PROWLING INTO THE FUTURE
Many prophets have taken in hand to tell us what the Panama Canal is to
bring forth in its commercial, social, political, geographical, and
educational results for the world. Probably no world-event has ever had so
much advance advertising as this much written-up achievement. Great as is
the Canal, it came near being outshone in brilliancy by the publicity
material sent out by journalists who found the subject to be profitable
copy.
In the main, the prophets were right. The world war postponed the arrival
of some of the promised results, but it also enlarged the importance of
the Canal and assured more extensive and far-reaching effects than could
have been prophesied before the war began. It is now certain that we are
to have a new and more closely united America than was formerly possible,
and that the drawing together of the two Americas has been greatly
accelerated by the world vindication of democracy. In this closer
brotherhood of all Americans the Canal will play a large and important
part.
Just how far the stream of influences will flow cannot be told, but it is
within the moderate possibilities to say that every country in the world
will be affected by the changes due to the new waterway. The French
originators of the first project saw an opportunity for commercial
investment and hoped to make good dividends from the venture. They did not
much concern themselves with by-products. The Americans who planned and
pushed and persevered until the work was again begun were thinking of
commercial and naval results, evident enough, but they could not have
foreseen the far consequences to follow, nor could they have known that on
the Canal Zone five or six related industries were to spring up under
management of the Canal Commission. It is now about as difficult to
predict the world-wide effects of the Canal factor as it would have been
in 1903 to foresee the related industries of the present situation.
Shortening of trade routes is the first and obvious consideration.
Everything else grows out of the elimination of distances by the Canal
cut-off. It requires no prophetic gift to take the figures from any good
map and ascertain that from New York to San Francisco via Magellan is
13,135 miles, whereas via Panama it is 5,262--a saving of 7,873 miles, or
a month of steady steaming. Between New York and Honolulu there is a
saving of 6,610 miles; and Yokohama is 2,768 miles nearer New York via
Panama than by the Suez route. The list of distances saved may be
indefinitely extended.
[Illustration: PANAMA PUBLIC WATER WORKS, INTERIOR COUNTRY]
If there were no results other than the saving of a week or a month of
steamer time, the Canal would be cheap at several times its price. But
these changes in steamer schedules and prices introduce an entirely new
set of reactions into the commercial and social world, and this is where
the interesting problems arise. Left to herself, nature tends to establish
a balance of flora or fauna in any locality. Introduce a new plant or
animal or microbe and all sorts of readjustments begin at once, and before
a new balance is established almost anything may happen. Commerce finds
its level in much the same way and by the same law. Introduce a radical
disturbance, like the Panama short-cut, and everything begins to happen.
Add the direct and indirect results of the war with its weakening of
German influence and strengthening of inter-American interests, and we may
have practically a new world before a new balance is established.
Commercial interests naturally forge to the front in any discussion of
canal results. So ably have these matters been discussed by experts that
any repetition of figures and industries here would be beyond the scope of
this work.
It must be understood that the world war rendered obsolete our former
ideas regarding trade between the United States and Spanish-America.
Whether the extensive German political-commercial machine that covered all
Latin-America can regain its prestige in fifty years to come remains to be
seen, but it is certain that for a generation following the defeat of
Germany by the free nations of the world North America will have a
magnificent opportunity to enter South American trade on very advantageous
terms. And the great bulk of the west-coast trade will pass through the
Canal on its way to Gulf and Atlantic ports, as well as to Europe.
The completion of the Panama Canal may be set down as the date of the
discovery of Latin-America by the people of the United States. Previous to
that date the North Americans were aware enough of the Monroe Doctrine,
but almost unaware of the lives and interests of the nations living south
of the Rio Grande River. With the opening of the Canal the North Americans
began thinking south, and so far as the process has gone it has been very
informing. Once the war is out of the way, the process will be greatly
accelerated. With uninterrupted commercial conditions, five years of the
expanded life due to the Canal will be about equal to sending the whole
people back to school for a year. The cultural and geographical values of
this new zone of thinking have hardly been felt as yet, but now that the
attention of the world is released from the battlefields of Europe and the
enormous social and financial problems arising from the expense of making
the world decent once for all, the tide of interest is again turning
southward along the shores of our own great oceans to the mighty events
that await us there.
