On the Map

The second of three maps visualizing the progress of President-Elect Herbert Hoover around South America appears this week in TIME. The Hoover Odyssey is chronicled in National Affairs. Lands mapped pass in brief review.

Chile. Astute observers have called Chileans the Prussians of South America. The comparison is worth remembering. Here is a compact, militant, intensely nationalist people. Though considerably less in number than the residents of New York City, Chileans command official parity among the Great Powers. Thus the U.S. sends an ambassador to 4,000,000 alert Chileans but has never sent more than a minister to 400,000,000 spineless Chinese (see China).

As were Prussians in their prime, so

Chileans are convinced that theirs is a race of destiny. Even this pretension is not an idle one. By the War of the Pacific (1879-82) Chileans wrested from ineffectual Bolivians the region of Antofagasta and from Peruvians not only Tarapaca but Arica an Tacna (see Map).

The prodigious importance of this conquest appears from its three major effects: 1) Bolivia, third largest South American country, was cut off from all access to the sea; 2) Chile acquired the largest nitrate fields in the world, taxes from which now supply over half the revenues of the Chilean Treasury; and 3) Peru was deprived even of Tacna and Arica, without which strategic provinces she cannot hope to wrest back her ravished nitrate fields.*

Naturally U. S. financiers approve the activist, acquisitive qualities of Chileans, and have dealt hugely and profitably with nearly all of Chile's able and kinetic dictators. The last of these,' Colonel Carlos Ibanez who is only incidentally President of Chile, has cleverly adopted the Anglo-Saxon technique of calling his opponents "Communists" and dealing with them as though they were desperadoes. For example the Dictator deported as "dangerous reds" (TIME, March 21, 1927) a venerable judge of the Chilean Supreme Court and several financiers who opposed his views.

Geographically it is interesting that Santiago. Chile, on the West Coast of South America, is due south of Boston, on the East Coast of North America. In other words the whole South American Continent lies thousands of miles farther East than most U. S. citizens would guess.

Racially Chileans are extremely pure, far purer than the people who seethe in the famed U. S. melting pot. Emigration to Chile has been negligible for centuries. Therefore the nationalism of Chile is like that of Prussia or France, concentrated, organized and militant.

Argentina is the melting pot of South America. Article XXV of the Argentine Constitution provides: "The Federal Government shall encourage European immigration and shall not restrict, limit, or place any tax upon the entry into Argentine territory of foreigners who come with the object of cultivating the soil and engaging in local industries."

Thus a Constitutional amendment would be required before Argentina could limit immigration as does the U. S. Instead of maintaining a dread, jail-like Ellis Island, the Government at Buenos Aires welcomes immigrants in a spotless hotel, transports them free to wherever they desire to settle, and both feeds'and lodges them at their destination for a period of ten days. Scarcely surprising, therefore, is the fact that Madrid contains fewer Spaniards than Buenos Aires and Rome fewer Italians. Recently the influx of Italians has been drastically cut down, not by any Argentine restriction, but by the refusal of Signor Benito Mussolini to allow his fellow countrymen to leave home in any considerable numbers.

Not only men but gold emigrates to Argentina, which, paradoxically, was named by exploring Spaniards after the silver (argenta) which they expected but failed to find in her mountains. Last year Argentina borrowed more U. S. dollars than any other nation. Most of them she spent on developing the low-lying, fertile Pampas and the highland grazing grounds of Patagonia (see Map). To her especial credit is the fact that Argentina also spends millions on schools and public works, and possesses today the most literate population in South America.

This very literacy, plus the proletarian character of the only partially assimilated immigrant population, has given Argentine politics their pronounced Socialist trend, a trend which only sternest measures by a series of strong Socialist Presidents has halted on the brink of Bolshevism.

It was no accident that when Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted (TIME, Aug. 29, 1927) the imposing Buenos Aires branches of the National City Bank of New York and the First National Bank of Boston were bombed.

The new President of Argentina, famed Dr. Hypolito Irigoyen (TIME, Oct. 22) is among the strongest and wisest of her potent Socialist statesmen. During his previous administration (1916-22) Dr. Irigoyen introduced the secret ballot, and as a progressive legislator he stands honorably to the fore. On the other hand he does not hesitate to disperse unruly mobs, whether laborite or communist, with ruthless rifle fire.

