind of
+guardianship or tutelage, so far as it thought needful to insure
+stability, solvency, health, and welfare in general. Foremost in the
+northern group of Hispanic nations, Mexico, under the guidance of
+Diaz, marched steadily onward. Peace, order, and law; an increasing
+population; internal wealth and well-being; a flourishing industry
+and commerce; suitable care for things mental as well as material; the
+respect and confidence of foreigners--these were blessings which the
+country had hitherto never beheld. The Mexicans, once in anarchy and
+enmity created by militarists and clericals, came to know one another in
+friendship, and arrived at something like a national consciousness.
+
+In 1889 there was held the first conference on educational problems
+which the republic had ever had. Three years later a mining code was
+drawn up which made ownership inviolable on payment of lawful dues,
+removed uncertainties of operation, and stimulated the industry in
+a remarkable fashion. Far less beneficial in the long run was a law
+enacted in 1894. Instead of granting a legal title to lands held by
+prescriptive rights through an occupation of many years, it made such
+property part of the public domain, which might be acquired, like
+a mining claim, by any one who could secure a grant of it from the
+Government. Though hailed at the time as a piece of constructive
+legislation, its unfortunate effect was to enable large landowners who
+wished to increase their possessions to oust poor cultivators of
+the soil from their humble holdings. On the other hand, under the
+statesmanlike management of Jose Yves Limantour, the Minister of
+Finance, the monetary situation at home and abroad was strengthened
+beyond measure, and banking interests were promoted accordingly.
+Further, an act abolishing the alcabala, a vexatious internal revenue
+tax, gave a great stimulus to freedom of commerce throughout the
+country. In order to insure a continuance of the new regime, the
+constitution was altered in three important respects. The amendment of
+1890 restored the original clause of 1857, which permitted indefinite
+reelection to the presidency; that of 1896 established a presidential
+succession in case of a vacancy, beginning with the Minister of Foreign
+Affairs; and that of 1904 lengthened the term of the chief magistrate
+from four years to six and created the office of Vice President.
+
+In Central America two republics, Guatemala and Costa Rica, set an
+excellent example both because they were free from internal commotions
+and because they refrained from interference in the affairs of their
+neighbors. The contrast between these two quiet little nations, under
+their lawyer Presidents, and the bellicose but equally small Nicaragua,
+Honduras, and Salvador, under their chieftains, military and juristic,
+was quite remarkable. Nevertheless another attempt at confederation
+was made. In 1895 the ruler of Honduras, declaring that reunion was a
+"primordial necessity," invited his fellow potentates of Nicaragua and
+Salvador to unite in creating the "Greater Republic of Central America"
+and asked Guatemala and Costa Rica to join. Delegates actually appeared
+from all five republics, attended fiestas, gave expression to pious
+wishes, and went home! Later still, in 1902, the respective Presidents
+signed a "convention of peace and obligatory arbitration" as a means
+of adjusting perpetual disagreements about politics and boundaries; but
+nothing was done to carry these ideas into effect.
+
+The personage mainly responsible for these failures was Jose Santos
+Zelaya, one of the most arrant military lordlets and meddlers that
+Central America had produced in a long time. Since 1893 he had been
+dictator of Nicaragua, a country not only entangled in continuous
+wrangles among its towns and factions, but bowed under an enormous
+burden of debt created by excessive emissions of paper money and by the
+contraction of more or less scandalous foreign loans. Quite undisturbed
+by the financial situation, Zelaya promptly silenced local bickerings
+and devoted his energies to altering the constitution for his
+presidential benefit and to making trouble for his neighbors. Nor did
+he refrain from displays of arbitrary conduct that were sure to provoke
+foreign intervention. Great Britain, for example, on two occasions
+exacted reparation at the cannon's mouth for ill treatment of its
+citizens.
+
+Zelaya waxed wroth at the spectacle of Guatemala, once so active in
+revolutionary arts but now quietly minding its own business. In
+1906, therefore, along with parties of Hondurans, Salvadoreans, and
+disaffected Guatemalans, he began an invasion of that country and
+continued operations with decreasing success until, the United States
+and Mexico offering their mediation, peace was signed aboard an American
+cruiser. Then, when Costa Rica invited the other republics to discuss
+confederation within its calm frontiers, Zelaya preferred his own
+particular occupation to any such procedure. Accordingly, displeased
+with a recent boundary decision, he started along with Salvador to fight
+Honduras. Once more the United States and Mexico tendered their good
+offices, and again a Central American conflict was closed aboard an
+American warship. About the only real achievement of Zelaya was the
+signing of a treaty by which Great Britain recognized the complete
+sovereignty of Nicaragua over the Mosquito Indians, whose buzzing for a
+larger amount of freedom and more tribute had been disturbing unduly the
+"repose" of that small nation!
+
+To the eastward the new republic of Cuba was about to be born. Here a
+promise of adequate representation in the Spanish Cortes and of a
+local legislature had failed to satisfy the aspirations of many of its
+inhabitants. The discontent was aggravated by lax and corrupt methods of
+administration as well as by financial difficulties. Swarms of Spanish
+officials enjoyed large salaries without performing duties of equivalent
+value. Not a few of them had come over to enrich themselves at
+public expense and under conditions altogether scandalous. On Cuba,
+furthermore, was saddled the debt incurred by the Ten Years' War, while
+the island continued to be a lucrative market for Spanish goods without
+obtaining from Spain a corresponding advantage for its own products.
+
+As the insistence upon a removal of these abuses and upon a grant of
+genuine self-government became steadily more clamorous, three political
+groups appeared. The Constitutional Unionists, or "Austrianizers," as
+they were dubbed because of their avowed loyalty to the royal house of
+Bourbon-Hapsburg, were made up of the Spanish and conservative elements
+and represented the large economic interests and the Church. The
+Liberals, or "Autonomists," desired such reforms in the administration
+as would assure the exercise of self-government and yet preserve the
+bond with the mother country. On the other hand, the Radicals, or
+"Nationalists"--the party of "Cuba Free"--would be satisfied with
+nothing short of absolute independence. All these differences of opinion
+were sharpened by the activities of a sensational press.
+
+From about 1890 onward the movement toward independence gathered
+tremendous strength, especially when the Cubans found popular sentiment
+in the United States so favorable to it. Excitement rose still higher
+when the Spanish Government proposed to bestow a larger measure
+of autonomy. When, however, the Cortes decided upon less liberal
+arrangements, the Autonomists declared that they had been deceived, and
+the Nationalists denounced the utter unreliability of Spanish promises.
+Even if the concessions had been generous, the result probably would
+have been the same, for by this time the plot to set Cuba free had
+become so widespread, both in the island itself and among the refugees
+in the United States, that the inevitable struggle could not have been
+deferred.
+
+In 1895 the revolution broke out. The whites, headed by Maximo Gomez,
+and the negroes and mulattoes by their chieftain, Antonio Maceo, both
+of whom had done valiant service in the earlier war, started upon a
+campaign of deliberate terrorism. This time they were resolved to win
+at any cost. Spurning every offer of conciliation, they burned, ravaged,
+and laid waste, spread desolation along their pathway, and reduced
+thousands to abject poverty and want.
+
+Then the Spanish Government came to the conclusion that nothing but the
+most rigorous sort of reprisals would check the excesses of the rebels.
+In 1896 it commissioned Valeriano Weyler, an officer who personified
+ferocity, to put down the rebellion. If the insurgents had fancied that
+the conciliatory spirit hitherto displayed by the Spaniards was due to
+irresolution or weakness, they found that these were not the qualities
+of their new opponent. Weyler, instead of trying to suppress the
+rebellion by hurrying detachments of troops first to one spot and
+then to another in pursuit of enemies accustomed to guerrilla tactics,
+determined to stamp it out province by province. To this end he planted
+his army firmly in one particular area, prohibited the planting or
+harvesting of crops there, and ordered the inhabitants to assemble in
+camps which they were not permitted to leave on any pretext whatever.
+This was his policy of "reconcentration." Deficient food supply, lack of
+sanitary precautions, and absence of moral safeguards made conditions
+of life in these camps appalling. Death was a welcome relief.
+Reconcentration, combined with executions and deportations, could have
+but one result--the "pacification" of Cuba by converting it into a
+desert.
+
+Not in the United States alone but in Spain itself the story of these
+drastic measures kindled popular indignation to such an extent that, in
+1897, the Government was forced to recall the ferocious Weyler and
+to send over a new Governor and Captain General, with instructions to
+abandon the worst features of his predecessor's policy and to establish
+a complete system of autonomy in both Cuba and Porto Rico. Feeling
+assured, however, that an ally was at hand who would soon make
+their independence certain, the Cuban patriots flatly rejected these
+overtures. In their expectations they were not mistaken. By its armed
+intervention, in the following year the United States acquired Porto
+Rico for itself and compelled Spain to withdraw from Cuba. *
+
+     * See "The Path of Empire", by Carl Russell Fish (in "The
+     Chronicles of America").
+
+The island then became a republic, subject only to such limitations on
+its freedom of action as its big guardian might see fit to impose. Not
+only was Cuba placed under American rule from 1899 to 1902, but it had
+to insert in the Constitution of 1901 certain clauses that could not
+fail to be galling to Cuban pride. Among them two were of special
+significance. One imposed limitations on the financial powers of the
+Government of the new nation, and the other authorized the United
+States, at its discretion, to intervene in Cuban affairs for the purpose
+of maintaining public order. The Cubans, it would seem, had exchanged a
+dependence on Spain for a restricted independence measured by the will
+of a country infinitely stronger.
+
+Cuba began its life as a republic in 1902, under a government for which
+a form both unitary and federal had been provided. Tomas Estrada Palma,
+the first President and long the head of the Cuban junta in the
+United States, showed himself disposed from the outset to continue the
+beneficial reforms in administration which had been introduced under
+American rule. Prudent and conciliatory in temperament, he tried to
+dispel as best he could the bitter recollections of the war and to
+repair its ravages. In this policy he was upheld by the conservative
+class, or Moderates. Their opponents, the Liberals, dominated by men
+of radical tendencies, were eager to assert the right, to which they
+thought Cuba entitled as an independent sovereign nation, to make
+possible mistakes and correct them without having the United States
+forever holding the ferule of the schoolmaster over it. They were well
+aware, however, that they were not at liberty to have their country pass
+through the tempestuous experience which had been the lot of so many
+Hispanic republics. They could vent a natural anger and disappointment,
+nevertheless, on the President and his supporters. Rather than continue
+to be governed by Cubans not to their liking, they were willing to bring
+about a renewal of American rule. In this respect the wishes of the
+Radicals were soon gratified. Hardly had Estrada Palma, in 1906, assumed
+office for a second time, when parties of malcontents, declaring that
+he had secured his reelection by fraudulent means, rose up in arms and
+demanded that he annul the vote and hold a fair election. The President
+accepted the challenge and waged a futile conflict, and again the United
+States intervened. Upon the resignation of Estrada Palma, an American
+Governor was again installed, and Cuba was told in unmistakable fashion
+that the next intervention might be permanent.
