LIFE AT THE BOTTOM
"Forty years ago I took a bath, and the next day I felt chilly, and
then--"
"Never mind forty years ago. What is the matter this morning, and why have
you come to me for medicine?" chants the seasoned employer of plantation
labor.
"That is what I was telling you, senor. Forty years ago I took a bath, and
the next day I felt chilly, and then I thought that I had made a mistake,
and so I went--"
"Now, see here. I have no interest nor curiosity about forty years ago.
What is the matter with you now?"
"Be patient, senor. This is important, and I will tell you all. Forty
years ago--" and after devious dodgings the tale terminates in a case of
fever or indigestion, or mayhap only plain drunk.
It is ever thus with the tropic tao, or peon, or ignorante, or whatever
may be called the people who have grown up with the soil and have risen
not any above it. The petty official who hears complaints in any tropic
land listens to marvelous reminiscences through deep jungles of
imaginative memory before reaching present facts.
"Twenty-five years ago I had the toothache, and then the next week I had a
bad dream, and after that I had no suerte [luck] at all, until one saint's
day I drank rum and ate rice, and the rice make me sick--" is merely the
opening chapter.
Every employer of tropic labor must be judge and jury for a docket of
petty cases that have to be adjusted if the wheels of industry are not to
be paralyzed in their work. Newcomers at this business of sitting in the
seat of judgment hear marvelous stories of oppression and outrage, in
which the accuser is always innocent--and always alone, if possible. But
experience breeds disillusionment and skepticism deep and wide, and soon
the amateur Solomon learns to distrust every story, most of all the first
one told. For, after the plaintiff has sworn that he is telling the truth,
or may all the saints strike him dead, and has unrolled his woes in
orderly sequence, he stands with critical eye, watching to see what
impression his art has made upon the puzzled personage of power.
And when the adjuster of affairs scorns the tale and says, "Get out with
you. I don't believe a word of that stuff," the beggar bows and smiles a
deprecating smile and begins all over again with a revised version of the
case, which bears very little resemblance to the first story, and again
stands back to observe what better success he may hope for this time. And
there appears to be no end to the ready versions and variations of the
woes of the downtrodden exponent of virtue whose humble bearing seems to
exude virtue from every protruding bare spot through his rags. "Last
Wednesday morning, I got up, and--would you believe it?--there was nothing
in the house. There was no yucca [counting off on his fingers],
no plantanas, no huevos, no carne, no mais, no azucar, no
arroz--absolutamente nada. Yes, it was last Wednesday--no, no, senor, I am
a liar--it was last Tuesday morning. And, senor, my children were hungry,
and I remembered that there was nothing--" and so on the story goes to its
climax in the claim that a certain party, not present, owes the complainer
fifty cents for real or imaginary value bestowed, and will the owner
please collect the fifty cents for the starving children?
[Illustration: PICTURESQUE JUNGLE TOWNS]
And if this tale is unsatisfactory, comes immediately a fresh version to
the effect that it is another man who owes a dollar because he tramped
across some young corn and spoiled the crop.
It is this fertility of imagination that makes up for any sort of accurate
information. To the American the amazing thing about these people is that
they know so little about their own very interesting country. The American
must know in order to boom his town, but the tropic native has no idea of
booming his town. There is no fun in booming, there is nothing to boom,
and a boomed town would be always stirring about or starting something,
and would be a nuisance anyway.
I stood in a village, quaint and curious, and wondered how old it might
be. The bells hanging to a cross beam in front of the old church bore
figures on their rims--1722, they said; and they looked it, every inch--or
year.
Came the young curate of the parish, a good-looking and intelligent
native, who talked a little with us pleasantly, and lured us into the old
church, where he immediately improved the occasion by getting the
collection basket and holding it under our noses. "It is a special saint's
day," he explained.
"How many people live here?"
He could not tell.
"How old is the church?" we wanted to know, thinking to get a morsel of
information for our crumb of contribution.
