Imperial Valley press., 1941-09-10
How Not to Woo
South Americans
Told by Lecturer
Continued from Page y

day when he paid the Press a VlSle
after his grass roots survey of our
South American neighbors,
Such diplomatic errors as the
Fairbanks affair, together with some
others which he mentioned, is serV-
ing to retard, and may even threat
en- to defeat all the well-intentioned
efforts of the administration at
Washington to solidify United
States goodwill among the Latins,
young Simms said.
ROOSEVELT FAVORED
1t is paradoxical, Simms said, that
while 80 per cent of the Latin peo-
pie, and majority of the Latin
political leaders are wholeheartedly
for President Roosevelt and Secre-
tary of State Cordell Hull, South
America as a whole is NOT pro-
United States.
He said Roosevelt and Hull are
looked upon in virtually every South
American country as sort of two
headed god, and the people down
there are enthusiastic about the
administrators good neighbor pol
icy.
Yet independently of Roosevelt
and Hull, the Latin has an inbreo
aversion to the United States. Or,
more correctly, Simms said, to a
certain fictional quantity common
ly alluded to as Yankee imperial
ISM"
United States businessmen have
aided this imperialistic illusion by
their haughtiness in transacting
business with South American
merchants, and the North Ameri-
cans disdain for the intelligence
of his South American neighbor
BRITISH BUILD GOOD WILL
But even these considerations are
overshadowed by the brand of pois-
on dispensed through generations
by Uncle Sans goth century STEP
child, Great Britain, Simms said.
Before the current war, he said,
the epithet Yankee imperialism
was stock-in- trade of the Briton
in his attempts to wean South
America away from whatever lean
ingS it might have had toward
doing business with the United
States.
Even today, Simms said, Latin
America is great deal more pro-
British than it is pro- United States.
The great majority of Latins want
Britain to win the war, not be-
cause that also is the wish OF
North America, but because South
America prefers the British to the
Nazis.
HITLER HALTED
While South America has the ut
most respect for the Nazi war ma
chine, the people down there APP
pear to abhor Hitler's economic
and political philosophy.
And speaking of the Nazi war
machine, Simms said, brings the
thought of another grave error the
United States has made, and is
still making, in efforts to wiz
South America as potential ally
1t is the practise of bringing
South American military missions
over here, he declared
Without exception, he observed,
South American militarists have
been trained in Germany. Even
during Hitler's unprecedented prep
arations for the war he is now
waging, South America was send
ing its military leaders and STU
dents to study the science of arms
in Germany.
What they saw over there were
perhaps the worlds greatest tao
ticians and the worlds most per-
feet military equipment.
So, when, at the beginning of
Uncle Sans present preparedness
program, this country invited South
American army men to come over
and inspect our defenses, the United
States left itself wide open to the
awful truth-the United States, in
comparison with Germany. had no