+
+Less drastic but quite as effectual a method of assuring order and
+regularity in administration was the action taken by the United States
+in another Caribbean island. A little country like the Dominican
+Republic, in which few Presidents managed to retain their offices for
+terms fixed by changeable constitutions, could not resist the temptation
+to rid itself of a ruler who had held power for nearly a quarter of a
+century. After he had been disposed of by assassination in 1899, the
+government of his successor undertook to repudiate a depreciated paper
+currency by ordering the customs duties to be paid in specie; and it
+also tried to prevent the consul of an aggrieved foreign nation from
+attaching certain revenues as security for the payment of the arrears
+of an indemnity. Thereupon, in 1905, the President of the United States
+entered into an arrangement with the Dominican Government whereby, in
+return for a pledge from the former country to guarantee the territorial
+integrity of the republic and an agreement to adjust all of its external
+obligations of a pecuniary sort, American officials were to take charge
+of the custom house send apportion the receipts from that source in such
+a manner as to satisfy domestic needs and pay foreign creditors. *
+
+     * See "The Path of Empire", by Carl Russell Fish (in "The
+     Chronicles of America").
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA
+
+Even so huge and conservative a country as Brazil could not start out
+upon the pathway of republican freedom without some unrest; but the
+political experience gained under a regime of limited monarchy had a
+steadying effect. Besides, the Revolution of 1889 had been effected by a
+combination of army officers and civilian enthusiasts who knew that the
+provinces were ready for a radical change in the form of government,
+but who were wise enough to make haste slowly. If a motto could mean
+anything, the adoption of the positivist device, "Order and Progress,"
+displayed on the national flag seemed a happy augury.
+
+The constitution promulgated in 1891 set up a federal union broadly
+similar to that of the United States, except that the powers of the
+general Government were somewhat more restricted. Qualifications for
+the suffrage were directly fixed in the fundamental law itself, but the
+educational tests imposed excluded the great bulk of the population
+from the right to vote. In the constitution, also, Church and State were
+declared absolutely separate, and civil marriage was prescribed.
+
+Well adapted as the constitution was to the particular needs of Brazil,
+the Government erected under it had to contend awhile with political
+disturbances. Though conflicts occurred between the president and the
+Congress, between the federal authority and the States, and between
+the civil administration and naval and military officials, none were
+so constant, so prolonged, or so disastrous as in the Spanish American
+republics. Even when elected by the connivance of government officials,
+the chief magistrate governed in accordance with republican forms.
+Presidential power, in fact, was restrained both by the huge size of the
+country and by the spirit of local autonomy upheld by the States.
+
+Ever since the war with Paraguay the financial credit of Brazil had been
+impaired. The chronic deficit in the treasury had been further increased
+by a serious lowering in the rate of exchange, which was due to an
+excessive issue of paper money. In order to save the nation from
+bankruptcy Manoel Ferraz de Campos Salles, a distinguished jurist, was
+commissioned to effect an adjustment with the British creditors. As a
+result of his negotiations a "funding loan" was obtained, in return
+for which an equivalent amount in paper money was to be turned over
+for cancellation at a fixed rate of exchange. Under this arrangement
+depreciation ceased for awhile and the financial outlook became
+brighter.
+
+The election of Campos Salles to the presidency in 1898, as a reward for
+his success, was accompanied by the rise of definite political
+parties. Among them the Radicals or Progressists favored a policy of
+centralization under military auspices and exhibited certain antiforeign
+tendencies. The Moderates or Republicans, on the contrary, with Campos
+Salles as their candidate, declared for the existing constitution and
+advocated a gradual adoption of such reforms as reason and time might
+suggest. When the latter party won the election, confidence in the
+stability of Brazil returned.
+
+As if Uruguay had not already suffered enough from internal discords,
+two more serious conflicts demonstrated once again that this little
+country, in which political power had been held substantially by one
+party alone since 1865, could not hope for permanent peace until either
+the excluded and apparently irreconcilable party had been finally and
+utterly crushed, or, far better still, until the two factions could
+manage to agree upon some satisfactory arrangement for rotation in
+office. The struggle of 1897 ended in the assassination of the president
+and in a division of the republic into two practically separate areas,
+one ruled by the Colorados at Montevideo, the other by the Blancos.
+A renewal of civil war in 1904 seemed altogether preferable to an
+indefinite continuance of this dualism in government, even at the risk
+of friction with Argentina, which was charged with not having observed
+strict neutrality. This second struggle came to a close with the death
+of the insurgent leader; but it cost the lives of thousands and did
+irreparable damage to the commerce and industry of the country.
+
+Uruguay then enjoyed a respite from party upheavals until 1910,
+when Jose Batlle, the able, resolute, and radical-minded head of the
+Colorados, announced that he would be a candidate for the presidency.
+As he had held the office before and had never ceased to wield a strong
+personal influence over the administration of his successor, the
+Blancos decided that now was the time to attempt once more to oust
+their opponents from the control which they had monopolized for half a
+century. Accusing the Government of an unconstitutional centralization
+of power in the executive, of preventing free elections, and of
+crippling the pastoral industries of the country, they started a revolt,
+which ran a brief course. Batlle proved himself equal to the situation
+and quickly suppressed the insurrection. Though he did make a wide use
+of his authority, the President refrained from indulging in political
+persecution and allowed the press all the liberty it desired in so far
+as was consistent with the law. It was under his direction that Uruguay
+entered upon a remarkable series of experiments in the nationalization
+of business enterprises. Further, more or less at the suggestion of
+Battle, a new constitution was ratified by popular vote in 1917. It
+provided for a division of the executive power between the President
+and a National Council of Administration, forbade the election of
+administrative and military officials to the Congress, granted to that
+body a considerable increase of power, and enlarged the facilities for
+local self-government. In addition, it established the principle of
+minority representation and of secrecy of the ballot, permitted the
+Congress to extend the right of suffrage to women, and dissolved the
+union between Church and State. If the terms of the new instrument are
+faithfully observed, the old struggle between Blancos and Colorados will
+have been brought definitely to a close.
+
+Paraguay lapsed after 1898 into the earlier sins of Spanish America.
+Upon a comparatively placid presidential regime followed a series
+of barrack uprisings or attacks by Congress on the executive. The
+constitution became a farce. No longer, to be sure, an abode of Arcadian
+seclusion as in colonial times, or a sort of territorial cobweb from the
+center of which a spiderlike Francia hung motionless or darted upon his
+hapless prey, or even a battle ground on which fanatical warriors might
+fight and die at the behest of a savage Lopez, Paraguay now took on
+the aspect of an arena in which petty political gamecocks might try out
+their spurs. Happily, the opposing parties spent their energies in high
+words and vehement gestures rather than in blows and bloodshed. The
+credit of the country sank lower and lower until its paper money stood
+at a discount of several hundred per cent compared with gold.
+
+European bankers had begun to view the financial future of Argentina
+also with great alarm. In 1890 the mad careering of private speculation
+and public expenditure along the roseate pathway of limitless credit
+reached a veritable "crisis of progress." A frightful panic ensued.
+Paper money fell to less than a quarter of its former value in gold.
+Many a firm became bankrupt, and many a fortune shriveled. As is usual
+in such cases, the Government had to shoulder the blame. A four-day
+revolution broke out in Buenos Aires, and the President became the
+scapegoat; but the panic went on, nevertheless, until gold stood at
+nearly five to one. Most of the banks suspended payment; the national
+debt underwent a huge increase; and immigration practically ceased.
+
+By 1895, however, the country had more or less resumed its normal
+condition. A new census showed that the population had risen to four
+million, about a sixth of whom resided in the capital. The importance
+which agriculture had attained was attested by the establishment of a
+separate ministry in the presidential cabinet. Industry, too, made such
+rapid strides at this time that organized labor began to take a hand
+in politics. The short-lived "revolution" of 1905, for example, was
+not primarily the work of politicians but of strikers organized into
+a workingmen's federation. For three months civil guarantees were
+suspended, and by a so-called "law of residence," enacted some years
+before and now put into effect, the Government was authorized to expel
+summarily any foreigner guilty of fomenting strikes or of disturbing
+public order in any other fashion.
+
+Political agitation soon assumed a new form. Since the
+Autonomist-National party had been in control for thirty years or more,
+it seemed to the Civic-Nationalists, now known as Republicans, to the
+Autonomists proper, and to various other factions, that they ought to do
+something to break the hold of that powerful organization. Accordingly
+in 1906 the President, supported by a coalition of these factions,
+started what was termed an "upward-downward revolution"--in other
+words, a series of interventions by which local governors and members
+of legislatures suspected of Autonomist-National leanings were to
+be replaced by individuals who enjoyed the confidence of the
+Administration. Pretexts for such action were not hard to find under
+the terms of the constitution; but their political interests suffered so
+much in the effort that the promoters had to abandon it.
+
+Owing to persistent obstruction on the part of Congress, which took the
+form of a refusal either to sanction his appointments or to approve the
+budget, the President suspended the sessions of that body in 1908 and
+decreed a continuance of the estimates for the preceding year. The
+antagonism between the chief executive and the legislature became so
+violent that, if his opponents had not been split up into factions,
+civil war might have ensued in Argentina.
+
+To remedy a situation made worse by the absence--usual in most of the
+Hispanic republics--of a secret ballot and by the refusal of political
+malcontents to take part in elections, voting was made both obligatory
+and secret in 1911, and the principle of minority representation was
+introduced. Legislation of this sort was designed to check bribery and
+intimidation and to enable the radical-minded to do their duty at the
+polls. Its effect was shown five years later, when the secret ballot
+was used substantially for the first time. The radicals won both the
+presidency and a majority in the Congress.
+
+One of the secrets of the prosperity of Argentina, as of Brazil, in
+recent years has been its abstention from warlike ventures beyond its
+borders and its endeavor to adjust boundary conflicts by arbitration.
+Even when its attitude toward its huge neighbor had become embittered
+in consequence of a boundary decision rendered by the President of
+the United States in 1895, it abated none of its enthusiasm for the
+principle of a peaceful settlement of international disputes. Four
+years later, in a treaty with Uruguay, the so-called "Argentine Formula"
+appeared. To quote its language: "The contracting parties agree to
+submit to arbitration all questions of any nature which may arise
+between them, provided they do not affect provisions of the constitution
+of either state, and cannot be adjusted by direct negotiation." This
+Formula was soon put to the test in a serious dispute with Chile.
+
+In the Treaty of 1881, in partitioning Patagonia, the crest of the
+Andes had been assumed to be the true continental watershed between the
+Atlantic and the Pacific and hence was made the boundary line between
+Argentina and Chile. The entire Atlantic coast was to belong to
+Argentina, the Pacific coast to Chile; the island of Tierra del Fuego
+was to be divided between them. At the same time the Strait of Magellan
+was declared a neutral waterway, open to the ships of all nations. Ere
+long, however, it was ascertained that the crest of the Andes did not
+actually coincide with the continental divide. Thereupon Argentina
+insisted that the boundary line should be made to run along the crest,
+while Chile demanded that it be traced along the watershed. Since the
+mountainous area concerned was of little value, the question at bottom
+was simply one of power and prestige between rival states.
