The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy Part 7

These judgments refer particularly to Spanish America. Regarding Portuguese Brazil, however, the verdict seems to be the same. Many years ago Professor Aga.s.siz wrote: "Let any one who doubts the evil of this mixture of races, and is inclined from mistaken philanthropy to break down all barriers between them, come to Brazil. He cannot deny the deterioration consequent upon the amalgamation of races, more wide-spread here than in any country in the world, and which is rapidly effacing the best qualities of the white man, the negro, and the Indian, leaving a mongrel, nondescript type, deficient in physical and mental energy."[71]

The mongrel's political ascendancy produces precisely the results which might have been expected. These unhappy beings, every cell of whose bodies is a battle-ground of jarring heredities, express their souls in acts of hectic violence and aimless instability. The normal state of tropical America is anarchy, restrained only by domestic tyrants or foreign masters. Garcia-Calderon exactly describes its psychology when he writes: "Precocious, sensual, impressionable, the Americans of these vast territories devote their energies to local politics. Industry, commerce, and agriculture are in a state of decay, and the unruly imagination of the Creole expends itself in const.i.tutions, programmes, and lyrical discourses; in these regions anarchy is sovereign mistress."[72] The tropical republics display, indeed, a tendency toward "atomic disintegration.... Given to dreaming, they are led by presidents suffering from neurosis."[73]

The stock feature of the mongrel tropics is, of course, the "revolution."

These senseless and perennial outbursts are often ridiculed in the United States as comic opera, but the grim truth of the matter is that few Latin American revolutions are laughing matters. The numbers of men engaged may not be very large according to our standards, but measured by the scanty populations of the countries concerned, they lay a heavy blood-tax on the suffering peoples. The tatterdemalion "armies" may excite our mirth, but the battles are real enough, often fought out to the death with razor-edged machetes and rusty bayonets, and there is no more ghastly sight than a Latin American battle-field. The commandeerings, burnings, rapings, and a.s.sa.s.sinations inflicted upon the hapless civilian population cry to heaven. There is always wholesale destruction of property, frequently appalling loss of life, and a general paralysis of economic and social activity. These wretched lands have now been scourged by the revolutionary plague for a hundred years, and W. B. Hale does not overstate the consequences when he says: "Most of the countries cl.u.s.tering about the Caribbean have sunk into deeper and deeper mires of misrule, unmatched for profligacy and violence anywhere on earth. Revolution follows revolution; one band of brigands succeeds another; atrocities revenge atrocities; the plundered people grow more and more abject in poverty and slavishness; vast natural resources lie neglected, while populations decrease, civilization recedes, and the jungle advances."[74]

Of course, under these frightful circ.u.mstances, the national character, weak enough at best, degenerates at an ever-quickening pace. Peaceful effort of any sort appears vain and ridiculous, and men are taught that wealth is procurable only by violence and extortion.

Another important point should be noted. I have said that Latin American anarchy was restrained by dictators.h.i.+p. But the reader must not infer that dictators.h.i.+ps are halcyon times--for the dictated. On the contrary, they are usually only a trifle less wretched and demoralizing than times of revolution. The "caudillos" are nearly always very sinister figures. Often they are ignorant brutes; oftener they are blood-thirsty, lecherous monsters; oftenest they are human spiders who suck the land dry of all fluid wealth, banking it abroad against the day when they shall fly before the revolutionary blast to the safe haven of Paris and the congenial debaucheries of Montmartre. The millions ama.s.sed by tyrants like Castro of Venezuela and Zelaya of Nicaragua are almost beyond belief, considering the backward, bankrupt lands they have "administered."

