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Prowling About Panama

<h3>LATIN-AMERICAN HEART</h3> Much misunderstanding has been due to faulty methods of approach to our southern neighbor. Political diplomacy, commercial competition, and military displays will never get to the core of this international apple. The Latin-American is a man of heart, and until we recognize this fact we shall fail to understand him. Sympathy and courtesy will avail more than battleships and boycotts. This man is a born diplomat and has high intellectual development, but the deep and dominant motives of his life are his friendships and affections. If we know the ruling motives of men and races, we may avoid nearly all the misunderstandings and incriminating accusations that arise when we occupy different points of view, but matters look very different when we get at them from the viewpoint of the other man. Seeming contradictions dissolve and weaknesses appear as unsuccessful aspirations. Our complaints of low initiative become more reserved when we remember that spiritual slavery is a certain antidote for the pioneering spirit. The presence of a high though fruitless idealism amid [Pg 179] insurmountable difficulties attests a virile and buoyant spirit, captive and caged. Where toil has been treated with contempt for ages nothing short of economic helplessness can follow. As for financial faithlessness, who shall throw the first stone? If once we begin to justify the means by the end, commercial life is going to suffer. If we begin to complain about the insecurity of political institutions, we need to remember that democracy is one of the first and finest fruits of a free mind and heart. And we have not yet ourselves arrived sufficiently to do any boasting. To know our Latin-Americans as personal friends is to attain a new viewpoint on the whole Pan-American problem. We may not blind our eyes to their defects more than to our own—there are plenty of both; but understanding brings explanation of many things, and if we know all and understand fully, we may come to a different verdict. The southern man far surpasses us in certain traits of which we have taken small account and in which we are racially deficient. When given free opportunity, satisfactory response appears to the stimuli of democracy and initiative. To know personally the Spanish-American is to become aware of his keen intuitions, his high personal charm, his strong sympathies, his constructive imagination, and his hearty idealism; and whatever else he may be, he is loyal to his [Pg 180] friends and their interests. He may not be so intent on doing something, but he has time for social graces and arts, and possesses an innate refinement and grace of character that we take pride in having neglected. <div class="imgcenter" style="width: 321px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-178.jpg" width-obs="321" height-obs="500" alt="Coconuts-So Good and So High" title="" /> COCONUTS—SO GOOD AND SO HIGH</div> The Latin at his best is the racial goal of South America. Who cares to be judged by the social leavings of his own country? The South American best is intelligent, refined, and faithful to trusts. His mental processes are touched with a constructive imagination that finds high expression in his abundant art and literature. With a nervous, artistic, and sensitive temperament, he responds quickly to friendly approaches [Pg 181] and stands ready to do his full share in social obligations. That peons and ignorantes are not thus described is only to say that the tramps and social unacceptables of any country are not to be classed with the intellectuals and social leaders. The personal equation is apt to be decisive in South America. Commercial travelers learn this to their profit or loss, as they adopt or disdain the ruling motives of the men with whom they deal. It may do very well in some cities of the United States for the breezy commercial traveler to display his samples, deliver his oration, and give the merchant three minutes to take or leave the best goods on earth. Such methods in Spanish countries means no business at all. Selling goods in South America is a social function in which are involved members of the family and, incidentally, some very pleasant hours. Any sort of make-believe is useless. Unless a man really likes the people he had better abandon any plans to do business with them. He may get on in Chicago, but in Bogota he will be very lonesome. When a man sells goods on talk he may dispose of inferior qualities occasionally, and trust that he can talk enough faster next time to make up for his loss of standing; but when goods are sold on friendship a single mistake in quality means ruptured relations and the end of commercial confidence. And where friendship furnishes the [Pg 182] basis of business the buyer will protect the seller in return for uniform good treatment on his part. Like all other racial customs, when once it is understood the system is not so unreasonable as at first appears. An Englishman traveling in South America told me that on one occasion he sold a large bill of goods on credit to a man who proved to be a rascal. As the time for the return of the salesman and the payment for the goods drew near the buyer tried to sell out his entire stock at half price, with the intention of leaving the country with the money. But all the other merchants were friends of the salesman and refused to take advantage of the situation, to the loss of their friend. They preferred to lose their own profits. Business in Latin-America is a personal matter. If a deal goes wrong, somebody is responsible. North American business has a large impersonal element, and the man who makes a bad bargain usually feels that he had himself largely to blame. The joke is on him, and he will exercise more shrewdness next time. But the southern merchant views the case differently, and it behooves the salesman to handle only goods that will move to the profit of the buyer. When once this basis of friendly confidence is well set up it is easy to consummate large transactions with very little preliminary investigation. The capitalist is more interested in knowing what [Pg 183] his trusted friend thinks than in getting data upon which to base his own conclusions. <div class="imgcenter" style="width: 400px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-181.