The name is absent

Its Culture and Its Ideals 173

America, by taking a superficial view of our past and pres-
ent turmoils. If we observe the facts carefully, we shall
see that democratic principles advance with a slow and
triumphal movement. The results were tempered by the
obstacles and by the epoch.

Chile had enjoyed the advantage of possessing a certain
topographical and racial unity, and also the political support
of an oligarchy of land-owners, and on this account she
early acquired political stability. On the other hand, her
evolution was not marked by the idealistic spirit that charac-
terized the other countries.

Argentina, from the beginning, had to face the conflict
between her national existence and the reactionary au-
tonomy of the several provinces. After solving this prob-
lem, according to the constitution drafted by Alberdi, she
generously opened up her fertile lands to the immigration
of all the peoples of the world, and through the activities
of Sarmiento, based upon the ideas of the United States,
she trained her people in the school of labor and freedom.
Since then, her economic development and her political
culture have gone hand in hand.

In recent days, the control of power has passed from the
conservative to the middle class without commotions and
by means of a reform in the suffrage. An advanced social
legislation coincides with this evolution in democracy.

Peru and Bolivia, bifurcations, unhappily, of one parent
national stock, adopted democratic constitutions that abol-
ished slavery and the Indian tributes, in spite of geographi-
cal, ethnic and economic drawbacks and obstacles. For
these nations, the war of the Pacific, in 1879-1883, was a
ruinous catastrophe, in which they lost both land and
wealth; yet, in spite of this, they recuperated shortly
afterward.

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