Yet how can it be otherwise? Consider Critchfield's incisive account of a caudillo's accession to power: "When an ignorant and brutal man, whose entire knowledge of the world is confined to a few Indian villages, and whose total experience has been gained in the raising of cattle, doffs his _alpagartes_, and, machete in hand, cuts his way to power in a few weeks, with a savage horde at his back who know nothing of the amenities of civilization and care less than they know--when such a man comes to power, evil and evil only can result. Even if the new dictator were well-intentioned, his entire ignorance of law and const.i.tutional forms, of commercial processes and manufacturing arts, and of the fundamental and necessary principles underlying all stable and free governments, would render a successful administration by him extremely difficult, if not impossible. But he is surrounded by all the elements of vice and flattery, and he is imbued with that vain and absurd egotism which makes men of small caliber imagine themselves to be Napoleons or Caesars. Thus do petty despotisms, unrestrained by const.i.tutional provisions or by anything like a virile public opinion, lead from absurdity to outrage and crime."[75]

Such is the situation in mongrel-ruled America: revolution breeding revolution, tyranny breeding tyranny, and the twain combining to ruin their victims and force them ever deeper into the slough of degenerate barbarism. The whites have lost their grip and are rapidly disappearing.

The mixed-breeds have had their chance and have grotesquely failed. The oft-quoted panacea--white immigration--is under present conditions a vain dream, for white immigrants will not expose themselves (and still less their women) to the horrors of mongrel rule. So far, their, as internal factors are concerned, anarchy seems destined to continue unchecked.

In fact, new conflicts loom on the horizon. The Indian ma.s.ses, so docile to the genuine white man, begin to stir. The aureole of white prestige has been besmirched by the near-whites and half-castes who have traded so recklessly upon its sanctions. Strong in the poise of normal heredity, the Indian full-blood commences to despise these chaotic masters who turn his homelands into bear-gardens and witches' sabbaths. An "Indianista"

movement is to-day on foot throughout mongrel-ruled America. It is most p.r.o.nounced in Mexico, whose interminable agony becomes more and more a war of Indian resurgence, but it is also starting along the west coast of South America. Long ago, wise old Professor Pearson saw how the wind was blowing. Noting how whites and near-whites were "everywhere fighting and intriguing for the spoils of office," he also noted that the Indian ma.s.ses, though relatively pa.s.sive and "seemingly un.o.bservant," were yet "conquering a place for themselves in other ways than by increasing and multiplying," and he concluded: "the general level of the autochthonous race is being raised; it is acquiring riches and self-respect, and must sooner or later get the country back into its hands."[76] Recent visitors to the South American west coast note the signs of Indian unrest. Some years ago Lord Bryce remarked of Bolivia: "There have been Indian risings, and firearms are more largely in their hands than formerly. They so preponderate in numbers that any movement which united them against the upper cla.s.s might, could they find a leader, have serious consequences."[77] Still more recently Professor Ross wrote concerning Peru: "In Cuzco I met a gentleman of education and travel who is said to be the only living lineal descendant of the Incas. He has great influence with the native element and voices their bitterness and their aspirations.

He declares that the politics of Peru is a struggle between the Spanish mestizos of Lima and the coast and the natives of Cuzco and the interior, and predicts an uprising unless Cuzco is made the capital of the nation.

He even dreams of a Kechua republic, with Cuzco as its capital and the United States its guarantor, as she is guarantor of the Cuban republic."[78] And of Bolivia, Professor Ross writes: "Lately there has been a general movement of the Bolivian Indians for the recovery of the lands of which they have been robbed piecemeal. Conflicts have broken out and, although the government has punished the ringleaders, there is a feeling that, so long as the exploiting of the Indian goes on, Bolivians are living 'in the crater of a slumbering volcano.'"[79]

Since the white man has gone and the Indian is preparing to wrest the sceptre of authority from the mongrel's worthless hands, let us examine this Indian race, to see what potentiality it possesses of restoring order and initiating progress.

To begin with, there can be no doubt that the Indian is superior to the negro. The negro, even when quickened by foreign influences, never built up anything approaching a real civilization; whereas the Indian, though entirely sundered from the rest of mankind, evolved genuine polities and cultures like the Aztec of Mexico, the Inca of Peru, and the Maya of Yucatan. The Indian thus possesses creative capacity to an appreciable degree. However, that degree seems strictly limited. The researches of archaeologists have sadly discounted the glowing tales of the Conquistadores, and the "Empires" of Mexico and Peru, though far from contemptible, certainly rank well below the achievements of European and Asiatic races in mediaeval and even in cla.s.sic times.