He did not know. The question was entirely new to him. He had been born in
the town, and later showed us with pride the house in which himself, his
mother, and his grandmother had been born, but as to the number of
inhabitants or the age of the church it had never occurred to him to
inquire.
But presently inspiration came to his aid. There was an ancient woman
still living at more than a hundred years; surely she would know the
answer to some of these curious questions.
[Illustration: TORTILLAS ARE STAPLE]
We called on the old woman. She was nothing but bones and parchment,
sitting with her chin on her knees on a small platform of slats which she
had not left for over two years. She claimed one hundred and two years,
which was undoubtedly correct, as baptismal records are usually accurately
kept. She certainly looked the part. The studiante sat down on the "bed,"
placed his hand kindly on the old woman's shoulder, and told her that
though she was blind there were three strangers who had come to see her
and congratulate her on her great age. She was pleased and said so, but
her mind was as feeble as her body, and there was little that she could
say. When asked as to the date of the "blessing" of the church, she said,
"O yes, certainly I can name it--it was on Saint John's day."
"That's fine," enthused the curate. "Now, what year was it, grandma?"
"Ah, that is another matter. I can't tell you now, but if you will come
to-morrow, I may be able to remember it then."
[Illustration: JUNGLE FOLK]
We left the next morning, of course, without the date of the dedication
day, but what information was lacking on this point was amply made up in
information concerning the population. We asked seven people the question
and received seven different answers, ranging from three hundred to five
thousand. We counted a hundred odd houses, indicating six or seven hundred
people, but no one there had any idea or any interest in the matter. What
difference did it make anyway?
The town of Nata, eighty miles west of Panama, was founded in 1520, one
year after the founding of Old Panama, and one hundred years before the
Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Old Panama has been a ruin for two and
one half centuries, leaving Nata as the oldest inhabited town in the New
World--no small distinction.
[Illustration: "THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT"]
I asked the leading official if he knew how old the town was, and he said
that he understood that it was "very old." When I suggested that it was
the oldest town in America he nodded politely and talked of something
else. I called on the priest, an intelligent and friendly man, who also
understood that the town "was very old," but its priority of claim to the
oldest living municipal inhabitant of the Americas had little interest for
him. He talked on, complaining bitterly of the bad morals of the people
and the small financial proceeds which the parish yielded its spiritual
leader.
It is easy to disparage any people, especially if they speak a different
language from your own. Most of the things said against the illiterate
natives of any country are true, but the trouble is that they are only a
small fraction of the truth.
A large employer of native labor, who took pride in treating his men well
and paying them promptly, complained to me that he never could keep steady
labor on his place for the reason that the men earned enough in one week
to keep them drunk for the next fortnight, and hence worked only one week
out of three, leaving their families to starve or shift for themselves as
best they might. And he told the truth.
But he did not tell it all. This same employer distilled the rum on his
own place and regarded it as a paying business. When other employers
raised the price for labor and produce he refused to do so on the ground
that the more they had the worse off they were. On the surface it might
seem to be true.
But these same laborers, even saving all possible margin of wages, could
not have lived in anything like comfort on sixty-five cents per day. Most
of them never see a newspaper, and could scarcely read, and not at all
understand it if they did see it. There is not an item of news, a trace of
historical knowledge or perspective, a gleam of scientific understanding,
a moving picture show, or a lecture on any subject, or a musical program,
nor any one of the thousand things that add interest and widen the horizon
of life--none of these things ever enter the remotest areas of his
consciousness. He lives in the flat, narrow confines of a life so small,
so cramped, so possessed by superstition and terror and ill will that he
is not many removes from the cattle with which he works. When this man
would celebrate his saint's day he gets drunk, organizes a bull fight, and
gives vent to every low impulse of his nature.
Is it any wonder? The only tingle of interest that touches his soul comes
from adventures in the realm of unfaithfulness and drunkenness. How many
of the rest of us would do any better if born and bred in the mire of his
social inheritance?
