Pan-Americana

The Sixth Pan-American Conference (TIME, Jan. 16) accomplished absolutely nothing, last week at Havana, but its sessions did not lack colorful, intriguing, significant points:

P:Headlines screamed throughout the globe, when the 21 Delegations voted 15 to 6 in preliminary conclave that not only plenary sessions of the Conference but also committee meetings should be public. Because the U. S. had been expected to demand secret sessions--lest Latins flay U. S. intervention in Nicaragua--universal astonishment reigned, last week, as Charles Evans Hughes calmly cast the U. S. vote for public sessions. Amazing! Now there would be fireworks!

P:The first plenary Conference session revealed the assininity of those who thought that open flaying of any nation was to be openly arrived at. Promptly the Cuban president of the Conference, Judge Antonio de Bustamante of the Hague Court, ruled that despite the "publicity" resolution the ordinary canons of procedure would apply. This meant that any session could be made secret by a two thirds vote of its members. Curiously enough, this ruling seemed to meet with the approval of most Latins. Since sagacious Mr. Hughes had called their outstanding bluff, they were as anxious as he to favor a procedure which would prevent, for example, loud squabbles between those embittered rivals Chile and Peru.

In any case, Mr. Hughes risked almost nothing by voting for "publicity," since the Conference agenda was already limited to asbestos issues and could not be changed to include dynamite, except by a two thirds vote.

P:Chief U. S. Delegate Hughes continued his brilliant conciliation last week, until the Cuban press began lyrically to hymn him as a "noble and apostolic figure." His work was to hold the U. S. Delegation on an ostentatious par of equality with every other, and to maneuver the most obstreperous Latins into the chairmanships of committees, where they would have to maintain decorum, not disturb it. For example, Mr. Hughes secured the election of fiery Dr. Don Jose Gustavo Guerrero, Foreign Minister of Salvador, as chairman of the important Public International Law Committee. Dr. Guerrero came to the Conference, a fortnight ago, spouting indiscreet criticisms of the U. S. but completely subsided last week.

P:Not merely in deed but in words, Chief U. S. Delegate Hughes humbled himself, last week, to equality. He apologized charmingly, "I can't speak Spanish, you know." He deferred exquisitely, "I shall be constantly at the call of Dr. Bustamante. . . ."

However, Mr. Hughes accepted election as Vice President of the Conference and as Chairman of the Directing Committee. He also sat inconspicuously on the important International Law and Pan-American Union committees. Thus he retained a mobile dominance of the whole Conference.

P:The sole gesture toward progress, last week, was made by the International Law Committee when it recommended adoption by the Conference of a preamble to a general treaty which declared, "No state may intervene in the internal affairs of another . . .", and meandered on until one member of the committee, Senor Don Orestes Ferrara, Cuban Ambassador to the U. S., was moved to declare: "These projects are so vague that it would be impossible to incorporate them into a treaty which would mean anything."

P: Since the Conference seemed doomed to drone indefinitely, or for a month at least, one busy member of the U. S. Delegation, Dwight W. Morrow, onetime Morgan partner, hastily departed, last week, to resume his post as U. S. Ambassador to Mexico.

Crowning the diplomacy of Charles Evans Hughes, last week, came an able address in which he displayed the general benevolence of the U. S. toward Latin America in favorable contrast to those occasional, specific U. S. acts which Latins call "imperialistic." Said Mr. Hughes: ". . . It is the firm policy of the United States to respect the territorial integrity of the American republics. We have no policy of aggression. We do not wish their territory. ... If we had cherished an imperialistic purpose we should have remained in Santo Domingo; but we withdrew. . . .

"We are, at this moment, in Nicaragua, but . . . we entered to meet an imperative but temporary exigency, and we shall retire as soon as it is possible. . . .

"The enemies of good-will are on every hand. There are those who seek to find in every act a wrongful motive; who poison the air with suspicion; who will never be content. . . .

"It is not for us to be wearied with futile anxieties about the future. It is not for us to plan the unattainable. It is for us, in our day and generation, to play our part. . . . You will find us keen in trade, zealous for the advantages of commercial intercourse, but no one knows us well who fails to recognize, despite all our shortcomings, the dominance among us of the ideals of independence and democracy."

Distinguished Colombian jurist and delegate Jesus M. Yepes announced, last week, that his delegation would lay before the Conference a draft treaty creating and giving "compulsory jurisdiction" to a Pan-American International Court of Justice.