2. CIVILIZATION OF LATIN AMER ICA. Latin-American civilization from an Anglo-Saxon point of view may be found wanting in many respects, but the life and happiness of nations, the ideals and hopes of their peoples, their legislation and institutions, are not to be found ready made, but have to be worked out to meet peculiar wants, and in accordance with the racial, mental, moral, climatic and material resources and necessities of each.
Latin America must be dealt with as a whole if one wishes to cast a rapid glance at its civilization. Some of the 20 free and independ ent states which in their aggregate make up Latin America have developed more than others, and a few to a remarkable degree, but whether north or south of the Panama Canal, east or west, on the Atlantic or the Pacific, on the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico, the countries of Latin America sprang from the same race — the brave, hardy, adventurous, ro mantic and warlike Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, who fought their way through un known territories, whether in quest of °El Dorado* or in warfare against whole nations of Indians, as in the case of Mexico and Peru, where the native Indians had a wonderful civilization of their own.
On the other hand, the men who founded the United States, the Pilgrims who first set foot on this new land of promise, and those who followed in the wake of the first settlers, came to the country already prepared, through years of training, to govern themselves. They came to the friendly shores of the New World in quest of freedom. They wanted a home in a new land not yet contaminated with the spirit of the Old World. They brought with them their creed, their habits of order and discipline, their experience in self-government, their love of freedom, their respect for the established principles of law. Hence from its inception Anglo-American civilization was built upon solid ground. Its subsequent development — the mar vel of the last half of the 19th and of this 20th century— is due to the solidity of their institutions, their steadfastness of purpose, their practical view of life, and a territorial expanse where all the soils, all the wealth, all the climatic conditions of the cold, the temperate and the tropical zone can be found.
The discussion of Latin-American civiliza tion is of vast importance, since it deals with the history and development of 20 republics lying beyond the Mexican border, and covering an aggregate area of about 8,200,000 square miles, with a total population of nearly 80.000, 000, of whom 54,000,000 speak the Spanish language, 24,000,000 Portuguese in Brazil, and 2000,000 French in Haiti. This general divi sion brings us at once to deal, under the same classification, with peoples and civilizations springing from different sources,— Spanish, Portuguese and French. Even among the
Spanish-speaking countries there are conditions, — depending on the province of origin of the first Spanish colonizers and settlers, who came mainly from Biscay, Andalusia, Castile, Aragon and Estremadura — which tend to establish slight differences and peculiarities just as the various States of the United States show dis similarity due to the sources of their popu lation.
Geographically, Latin America begins beyond the Rio Grande, with Mexico, at the southern boundary of which extends what is called Cen tral America, consisting of Guatemala, Hon duras, Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the historic five Central American states; Panama, the gateway to the Pacific on the west and to the Caribbean and the Atlantic on the east; South America proper, embracing Venezuela on the Caribbean, Colombia on the sea and partly on the Pacific; Ecuador, Peru and Chile, bordering on the Pacific; Bolivia and Paraguay, inland states in the heart of South America; Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil on the Atlantic; and, lastly, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, islands in the Caribbean Sea. Thus Latin America extends from the north tem perate zone to Cape Horn, near the Antarctic Ocean, which means that all climatic conditions are found in that enormous area from the cool regions of northern Mexico to the tropical heat of the torrid zone and again to the cold lands of Patagonia. This is indeed a world of wealth where all the products of the globe can be successfully cultivated, where all races of man kind can live and thrive, because the Mexican and Central American cordilleras, and farther south the mighty Andean range, offer an un broken chain of lofty peaks, wide valleys and extensive tablelands, affording all climates and zones, all kinds of soils and minerals, the only limitation to the development of these lands being human endurance. The water supply is plentiful in most parts of Mexico and the Central American republics, and there is noth ing which can be compared to the hydro graphic areas of northern and central South America, consisting of the Orinoco Basin with its 400 affluents, offering a total navigable length of about 4,000 miles; the mighty Amazon, having three times the volume of the Missis sippi and navigable for over 2,000 miles, and the network of great rivers emptying into it; the Parana and the river Plata, with twice the volume of the Mississippi, and a thousand other streams too numerous to mention in detail, but which can be found on any fairly good map, showing a feasible water route from the mouth of the Orinoco in Venezuela to the Amazon and the very heart of South America, and thence to the Parana and finally down to the river Plata.