+
+As the dispute waxed warmer, a noisy press and populace clamored for
+war. The Governments of the two nations spent large sums in increasing
+their armaments; and Argentina, in imitation of its western neighbor,
+made military service compulsory. But, as the conviction gradually
+spread that a struggle would leave the victor as prostrate as the
+vanquished, wiser counsels prevailed. In 1899, accordingly, the matter
+was referred to the King of Great Britain for decision. Though the award
+was a compromise, Chile was the actual gainer in territory.
+
+By their treaties of 1902 both republics declared their intention to
+uphold the principle of arbitration and to refrain from interfering in
+each other's affairs along their respective coasts. They also agreed
+upon a limitation of armaments--the sole example on record of a
+realization of the purpose of the First Hague Conference. To commemorate
+still further their international accord, in 1904 they erected on the
+summit of the Uspallata Pass, over which San Martin had crossed with
+his army of liberation in 1817, a bronze statue of Christ the Redeemer.
+There, amid the snow-capped peaks of the giant Andes, one may read
+inscribed upon the pedestal: "Sooner shall these mountains crumble to
+dust than Argentinos and Chileans break the peace which at the feet of
+Christ the Redeemer they have sworn to maintain!" Nor has the peace been
+broken.
+
+Though hostilities with Argentina had thus been averted, Chile had
+experienced within its own frontiers the most serious revolution it had
+known in sixty years. The struggle was not one of partisan chieftains
+or political groups but a genuine contest to determine which of
+two theories of government should prevail--the presidential or the
+parliamentary, a presidential autocracy with the spread of real
+democracy or a congressional oligarchy based on the existing order. The
+sincerity and public spirit of both contestants helped to lend dignity
+to the conflict.
+
+Jose Manuel Balmaceda, a man of marked ability, who became President in
+1886, had devoted much of his political life to urging an enlargement
+of the executive power, a greater freedom to municipalities in the
+management of their local affairs, and a broadening of the suffrage.
+He had even advocated a separation of Church and State. Most of these
+proposals so conservative a land as Chile was not prepared to accept.
+Though civil marriage was authorized and ecclesiastical influence
+was lessened in other respects, the Church stood firm. During his
+administration Balmaceda introduced many reforms, both material and
+educational. He gave a great impetus to the construction of public
+works, enhanced the national credit by a favorable conversion of the
+public debt, fostered immigration, and devoted especial attention to the
+establishment of secondary schools. Excellent as the administration of
+Balmaceda had been in other respects, he nevertheless failed to combine
+the liberal factions into a party willing to support the plans of reform
+which he had steadily favored. The parliamentary system made Cabinets
+altogether unstable, as political groups in the lower house of the
+Congress alternately cohered and fell apart. This defect, Balmaceda
+thought, should be corrected by making the members of his official
+family independent of the legislative branch. The Council of State, a
+somewhat anomalous body placed between the President and Cabinet on the
+one side and the Congress on the other, was an additional obstruction to
+a smooth-running administration. For it he would substitute a tribunal
+charged with the duty of resolving conflicts between the two chief
+branches of government. Balmaceda believed, also, that greater liberty
+should be given to the press and that existing taxes should be altered
+as rarely as possible. On its side, the Congress felt that the President
+was trying to establish a dictatorship and to replace the unitary system
+by a federal union, the probable weakness of which would enable him to
+retain his power more securely.
+
+Toward the close of his term in January, 1891, when the Liberals
+declined to support his candidate for the presidency, Balmaceda, furious
+at the opposition which he had encountered, took matters into his own
+hands. Since the Congress refused to pass the appropriation bills, he
+declared that body dissolved and proceeded to levy the taxes by decree.
+To this arbitrary and altogether unconstitutional performance the
+Congress retorted by declaring the President deposed. Civil war broke
+out forthwith, and a strange spectacle presented itself. The two chief
+cities, Santiago and Valparaiso, and most of the army backed Balmaceda,
+whereas the country districts, especially in the north, and practically
+all the navy upheld the Congress.
+
+These were, indeed, dark days for Chile. During a struggle of about
+eight months the nation suffered more than it had done in years of
+warfare with Peru and Bolivia. Though the bulk of the army stood by
+Balmaceda, the Congress was able to raise and organize a much stronger
+fighting force under a Prussian drillmaster. The tide of battle turned;
+Santiago and Valparaiso capitulated; and the presidential cause was
+lost. Balmaceda, who had taken refuge in the Argentina legation,
+committed suicide. But the Balmacedists, who were included in a general
+amnesty, still maintained themselves as a party to advocate in a
+peaceful fashion the principles of their fallen leader.
+
+Chile had its reputation for stability well tested in 1910 when
+the executive changed four times without the slightest political
+disturbance. According to the constitution, the officer who takes the
+place of the President in case of the latter's death or disability,
+though vested with full authority, has the title of Vice President only.
+It so happened that after the death of the President two members of the
+Cabinet in succession held the vice presidency, and they were followed
+by the chief magistrate, who was duly elected and installed at the
+close of the year. In 1915, for the first time since their leader
+had committed suicide, one of the followers of Balmaceda was chosen
+President--by a strange coalition of Liberal-Democrats, or Balmacedists,
+Conservatives, and Nationalists, over the candidate of the Radicals,
+Liberals, and Democrats. The maintenance of the parliamentary system,
+however, continued to produce frequent alterations in the personnel of
+the Cabinet.
+
+In its foreign relations, apart from the adjustment reached with
+Argentina, Chile managed to settle the difficulties with Bolivia arising
+out of the War of the Pacific. By the terms of treaties concluded in
+1895 and 1905, the region tentatively transferred by the armistice of
+1884 was ceded outright to Chile in return for a seaport and a narrow
+right of way to it through the former Peruvian province of Tarapaca.
+With Peru, Chile was not so fortunate. Though the tension over the
+ultimate disposal of the Tacna and Arica question was somewhat reduced,
+it was far from being removed. Chile absolutely refused to submit the
+matter to arbitration, on the ground that such a procedure could not
+properly be applied to a question arising out of a war that had taken
+place so many years before. Chile did not wish to give the region up,
+lest by so doing it might expose Tarapaca to a possible attack from
+Peru. The investment of large amounts of foreign capital in the
+exploitation of the deposits of nitrate of soda had made that province
+economically very valuable, and the export tax levied on the product was
+the chief source of the national revenue. These were all potent
+reasons why Chile wanted to keep its hold on Tacna and Arica. Besides,
+possession was nine points in the law!
+
+On the other hand, the original plan of having the question decided by a
+vote of the inhabitants of the provinces concerned was not carried
+into effect, partly because both claimants cherished a conviction that
+whichever lost the election would deny its validity, and partly because
+they could not agree upon the precise method of holding it. Chile
+suggested that the international commission which was selected to
+take charge of the plebiscite, and which was composed of a Chilean, a
+Peruvian, and a neutral, should be presided over by the Chilean member
+as representative of the country actually in possession, whereas Peru
+insisted that the neutral should act as chairman. Chile proposed also
+that Chileans, Peruvians, and foreigners resident in the area six months
+before the date of the elections should vote, provided that they had
+the right to do so under the terms of the constitutions of both states.
+Peru, on its part, objected to the length of residence, and wished to
+limit carefully the number of Chilean voters, to exclude foreigners
+altogether from the election, and to disregard qualifications for the
+suffrage which required an ability to read and write. Both countries,
+moreover, appeared to have a lurking suspicion that in any event
+the other would try to secure a majority at the polls by supplying a
+requisite number of voters drawn from their respective citizenry who
+were not ordinarily resident in Tacna and Arica! Unable to overcome the
+deadlock, Chile and Peru agreed in 1913 to postpone the settlement for
+twenty years longer. At the expiration of this period, when Chile would
+have held the provinces for half a century, the question should be
+finally adjusted on bases mutually satisfactory. Officially amicable
+relations were then restored.
+
+While the political situation in Bolivia remained stable, so much could
+not be said of that in Peru and Ecuador. If the troubles in the former
+were more or less military, a persistence of the conflict between
+clericals and radicals characterized the commotions in the latter,
+because of certain liberal provisions in the Constitution of 1907.
+Peru, on the other hand, in 1915 guaranteed its people the enjoyment of
+religious liberty.
+
+Next to the Tacna and Arica question, the dubious boundaries of Ecuador
+constituted the most serious international problem in South America. The
+so-called Oriente region, lying east of the Andes and claimed by Peru,
+Brazil, and Colombia, appeared differently on different maps, according
+as one claimant nation or another set forth its own case. Had all three
+been satisfied, nothing would have been left of Ecuador but the strip
+between the Andes and the Pacific coast, including the cities of Quito
+and Guayaquil. The Ecuadorians, therefore, were bitterly sensitive on
+the subject.
+
+Protracted negotiations over the boundaries became alike tedious and
+listless. But the moment that the respective diplomats had agreed upon
+some knotty point, the Congress of one litigant or another was almost
+sure to reject the decision and start the controversy all over again.
+Even reference of the matter to the arbitral judgment of European
+monarchs produced, so far as Ecuador and Peru were concerned, riotous
+attacks upon the Peruvian legation and consulates, charges and
+countercharges of invasion of each other's territory, and the suspension
+of diplomatic relations. Though the United States, Argentina, and Brazil
+had interposed to ward off an armed conflict between the two republics
+and, in 1911, had urged that the dispute be submitted to the Hague
+Tribunal, nothing would induce Ecuador to comply.
+
+Colombia was even more unfortunate than its southern neighbor, for in
+addition to political convulsions it suffered financial disaster and
+an actual deprivation of territory. Struggles among factions, official
+influence at the elections, dictatorships, and fighting between the
+departments and the national Government plunged the country, in 1899,
+into the worst civil war it had known for many a day. Paper money,
+issued in unlimited amounts and given a forced circulation, made the
+distress still more acute. Then came the hardest blow of all. Since
+1830 Panama, as province or state, had tried many times to secede from
+Colombia. In 1903 the opportunity it sought became altogether favorable.
+The parent nation, just beginning to recover from the disasters of civil
+strife, would probably be unable to prevent a new attempt at withdrawal.
+The people of Panama, of course, knew how eager the United States was
+to acquire the region of the proposed Canal Zone, since it had failed to
+win it by negotiation with Colombia. Accordingly, if they were to
+start a "revolution," they had reason to believe that it would not lack
+support--or at least, connivance--from that quarter.
+
+On the 3d of November the projected "revolution" occurred, on schedule
+time, and the United States recognized the independence of the "Republic
+of Panama" three days later! In return for a guarantee of independence,
+however, the United States stipulated, in the convention concluded
+on the 18th of November, that, besides authority to enforce sanitary
+regulations in the Canal Zone, it should also have the right of
+intervention to maintain order in the republic itself. More than
+once, indeed, after Panama adopted its constitution in 1904, elections
+threatened to become tumultuous; whereupon the United States saw to it
+that they passed off quietly.