There is such a thing as moral hookworm. Saint Paul called it by another
term, but its symptoms are unchanged. The unshod soul, shuffling through
the mire of degradation, acquires from the lower stratum of his
environment the infection of a spiritual destitution that lowers moral
vitality to the minimum.
How comes this benumbed conscience and depraved practice! What is the
matter that the average of legitimacy for all Central America is thirty
per cent of the total population, while the seventy per cent are born of
unmarried parents?
It is not for lack of churches. Every town has its church, and the church
is invariably the best building in the town. It stands on the plaza,
commanding, central, and usually more or less beautiful. One can scarcely
get out of sight of a church tower in any thickly settled, level country.
And the churches are large enough to contain almost the whole population
of the town, at least by taking them in several installments at mass
hours.
[Illustration: CHURCH BELLS OF ARRAIJAN, CAST 1722]
It is not for want of priests. There are priests in every town, and most
of them carry out pretty faithfully the routine of ecclesiastical
observances that make up the day's program. Black gowns, tonsured heads,
and beads and rosaries are seen everywhere, and the padre is usually the
most influential man in the town.
It is not for want of religion. Every house of any pretensions has its
holy pictures, often its crucifix, and usually its rosary. Women in
numbers attend mass and go to confession.
It is not for want of opportunity on the part of priests or church. It is
not because of "church competition." Here we have a unity complete and
final.
For three hundred and ninety-eight years the priests and their church have
had sole, exclusive, and continuous occupation of Nata, the oldest town in
America. I was probably the first Protestant missionary who ever walked
the streets of the place. Here in the oldest town, with the longest
occupation and the undisturbed opportunity, should be found a fair chance
with these people.
And what has it done? The open-minded and friendly priest complained
bitterly of the fact that in his parish only five per cent of his people
were born of married parents. Ninety-five per cent were registered on his
books as "Naturales." The year before he had administered over three
hundred baptisms and had celebrated only three marriages. "I can't get
them to marry," he groaned. "Practically speaking, almost no one is
married."
Is Nata worse than other towns? Possibly so, but it must be remembered
that the "church" has had a longer chance there than in any other city in
all America, and perhaps when the other towns have been exposed for the
same length of time to the system, they will show equally advanced
results!
There is this thing to be said about the characteristic attitude of the
average priest toward his people: he always despises them. In many lands I
have found this to be true. Discouraged by the failure of his system to
produce spiritual life, or even good morals, he complains bitterly that
the people are indifferent, careless, negligent, immoral, unfaithful, and,
not least of vices, they are poor pay. If they are these things, no one
knows it better than the man who hears their secret confessions. And that
this man should come to a chronic attitude of distrust toward the products
of his own spiritual husbandry is one of the severest indictments against
the system that produces indifference on the part of the people and
cynicism in the heart of the priest.
What was the church doing to remedy this situation with its deadly
monotony, its superstition, ignorance, and immorality?
The church was maintaining its round of formulas, saints' days, masses,
confessions, baptisms, funerals for-what-the-traffic-would-bear. Showy
processions and occasional celebrations were the circus and movie for the
people. And on the confession of the troubled priest himself, there was no
moral result. Out of the dead past stood a mummied memory of the once
living church, and its mumbled incantations had no power to make the dry
bones live.
The only power that seems able to stir new life in the old mausoleum is
the advent of a vigorous Protestant work. In rage and bitterness the
powers bestir themselves and begin to defame and persecute their
disturbers, and in the end, they inevitably give some attention to
reviving their own decaying program.
How can a man be well when he is one hundred dollars away from a doctor?
With four doctors located among two hundred thousand people scattered over
a radius of forty by a hundred miles, and all fees exorbitantly high, what
is a poor man to do when illness overtakes his household? What is he to
do? Why, nothing at all, except await the end, either of his illness or of
both infirmity and himself. What the missionary needs is no less Bibles
than castor oil and quinine and iodine. I think that I would begin with a
moving-picture program and a clinic, and when a little physical health
appeared, and some sort of interest began to loosen the rusty hinges
before what occupies the mental space, I would begin to talk of something
to make life worth living. It was the way of the Master to heal and teach
and arouse, and the whole program of missionary work might be founded on
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more
abundantly." That is the key to the process. These people are not bad;
they are crippled. They are not vicious; they are lifeless. They are not
rebels: they are very much untaught, backward children.
