Pan-Americanism

“ These favourable views have regard to the practical benefits to be found in a certain course of action. The destiny of Pan-Americanism depends on the question whether these practical benefits are strong enough to overcome the barriers of race, language, religion, law, customs and tradition. ”

“ Heroic has been the long struggle in Latin-America for self-government. Splendid is the fight being made to-day for larger liberty. If Pan-Americanism means anything at all, it means a social foundation in honor and intelligence and brotherhood. It is time to address ourselves to the great unfinished task begun by those intrepid pioneers. The Canal is finished and the task of construction is done, but the end of construction is the beginning of empire-building for the larger task yet incomplete. ”

“ We are rather concerned with aspirations, tendencies and formative ideas. Indeed, it might fairly be argued that these limitations, which are fully realised and avowed in North America, are no argument against the Pan-American movement, but rather an argument in support of it, as being a prudent and wholesome effort to overcome existing obstacles and promote a better understanding between neighbours.
Pan-Americanism may be described as the movement which aims at uniting all the American republics:—one cannot say all the American countries ”

“ Nevertheless the Latin American countries consider themselves a group with common interests and a step that affects one is looked upon as indicating a policy toward the rest. There can be no doubt that whatever is done by the United States in Mexico will have a very clear repercussion on the Pan-Americanism of which the United States has been an exponent and defender. What the policy has meant has never been definitely stated. The idea greatly needs clarifying. Pan-Americanism of the sort that has been popular in some quarters in the past will become more and more difficult to maintain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The steps it may be necessary to take to assure order, and to impress upon the local government its duty to maintain it, may offend the susceptibilities of those in control in Mexico. In the past America has been frightened too often by such possibilities. There has developed a pallid Pan-Americanism, which has led the United States too often to refuse to do anything for fear of offending a Latin American country, even though by inaction its own just interests were caused to suffer. If that is the price that must be paid for Latin American friendship, it is not worth the price. ”

“ He points out that America is still today economically dependent, that is to say she has got to pay interest to financiers in France, in Britain, and therefore America cannot afford to carry out the bold schemes referred to in his book Pan-Americanism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who should feel kindly toward us, because of it, as a matter of fact rather resent its effect. They feel able to fight their own battles without the aid of the powerful republic on the North American continent. [386] The visit of the United States fleet a few years ago at the various ports of South America, and the trip made by Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, did more to encourage a kindly feeling toward the United States and to develop a Pan-American spirit than anything the United States has ever done. ”

“ And who, forsooth, is a Pan-American? Is he the superior—nay, does he presume to be the peer—of a North American? Are we not notoriously the greatest nation in the world? Does not our population reduplicate incalculably? Have we not carried civilization from sea to sea? Have we not the largest lakes, the longest rivers, the broadest prairies, the greatest cataract, in the world? And shall the minions of monarchies and the pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics snap their ridiculous fingers at us, and presume to say that the streets of New York are dirty? ”

“ We have inherited not only lands but ideals from the men who fought for them, regardless of whether it was they or we, their children, who should inherit and enjoy them. To defend these lands, these ideals of personal freedom, and this language we speak, we once had unquestioned supremacy over the seas of the world. By a federation of the English-speaking white people of these seven nations, the control of the world and the self-control of our own citizens will again be in the certain care of the Pan-Angles. ”

“ This doctrine is not to be invoked for the aggrandizement of any one of us here on this continent at the expense of any one else on this continent. It should be regarded simply as a great international Pan American policy, vital to the interests of all of us. The United States has and ought to have, and must ever have, only the desire to see her sister commonwealths in the western hemisphere continue to flourish, and the determination that no Old World power shall acquire new territory here on this western continent. ”

“ The persistent and continued effort, however, of the Pan American Union in educating the world to the importance of the Latin American countries and to an appreciation of the commercial opportunities and moral responsibilities of the United States in its relations with them, has now resulted in a complete change of conditions which is indeed gratifying. ”

“ Just as these clusters became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.
To face the fact that our aliens are already strong enough to take a share in the direction of their own destiny, and that the strong cultural movements represented by the foreign press, [Pg 268] schools, and colonies are a challenge to our facile attempts, is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. ”

“ The governments and people of the Americas are united through longstanding institutional, economic, cultural, and social bonds. In conversations and meetings with regional leaders, I continue to reinforce America's commitment to those bonds and to advancing the Pan American ideals of peace and prosperity across the Western Hemisphere. ”

“ Practically all the non-European areas of the world which the white race can occupy are held by the seven Pan-Angle nations, or protected by one of them, or are in the hands of their out-run rivals, or in the control of Japan, Russia, or China. ”

“ It is interesting to watch various types of minds approach the problems of Americanization in committee discussion. Here are a few simple solutions that the writer has heard from time to time:
Teach the foreigner to stick to the job and produce. We need to teach the foreigner that Americanism means patriotic production for the relief of the world's present peace-time plight, just as it meant patriotic production for the necessities of war-time. A great drive for industrial patriotism is the supreme need. ”

