THE COMING OF SOUTH AMERICA.

By Henry Kittredge Norton '05, NewYork, The John Day Company, 1932.

In the present state of inter-America imperfect comprehension, the multiplicity of ' books about this country's southern neighbors is symptomatic. It shows an evident desire to consider the whole of the New World with a sense of kinship, a realization that there is a great deal of relevancy in the study of Latin American problems as part and parcel of those in the United States. It points, besides, to the need of an examination of conscience and of unsparing contrition on both sides.

Mr. Norton's book, "The Coming of South America," is an excellent vestibule to whatever works on the subject the practical reader may wish to consult, particularly i£ he is concerned with factual lucidity rather than with exotic gossip and anecdotical travelogues. As a traveler in South America and in his capacity of representative for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Mr. Norton applied his knowledge of foreign affairs to the observation and study of political and economic conditions. Both his journalistic ability and his sincerity stand him in good stead while acting as a guide through the intricacies of a subject of acknowledged complexity.

Recent interpreters of Latin America have followed, for the most part, either of two paths: they have endeavored to integrate the Hispanic peoples of the American continent into a definite sociological entity or they have centered their analysis on existing disparities and variously widening schisms. Mr. Norton has chosen the latter. He confines his study to nations that, in his estimation, conform to a certain pattern of maturity and stability—namely, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Peru, and he absolves them from the opprobium commonly attached to Latin America as the land of dictatorship and spasmodic revolutions. To him their national individuality is striking, and he assumes that there is no possible kinship and community of aspirations between these full-grown countries whose political travail is already over and the irrepressible little republics of the tropic still going full tilt in their turbulent career. The burden of dubious connotation placed on Latin America is not, therefore, a misconception, according to Mr. Norton, but it should be relegated to its proper Caribbean background. Whether this is indisputably so beyond further discrimination, is something, I assume, that the average North American would like to believe, at least for the sake of simplicity, but unfortunately the recurrent revolutionary and warlike movements among the adult nations of South America are apt to give the feeling that they also have gone back to their political pinafores. Again, a slight suspicion might creep in that there is something deeper in the Latin American political and economic unrest that cannot very well be delimitated by isothermal lines. In dealing with the effects of the threefold crisis—political, economic, and finan cial—now preying upon South America, Mr. Norton is evidently in his element. Without overburdening his book with unessential statistics, he traces the results of the "fateful competition among American bankers who piled loan after loan on these republics until their financial structures began to crack of their own weight." He records the common accusation of "fairweather friendship" leveled by the afflicted native at the American financier who will not lift his hand to help after the crash. Now that the frenzy of spending is over, these nations must adapt by themselves their one product economy to an unresponsive world market and try to carry their debt burdens as in years of bonanza. That the stakes involved are enormous, is plain everywhere. "Through subsidiary corporations American oil interests control the whole output of Peruvian oil." "The great copper mines of Chile are all in American hands." "In Santiago one rides in American street cars, calls one's friends on American telephones, and writes back to New York by American air mail." "The streets of every Argentine city are overrun with what are at bottom American cars." "American electrical interests are supplying light and power service in eleven of the Brazilian states including all of the capitals, except the city of Sao Paulo." The recital bespeaks the übiquitous domination of American capital south of the Equator. The critical reaction it arouses among certain groups is as widely extended. And here is one of the bitter ingredients of the investment dilemma. The criticism may be "sentimental" and "oratorical," it may pour a variety of meaning into a single word and brandish it as a flag in the propagation of a credo, but the fact remains that it cannot be easily explained away. The word "imperialism" has caused as much misapprehension and outcry in Latin America as the word "communism" in the United States, so surcharged are they in the ordinary mind with ominous and insidious power and fateful inevitability.

To what extent "The Coming of South America" succeeds in presenting an impartial view of conditions is perhaps beside the point. Being not only an exposition of facts, but a defense of a certain status, the book is not complete without an statement from the plaintiff. But what there is in it of highest importance is that it marks a tendency to give recognition to certain problems whose study will make for a better understanding among the nations of the western world. —J. M. ARCE.

THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE IN 1950. By Dr. H. Sheridan Baketel '95 has been reprinted from the New York State

Journal of Medicine for February 1, 1933.

The fall-winter number of Pagany contains a story by C. K. O'Neill '31 entitled "The Three Sisters." Mr. O'Neill also has a story in No. 12 of Story, a magazine devoted solely to the short story, entitled "Fisherman's Bride." He also has a story "The Third Farmer's Son, Inc." which appears in the February issue of ModernYouth.

Dr. W. Beran Wolfe '21 is the author of an article "Nervous Breakdown, Its Cause and Cure" which appears in the February issue of The Modern Psychologist.

Ernest Stephens '10 is the author of an article in the Massachusetts Teacher for February, 1933, entitled "The Present Educational Crisis."

Dr. Edmund P. Fowler Jr. '26, and Edmund Applebaum are the authors of an article "Bone Studies in Ultra-Violet Light" which has been reprinted from The AJlatomical Record for December, 193 a. Dr. Fowler also has an article reprinted from the March, 193 a, issue of Annals of Otology,Rhinology and Laryngology entitled "Important Points in Four Theories on Otosclerosis."

J. Gordon Barrington '31 has a story "House of Confidence" in No. 11 of the magazine Story.