Good Neigors - Argentina, Brazil, Chile And Seventeen Others Countries

Text extracted from opening pages of book: C ood Neighbors ARGENTINA BRAZIL CHILE C5> Seventeen Other Countries BY HUBERT HERRING NEW HAVEN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS FOREWORD THESE pages were chiefly written in the hills about Cor doba and under the long shadows of the Chilean cordil lera. They are written in aff ection for thousands of Latin Americans who have received me in friendship during my fif teen years' wanderings in their homelands. They are written in candor, in an effort to escape the romanticism which so readily besets Northern wanderers in lands where summer is winter and the language of Cervantes takes the place of the idiom of Milton. They are written in urgency, for the Americas face their gravest threat. They are written in hope for the free and loyal alliance of the 260 millions of the twenty-one republics of the Western World. There is a certain presumption in any outsider who essays to write of others* lands. If my Latin-American friends take offense at my candor, I answer, we of the United States can take as well as give. We, too, entertain guests who presume to hold the mir ror to our life, to tell us where democracy falters, where racial bigotry stains, where economic inequities condemn millions to poverty. I have written of the laggard constitutionalism of Latin America, of the biting misery of the masses, of the threat offered by unteachable conservatives, fanatical radicals, and alien dis rupters. Any Latin-American visitor can write of our Boss Hagues, our ruthless lobbies which block public will, of hungry share croppers and hounded itinerant workers, of our city slums and country tenements, I have sought to befair, but I have un doubtedly made mistakes in emphasis and interpretation. Latin Americans will write books about the United States, they will seek to be fair, they also will make mistakes. The cause of inter-American understanding is served by a mutual frankness which risks mistakes. 3 - I? MMMBttBi JUN 2 1 1943 vi GOOD NEIGHBORS This book is chiefly devoted to Argentina, Brazil, and Chile; not that other lands are less important in the teamwork of the Americas, or of less interest, or have people less worth cultiva tion* I have chosen to give more attention to three important countries rather than spread my attention and that of the reader over twenty nations. It is high time the people of the United States discover the other Americans. Our world closes in upon us. American soli darity, once regarded as a pleasant elective, has become an im perious necessity. The United States needs Latin America for the goods she can sell, and as security against attack. The Latin Americans need the United States if their sovereignty is to be as-' sured The United States might conceivably travel alone, but no Latin-American nation can do so. The United States, inviting an all-American front, offers as much as it asks. I am indebted to hundreds whose names do not appear pub lic officials, textile workers, scholars, bartenders, bootblacks, priests, schoolteachers, shopkeepers, and boys on the street. I cannot list all of their names, I therefore list none. Many spoke in confidence, and their names could not fairly be given-My debt to writers of books is indicated in the bibliography. I thank Eugene Davidson and his staff of the Yale University Press, whose labors are never perfunctory. I appreciatethe per mission of the editors of Harper' V Magazine and The Yale Review to reprint material which first appeared in their columns. I ac knowledge my chief debt to my wife, Helen Baldwin Herring, for months of delving, sharing with me the gathering of material and the preparation of the manuscript. My daughter Virginia Herring has given me weeks of intelligent help, HUBERT HERRING New YorJ(, May /, CONTENTS Foreword ..... v List of Illustrations ..... xi A Prologue for Americans .... i PART I. ARGENTINA I. The Land and the People . . . * n II. The Long Arm of Spain