PAN-HISPANIC PROPAGANDA IN HISPANIC

A

AMERICA

CAREFUL study of the international inclinations and aspirations of the nations south of the United States will reveal several currents besides the pro-Germanism so much emphasized by the Allies during the recent war and the Pan-Americanism which, since the days of James G. Blaine, has been somewhat conspicuous in the diplomacy of the two Americas. For instance, certain regional alliances among the Hispanic-American states have been talked of from time to time; Francophilism has held sway for more than a century; Hispanic-American solidarity is an aspiration as old as the Hispanic-American nations themselves; anti-Yankeeism has been prominent for some time, especially in literary circles; Great Britain has always had her partisans and friends there; and in recent years Pan-Hispanism has been quite in vogue.

I have recently published a brief survey of the literary phase of anti-Yankeeism in the countries beyond the Rio Grande.' I propose here to outline the origin and development of the sentiment of Pan-Hispanism. In the near future I hope to be able to examine the other international political currents whose influence is being felt in these regions.

The growing friendship for Spain in Hispanic America is largely the result of Spanish effort, or, more accurately, of the efforts of a fairly large, intelligent and enthusiastic group of Spaniards who have labored and are laboring for what they conceive to be the welfare of their country and the interest of the Spanish race. Racial and cultural solidarity has been in fact the keynote of their propaganda. Prior to the opening of the present century they were motivated by the idea of rallying around this slogan the kindred nations oversea with the view of winning allies for a prospective struggle with the United States. More recently, other motives have been prominent.

1 See The Journal of International Relations, January, 1922.

In the fifties of the last century, when the remnants of the Spanish empire in the New World, as well as the integrity of the newly-formed Latin nations, were being threatened by the Anglo-American filibusters, Spanish propaganda sought to play upon the note of racial solidarity in order to induce the Hispanic Americans to unite among themselves and with Spain for the purpose of stemming the tide of invasion. Newspapers were established, books were written, and even Spanish diplomats labored to this end. In Mexico City alone at least three newspapers were founded during this period with the avowed purpose of upholding the interests of the Spanish race in America-the Eco de España, the Correo de España and El Español. On January 7, 1852, the last of these declared that the United States had designs upon all of the Hispanic-American republics, and that the latter should pursue a policy of solidarity and alliance with Spain for purposes of actual defense. On July 30 of the following year, the Eco de España came out with an editorial calling attention to the consistently aggressive policy of the United States as a source of imminent danger to the Spanish race on this side of the Atlantic. During the month of September, 1854, the Correo de España contained several tirades against the colossal invader of the North, which it compared to a Russia unrestrained by the balance of power.' But perhaps the climax of this propaganda was reached in a small book published in Cádiz by Don José Ferrer de Couto, who advised an alliance between Spain and Mexico for the purpose of repelling the Yankee invaders, saving Cuba and, eventually, the remainder of Hispanic America from absorption, and effecting a Hispanic renaissance throughout the world!"

And there was some attempt to put this idea of solidarity into practice. Early in 1856 the Spanish minister at Washington held conferences with the diplomatic agents of the Hispanic countries resident in the United States for the purpose of dis

1 Incomplete files of these newspapers may be found in Bancroft Library, University of California.

'The second edition, the only one to which the writer has had access, was printed by La Revista Medica, 1859, pp. 156.

cussing plans of union. A project was drawn up which proposed to bind the nations to the south of the Rio Grande not to consent to the abridgment of the independence or the infringement of the territorial integrity of any of the signatory powers, but to treat the invader or offender of any member of the prospective alliance as a common enemy. No provision was inserted, at the time, that would include Spain in the union, but the action of the Spanish minister was approved and the Spanish secretary of state considered the matter of sufficient importance to communicate it to the captain-general of Cuba.1

Yet, while certain Spaniards were urging a rapprochement between Spain and Hispanic America, the Spanish government was slow to put aside the resentment caused by the Wars of Independence. Juan José Flores and the Spanish Queen dreamed of reconquering a portion of northwestern South America (1846-1847); vigorous action was taken with reference to obligations and indemnities in Mexico (1856-62), Venezuela (just prior to 1861), and the Pacific States of South America (1865-66); and recognition of the new republics was long delayed.

In Hispanic America, too, there existed, besides the bitterness which naturally arose from this Spanish stubbornness and these instances of aggression, certain factors which tended to stultify such racial propaganda. In the first place, Cuba and Porto Rico, still under the Spanish yoke, appealed to the sympathy of their Latin brothers in the New World. On at least two occasions—namely, during the celebrated Panama congress of 1826 and while the Ten Years' War in Cuba was in progress (1868-1878)-the Hispanic-American republics entertained designs of snatching Spain's colonies from her grasp; and there was sympathy for Cuba until the last.3 In the second place, there continued to exist a deep current of hatred toward

The American Historical Review, Vol. XII (1906), p. 94 et seq.

