Patterns of Neighborliness

Weeks and months may pass before the U.S. knows exactly where it stands in neighborly relations with all the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Meanwhile in the other 20 republics small acts and big announcements are week by week gradually defining the pattern of hemisphere relations. Last week most of the lines added to the pattern showed a trend toward hemisphere solidarity. Some of the new lines added to the still unclear design:

Mexico. In answer to an open letter from Leftish Labor Leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano, President General Manuel Avila Camacho defined his position very exactly. Mexico, said its President, has no secret treaties with the U.S., plans to cede no territory for bases to the U.S. or anyone else. Mexican-U.S. collaboration is based on "a regional understanding of a defense nature. ... It would be a mistake to think . . . the destiny of one of the American nations could remain isolated indefinitely from the destinies of the rest. Geographically, historically and logically we form a democratic unit which the dictatorial forces are, undoubtedly, going to try to disrupt. . . ."

Mexico's Foreign Minister Dr. Ezequiel Padilla, who has been preaching Good Neighborliness ever since he went to Columbia University in 1916, commented on the Roosevelt speech in words that might have come from the speech itself. "In order to honor Pan-American solidarity, the greater the threat grows, the more united we must become in the resolution for common defense."

Also announced in Mexico City was the formation of an organization called the Pan-American Legion, including labor unionists, politicians, farmers, bankers, industrialists. Its purpose: hemisphere unity for defense.

As a kind of grace note to the Pan-American chorus, Cuba's Bacardi Co. was running in all its advertisements in Mexican newspapers the line: "Pan America United Assures Liberty."

Cuba. In the homeland of Bacardi, in spite of President Fulgencio Batista's efforts to get conscription, in spite of a motion on the floor of the House of Representatives demanding a prompt military alliance with the U.S. and a Pan-American Conference to conclude a hemisphere defense pact, a Cuban Senator in Havana last week scolded Fulgencio Batista's Government for "lukewarm support" of President Roosevelt's policy.

Nicaragua made English a compulsory study in grade schools. A strongly anti-Nazi Nicaragua Youth Association was formed, with plans to affiliate with anti-Nazi groups in the other American republics, China, Great Britain.

Costa Rica, which has been getting U.S. arms, looked forward to welcoming a U.S. military mission. Meanwhile Nazi propagandists were having tough sledding. The Post Office, refusing to accept pamphlets mailed by the German Legation, shipped them back to the Legation in truckloads.

El Salvador barred all discussion of "antidemocratic doctrines" in its schools.

Honduras forbade its citizens to employ German and Italian nationals.

Guatemala decreed that no manufactured goods might be exported except to American countries.

In South America the tide of the future has often looked like a smashing totalitarian tidal wave. Socially and economically well-established all over the continent, Nazi agents have there worked at their efficient best, done an all-too-neat job of sabotaging moves toward hemisphere unity, bringing long-standing squabbles like the Peru-Ecuador border feud to the boil. Most usual South American official answers to the challenge of President Roosevelt's speech had been silence, polite declarations of neutrality (TIME, June 9).

That the tide of Pan-American unity was moving strongly in South America, not even the most optimistic observers could say, but last week there seemed to be a hope that the tide was on the turn:

Argentina heard from its onetime Foreign Minister, aging Dr. Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Nobel Peace Prizewinner in 1936. No particular friend of the U.S. when he was in office, Saavedra Lamas came out strongly for general ratification of the widely unratified Havana Convention, urged a prompt series of parleys to define "the limits of common action" of the American republics.

Equally good news to collaborationists was word that Argentina had removed most of its strong restrictions on imports --a move encouraged by the fact that Argentina now has an export balance in its trade with the U.S. By the new ruling only a few luxury items will be temporarily banned, quotas will be set on automobiles and agricultural machinery, all other goods will be unrestricted.

Though Argentina's Acting President Ramon S. Castillo's only comment on Roosevelt's speech was a declaration of neutrality (ailing, vacationing President Roberto M. Ortiz applauded it), his mind was evidently turned last week to hemisphere defense. To view Argentina's defense works, the Government invited military representatives from seven American nations, including the U.S.

Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, where he was being feted by the Brazilian Government, Argentina's Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guinazue held a joint press conference with his Brazilian colleague, Dr. Oswaldo Aranha. With perfect teamwork, both diplomats spoke up for another American defense conference. Nowadays that usually means that some major hemispheric action is to be taken. In Washington, Cordell Hull, who called the Havana Conference, said he thought another conference might be a good idea, gave every indication that he would like to see it called by almost any country but the U.S.

Silent, however, was Brazil's President Getulio Vargas, who canceled an important scheduled speech after President Roosevelt's talk, apparently to avoid making any comment at all.

Uruguay. At Montevideo delegates to an American trade conference voted for an American Customs Union, suggested that the Union be tested first by Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay.

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