+
+Having no wish to flout their huge neighbor to the northward, the
+Hispanic nations at large hastened to acknowledge the independence of
+the new republic, despite the indignation that prevailed in press and
+public over what was regarded as an act of despoilment. In view of the
+resentful attitude of Colombia and mindful also of the opinion of many
+Americans that a gross injustice had been committed, the United States
+eventually offered terms of settlement. It agreed to express regret for
+the ill feeling between the two countries which had arisen out of the
+Panama incident, provided that such expression were made mutual; and, as
+a species of indemnity, it agreed to pay for canal rights to be acquired
+in Colombian territory and for the lease of certain islands as naval
+stations. But neither the terms nor the amount of the compensation
+proved acceptable. Instead, Colombia urged that the whole matter be
+referred to the judgment of the tribunal at The Hague.
+
+Alluding to the use made of the liberties won in the struggle for
+emancipation from Spain by the native land of Miranda, Bolivar, and
+Sucre, on the part of the country which had been in the vanguard of
+the fight for freedom from a foreign yoke, a writer of Venezuela once
+declared that it had not elected legally a single President; had not put
+democratic ideas or institutions into practice; had lived wholly under
+dictatorships; had neglected public instruction; and had set up a large
+number of oppressive commercial monopolies, including the navigation
+of rivers, the coastwise trade, the pearl fisheries, and the sale of
+tobacco, salt, sugar, liquor, matches, explosives, butter, grease,
+cement, shoes, meat, and flour. Exaggerated as the indictment is and
+applicable also, though in less degree, to some of the other backward
+countries of Hispanic America, it contains unfortunately a large measure
+of truth. Indeed, so far as Venezuela itself is concerned, this critic
+might have added that every time a "restorer," "regenerator," or
+"liberator" succumbed there, the old craze for federalism again broke
+out and menaced the nation with piecemeal destruction. Obedient,
+furthermore, to the whims of a presidential despot, Venezuela
+perpetrated more outrages on foreigners and created more international
+friction after 1899 than any other land in Spanish America had ever
+done.
+
+While the formidable Guzman Blanco was still alive, the various
+Presidents acted cautiously. No sooner had he passed away than disorder
+broke out afresh. Since a new dictator thought he needed a longer term
+of office and divers other administrative advantages, a constitution
+incorporating them was framed and published in the due and customary
+manner. This had hardly gone into operation when, in 1895, a contest
+arose with Great Britain about the boundaries between Venezuela and
+British Guiana. Under pressure from the United States, however, the
+matter was referred to arbitration, and Venezuela came out substantially
+the loser.
+
+In 1899 there appeared on the scene a personage compared with whom
+Zelaya was the merest novice in the art of making trouble. This was
+Cipriano Castro, the greatest international nuisance of the early
+twentieth century. A rude, arrogant, fearless, energetic, capricious
+mountaineer and cattleman, he regarded foreigners no less than his
+own countryfolk, it would seem, as objects for his particular scorn,
+displeasure, exploitation, or amusement, as the case might be. He was
+greatly angered by the way in which foreigners in dispute with
+local officials avoided a resort to Venezuelan courts and--still
+worse--rejected their decisions and appealed instead to their diplomatic
+representatives for protection. He declared such a procedure to be an
+affront to the national dignity. Yet foreigners were usually correct in
+arming that judges appointed by an arbitrary President were little more
+than figureheads, incapable of dispensing justice, even were they so
+inclined.
+
+Jealous not only of his personal prestige but of what he imagined, or
+pretended to imagine, were the rights of a small nation, Castro tried
+throughout to portray the situation in such a light as to induce the
+other Hispanic republics also to view foreign interference as a
+dire peril to their own independence and sovereignty; and he further
+endeavored to involve the United States in a struggle with European
+powers as a means possibly of testing the efficacy of the Monroe
+Doctrine or of laying bare before the world the evil nature of American
+imperialistic designs.
+
+By the year 1901, in which Venezuela adopted another constitution, the
+revolutionary disturbances had materially diminished the revenues from
+the customs. Furthermore Castro's regulations exacting military service
+of all males between fourteen and sixty years of age had filled the
+prisons to overflowing. Many foreigners who had suffered in consequence
+resorted to measures of self-defense--among them representatives of
+certain American and British asphalt companies which were working
+concessions granted by Castro's predecessors. Though familiar with what
+commonly happens to those who handle pitch, they had not scrupled to
+aid some of Castro's enemies. Castro forthwith imposed on them enormous
+fines which amounted practically to a confiscation of their rights.
+
+While the United States and Great Britain were expostulating over this
+behavior of the despot, France broke off diplomatic relations with
+Venezuela because of Castro's refusal either to pay or to submit to
+arbitration certain claims which had originated in previous revolutions.
+Germany, aggrieved in similar fashion, contemplated a seizure of the
+customs until its demands for redress were satisfied. And then came
+Italy with like causes of complaint. As if these complications were not
+sufficient, Venezuela came to blows with Colombia.
+
+As the foreign pressure on Castro steadily increased, Luis Maria Drago,
+the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, formulated in 1902 the
+doctrine with which his name has been associated. It stated in substance
+that force should never be employed between nations for the collection
+of contractual debts. Encouraged by this apparent token of support from
+a sister republic, Castro defied his array of foreign adversaries more
+vigorously than ever, declaring that he might find it needful to invade
+the United States, by way of New Orleans, to teach it the lesson it
+deserved! But when he attempted, in the following year, to close the
+ports of Venezuela as a means of bringing his native antagonists to
+terms, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy seized his warships, blockaded
+the coast, and bombarded some of his forts. Thereupon the United States
+interposed with a suggestion that the dispute be laid before the Hague
+Tribunal. Although Castro yielded, he did not fail to have a clause
+inserted in a new "constitution" requiring foreigners who might wish
+to enter the republic to show certificates of good character from the
+Governments of their respective countries.
+
+These incidents gave much food for thought to Castro as well as to
+his soberer compatriots. The European powers had displayed an apparent
+willingness to have the United States, if it chose to do so, assume the
+role of a New World policeman and financial guarantor. Were it to assume
+these duties, backward republics in the Caribbean and its vicinity were
+likely to have their affairs, internal as well as external, supervised
+by the big nation in order to ward off European intervention. At
+this moment, indeed, the United States was intervening in Panama. The
+prospect aroused in many Hispanic countries the fear of a "Yankee peril"
+greater even than that emanating from Europe. Instead of being a kindly
+and disinterested protector of small neighbors, the "Colossus of the
+North" appeared rather to resemble a political and commercial ogre bent
+upon swallowing them to satisfy "manifest destiny."
+
+Having succeeded in putting around his head an aureole of local
+popularity, Castro in 1905 picked a new set of partially justified
+quarrels with the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Colombia,
+and even with the Netherlands, arising out of the depredations of
+revolutionists; but an armed menace from the United States induced him
+to desist from his plans. He contented himself accordingly with issuing
+a decree of amnesty for all political offenders except the leaders. When
+"reelected," he carried his magnanimity so far as to resign awhile in
+favor of the Vice President, stating that, if his retirement were to
+bring peace and concord, he would make it permanent. But as he saw to it
+that his temporary withdrawal should not have this happy result, he came
+back again to his firmer position a few months later.
+
+Venting his wrath upon the Netherlands because its minister had reported
+to his Government an outbreak of cholera at La Guaira, the chief seaport
+of Venezuela, the dictator laid an embargo on Dutch commerce, seized
+its ships, and denounced the Dutch for their alleged failure to check
+filibustering from their islands off the coast. When the minister
+protested, Castro expelled him. Thereupon the Netherlands instituted a
+blockade of the Venezuelan ports. What might have happened if Castro
+had remained much longer in charge, may be guessed. Toward the close
+of 1908, however, he departed for Europe to undergo a course of medical
+treatment. Hardly had he left Venezuelan shores when Juan Vicente Gomez,
+the able, astute, and vigorous Vice President, managed to secure his
+own election to the presidency and an immediate recognition from
+foreign states. Under his direction all of the international tangles of
+Venezuela were straightened out.
+
+In 1914 the country adopted its eleventh constitution and thereby
+lengthened the presidential term to seven years, shortened that
+of members of the lower house of the Congress to four, determined
+definitely the number of States in the union, altered the apportionment
+of their congressional representation, and enlarged the powers of the
+federal Government--or, rather, those of its executive branch! In 1914
+Gomez resigned office in favor of the Vice President, and secured an
+appointment instead as commander in chief of the army. This procedure
+was promptly denounced as a trick to evade the constitutional
+prohibition of two consecutive terms. A year later he was unanimously
+elected President, though he never formally took the oath of office.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the political ways and means of this
+new Guzmin Blanco to maintain himself as a power behind or on the
+presidential throne, Gomez gave Venezuela an administration of a sort
+very different from that of his immediate predecessor. He suppressed
+various government monopolies, removed other obstacles to the material
+advancement of the country, and reduced the national debt. He did much
+also to improve the sanitary conditions at La Guaira, and he promoted
+education, especially the teaching of foreign languages.
+
+Gomez nevertheless had to keep a watchful eye on the partisans of
+Castro, who broke out in revolt whenever they had an opportunity. The
+United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Cuba,
+and Colombia eyed the movements of the ex-dictator nervously, as
+European powers long ago were wont to do in the case of a certain Man
+of Destiny, and barred him out of both their possessions and Venezuela
+itself. International patience, never Job-like, had been too sorely
+vexed to permit his return. Nevertheless, after the manner of the
+ancient persecutor of the Biblical martyr, Castro did not refrain from
+going to and fro in the earth. In fact he still "walketh about" seeking
+to recover his hold upon Venezuela!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
+
+When, in 1910, like several of its sister republics, Mexico celebrated
+the centennial anniversary of its independence, the era of peace
+and progress inaugurated by Porfirio Diaz seemed likely to last
+indefinitely, for he was entering upon his eighth term as President.
+Brilliant as his career had been, however, and greatly as Mexico had
+prospered under his rigid rule, a sullen discontent had been brewing.
+The country that had had but one continuous President in twenty-six
+years was destined to have some fourteen chief magistrates in less than
+a quarter of that time, and to surpass all its previous records for
+rapidity in presidential succession, by having one executive who is said
+to have held office for precisely fifty-six minutes!
+
+It has often been asserted that the reason for the downfall of Diaz
+and the lapse of Mexico into the unhappy conditions of a half century
+earlier was that he had grown too old to keep a firm grip on the
+situation. It has also been declared that his insistence upon reelection
+and upon the elevation of his own personal candidate to the vice
+presidency, as a successor in case of his retirement, occasioned his
+overthrow. The truth of the matter is that these circumstances were only
+incidental to his downfall; the real causes of revolution lay deeprooted
+in the history of these twenty-six years. The most significant feature
+of the revolt was its civilian character. A widespread public opinion
+had been created; a national consciousness had been awakened which was
+intolerant of abuses and determined upon their removal at any cost; and
+this public opinion and national consciousness were products of general
+education, which had brought to the fore a number of intelligent men
+eager to participate in public affairs and yet barred out because of
+their unwillingness to support the existing regime.