Spanish-America has twelve republics and eight thousand miles of coast
line on the Pacific ocean. The United States has a Pacific Coast of about
fifteen hundred miles. The eight thousand miles marks the western
boundaries of lands enormously rich in things that the world needs, but
exceedingly poor in finished products or adequate growth. Probably no
country on earth shows a wider margin to-day between present raw resources
and possible high developments than these same twelve Spanish-speaking
countries. The only analogy that bears on the case is that of the rapid
and extensive advancement of the Pacific States after the completion of
the transcontinental railroads. There is reason to believe that a similar
record of progress awaits the west coast of South America.
The combined foreign trade of the west-coast republics before the war
reached the very respectable total of nearly one billion of gold dollars
in a single year. There are commercial prophets who believe that within
ten years from the completion of demobilization this volume of trade may
be doubled. This means new markets, new industries, new development of
mines, markets, manufactures, and agriculture, new colonization projects
and a score of other unpredictable results. No less an authority than Mr.
John L. Barrett says, "I believe that the Panama Canal will initiate in
all South American countries a genuine movement which will have a most
important bearing on the commerce and civilization of the world."
An immense amount of iron lies buried in the mountains of the west coast.
Not much has ever been done about it. But enormous quantities of ore have
been destroyed by the processes of war, and South American iron may come
to high values sooner than its owners have supposed.
It is only recently that consideration has been given to the idea of
establishing in connection with the Canal a great commercial
trans-shipping point. Colon is yet a little town, mostly West Indian
to-day, but already the Cristobal docks are piled high with South American
products awaiting reshipment. The proposed establishment of a free port at
Colon may yet result in a western Hongkong where the commerce of the seven
seas comes together to be distributed to the five continents. Whatever
might have been the results had there been no war, it is now sure that
everything that happens in South America has henceforth a very definite
significance for the United States. Whether we like it or not, we are out
of our exclusive dooryard and will have to take our place on the great
national street named America and play the game with our neighbors.
For decades past Central America has been an unknown land to the United
States. We have contentedly supposed that the only crop was that of
revolutions and the only resources a few jungle fruits. But at last we are
discovering Central America, and some of us are astonished to there find
vast areas, fertile soils, varied and valuable products, intelligent
peoples, a volume of commerce and climate fit for Eden. We knew little and
cared less about Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and
Panama; and since the bulk of trade of these lands was with Europe, they
paid little attention to us. Why should they do otherwise?
The presence of the United States on the Isthmus of Panama introduces a
new factor into the American tropics. It looks very small and
insignificant, that little ten-mile strip with the influence in Panamanian
affairs, but how far the North American influence is going to reach out
beyond the Zone limits cannot be known. Everybody is watching the results
for revolution-proof, permanently peaceful Panama, and there are other
countries not far away where there are people who are praying for
something like it, or just-as-good, for themselves. Doubtless their
prayers will not be answered directly but the influence of this leaven may
work out into a wide circle and instigate movements that we have not
counted upon.
[Illustration: A JUNGLE CATHEDRAL]
But the largest factor in the new American situation grows out of the new
world-emphasis on the Golden Rule. At last the world understands as never
before how finally determinative is the moral and spiritual factor in all
human progress. We may never know just how much the world had paid to
clear away the rubbish of autocracy and found the new age on the principle
of a square deal for great and small; but the deed is done, and henceforth
the one compelling sanction in all life must be the essential principle
for which the Allies have spent their treasure and spilled their blood.
