I.5.1 DIGITAL ARCHIVE 1054239
French anarchist and writer Charles Malato de Corné (1857–1938) wrote this brief article on Latin America for the inaugural issue of Les Annales de la Jeunesse Laïque, the official journal for the French youth who espoused a critical approach to Catholicism in politics or education. Malato, one of the journal’s principal collaborators, was also editor-in-chief of the Parisian newspaper L’Aurore, on whose front page Émile Zola had published “J’accuse!”—his condemnation of the Dreyfus Affair—in 1898. Writing in 1902, only four years after the conclusion of the Spanish-American War, Malato warns of the threat of the “imperialists of the United States” and of potential “Yankee invasions.” Just three years later, in 1905, Malato gained widespread notoriety for organizing a plot to assassinate King Alfonso XIII of Spain. This translation is from the original [Les Annales de la Jeunesse Laïque (Paris), Georges Béret, ed., vol. 1 (June 1902), 18].
[FIRST IT WAS] COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA, now it is Argentina and Chile that are threatening to pull at each other’s hair.
These Spanish-American republics are so irritating!
The fact is that these conflicts did not spring up overnight. For many years now, unresolved border disputes have festered and, after many failed attempts to settle them, have led to fighting between the gauchos of the Pampas and their neighbors to the East, the conquerors of Peru.
In all likelihood, if war had been declared earlier it would have been won by Chile, which is considered the major military power in South America. But much time was spent in negotiations during which Argentina—badly destabilized and shaken by an endemic financial crisis—quickly completed its preparations for defense, re-organized its artillery and its marvelous gaucho cavalry, and appealed to its European immigrants.
In view of the current balance of power, it is understandable that both countries wisely decided against pursuing a conflict whose result seemed to be in doubt. In 1898, the conflict was submitted to England for arbitration, and it is assumed that the matter will be settled by the respective embassies. Some Latin American-ists—such as Mr. Alessandro d’Altri—might have envisioned a triple alliance between Brazil, Chile, and Argentina that would create an essential counterbalance at the southern tip of the New World to counter any Yankee invasions. Unfortunately, things did not turn out as expected and the region seems to be, once again, on the verge of another outbreak of hostilities, to the great delight of the imperialists in the United States.
The Pan American Congress that was held in Mexico City yielded negative results. The idea of bringing together all the peoples of the New World in this way was not, in itself, a bad one by any means. But, for a federation of this nature to succeed, it must be organized on the basis of liberty, equality, and political and economic guarantees that at present are entirely lacking.
The Great Republic of Washington and Lincoln—which had the honor of fathering [abolitionist] John Brown—has become the province of an oligarchy of multi-millionaire despots who are capable of starving the people even more autocratically than King Louis XIV and both Napoleons. At a single stroke they can siphon off all forms of subsistence required by thousands of families and bring human activity to a halt almost anywhere on the planet. All major commodities, such as wheat, sugar, oil, cotton, and steel are at their disposal. Unlike the heroes bedecked [with medals won] on the battlefield, they can impose their laws on the world.
The United States is a country where plutocrats rule and where politicians dabble in intrigue to a far greater extent than we do (like Jacob’s ladder!). It is a country where Southern landowners, furious over the nominal liberties granted to their slaves, take revenge by roasting them over a slow fire. Here, the proletarian masses die freely at their labors under the democratic rifle of the Pinkertons. They no longer represent the solid ideal once suggested to our Republicans. It is, in fact, a capitalist oligarchy that uses slave labor and nothing more.
The people of Latin America are certainly not living in a paradise. Addled by their priests, duped by their lawyer-politicians, and executed by their generals’ firing squads, they really have little to lose by becoming part of the realm of Vanderbilt, Morgan, and Rockefeller. These gentlemen do not appreciate needless turmoil and might be able to provide a measure of peace that could be a welcome respite in the aftermath of the local disturbances.
Nevertheless, all this turmoil is part of life. As brutal as they are, armed protests with rifles, guns, or machetes are still a means of protest. Under the thumb of the Dollar Kings, things would not be quite the same.
They have already made their influence felt in the Caribbean; set a goal of hegemony in Central America; and spoken loudly in the Mexican Parliament. Tomorrow, it will be Mexico itself—hitherto a bulwark of Latin America—which will be absorbed into the fabulous United States. To the east, Mexico has been separated from Europe since the United States took possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and perhaps other islands; its northern border has been weakened by the introduction of the railroads; and, to the south, it has been deprived of all direct communication with the rest of the continent by the Panama Canal.
Once Mexico has been absorbed, the influence of other States such as Chile, Brazil, and Argentina will no longer be quite so relevant.