THE CAUSES OF CENTRAL AMERICAN REVOLUTIONS
Civil War as a Characteristic Central American Political
Institution--Character and Extent of the Conflicts--Forces back of
Them: Unfitness of the People for Democratic Government, Oppression by
the Party in Power of its Enemies, Rivalry for Office, _Personalismo_
and _Localismo_--Indifference of the Mass of the People--Hope for
Improvement--Effects of Contact with the Outside World.
The most important fact in the history of the Central American
republics, from their declaration of independence down to the present
time, has been the almost continuous civil war from which the majority
of them have suffered. Their inability to establish stable governments
has retarded their economic and social progress in the past, and is a
menace to their welfare and even to their national existence today.
The development of agriculture, the building of roads and railroads,
and the civilization and education of the masses of the people, have
been discouraged, both by strife between factions at home and contests
with neighboring governments, and by the misrule resulting from the
predominance of the military elements which have been brought to the
front by the premium which these conflicts have placed on armed force.
The weakness of the five countries, moreover, has frequently exposed
them to acts of aggression from foreign powers, and in recent times
their very independence has been endangered because the apparent
incapacity of most of them for self-government has led to a general
belief in Europe and America that they must one day fall under the
control of some stronger power. Under modern conditions, it is
impossible for a government which cannot maintain order and secure to
the lives and property of foreigners the protection which international
law demands to expect that its rights of sovereignty, or even its
territorial integrity, should be scrupulously respected by governments
which are more powerful and better organized. The elimination of
internal disorder is therefore one of the most serious problems which
confronts the people of the Isthmus.
If one asks the average Central American, whether of the educated
classes or of the common people, what has been the principal cause of
the revolutions which have occurred in his country, he will almost
certainly answer: the ambition of professional politicians and the
abuse of power by the government,--the desire of each member of the
ruling class to hold office, and the tendency of each administration
to use its authority for the personal benefit of those who control its
policy and for the gratification of their hatred of their opponents.
The force of this reply can be readily appreciated by one who has
seen the conditions which exist in some of the five republics, but
the causes assigned are nevertheless hardly adequate to explain the
extreme prevalence of internal strife in the five republics. There
are many countries with perfectly stable governments which are cursed
with politicians more ambitious and more selfish than those who have
been prominent in revolutions in Central America, and many also where
the opponents of those in power are treated with far more severity
than falls to the lot of the defeated party there. The reasons given
indicate, perhaps, the motives which actuate those who participate
in each revolt, but they do not explain the underlying causes which
have made uprisings against the government more frequent in Central
America than in almost any other part of the civilized world. These
causes must be sought, not in the aspirations and immorality of any one
relatively small group of men, such as that which figures in Central
American political affairs, but rather in the nature and working of the
governmental institutions and in the economic and social condition of
the people as a whole.
The way in which revolution became the only means by which the
political institutions of the five republics could be worked has
already been described. The constitutions which were drawn up for
the federal government and for the five states in the years 1823-25
provided, as we have seen, for the choosing of the more important
officials by popular elections; but the holding of real elections soon
proved to be impossible, because of the ignorance and indifference
of the great majority of the people, and the lack of experience in
self-government among the ruling classes. The parties which were
contending with one another for the control of the government soon
yielded to the temptation to employ force and fraud to attain their
ends; and the voting for officials consequently became, first an
occasion for periodic disorders, accompanied frequently by an appeal to
arms, and then a mere farce, in which the triumph of the administration
candidate was assured by the pressure exerted by the government. Within
a few years after the declaration of independence, force had come to
be recognized as the only means by which power was secured and held,
and revolution was not only the sole remedy for bad government, but the
one way in which a change of officials could be effected. Civil war was
thus an indispensable part of the political system.
