Its Culture and Its Ideals 167
that have sprung from our remoteness. You must be aware
that there are prejudices here and that there are preju-
dices there. Unfortunately eminent Latin-American writ-
ers have spread throughout the southern countries the idea
that the civilization of the United States has an exclusively
economic character that will incline her to an imperialistic
policy and to territorial absorption.
As the complement of this prejudice of ours and corre-
sponding to it—and you will understand that errors unite
to produce evil, just as truths unite to produce good—there
is still another prejudice entertained by certain intellectual
people regarding Spanish America. To them our countries
seem to be the theatre of economic crises and of inevitable
political anarchy. We are well aware that your civilization
has not only an economic aspect, but also an intellectual and
moral aspect. We of South America still bear in mind
the moral and religious beginnings of this nation. We
know that work has a value in itself, entirely apart from
the wealth that it produces; that activity addressed to eco-
nomic ends does not necessarily spring from selfish motives,
but from a certain romantic intoxication over its display;
and that the knights of industry, the representative types of
this people, possess more of the soul of chivalry and ad-
venture than of the bartering spirit of Carthage and Phoe-
nicia. We know that lofty ideals predominated in your
struggle for independence, and that spiritual motives led
you to fight for two ideals, united in a sublime harmony—
the preservation of the Union and the freeing of the slaves.
We assume, too, that the last phase of your history—your
participation in the Great War—was not due to your eco-
nomic interest only, but also to the consciousness of your
mission as defenders of democracy and of the principle of
nationality.