Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-21
IN LATIN AMERICA
Opinions Formed From Views
of the Drummer.
GERMANS BEST TYPE
THERE ARE ALSO ITALIANS, EN-
GLIsH AND FRENCH.
Methods of Each Glass Interestingly
Described-What Might Come
to the United States.
Written for The Evening Star.

Some unofficial notes and incidents OF
trade chances are worth recording at a
time when official inquiries are raised as to
why the United States gains so little head
way in Latin America. My own opinions
have been formed partly from the views of
the always interesting human document
known as the drummer. These men
good fellow travellers. For an American
who stays at home most of his life and
knows nothing of any language except his
own they are very useful. They speak
anywhere from three to six languages, and
English is one of the tongues
The best-known type of the commercial
traveller from Mexico south to the Straits
of Magellan is the German. He is keen,
persistent and accommodating-when he
thinks it is worth his while. Even when it
isn't worth his while his knowledge of
languages is at the service of the stranger.
He knows his territory well, just well
as the drummer in the United States knows
his district. With the German the field is
apt to be somewhat larger, for it may take
In the whole of South America, and some
times Central America.
A year ago. at Panama, / met a German
who had just come across from Venezuela
and was going to Ecuador. He gave
some points of interest and promised fur
Their information when he ran across me
later. AS | did not mean to visit Ecuador
for some months | told him So and asked
him if he would be good enough to mail me
the data to my Washington address. oh
he remarked carelessly, I'll see you some
where before you get back to Washing
ton"
Four months later, in Cordobe, an in
terror city in the Argentine Republic while
taking breakfast in one of the hotel cafes,
some one called to me cheerily Here
those figures about your agricultural ma
chlnery just missed you by three days
at Rio Janeiro.''
L had been travelling over good deal of
n into val hr,f hot IN,
the regular course of his trade he had
covered even more.
The German Drummer.
1t is this blue-eyed Germany, calm,
almost stole, but relentless in it's pursuit
of business, that has undermined British
trade in South America. All Germany
seems to be college of commerce.
Whether it is as drummer, a banker or
settled merchant. the German in South
America has most thorough understand
ing of what to sell and how to sell it. l
have had occasion elsewhere to comment
or the way cheap goods made in Germany
have competed with English articles, and
also have expressed the opinion that a re-
action has begun against this exceptional
cheapness. and that this reaction means
the opportunity for the United States But
the German merchant commercial tray-
eier, with his solid understanding IF I'M
DERIVING commercial conditions. does not in
He will adapt himself to the change AMI
help sell American goods if the United
States shippers and manufacturers give
him enough encouragement.
The German drummer in many RESPECTS
belongs to the good-felow type of his
brother in the United States His mental
processes are perhaps slower than those of
the pushing American, but this is cot a
disadvantage in Latin countries, where
everything moves more slowly and hustling
consists in knowing how to wait with pa
tence until the favorable moment arrives
ana then TO strike with force. The German
commercial traveller adapts himself to all
circumstances as readily does, his fellow
In the United States, and he can tell stories
of his personal experiences.
One of his stock yarns is about the vel
low fever patients in the room next to his
in the hotel at Panama The hotel has a
very sensible rule that anybody taken with
yellow fever shall be removed at cnce to
the hospital. II seems harsh, though it is
not. for the sick man is much better off
and the other guests at the hotel are more
comfortable in their minds. Yellow fever
isn't forever epidemic in Panama, and trav-
elers are not being taken sick every day
there. But to listen 20 the German drum
mers. or TO all of them, never one has
stopped at the hotel in Panama without
finding that his next room nelghbor was
sick with the yellow terror.
Another delight of the German, well
as of the drummers of other nationalities,
is to point out the hospital at Guayaquil.
1t does happen to be the most prominent
sight as the steamer proceeds up the
river. 1t is big square building, in the
saddle of the hills. and has fascination
for voyager who expects to go ashore and
see something of Ecuador. The rule is that
the health board shall not report yellow
fever cases unless there are more than
eight patients in the hospital at one time.
In that way the ships are saved a foolish
and annoying quarantine. The habit of the
drummers is to sit down at the side of the
fresh voyager, and, incidentally remarkinp
building g no hos
to wonder whether there are more than
eight cases of fever at that particular mo-
ment After time the jest gets stale and
new victim Is sought
Does Not Depend on Germans.
With so much trade in the hands of Ger
man firms. 1T might be supposed that the
commercial traveller from the fatherland
depends on these for his customers. He
does not. He seeks the merchants of all
nationalities, whether native or foreign.
His special pleasure is in going to English
houses that have been established for CEN
tures. and have Home connections which
have lasted for that period, and offering to
undersell these home firms
There are German colonies in all South
American countries, yet the only large con-
centration of Teutonic people is in southern
Brazil Those colonists have been the sub
1ect or much discussion and speculation
Gradually they seem to be merging into the
Brazilian nationality. without losing their
affection for the fatherland or Its tradi-
tons. Politically they are not in sympathy
with the reported aspirations of the kaiser
In Chile. at Valdivia, a German colony
was founded fifty years ago. 1t maintains
Its identity to this day, yet in the national
sense Is Chilean. Up in the interior of
Peru, at Huanuco, forty or fifty years ago
German agricultural settlement was es-
tablished. II did not spread. However it
retains its identity to language The
Quichua Indians in that region have re-
FUSED Tor three or four hundred years to
learn Spanish. Association with the Ger
mans have made them more tolerant of
idioms from over the sea, and they have
picked up kind of dialect German
Quichua.
The Germans have the drug stores all
through the interior of Central and South
America, and where there is enough trade
for an international book and news store
they have IL also A stranger in almost
any of the cities towns is directed by
the natives to go to the German drug store
TO learn what he wants to know.
The English Type.
The English type of the drummer is COM
mon enough. though 1 was told that he is
fewer In than tuaptv or tbsrt,,