Revolutions were of almost yearly occurrence throughout the Isthmus
during the first half century after the declaration of independence,
for the development just described took place in each of the five
countries. In some, however, there was early apparent a tendency
towards avoiding actual warfare, so long as the established government
pursued a policy which made its rule tolerable to the parties not
represented in it. Even when disaffection grew so strong that a change
was inevitable, attempts were usually made to bring about a compromise.
Force still remained the basis of all authority, and potential
revolution the only corrective of bad government, but actual fighting
between the factions was rare. In Costa Rica, where this tendency was
strongest, practically no blood has been shed in political quarrels for
nearly sixty years. Nicaragua and Honduras, on the other hand, have
had frequent and sanguinary revolutions throughout their history as
independent nations. This difference between them and their peaceful
neighbor is enough to indicate that other factors, besides the mere
impossibility of changing their governments except by force, have
contributed to make them turbulent. Before attempting to explain what
these factors are, however, it is necessary to understand the nature of
Central American revolutions and the character and the motives of the
persons who participate in them.
In the first place, it should be borne in mind that the average
revolution is not a movement which embraces a very large number of
people or which calls into play deep economic or social motives. The
countries themselves are very small, for the largest barely exceeds
fifty thousand square miles in area. In all of them, except Salvador,
much of the national territory is so sparsely settled, and often so
impenetrable and unhealthful, that it hardly enters into consideration
as a theater of military operations. Of the total population, which
is probably not more than 600,000 in Nicaragua, Honduras, or Costa
Rica, only a very small portion is sufficiently interested in politics
to participate voluntarily in a civil war. Revolutionary armies,
therefore, rarely reach any great size, and they rarely need to in
order to succeed. The military force of the government is small,
ill-equipped, and poorly trained, and not infrequently part of it
proves disloyal in a political crisis. Although it is impossible to
estimate with any degree of accuracy how many soldiers are actually
under arms at a given time in such countries as Nicaragua or Honduras,
it seems very doubtful if the total exceeds two or three thousand, and
these are scattered through the country to such an extent that a much
smaller revolutionary force, sometimes of less than a hundred men,
can seize and hold an important strategic point before the government
has time to rally its forces. After an uprising has started, both
sides fill their ranks by voluntary recruiting and impressment, but
neither is able to raise or to fit out any army which would seem very
formidable to a single well-trained regiment. It is only necessary to
recall the stand which William Walker, with a few hundred dissolute
and undisciplined adventurers, was able to make against the combined
military power of the five republics, in order to appreciate the actual
force at the disposal of a Central American government. Yet these
governments are nevertheless able to suppress the greater part of the
revolts which occur against their authority.
The spirit which causes the revolutions is not often one which arouses
very much enthusiasm among the people at large. Their leaders are
usually inspired by a thirst for offices and spoils or a desire for
revenge against political rivals who have oppressed them, and the
rank and file are actuated mainly by sectional or class jealousy, but
rarely by any genuine political motives. There are of course many men
in politics who seek to obtain control of the government, even by
revolution, in order to effect economic and social reforms. Generous
and patriotic ideas are found both among the chiefs and their followers
in all parties, but they play a smaller part in actually bringing about
a revolt than do the less creditable but still very human motives upon
which the political parties are built up.
