PANAMA AND PROGRESS
The coat of arms of the Republic of Panama bears the inscription, "The
repudiation of war and homage to the arts which flourish in peace and
labor." Under the existing treaty with the United States the first part of
this excellent motto is guaranteed. Panama is a providential Republic and
presents some of the finest possibilities of the American tropics. The
educated Panamanians have not been slow to proclaim these rich resources,
but no large advance has been realized yet. The government of Panama has
been friendly to promotion plans and development projects, and has
undertaken some ambitious enterprises on its own initiative, but the
results have been on the whole disappointing.
American business men who have lived in Panama feel that no permanent
success can be assured to such undertakings without the backing of the
United States government. The officials of Panama naturally do not look
with enthusiasm upon this idea and prefer to keep development enterprises
within their own jurisdiction. And serious effort has certainly been made
by the Panamanian government to support some of the enterprises projected
by native and foreign capitalists.
[Illustration: WIRELESS AT DARIEN]
The causes of economic backwardness and social conservatism are not
difficult to locate and describe. From the cruel savagery of Pizarro and
Balboa to the model communities of the Canal Zone is a far step. In the
past seventy-five years the city of Panama has passed through a thousand
years of social evolution, and in five years after Panama became an
independent and sovereign nation the city was transformed, the government
reorganized, and something like twentieth-century conditions replaced the
filth and disease and squalor of the old days.
The prowler in social history will find plenty of material here. By all
the precedents of progress Panama should have been prosperous centuries
ago. While other cities of coming metropolitan centers were yet barren
wastes and sleeping wildernesses Panama was on the highway of the world.
When New York and San Francisco and Chicago were inhabited by birds and
squirrels Panama was known everywhere. Panama had a century the start of
all North America and was the pawn of kings and the gateway of empire
before the Pilgrims landed in New England. If there be any advantage in an
early start, Panama should have led us all in the race for a commanding
position in the New World.
There is much in location. A single foot on Broadway is worth more than a
farm in the desert. Great cities have great positions on the map, and
Panama began with a situation to which the world simply had to come. A
dozen different solutions of the transportation problem presented by the
Isthmian power and navigation were proposed, but it always came back to
Panama. Here is the narrowest part of the connecting link of the
continents, and here is the lowest point in the continental backbone.
Without lifting her hand or voice, Panama had but to dream and wait till
the world should come and pour into her lap the commerce and progress of
the modern age. To-day Panama is on the direct line of travel between
almost any two great cities at opposite ends of the earth. Melbourne and
London, New York and Buenos Ayres, Port au Spain and Honolulu--draw the
lines, and they all pass through Panama.
It is an accepted axiom of unthinking people that gold and prosperity are
synonymous. If this were true, Panama should be the most prosperous and
progressive of all cities of the earth to-day. More gold has been carried
through her streets, and stored in her warehouses, and handled by her
people, than in any other city of the Americas. The Peru of the Conquest
was lined and lacquered with gold. The palaces of the Incas and the
Temples of the Sun were plastered and burnished with gold; and for a
century this gold was loaded into European ships, taken to Panama and
packed across the Isthmus and then reshipped to Europe to fill the coffers
of profligate kings and bolster up the fortunes of fallen states. All of
it came through Panama; and if much of it did not remain there, it was not
due to conscientious scruples on the part of the Panamanians. If a stream
of gold could bring progress, Panama should have led the world for three
hundred years.
Probably the modern Republic of Panama is one of the very few endowed
governments in the world. The purchase price of the Canal Zone, invested
in New York real estate, yields an annual revenue which forms a part of
the government budget. The annual payment of $250,000 by the Canal Zone
also helps. Since the beginning of the French Canal enterprise a
considerable part of the monthly payrolls of the Canal builders has found
its way into the till of the merchants in Colon and Panama, and these
terminal cities have largely lived on the Canal Zone trade. Certainly,
Panama has even to-day some peculiar financial advantages--and if these
could bring prosperity, Panama should be prosperous.