The Indian possesses notable stability and poise, but the very intensity of these qualities fetters his progress and renders questionable his ability to rise to the modern plane. His conservatism is immense. With incredible tenacity he clings to his ancestral ways and exhibits a dull indifference to alien innovation. Of course the Indian sub-races differ considerably among themselves, but the same fundamental tendencies are visible in all of them. Says Professor Ellsworth Huntington: "The Indians are very backward. They are dull of mind and slow to adopt new ideas.

Perhaps in the future they will change, but the fact that they have been influenced so little by four hundred years of contact with the white man does not afford much ground for hope. Judging from the past, there is no reason to think that their character is likely to change for many generations.... Those who dwell permanently in the white man's cities are influenced somewhat, but here as in other cases the general tendency seems to be to revert to the original condition as soon as the special impetus of immediate contact with the white man is removed."[80] And Lord Bryce writes in similar vein: "With plenty of stability, they lack initiative.

They make steady soldiers, and fight well under white or mestizo leaders, but one seldom hears of a pure Indian accomplis.h.i.+ng anything or rising either through war or politics, or in any profession, above the level of his cla.s.s...."[81]

The truth about the Indian seems to be substantially this: Left alone, he would probably have continued to progress, albeit much more slowly than either white or Asiatic peoples. But the Indian was not left alone. On the contrary, he was suddenly felled by brutal and fanatical conquerors, who uprooted his native culture and plunged him into abject servitude. The Indian's spiritual past was shorn away and his evolution was perverted.

Prevented from developing along his own lines, and const.i.tutionally incapable of adapting himself to the ways of his Spanish conquerors, the Indian vegetated, learning nothing and forgetting much that he knew. This has continued for four hundred years. Is it not likely that his ancestral apt.i.tudes have atrophied or decayed? Slavery and mental sloth have indeed scarred him with their fell stigmata. Says Garcia-Calderon: "Without sufficient food, without hygiene, a distracted and laborious beast, he decays and perishes; to forget the misery of his daily lot he drinks, becomes an alcoholic, and his numerous progeny present the characteristics of degeneracy."[82]

Furthermore, the Indian degenerates from another cause--mongrelization.

Miscegenation is a dual process. It works upward and downward at one and the same time. In Latin America hybridization has been prodigious, the hybrids to-day numbering millions. In some regions, as in Venezuela and parts of Central America, there are very few full-blooded Indians left, hybrids forming practically the entire population. Now, on the whole, the white or "mestizo" crossing seems hurtful to the Indian, for what he gains in intelligence he more than loses in character. But the mestizo crossing is not the worst. There is another, much graver, racial danger. The hot coastlands swarm with negroes, and the zambo or negro-Indian is universally adjudged the worst of matings. Thus, for the Indian, white blood appears harmful, while black blood is absolutely fatal. Yet the mongrelizing tide sweeps steadily on. The Indian draws no "color line,"

and continually impairs the purity of his blood and the poise of his heredity.

Bearing all the above facts in mind, can we believe the Indian capable of drawing mongrel-ruled America from its slough of despond? Can he set it on the path of orderly progress? It does not seem possible. a.s.suming for the sake of argument complete freedom from foreign intervention, the Indian might in time displace his mongrel rulers--provided he himself were not also mongrelized. But the present "Indianista" movement is not a sign of Indian political efficiency; not the harbinger of an Indian "renaissance."

It is the instinctive turning of the harried beast on his tormentor.

Maddened by the cruel vagaries of mongrel rule and increasingly conscious of the mongrel's innate worthlessness, the Indian at last bares his teeth.

Under civilized white tutelage the "Indianista" movement would have been practically inconceivable.

However, guesses as to the final outcome of an Indian-mongrel conflict are academic speculation, because mongrel America will not be left to itself.