Revolutions are rarely the result of a widespread conspiracy among
the people. Even a large portion of the active members of the party
interested often know little about the plans of the leaders until an
armed uprising has already taken place. The procedure followed is much
the same in nearly all cases. A group of factional chiefs, with a few
score of their more intimate personal followers, raise the standard
of revolt with a pronunciamento against the government, naming one
of their number as provisional president. An attempt is made either
to seize from within some town in which the revolutionary party is
particularly strong, or to invade the country from outside, occupying
one of the seaports as a base of operations. The latter is perhaps
more common, because the important members of the opposition party
are generally in exile. The revolution not infrequently gains its
foothold, as did that of 1909 in Nicaragua, through the treachery of
local authorities who turn over to it the soldiers and the military
supplies under their control, or by the disaffection of high officials
sufficiently influential to carry with them a considerable part of the
army. Arms and supplies are secured from some neighboring government
which has reasons for wishing to overthrow the existing administration,
or from foreign corporations and speculators who wish concessions or
special privileges. A revolt often attains formidable proportions in
this way before the government can raise and equip an army to send
against it, as it usually starts in regions remote from the capital,
where it is able to consolidate its forces before it meets with
serious opposition. In the districts still under the control of the
authorities, meanwhile, martial law is proclaimed, known or suspected
adherents of the party responsible for the revolution are thrown into
jail, horses and other property are requisitioned for the army, and
every able-bodied man of the laboring and artisan classes, except
those who succeed in concealing themselves, is pressed into service
as a soldier. The result, of course, is an immediate paralyzation of
agriculture and commerce. A revolution thus begun often lasts several
months before there is a decision, although only a few battles are
fought, and only two or three thousand men, and often less, are engaged
on each side. If the rebels win a few successes at the beginning, or if
the government is unable to defeat them after a prolonged campaign, the
president usually falls, because of his loss of prestige and because of
the defection of the always numerous politicians who desire above all
else to be on the winning side. When this occurs, there is a complete
demoralization of all of the departments of the administration,
accompanied, not infrequently, by a split in the victorious party or a
counter revolution on the part of the defeated. Order is not restored
until one strong leader or group of leaders has established himself or
itself in complete military control.
Since these revolutions are the work of so small a proportion of the
people, their causes must evidently be sought not so much in any
inherent disorderliness and lawlessness of the nation as a whole, as in
the questions which have divided the classes interested in politics,
and in the conditions which have made it possible for these classes to
plunge the community into civil war time after time by their incessant
feuds, without being effectually checked by the desire of the rest of
the country for peace.
The instigators and leaders of Central American revolutions are in
almost every case the pure-blooded, or nearly pure-blooded, descendants
of the _conquistadores_, and one of the chief causes of these phenomena
must therefore be sought in the characteristics which the creole
aristocracy has inherited from its sixteenth century ancestors. Among
the Spaniards who founded the colonies on the Isthmus there were a few
respectable families, but the majority were adventurers, fugitives from
justice, and soldiers who had been left without occupation by the
cessation of the wars against the Moors, and came to America in search
of excitement and easily gained wealth. In exploring and subjugating
the Indian kingdoms, they showed a bravery and an indomitable energy
which have few parallels in history, but as colonists they were
turbulent, lawless, and unprincipled. Their cruelty towards the Indians
has already been described. Their dissensions among themselves, before
the government at home had firmly established its military control
over them, forecasted what might be expected when the authority of
Spain should be withdrawn, for the bloody clashes between rival
exploring parties, the vindictiveness and treachery exhibited towards
one another by ambitious governors who could not agree upon the extent
of their respective jurisdictions, and the occasional uprisings,
like that of the Contreras brothers in Nicaragua, among the rabble
of the Spanish settlements, made the annals of the Central American
provinces during the sixteenth century one long chronicle of bloodshed.
After the declaration of independence, it was the descendants of the
early colonists who carried on the civil wars which lasted almost
without intermission for so many years. The leaders of the political
factions,--the men who fill the higher offices when their party is in
power and bear the brunt of the opposition at other times,--are still
for the most part members of the white upper class, even though the
exclusiveness of the old creole aristocracy has been broken down.
