The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-08-29

in improving inter- American cul- tural relations with Central and South America and the Caribbean islands. It is really working at the job.
 More criticism is leveled at this cultural relations program than at any other phase of inter-Amer- ican activity and efforts at COG operation. In promoting mutual understanding, some sad early mistakes have admittedly been made, usually by well-wisher band -wagonners who had no ex- perience in Latin America. And before that, if the United States had deliberately set out to make the neighborS misunderstood us, we couldn't have done just that more successfully.
 The job has been, therefore, to let the neighbors know that the United States was not all gangsters or wild Indians-or wilder tourists and, also, to make the people of the United States appreciate that Latin America had many more ia- tereSting sights than head hunters or bull fights. A two-way program had to be developed, North and South. It didn't help the Latins, in- cidentally, to be known in the United States as poor relations, debt defaulters, or worse. They, too, have a bill of culture-goods to sell.
 Approached in that light, this matter of improving cultural rela- tions becomes simply the problem of promoting friendship. TWO-WAY
 TRAVELLING
 In doing this job, few leaves have heen borrowed from the Euro pean book and translated into good United States. One of the oldest of the German tricks has been to pick out prominent Latin Americans leaders in public opinion, pay their way to Europe, let them see the sights, then junket them back home to spread, unconsciously, the glories of the places they had seen, the people they had met, and their form of government.
 So the Division of Cultural Re- lationS has set up travel grants tc leaders of the American republics. Thirty were selected this year, and brought to the United States on two or three months tours. You may never have heard of them before and you may never hear of them again, but to name three of the thirty that ana Y1tnya<S a@ -a.,<sa,...
 Gernando Romero, Peruvian naval officer, sociologist, anthropologist, novelist, founder and director of the most influential literary group in his country.
 Pedro Calmon, Brazilian law yer, writer, historian, politician and newspaper editor.
 Maurice Dartigue, of Haiti, who came to study rural education and is now Minister of Education in his republic.
 These travel grants have worked both ways. Dr. Isaiah Bowman, president of Johns Hopkins, went to Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. John Erskine, the author, went to Argentina and Uruguay. Thornton Wilder took in Colombia and Peru, They'll also lecture and write for American listeners and readers when they get back.
 There are, in addition, travel grants to professors and students. American universities are giving scholarships now just as the Sor- bonne and Heidelberg used to do.
 The University of Texas alone has granted 100 scholarships to Latin Americans. The summer school at the University of Lima, Peru, is becoming more and more popular with the types of Ameri- can students who used to spend their summers touring. Europe.
 But 1t isn't all high hat pro- gram. The effort gets down basil cally also to radio, movies, sports. periodicals, good books.
 Germany had its trick of trans lating Naz textbooks into Span- ish and Portuguese and distribut- ing them for use in Latin Ameri- can schools. It's 6 good way to get over your national ideoloeies | oAlNp dS D. UA8 S1QSS4IIle sell yOllT technical products. The United States might well supply good North American textbooks, when the State Department can get some money to print them in Spanish and Portuguese. James Truslow Adams ''The American Way of Life" Is one of the first picked for translation into Brazil'S Portuguese.
 The movie program hasn't been confined just to keeping an eye on Hollywood, the John Hay Whitney part of the Rockefeller activities which have had the most current publicity. The State Departments Division of Cultural Relations has, during the past year, sent abroad some 400 films intended to show the United States and its people as they really are.
 These are n-amuSement sub jects, on 16-millimeter sound