The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-01-22
NEA Service Writer

Washington--Abou three years | ago Herbert Hoover and 30 Or 40 l more of us returned on battleship, singing hosanas following our dis | covery of Latin America as a land of promise.
 This writer. unfortunately, does not recall dissenting from the gen , eral report which pictured those , republics as the chief expanding market for our exports. Or, far worse, from the implication that, If one had surplus money for in- vetment, here was the chance to | get in on the ground floor in d 1 booming. blooming continent. There were things to impress us. For instance: Large program for good roads and other public works were everywhere visible. Our sup posedly sound. hard-headed inter- national bankers in New York were loaning hundreds of millions with seemingly serene confidence. Amer ican manufactures were being ad- vertised and sold on every hand. Our commerce and state depart ments had supplied us with special data demonstrating Latin Ameri- can progress. And the various gov ernments. even though some were iron handed Relationships, seemed stable enough for complacency.
 But now look at the darned thing.
 Latin America has had an epi- demic of revolutions, has defaulted on bonds to the tune of $S1 5,000,- 900. and has been in bad shape since prices of her exportable com modity prices began dropping by from 50 to 60 per cent.
 Meanwhile American exports to South America in 1881 were about 70 per cent less in value than those of 1929.
 Latin America, as a land of promise, hasn't quite delivered the goods. Of course, when Hoover and the rest of his padty went there late in 1928 no one foresaw the world wide depression. And to Hoover's credit is should be recall ed that at Santiago he jolted some folks by warning that American lonas should be restricted only to enterprises of constructive natrde. It has been revealed that American financiers weren't as fussy as Hoo- yer was.
 Also. it Is rather painful to re- late, government or eX-government experts have told a senate com mittee that commerce and state de- partment officials insisted on opti- mistic reports concerning the field for loans in some South American countries despite authoritative warnings, that the bankers "rigged the market" in advance of such loans and that bribery was used in the Notation of at least one large international loan.
 It begins to appear that this country. by design or not. was played for sucker in Latin Amer ica as well as in Europe. While our exports down there were in- creasing by hundreds of millions of dollars, our loans were increas- ing by similar leaps and we were, in effect. paying for the exports which those countries were con- suming. Now, as result of the international crash, investors are holding the bag. About 60 issues in Latin America are in default, in- cluding several government loans, and there is danger of further de- faults. Latin-American long term bond issues have been virtually dis continued on the New York market and the senate committee was told that in two or three years inves- tors would be glad to settle on at least some of the issues for five or ten cents on the dollar.
 The situation seems to be an- alogous to our investment predica-