The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1915-03-15
THE HAsKIN LETTER
LATIN All AN IRADE-1. OUR SHARE IN IT.
u a s. KIN
% Frederlo J. Haskin.

LAllN AnlEklLAN lkAUl
III BY Frederic y.
No fact.in connection with the war
has been more widely heralded than
that it affords the United States a.
her trade and social relations with
the other American republics. This
year has been hailed, and rightly. az
an all-American year. 1t is still
more true that we are entering upon
an all-American decade: The next
{, ten years cannot fall to be OF mo-
mentous Importance. in the relations
Of all the American countries. And
this is the time when every citizen
of the United States should be study
A ing the wonderful countries TO the
south, Of his own.
But out OF this vast and sudden
enthusiasm about Latin american
opportunities has risen great deal
of mistake and misconceptions Too
much of our information has been
tgfven. US by gentlemen who made
eighty-day trips around the CONT
lnent of South America and inter
viewed chiefly bar tenders and deck
hands. We have been given too
many impressive statistics and not
enough hard facts. The general inn
port of all this flood OF near-litera-
ture about "the great opportunity IN
South Amarica1 has been that in the
past all the European countries have
field, and that they are now out OF
the game .and all we. have to do is to-
stepain and take the profits they have
so long enjoyed.
In point OF fact, both of these
statements are fundamentally incor-
rect We have not been outsold IN;
the past, and we have precious lit
lille cause to worry about what we
are going to take away from the Eu-
ropean nations in the immediate fu-
ture.
First, then, what share OF the Lat
| in-American trade have we really
enjoyed And this question must be
answered to some extent In figures
The most striking fact shown by the
lrecords of sLatin-American commerce
for 1913, and one which seems to
have been almost universally over
looked, is that the United States en-
joyed a greater total exchange Of
goods with the IIatin-American coun-|
tries than any other country. The.
amount of the exchange between the
| United States and al Of the TWEEN.
ty-one republics comprising Latin
America was s303,4 Sc, 900: Great
Britain was next with $643, 58O,00Ot
and Germany third with s40T,132,-
! 900.
1t is this total exchange which
really counts most, but in goods sold
to Latin America, we have more than
HELD our own. having beaten Great
Britain, our nearest rival, for the
/ first time IN 1913. Great Britain
] sold s322.0OO, 900 worth of goods to
Latin America In 1913, ana we solo
1926. S37, 900. while Germany was a
rather bad third with s21T,976 900.
And these figures, which show that
we are really the leading country IN
1.-THE Latin-American trade, do not
ishow adequately our hold upon it.
for in the nearer countries We Tar
cutstrip our competitors and it is
only in the extreme south that they
have the better OF US. To push the
frontier of our Latin-American trade
southwark should be our purpose.
The truth, then, about our Latin
American trade lis that we have held
our own and in face OF difficult con-
ditions. An American trying to sell
goods in Latin America is a. foreign
Ter working among foreigners. Take
n
a great city of Buenos Aires. There
ARE so. 900 Italians in Buenos Aires,
land tens of thousands of almost .ev-
4ery other European nationality.
When it was desired to celebrate the
Fourth of July there not long ago.
five hundred Americans were all that
fcould be gotten together and these
comprised rything from deck
II hands. to missionaries.
.:- When an Italian salesman arrives
Tin Buenos Aires to sell the textiles
(which his countrymen. are supplying
Ito Brazil in large quantities. he goes
Ito a department; store run by an
italian and sells to his own country
imam. When a German wants to sell
Ecrockery there, he first goes to a
German bank, learns exactly what
firms are apt to be buying his line.
h how much credit he can safely let
them have and then goes ahead with
very little apprehension as to the re-
isult.
But the American salesman in
;Buenos Aires is a stranger In a
strange land, without facilities or
connections of blood or nationality n. e
He has got to succeed by his Yankee
jlsnack of salesmanship and by the
INERT of his goods. And it is prl-
tmarily by these things that he has
lsucceeded.
American meth DDS in Latin-A1neri--
ican trade will be discussed more full
fly in e future article; suffice it to
isay here that men experienced IN
Latin American have said that they
would back Yankee salesman who
could not speak the language OF the
Fcountry against a German who could.
EAmerican salesman have succeeded
:: lin Latin America with lines of goods
that men OF other nationa1ities never
have had the temeritv to take down
thera The Latin-American peoples