The new internationalism will underlie all further development of
relations between the two Americas, which opens a new world of social
discovery and growth as fascinating as that which Columbus found in the
physical surface of the globe.
The greater results of the closer fellowship of North and South America
will be registered in the realms of mind and spirit. Trade balances and
stock dividends there will be, but back of and beyond these will rise the
new American spirit, uniting the finest courtesy and artistic temperament
of the Latin with the practical initiative and efficient vigor of the
blend of blood in the United States. There is no gulf, great or small,
fixed between the two races. Each has something that the other needs, and
close fellowship will result in new race sympathy and mutual advantage.
To ignore this basis of development is to forget that cold commercialism
will in time chill the fervor of friendships and alienate the growing
sympathy of nations. If we are to have no interest in our neighbors other
than the profits we may make from their trade, we will soon cease to be
friends and become bitter rivals at the big game of getting all we can.
It takes two to play the game of reciprocal commercial success. If we
succeed on the great international chess board, it will be not by shrewd
defeat of our friends but by the coming to maturity of a high sense of
honor and fair play on both sides. It is not one of us against the other,
but both of us together against the normal difficulties of growth and
production.
One of the native leaders of Latin-American life has explained that South
America was unfortunate in the character of the founders of her national
institutions. Adventurers, explorers for gain, greedy conquistadores made
the beginnings here, and the moral foundations were laid by religious
leaders who traveled with pirates and plunderers and officially blessed
their every act of crime. And from the beginning until now the type of
religion that has prevailed in Latin-America has not assisted in the
building up of free institutions, nor has it produced a high morality
among the people.
The South American struggle for self-government and free ideals has been a
long, bloody, and heroic grapple with the reactionary and despotic forces
brought over from mediaeval Europe. Men like San Martin and Bolivar deserve
high honor for their work in breaking the bondage that held all life
helpless. One by one the colonies threw off their political yokes and
became republics, every one of them, in theory, modeled after the United
States. The passion of the South American patriot has been home-rule, but,
unfortunately, home-rule has not always meant self-government. That is
quite a different matter. The overthrow of European despotisms was
followed by innumerable internal revolutions. Panama had no monopoly on
internal dissensions, and makes no claim that her fifty-three revolutions
in fifty-seven years is the high-water mark of insurrections for South or
Central America.
In short, the mere overthrow of a despotic government does not assure
stable political institutions nor efficient administration of public
affairs. Good government by popular sovereignty is something far more
fundamental than a matter of printed constitutions or shouting "Viva
independencia!" in the plazas. Without moral responsibility and free
consciences there can never be a successful democracy on earth.
Free institutions and free consciences are winning out in South America,
but it is in spite of the established church and not because of it. It is
not politically a question of religion that we are discussing; it is a
matter of organized, crafty, and unscrupulous opposition to every movement
that makes for the development of democracy in South America. And since
the establishment of a better understanding and closer fellowship between
the two continents depends upon this very basis of free and morally
responsible social and political leaders, the question is most vital.
Everywhere there are a few intelligent, earnest men working away patiently
and steadily at the problem of making South America democratic by making
her people free to adopt with intelligence democratic institutions. One by
one the nations have declared for freedom of worship and conscience, and,
last of all, Peru, robbed and despoiled Peru of the conquest,
priest-ridden and fanatical Peru, threw off the galling yoke of spiritual
bondage and divorced church and state. It seems simple enough to read
about it here, but at every step of the way the old church left unturned
no stone of bigotry and intrigue and prejudice that could oppose the
coming of the modern age to Peru.
The supreme tragedy of South American life has been that the light that
has been in her has been darkness. The spiritual leaders of the people
have themselves opposed all progress toward the light. Until a spiritual
leadership arises that will at least support aggressive and progressive
movements toward freedom and democracy and moral uplift, slow progress
will be made. And this matter concerns the whole American world. These are
now our next-door neighbors, and their children will yet be playing in our
yard.