Mongrel America cannot stand alone. Indeed, it never has stood alone, for it has always been bolstered up by the Monroe Doctrine. But for our protection, outside forces would have long since rushed into this political and economic vacuum, and every omen to-day denotes that this vacuum, like all others, will presently be filled. A world close packed as never before will not tolerate countries that are a torment to themselves and a dangerous nuisance to their neighbors. A world half bankrupt will not allow vast sources of potential wealth to lie in hands which idle or misuse. Thus it is practically certain that mongrel America will presently pa.s.s under foreign tutelage. Exactly how, is not yet clear. It may be done by the United States alone, or, what is more probable, in "Pan-American"

co-operation with the l.u.s.ty young white nations of the antipodean south.

It may be done by an even larger combination, including some European states. After all, the details of such action do not lie within the scope of this book, since they fall exclusively within the white man's sphere of activity.

There is, however, another dynamic which might transform mongrel America.

This dynamic is yellow Asia. The Far East teems with virile and laborious life. It thrills to novel ambitions and desires. Avid with the urge of swarming myriads, it hungrily seeks outlets for its superabundant vitality. We have already seen how the Mongolian has earmarked the whole Far East for his own, and in subsequent pages we shall see how he also beats restlessly against the white world's race-frontiers. But mongrel America! What other field offers such tempting possibilities for Mongolian race-expansion? Vast regions of incalculable, unexploited wealth, spa.r.s.ely inhabited by stagnant populations cursed with anarchy and feeble from miscegenation--how could such lands resist the onslaught of tenacious and indomitable millions? The answer is self-evident. They could not resist; and such an invasion, once begun, would be consummated with a celerity and thoroughness perhaps unexampled in human history.

Now the yellow world is alive to this momentous possibility. j.a.pan, in particular, has glimpsed in Latin America precious avenues to that racial expansion which is the key-note of j.a.panese foreign policy. For years j.a.panese statesmen and publicists have busied themselves with the problem.

The Chinese had, in fact, already pointed the way, for during the later decades of the nineteenth century Chinamen frequented Latin America's Pacific coast, economically vanquis.h.i.+ng the natives with ease, and settling in Peru in such numbers that the alarmed Peruvians hastily stopped the inflow by drastic exclusion acts. The successes of these Chinese pioneers, humble coolies entirely without official backing, have fired the j.a.panese imagination. The j.a.panese press has long discussed Latin America in optimistic vein. Count Ok.u.ma is a good exemplar of these j.a.panese aspirations. Some years ago he told the American sociologist Professor Ross: "South America, especially the northern part, will furnish ample room for our surplus."[83] To his fellow countrymen Count Ok.u.ma was still more specific. In 1907 he stated in the Tokio _Economist_ that the j.a.panese were to overspread the earth like a cloud of locusts, alighting on the North American coasts, and swarming into Central and South America.

Count Ok.u.ma expressed a strong preference for Latin American countries as fields for j.a.panese immigration, because most of them were "much easier to include within the sphere of influence of j.a.pan in the future."[84]

And the j.a.panese have supplemented words with deeds. Especially since 1914, j.a.panese activity in Latin America has been ubiquitous and striking. The west coast of South America, in particular, is to-day flooded with j.a.panese goods, merchants, commercial missions, and financial agents seeking concessions of every kind. Our State Department has had to exercise special vigilance concerning j.a.panese concession-hunting in Mexico.

j.a.pan's present activity is of course mere reconnoitring--testings and mappings of terrain for possible later action on a more extensive scale.