[Illustration: FARM GRIST MILL, COSTA RICA]
When the California gold rush began in 1848 Panama awoke from her century
and a half of slumber and trouble began afresh. Again there was gold on
the Isthmus, and again there was crime. Hundreds of ships discharged their
cargoes and passengers on one side of the Isthmus, and the trip across was
one not to be forgotten.
Now that the world has once more had to fight out the old battle of free
institutions, it is worth while to remember that the oldest independent
nation of the modern world is Panama; and that the first of the Spanish
colonies to achieve freedom from the misgovernment of the old country was
this same little nation on the Isthmus. Tired of the kind of supervision
which she had been undergoing from Europe, in 1826 Panama revolted, set up
political housekeeping for herself, until she was later merged with the
free New Granada--the modern Colombia.
If political independence has anything to do with advancement, then Panama
should be very advanced indeed, for she led all her neighbors in achieving
national separateness. The independence movement that swept over the
western world a century ago affected Panama profoundly, and the microbe of
political freedom soon produced a well-developed case of revolution--and
the revolution was a success. Four score years afterward Panama again
established her independence without the shedding of a drop of blood. If a
spirit of independence can make a people prosperous, then Panama and
prosperity should mean the same thing.
Panama has some peculiar political advantages to-day. Where other nations
maintain their political sovereignty and internal peace at the cost of
huge sums of money and by means of armies and battleships, Panama is
spared this enormous drain upon her resources and men and money, and finds
her political independence guaranteed against all the nations of the
earth. Likewise she is sure of internal peace and is the only really
war-tight, revolution-proof country in Latin-America. By the treaty
entered into between Panama and the United States, in return for the Canal
Zone and other concessions, the United States guarantees the independence
of Panama and agrees to step in at any time when it may be necessary and
maintain order throughout the Isthmus. The Panamanians are not
enthusiastic over this situation, and some of the politicos inwardly
resent very bitterly an arrangement which makes impossible their chosen
profession of agitators and revolutionary leaders.
There are people who tell us that the basis of national progress is
economic and commercial. Given a land with all large resources, we shall
perforce have a progressive people. Measured by this standard, Panama
should lead all the rest. Her thirteen hundred miles of coast bound a
narrow empire, but an empire of wonderful possibilities. Her inexhaustible
soil, her frequent rivers, her rich jungles, her broad savanas, her high
mountains and dense forests, her mines and climate and rainfall, and a
world market right at her doors--all that nature could do to lay the
foundations of material wealth seems to have been done here.
If so-called modern science and engineering skill can bring prosperity,
then the Isthmus of Panama includes the site of the world's last
achievement in engineering, sanitation, and organized efficiency. Health
conditions on the Canal Zone are better than in many cities of the United
States. General Gorgas said that there were three causes for which the
Americans left Panama in the old days: yellow fever, malaria, and cold
feet, and that of the three the last caused more desertions than the other
two combined. It is worth noting that the first two mentioned have now
vanished entirely, and it but remains to find a preventive for frigid
pedal extremities to make the tropics a white man's land.
[Illustration: HAPPY KINDERGARTNERS, PANAMA]
Panama and Colon to-day are clean and healthful. Even the tropical buzzard
that hovers over every town and crossroad in this mid-America world has
disappeared from these cities--starved to death. The American Board of
Health looks after the garbage cans and backyards and drains, and woe be
unto the unhappy mosquito that inadvertently wanders into this forbidden
territory. The entire country is now free from yellow fever, and while
there is some malaria in the lowlands during the wet season, health
conditions are far better than might be supposed.
The question of climate raises visions of burning days and sleepless
nights. To people who have never lived in the tropics any lurid tale is
plausible. But these tales of torment do not come from dwellers in the
tropics, but from overheated imaginations of writers of fiction who find
the tropics a rich field, because most of their readers know nothing of
the subject. There are more comfortable days in Panama, per year, than in
New York. There is rarely a night when one cannot sleep in comfort. If
there were nothing the matter but the climate, there would be no reason
for shunning Panama.
By all the rules of the great game of getting rich, Panama ought to be
both prosperous and progressive. Seemingly every chance has come her way.
Yet the visitor does not find Panama as a whole either rich or energetic.