It is rather surprising to find the native landholders and merchants,
who have more interest than anyone else in the maintenance of order
and good government, taking the lead in the civil wars which have made
order and good government impossible. But the feuds which have divided
the educated and wealthy classes among themselves have been so bitter
that it has been impossible down to the present time for their leaders
to co-operate with one another in establishing and supporting a stable
and efficient government. The custom of proscribing and despoiling
political enemies has kept alive and intensified the personal hatred
between the members of the rival parties even in those countries where
there are no fundamental economic or social questions upon which the
ruling classes are divided. After a change of government, the more
prominent adversaries of the victorious party are usually exiled or
imprisoned; their property is taken from them either by outright
confiscation or forced loans; and their constitutional rights are
little respected by the officials or by the courts. When an outbreak
against the government is attempted or threatened, many of those of its
opponents who are still at liberty are seized, and even their wives and
children are subjected to imprisonment and mistreatment, and sometimes,
as under the government of President Zelaya in Nicaragua, to barbarous
tortures. These persecutions, inspired not only by a determination to
prevent uprisings against the government, but often by a desire for
revenge and for the gratification of individual spite, frequently make
the situation of the enemies of the administration so intolerable that
they prefer to risk everything in a revolt rather than to submit. This
has been especially true in countries where continual revolutions have
kept party feeling at white heat, accustoming all classes to regard
civil war almost as a normal condition, and forcing the government to
take severe measures against all whom it thinks likely to resist its
authority by force of arms. Peace can never be hoped for under these
conditions. The only republics of Central America which have made any
real progress towards stable government are those where the opponents
of the party in power are treated with comparative fairness, and where
confiscation and imprisonment for political reasons are rare.
Resistance to oppression, however, is by no means the only motive
which leads members of the upper classes to engage in intrigues and
revolts against the government. The pursuit of office is in itself an
attractive occupation, for every member of the small ruling class has a
comparatively good chance of becoming president or cabinet minister or
of attaining some other honorable and lucrative position. The rewards
offered by politics are on the whole greater than those held out by the
more solid occupations, especially in those countries where continual
disorder make agriculture and commerce a precarious means of securing a
livelihood, for very few of the native planters or merchants receive so
great an income as they could secure, legitimately or illegitimately,
at the expense of the community if they could reach one of the higher
positions in the government. Politics, moreover, provides the natural
outlet for the energies of those members of the upper class who have no
property. This is especially true of the great majority of the lawyers,
doctors, and dentists, few of whom secure a respectable living from
their overcrowded professions.
Many members of the wealthy and educated classes, however, have always
worked for peace, realizing that revolutions not only deprived their
property of most of its value, but also lessened their own influence
in the community by raising demagogues and purely military leaders
to positions of prominence. The influence exerted by this moderate
party has depended upon the economic development of each country. In
Costa Rica and Salvador, where the cultivation of coffee has been
developed until it offers a more attractive field of endeavor than
politics, the great landholders have been a powerful factor in bringing
about the establishment of stable government. In Guatemala also, the
prosperity of agriculture has probably favored peace, although the
bitterness of party strife in that country and the backwardness of the
Indian population have greatly retarded its political development.
Agriculture in Honduras and Nicaragua, on the other hand, being still
in a primitive condition, affords a comparatively unattractive
occupation, and politics may still be said to be the chief interest of
the propertied classes.
Although the landholding and professional classes furnish the leaders,
the revolutions would hardly be possible without the participation of
the far more numerous other elements in the community. The half-breed
artisans in the towns and villages form perhaps the largest part of
the factional armies. These laborers, who have little property, and
therefore, so far as they can see, little direct interest in the
preservation of peace or the economic well-being of the community,
find in civil war both a welcome source of excitement and an avenue
for personal advancement and profit, for the opportunities for loot
during the campaigns, and the rewards distributed among the adherents
of the victorious party after a successful revolution, make conspiracy
and revolt a more lucrative occupation than hard labor at a trade.
There is no way in which the intelligent but unstable _ladino_, little
inclined to steady manual or intellectual labor, can so easily achieve
wealth and influence as by the pursuit of politics,--a vocation which
makes it possible for a boy of the humblest, barefooted, illiterate
family, coming from a thatched, one-room hut in the mountains, to
rise to a position where he is addressed as “Great and Good Friend”
by the heads of the leading nations of the world. Not a few artisans
and professional soldiers of this class have actually risen to such
a position, and some, especially in the Liberal party, have been
presidents of their countries for long periods. Ordinarily, however,
they play a less prominent part in affairs than the members of the
white aristocracy, who have the advantage of superior education, social
prestige, and wealth.
