Evening Star Newspaper, March 23, 1930, Page 92

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 23, 1930. A Quarter Century of Peace and Order, After Years of Internal Strife and Revolution, Has Brought Uninterrupted Material and Economic Progress to This Land-Locked Republic. BY GASTON NERV AL, O foreign tourists the Indian is the outstanding figure of Bolivia. Almost no attention is paid to his white brothers, the institutions of the country or its social and political problems. This is due to the fact that most travelers in South America have little desire for cultural knowledge and are merely spending their money to pass the time and to satisfy a superficial curiosity. In general, visitors to Bolivia since it became @ republic have merely taken photographs of a few Indians, gone to some characteristic festi- vals for which the Indians have worked up an artificially stimulated enthusiasm and bought a few articles made by the Indians. Back in the United States, the tourist exhibits as trophies the articles made by the Indians and publishes the extravagant photographs as “Bolivian.” Rarely does he have the discernment—not to say tact—to say they are “Indian things from Bolivia.” Nor does it often occur to the writers or trav- elers who have visited Bolivia to state that these Indians form only a portion of the total population; that they are a completely isolated element which gradually is being educated and brought into step with civilization. They do not explain that the political, administrative, social and economic life of the nation is en- tirely in the hands of the white people. The Indian is often employed as a servant, but for the most elementary kinds of labor. The inter- mediate element, however—the “cholo” of mixed white and Indian blood—through education and the money he accumulates, is often able to share with the white men and sometimes out- strips them in work and business. Neverthe- less, even the “cholo” has never aroused interest the North American tourist. true that there are great numbers of in Bolivia. It is true that they dress in the tourists’' photographs, fol-de-rols of crude colors. It is holidays they parade the of towns, doing exotic dances sound of highly inharmonious music. And it is a fact that all this is a spectacle bly attractive to the astonished tourist. Nevertheless, none of these facts warrant com- pletely ignoring the white people of Bolivia, who alone rule the nation. Lmhknwnmthhwuntryotmewmu people of Bolivia, although it would be much easier to depict their life than the weird customs of the Indians. To make the average inhabitant of the United States understand what the white people of Bolivia are and how they live, one only has to say one thing: They are just as white as are the people of this country those who carry on the political, eommer- and industrial activities of Bolivia le who are born, grow up, live, work from earth just as do civilized people in the world. But this simple fact, it seem, is as yet unknown in the United i m certain psychological differences, descent, the Bolivian citizen works just does the citizen of the . He educated under like, tical, systems of instruction; similar, though more lex, political activities, and business of professional i Santa Cruz and Ballivian, honored statesmen like Linares and Campero, famous orators like Baptista, scientists like Diaz-Romero, world- renowned poets like James Freyre and indus- trial millionaires like Patino, who today is the richest man in South America. Bolivian women have two outstanding exam- ples, shining with peculiar brilliance in history, ever-present inspirations to the women of our day who, although they have not yet attained to the complete emancipdtion and economic independence enjoyed by their sisters of this country, are sharing more and more in the public activities of the nation. The first was Juana Azurduy de Padilla, a soldier in the army of independence. She commanded troops for 12 years and rose to the rank of colonel, winning many victories on the field of battle, and leaving an imperishable record of insuper- able heroism and patriotic sacrifice. The second is Adela Zamudio, a great poetess and writer of Bolivia, of continental fame, for whose corona- tion in 1927 as a master of poesy the President of Bolivia went personally from La Paz to Sucre, her home, accompanied by a numerous party, to place a golden crown upon the brow of the great litterateur. I'r' goes ‘without saying that Balivian cities have all the improvements and essential com- forts that civilized people have in any other part of the globe. Some North Americans find it hard to believe that in any place a 20 days’ journey from the United States there are automobiles, street cars, telephones, electric light, and even radios. La Paz, the seat of the Bolivian gov- ernment, was the first city in South America $0 install electric light service. The mail and passenger air lines that ply in the interior of Bolivia today form one of the most complete national services on the continent. Just now two Bolivian aviators are preparing for a Ber- lin-La Paz flight, which, if successful, will serve to keep the name of Bolivia on the front pages of the newspapers for a few days. Some one once called Bolivia the “roof of the world,” because the major part of its pop- ulation lives on a plateau about 12,000 feet above the sea, La Paz being the highest seat of government in the world. Although the rarefied astmosphere of such altitude some- times causes discomfort to persons coming up from lower levels, it has been proven that it is not so serious to foreigners as was believed some years ago. Proof of this is the fact that mem- bers of many foreign colonies live there and carry on their daily work as energetically as if in their native lands. When the region which is now Bolivia was discovered by the