Evening Star Newspaper, November 29, 1937, Page 7

INDIANS® SAVIORS PROGRAM'STHEME Forerunners of Revolution Acclaimed in “Brave New World” Radio Broadcast. (The fifth of a series of weekly articles concerning the 26 notable broadcasts of Latin American his- tory sponsored by the Federal Office of Education.) By BRENT DOW ALLINSON. “Ancient of days! august Athena where— Where are thy men of might? Thy grand GoneGlimmering through the dream of things that were. rst in the race that led to slory's soal ey won, and pass'd away this the ole? "~ ERILDE HAROLD. Open the chronicles of Latin America. Let, the pages come alive with saints and sinners, beggars and kings, tyrants and rebels, scholars, ad- venturers and priests. ‘“Twenty na- tions with a history and culture to be admired, and a democratic ideal ‘we share” _ _ S0 runs the legend on the banner of the “Brave New World” series of notable educational radio entertain- ments, broadcast tonight at 10:30 o'clock, and every Monday night dur- ing the winter, over the Columbia network. Open this unfamiliar book, and turn the pages “written in the red of blood and the salt of native tears.” Do not be too sanguine; do not ex- purgate it before you read it, or ignore the bitterest facts of American His- tory—the burning facts of Indian and Negro slavery, of racial prejudice, of imperialism, old and new; of economic exploitation and ecclesiastical indif- ference an! oppression—if you would really understand Latin America, the price of democracy, of freedom and of peace! _ Not without reason, rebellions and great revolutions have occurred in the territories stretching from the Rio Grande to the winding Straits of Magellan. Indeed, not without rea- #on they are still occurring, and will occur in the future, in Spanish and Portuguese America, and for the same reasons that they are even now mutilating, with horrible conse- quences, old Spain. What are the reasons? “There is only one agi- tator,” exclaimed Lord Roseberry, “injustice!” Many of these revolu- tions have been pointed toward realization of the same great political and humanitarian principles em- blazoned in our own Revolution, and the French: and embodied in our own Constitution and Bill of Rights, in- cluding, particularly, popular suf- frage and education, and the total disestablishment of the church and its constitutional divorce from the Btate. Full Truth Needed If we are to understand the revolu- tions of the past. or influence those that may be written in the seroll of the future, in Latin America, or else- Where—if we are to deal with intel- ligently and constructively, as we ought to do—we must read and hear, by book and radio, the full, unmedi- cated truth about them and about the great men who led them, and the facts and forces against which their heroic lives and labors were dedicated. These must not be discourtly veiled, or adulterated down to an innocuous bed-time story, in the name of edu- cation, lest some interest or prejudice be chafed! Nothing but the whole truth will set the people free. Last Monday evening there were dramatized the life histories of three remarkable men, of Spanish, Portuguese and Indian America, whose lives per- sonify the desperate, century-long struggles that have made freedom pos- sible for the American serf, or peon, or slave—brown, or black or creole— struggles that have made independ- ence possible for 21 ideologically affiliated republics in the Western Hemisphere; and that have raised the bright standard of Pan-Americanism and a metamorphosized Monroe Doc- trine as the continental and co-opera- tive bulwark of an ancient dream ‘whose hour of political fulfillment has almost come. The three personali- ties chosen to signalize this historic movement were the famous Bartholo- mew de las Casas, priest, educator and reformer of Spain and New Spain; the less well-known Candido Rondon, a mestizo engineer of the Amazon, whom ‘Theodore Roosevelt encountered in the jungle of Brazil, and the notorious Emiliano Zapata, who now appears as a kind of native Indian Robin Hood of modern Mexico, whom his con- temporaries termed and treated as a bandit a few years ago. “Most Remarkable” Person. ‘Tonight we shall have the stories of two more—two literary friends of 19th century Venezuela “who dabbled in poetry, talked of their political fu- ture, fought for liberty and founded free nations” in South America—the “Damon and Pythias” of Venezuelan, Colombian, Ecuadorean and Peruvian independence—Andres Bello and Jose Olmedo. But greatest of them all in point of sacrifice and service to the despoiled Indian natives, and of courage and influence in the reformation of the laws, the policy and the hierarchy of Bpain was Las Casas. Born in Seville pf distinguished French parents, in 1474 (his father had actually sailed ‘with Columbus to the Caribbean), he Jbecame, by the consensus of secular historians, “one of the most remark- able personages that has ever appeared 4n history.” More than a philanthrop- ist, a missionary and a Dominican priest, “he had one of those large Eumd.s which take an interest in every- ng. As an historian, a man of let- fers, a colonist, a theologian, a re- former, an active power in the church, & business man and an observer of patural history and science, he holds & very high position amongst the otable men of the 16th century. The ‘Ways, the customs, the religion, the B uget YOUR AUTO