Those who hope to derive some direct individual profit, however,
form but a small part of the number of persons engaging in a typical
revolution. The rebel leaders would have but little hope of overcoming
the advantage conferred on the government by its control of the
administrative machinery, and above all of the standing army and
military stores, if they did not receive active support from adherents
far too numerous to be rewarded by offices or money in the event of
victory. The principal motive which brings together the rank and
file of a revolutionary army is “_personalismo_,”--the devotion to
individual chiefs, sometimes the heads of great families, sometimes
professional soldiers, sometimes mere demagogues, whose relation to
their followers is usually not so much that of political leaders as
of friends and patrons. Ties of blood, friendships, and gratitude for
favors received or expected play a much greater part in holding these
factions together than community of ideals or principles; and the very
nature of the parties consequently makes the strife between them the
more bitter and compromise the more difficult. Closely connected with
this _personalismo_ is _localismo_, the jealousy and rivalry between
town and town, which makes the political leaders of each hostile to
those in other parts of the country and enables them too often to carry
the common people with them in their armed opposition to a government
controlled by their enemies. We have already seen how disastrous an
influence this spirit has exerted in the history of the Isthmus, and
how it has been intensified by continual internal strife and by the
persecution of the people of one section by those of another.
Other factors also have often contributed, though usually in a minor
degree, to bring about an uprising against the government. Religious
questions have been a source of much trouble, although they are less
important at present than in the early history of the Isthmus. The
Church has now lost its one-time influence through the decline of
religious feeling among the people, but in the first half century
after the declaration of independence it was often strong enough to
instigate a revolt against a government which oppressed it, or, by
its own exactions, to cause one against a government which supported
it. Abuses of power by the officials, or the adoption of a policy
which directly injured a large portion of the people, have sometimes
done much to make a revolution possible, and dissatisfaction with
the existing administration, apart from any desire to put any other
group of individuals in power, always causes many persons to join the
ranks of the rebel army. Many others take part merely for the sake of
excitement and plunder,--because they wish to fight and to “eat fat
cows.” The revolutions, when they have once started, naturally attract
all of the discontented and adventurous elements in the community. But
it is _personalismo_ and _localismo_ which make it possible for them to
start, and which hold the armies participating in them together through
the exigencies of the conflict.
Only a small part of the people, however, enter at all into these party
conflicts. The great majority, especially in the rural districts,
know little and care less about political affairs. They dislike and
fear the revolutions, which often involve forced military service for
themselves and destruction for their livestock and their little patches
of corn and beans, but they have been so accustomed to misgovernment
and exploitation ever since their ancestors were conquered by the
Spaniards that it never occurs to them to make a concerted effort
to check the disorderly tendencies of the politicians. It is this
ignorance and indifference of the masses of the people, rather than
any disposition to turbulence in the nation as a whole, which has
prevented the establishment of stable government in many of the Central
American republics, by making it impossible to hold elections and work
the constitution by peaceful means, and by permitting rival cliques
of professional office-seekers to plunge the country into civil war
time after time for the gratification of personal ambitions and feuds,
without other restraint than that suggested by their own interests.
It is sometimes asserted that it is the Indian and part Indian element
which is chiefly responsible for the disorders in Central America. This
view seems to find justification in the tranquillity of Costa Rica,
where the population is almost entirely of Spanish descent, but it is,
in fact, very unjust to a race which is on the whole more peaceful,
law-abiding, and industrious than the descendants of their conquerors.
