Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1904 — MAY FORM A BIG NATION. [ARTICLE]

MAY FORM A BIG NATION.

Possibilities of Political Union Among the Latin-American Republics. The war between Russia and Japan may be the means of bringing about n United States of' South America, says a South American diplomat, notv stationed at Washington. Tlie mere suggestion that Russia and Japan may not be the only powers involved in the war before it is over has served to call attention to tlie fact that once the United States got into it her navy would not' be sufficient to enforce the Monroe doctrine, and then“ Where would it be nt?” As tlie situation is to-day, South America has practically no navy. Without the protecting influence of the United States, perhaps we •would long ago have been the prey of European powers. To-day the South Americans fear a new alignment of the world powers. They do not actually believe that the United States will in any way become mixed up in the eastern complications to such an extent that she will be called on to fight, but the mere bringing of this possibility into view has had its effect in alarming the most public spirited South Americans to action. As straws pointing to this significant change of feeling may be mentioned the vigorous effort which was made by certain statesmen in the Peruvian Congress, recently adjourned, to authorize the negotiating of a loan of several millions, the purpose of which was for naval equipment nnd coast defense. The measure was finally defeated. Also the notable growth of friendly feeling between republics which heretofore have cherished the bitterest enmity. Tlie settlement of the Acre dispute placed two of tlie most powerful republics, Brazil and Bolivia, on a footing which tlioy had never dreamed of before. Chill and Argentina have become positively friendly, the two Presidents meeting recently on the boundary line to hold a love feast over the settlement of mutual misunderstandings. Ecuador is lining herself up with Brazil, and the whole family of former “jangling communities,” as Mr. Roosevelt, before he became President, once called them, is now shaking hands and '‘making up” in a style likely to have results of a definite nature.