“ But that a closer union of the entire self-governing English-speaking race would be strong enough to protect each of its component nations is here assumed to be not a debatable question. It is here postulated that upwards of one hundred and forty-one million English-speaking whites are strong enough to hold their own against the forces of the world for considerable time to come. The problem resolves itself into a struggle for the supremacy, and finally for the survival, of the Pan-Angle civilization. ”

“ Europe applauded when the western nations sacrificed millions of Indians in America, and not by any means to found nations much more moral or more pacific: there is the North with its egotistic liberty, its lynch-law, its political frauds—the South with its turbulent republics, its barbarous revolutions, civil wars, pronunciamientos, as in its mother Spain! ”

“ I wonder that it has been able to make the strides towards nationalism, that it already has. No state in the world has progressed so far by comparison towards national consciousness as has America in so short a time. Up to now, America has been [331] the student of Europe, but from now on, America will be the teacher. To-day doubly so; with the Panama Canal you are the forepost of the white race against the yellow. The geographical and moral position that your country holds, imposes upon it a great duty. It is to hold back the East. Your country cannot step aside from the yellow races. ”

“ A second factor in the making of the Latin-American is his isolation for three hundred years from the currents of Western economic and political life. Practically all our North American stock of ideas and social sanctions has been developed since the Pilgrims landed in New England. ”

“ Any aggressive North American, especially if he be from the West, looks upon the splendid areas of land, the fine rivers, the dense forests, and the other untouched resources of this rich country with amazement, and begins to plan development projects and dream of organizing syndicates, but the native loses no sleep over such vain imaginings. If he dreams at all, it is of his food if he be poor, and of politics if he be rich. Development in the North American sense is a disgrace, and no job for a gentleman. ”

“ The Britannic nations and America all contain an individualistic form of patriotism that lends itself to Pan-Angle federation. Just as {207} American Pan-Angle gives allegiance to the ideals behind the dull earth he calls his home, be it city, town, township or parish ”

“ The Pan-American Union, as well as other organizations and publications with the Pan-American object in view, do sincere and arduous work which has borne much industrial and social fruit, but their labours are necessarily spread over a great field: nor can Consuls do everything, however energetic. ”

“ The enormous power of the North American nation is the result of this unity. If the patricians of the South had been victorious in the War of Secession, if they had succeeded in annihilating the Federal bond, then instead of the Republic which overawes Europe and aspires to Americanise the world there would be two powerless and inimical States; in the South an oligarchic nation served by slaves, and in the North a feeble assemblage of Puritan provinces, while the Far West would be incapable of resisting the Yellow Peril. ”

“ No one feels confident of despoiling France at will, and the British Isles regards its late rival as an effective ally. Yet the French hold no true colonies, lands in which France grows again in a new life. Canada and Louisiana are now the nurseries of a vigorous Pan-Angle stock.
Towards these four out-run powers we harbour no unfriendly sentiments. They, alone or combined, can no longer hurt us. We have grown so large and control so vast an area and population that we forget that these rivals once threatened our existence. ”

“ It is now certain that we are to have a new and more closely united America than was formerly possible, and that the drawing together of the two Americas has been greatly accelerated by the world vindication of democracy. ”

“ This converging tendency of the race, Americans have seen with satisfaction in their own land. As far as they have been conversant with it, they have approved of it in Britannic lands. A Canadian wrote in 1892: "Among thinking native Americans I have found, as a rule, a genuine sympathy with the advocates of unity for British people, a sympathy perfectly natural in a nation which has suffered and sacrificed so much as the people of the United States have for a similar object." ”

“ However strongly such colonies may be attached by sentimental and political ties to some other governmental group, they belong to themselves alone. On terms of equality they are part of the Pan-Angle power that controls the world. ”

“ Supposing even that Europe should become pacific, can you not see that America would become warlike? Following upon Cuba, reduced to the state of a vassal republic, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the annexation of the Philippines, it is impossible to say that the American Union is not a conquering nation. ”

“ One would think that the experience which Britain has had of America, would entirely sicken her of all thoughts of continental colonization, and any part she might retain will only become to her a field of jealousy and thorns, of debate and contention, forever struggling for privileges, and meditating revolt. She may form new settlements, but they will be for us; they will become part of the United States of America; and that against all her contrivances to prevent it, or without any endeavors of ours to promote it. ”

“ In fact, we never bothered much with anybody outside of the United States. Over a century we lived on, secure in the idea that we were immune from European militaristic contagion and all-sufficient unto ourselves. The rest of the world might perchance sink into the sea, but we would go on blissfully without it. Our "free institutions" were self-sufficient and all-inclusive. And because we were able to compose our own troubles and keep out of other peoples' quarrels, more or less, we assumed that we were automatically superior to the rest of the world, "of course." ”