When Franklin D. Roosevelt, as apostle of the Good Neighbor policy, appointed Josephus Daniels Ambassador to Mexico in 1933, the President was highly vulnerable to the charge of not practicing what he preached. At the very least, many Mexicans wondered at the obtuseness of the Yanqui in appointing as ambassador a man who had ordered the invasion of Veracruz in 1914. In that year, Secretary of the Navy Daniels had indeed been the “aggressor,” and his Assistant Secretary at the time had been none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt. How could the norteamericanos be so incredibly callous? As it happens, by 1933, Roosevelt and Daniels had to have the Veracruz incident recalled to them, incredible, in turn, as that may seem. If they had “forgotten” Veracruz, assuredly the Mexican people had not.

The purpose of this paper is to examine public discussion in Central America of its rate of population growth, and to consider the related question of international migration into the region. These will then be considered within the setting of the problem of economic integration in Central America.

The first of the published discussions to be considered is the writer's Reporte preliminar: Necesidades y recursos de El Salvador relacionados a diferentes tasas de crecimiento de población, published in San Salvador in 1956, and which will be hereafter cited as the 1956 Progress Report. The second is a study prepared under the auspices of the Economic Commission for Latin America of the United Nations on Los recursos humanos de Centroamérica, Panamá y México en 1950-1980 y sus relaciones con algunos aspectos del desarrollo económico. The third is a paper entitled La población salvadoreña, presented to the Primer Seminario Latino-Americano de Planificación de Familia in New York (June 4 to 15, 1962) by Drs. Roberto Pacheco and José Francisco Molina.

In 1824, José Cecilio del Valle presented to the Constituent Assembly of Central America a portrait of “Jorge Washington.” One of a number of such gestures, the presentation has no special significance. History would be no poorer if the record of the act had been lost forever. But if Valle could have chosen from his distinguished career a single moment to convey the image he wished to cast in the pages of history, he well might have selected the instant when the likeness of Washington passed from his hands to the waiting ones of the president of the Assembly. The scene would have been impressive on canvas. Stripped of flesh, his features showing signs of scholarship's discipline, Valle bends slightly from the waist, arms outstretched, offering the gift — his promise to dedicate himself to the success of the nation that Central Americans were trying to build.

But Valle had his own notions as to how Central America could succeed. Steeped in the history of the New World as well as of the Old, he thought the success of the Federation of Central America depended a great deal on the success of all new American nations. This is not to say, however, that he doubted that Central Americans could build a nation from their own resources.

A history of the Jews in Mexico from 1521 to the present has never been written in any language. Few have written on any aspect of the life of the Mexican Jews during the colonial period. What little has been written has concentrated upon the life and family of the conquistador and Gobernador, don Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva (1539-1590) and one other Jew, Tomas Treviño de Sobremonte, who was burned alive in the Grand Auto de Fé of April 11, 1649.

The focusing of attention on the Carvajals has obscured the fact that Jews had preceded them into Mexico by 60 years and that Jews have inhabited Mexico uninterruptedly since 1521. Little note has been made of the fact that Jews had been victims of the Inquisition prior to 1590. The historian's task of gleaning information from documents and people usually results in an interpretation colored by his own background, scholarship, economic status, conviction and even religion. We submit the following as a clear example of the foregoing.

La economía monetaria que nos trajo la conquista ha sido, evidentemente, uno de los más importantes aportes de la cultura occidental. Mas seríamos ciegos si pensáramos que ese sistema ha significado una solución óptima para todos nuestros múltiples y complejos problemas.

Su impotencia se manifiesta cuando observamos que, de las mil quinientas capitales de Distrito, mil doscientas carecen de agua, desagüe y fuerza motriz, faltándoles carretera de acceso a la mitad de esos centros administrativos básicos. El Perú construye caminos para automotores desde hace más de cuarenta años y, en tan dilatado lapso, no ha logrado intercomunicar sus centros vitales. La economía y la finanza europeas, por sí solas, no han dado con la solución.

In the 1760's, the commerce of the British West Indies followed four general channels: (1) the trade with the Mother Country; (2) the exchange of goods and money with continental sister colonies to the north; (3) the African slave trade; and (4) the illegal intercourse with Spain's New World possessions. So extensive was the last that Josiah Tucker referred to it as “that prodigious clandestine trade.” This paper will explore one facet of that traffic: its eclipse in Jamaica in the years immediately after the 1763 Peace of Paris.

Throughout most of the eighteenth century, only Bridgetown in Barbados and Kingston in Jamaica were markets of “conspicuous size and wide commercial connections.” The unloading of only a few cargoes would glut the capital towns of the lesser islands. Notwithstanding this fact, these islands held a coveted position in the Empire. London's high esteem for these possessions rested on their agricultural value, their importance in the crucial bullion exchange, and their utility as naval bases.

Emerging from the voting pattern of the Brazilian congressional elections of October 7, 1962, is a reassuring pattern of political growth and responsible participation by the Brazilian electorate.

Congressional elections demand a regional approach. North Americans perhaps understand this better than most people. A great deal of caution is used before establishing a national trend of events in the United States by using, for example, the Arkansas returns. Similarly, to claim that New York speaks for the nation is dangerous.

The same caution should also be used in Brazil. The tight race for the governorship of Pernambuco tells the story of almost equally-balanced forces in that state. The Sao Paulo returns may provide some positive indicators of the 1965 presidential race. Rio Grande do Sul demonstrated the basically-conservative nature of the electorate in that area. In contrast, the state returns in Guanabara seem to present an example of complete political irresponsibility and immaturity.