+
+Some one has remarked, and rightly, that Diaz in his zeal for the
+material advancement of Mexico, mistook the tangible wealth of the
+country for its welfare. Desirable and even necessary as that material
+progress was, it produced only a one-sided prosperity. Diaz was
+singularly deaf to the just complaints of the people of the laboring
+classes, who, as manufacturing and other industrial enterprises
+developed, were resolved to better their conditions. In the country at
+large the discontent was still stronger. Throughout many of the rural
+districts general advancement had been retarded because of the holding
+of huge areas of fertile land by a comparatively few rich families, who
+did little to improve it and were content with small returns from the
+labor of throngs of unskilled native cultivators. Wretchedly paid and
+housed, and toiling long hours, the workers lived like the serfs of
+medieval days or as their own ancestors did in colonial times. Ignorant,
+poverty-stricken, liable at any moment to be dispossessed of the tiny
+patch of ground on which they raised a few hills of corn or beans, most
+of them were naturally a simple, peaceful folk who, in spite of their
+misfortunes, might have gone on indefinitely with their drudgery in
+a hopeless apathetic fashion, unless their latent savage instincts
+happened to be aroused by drink and the prospect of plunder. On the
+other hand, the intelligent among them, knowing that in some of the
+northern States of the republic wages were higher and treatment fairer,
+felt a sense of wrong which, like that of the laboring class in the
+towns, was all the more dangerous because it was not allowed to find
+expression.
+
+Diaz thought that what Mexico required above everything else was the
+development of industrial efficiency and financial strength, assured
+by a maintenance of absolute order. Though disposed to do justice in
+individual cases, he would tolerate no class movements of any kind.
+Labor unions, strikes, and other efforts at lightening the burden of the
+workers he regarded as seditious and deserving of severe punishment. In
+order to attract capital from abroad as the best means of exploiting the
+vast resources of the country, he was willing to go to any length, it
+would seem, in guaranteeing protection. Small wonder, therefore, that
+the people who shared in none of the immediate advantages from that
+source should have muttered that Mexico was the "mother of foreigners
+and the stepmother of Mexicans." And, since so much of the capital came
+from the United States, the antiforeign sentiment singled Americans out
+for its particular dislike.
+
+If Diaz appeared unable to appreciate the significance of the
+educational and industrial awakening, he was no less oblivious of the
+political outcome. He knew, of course, that the Mexican constitution
+made impossible demands upon the political capacity of the people. He
+was himself mainly of Indian blood and he believed that he understood
+the temperament and limitations of most Mexicans. Knowing how
+tenaciously they clung to political notions, he believed that it was
+safer and wiser to forego, at least for a time, real popular government
+and to concentrate power in the hands of a strong man who could maintain
+order.
+
+Accordingly, backed by his political adherents, known as cientificos
+(doctrinaires), some of whom had acquired a sinister ascendancy over
+him, and also by the Church, the landed proprietors, and the foreign
+capitalists, Diaz centered the entire administration more and more in
+himself. Elections became mere farces. Not only the federal officials
+themselves but the state governors, the members of the state
+legislatures, and all others in authority during the later years of his
+rule owed their selection primarily to him and held their positions only
+if personally loyal to him. Confident of his support and certain that
+protests against misgovernment would be regarded by the President as
+seditious, many of them abused their power at will. Notable among them
+were the local officials, called jefes politicos, whose control of the
+police force enabled them to indulge in practices of intimidation and
+extortion which ultimately became unendurable.
+
+Though symptoms of popular wrath against the Diaz regime, or diazpotism
+as the Mexicans termed it, were apparent as early as 1908, it was not
+until January, 1911, that the actual revolution came. It was headed by
+Francisco I. Madero, a member of a wealthy and distinguished family
+of landed proprietors in one of the northern States. What the
+revolutionists demanded in substance was the retirement of the
+President, Vice President, and Cabinet; a return to the principle of no
+reelection to the chief magistracy; a guarantee of fair elections at
+all times; the choice of capable, honest, and impartial judges, jefes
+politicos, and other officials; and, in particular, a series of agrarian
+and industrial reforms which would break up the great estates, create
+peasant proprietorships, and better the conditions of the working
+classes. Disposed at first to treat the insurrection lightly, Diaz soon
+found that he had underestimated its strength. Grants of some of the
+demands and promises of reform were met with a dogged insistence upon
+his own resignation. Then, as the rebellion spread to the southward, the
+masterful old man realized that his thirty-one years of rule were at an
+end. On the 25th of May, therefore, he gave up his power and sailed for
+Europe.
+
+Madero was chosen President five months later, but the revolution soon
+passed beyond his control. He was a sincere idealist, if not something
+of a visionary, actuated by humane and kindly sentiments, but he lacked
+resoluteness and the art of managing men. He was too prolific, also, of
+promises which he must have known he could not keep. Yielding to family
+influence, he let his followers get out of hand. Ambitious chieftains
+and groups of Radicals blocked and thwarted him at every turn. When
+he could find no means of carrying out his program without wholesale
+confiscation and the disruption of business interests, he was accused of
+abandoning his duty. One officer after another deserted him and turned
+rebel. Brigandage and insurrection swept over the country and threatened
+to involve it in ugly complications with the United States and European
+powers. At length, in February, 1913, came the blow that put an end to
+all of Madero's efforts and aspirations. A military uprising in the
+city of Mexico made him prisoner, forced him to resign, and set up a
+provisional government under the dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta,
+one of his chief lieutenants. Two weeks later both Madero and the Vice
+President were assassinated while on their way supposedly to a place of
+safety.
+
+Huerta was a rough soldier of Indian origin, possessed of unusual force
+of character and strength of will, ruthless, cunning, and in bearing
+alternately dignified and vulgar. A scientifico in political faith, he
+was disposed to restore the Diaz regime, so far as an application of
+shrewdness and force could make it possible. But from the outset he
+found an obstacle confronting him that he could not surmount. Though
+acknowledged by European countries and by many of the Hispanic
+republics, he could not win recognition from the United States, either
+as provisional President or as a candidate for regular election to the
+office. Whether personally responsible for the murder of Madero or
+not, he was not regarded by the American Government as entitled to
+recognition, on the ground that he was not the choice of the Mexican
+people. In its refusal to recognize an administration set up merely by
+brute force, the United States was upheld by Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
+and Cuba. The elimination of Huerta became the chief feature for a while
+of its Mexican policy.
+
+Meanwhile the followers of Madero and the pronounced Radicals had found
+a new northern leader in the person of Venustiano Carranza. They
+called themselves Constitutionalists, as indicative of their purpose to
+reestablish the constitution and to choose a successor to Madero in
+a constitutional manner. What they really desired was those radical
+changes along social, industrial, and political lines, which Madero had
+championed in theory. They sought to introduce a species of socialistic
+regime that would provide the Mexicans with an opportunity for
+self-regeneration. While Diaz had believed in economic progress
+supported by the great landed proprietors, the moral influence of the
+Church, and the application of foreign capital, the Constitutionalists,
+personified in Carranza, were convinced that these agencies, if left
+free and undisturbed to work their will, would ruin Mexico. Though not
+exactly antiforeign in their attitude, they wished to curb the power
+of the foreigner; they would accept his aid whenever desirable for the
+economic development of the country, but they would not submit to his
+virtual control of public affairs. In any case they would tolerate no
+interference by the United States. Compromise with the Huerta regime,
+therefore, was impossible. Huerta, the "strong man" of the Diaz type,
+must go. On this point, at least, the Constitutionalists were in
+thorough agreement with the United States.
+
+A variety of international complications ensued. Both Huertistas and
+Carranzistas perpetrated outrages on foreigners, which evoked sharp
+protests and threats from the United States and European powers.
+While careful not to recognize his opponents officially, the American
+Government resorted to all kinds of means to oust the dictator. An
+embargo was laid on the export of arms and munitions; all efforts to
+procure financial help from abroad were balked. The power of Huerta was
+waning perceptibly and that of the Constitutionalists was increasing
+when an incident that occurred in April, 1914, at Tampico brought
+matters to a climax. A number of American sailors who had gone ashore
+to obtain supplies were arrested and temporarily detained. The United
+States demanded that the American flag be saluted as reparation for the
+insult. Upon the refusal of Huerta to comply, the United States sent a
+naval expedition to occupy Vera Cruz.
+
+Both Carranza and Huerta regarded this move as equivalent to an act of
+war. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile then offered their mediation. But
+the conference arranged for this purpose at Niagara Falls, Canada,
+had before it a task altogether impossible of accomplishment. Though
+Carranza was willing to have the Constitutionalists represented, if
+the discussion related solely to the immediate issue between the United
+States and Huerta, he declined to extend the scope of the conference so
+as to admit the right of the United States to interfere in the internal
+affairs of Mexico. The conference accomplished nothing so far as the
+immediate issue was concerned. The dictator did not make reparation for
+the "affronts and indignities" he had committed; but his day was over.
+The advance of the Constitutionalists southward compelled him in July
+to abandon the capital and leave the country. Four months later the
+American forces were withdrawn from Vera Cruz. The "A B C" Conference,
+however barren it was of direct results, helped to allay suspicions of
+the United States in Hispanic America and brought appreciably nearer a
+"concert of the western world."
+
+While far from exercising full control throughout Mexico, the "first
+chief" of the Constitutionalists was easily the dominant figure in
+the situation. At home a ranchman, in public affairs a statesman of
+considerable ability, knowing how to insist and yet how to temporize,
+Carranza carried on a struggle, both in arms and in diplomacy, which
+singled him out as a remarkable character. Shrewdly aware of the
+advantageous circumstances afforded him by the war in Europe, he turned
+them to account with a degree of skill that blocked every attempt at
+defeat or compromise. No matter how serious the opposition to him in
+Mexico itself, how menacing the attitude of the United States, or how
+persuasive the conciliatory disposition of Hispanic American nations, he
+clung stubbornly and tenaciously to his program.
+
+Even after Huerta had been eliminated, Carranza's position was not
+assured, for Francisco, or "Pancho," Villa, a chieftain whose personal
+qualities resembled those of the fallen dictator, was equally determined
+to eliminate him. For a brief moment, indeed, peace reigned. Under
+an alleged agreement between them, a convention of Constitutionalist
+officers was to choose a provisional President, who should be ineligible
+as a candidate for the permanent presidency at the regular elections.
+When Carranza assumed both of these positions, Villa declared his act
+a violation of their understanding and insisted upon his retirement.
+Inasmuch as the convention was dominated by Villa, the "first chief"
+decided to ignore its election of a provisional President.
+
+The struggle between the Conventionalists headed by Villa and the
+Constitutionalists under Carranza plunged Mexico into worse discord and
+misery than ever. Indeed it became a sort of three-cornered contest. The
+third party was Emiliano Zapata, an Indian bandit, nominally a supporter
+of Villa but actually favorable to neither of the rivals. Operating near
+the capital, he plundered Conventionalists and Constitutionalists with
+equal impartiality, and as a diversion occasionally occupied the city
+itself. These circumstances gave force to the saying that Mexico was a
+"land where peace breaks out once in a while!"