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="260" alt="Boiling 'Dulce'-Crude Sugar" title="" /> BOILING "DULCE"—CRUDE SUGAR</div> National ambassadors and Christian missionaries soon learn what the business man found out long ago: that there is only one road to successful relations with these people and that is the way of the heart. Neither minister nor missionary nor merchant can succeed unless he genuinely likes the people with whom he is dealing. Any missionary who is afflicted with a sense of superiority had better look up the sailing dates of any steamer line connecting with the United States. In meeting strangers the right kind of a letter of introduction has high value. Let the letter be from a personal friend, and the homes and hearts are opened in a way that surprises the more coldly [Pg 184] formal man from the north. It is a cheering and heartening experience to present a good letter to a fine family and be received with a cordiality and genuine hospitality that leaves no doubt as to the honest motives of the hosts. But how are we to find the road to the heart of any people unless we can speak to them in their own tongue in which they were born? The interpreter does very well for trivial and formal matters, but who wants to use an interpreter in his own family? Here is where the "United Stateser" gets into trouble. As a linguist he does not shine; in fact, he is barely visible in a good light. He considers it beneath him to take the trouble to learn anyone's language. Why should he? He can speak English already. If anyone has anything to say to him, let him say it in English; and if he cannot speak English, then surely he can have nothing worth saying. It is a ready formula, but it fails to reach the hearts of men who do not happen to have been born in the United States. The Latin is a better linguist than his neighbor to the north. Nearly all the better class people speak some English, though they are very modest about the matter. Practically all of them speak two or more languages. But even if they do surpass us in speech and can use some English, we are not excused from acquiring a working knowledge of the language of the people with [Pg 185] whom we are to deal. The increasing development of Spanish teaching in North American schools is one of the most helpful signs of the times. Nowhere does the innate courtesy of the Latin-American shine more than in his bearing toward the novice who tries to learn his language. We of the United States are wont to laugh at the linguistic struggles of the stranger within our gates, but not so with the South American. He is a gentleman, and will take immense pains to assist anyone who makes an effort to talk to him. He seems to regard it as a compliment that anyone should try to use his language. Any faltering effort will receive immediate encouragement. A volume could be written about the comical blunders of North American tyros in language learning. A hundred or two garbled words, vigorous guessing and violent arm action make up the linguistic equipment of some would-be "interpreters." Mixed English, Spanish, jerks, and profanity will do wonders where there is nothing else, but as substitutes for language they are far from ideal. Classic is the story of one of these interpreters who struggled in vain to deliver the meaning of his friend to a native, and at last gave up in disgust, regretting that he "ever learned the blamed language anyway." Spanish is possibly as easy to learn as any language other than that of one's native land. Aside [Pg 186] from its complicated verb and annoying gender, it has few difficulties that need cause acute distress. But the score of "easy methods" without teachers are to be avoided. There is no easy way to learn a language. It takes work, hard work, and a lot of it to learn a second language. But it can be done, and to acquire a new medium of expression, even in middle life, is an experience not to be taken lightly. It is above all things interesting. It comes at last to this: the only way to speak, write, or read Spanish effectively is to learn it. Short cuts bring short results. And the only road to a worthwhile understanding of the Latin-American is that of a sympathetic personal acquaintance and genuine friendship. It is a matter of heart more than of head, and unless the North American has a heart himself he had better acquire one or abandon his efforts to deal with the Latin-American. To the traveler from the Orient Latin-America is easy to know. There is much in Spanish ceremonial, love of life and color and rhythm, the innate chivalry and politeness, so often absent from the direct processes of the North American, to suggest the peculiar charm of the Orient at its best. The ornateness of architecture appears in the East and West in nearly equal measure. When it comes to elaborate speeches and flattering expressions, not even the honorifics of ceremonial Japan have much advantage over the gracious [Pg 187] and complimentary extravagances of the Spanish-American. It was at a school entertainment that the director, who spoke excellent Spanish, was unavoidably absent, and the writer was pressed into service at the last moment to explain some stereopticon views and make a few announcements. The language was that of a tyro and must have afforded material for much amusement to the cultured parents of the school children. But no one laughed, and as a reporter for a Spanish paper chanced to be on hand, the morning edition stated that the entertainment was a high success and that the views were described in the choicest of classic Spanish while the announcements were delivered with a diction of the purest and highest type. It was the conventional manner of describing any public event. This temperament leads to oratory as rivers run to the sea. Given a few ideas for a start, and any educated Latin will deliver an extempore oration that suggests weeks of careful preparation. Rounded periods and classic expression mark every polished phrase. Probably the most perplexing and annoying thing about the North American in the eyes of his southern neighbor is our incessant hurry and rush. We may be millionaires in money but we are hopelessly bankrupt in time. And the South American is both millionaire and