Going Forward

THE AMERICAS

Most U.S. citizens still look on Latin America as a backward land of revolutions, strong men and cloak & dagger conspirators. In the July Foreign Affairs, a State Department planner who signs himself "Y,"* argues thoughtfully that surface appearances are misleading; beneath their often tempestuous politics, the Latin American nations are going forward toward orderly, democratic government. Writes "Y":

Positive & Negative. "Nowhere today [in Latin America] will you find government exercised as blindly and as brutally as it was by the Emperor Christophe in Haiti. Nowhere will you find such chaos as confronted John L. Stephens when he arrived in Guatemala City on a diplomatic mission from President Van Buren and had to search for a government to which he could present his credentials.

"The political picture today, moreover, compares favorably with the picture only 20 years ago, when Machado ruled in Cuba, Gomez in Venezuela, Ibanez in Chile and Leguia in Peru. It does not compare unfavorably with the picture a dozen years ago, when Vargas was dictator in Brazil, Ubico in Guatemala, Martinez in El Salvador, Carias in Honduras, Benavides in Peru, Busch in Bolivia, and Terra in Uruguay.

"Moreover, the masses are today acquiring a political consciousness of which they showed few signs or none a generation ago. Labor is organizing, and labor organizations are moving in the direction of responsible maturity. There can be little doubt that there has been and continues to be a steady growth over the decades in individual freedom and respect for human rights. Not only are dictatorships fewer than they used to be, the outcry against those that do exist is greater ... In the alternation that so many countries experience between elective and arbitrary governments, the periods of the former Appear to be growing longer, those of the latter shorter . . .

"The reactionary coups that took place in 1948 and 1949 in Peru, Venezuela and Panama, and the degeneration of the political situation in Colombia gave occasion to the critics who think all is lost whenever they see evidence that all is not won . . . [Such critics] have propagated a common delusion that democracy is the absence of dictators. They have thoughtlessly given dictatorship the positive and democracy the negative position; and on that basis they have assumed that democracy could be attained by the revolutionary overthrow of dictators. That, in a schoolboy's misconception of our history, is the meaning of 1776. The crusading spirit finds it easier to be against the infidel than for the faith.

"Maturity is not guaranteed by lapse of time. In this imperfect world not all individuals and not all peoples, however long they live, achieve it . . . Go into some Latin American countries where free speech is allowed, and, if an election campaign is in progress, note the campaign language painted on the walls of the town: Viva Rodriguez! Que muera Gonzalez! (Long Live Rodriguez! Death to Gonzalez!). The Gonzalistas, in turn, announce that when they get into power they will hang the Rodriguistas. Imagine an election campaign conducted in the U.S. or England in such terms! Imagine placards crying 'Death to Dewey!' and 'We are going to hang Truman!'. . .

Paternal & Fraternal. "The question whether the backward countries of Latin America were to be regarded as responsible adults or as irresponsible children was first answered by us in the early days of the 20th Century. We took it upon ourselves to exercise a paternalistic police power in the Caribbean. Theodore Roosevelt's 'corollary' to the Monroe Doctrine told the Europeans, in effect, that we would be responsible for keeping order among the children in our own yard. The assumption, not without validity at the time, was that these republics had not reached the stage of development at which they could be responsible for their actions.

"The turning point in our attitude came with our abandonment of intervention and our adoption of the Good Neighbor policy. It was an act of statesmanship such as has rarely been displayed by any world power. The era of good feeling that followed was its reward . . .

"The acceptance of equal status is the essence of our Good Neighbor policy, which is not, as some think, a policy of philanthropic largesse. It is, in the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt's original proclamation, the policy of 'the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.'. . .

Patience & Impatience. "Opinion in this country has sometimes tended to react in the manner of a stern father in the privacy of his home after his children have publicly embarrassed him. But is the relationship of the U.S. to Latin American nations in fact paternal? Or is it fraternal? . . .

"The achievement of greater democracy depends on [Latin American] experience in exercising, of themselves, the responsibility of adult nations. We should, as occasion allows, take them into our confidence and seek their advice as equals. We must continue to cooperate with them as friends for the common objectives of improving life and securing human freedom in the hemisphere, and not for motives that would discredit our cooperation.

"Latin America, free of iron curtains, dedicated to the attainment of democracy, striving for human betterment, offers us a clean field for a positive policy based on good will and an inspired purpose. Such a policy must be for democracy rather than merely against dictators; it must be cooperative rather than self-righteous and denunciatory; it must be candid rather than conspiratorial; and it must seek its own realization by developing the moral credit that supports it."

* Louis J. Halle, 39, not to be confused with Mr. "X" (George Kennan), author of the July 1947 Foreign Affairs article favoring a policy of world-wide containment of Russia.

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