The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-05-29
THE FAILURES OF THE SPANISH
Monumental Mistakes by Which the CastiIian Rulers Lost
the Grandest Empire the World Ever Knew.

A host of writers have tried to ex-
plain just what of man the
Spaniard is. Even years ago we find
an adventurous French writer, Bran
tome, seeking 10 give reasons for the
Spanish bombast and boastings. which
he called "rodomontade:" Machiavelli
speculated about the spasmodic spirit
of enterprise in the Spaniards; n
journalists nowadays are attempting
10 show how unique the Spanish char
acter is and just why IL is so peculiar.
1t is surely one of the incest problems
of race ever p~ropounded. 1t has gen.
orally been admitted that as the Ger
man loved system above all. as free
dom appealed supremely to the Anglo
Saxon, SO the idea of dignity was the
key note to Spanish personality. This
sense of dignity is the result of an ex-
cruciating self-consciousness which
has so dislocated his other qualities as
20 render the Spaniard fundamentally
Inefficient. Ii has made him "A highly
emotional OF excitable and a CORES
p~ondingly irrational creature. While
he may exhibit the child's instinct for
self-denial. the Spaniard is utterly in
capable of s~elf-effacement when most
expedient. The consequence is the
Spaniard never succeeds. With the
loyalty OF a dog at times, he never adj
heres to his plans so as to realize his
wishes. With the impressive endur-
ance and ~tenacity of the mule. he never
perseveres in w~ell-considered direc-
tons. Doubtless the fact that the
Spaniard has always been a soldier
may account for his peculiar pride. He
has the soldiers contempt for death,
his Incidence when out of action. his
''techiness" abo grade. But behind
this Is that disordered s~elf-conscious-
ness which explains his high-explo-
~siveness. which. in turn is. as "A rule.
accompanied with Grass callousness.
Perhaps no people have so religiously
pursued a career of i~nhumanity as the
devotees of autos da fe q. g. acts OF
faith and bull fights.
Such explosiveness and ~callousness
are found only in such extreme mix
lures of race as appear in Spain. The
Iberian stock. which is purest in Bis
cay, represents a deposit of the Mon
golian and Visigothic. with a trace OF
the Semitic. 1t may be this sorry adj
mixture, after all. which makes the
Spaniard the being who never quite
succeeds. This may explain his strange
habit of telling falsehood and truth 81
Unexpectedly, his righteousness in COM
parison with the French and Italians,
his ssrdonic humor, his surprising
Quixotry, and. above all. his i~ncapacity
manifest in the long list of his defeats
by the Romans. Moors. Dutch, English,
Mexicans, South Americans. and final
ly Cubans and North Americans.
In 21s Il. c. the Romans defeated the
~Carthagenians who had made colonies
in Spain. and after POS II. c. Spain was
regarded as a Roman province. In 500,
after an invasion, the Nisigoths estab-
lished a kingdom in the peninsula and
the typical madness OF Spanish history
began. OF the 20 Visigothic kings
from Theudis to Roderic. nine We're
deposed and seven were murdered. In
I'll the Moors. an ofshoot of the Ara
han family. made a conquest OF Spain.
Their rule was not harsh, but the
process OF driving them south lasted
until the 10th century. Even then. af-
ter the repulse of the Moors, there was
no common national feeling in Spain.
Chance. not skill. added America to
the wealth of the Spanish monarchy.
Spain was now on the apex Of wha is