The surprising thing is that so much has already been accomplished with a
millstone tied about the neck of all progressive movements. No finer
tribute could be paid to the high ideals and large possibilities of South
American character than a recital of the results accomplished by her
intellectual and moral leaders in the face of enormous handicaps.
The thinking minds of these southern republics are almost without a
religion to-day. Long since have they ceased to give even passive assent
to the demands of the commercial hierarchy that claims spiritual monopoly
over the souls of man. Technical outward conformity to the requirements of
the church may be a political advantage or a domestic convenience, but as
a principle of life and foundation for thought the intellectuals are
frankly agnostic. Man after man, when once confidence is gained, will
state that they do not believe in the claims of the church, and usually
have ceased to believe in anything at all--and these are the leaders of
the intellectual life of the nations with which we are to deal. And what
are they to do? No adequate substitute do they know, and until an open
Bible and a living Christ take the place of the mummery and the crucifix
we cannot denounce their course. Their intellectual nonconformity is to
their credit.
The final problem is that of developing people fit to live with, not
mental and moral slaves under the dominance of superstition and
intolerance. Back of the cry for wider and richer trade routes is the need
of responsible men with whom we may transact business. More than shorter
shipping line, we need better shippers, north and south. Underneath vast
projects of material advancement lie all the social and industrial
problems of labor and wages and exchange and credits and fidelity to
contracts and personal honor. And above all this is the need of honesty
and efficiency and a personal faith in a living God who knows and cares
and takes account of what we do, of what we are, and is not to be bought
off by a check or an incantation.
[Illustration: SHOE-BILLS ARE SMALL]
What the bigger American world needs is bigger and better Americans, Latin
and Saxon. If the influences released by the Panama Canal help to produce
these citizens of the larger horizon, one of the greatest services
possible will be rendered to humanity. But the larger horizon is
conditioned upon a larger hope that flows from the mountain of the more
abundant life. And the Americans of the northland need the broader basis
and vision and character as much as their southern neighbors.
What really has the Panama Canal to do with all this? Much every way, but
chiefly as a key for the unlocking of the long-closed doors and the
releasing of long-latent forces of international relations in trade and in
social and spiritual life. Should a great working example of educational
and social and spiritual life be established at Panama by some concerted
action of united Protestantism, the influence of the principles there
promulgated by progressive and devout men would extend over a very wide
range of Latin life. The procession that now passes through Panama will be
doubled and trebled in the coming decades, and what is planted here will
spread everywhere. "I saw it so done in Panama," may become the precedent
for almost anything new, whether good or bad.
The influence of such institutions in the City of Panama will be more
far-reaching than if located on the Canal Zone. The Zone is wholly North
American; Panama is thoroughly Latin. The institutions of the Zone are
those of the United States and are looked on somewhat askance by Latin
visitors. It is all very great and imposing, but it is so radically
different in spirit and method, that points of close contact are hard to
establish. Panama is a different matter. Whatever is done there by
Spanish-speaking people will be visited and viewed with sympathetic
interest and appreciation.
The heart of living faith that is to impress its throb on this blood
stream of Latin life must not be an imported made-in-the-States
institution, or it will be but an ineffectual flutter. Likewise it must be
something more comprehensive than the traditional schedule of occasional
gatherings of the faithful, important as these will be. To do this work
there needs be an interpretation of the Christian message that will relate
itself to a very wide circle of human life and interests. Through native
leadership and examples must be spoken a message that will compel
attention and challenge the minds as well as the hearts of men. A living
interpretation of a spiritual passion, a social service program with a
heart in it, an educational work that will not only teach the curriculum
but develop moral character, and intellectual propaganda of good
literature, a physical gospel of health and exercise, a recreational life
clean and wholesome, a personal moral standard of the New Testament
grade--these are what are needed in Panama and, broadly speaking,
everywhere else in Latin-America. Once established here they will be felt
over a wide reach of the southern world.