The Indians rarely participate in a revolution. In Guatemala, where
they have retained their racial identity more than in any other part
of the Isthmus, they have hardly ever risen against the government
since their final subjugation at the beginning of the colonial period,
although they have always been forced to serve against their will both
in the standing army and in revolutionary forces. The only real popular
uprising which has occurred in that republic,--the revolution which
placed Carrera in power in 1838, originated not among the Indians but
among the ignorant _ladinos_ in the districts east of the capital,
where the conditions are far more similar to those of Honduras and
Nicaragua than to those which prevail throughout the greater part of
Guatemala itself. It was among the half-breeds that Carrera secured
the followers who enabled him to establish his military despotism,
and it was these same half-breeds, under the influence of the village
priests, who made the Church so strong a factor during the Conservative
administration. In Nicaragua, the semi-civilized rural population in
the district of Matagalpa and the villages which have retained their
distinctly Indian character in the southwestern Sierras have as a
rule remained neutral, so far as they could, in the contests between
Leon and Granada, although the Indians of Matagalpa revolted on one
occasion, about thirty years ago, when they were forced to aid in
constructing a telegraph line into their country. The Indians in the
four northern countries, indeed, are responsible for the revolutions
only in the sense that they are helpless to prevent them. Their
situation is very different from that of the common people of Costa
Rica, where the early extinction of the aborigines made possible the
development of a compact, homogeneous community of white peasants,
among whom it was comparatively easy to establish stable political
institutions.
The causes of Central American revolutions, therefore, may be said to
be: first, the attempt to impose political institutions copied from
one of the world’s most advanced democracies upon a country where
elections were absolutely impossible; second, what may be called the
habit of revolution among the ruling class and the people of many of
the towns,--a habit formed during the turbulent years that followed
the breakdown of the federal constitution, and perpetuated by the
bitterness of personal feuds and sectional jealousy, the pursuit of
politics as a money-making occupation, and the mutual persecutions
of rival factions; and third, the backwardness of the masses of
the people, which has not only made the republican constitutions
unworkable, but has also prevented those who in the long run suffer
most from civil war from exerting any effective influence for peace.
None of these causes can be said to be permanent. There is no reason to
suppose that stable governments will not be attained eventually in all
of the five republics, as a result of the education of the people. The
public schools, which have been established in the last quarter century
even in the remote country districts of the Isthmus, have already done
much to improve the situation and enlarge the outlook of the masses of
the population, and to hasten the approach of the day when they will be
able to assume the control of their own affairs through the democratic
machinery which already exists on paper, and to protect themselves
against the disastrous consequences arising from the factional quarrels
of selfish professional politicians. This influence makes itself felt
slowly, but the social and political effects of popular education, once
they have asserted themselves, can never be undone. The penetration of
foreign ideas and the increase of wealth and improvement of standards
of living which have resulted from the development of foreign commerce
are also doing their part in changing the situation of the countries
of the Isthmus. The landholding classes, as we have seen, are already
exerting a strong influence in behalf of peace in the more prosperous
countries, for their success in agricultural pursuits has greatly
lessened their interest in politics. The laboring classes, also,
have found new opportunities for employment and advancement, and are
beginning to learn by experience that their own welfare is dependent
upon the peaceful development of their country. The factors in favor of
stable government have thus been immeasurably strengthened.
Those who hope for the ultimate political regeneration of the Isthmus
receive much encouragement from the example of Costa Rica, which
started upon her independent existence with the same institutions
and the same inexperience in self-government as her neighbors. Costa
Rica, it is true, has owed her freedom from civil war largely to her
isolation and her homogeneous European population, but the substitution
of a popularly elected and constitutional government for the military
tyrannies which had existed at first there as well as in other parts of
the Isthmus was due primarily to the education of the common people and
to the increasing realization on their part of their interest in the
conduct of public affairs. There is no reason to suppose that a similar
development will not take place eventually in Nicaragua, Honduras,
and Salvador, and even among the Indians of Guatemala. The people of
those countries have never had the opportunities for peaceful progress
which the prosperous peasants of Costa Rica have enjoyed, but there
seems little reason to suppose, from observation of the races as they
work side by side in schools and public offices, that the Indian or
the _mestizo_ of the other republics is inherently less capable of
advancement or less fitted for self-government than his fellow-citizen
of Spanish descent.