The terminal cities, Panama and Colon, have lived pretty well off the
proceeds of the Canal Zone, but the great interior country is sparsely
inhabited by people who are neither prosperous nor progressive. Poverty,
indolence, and dirt abound throughout the provinces. Education is
attempted, and the present system, when perfected, will afford fairly good
rudimentary training, but as now conducted it is a promise as well as a
performance. With a high illiteracy the people of Panama cannot be said to
live on a lofty intellectual plane. Not one man in a thousand makes the
slightest attempt to improve the country, or takes the least interest in
what the world is doing.
[Illustration: YOUNG COSTA RICA IS ENTERPRISING]
In the capital city are educated and refined men, both prosperous and
progressive. Their activities are divided among business enterprises,
professional callings, and political activity. Very few of these men are
interested in development projects to any extent. Agriculture as a basis
of national wealth has little place in their thinking, unless somebody
else can be induced to attend to the agriculture while they themselves
take care of the wealth. Working on a farm is all right for ignorantes and
peons, but has no interest for a gentleman. The development of natural
resources is not interesting unless it affords a percentage of some sort,
to be earned without effort. The unfortunate fact is that such modern
conditions as exist in Panama to-day have largely been brought to her
ready-made, which may be why she does not take more interest in them.
The question of morals and marriage laws is one which had better be let
alone unless the prowler is prepared to find some very unpleasant things.
All children are baptized, and, as before explained, the baptisms are
registered and classified either as "Legitimo" or "Natural"--the latter,
of course, being illegitimate. Only thirty per cent of the births of the
Republic as a whole, are born of married parents. The reasons for this are
not so simple as may at first appear. Panama has to-day a civil marriage
law, but unless a man has abundant leisure, endless patience, and can
afford to hire a lawyer or two, he had better be married somewhere else.
Evidently, influences were brought to bear upon the framers of the civil
law which induced them to overload it with requirements that make it
exceedingly unpopular. No voice of protest is raised against this
scandalous moral situation on the part of the priests of the established
church, who merely shrug their shoulders and shake their heads and say,
"What can you do about it?" Certainly, they themselves do nothing at all
except to ignore the situation.
There have been physical factors that have militated against the progress
of Panama. While the climate is comfortable, most of the time it lacks
stimulus. There is no "kick" in it. Without occasional respites in a
higher altitude and cooler atmosphere, the man from the north loses his
driving power and his wife sometimes gets a case of nerves. Four hundred
years of it will take the energy out of any man; and many of the present
inhabitants of interior Panama appear to have lived here for about that
length of time. For the development of high human efficiency it is
required in a climate that it be something more than comfortable. It
should at times be uncomfortable, and occasionally exasperating.
[Illustration: WOODEN SUGAR MILL AND ITS MAKER]
The workers of the Rockefeller Foundation have found eighty per cent of
the people of the provinces afflicted with hookworm. Highly commendable is
the work done by these representatives of the Institute, but so long as
the common people know nothing of sanitation, clean and pure food, present
conditions will continue. And physical "hookworm" is accompanied by a
similar mental condition. There is a moral hookworm throughout the
country, and life slumps down to a hand-to-mouth drag from one day to the
next. Both physical and mental conditions are better in the cities, of
course, but there is still room for a moral prophylactic.
There are social forces which have largely accounted for this result.
Possibly no place in the world shows more mixed blood than Panama. Shades
and colors and tints and tones there are, and blends indescribable and
also impossible to analyze or trace. The artists tell us that the
combination of the primary colors with white results in a tint, while
blending a primary color with black gives a shade. Well, most of these
tones are shades, for the same scientific reason as that mentioned by the
artist. From the Caribbean world has come its contribution of the West
Indian Negroes, with consequent shady result.
The social results of this mixture are various and distressing, but well
understood by anyone who has lived in the interior of Panama. Even the
cities are affected in the same way. Social standing, political
availability, and personal influence are largely determined by the degree
of whiteness--or darkness--that prevails in the skin. And the general
desire of the ignorant and unmoral native of the interior to "lighten up
the breed" has led to a moral situation that bodes no good for the
away-from-home white man who may be living for a longer or shorter time in
the up-country provinces.
