Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1919 — Solidarity Among American Republics Greatly Promoted by World War [ARTICLE]

Solidarity Among American Republics Greatly Promoted by World War

By JOHN BARRETT.

, Pan American Union

The world war has done more, strange though it may seem, to promote real solidarity among the American republics than any other influence since the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. Until the world struggle came on there had been no great event or combination of events in history, since the common efforts of a century ago of the American republics to secure independence, which made. a vital test of their unity of interest and action. It required a situation like a death struggle between democracy and autocracy to prove whether the Pan-American castle was built of paper or concrete. Just before the United States entered the war predictions were freely made by the enemies of the United States and the allies that if the United States participated in the conflict she would find that PanAmericanism was a mere term and not a reality, and that her sister republics of Central and South America would desert her in the crisis. What were the actual facts when the armistice was declared? Of the 20 American republics reaching from Cuba and Mexico on the north to Argentina and Chile on the south, 13 had actually broken relations with the common enemy of the United States and the allies; eight of these had gone further and declared war; seven only remained technically neutral, but nearly all of these were benevolently neutral and were characterized by a press and public sentiment that were almost unanimously pro-United States and pro-ally. In every capital of Latin America, whether that of a country engaged in the conflict or neutral, there were repeated pro-United States and pro-ally demonstrations and enthusiastic acts of sympathy. In no capital were there spontaneous proGerman demonstrations. Of the ninety millions of peoples living in Latin America it can be safely said that seventy-five millions were sympathetic with the Vnited States and the allies in their fight for the victory of democratic principles. A new Pan-America and a new Pan-Americanism, now actively growing out of the past work of the Pan-American Unioq and fostered by the European war, must appeal to the, governments and peoples of both North and South America and cause them to so strengthen this union in the future that the western hemisphere shall become and remain forever a united force for the preservation of peace and for the advancement of the highest principles of democracy, civilization and Christianity.