ARIAS DIGS IN

Theodore Roosevelt once made a crack which summed up U. S. policy in Latin America in the days of Manifest Destiny: "I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the Canal does also." Last week Franklin Roosevelt, fast losing the sunburn he acquired in the Caribbean not far from the Panama Canal, may well have foreseen trouble for his Good Neighbor Policy in the tiny Republic of Panama.

Under the benign auspices of Theodore Roosevelt and his Secretary of State John Hay, Panama proclaimed a republican constitution in 1904. Last Oct. 1, a determined young man named Arnulfo Arias swore an oath as President of Panama faithfully to observe that constitution. Seventeen days later he presented Panama's unicameral Legislature with a proposed Bill of Reforms to remake the constitution. On Nov. 22 the Legislature approved the Bill. Last week, in a plebiscite, the people voted it into effect. Since the voting officials distributed "yes" and "no" votes to be marked, and since Government watchers packed every polling place, the opposition to President Arias' machine-made Government registered only 537 votes out of more than 100,000 for the new constitution.

Approved were the following drastic changes in Panama's governmental system: 1) increase in the President's term from four to six years, retroactive to include Arnulfo Arias' own term; 2) disfranchisement of all non-Spanish-speaking Negroes, prohibition of further immigration by these, by Asiatics and North Africans; 3) establishment of Government monopolies and expropriation of private property at the discretion of the President; 4) declaration of a state of siege if & when the President deems necessary. In the hands of a race-conscious, ambitious man--which Arnulfo Arias is--such a constitution could be the instrument of dictatorship.

"Panama for the Panamanians" is the slogan on which President Arias was elected, with the help of his steamroller machine. Arnulfo Arias is a young and patriotic man who fears his native land is losing its identity. He has seen most of its retail business taken over by Chinese, Eastern Europeans and East Indians. He has seen Jamaica Negroes, first imported to build the Canal, monopolize jobs on that waterway. He has seen the import business, utilities and banking taken over by Anglo-Saxon Americans, by the British and by Germans. He has heard English spoken on the streets as freely as Spanish; he has read street signs, menus and business correspondence in English. Finally, he has found that the wage scale for his own countrymen is lower than the scale for aliens. Having absorbed nationalistic ideas in Italy, where his brother, onetime President, sent him as Minister, he is determined to enforce them in Panama.

This would not particularly worry President Roosevelt and the U. S. Department of State if there were not something of a pro-Nazi, anti-U.S. slant to much that President Arias says and does. In the official version of his inaugural address was the statement that he believed the U. S. knew how to cooperate with Panama on a basis of good will, but that Panama, although too small to defend herself, could always make concessions to foreign countries who would defend her against demonstrations of ill will. Dr. Arias thought twice and skipped this sentence when he delivered the address.

Bad feeling between official Panama and the U. S. Army has grown. One of President Arias' decrees is that all business with the Panamanian Government must be conducted in Spanish, which is a pinprick in the seat of the Army's breeches. Another pinprick was violent criticism by the Legislature of the U. S. Army for starting construction of an airport on private property which the Army intended to purchase. The Army's Commander, Major General Daniel Van Voorhis, was refused permission to sit in a pew of the British Legation at an Independence Day service in Panama Cathedral.

The U. S. has so far managed to play ball with recent Latin American dictators. It is more than friendly to Brazil's Dictator Getulio Vargas. It is not particularly concerned about Paraguay, where President Higinio Morinigo has declared himself dictator. But Paraguay is far away and Brazil is a pretty good clip, while the Republic of Panama, less than half as far, sits astride the most strategic waterway in the world.

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