NEEDS Terms to Suit SEIBERLING mieao HRES | BATTERIES, & RADIOS, HEATERS Vulcani:ing—!etrudil’lg (LEHMAN S ON NAronaL 0241 B™EKmNW. ipoucy. the laws of the native peoples whom he saw on his extensive travels, the new animals, the new trees and herbs all were observed and chronicled by him.” Of the abolitionist temper of John Brown, with respect to his de- nunciation of human slavery and tor- ture, which he saw in Hispaniola, Mexico and Peru, he seems to have had the intellectual equipment, moral insight and statesmanlike courage of a Jefferson. “In an age eminently su- perstitious he was entirely devoid of superstition. At a period when the most extravagant ideas as to the divine rights of kings prevailed, he found oc- casion and courage to remind Kings to their faces that they are permitted to rule only for the good of the governed, and dared to upbraid Philip the Sec- ond for his neglect of Spanish and Indian affairs. ¥ At a period when brute force was unijversally appealed to in all matters, more especially in those pertaining to religion, he contended before ecclesi- astical juntas and royal councils that dependent of all military support . . . relying only on the protection that God will vouchsafe him, depending upon the assistance of neither civil nor mili- tary authority. In fact, his works (some of which have not even yet been published, because of official and hier- archical opposition) would form, even DE LUXE FORD V-8 « ++ Center-Poise Ride . wheelbase chassis. Baut some folks wanted missionary enterprise should stand in- | 112" wheelbase . 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We have improved on that car in the newly styled Standard Ford V-8: - THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, today, the best manual extant for mis- sionaries.” Padre Las Casas strove for more than 60 years to rescue the Indians from slavery and extermination, ap- pealing repeatedly—and successfully —to the King in person against the fierce opposition of the conquistadores and gold hunters, the plantation owners and aristocrats-of the bureau- cracy and the hierarchy, who “wore Indian blood as rubies and their tears as diamonds,” in their palaces and courts from Lima to Madrid. ‘“When he reached his diocese (at Chiapas, Mexico”), record the authors of the Britannica, “he encountered immedi- ate opposition; disloyalty on the part of the clergy, hostility on that of the authorities.” His great “Historia de las “Indias” could not be published until 1875! He died, at more than 90 years of age, in the convent of the Alo- cha in Madrid (1566), “one of the few humane and kindly figures in the his- tory of the Spanish conquest in Amer- ica.” “His life and character estab- lish his claim to a foremost place among the great moral heroes of the world,” writes his biographer, Francis A. MacNutt. While M. Marcel Brion indites a belated tribute to “the An- dalusian priest (contemporary and fel- low student at Salamanca of the cele- brated jurist, Victoria) “ ... in whose ' voice we hear once more undefiled the still. more size and . accents of the Sermon on the Mount.” While the Catholic Encyclopaedia says: “He did nothing for the In- dians”; and neyer went to Peru! But the Britannica affirms categorically that, “In 1530 he obtained a royal cedula (decree) prohibitinz the en- forcement of slavery in Peru, which he delivered in person,” and at the risk’ of his life. It is thus interestingly evident that history cannot be taught even with the most enlightened spirit and pur- pose, without extended controversy, even after 400 years! Thus does a creative and courageous life rever- berate through time as a stone flung. into a pool casts ripples to the swrounding shores. Thereby is it demonstrated anew that our ideals of intellectual liberty, moral freedom and economic pustice must yield slow and reluctant dividends of educa- tion, democracy and scientific civili- zation even in our own time . . . But what of it? What is the meaning of life, if not the winning of these pearls beyond all price? Controversy is the life of the mind, the blood of education and the breath of liberty, through which alone democracy can flourish. Fear, rather, the absence or fear of it; for that is stagnation and servility, from which only re- bellion can save a mass or a nation. It is no less true that the fact that D. C, such a man as Bartholomew de las Casas could live and labor to the founding of the free Western World in such an age, and against odds so tremendous—and do so within the fold of the church—without being exhausted or destroyed, or excommuni- cated and sent to the dungeons and MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1937. the tortures of the inquisition, is the most comforting and creditable re- flection of modern history upon his race, his country, his monarchs and his church. The recounting of such a life, even in an abbreviated and perhaps expurged version, stirs the imagination and quickens the soul. AMERICA'S BIGGEST CIGARETTE BUY" Fine Turkish and Domes- tic Tobaccos. Heat-treated to double mildness. Wrapped in Champagne Cl;lrette Paper, Z%e Double Mild Cigarette Aflfloaflcifly 85-horsepower engine . . . Improved Easy-Action Safety Brakes « All-steel body . . . Mohair or Broadcloth upholstery . . . Walnut-finished trim . . o Twin horns, tail lights, sun visors . . . 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