Mr. Wallace Goes South

On March 16, from Washington's National Airport, Henry Agard Wallace set off on a tour. The Vice President of the U.S. proposed to speak his democratic mind, in Iowa-accented Spanish, to the people of Central and South America. By last week he had spoken in four countries, this week he was in a fifth, and it was already plain that the trip was paying democratic dividends.

Costa Rica's President Dr. Rafael Angel Calderon Guardia assured Mr. Wallace that of all visits from foreign greats, "none has been so glorious as yours, due to the fact that you are a fellow citizen of that peerless democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt." Said Henry Wallace, for publication: "I am not a politician."

Panama wanted to know what had happened to 10,000 undelivered machetes ordered from the U.S. (the machetes had been sent to the Solomon Islands). Panamanians also wanted machinery to manufacture cement ("Get us that machinery and we will erect a statue of you in concrete"). Said a Panamanian who heard one of the Vice President's speeches: "He speaks our language very well, and the unusual thing about him is that, unlike the average gringo who chooses the simplest words, Wallace uses ten-dollar words."

Colombia heard some comforting ten-dollar words: financial loans should be made to South America "in every manner possible."

Peru accorded the Vice President a 21-gun salute, approved such polite profundities as his remark that Pan-Americanism was "the vertebral column" for any new world organization. Wallace's plane left Lima's airport at dawn. Irrepressible Mr. Wallace insisted on walking the four miles to the airport in the dark. (He also surprised Latin Americans by announcing that he missed his customary afternoon game of tennis. They thought U.S. citizens were too busy with the war to be taking exercise.)

Chile greeted him at Santiago's Los Cerillos airport with the Chilean Air Force band, playing The Star-Spangled Banner. All parties, from Conservative to Communist, signed a joint manifesto urging popular acclaim for Wallace. The masses' answer: 25,000 Chileans cheered him in front of his residence in Santiago. Next day he addressed the Chilean Congress, warmly patted President Juan Antonio Rios and Chile's Popular Front: ". . . Now the great masses [of Chile] advance toward a fuller liberty. Its people are on a revolutionary march to affirm this land as one of dignity of the human spirit. And this revolution should continue until man is freed from the oppression of man."

The Unvisited. After ten days in Chile, Mr. Wallace intends to spend some time in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, return to the U.S. toward the end of April. Not on his itinerary: Brazil (which is wholeheartedly in the war on the Allies' side) and Argentina (whose government, despite the example of other American nations, remains icily neutral).

The obvious reason for omitting Argentina and Brazil is that they are on the east coast and Mr. Wallace is touring the west coast. Nevertheless, the omission of Argentina served an equally obvious purpose: its pro-Allied masses were once again reminded that President Ramon Castillo is in the bad graces of Washington and of Henry Wallace.

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