'Rafael María Labra y Cadrana, Orientación Americana de España (Madrid, A. Alonzo, 1909), p. 100 et seq.; Anibal Maurtua, La Idea Pan-americana y la Cuestión del Arbitraje (Lima, La Industria 1901), p. 35 et seq.

Labra, op. et loc. cit; José León Suárez, Carácter de la Revolución Americana Buenos Aires, Juan Roldán, 1917), pp. 191-198.

Spain as an aftermath of the Wars of Independence, just as Anglophobia held sway in the United States for a century after the achievement of nationality.

This anti-Spanish propaganda deserves special notice, for it was participated in by many of the leading men of the country. The main thesis of a history of Hispanic America published in 1828 by Simón Rodríguez, the teacher of Bolívar, may be summed up in the assertion that in the fifteenth century Columbus discovered a New World in order to people it with slaves and vassals, but at the opening of the nineteenth century reason reclaimed it in order to found a society of free men obedient to their own laws. Francisco Bilbao, the great Chilean writer, declared in his American Gospel that the formula of Hispanic-American progress could be found in the expression "de-Spanishize yourselves" (desespañolizarse). The Peruvian author, Ricardo Palma, and the Chilean linguist, Valentín Letelier, were of the opinion that to accept a rapprochement with unprogressive Spain would be contrary to the very principles of American life.3 Lastly, Domingo F. Sarmiento, the great South-American statesman and educator, returning from a trip to Spain, declared that there had not been introduced into the peninsula in three centuries a single new industry save the manufacture of the sulphur match; that there was no national marine, few highways, no popular education, and no progress in the higher institutions of learning; that the arts of printing and engraving had decayed; that the market places remained as they had been described by Don Quixote; that the hatred for foreigners continued as strong as when the Jews and Arabs had been expelled; that, in short, America had nothing to gain from contact with Spain."

These considerations make the absence of friendly relations between Spain and Hispanic America during the greater por

1 Suárez, op. cit., p. 67.

El Evangelio Americano (Buenos Aires, Soc. tip. Bonaerense, 1864).

3 Fernando Ortiz, La Reconquista de América (Paris, Paul Ollendorff, 1910), pp. 76-77.

'Suárez, op. cit., p. 21. See also Rafael Altamira y Crevea, Mi Viaje á América (Madrid, Victoriano Suárez, 1911), pp. 384-395.

tion of the last century a fact which will be readily understood. But it would be a mistake to suppose that nothing was accomplished. Beginning with the recognition of Mexico in 1836, Spain very slowly extended this favor to the remaining Hispanic states of the New World, completing the process in the early nineties. At the same time numerous treaties relating to extradition, postal and telegraphic communications, literary, scientific and artistic property, and commercial affairs, gave evidence of the abandonment of the policy of aloofness. It was near the end of this period, also, that the Spaniards who were interested in their kinsmen across the Atlantic founded the IberoAmerican Union, and by 1892 old grievances had been so far forgotten that the Hispanic-American states joined in the celebration of the Fourth Centenary of the discovery of America.2

This celebration, as was natural, gave considerable impetus to the movement towards intimacy. The feasting and rejoicing had scarcely ended when a renewed revolt in Cuba and war with the United States furnished Spaniards further motive for rapprochement with Hispanic America. The approach of hostilities with the Anglo-American republic caused patriots of the Iberian peninsula to subject their country to a process of rigorous inspection and to cast about for possible allies. When the inevitable came, Spain found herself without active friendsunless Germany's demonstration entitled that country to be considered as such-and pathetically unprepared to meet the foe. In a short time all was over, and the last vestige of a once glorious empire in America had passed from Spanish control. The sense of failure and loneliness which came to Spain could scarcely have been more profound. The defeat was followed by a veritable flood of literature dealing with the domestic and foreign problems of the peninsula, and there was considerable uniformity as to what Spain's international policy should be. Pan-Hispanism must be accepted as one of the

Labra, op. cit., Appendix, contains a list of these treaties with dates. See also W. S. Robertson "The Recognition of the Spanish Colonies by the Motherland", in The Hispanic-American Historical Review, I (1918), p. 70 et seq.

'Accounts of the juridical, the geographic, the literary, and the pedagogical congresses held on this occasion were published in Madrid in 1892 and 1893.