+
+Early in 1915 Carranza proceeded to issue a number of radical decrees
+that exasperated foreigners almost beyond endurance. Rather than resort
+to extreme measures again, however, the United States invoked the
+cooperation of the Hispanic republics and proposed a conference to
+devise some solution of the Mexican problem. To give the proposed
+conference a wider representation, it invited not only the "A B C"
+powers, but Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala to participate. Meeting
+at Washington in August, the mediators encountered the same difficulty
+which had confronted their predecessors at Niagara Falls. Though the
+other chieftains assented, Carranza, now certain of success, declined to
+heed any proposal of conciliation. Characterizing efforts of the kind as
+an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sister nation,
+he warned the Hispanic republics against setting up so dangerous a
+precedent. In reply Argentina stated that the conference obeyed a "lofty
+inspiration of Pan-American solidarity, and, instead of finding any
+cause for alarm, the Mexican people should see in it a proof of their
+friendly consideration that her fate evokes in us, and calls forth our
+good wishes for her pacification and development." However, as the only
+apparent escape from more watchful waiting or from armed intervention on
+the part of the United States, in October the seven Governments decided
+to accept the facts as they stood, and accordingly recognized Carranza
+as the de facto ruler of Mexico.
+
+Enraged at this favor shown to his rival, Villa determined deliberately
+to provoke American intervention by a murderous raid on a town in New
+Mexico in March, 1916. When the United States dispatched an expedition
+to avenge the outrage, Carranza protested energetically against its
+violation of Mexican territory and demanded its withdrawal. Several
+clashes, in fact, occurred between American soldiers and Carranzistas.
+Neither the expedition itself, however, nor diplomatic efforts to find
+some method of cooperation which would prevent constant trouble along
+the frontier served any useful purpose, since Villa apparently could
+not be captured and Carranza refused to yield to diplomatic persuasion.
+Carranza then proposed that a joint commission be appointed to settle
+these vexed questions. Even this device proved wholly unsatisfactory.
+The Mexicans would not concede the right of the United States to send
+an armed expedition into their country at any time, and the Americans
+refused to accept limitations on the kind of troops that they might
+employ or on the zone of their operations. In January, 1917, the joint
+commission was dissolved and the American soldiers were withdrawn. Again
+the "first chief" had won!
+
+On the 5th of February a convention assembled at Queretaro promulgated
+a constitution embodying substantially all of the radical program
+that Carranza had anticipated in his decrees. Besides providing for an
+elaborate improvement in the condition of the laboring classes and
+for such a division of great estates as might satisfy their particular
+needs, the new constitution imposed drastic restrictions upon foreigners
+and religious bodies. Under its terms, foreigners could not acquire
+industrial concessions unless they waived their treaty rights and
+consented to regard themselves for the purpose as Mexican citizens.
+In all such cases preference was to be shown Mexicans over foreigners.
+Ecclesiastical corporations were forbidden to own real property. No
+primary school and no charitable institution could be conducted by
+any religious mission or denomination, and religious publications must
+refrain from commenting on public affairs. The presidential term was
+reduced from six years to four; reelection was prohibited; and the
+office of Vice President was abolished.
+
+When, on the 1st of May, Venustiano Carranza was chosen President,
+Mexico had its first constitutional executive in four years. After
+a cruel and obstinately intolerant struggle that had occasioned
+indescribable suffering from disease and starvation, as well as the
+usual slaughter and destruction incident to war, the country began to
+enjoy once more a measure of peace. Financial exhaustion, however, had
+to be overcome before recuperation was possible. Industrial progress had
+become almost paralyzed; vast quantities of depreciated paper money had
+to be withdrawn from circulation; and an enormous array of claims for
+the loss of foreign life and property had rolled up.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN
+
+The course of events in certain of the republics in and around the
+Caribbean Sea warned the Hispanic nations that independence was a
+relative condition and that it might vary in direct ratio with nearness
+to the United States. After 1906 this powerful northern neighbor showed
+an unmistakable tendency to extend its influence in various ways. Here
+fiscal and police control was established; there official recognition
+was withheld from a President who had secured office by unconstitutional
+methods. Nonrecognition promised to be an effective way of maintaining
+a regime of law and order, as the United States understood those terms.
+Assurances from the United States of the full political equality of all
+republics, big or little, in the western hemisphere did not always carry
+conviction to Spanish American ears. The smaller countries in and around
+the Caribbean Sea, at least, seemed likely to become virtually American
+protectorates.
+
+Like their Hispanic neighbor on the north, the little republics of
+Central America were also scenes of political disturbance. None of them
+except Panama escaped revolutionary uprisings, though the loss of life
+and property was insignificant. On the other hand, in these early years
+of the century the five countries north of Panama made substantial
+progress toward federation. As a South American writer has expressed
+it, their previous efforts in that direction "amid sumptuous festivals,
+banquets and other solemn public acts" at which they "intoned in
+lyric accents daily hymns for the imperishable reunion of the isthmian
+republics," had been as illusory as they were frequent. Despite the
+mediation of the United States and Mexico in 1906, while the latter
+was still ruled by Diaz, the struggle in which Nicaragua, Honduras,
+Guatemala, and Salvador had been engaged was soon renewed between
+the first two belligerents. Since diplomatic interposition no longer
+availed, American marines were landed in Nicaragua, and the bumptious
+Zelaya was induced to have his country meet its neighbors in a
+conference at Washington. Under the auspices of the United States and
+Mexico, in December, 1907, representatives of the five republics signed
+a series of conventions providing for peace and cooperation. An arbitral
+court of justice, to be erected in Costa Rica and composed of one judge
+from each nation, was to decide all matters of dispute which could not
+be adjusted through ordinary diplomatic means. Here, also, an institute
+for the training of Central American teachers was to be established.
+Annual conferences were to discuss, and an office in Guatemala was to
+record, measures designed to secure uniformity in financial, commercial,
+industrial, sanitary, and educational regulations. Honduras, the storm
+center of weakness, was to be neutralized. None of the States was
+thereafter to recognize in any of them a government which had been set
+up in an illegal fashion. A "Constitutional Act of Central American
+Fraternity," moreover, was adopted on behalf of peace, harmony, and
+progress. Toward a realization of the several objects of the conference,
+the Presidents of the five republics were to invite their colleagues
+of the United States and Mexico, whenever needful, to appoint
+representatives, to "lend their good offices in a purely friendly way."
+
+Though most of these agencies were promptly put into operation, the
+results were not altogether satisfactory. Some discords, to be sure,
+were removed by treaties settling boundary questions and providing for
+reciprocal trade advantages; but it is doubtful whether the arrangements
+devised at Washington would have worked at all if the United States had
+not kept the little countries under a certain amount of observation.
+What the Central Americans apparently preferred was to be left alone,
+some of them to mind their own business, others to mind their neighbor's
+affairs.
+
+Of all the Central American countries Honduras was, perhaps, the one
+most afflicted with pecuniary misfortunes. In 1909 its foreign debt,
+along with arrears of interest unpaid for thirty-seven years, was
+estimated at upwards of $110,000,000. Of this amount a large part
+consisted of loans obtained from foreign capitalists, at more or less
+extortionate rates, for the construction of a short railway, of which
+less than half had been built. That revolutions should be rather
+chronic in a land where so much money could be squandered and where
+the temperaments of Presidents and ex-Presidents were so bellicose,
+was natural enough. When the United States could not induce the warring
+rivals to abide by fair elections, it sent a force of marines to overawe
+them and gave warning that further disturbances would not be allowed.
+
+In Nicaragua the conditions were similar. Here Zelaya, restive under the
+limitations set by the conference at Washington, yearned to become the
+"strong man" of Central America, who would teach the Yankees to stop
+their meddling. But his downfall was imminent. In 1909, as the result of
+his execution of two American soldiers of fortune who had taken part in
+a recent insurrection, the United States resolved to tolerate Zelaya no
+longer. Openly recognizing the insurgents, it forced the dictator out of
+the country. Three years later, when a President-elect started to assume
+office before the legally appointed time, a force of American marines
+at the capital convinced him that such a procedure was undesirable. The
+"corrupt and barbarous" conditions prevailing in Zelaya's time, he was
+informed, could not be tolerated. The United States, in fact, notified
+all parties in Nicaragua that, under the terms of the Washington
+conventions, it had a "moral mandate to exert its influence for the
+preservation of the general peace of Central America." Since those
+agreements had vested no one with authority to enforce them, such an
+interpretation of their language, aimed apparently at all disturbances,
+foreign as well as domestic, was rather elastic! At all events, after
+1912, when a new constitution was adopted, the country became relatively
+quiet and somewhat progressive. Whenever a political flurry did take
+place, American marines were employed to preserve the peace. Many
+citizens, therefore, declined to vote, on the ground that the moral and
+material support thus furnished by the great nation to the northward
+rendered it futile for them to assume political responsibilities.
+
+Meanwhile negotiations began which were ultimately to make Nicaragua a
+fiscal protectorate of the United States. American officials were chosen
+to act as financial advisers and collectors of customs, and favorable
+arrangements were concluded with American bankers regarding the monetary
+situation; but it was not until 1916 that a treaty covering this
+situation was ratified. According to its provisions, in return for a
+stipulated sum to be expended under American direction, Nicaragua was
+to grant to the United States the exclusive privilege of constructing a
+canal through the territory of the republic and to lease to it the Corn
+Islands and a part of Fonseca Bay, on the Pacific coast, for use as
+naval stations. The prospect of American intervention alarmed the
+neighboring republics. Asserting that the treaty infringed upon their
+respective boundaries, Costa Rica, and Salvador brought suit against
+Nicaragua before the Central American Court. With the exception of
+the Nicaraguan representative, the judges upheld the contention of the
+plaintiffs that the defendant had no right to make any such concessions
+without previous consultation with Costa Rica, Salvador, and Honduras,
+since all three alike were affected by them. The Court observed,
+however, that it could not declare the treaty void because the
+United States, one of the parties concerned, was not subject to its
+jurisdiction. Nicaragua declined to accept the decision; and the United
+States, the country responsible for the existence of the Court and
+presumably interested in helping to enforce its judgment, allowed it to
+go out of existence in 1918 on the expiration of its ten-year term.
+
+The economic situation of Costa Rica brought about a state of affairs
+wholly unusual in Central American politics. The President, Alfredo
+Gonzalez, wished to reform the system of taxation so that a fairer share
+of the public burdens should fall on the great landholders who, like
+most of their brethren in the Hispanic countries, were practically
+exempt. This project, coupled with the fact that certain American
+citizens seeking an oil concession had undermined the power of the
+President by wholesale bribery, induced the Minister of War, in 1917,
+to start a revolt against him. Rather than shed the blood of his fellow
+citizens for mere personal advantages, Gonzalez sustained the good
+reputation of Costa Rica for freedom from civil commotions by quietly
+leaving the country and going to the United States to present his case.