One thing alone gives j.a.pan pause--our veto. j.a.pan knows that real aggression against our southern neighbors would spell war with the United States. j.a.pan does not contemplate war with us at present. She has many fish to fry in the Far East. So in Latin America she plays safe. But she bides her time. In Latin America itself she has friends--even partisans.

j.a.pan seeks to mobilize to her profit that distrust of the "Yanqui" which permeates Latin America. The half-castes, in particular, rage at our "color line" and see in the United States the Nemesis of their anarchic misrule. They flout the Monroe Doctrine, caress dreams of j.a.panese aid, and welcome Nippon's pose as the champion of color throughout the world.

j.a.panese activities in Mexico are of especial interest. Here j.a.pan has three strong strings to her bow: (1) patriotic dislike of the United States; (2) mestizo hatred of the white "gringo"; (3) the Indianista movement. In Mexico the past decade of revolutionary turmoil has developed into a complicated race-war of the mestizos against the white or near-white upper cla.s.s and of the Indian full-bloods against both whites and mestizos. The one bond of union is dislike of the gringo, which often rises to fanatical hatred. Our war against Mexico in 1847 has never been forgotten, and many Mexicans cherish hopes of revenge and even aspire to recover the territories then ceded to us. During the early stages of the European War our military unpreparedness and apparent pacifism actually emboldened some Mexican hotheads to concoct the notorious "Plan of San Diego." The conspirators plotted to rouse the Mexican population of our southern border, sow disaffection among our Southern negroes, and explode the mine at the psychological moment by means of a "Reconquering Equitable Army" invading Texas. Our whole Southwest was to be rejoined to Mexico, while our Southern States were to form a black republic. The projected war was conceived strictly in terms of race, the reconquering equitable army to be composed solely of "Latins," negroes, and j.a.panese. The racial results were to be decisive, for the entire white population of both our South and Southwest was to be pitilessly ma.s.sacred. Of course the plot completely miscarried, and sporadic attempts to invade Texas during 1915 were easily repulsed.

Nevertheless, this incident reveals the trend of many Mexican minds. The framers of the "Plan of San Diego" were not ignorant peons, but persons of some standing. The outrages and tortures inflicted upon numerous Americans in Mexico during recent years are further indications of that wide-spread hatred which expresses itself in vitriolic outbursts like the following editorial of a Mexican provincial paper, written during our chase after the bandit Villa in 1916: "Above all, do not forget that at a time of national need, humanity is a crime and frightfulness is a virtue. Pull out eyes, s.n.a.t.c.h out hearts, tear open b.r.e.a.s.t.s, drink--if you can--the blood in the skulls of the invaders from the cities of Yankeeland. In defense of liberty be a Nero, be a Caligula--that is to be a good patriot. Peace between Mexico and the United States will be closed in throes of terror and barbarism."[85]

All this is naturally grist for the j.a.panese mill. Especially interesting are j.a.panese attempts to play upon Mexican Indianista sentiment. j.a.panese writers point out physical and cultural similarities between the Mexican native races and themselves, deducing therefrom innate racial affinities springing from the remote and forgotten past. All possible sympathetic changes were rung during the diplomatic mission of Senor de la Barra to j.a.pan at the beginning of 1914. His reception in Tokio was a memorable event. Senor de la Barra was greeted by cheering mult.i.tudes, and on every occasion the manifold bonds between the two peoples were emphasized. This of course occurred before the European War. During the war j.a.panese-Mexican relations remained amicable. So far as official evidence goes, the j.a.panese Government has never entered into any understandings with the Mexican Government, though some Mexicans have hinted at a secret agreement, and one Mexican writer, Gutierrez de Lara, a.s.serts that in 1912 Francisco Madero, then President, "threw himself into the arms of j.a.pan,"

and goes on: "We are well aware of the importance of this statement and of its tremendous international significance, but we make it deliberately with full confidence in our authority. Not only did Madero enlist the ardent support of the South American republics in the cause of Mexico's inviolability, but he entered into negotiations with the j.a.panese minister in Mexico City for a close offensive and defensive alliance with j.a.pan to checkmate United States aggression. When during the fateful twelve days'

battle in Mexico City a rumor of American intervention, more alarming than usual, was communicated to Madero, he remarked coldly that he was thoroughly anxious for that intervention, for he was confident of the surprise the American Government would receive in discovering that they had to deal with j.a.pan."[86]

