their crops than to add to his own possessions. He was first in every movement for community betterment. He was equally popular among Mexicans and Americans. On Sundays, if there was no minister to speak to the little American congregation, he would hurry from his large men's bible class at the Mexican church to read one of Beecher's sermons to the Americans. And he found not only his American friends there but a good sprinkling of Mexicans wishing to try out their English and be near the big man they loved. It was no wonder that President Wilson in the difficult days of the Mexican Revolution found that Silliman was both his most reliable guide and the most acceptable American representative before the Constitutionalist movement. His death, brought about by pneumonia contracted in the work of bettering relationships between his native and his adopted lands, was mourned by friends all over Mexico.

How much it would mean if both the governmental world and the business world should keep in mind this idea of spiritual ambassadors as they select their representatives to these countries! This does not mean that they must be "preachers," or necessarily loud in their religious professions, but ministers, real evangelists of good will, whether business men, government agents or representatives of philanthropic or missionary organizations. They would take very seriously the work of interpreting the best of North American life to the Latin Americans, and would bring back to their own people a realization of the lovable traits as well as the serious needs of our fellow Americans.

In spite of all the misunderstandings of the past, great men both in the North and in the South have believed from the very beginning of the independent life of the American nations that, as Maia said to Jefferson, "Nature in making us inhabitants of the same continent has in some way united us in the bonds of a common patriotism." The persistence of the idea of American unity in the hearts and minds of great Americans through all these years is one of the outstanding phenomena of the history of the western hemisphere. Many have been the forces sent against it. Many have been the selfish influences both North and South that have intrigued for its destruction. But American unity

propitious time for a vital unity of all America is pointed out by Dr. Rafael Urtecho as follows:

"Inasmuch as the ties of the United States with the American states are of a permanent and not a transitory or accidental interest, as are those that unite her with the nations of Europe, it may well be said that one of the advantages the greatest of them, perhaps-which the United States has secured through the war that has just concluded, and in which she took so important a part, is to be found in the new attitude of the Latin-American peoples, in whom has been awakened a sentiment of admiration for and sympathy with the United States: a sentiment that was greatly needed to give life and strength to the Pan American doctrine.

"Reciprocal prejudices growing out of a lack of understanding between the two peoples-their languages, their customs, their character and their virtues-caused the nations of the New World to regard each other with suspicion and distrust; and so, in the hour of the great universal conflict, the Hispanic nations adopted divergent courses and thus revealed to the world a want of efficacy in the Pan American doctrine, destined, however, to prevail and to be adopted as the natural orientation of these countries in their desire for progress and well-being.

Fortunately, by the course of events, the veil that covered our eyes has now fallen, and we are enabled to see in the great collective soul of the North American nation a vivid flash of noble and generous ideals: that not always are her purposes materialistic and sordid; that it is not-as has been believed-an oligarchy of capital or, rather, a plutocracy, prouder, perhaps, than an aristocracy of blood, that dominates her counsels, but her loftiest intelligences and the rectitude and moral superiority of her great men, always at strife with the high-handed and absorptive tendencies of capital.

"It is now highly important that the prejudices which the United States may entertain regarding these countries should disappear, and to this end it is necessary that she know us better and become convinced that in the depth of

the Hispanic mind and soul there exists the germ of all greatness and all superiority-this germ only needing proper cultivation for its development; that, at all events, we are the descendants of that heroic race which at one time held the empire of the seas and of the land: a valiant, proud, haughty race, full of gravity and a very highly developed sense of honor; for, although in the melting-pot of the American race we mingled, unfortunately with inferior races, there always remained in the blood the germs of the primitive race.

"It is necessary that the United States know our language, our history, our literature, and, above all, that the North American people, in contact with ours, try to show more tolerance and more adaptability in respect of our customs and social environment.'