[Illustration: FIRST-GRADE ROOM, PANAMA]
The system of public schools is growing apace, but it has a tremendous
task, small support from the parents, and often open opposition from the
priests. In one town a citizen remarked that on examination day at the
close of the term not a single pupil came to school, but that it made no
difference, as they were all promoted and would live just as long whether
they were promoted or not. (How I would have enjoyed that, as a boy!) In
another town the supervisor had criticized unfavorably the people for
certain careless habits, whereupon the teachers took offense, all resigned
and closed the schools. The secretary of education siding with the
supervisor, all schools remained closed, and the children were happy.
There is one safety valve left for people in such lives, and that is the
world-old prerogative of talk. In the long evenings, by the roadsides, on
the street corners, over the balconies flows an endless stream of talk.
Prattle and chatter and gossip and slander flow on and make up the only
scenarios the people know. Most of it is harmless. Some of it is aimless,
and all of it is fruitless of anything except to save the mind from utter
blankness.
They were chattering away in the evening, three or four women seeming
unconscious of me, a traveler stopping for the night. One subject held
undivided attention for much time--What shall we cook for breakfast? And
from that it was but a step to that eternal solace of feminine
conversation--the shortcomings of men in general and husbands in
particular. One of the animated declaimers arose, struck a dramatic
attitude, and said, "To expect that any man should be of any use about the
house is impossible," and the eloquent shrug of her shoulders underscored
the remark. In vain I broke in and protested that in the United States it
often happened that the men were successfully commandeered and detailed to
the work of kitchen police, but the only reply was an arched eyebrow and
another shrug. "Tell that to the marines," was what she meant.
There are two measures of quantity. Either it is "No hay sufficiente"
("There are not enough") or "Hay bastante, bastante" ("Plenty, plenty").
The population of the next town is one or the other of these measures. The
distance to the river, the crops, the number of children in the family,
the tale of the years that is told--it is all one thing or the other. And
the standard, in contrast with the artificial measures of a high
civilization, is at least true to life. Either there is enough or there is
not enough--that is about as close a distinction as the day's experience
affords. For that matter, all the rest of us are on one side or the other
of the same cleaving line of necessity.
That everybody should blame everybody else for whatever may happen to be
the matter is the most natural thing in the world. Whom shall we blame if
not some one else?
It is the fault of the officials that the country is poor. It is the fault
of the large landowner that there is no development. It is the fault of
the municipalities that the towns are not better kept, it is because of
the officials that justice is not better administered. It is the fault of
the Canal Zone that the good days are gone forever, and it is the fault of
the American government that there are certain restrictions on native
tendencies to move forward by the backward jerks of revolution. A Costa
Rican once said to me, "This war in Europe amounts to nothing; but if we
could get up a good old-fashioned revolution, I would be on the job
to-morrow."
The virtues of these people are a surprising list, considering their scant
opportunities. They are kindly in dealing with foreigners who show
themselves friendly. They do not as a rule abuse their children, which the
West Indian is apt to do if he is of the baser sort. The native is
hospitable and courteous and always willing to oblige, provided he knows
what to say or do. To be sure, the inventory of his information is
disappointing, even concerning such subjects as the distance to the next
town and the market value of rice, but he will tell all he knows and share
what rice he has. Traveling through the country alone, I have been shown
every kindness and entertained with the best that was to be had, and often
sent on my way without being allowed to pay for what I had received. "Do
you think I would take money from a guest?" protested a hospitable host
with whom I had spent the night and who had fed my horses, the guide, and
myself, and had entertained us all evening with discussion of many
matters.