Western Hemisphere League?

Slender, trim, polyglot Luis Quintanilla is well-known and well-liked in Washington, where he served Mexico for many years, the last two as Minister and Counselor of Embassy. At George Washington University his lectures on political science were popular. His courses often branched out into political discussions in any language that came to tongue. Last week Dr. Quintanilla, now Mexico's Minister to Moscow, offered the English-speaking world his ideas. In a book, A Latin American Speaks, he showed that south of the Rio Grande there are men who can not only look over the wall of pride & preju dice to North America, but east and west to the problems of the world.

Dr. Quintanilla's book deals primarily with unity in Pan-America, but it is not a plea for it. It is an argument which lines up fact on fact to show that the elements of unity exist, and need only to be recognized. With a scalpel-like touch that cuts clean and deep, he exposes Pan-America's many problems, the differences, distrusts and misconceptions that have slowed its development. He also shows the elements of unity between the 21 Republics: the common aims, history, culture. And, he says, there are more things that bind the nations of the Western Hemisphere to gether than there are things dividing them.

Union of the Americas. The theme of Dr. Quintanilla's book is that a Pan-America can and should be created, that such a union could serve as an example for reorganization of the world. He goes far back in American history to describe the development of unity in the Americas (Simon Bolivar, he says, was the spiritual founder of this ideal). Among the obstacles to this ideal, he singles out "the greatest stumbling block in the way of genuine inter-Americanism": the Monroe Doctrine, as it has been interpreted by the U.S. through the years.

"Scores of charges can be leveled at the Monroe Doctrine by a Latin American," says Dr. Quintanilla. He cites five of them. It is: 1) unilateral; 2) inefficient; 3) perverted; 4) unpopular; 5) outmoded. "The Monroe Doctrine, with its imperialistic connotations, is loaded with the kind of explosive that endangers the Pan-American structure. . . . The moment Monroe's distorted shadow enters a Pan-American Conference, the Good Neighbors disband. The silence made around the Monroe Doctrine at the historical meeting at Rio [in January 1942] is more eloquent than any indictment ever uttered against it."

Pan-Americanism, says Dr. Quintanilla, is now in its fourth stage. "Bolivar was the romantic hero of our first act; Monroe the star of Act II; U.S. Secretary of State James G. Elaine [who instigated the first Pan-American Conference in Washington in 1889] the principal character of Act III; and one of America's greatest, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is the hero of Act IV." In Roosevelt's administration "the Good Neighor Policy had been put to the test. . . . For the first time in the history of the Western Hemisphere, we of Latin America may confidently clasp the open hand extended us by a President of the United States."

Union of the World? In his concluding chapters on "America's international role" Dr. Quintanilla turns to the post-war world. A Western Hemisphere organization, he thinks, could point the way. "The time is ripe for a modest Permanent Committee of the United Nations of America. This regional committee would itself be a section of a larger Assembly, or Committee of the United Nations of the World. . . . Our continental organization must not be conceived as competing with, or as opposed to, a world organization. On the contrary! We believe, in America, that by giving shape to the international life of our 21 Republics, we are facilitating the higher task of organizing the international life of the world.

"Just as there would be a Permanent Committee of United American Nations, there would also be similar Committees for the United Nations of Europe, Asia and Africa. . . . We must insist on the maintenance of regional--continental--groups of nations, because experience has taught us that a world organization is not apt to deal competently with all the intricate situations created in distant corners of the earth. . . .

"Union Now? Yes, for the Americas! But not a selective union ruled by self-appointed leaders of democracy. An all-inclusive union, that will bring together in a regional pact all the nations of the Western Hemisphere so as to facilitate their contractual collaboration with the rest of the world. There is no reason why the setup of a League of the Americas should not be drawn now."

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