But, after all, an official j.a.panese-Mexican understanding is not the fundamental issue. The really significant thing is Mexican popular antagonism to the United States, which is so wide-spread that j.a.pan could in a crisis probably count on Mexican benevolent neutrality if not on Mexican support. The present Carranza government of Mexico is of course notoriously anti-American. Its consistent policy, notably revealed in its complaisance toward Germany and its intrigues with other anti-American regimes like those of Colombia and Venezuela, makes Mexico the centre of anti-Americanism in Latin America. As for the numerous j.a.panese residents in Mexico, they have lost no opportunity to abet this att.i.tude. Here, for instance, is the text of a manifesto signed by prominent members of the j.a.panese colony during the American-Mexican crisis of 1916: "j.a.panese: Mexico is a friendly nation. Our commercial bonds with her are great. She is, like us, a nation of heroes who will never consent to the world-domination of a hard and brutal race, as are the Yankees. We cannot abandon Mexico in her struggle against a nation supposedly stronger. The Mexicans know how to defend themselves, but there is lacking aid which we can furnish. If the Yankees invade Mexico, if they seize the California coasts, j.a.panese commerce and the j.a.panese navy will face a grave peril.

The Yankees believe us impotent because of the European War, and we will be expelled from American soil and our children from American schools. We will aid the Mexicans. We will aid Mexico against Yankee rapacity. This great and beautiful country is a victim of Yankee hatred toward j.a.pan. Our indifference would be a lack of patriotism, since the Yankees already are against us and our divine Emperor. They have seized Hawaii, they have seized the Philippine Islands, near our coasts, and are now about to crush under foot our friend and possible ally, and injure our commerce and imperil our naval power."[87]

The fact is that Latin America's att.i.tude toward the yellow world tends everywhere to crystallize along race lines. The half-castes, naturally hostile to the United States, see in j.a.pan a welcome offset to the "Colossus of the North." The self-conscious Indianista elements likewise heed j.a.panese suggestions of ethnic affinity. On the other hand, the whites and near-whites instinctively react against j.a.panese advances. Even those who have no love for the Yankee see in the Mongolian the greatest of perils. Garcia-Calderon typifies this point of view. He dreads our imperialistic tendencies, yet he reproves those Latin Americans who, in a j.a.panese-American clash, would favor j.a.pan. "Victorious," he writes, "the j.a.panese would invade Western America and convert the Pacific into a vast closed sea, closed to foreign ambitions, _mare nostrum_, peopled with j.a.panese colonies. The j.a.panese hegemony would not be a mere change of tutelage for the nations of America. In spite of essential differences, the Latins oversea have certain common ties with the people of the (United) States: a long-established religion, Christianity, and a coherent, European, Occidental civilization. Perhaps there is some obscure fraternity between the j.a.panese and the American Indians, between the yellow men of Nippon and the copper-colored Quechuas, a disciplined and sober people. But the ruling race, the dominant type of Spanish origin, which imposes the civilization of the white man upon America, is hostile to the entire invading East."[88]

White men throughout Latin America generally echo these sentiments. Chile and Argentina repulse Oriental immigration, and the white oligarchs of Peru dread keenly j.a.panese designs directed so specifically against their country. Very recently a Peruvian, Doctor Jorge M. Corbacho,[89] wrote most bitterly about the j.a.panese infiltration into Peru and adjacent Bolivia, while some years ago Senor Augustin Edwards, owner of the leading Chilean periodical, _El Mercurio_, denounced Count Ok.u.ma's menaces and called for a Pan-American rampart against Asia from Behring Strait to Cape Horn. "j.a.panese immigration," a.s.serted Senor Edwards, "must be firmly opposed, not only in South America, but in the whole American continent.

The same remark applies to Chinese immigration.... In short, these threats of Ok.u.ma should induce the nations of South America to adopt the Monroe Doctrine--an invincible weapon against the plans and intentions of that 'Empire of the Orient,' which has so lately risen up to new life, and already manifests so dire a greed of conquest."[90] From Central America similar voices arise. A Salvadorean writer urges political federation with the United States as the sole refuge against the "Yellow Peril," to avoid becoming "slaves and utterly insignificant";[91] and a well-known Nicaraguan politician, Senor Moncada,[92] writes in similar vein.