+In consequence, the American Government declined to recognize the de
+facto ruler.
+
+Police and fiscal supervision by the United States has characterized
+the recent history of Panama. Not only has a proposed increase in the
+customs duties been disallowed, but more than once the unrest attending
+presidential elections has required the calming presence of American
+officials. As a means of forestalling outbreaks, particularly in view
+of the cosmopolitan population resident on the Isthmus, the republic
+enacted a law in 1914 which forbade foreigners to mix in local politics
+and authorized the expulsion of naturalized citizens who attacked the
+Government through the press or otherwise. With the approval of the
+United States, Panama entered into an agreement with American financiers
+providing for the creation of a national bank, one-fourth of the
+directors of which should be named by the Government of the republic.
+
+The second period of American rule in Cuba lasted till 1909. Control of
+the Government was then formally transferred to Jose Miguel Gomez, the
+President who had been chosen by the Liberals at the elections held in
+the previous year; but the United States did not cease to watch over its
+chief Caribbean ward. A bitter controversy soon developed in the Cuban
+Congress over measures to forbid the further purchase of land by aliens,
+and to insure that a certain percentage of the public offices should
+be held by colored citizens. Though both projects were defeated, they
+revealed a strong antiforeign sentiment and much dissatisfaction on the
+part of the negro population. It was clear also that Gomez, intended to
+oust all conservatives from office, for an obedient Congress passed a
+bill suspending the civil service rules.
+
+The partisanship of Gomez, and his supporters, together with the
+constant interference of military veterans in political affairs,
+provoked numerous outbreaks, which led the United States, in 1912, to
+warn Cuba that it might again be compelled to intervene. Eventually,
+when a negro insurrection in the eastern part of the island menaced the
+safety of foreigners, American marines were landed. Another instance
+of intervention was the objection by the United States to an employers'
+liability law that would have given a monopoly of the insurance business
+to a Cuban company to the detriment of American firms.
+
+After the election of Mario Menocal, the Conservative candidate, to the
+presidency in 1912, another occasion for intervention presented itself.
+An amnesty bill, originally drafted for the purpose of freeing the
+colored insurgents and other offenders, was amended so as to empower
+the retiring President to grant pardon before trial to persons whom
+his successor wished to prosecute for wholesale corruption in financial
+transactions. Before the bill passed, however, notice was sent from
+Washington that, since the American Government had the authority to
+supervise the finances of the republic, Gomez would better veto the
+bill, and this he accordingly did.
+
+A sharp struggle arose when it became known that Menocal would be a
+candidate for reelection. The Liberal majority in the Congress passed
+a bill requiring that a President who sought to succeed himself should
+resign two months before the elections. When Menocal vetoed this
+measure, his opponents demanded that the United States supervise the
+elections. As the result of the elections was doubtful, Gomez and his
+followers resorted in 1917 to the usual insurrection; whereupon the
+American Government warned the rebels that it would not recognize their
+claims if they won by force. Active aid from that quarter, as well as
+the capture of the insurgent leader, caused the movement to collapse
+after the electoral college had decided in favor of Menocal.
+
+In the Dominican Republic disturbances were frequent, notwithstanding
+the fact that American officials were in charge of the customhouses and
+by their presence were expected to exert a quieting influence. Even
+the adoption, in 1908, of a new constitution which provided for the
+prolongation of the presidential term to six years and for the abolition
+of the office of Vice President--two stabilizing devices quite common
+in Hispanic countries where personal ambition is prone to be a source of
+political trouble--did not help much to restore order. The assassination
+of the President and the persistence of age-long quarrels with Haiti
+over boundaries made matters worse. Thereupon, in 1913, the United
+States served formal notice on the rebellious parties that it would
+not only refuse to recognize any Government set up by force but would
+withhold any share in the receipts from the customs. As this procedure
+did not prevent a revolutionary leader from demanding half a million
+dollars as a financial sedative for his political nerves and from
+creating more trouble when the President failed to dispense it, the
+heavy hand of an American naval force administered another kind
+of specific, until commissioners from Porto Rico could arrive to
+superintend the selection of a new chief magistrate. Notwithstanding the
+protest of the Dominican Government, the "fairest and freest" elections
+ever known in the country were held under the direction of those
+officials--as a "body of friendly observers"!
+
+However amicable this arrangement seemed, it did not smother the flames
+of discord. In 1916, when an American naval commander suggested that a
+rebellious Minister of War leave the capital, he agreed to do so if the
+"fairest and freest" of chosen Presidents would resign. Even after both
+of them had complied with the suggestions, the individuals who assumed
+their respective offices were soon at loggerheads. Accordingly the
+United States placed the republic under military rule, until a President
+could be elected who might be able to retain his post without too much
+"friendly observation" from Washington, and a Minister of War could be
+appointed who would refrain from making war on the President! Then the
+organization of a new party to combat the previous inordinate display
+of personalities in politics created some hope that the republic would
+accomplish its own redemption.
+
+Only because of its relation to the wars of emancipation and to the
+Dominican Republic, need the negro state of Haiti, occupying the western
+part of the Caribbean island, be mentioned in connection with the story
+of the Hispanic nations. Suffice it to say that the fact that their
+color was different and that they spoke a variant of French instead of
+Spanish did not prevent the inhabitants of this state from offering a
+far worse spectacle of political and financial demoralization than
+did their neighbors to the eastward. Perpetual commotions and repeated
+interventions by American and European naval forces on behalf of the
+foreign residents, eventually made it imperative for the United States
+to take direct charge of the republic. In 1916, by a convention
+which placed the finances under American control, created a native
+constabulary under American officers, and imposed a number of other
+restraints, the United States converted Haiti into what is practically a
+protectorate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. PAN-AMERICANISM AND THE GREAT WAR
+
+While the Hispanic republics were entering upon the second century of
+their independent life, the idea of a certain community of interests
+between themselves and the United States began to assume a fairly
+definite form. Though emphasized by American statesmen and publicists
+in particular, the new point of view was not generally understood or
+appreciated by the people of either this country or its fellow nations
+to the southward. It seemed, nevertheless, to promise an effective
+cooperation in spirit and action between them and came therefore to be
+called "Pan-Americanism."
+
+This sentiment of inter-American solidarity sprang from several sources.
+The periodical conferences of the United States and its sister republics
+gave occasion for an interchange of official courtesies and expressions
+of good feeling. Doubtless, also, the presence of delegates from the
+Hispanic countries at the international gatherings at The Hague served
+to acquaint the world at large with the stability, strength, wealth, and
+culture of their respective lands. Individual Americans took an active
+interest in their fellows of Hispanic stock and found their interest
+reciprocated. Motives of business or pleasure and a desire to obtain
+personal knowledge about one another led to visits and countervisits
+that became steadily more frequent. Societies were created to encourage
+the friendship and acquaintance thus formed. Scientific congresses were
+held and institutes were founded in which both the United States and
+Hispanic America were represented. Books, articles, and newspaper
+accounts about one another's countries were published in increasing
+volume. Educational institutions devoted a constantly growing attention
+to inter-American affairs. Individuals and commissions were dispatched
+by the Hispanic nations and the United States to study one another's
+conditions and to confer about matters of mutual concern. Secretaries of
+State, Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and other distinguished personages
+interchanged visits. Above all, the common dangers and responsibilities
+falling upon the Americas at large as a consequence of the European war
+seemed likely to bring the several nations into a harmony of feeling and
+relationship to which they had never before attained.
+
+Pan-Americanism, however, was destined to remain largely a generous
+ideal. The action of the United States in extending its direct influence
+over the small republics in and around the Caribbean aroused
+the suspicion and alarm of Hispanic Americans, who still feared
+imperialistic designs on the part of that country now more than ever the
+Colossus of the North. "The art of oratory among the Yankees," declared
+a South American critic, "is lavish with a fraternal idealism; but
+strong wills enforce their imperialistic ambitions." Impassioned
+speakers and writers adjured the ghost of Hispanic confederation to rise
+and confront the new northern peril. They even advocated an appeal
+to Great Britain, Germany, or Japan, and they urged closer economic,
+social, and intellectual relations with the countries of Europe.
+
+It was while the United States was thus widening the sphere of its
+influence in the Caribbean that the "A B C" powers--Argentina, Brazil,
+and Chile--reached an understanding which was in a sense a measure of
+self-defense. For some years cordial relations had existed among these
+three nations which had grown so remarkably in strength and prestige.
+It was felt that by united action they might set up in the New World
+the European principle of a balance of power, assume the leadership
+in Hispanic America, and serve in some degree as a counterpoise to the
+United States. Nevertheless they were disposed to cooperate with their
+northern neighbor in the peaceable adjustment of conflicts in which
+other Hispanic countries were concerned, provided that the mediation
+carried on by such a "concert of the western world" did not include
+actual intervention in the internal affairs of the countries involved.
+
+With this attitude of the public mind, it is not strange that the
+Hispanic republics at large should have been inclined to look with scant
+favor upon proposals made by the United States, in 1916, to render the
+spirit of Pan-Americanism more precise in its operation. The proposals
+in substance were these: that all the nations of America "mutually agree
+to guarantee the territorial integrity" of one another; to "maintain a
+republican form of government"; to prohibit the "exportation of arms
+to any but the legally constituted governments"; and to adopt laws of
+neutrality which would make it "impossible to filibustering expeditions
+to threaten or carry on revolutions in neighboring republics." These
+proposals appear to have received no formal approval beyond what is
+signified by the diplomatic expression "in principle." Considering the
+disparity in strength, wealth, and prestige between the northern
+country and its southern fellows, suggestions of the sort could be made
+practicable only by letting the United States do whatever it might
+think needful to accomplish the objects which it sought. Obviously the
+Hispanic nations, singly or collectively, would hardly venture to take
+any such action within the borders of the United States itself, if, for
+example, it failed to maintain what, in their opinion, was "a republican
+form of government." A full acceptance of the plan accordingly would
+have amounted to a recognition of American overlordship, and this they
+were naturally not disposed to admit.
+
+The common perils and duties confronting the Americas as a result of
+the Great War, however, made close cooperation between the Hispanic
+republics and the United States up to a certain point indispensable.
+Toward that transatlantic struggle the attitude of all the nations of
+the New World at the outset was substantially the same. Though strongly
+sympathetic on the whole with the "Allies" and notably with France, the
+southern countries nevertheless declared their neutrality. More than
+that, they tried to convert neutrality into a Pan-American policy,
+instead of regarding it as an official attitude to be adopted by the
+republics separately. Thus when the conflict overseas began to injure
+the rights of neutrals, Argentina and other nations urged that the
+countries of the New World jointly agree to declare that direct maritime
+commerce between American lands should be considered as "inter-American
+coastwise trade," and that the merchant ships engaged in it, whatever
+the flag under which they sailed, should be looked upon as neutral.
+Though the South American countries failed to enlist the support of
+their northern neighbor in this bold departure from international
+precedent, they found some compensation for their disappointment in the
+closer commercial and financial relations which they established with
+the United States.