philanthropist [Pg 188] in time. He always has a surplus and is willing to use it—and his friend's too. Some of our hurrying about is regarded as a great joke. Clayton Sedgwick Cooper quotes a Bengalese of Calcutta as regarding a certain Englishman as "one of the uncomfortable works of God." Such are we of the United States in the eyes of our southern friends. The formalities of social life are of vast importance to the Panamanian, and they are also important to the North American who wishes to transact any sort of business with officials and educated men of any class. Dress suits and high hats are not to be despised if one is to get on in the capital city. Neither are business and politics to be separated if any business is to be done. During 1918 the death of President Valdez within a month of the constitutional date of the national election created a situation in which the election board was controlled by one political party and the police department by the other, spelling inevitable trouble. Military authorities on the Canal Zone took a hand and sent over a troop of cavalry to police the city during the election week. At sight of the soldiers panic possessed many women and children, who had been told that the Americans, if they came, would shoot down all persons on the street without warning. A few hours convinced the populace of the error of this widely circulated report, and the [Pg 189] election passed peacefully, the party in office winning. <div class="imgleft" style="width: 229px;"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus-187.jpg" width-obs="229" height-obs="600" alt="Washing by the River" title="" /> WASHING BY THE RIVER</div> Panamanian officials are uniformly courteous, kindly, and will go to any reasonable length to grant any proper request, especially if it comes from a friend. I have called on various men in high authority many times on diverse matters and have never failed to be received cordially and given the best of personal treatment. It has occasionally happened, however, that after leaving the official I tried to recall just what he had stated or agreed to do, and had difficulty in finding anything definite. Perhaps Latin character reaches its highest level in family life. The women of the Latin race are noted for natural grace and comeliness, and in their own homes they give themselves to their husbands and children with a devotion to which some of the club women of northern lands are strangers, as well [Pg 190] as their families. Motherhood is a high calling before which all else must give way. The open life of the northern family, with its easy conventions and free hospitality, is largely unknown, but a close and intimate family life is built up essentially stronger in some features than anything found further north. The Spanish home is a very select and secluded affair, into the charmed circle of which only the most intimate friends may enter. This wife and mother usually knows nothing of her husband's affairs, and has little freedom of the streets or public places. There is none of that comradeship in business interests often found in the States between husband and wife. The señoritas, or young women, of these homes are decidedly feminine. They make much of cosmetics, but they do at least spare us the assorted colors of the hair dyer's art. And they do not make a holy show of themselves on the street, with loud manners and conspicuous costumes, as if to attract attention of all passers-by. It must be said that some of the better class young women of these countries are "stunning lookers," and are always attractive and well bred, but with limited educational advantages they are apt to be shallow conversationalists. Many of the men prefer them that way. For a woman to know too much about business and politics detracts from her distinctly feminine charm in the eyes of these [Pg 191] Spanish men. What religious devotion exists in these countries is found among the women, who usually go regularly to mass and confession. Strictest chaperonage is maintained over young women, no girl being permitted for a moment to be alone with a young man, a system that would make slow headway in North America. And the women are long suffering with their husbands, from whom they endure conduct that would break up almost any North American home. The Panamanian woman has none of the boldness of the new woman of Argentine, nor the ultra-timidity of Peruvian seclusion. She knows the value of balconies and lace shawls and effective coiffures, and it must be said that in spite of rigorous supervision and never-failing modesty of demeanor, she has a charm and a "come-hither" in her eye that has won the heart of many a North American. The possibilities of the Latin race are perhaps best measured by the occasional rare characters that break through the bonds of convention and precedent and attain an altitude of gracious nobility unsurpassed anywhere on earth. Occasional products of missionary schools show results in character and efficiency that indicate clearly the latent capacity for a something in which the brusque Saxon is too often deficient. The "Christ of the Andes" was set up on the [Pg 192] boundary line between Argentine and Chile as a suggestion of the only basis of permanent peace in the life and teachings of the Prince of Peace. This famous statue was the result of the work of a woman, the Señora de Costa, president of the Christian Mothers' League of Buenos Ayres. Cast of old Spanish cannon, and installed in its lofty elevation of thirteen thousand feet in the Andes, the monument was dedicated March 13, 1914, as much a memorial to the work of a Latin-American woman as a testimonial to the peaceful intentions of the two nations. There is a Spanish word, not exactly translatable into English, which may be taken as the key to Latin character at its best. It is the word "simpático," which means something more than "sympathetic." A man is simpático when he is gracious and open-hearted and likable and considerate of other folks' feelings. There ought to be a course in simpático for every prospective missionary and business man in the United States who has any intention of dealing with the Latin-American. <hr /> [Pg 193] <h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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