URGENCY OF A BETTER INTER-AMERICAN UNDERSTANDING

We need to create on this continent what a great teacher has defined as "An atmosphere in which we loathe to differ and determine to understand." Let us frankly realize the distinctive differences between cold-blooded, truth-seeking, organizing, practical Anglo-Saxons, and warm-blooded, favor-dispensing, theoretical, idealistic Latins, appreciating the importance of all these characteristics.

North Americans often have little sympathy for Latin Americans because they have never taken into account the fundamental truth expressed in the following words of President Roca of Argentina:

"The genii that surrounded the cradle of Washington were not the same as presided at the advent of the South American democracies. The proud conquerors of iron mail who trod this part of America with rare notions of liberty and right, with absolute faith in the effect of brute force and violence, were very different from those Puritans who disembarked at Plymouth with no arms but the Gospel, no other ambition than that of founding a new community under the law of love and equality. Hence the Latin republics stand in need of a greater amount of perseverance, judgment

and energy to work out their original sin and to assume those virtues which they did not inherit."

Rear Admiral Chadwick clearly points out the mistake of the people of the United States in this regard in the following words:

"It is this lack of understanding of what race character means that causes our trouble. It is a study of temperament, disposition, outlook on life, a study, in a word, of all that goes to make up character that we need for successful dealing with races so essentially different from our own. In such study is the crux of every international problem or of any other problem concerned with the conduct of men. We have certainly ignored this, at least as far as Latin America is concerned, almost in toto. It is time we were taking another course and knowing the soul of other peoples."

Some will think that this has nothing to do with the practical things of life. But that is just exactly their mistake. It is the most important part of foreign commerce. The tragedy of our failure to understand Latin America is just now being brought home to us in the frightful way we are losing the trade of those countries, which was delivered into our hands during the war. While it is too early to make categorical statements about final trade results, the plain truth is that we have made a terrible botch of the way we have handled this trade. There are excuses for some failures to fill orders and there are honorable exceptions to the general failure, but there is no getting around the fact that because we refused to adapt ourselves to our customers' desires and have insisted on our own way of doing business, the merchants of every country in South America are up in arms against North American business methods. One of the biggest business men in Peru has just declared to me, in spite of the fact that he is an ardent admirer of this country, that he is through with American firms.

His argument is about like this: "If I buy a machine from England or Germany they install it on my place, set it running and call me to see it. Then I am ready to pay the bill,

with all the extras. But the North American sends me the machine, which I must set up. It does not do the work. Then I myself have to send to the United States for an expert to put it in running order. Or I order a tractor, and pay for it, as required, in advance. It comes all smashed to pieces. The company gives me the insurance receipt and tells me to collect the money. I do not want the money, I want the tractor; and I want a firm to stay by my order until it is filled and the machine is running properly. This costs the firm extra, of course, but I am willing to pay a few hundred or a few thousand dollars extra. Then, if I need a machine to do certain work, I want to be able to get that machine by telling the manufacturer or his agent what I need and leaving them to figure out precise size and type of apparatus required, sending a technical man to my place if necessary. The English or the German firm will take the whole matter in hand and see it through. But the North American wants to deal with me as though Peru had at its beck and call all the facilities of an Illinois center. And to save our lives we can't get him to look at our situation as we see it instead of as he thinks it ought to be."

I repeat that it is a real tragedy to see how the North American business man, in failing to read Latin American psychology, has created recently so much opposition in commercial circles.

There can be no true American solidarity until the various peoples really know each other-understand each other's point of view, habits of thought, literature and life. And if we do succeed in capturing Latin American trade, we must not be satisfied with that. There was a time when England practically controlled the trade of South America and yet exercised no appreciable intellectual influence there. On the other hand, France, with but little commercial relationship, has exerted a powerful dominion over the thought and action of the people of Latin America. Germany, in attaining her commercial supremacy, sought to build for the future, sent teachers to reorganize the lower and high schools of these countries and in many ways strove to place her best intellectual forces at their disposal.

We must work actively for intellectual and spiritual in