Spaniards it formed part of the famous Inca empire, of which Peru was the center, and whose peculiarly high civiliza- tion, with its great attainments in astronomy, mathematics, fine arts and handiwork, as- tounded the Europeans, as did that of the Aztec empire in Mexico. During the first three and a half centuries of Spanish rule Bolivia, then known as “Upper Peru,” formed part of the vice royalty of Lima, but during the last half century before independence was part of the vice royalty of the Rio de la Plata. In 1809, the people of Upper Peru, the majority of them sons or descendants of Spaniards, born in America, rose in arms against the crown of Spain, inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution and of North America, but they did not achieve independence until 1825. In that year, after the battles of Ayacucho and Junin, they constituted themselves into an independent republic, to which they gave the name of the liberator, Simon Bolivar. The territory of Bolivia occupies an area of about 650,000 square miles; more or less that of France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portu- gal and Italy together. In this vast territory Bolivia has a population of scarcely three millions, about that of Nor- way or Denmark. VWWHEN first organized as a republic, 104 years ago, Bolivia's territory was almost three times as large, she having afterward lost large portions of her patrimony, in unfortunate nego- tiations, to each and every one of her neigh- bers. The first decade of her history was a series of internal disturbances and revolutions, usual to every State in process of organization. As a result of the “War of the Pacific,” with Chile in 1879, Bolivia is land-locked within her mountains, deprived of all access to the sea—something which all' the peoples of the world enjoy—because Chile, on signing the peace treaty, took for herself all Bolivia’s sea coast and ports. This constituted a serious obstacle to the economic progress of the nation during the years following that war, and she is still obliged to carry on her foreign com- merce through Chilian and Peruvian ports. The whole world sympathizes with Bolivia’s cher- ished hope ultimately to regain soveieignty of her ports. The United States, in 1926, pro- Cathedral at Plaza San Francisco, La Paz, Bolivia. should be ceded to Bolivia, in return for eogmic m:uon. ing of this cen! Bolivia has enjoyed peace and order, ehanctefl“y principally by the material and economic prog- ress of the country, which has been notable and uninterrupted. Bolivia's incalculable mineral wealth plays, o(eoum,themjorpurflnthedcvelopmento( the country, for she is among the nations have ing the highest and most varied mineral re- sources in the world. Ever since the Spanish conquest fabulous quantities of gold, silver, A view of the busy and quain: Calle de Mercade, in La Paz, capital of Bolivia. Underwood & Underwood. shet Photo by E. M. Newman. tin, copper, wplfram, etc., have been continue ously mined from the Bolivian mountains. Re- cently petroleum has been discovered in her territory, and an American corporation, the Standard Oil Co., is now engaged in developing some of the fields. Bolivia now stands sec- ond—if not first—in world production of tin. She is also the greatest producer of bismuth, and one of the greatest sources of antimony, * although the production of gold and silver has lessened materially since the days of Spanish dominion.- It has been estimated that with the silver taken by the Spaniards from one mountain alone of the territory that is now Bolivia—the famous “Cerro de Potosi"—there could be built a massive span across the At- Etlcmthat would link together Europe and erica. Leaves Show Apple Crop. AN apple tree well decorated with blossoms in the Springtime may be an augury of a fine crop in the Fall, but the real prophecy of the crop lies unnoticed in the background. It is the leaves that hold the secret of what the crop should be. Rather exhaustive tests, conducted by the Department of Agriculture, in- dicate that 40 or 50 leaves are required to the apple for real production of good sized fruit. The prophecy goes even farther and extends over into the following year, for if this ratio is not maintained, and there are fewer leaves to an apple, the crop of the following year will suffer. ‘The leaves provide not only a source of food for the fruit, but they also store up the strength the tree needs for the following season. An impoverished tree will be a poor yielder the following year. In order to improve conditions shown by the tests, the department officials have turned their experimentation to means of stimulating -leaf growth. Where the leaves will not properly supe port the fruit on the trees it becomes neces- sary, in the interest of future crops, to thin out the fruit and leave only the amount of fruit that the leaves can support without short- changing the tree itself. . Entering Gulf Stream. SO abrupt is the change in the water on the edge of the Gulf Stream off the North Atlantic Coast that the line of demarcation is visible to the eye as much as a quarter of a mile away, while a thermometer dipped into the water at the bow of a ship headed across the stream may show a temperature 20 de- grees higher than one dipped simultaneously off the stern. So marked is the change in temperature that in a few minutes overcoats and wraps which are needed before the stream is reached may be discarded as uncomfortably warm after the stream has been entered. The water of the Gulf Stream shows a clear blue as compared with the green depths of the water coming down from the north. coupled with the sharply marked bank of fog, makes visible to the eye what the temperature tells the senses—that the Gulf Stream has been reached. This phenomenon is well known to ocean travelers and is a source of never-ending wonder.