Pan-Americanism may be described as the movement which aims at uniting all the American republics:--one cannot say all the American countries; for in the map printed on the cover of the Pan-American Bulletin, Canada is left blank, as not forming part of "Pan-America." This omission alone is enough to prove, if proof were needed, that there is something artificial about Pan-Americanism: for obviously a New Yorker is more at home in Toronto or Halifax than in Rio or Buenos Aires; and there is a closer political similarity as well as a closer political bond between Washington and Ottawa than between Washington and Caracas. But, after all, most political combinations are largely artificial: they are products of statesmanship rather than of nature, or at all events they are products of nature assisted by statesmanship. And Pan-Americanism need not be less real or less valuable for being a construction deliberately planned instead of a spontaneous organism. But since the Pan-American movement is artificial, and a matter of policy and management, still rather formless, Americans of both continents differ considerably both as to its meaning and its usefulness, some declaring that it means nothing and is useless or even mischievous, while others regard it as a kind of perfect circle embracing all the future.
Dr Usher, the American historian, dismisses the whole notion, on the ground that the United States and Latin America are utterly unlike, unsympathetic and even antipathetic to one another. Against this conclusion may be quoted two opinions from Chile and from Colombia, the two South American countries which have in the past shown most resentment at North American pretensions. "We want no papa" exclaimed a Chilian public man some years ago: yet in 1910 Señor Echeverria, Chilian consul in London, in a public lecture declared himself a decided believer in the benefits of Pan-Americanism, and as disposed to accept the sincerity of North American pacific and non-aggressive professions: and in the same year Señor Pérez Triana, the Colombian diplomatist, expressed a restrained but decided optimism concerning the benefits to be derived from the Pan-American Congresses, and pointed out that they had already brought about the general acceptance of the principle of arbitration among American Governments. These favourable views have regard to the practical benefits to be found in a certain course of action. The destiny of Pan-Americanism depends on the question whether these practical benefits are strong enough to overcome the barriers of race, language, religion, law, customs and tradition.