Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel], April 12, 1908, Page 5, Image 41

About Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
THE BANANA INDUSTRY.
) THE WRITER and no doubt to
many others, it has often seemed to
others, lt has often seemed
strange that the southern conti
nent of this hemisphere has so
little interest for the average cit
izen of the United States. Oc
casionally articles have appeared
In the newspapers and magazines
which have caused a little flutter
of interest in some quarters, but
the interest seems to have been
fleeting.
There has been much talk of Darkest Africa, and
explorers galore have followed the famous Stan
ley and Livingstone into the dark recesses of that
continent until I think I am safe in saying that
the continent of Africa is, today better known
than our own South America.
I feel sure that there is no quarter of the globe
that presents to the imagination so much of ro
mantic and sentimental interest and I might add
commercial interest, as well as food for specula
tion in regard to the mysterious and unknown.
Tales of the Spanish Main are still, and no doubt
will be for many years to come, full of Interest to
all who read or hear of them. The exploits of
(the early Spanish explorers and settlers and the
'depredations of the buccaneers certainly furnish
enough of romance and tragedy to satisfy the most
exacting.
One surely cannot read of the magnificent Span
ish dream of a great empire in the New World
without a thrill of admiration mixed with a good
deal of horror at their methods of founding it
Their ruthless destruction of a civilization, which
was, in some respects at least, even superior to
their own, always rouses more or less indignation.
Still, after all, there is a tinge of sadness min
gled with our indignation when we think of the
rapid decadence of the dream, which has perhaps
only been equaled by the decadence of the power
and influence of the mother country Itself.
Of the origin and history of the early civiliza
tion, existing when the Spaniards came, we know
little or nothing and there seems to be very little
prospect of learning more. Even of the actual
present inhabitants of many parts of the continent
we know almost as little.
We are familiar to some extent with a narrow
belt along the coast and a little of the territory
along the navigable rivers, but I think few realize
how narrow this belt is.
It was the writer's privilege to spend a few
weeks along the coast of Colombia just at the close
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MAGAZINE SECTION
5
Howard N. Howland.
of the late civil war in that
country, and there is very
little here that we are famil
iar with as twentieth century
civilization and culture. Even
in the neighborhood of Santa
Marta, one of the oldest of
the Spanish American set
tlements, one may find with
in an hour's walk or ride, al
most primeval forests where
there is no sign of human
Inhabitants, much less, civi
lization, and the villages of
mud and thatch whose in
habitants are almost pure
Indians, although they speak
the Spanish language.
A few hours' ride up the
Sierra mountains takes one
into a practically uninhabit
ed wilderness where the trop
ical jungle is so dense that
the path must be cut most
of the way even for a mule
train.
In reaching this wilderness
one travels most of the way
over a wild trail cut along
the sides of the mountains,
passing at long intervals, lonely coffee plantations.
These are soon passed and the only signs of
human life, past or present, are the old Indian
Aztec roads made by laying boulders in rows with
their flat sides up, usually two rows of large ones
with a row of smaller ones on either side. And all
of this within a day's laborious ride up the moun
tain. Then what lies within the vast stretches
beyond?
Of course, the country, on all sides has been
penetrated to some distance in a desultory way,
but how does the world at large know of it?
Scientists from the great museums have made
some long trips up the Magdalena, the Orinoco
and the Amazon rivers and of the country along
the latter considerable has been written. •
The report comes from the upper stretches of
the Orinoco of the vast table land having great
fertility and a flne climate, teeming with a wealth
of plant and animal life, but this is a report made
from a bare look at the edge of the mysterious
unknown country beyond, through which probobly
Port Limon Park.
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no white man has passed and emerged alive.
Savage beasts, savage men, and deadly fevers
have all conspired to curtail the knowledge that
has come to the outer world.
As the population of the world Increases, these
great garden spots must sooner or later be opened
up and connected with the rest of the world by
modern methods of transportation.
This the United Fruit Company has been quietly
doing along the coast of the Caribbean Sea for a
number of years and a system has been developed
whose magnitude few understand.
Stations have been established from San Marta,
Colombia to Blueflelds, Nicaragua and there are
important shipping points at Santa Marta, Colon,
Bocas del Toro, Port Limon, Greytown, and Blue
flelds and I do not know how many more places.
Whatever may have been said of the United
Fruit Company as a trust and an oppressor of
smaller concerns, it has certainly done great
things for the places where its stations have been
established and I have yet to hear of a case in
these places where unjust discrimination or opres
sion has been practiced, while many who are in
their employ and are doing business with them,
speak of them only in the highest terms.
Perhaps Limon, Costa Rica is a good example and
this has been changed from a little adobe and
thatch tropical mudhole, with awful health con
ditions to a clean, modern flourishing town, with a
small park which is the most beautiful I have ever
seen.
The United Fruit Company's principal Industry
is of course, raising and shipping bananas, al
though they handle some other fruit and I think
that this industry which is destined for many years
to come, to be the leading one in that climate.
The market for this fruit in the United States
seems to be almost unlimited, and the amount of
the fruit consumed is only limited by the sup
ply and price.
Some years ago while going from New York
to . Colombia. I made the acquaintance of Don
Qulros, a wealthy Spaniard from San Jose, Costa
Rica, who had very large interests in that city and
the surrounding country. Among other things,
he owned a banana plantation from which he
was shipping about five thousand bunches of ba
nanas a week to New York upon the boats of the
United Fruit Company. '; ;Xl
He told me that some years he had cleared above
all expenses, as high as seventy per cent, of the
original investment. A proflt of from thirty to
fifty per cent, is not at all uncommon. ;\ .;
Large proflts are made along the coast of Col
ombia where irrigation is depended upon, but the
Isthmian and Central American climate, where
there Is sufficient rain fall, is better.
The amount of this fruit that is shipped to the
United States is almost inconceiveable. Ships car-