The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1899-09-15
Present-Day Thoughts.

by "NEMO.n

Wr ten far the CittZen)
A glance over South America
1t is safe to predict that. though
there is an uninterrupted stretch
of land from Arctic to Antarctic
in the American continent. there
never will he strong sense of
unity between the two halves of
the continent. AS time goes on
and as wars of conquest as well as
wars of commerce, grow into more
disfavOr with the human family,
there will undoubtedly be many
attempts, like that of Blaine's
reciprocity treaty, to bring to
pass a vital union between North
and South America. 1t will be
found too that the approaches in
relation to such treaties of the
future will nearly all take their
origin in candid expression of
brotherly feeling on the part of
North Americans. AS All exam
pie, look tor a moment at the
generous, almost Quixotic, way
in which the United States took
up the Venezuelan dispute, and
with how little regard or graft.
tude her noble Self-forgetfulneSS
is viewed by the Little Venice of
South America. This is typical
of what will always be our exper-
fence in dealing with the cOun-
tries on the mainland, south of
the Tropic of Cancer.
DiStruSt Of the people of their
own country and of the greatest
republic on the American CONT
nent is the keynote of the policy
of the republics of South Amer.
lea. Viewed from our more en-
iightened standpoint, these fiery
and disputatious neighbors of
ours do not understand what hu.
man liberty means and their re-
publicS are tyrannies, in many
cases, tempered by assassination
and revolution. They regard
their own people with suspicion,
then they entertain the same feel.
ing for each other and are con
stantly pickering among them
selves over arbitrary boundary
lines that might well be swept
away in one vast South Ameri-
can federation. The unreason.
ableness of their enmities is seen
III the fact that practically all of
the South American republics
belong To what are called the
Latin races, and hence have in
large measure common history,
a common literature, and a racial
tie.
L
Yet their common origin is the
very thing that explains their in
ternal restlesSnesS, their CONT
mental disputes, and their atti-
tude towards ourselves. The
Latin races as we now know
them, and even as they were in
the days when Venice was in its
glory, cannot understand what it
means to give freedom of DO,
lltlcal choice, and freedom of re-
HglouS view to the least as well
as TO the greatest of their mem.
berS. Even so advanced, so ar
tlstlc, and so powerful a nation
as France, may be used as the
strongest possible illustration of
what a Republic is under Latin
management. The common PEG
pie are regarded by the rulers as
mere children who need watch
ing and whose most simple acts
are constantly under the eve of
the government, by means of the
spy system. What is bred in the
bone will come out in the life,
and though South America has
entirely freed itself from Spanish
and Portuguese dominion, the set.
thing up of gOvernments-some of
them closely modelled upon that
of the United States-has neither
made for quietude among them.
selves nor for progress that at all
keeps pace with the rest of the
world. This amount of Justice,
however, must be done to the
rulers of all Latin Republics
they know the characteristics of
their people for plotting and I'M
rest, and undoubtedly have to
watch them closely in order to
produce anything of a permanent
character in the way of govern
ment. See how the dregS of hui
manity asserted themselves in
the Reign of Reason and the
Commune in France. These two
occurrences illustrate the worry