MY HEMISPHERE, 'TIS OF THEE

The shag is passe; the rhumba, conga, and samba are now in vogue. Hollywood has turned towards Latin-America for inspiration, talent, and color. The course enrollments in Spanish and Portuguese have increased noticeably during the past year. Americans are looking southward with benevolent smiles and shiny gold dollars. There is no doubt that America has gone the South American way for a very good reason: there is practically unanimous agreement that it is to our interest to keep Hitler and war from the Western Hemisphere.

The American people have subscribed to Pan-Americanism and hemisphere defense whole-heartedly. Roosevelt has been a great exponent of the Good Neighbor policy. But Americans have very little realization of what they are dealing with. Politicians and even newspaper men writing from South America refer to the common desire of all the American nations to preserve democracy in the western hemisphere. The truth is that democracy as we know it does not exist south of the Rio Grande. Latin-America is more akin to the "old world" than the United States both culturally and economically. We must face the fact that Latin-American countries must and will sell to anyone, even Herr Hitler. Above all, we must realize that we can aid all nations to defend themselves, but we can not protect 100,000 miles of South American coast line when we have not got a fleet large enough to protect ourselves. The Western Hemisphere is not the political, cultural, and economic unit envisioned by many Americans.

Looking at the Western Hemisphere today, we find that between the United States and Canada on the one hand and Latin-America on the other there is an ideological and cultural split which could be narrowed but never bridged. Latin dispositions and ideas are as diametrically opposed as the conga and the square dance. There can be little in common between a democratic America and a totalitarian Brazil; Brazil, a country larger in area than the United States with an overwhelmingly illiterate population ruled by a complete dictator, can have little interest in preserving democracy. Economically Canada, the United States, and Central America are a unit in that the predominant part of the trade of this area moves North and South. But from Bravil down to the Antarctic we find countries that can not depend on inter-American trade exclusively; in fact, these countries can not live unless they export elsewhere. These countries in the lower half of South America would be the pawns in the hands of any conqueror of western Europe, despite the fact that they are proud nations not anxious to be ruled from Berlin, London, or Washington.

Concretely, Pan-Americanism today is based upon a strong desire of all the twenty-one nations to establish world peace and preserve their own territorial integrity. Today they all believe that they can best achieve these ends by cooperation and by putting up a united front against the Axis powers. It is only natural and sensible that the United States should take the lead in strengthening this attitude by means of propaganda and cash. But, it is not impossible that the Axis may persuade some of these South American countries that it is in their interest to give up these ideas. If the ABC countries should decide that they have more to gain in joining up with the Axis, the United States will need more than money and words to keep Hitler out of the Western Hemisphere.