The changes brought about by increased intercourse with foreign
countries have on the whole favored stability and good government, but
in some respects they have been far from beneficial. While agriculture
or commerce has been made a more attractive occupation than conspiracy
and revolt for many of the great landholders, many others have been
driven out of these pursuits and into politics, as the only means of
making a living which remained open to them, by the immigration of more
efficient foreign planters and business men. We have already seen to
what an extent this has taken place in some of the five countries. The
interest in peace among the classes who by wealth and education are
best qualified to be the leaders of the community has been lessened by
the loss of their property, and the number of professional politicians
and revolutionists who are almost entirely dependent upon the pursuit
of office for support has been swelled by members of many families
which formerly devoted their energies to more useful occupations.
Not a few of the foreigners, moreover, have taken part in civil wars
and disturbances, for the furtherance of purely selfish aims, and
to the great detriment of the native community. The North American
or European professional revolutionist, usually an adventurer or a
fugitive from justice in his own country, is a type which is all too
familiar in the more disorderly countries of the Isthmus. He is rarely
anything more than a mercenary soldier, ready to offer his services
to the highest bidder, but his presence is a source of annoyance and
danger to the constituted authorities, and the viciousness and greed of
some who have been rewarded for their assistance in war with official
positions has equaled if not exceeded that of the most depraved
native leaders. The participation of these men in the armies on both
sides of a civil contest, moreover, is often a positive danger to the
Central American countries, because of the regrettable readiness of the
great powers of the world to protect their citizens in their real or
fancied rights even when they are engaged in an occupation so little
commendable as that of making war for money against a constituted
government. A significant example of the difficulties which arise from
this source was afforded by the events which followed the shooting of
two American adventurers during the Nicaraguan revolution of 1909.[44]
Still more dangerous to the welfare of the Central American countries
are the foreign corporations which, for equally unworthy purposes,
often render open or covert aid to a revolutionary movement, in order
to assure themselves of the protection and favor of the new government.
There is unfortunately little doubt that recent uprisings in Honduras
and Nicaragua have been financed and supplied with arms from New
Orleans, or that they have owed their success largely to the aid thus
received. So long as the resources of the five republics continue to
be developed under special concessions and privileges, there will
inevitably be a strong temptation for the large fruit companies and
other corporations having interests there to intervene in political
affairs, because of the great part which official favor or disfavor
plays in determining the conditions under which they do business.
Such a situation is disastrous to the internal peace of the countries
involved, for any discontented faction can usually secure support
from some group of investors or speculators who think that they can
further their interests or secure valuable concessions by promoting
a revolution. In the governments which come into power in this way,
however, the influence of the foreign corporations which have aided
them is generally far less than might be expected, for Central American
political leaders are none too grateful and none too scrupulous about
carrying out obligations which they have entered into; and they rarely
lose sight of their distrust of the foreigner in their appreciation of
his assistance.
The disturbing influences introduced by intercourse with other
countries, however, are offset, and more than offset, by the pressure
which foreign governments, actuated by a desire to protect their
subjects who have settled or invested capital in Central America, have
exerted in behalf of peace. The United States, especially, has been
forced to take positive action to prevent civil and international wars
in the Isthmus, not only because its commerce and its investments there
are larger than those of any other nation, but also because its settled
policy not to permit European intervention in the affairs of the weaker
American nations has made it necessary to adopt measures which deprive
other powers of an excuse for interference. Inspired by a desire to
promote the stability and well-being of its neighbors, the United
States has in the last ten years taken more and more radical steps to
safeguard the peace of the Isthmus, until it has finally reached the
point of actually suppressing revolutions in one of the countries by
force. Its influence has therefore become the most potent factor, for
good or for evil, both in the external and the internal affairs of the
five republics. No description of Central American conditions would be
complete without a discussion of the way in which this influence has
been exercised.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] See Chapter XI.