There is a lot of cheap and easy optimism that maintains that all will yet
be well in some indefinite way. Some hopeful tourists have visited Panama
and taken the trip about South America, apparently seeing nothing but the
rainbow of promise everywhere. And these happy pilgrims have written
books, assuring us with a maximum of glittering generalities that right is
everywhere driving out wrong and that all will soon be well. Other writers
assume this attitude consciously, out of regard for the interests that pay
their expenses on the trip. Some people write in glowing terms from
motives of consideration for the feelings of their South American friends.
Would that we might tell only the bright sight of the story! It would be
far more pleasant.
But, after all, the facts are the irreducible minimum upon which to build
all successful programs of reconstruction. Only when we reach the inner
and deeper springs of life and character can we hope to open fountains of
living waters for the desert of the human heart in bondage. Really to know
Latin-America is to believe in its high and fine possibilities. What
Latin-America needs is a fair chance.
The end of the last great despotism of earth has left democracy a
triumphant political principle in human government. Henceforth no nation
may hope to keep step with the advance of mankind unless its political
procedures are essentially democratic. And while South America has long
had the form of democracy, it now becomes essential that her republics
develop the working reality of effective self-government. To do this two
things are indispensable. The successful democracy must be intelligent and
must find a moral foundation in the free consciences and minds of
self-disciplined citizens. Spiritual despotisms and religious
superstitions never did and never will eventuate in a capacity for
democracy. Only men who are intelligently free can exercise the functions
of free governments.
The only working basis of democracy, in short, is that system of religious
ideals which has uniformly supported popular education, championed the
rights of the oppressed, advocated self-government, welcomed
investigation, and maintained freedom of conscience as of higher value
than iron-bound uniformity to prescribed standards. It requires but a
cursory glance at the record of history to know that no working democracy
has ever survived the opposition of an ecclesiastical hierarchy that has
remained the bitter foe of progress for a thousand years.
There is more hope for Panama in the little Protestant chapel down by the
Malecon and the efficient and modern school maintained there by the force
of missionaries with their progressive ideals than in all the pageantry
and glitter of a system of repression and despotism that the world is
rapidly outgrowing. The religious Hun will take his place with the deposed
political despot who proposed to destroy the liberties of mankind. The
most urgent need of the mission work in Panama just now is that of trained
and efficient Latin leadership. No people can be effectively lifted from
without.
A century ago nearly the whole of the southern world was in the throes of
political readjustment. Self-government and political freedom were the
watchwords and everywhere strong men arose and devoted their lives to the
task of breaking from the necks of the people the political yokes under
which they had staggered for two and one half centuries.
To-day in Latin-America the second great struggle for freedom is under
way. Bound minds and consciences, superstitions and moral
despotisms--these are the stumbling-stones across the pathway of progress.
All over Latin-America men are rising and enlisting their hearts and minds
in the struggle for free consciences and independent judgment in the
things of the Spirit. Nearly all these countries achieved political
independence within a few years. When the climax came it was comparatively
sudden, and it may be that the breaking of the chains of moral and
spiritual despotisms will likewise be a shorter struggle than now seems
possible. Once again the clock is striking, and who knows but the end of
political despotism in all the earth may mark the rapid approach of
spiritual democracy and highest liberty in all America!
Heroic has been the long struggle in Latin-America for self-government.
Splendid is the fight being made to-day for larger liberty. If
Pan-Americanism means anything at all, it means a social foundation in
honor and intelligence and brotherhood. It is time to address ourselves to
the great unfinished task begun by those intrepid pioneers. The Canal is
finished and the task of construction is done, but the end of construction
is the beginning of empire-building for the larger task yet incomplete.
Transcriber's Note: All apparent printer's errors retained. Formatting
transcribed as close as possible to original book.
End of Project Gutenberg's Prowling about Panama, by George A. Miller