Any aggressive North American, especially if he be from the West, looks
upon the splendid areas of land, the fine rivers, the dense forests, and
the other untouched resources of this rich country with amazement, and
begins to plan development projects and dream of organizing syndicates,
but the native loses no sleep over such vain imaginings. If he dreams at
all, it is of his food if he be poor, and of politics if he be rich.
Development in the North American sense is a disgrace, and no job for a
gentleman. The smooth savanas may lie there untouched till kingdom come,
for all he cares. The only interest in life is political manipulation. Law
and politics are the two occupations most esteemed, and Panama is not
different from other countries in the frequent association of these two
professions.
Whence comes this emphasis on political activity, to the neglect of
commerce and agriculture? It comes from Europe with the early inheritance
of the first settlements and rulers of this Latin world. For them any form
of physical work was dire disgrace. "These two hands have never done an
hour's work" was a boast and badge of quality. The climate of the tropics
made this philosophy of life easy to accept and follow, and what the
leaders lived the followers did faithfully keep and perform. Of course
somebody had to do a little work and raise a few vegetables and cattle,
but the game was to find the unfortunate worker and then take away from
him the product of his toil. Thus the getter lived without work and taught
the loser the uselessness of further exercise.
By way of clearness these conditions are here described in their worst and
final form. Bad as they are, they are not the whole truth. It takes more
than mixed blood and hookworm and snobbishness to account for the present
social conditions of Central America.
If moral conditions in Panama to-day are not ideal, it is not due to any
absence of church or lack of religion. With the explorers and conquerors
of the sixteenth century came the missionaries and priests. Crosses were
set up, bells were hung, masses were said, and everywhere the elaborate
ritual of the Spanish church was maintained. Whole villages were
"converted," baptized, and labeled as good Catholics in a day's time.
Massive and beautiful churches were soon built in centers of population,
and every village has its church, often representing nearly as much value
as half of the houses of the town combined.
From the beginning until the coming of the North American to finish the
Canal the Roman Church has had exclusive and uninterrupted occupation of
this entire territory. There has been no competition, and there have been
no interferences with her moral and spiritual leadership.
[Illustration: PUBLIC MARKET, DAVID]
But in spite of this situation, or perhaps because of it, moral conditions
are what they are in Panama to-day. Out of the closed Bible and the bound
consciences of this system have come social incapacity and intellectual
helplessness in all the fields of human activity. Most of Latin-America
has not yet learned that the intellect, like the nation, cannot exist half
slave and half free. Only free consciences can guide free citizens to the
founding of free political institutions and social activities. A
successful democracy can never be reared upon a foundation of superstition
and spiritual despotism. More than all other factors this moral blight and
spiritual dry-rot is what is the matter with Panama. The moral and
spiritual climate of a people has more to do with the growth or
destruction of a spirit of progress than do thermometers and telephones
and declarations of independence. Until the spirit of a Panamanian becomes
a free spirit and he is permitted to think and worship after the dictates
of a free conscience, Panama can never become a progressive nation.
Highly favored among the nations of the earth, this little country affords
a strategic opportunity for the setting up of a national experiment in
development and progress. If this undertaking is to succeed, there must be
added to the large economic, social, and strategic resources of the
country the element of a free spirit and an enlightened conscience. Out of
these will come a sense of the dignity of labor, the worth-whileness of
education, and the development of the now dormant resources of this
beautiful land.
The problem of progress in Panama is inevitably linked with that of
Protestantism. Work was begun by the Methodist Episcopal Church in Colon
under Bishop William Taylor, and a strong West Indian congregation was
gathered. This was later turned over to the Wesleyan Methodists, who
maintain considerable work among the West Indians of the Caribbean
Islands. With the purchase of the Canal Zone by the United States, the
Methodists began to plan for work in Panama and eventually established a
Spanish church and school at the head of Central Avenue, opposite the
national palace. But no serious effort was made by this denomination to
meet and master the problems that arose from exclusive Protestant
occupation of the Spanish-speaking section of the field until the time of
the noted Panama Congress in February, 1916. Here met representatives of
the Protestant movement in all Latin-America, and general principles of
comity and cooperation were established and adopted. Under this working
agreement, the Spanish work in the Republic of Panama was assigned to the
Methodists as a unit of responsibility. To this area Costa Rica was later
added. West Indian work was not included in this survey, and it is to be
hoped that some similar representative and authoritative body may yet
undertake to bring order and comity out of the unorganized, though
friendly, confusion of West Indian denominational programs now existent.
