Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1924-06-05
CLIMATE DOES
NOT Change in
SOUTH america

Newell Williams who, as a mission
airy, has spent many years in Bo
gotta and Bucaramanga, South
America In part she said:
The world looks upon South Amer
ice as the continent OF the future
and with reason. One-third small
Ter than North America, it yet pre-
sents an arena for yaster popula
lions than North America can ever
support. While twenty per cent
or more Of the northern continent
lies under a great ice sheet and is
useless 10 mankind, the southern
continent is almost wholly in
sunny climes where its inhabitants
may produce from one to three
crops every twelve months. Yet, al
present, South America is sparce
ly populated. Japan, fifty times
smaller, has one-seventh population
than all South America.
In most parts of this continent
if you wish a change Of climate
you must get up and move. 1t is
land where changes never come
to you you must so after them
If you remain stationary, you will
have 365 days each year, all just
alike. Perhaps it may rain little
more upon some days than upon
others, but the temperature never
varies For a change of climate
you must so either up or down q
mountain. Thus one great topic OF
conversation-the weather-ceases
to be OF interest.
immigration has not been attract
ed to the northern part of the con
tinent. Asiatic immigrants with the
exception of the Syrians and the
Persians, are excluded Europeans
however poor their estate in their
native land, are better off at home
than they would be contending
with the medieval methods
of farming and the 80 cent daily
wage of the poem. Foreigners, I'M
less they come with capital and
influence are not welcomed in
these countries. They cannot en-.
ter. the class of the wealthy, cul.
tured, blue-blooded Colombians and
they cannot exist on a, level with
the wretched poems, who live in
mud huts, subsist -.pcn native
vegetables, eaten with their hands,
or at best a half gourd, from the
kettle in which the food is cook
ed who roll in dirty blanket at
night, and sleep on the ground
who never have shoes upon their
feet in lifetime, whose wage is
from 20 to 40 cents a day, and most
of that spent on drink. These con
ditions are not attractive to i'm
migrants.
Where great petroleum. fields
are being opened up, Americans or
Englishmen come in and import
their drillers, machinists and engi-
neers. Three such sections are
being developed in our own state,
Santander. Here foreign colonies
are built up, with hospitals, librar.
les, recreation halls, etc. These are
frequently visited by Colombians
who gaze at all innovations but
are too we'll bred to express sur
prise at anything. These things
have their influence. Seeing the
foreigners protect and care for
their workmen watching Americans
at work in their shirt-sleeves, i'm.
presses the Colombians, who hold
in contempt anyone who works,
and who despise their workmen,
the poems, as being beneath the
dogs. 1t impresses them to see
educated men, who are we'll enough
off to wear shoes and to own Paige
machines working with their hands
South America as continent,
presents many anomalies. Every
where one sees great churches and
magnificent cathedrals, their gol-
den domes glittering in the eternal
sunshine, but nowhere are there
public school buildings, nor church
school buildings. 1t is all the same
in Colombia for the church and the
state is united. Bucaramanga, the
capitol of Santander las Madison
is the capitol of wisconsin,, is a
city larger than Madison. 1t has
one public school building, the
Jesuit school, where seventy Jes-
uits teach some 200 boys to about
sophomore grade, high school. That
is the only school building in the
city. Whatever other little schools
exist are in rented rooms. Over
70 per cent of the Santanderians
can neither read nor write.
These states are larger than we
are apt to think. If Colombia could
be taken up out of the map of
South America and stretched ov-
er the map of the United States, it
would cover all the states east of
the Mississippi, and there would be