In international politics the position of Argentina is most advanced. So long ago as 1902 Argentina and Chile were the first nations to sign a treaty binding each other to compulsory arbitration of all disputes. Cannon fired during previous Argentine-Chilean wars and skirmishes were then melted up and cast into a mighty statue: The Christ of the Andes (see Map). On the South American Continent this likeness of the Saviour with Cross is no less esteemed than North America's Liberty with Torch.

Bolivia is the only South American country which stands virtually mortgaged to U. S. interests. Her long succession of unstable and irresponsible governments have borrowed so hugely that the national debt cannot possibly be paid off for another century, if then.

Chile has robbed Bolivia of her corridor to the sea (see above) and Nature has perfected Bolivia's woe by dividing the country into two mismated parts. Her lowlands of orange groves and palms are abundant; but almost totally inaccessible from her enormously high plateaux rich in tin. Without borrowing more than she can now borrow it would be impossible for Bolivia to link her highlands and lowlands by rail. As matters stand the problem of transportation is solved by such primitive means that three out of every four employed Bolivians work as carriers. Even so Bolivia is the world's second largest tin producing country.

Unavoidably the Indians, who do most of Bolivia's fetching and carrying, are sunk in degraded peonage. The small ruling class of Spanish descent has but one callous, inevitable aim--to keep the Indians down. Last year some 50,000 peons, many half starved, attempted a desperate revolt. They were quelled by the bayonet. Official Bolivian despatches described the uprising as "Communistic."

Bolivia is named, of course, after famed Simon Bolivar, deliverer of the South American continent from Spain.

Peculiar is the fact that only one species of high altitude fish can live in Bolivia's famed inland sea Lake Titicaca (see Map) 12,000 feet above Pacific sea level. When low altitude fish are poured into Lake Titicaca they refuse to breed, die.

Paraguay is among the world's most backward lands. Her yearly exports and imports approximately balance at the trifling figure of $14,000,000. Rivers are the only important highways. The sole famed landed proprietor is Tex Rickard.

Despite her insignificance, Paraguay has produced one villain fit to rank with Nero, Caligula and the madder Tsars of Russia. This memorable and awful personage, Francisco Lopez, was the son of the benevolent dictator Carlos Antonio Lopez (1840-62) who erected Paraguay into a prosperous and flourishing state. Upon the death of his father Villain Lopez plunged his fatherland into a series of wars so insane and ruinous that the population of 1,300,000 in 1862 bled itself down in eight years to less than 30,000 able-bodied men and 200,000 women, children, gaffers. Perhaps never before has a ruler so nearly suicided his own people.

Uruguay. The smallest South American country is among the most bounteous, salubrious and progressive. Perhaps no other land is so well watered and ideally suited to sheep and cattle raising. Prosperity is focused upon a relatively few rich ranchers, and they in turn concentrate their whole wealth in Montevideo.

The opera, the society and the culture of this gracious city are of first rank. The great University of Montevideo need not yield in scholarship to any other in the Americas. If athletic prowess be insisted on, proud Uruguayans know that they have just won the World's Soccer Championship at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam (TIME, Aug. 6 to 20).

Finally Uruguay is a rich little melting pots of emigrants from the South American countries themselves. Last year she welcomed 6,000 Brazilians, 50,000 Argentines, and less than 30,000 Europeans.

* By the Treaty of Ancon (1883), which concluded the War of the Pacific, it was provided that a plebiscite be eventually held in Tacna-Arica, to determine its final sovereignty. The signal diplomatic defeat of the Coolidge Administration has been their failure to arrange the holding of this plebiscite, under the auspices of General John Joseph ("Black Jack") Pershing. When local rivalries, dishonesties and backbitings were found to present unsurmountable obstacles, it was discovered that "Black Jack's" teeth needed expert U. S. attention (TIME, Jan. n, 1926) and he sailed for home. Subsequently appearances have been patched up by Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg, who arranged for Chile and Peru to resume diplomatic relations but the 49-year-old Tacna-Arica Question is absolutely no nearer settlement than before.