The momentous implications of Mongolian pressure upon Latin America are admirably described by Professor Ross. "Provided that no barrier be interposed to the inflow from man-stifled Asia," he says, "it is well within the bounds of probability that by the close of this century South America will be the home of twenty or thirty millions of Orientals and descendants of Orientals.... But Asiatic immigration of such volume would change profoundly the destiny of South America. For one thing, it would forestall and frustrate that great immigration of Europeans which South American statesmen are counting on to relieve their countries from mestizo unprogressiveness and misgovernment. The white race would withhold its increase or look elsewhere for outlets; for those with the higher standard of comfort always shun compet.i.tion with those of a lower standard. Again, large areas of South America might cease to be parts of Christendom. Some of the republics there might come to be as dependent upon Asiatic Powers as the Cuban republic is dependent upon the United States."[93]

Very pertinent is Professor Ross's warning as to the fate of the Indian population--a warning which Indianista believers in j.a.panese "affinity"

should seriously take to heart. Whatever might be the lot of the Latin American whites, Professor Ross points out that "an Asiatic influx would seal the doom of the Indian element in these countries.... The Indians could make no effective economic stand against the wide-awake, resourceful, and aggressive j.a.panese or Chinese. The Oriental immigrants could beat the Indians at every point, block every path upward, and even turn them out of most of their present employments. In great part the Indians would become a cringing _sudra_ caste, tilling the poorer lands and confined to the menial or repulsive occupations. Filled with despair, and abandoning themselves even more than they do now to pisco and coca, they would shrivel into a numerically negligible element in the population."[94]

Such are the underlying factors in the Latin American situation. Once more we see the essential instability of mere political phenomena. Once more we see the supreme importance of race. No conquest could have been completer than that of the Spaniards four centuries ago. The Indians were helpless as sheep before the mail-clad Conquistadores. And military conquest was succeeded by complete political domination. The Indian even lost his cultural heritage, and became a pa.s.sive tool in the hands of his white masters. But the Spaniard did not seal his t.i.tle-deed with the indelible signet of race. Indian blood remained numerically predominant, and the conqueror further weakened his tenure by bringing in black blood--the most irreducible of ethnic factors. The inflow of white blood was small, and much of what did come lost itself in the dismal swamp of miscegenation.

Lastly, the whites quarrelled among themselves.

The result was inevitable. The colonial whites triumphed only by aid of the half-castes, who promptly claimed their reward. A fresh struggle ensued, ending (save in the antipodean regions) in the triumph of the half-castes. But these, in turn, had called in the Indians and negroes.

Furthermore, the half-castes recklessly squandered the white political heritage. So the colored full-bloods stirred in their turn, and a new movement began which, if allowed to run its natural course, might result in complete de-Aryanization. In other words, the white race has been going back, and Latin America has been getting more Indian and negro for the past hundred years.

This cycle, however, now nears its end. Latin America will be neither red nor black. It will ultimately be either white or yellow. The Indian is patently unable to construct a progressive civilization. As for the negro, he has proved as incapable in the New World as in the Old. Everywhere his presence has spelled regression, and his one New World field of triumph--Haiti--has resulted in an abysmal plunge to the jungle-level of Guinea and the Congo. Thus is created a political vacuum. And this vacuum unerring nature makes ready to fill.

The Latin American situation is, indeed, akin to that of Africa. Latin America, like Africa, cannot stand alone. An inexorable dilemma impends: white or yellow. The white man has been first in the field and holds the central colored zone between two strong bases, north and south, where his tenure is the unimpeachable t.i.tle of race. The yellow man has to conquer every step, though he has already acquired footholds and has behind him the welling reservoirs of Asia. Nevertheless, white victory in Latin America is sure--if internecine discord does not rob the white world of its strength. In Latin America, as in Africa, therefore, the whites must stand fast--and stand together.

_PART II_

THE EBBING TIDE OF WHITE