Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-01-16

ldIS Cly UCCduSC VI OfCl piOQuCClSEl
The big coffee producers recognize
the difficulties which confront them.
but the Communists and extreme
nationalist prefer to shut their
eyes to realities. They are out to
create dissatisfaction and dissension
among the employees of the coffee
fezendas, and in other branches of
the industry.
Needs Foreign Capital
Consequently, they seek to blame
the North Americans for the pres
ent difficulties Of the coffee indus
try and for the low wages paid to
coffee workers. The worker, Guilt
waiting the coffee trees in the broil-
ing tropical sun, is told that the
grasping Yankees refuse to pay fair
prices for the product of his labors,
which makes it impossible for plant
ers to pay higher wages. He is also
told that the United States can
dictate coffee prices to suit its own
taste, and that it does so, when the
tFith is that United States import
ers and consumers are paying from
rs to 100 per cent more for Bra
lillian coffee than a year ago.
Brazil finds it hard to buy most
of the railroad equipment, trucks,
machinery and other foreign ma
chinery she needs 50 badly because
she lacks dollars today. No Com
munist or nationalist will admit
that this may be due to faulty eco
Monies or poor financing by the
Brazilian Government. Rather, they
tell the Brazilian workers and
masses, blissfully ignorant of the
complications of foreign exchange,
that i've can't buy United States
products because the Yankees won't
take our money for them. They de-
mand their own kind of money
dollars. The Yankees pretend that
olr money is no good
Brazil needs foreign capital. She
wants foreign investments, but ma
tionalist, antiforeign sentiments
make it extremely difficult, and in
some instances impossible, for the
government to permit certain kinds
of foreign capital to come into the
country. Brazil is known to have
substantial oil deposits-potentially,
perhaps, the greatest in the West
ern Hemisphere-but it costs money
to explore and develop oil fields,
import machinery and equipment
and hire specialists and expert
technicians. Brazil itself has none
of these, yet a Nationwide cam
paign exists to bar any foreign oil
companies from having a part in
developing the country's petroleum
resources.
Haven't Helped Ourselves
The extremists are having a field
day against what one imprisoned
Brazilian called "the Yankee oil
gluttons." They are trying to grab
oil fields everywhere" he went on
do they not control the oil indus
try in Venzuela? Have they not
penetrated even into Arabia and
the Near East? Why do they want
all this oil? Naturally, to make
war" he said, answering his own
question. They want our oil to
enslave us and use us in their i'm
perialistic war against the Russian
people!"
Don't forget" he reminded me,
that your people bought our rubber
during the war. They wanted it
only for war purposes, and as soon
as the war was over they stopped
buying. Now our rubber workers
are out of work and many of them
are starving. The same thing would
happen If we let you have our oil"
The Brazilian government is so
anxious to develop its oil resources
that it has hired biologists and
technicians for exploration work on
its own account, but the Commu-
nists have waged a bitter campaign
against these experts-technically
employees of BraZil-because most of
them are United States citizens,
the campaign is particularly fervid
in the remote Amazon country.
1t must be admitted that we our
selves have made no small contribu-
tons to the feeling that now exists
against us in Brazil. Our eXtrava-
CANT wartime economic policies have
had lingering repercussions. During
the war years we poured millions
of dollars into Brazil to build air.
fields, naval bases and increase the
production of minerals and rubber
there. We employed hundreds of
thousands of Brazilians in all these
projects. Suddenly, with the end
of the war, we began to retrench
and abruptly abandoned every one
of our enterprises. The majority Of
those who had worked on them were
left stranded and jobless, hundreds
Of miles from their original homes.
Naturally, the average Brazilian
worker did not understand all this,
and still does not. When he is told
that the Yankees did this with NAL
ice aforethought, he really believes it.
Our Customs Misinterpreted
Many of those we sent to Brazil
to supervise the projects lived sump-
tuously in various parts Of the coun-
try. They had money to burn and
they burned it. Most Of them had
never been abroad before, and their
lavish spending and inability to
understand Brazilian sensibilities
offended and antagonized their
Brazilian co-workers. Their free and
easy customs were misinterpreted
in land where life and habits are
still conservative. The higher wages