The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-09
sTODAY-A CENTENARY

who will hold with equal conviction that December 9, 1924, marked the final triumph in behalf of American liberty. These millions of people dwell in that vast realm known as Latin America, call them selves Americans, and regard the word America as including their own republics as we'll as the great republic of the United States. They esteem themselves equally as the champions of inde- pendence, and they look with equal vene- ration upon their early heroes, some of whom are identical with the men asso- ciated also intimately with our earliest discoveries and explorations.
 What happened one hundred years ago today to make this the centenary cele- brated with elaborate ceremonies, from Latin-American Mexico on the north to Latin-American Argentina and Chile on the far southernmost extremity of South America? It was nothing more nor less than the battle of Ayacucho, the last in the long series of battles in the Latin American revolutionary war, in which all the patriots of the New World resisted and overcame the authority of Spain. Just as George Washington, over period of trying warfare, led our colonial armies to victory over the forces of King George, so did Simon Bolivar lead the colonial armies of Latin America against the royal armies of Spain, and finally, through his great general and right-hand man, General Antonio Jose de Sucre, overcame them on the plains of Ayacucho in Peru. :. Just as it was necessary for George Washington to hold only one short section of coast and adjoining in- terior, so Bolivar needed to oust the Spaniards only out of the northern DOT ton of South America, including Vene- zuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, although at that time they were not thus divided.
 All this is due mainly to the genius of one man dominated by vision and passion for liberty that have not since been duplicated in one person in South America. That man was Simon Bolivar, born of Spanish parents in Venezuela, while the glamor of the name of Wash ington still glowed over the Western Hemisphere, educated in Europe, by spe- cial tutelage, by travel and by intimate association with Europe's great, includ- ing especially the great Napoleon when that man was at his greatest. Having seen at first hand the iniquities of mon archies which ground the people under foot in order that the wealthy and we'll born might be exalted, Bolivar became animated with the purpose to free his country from Spanish dominion, and re- turned to his native land at once to carry out his Ffe's ambition. From almost the day of his landing he found conditions and mems minds ready to his hand, and proceeded to mould the sentiment of the colonists after the pattern of lovers of liberty. His battles were one long series of almost miraculous successes, often fought with untrained troops opposed to the very flower of Spanish military ex- cellence.
 The important thing to us is that he broke for all time the power of Spain upon the continent. What that means to us of North America we can hardly estimate in worthy proportions. When we consider that ultimately the United States was obliged to step in and terml- nate forever the inhumane rule of Spain over the islands yet left in her possession, we may well rejoice that Bolivar hundred years ago performed the great est portion of that task before 1t had grown into a mammoth menace to the peace and destiny of the Western world.
 Great as the vision of Bolivar and un- paralleled as was his leadership, he was doomed to the terrible disappointment ot being unable to unite his countrymen into one stable governmental alliance, or to animate them with the great pur- pose that had carried him dauntlessly onward and made them free. Instead, they fell at once into what was going to be almost century of instability, dis order and civil warfare. They were to progress, but, oh, so slowly, and with so many forfeitures of progress already made. Only within recent years have the republics awakened to their respon- sibility to themselves and to one an- other. Only recently have they joined with one another and with the United States in that sentiment of mutual inter- dependence which undoubtedly sounds the keynote for the century now at dawn. They are beginning where Bolivar left off a hundred years ago. Fortunate ly, they still remember Bolivar-as should we.