The Daily Alaska empire., 1934-06-18
VII. SOUTH AMERICA
By GIDEON SEYMOUR

BUENOS AIRES, June 18-The concept of the machine as a mon- ster, snatching from the worker his daily bread while it deluges him with gadgets which he has not the means to use, is not even an acad- emic premise on the largely unde- veloped continent of South Amer ica.
 Here are mountains to be delved into for precious ores, forests and jungles to be leveled and cultivated, roads to be built, rivers to be dredged, oil fields to be tapped cities to be served with their own manufactures-and South America net only expects the machine to do what man could not do in centuries, but it strives lustily to- ward it's own machine age.
 More factories!" is almost continental slogan. Industrial ex- positions of domestic products are attracting thousands under govern mental auspices in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay; furtherance of home manufactures is primary policy of the last few years in Colombia; and the pride of Brazil is the factory city of Sac Paulo, Chicago of South America"
 Transportation a Problem
 Better transportation is a con- cern almost as great: Roads for all- weather use by trucks and automo- piles, equalization of unnavigable waterways, straighter railways of uniform gauge. The airplane has become an indispensable tool of commerce, with routes giving regu- lar service to every country on the continent but one, and linking South America to Europe and the United States in four to seven days compared with steamship schedules of Is to 19 days.
 Once a president of Uruguay, making highway building pro- gram, stipulated that machines were not to be used where manual labor could be employed, and limited im- portations of trucks beyond a point where he believed they made less labor instead of more. But he was regarded as theorist.
 Refrigerated" Cities
 The South American imagination is much more stirred by such a con- ception as that of the German gen. eral, Hans Kundt, now fighting for Bolivia. Kundt aspires to bring into the Brazilian jungles a mil lion colonists to live in machine built, windowless, artificially ventil- lated houses, conquer the forests with the most modern machinery under direction of agricultural en- gineers, employ airplane squadrons to fight with sprays the insect swarms which plague crops and men, and live comfortably in re- frigerated cities under the tropic sun.
 The Brazilian laborer who used to carry coffee on the Santos quays feels no alarm or indignation as he sees the casks borne in endless rows from warehouse to hold on conveyer belts. It is difficult to starve in Brazil, as it is in Argen- tina or Ecuador or Colombia or Venezuela, and he can find other, easier ways of subsisting than car rying coffee all day.
 Machine Not Blamed
 In Chile and Bolivia and Peru it is easier to starve, for nitrate, cop per and tin contain no vitamins, and there is hunger, particularly in Chile-but this is because the machines have stopped running. When steam spurts from the show els and smoke flows from the chimneys the god of the machine IS in his heaven and there is work.
 Machinery did not cause over production of coffee in Brazil, beef or wine in Argentina. But 1t would help these countries ana their neighbors to diversity their economic schemes, observers say, to develop and finish their own raw materials, and to win the economic independence toward which all of them are striving. They cannot afford, in these days, as much machinery as they need and want' but they are buying it as rapidly as they can, and counting on It 10 improve their economy and raise living standards.
 Tomorrow-Japan