+
+Because of the dependence of the Hispanic nations, and especially those
+of the southern group, on the intimacy of their economic ties with the
+belligerents overseas, they suffered from the ravages of the struggle
+more perhaps than other lands outside of Europe. Negotiations for
+prospective loans were dropped. Industries were suspended, work on
+public improvements was checked, and commerce brought almost to a
+standstill. As the revenues fell off and ready money became scarce,
+drastic measures had to be devised to meet the financial strain. For the
+protection of credit, bank holidays were declared, stock exchanges were
+closed, moratoria were set up in nearly all the countries, taxes
+and duties were increased, radical reductions in expenditure were
+undertaken, and in a few cases large quantities of paper money were
+issued.
+
+With the European market thus wholly or partially cut off, the
+Hispanic republics were forced to supply the consequent shortage with
+manufactured articles and other goods from the United States and to send
+thither their raw materials in exchange. To their northern neighbor they
+had to turn also for pecuniary aid. A Pan-American financial conference
+was held at Washington in 1915, and an international high commission was
+appointed to carry its recommendations into effect. Gradually most of
+the Hispanic countries came to show a favorable trade balance. Then, as
+the war drew into its fourth year, several of them even began to enjoy
+great prosperity. That Pan-Americanism had not meant much more than
+cooperation for economic ends seemed evident when, on April 6, 1917,
+the United States declared war on Germany. Instead of following
+spontaneously in the wake of their great northern neighbor, the Hispanic
+republics were divided by conflicting currents of opinion and hesitated
+as to their proper course of procedure. While a majority of them
+expressed approval of what the United States had done, and while Uruguay
+for its part asserted that "no American country, which in defense of its
+own rights should find itself in a state of war with nations of other
+continents, would be treated as a belligerent," Mexico veered almost to
+the other extreme by proposing that the republics of America agree to
+lay an embargo on the shipment of munitions to the warring powers.
+
+As a matter of fact, only seven out of the nineteen Hispanic nations saw
+fit to imitate the example set by their northern neighbor and to declare
+war on Germany. These were Cuba--in view of its "duty toward the United
+States," Panama, Guatemala, Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
+Since the Dominican Republic at the time was under American military
+control, it was not in a position to choose its course. Four countries
+Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay--broke off diplomatic relations
+with Germany. The other seven republics--Mexico, Salvador, Colombia,
+Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay--continued their formal
+neutrality. In spite of a disclosure made by the United States of
+insulting and threatening utterances on the part of the German charge
+d'affaires in Argentina, which led to popular outbreaks at the capital
+and induced the national Congress to declare in favor of a severance of
+diplomatic relations with that functionary's Government, the President
+of the republic stood firm in his resolution to maintain neutrality.
+If Pan-Americanism had ever involved the idea of political cooperation
+among the nations of the New World, it broke down just when it might
+have served the greatest of purposes. Even the "A B C" combination
+itself had apparently been shattered.
+
+A century and more had now passed since the Spanish and Portuguese
+peoples of the New World had achieved their independence. Eighteen
+political children of various sizes and stages of advancement, or
+backwardness, were born of Spain in America, and one acknowledged the
+maternity of Portugal. Big Brazil has always maintained the happiest
+relations with the little mother in Europe, who still watches with
+pride the growth of her strapping youngster. Between Spain and her
+descendants, however, animosity endured for many years after they had
+thrown off the parental yoke. Yet of late, much has been done on both
+sides to render the relationship cordial. The graceful act of Spain in
+sending the much-beloved Infanta Isabel to represent her in Argentina
+and Chile at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of their cry
+for independence, and to wish them Godspeed on their onward journey, was
+typical of the yearning of the mother country for her children overseas,
+despite the lapse of years and political ties. So, too, her ablest men
+of intellect have striven nobly and with marked success to revive
+among them a sense of filial affection and gratitude for all that Spain
+contributed to mold the mind and heart of her kindred in distant
+lands. On their part, the Hispanic Americans have come to a clearer
+consciousness of the fact that on the continents of the New World there
+are two distinct types of civilization, with all that each connotes of
+differences in race, psychology, tradition, language, and custom--their
+own, and that represented by the United States. Appreciative though
+the southern countries are of their northern neighbor, they cling
+nevertheless to their heritage from Spain and Portugal in whatever seems
+conducive to the maintenance of their own ideals of life and thought.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+For anything like a detailed study of the history of the Hispanic
+nations of America, obviously one must consult works written in Spanish
+and Portuguese. There are many important books, also, in French and
+German; but, with few exceptions, the recommendations for the general
+reader will be limited to accounts in English.
+
+A very useful outline and guide to recent literature on the subject is
+W. W. Pierson, Jr., "A Syllabus of Latin-American History" (Chapel Hill,
+North Carolina, 1917). A brief introduction to the history and present
+aspects of Hispanic American civilization is W. R. Shepherd, "Latin
+America" (New York, 1914). The best general accounts of the Spanish
+and Portuguese colonial systems will be found in Charles de Lannoy and
+Herman van der Linden, "Histoire de L'Expansion Coloniale des Peuples
+Europeans: Portugal et Espagne" (Brussels and Paris, 1907), and Kurt
+Simon, "Spanien and Portugal als See and Kolonialmdchte" (Hamburg,
+1913). For the Spanish colonial regime alone, E. G. Bourne, "Spain in
+America" (New York, 1904) is excellent. The situation in southern South
+America toward the close of Spanish rule is well described in Bernard
+Moses, "South America on the Eve of Emancipation" (New York, 1908).
+Among contemporary accounts of that period, Alexander von Humboldt and
+Aime Bonpland, "Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions
+of America", 3 vols. (London, 1881); Alexander von Humboldt, "Political
+Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain", 4 vols. (London,1811-1822); and F.
+R. J. de Pons, "Travels in South America", 2 vols. (London, 1807), are
+authoritative, even if not always easy to read.
+
+On the wars of independence, see the scholarly treatise by W. S.
+Robertson, "Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the
+Lives of their Liberators" (New York, 1918); Bartolome Mitre, "The
+Emancipation of South America" (London, 1893)--a condensed translation
+of the author's "Historia de San Martin", and wholly favorable to that
+patriot; and F. L. Petre, "Simon Bolivar" (London, 1910)--impartial
+at the expense of the imagination. Among the numerous contemporary
+accounts, the following will be found serviceable: W. D. Robinson,
+"Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution" (Philadelphia, 1890); J. R.
+Poinsett, "Notes on Mexico" (London, 1825); H. M. Brackenridge, "Voyage
+to South America," 2 vols. (London, 1820); W. B. Stevenson, "Historical
+and Descriptive Narrative of Twenty Years' Residence in South America",
+3 vols. (London, 1895); J. Miller, "Memoirs of General Miller in the
+Service of the Republic of Peru", 2 vols. (London, 1828); H. L. V.
+Ducoudray Holstein, "Memoirs of Simon Bolivar", 2 vols. (London, 1830),
+and John Armitage, "History of Brazil", 2 vols. (London, 1836).
+
+The best books on the history of the republics as a whole since the
+attainment of independence, and written from an Hispanic American
+viewpoint, are F. Garcia Calderon, "Latin America, its Rise and
+Progress" (New York, 1913), and M. de Oliveira Lima, "The Evolution of
+Brazil Compared with that of Spanish and Anglo-Saxon America" (Stanford
+University, California, 1914). The countries of Central America are
+dealt with by W. H. Koebel, "Central America" (New York, 1917), and of
+South America by T. C. Dawson, "The South American Republics", 2 vols.
+(New York, 1903-1904), and C. E. Akers, "History of South America"
+(London, 1912), though in a manner that often confuses rather than
+enlightens.
+
+Among the histories and descriptions of individual countries, arranged
+in alphabetical order, the following are probably the most useful to the
+general reader: W. A. Hirst, "Argentina" (New York, 1910); Paul Walle,
+"Bolivia" (New York, 1914); Pierre Denis, "Brazil" (New York, 1911);
+G. F. S. Elliot, "Chile" (New York, 1907); P. J. Eder, "Colombia" (New
+York, 1913); J. B. Calvo, "The Republic of Costa Rica" (Chicago, 1890);
+A. G. Robinson, "Cuba, Old and New" (New York, 1915); Otto Schoenrich,
+"Santo Domingo" (New York, 1918); C. R. Enock, "Ecuador" (New York,
+1914); C. R. Enock, "Mexico" (New York, 1909); W. H. Koebel, "Paraguay"
+(New York, 1917); C. R. Enock, "Peru" (New York, 1910); W. H. Koebel,
+"Uruguay" (New York, 1911), and L. V. Dalton, "Venezuela" (New York,
+1912). Of these, the books by Robinson and Eder, on Cuba and Colombia,
+respectively, are the most readable and reliable.
+
+For additional bibliographical references see "South America" and the
+articles on individual countries in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica", 11th
+edition, and in Marrion Wilcox and G. E. Rines, "Encyclopedia of Latin
+America" (New York, 1917).
+
+Of contemporary or later works descriptive of the life and times of
+eminent characters in the history of the Hispanic American republics
+since 1830, a few may be taken as representative. Rosas: J. A. King,
+"Twenty-four Years in the Argentine Republic" (London, 1846), and
+Woodbine Parish, "Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata"
+(London, 1850). Francia: J. R. Rengger, "Reign of Dr. Joseph Gaspard
+Roderick [!] de Francia in Paraguay" (London, 1827); J. P. and W. P.
+Robertson, "Letters on South America", 3 vols. (London, 1843), and E.
+L. White, "El Supremo", a novel (New York, 1916). Santa Anna: Waddy
+Thompson, "Recollections of Mexico" (New York, 1846), and F. E. Ingles,
+Calderon de la Barca, "Life in Mexico" (London, 1859.). Juarez: U.
+R. Burke, "Life of Benito Juarez" (London, 1894). Solano Lopez: T. J.
+Hutchinson, "Parana; with Incidents of the Paraguayan War and South
+American Recollections" (London, 1868); George Thompson, "The War in
+Paraguay" (London, 1869); R. F. Burton, "Letters from the Battle-fields
+of Paraguay" (London, 1870), and C. A. Washburn, "The History of
+Paraguay", 2 vols. (Boston, 1871). Pedro II: J. C. Fletcher and D. P.
+Kidder, "Brazil and the Brazilians" (Boston, 1879), and Frank Bennett,
+"Forty Years in Brazil"(London, 1914). Garcia Moreno: Frederick
+Hassaurek, "Four Years among Spanish Americans"(New York, 1867). Guzman
+Blanco: C. D. Dance, "Recollections of Four Years in Venezuela" (London,
+1876). Diaz: James Creelman, "Diaz, Master of Mexico" (New York, 1911).
+Balmaceda: M. H. Hervey, "Dark Days in Chile" (London, 1891-1890.
+Carranza: L. Gutierrez de Lara and Edgcumb Pinchon, "The Mexican People:
+their Struggle for Freedom" (New York, 1914).
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hispanic Nations of the New World, by 
+William R. Shepherd
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