The Pan-Denominational Congress of 1916 made definite the responsibility
for Spanish work in Panama, and the denomination now in charge of this
field is working on a program somewhat adequate to the strategic
importance of the very conspicuous location beside the Canal Zone. When
fully realized and in operation, this program of work will wield a wide
influence in the Spanish-American world. A large factor in this new
program has been the interest and enthusiasm of the young people of the
California Conference Epworth League, who have done much to make possible
an enlargement of the work undertaken.
Too much praise cannot be given to the earnest and efficient missionaries
who founded and have maintained this mission. The Seawall Church has
already sent out its influences to the ends of the earth. The standards
and results attained in Panama College, so far as that institution has
been developed, have exerted a strong influence on the educational and
moral life of the city and of the republic. The work in 1919 included a
Spanish base at the Seawall location, with its church and school, and
American congregation, a West Indian school and church in Guachapali, a
Spanish mission Sunday school and evangelistic service in the school
building kindly loaned by the Wesleyans, a Spanish mission school and
preaching service in Guachapali, a West Indian Sunday school and service
at Red Tank, and a Chinese mission near the market. Present plans for
future expansion include, in addition to the work now under way at David,
an adequate program of interior education and evangelization, an
industrial and agricultural school, a strong institution church in Panama,
an institution of higher education, and adequate work in Colon.
This mission shares with the Northern Baptist Convention and the Northern
Presbyterian Church denominational responsibility for most of Central
America. The Baptists have work in Honduras, Salvador, and the
Presbyterians in Guatemala and in Colombia, further south. The Methodists
complete the chain by the occupation of Panama and Costa Rica, in which
latter republic work was begun in the latter months of 1917. Costa Rica
presents an attractive field with its good climate, fertile country,
Spanish-speaking population of intelligence, and large capacity for
progress. The new mission met with success from the start and promises
rapid growth.
The three denominations named are working together in complete harmony and
have developed a unified program of Christian education for Central
America, as the beginnings of further coordination of effort. There is no
overlapping, no competition, and, above all, no overcrowding, in this
promising but sparsely occupied field. The Protestant denominational front
on this field is well unified.
There are several independent missions working in this field, some of
which do not find it in their purposes to unite in any general movement,
and none of which place emphasis on education. Chief among these is the
Central America Mission which maintains workers in all the republics of
Central America who confine themselves largely to evangelistic effort.
All of the Central republics have constitutional religious liberty, and
the work of Protestantism is officially welcome everywhere. Of petty
persecutions and ecclesiastical opposition there are numerous examples.
The spirit of the Inquisition still smolders beneath the surface, but the
new spirit of world-democracy makes more and more grotesque and futile the
intolerance and bigotry of the Dark Ages.
Protestantism in Latin-America has been in the van of every movement
toward progress and has contributed much toward the foundations of the new
era. Without the Protestant movement, the present state of advance would
be impossible. To-day Protestantism is in the anomalous position of being
inadequate in equipment and manpower to meet the situation created or to
supply the demands arising everywhere for adequate expression of free
institutions. The lump is large and the leaven has been small, but the
contagion of liberty and the awakening of conscience demand an adequate
equipment and program.
There is promise of a new and worthy approach in the large purposes of the
great denominations to undertake in adequate manner a program of
world-reconstruction made imperative by the close of the great war. The
collapse of all but moral and spiritual forces as a guarantee of peace
renders all former alignments obsolete and forces the church to new
methods and more comprehensive undertakings. It is now resolved to go up
and possess this goodly land on the mere borders of which we have lingered
for nearly a century. The coming generation will see a reorganization and
reconstruction of the Protestant program in Latin-America, and before the
end of the twentieth century this mighty continent will have attained a
noble citizenship in the neighborhood of great races.