for All Commodities and the Ten Commodity Price Index of Business Cycles) and the total insured loss from two or the major crimes against property. The same correlation may be noted for the same period in the figures for theft in Washington, Chicago and Boston, losses from hold-ups and robberies cited from the American Bankers' Association, and the figures for automobile thefts. Were more accurate and

more extensive statistics available, I have no doubt that we could establish an even more pointed relationship of cause and effect between economic forces and conditions and the volume of crime in the United States.

DIVISION OF LATIN-AMERICAN AFFAIRS

EDITED BY IRVIN STEWART

University of Texas

THE FIFTH PAN-AMERICAN CONFERENCE

J. WARSHAW

University of Nebraska

The Fifth International Conference of American States,1 which opens its sessions in Santiago, Chile, on March 25 of this year, promises to be of unusual interest from several points of view.

Between the Fourth Conference, held in Buenos Aires from July 12 to August 30, 1910, and the present Conference, the major part of the Old World has been shaken to its foundation, but the New World has suffered practically no alterations. During this space of thirteen years, the growth of interest of the United States in the Latin-American countries has been marked. The kind of interest which it has in its sister republics has become much clearer to foreigners and even to many citizens of the United States, and is seen to be far removed from the dangerous covetousness so strongly stressed by numerous Latin-American and European politicians.

In the interval, Porto Rico has been granted American citizenship, with practically complete self-government, the supervision of Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, and Haiti by United States administrators has developed no sinister elements, Cuba has not been interfered with in any harmful way, Mexico has been treated with what may now be regarded as fair-minded tolerance, and the services of the Latin-American governments have been sought in the settlement of conflicts between American states. The dispute between Panama and Costa Rica and the long-standing

1The writer is indebted to Dr. Leo S. Rowe, Director of the PanAmerican Union, for valuable material bearing on the Conference.

trouble between Chile and Peru have been disposed of through the good offices of the United States, the initial payment on the $25,000,000 to Colombia approved by Congress was made last December, political disaster in Cuba was recently averted with the practical assistance of General Crowder, and another effort at composing Central American differences and establishing a solid basis for harmony and cooperation has just been made in what has been characterized without hypocrisy and accepted without suspicion as the "friendly atmosphere of Washington."

The words pronounced by Secretary Hughes at Cleveland November 4, 1922, can be taken by the world at large at their face value. That the United States does not covet territory anywhere on the globe, hanker for special spheres of influence, or expect anything more than the "open door" and the right to protect its citizens wherever they may be stationed, may be viewed as the real foreign policy of the United States, consistently pursued in spite of temporary appearances and emphatically endorsed by the people of the United States. Certainly, the above-mentioned period of thirteen years should prove reassuring to some of the governments south of us which have at times indulged in moments of skepticism. Years fraught with peril have left the New World unscathed. The "colossus of the North," more colossal than ever, has gained something of a guardian aspect in the intervening years.

Facts of this sort cannot fail to impress the Latin-American members of the Conference and influence the tone of the assembly in the direction of increased cordiality toward the opinions and suggestions of the delegates from the United States. They are a convincing demonstration that the United States stands merely in the position of a sincere partner on this hemisphere to whom greater power and experience have come through historical accident and that much of the misunderstanding due to ephemeral incidents

2Cf. The Southwestern Political Science Quarterly, September, 1922, "The Controversy Over Tacna and Arica and the Washington Conference," by Ethel M. Crampton.

has been the result of inability on the part of prejudiced observers to admit other motives than those which appear ingrained in European diplomacy.

Though overemphasis may easily be placed on our own importance in the Conference, it is not to be denied that our delegation will be conspicuous both as the representatives of the greatest of the American states and as the personal embodiment of a people which occupies, perhaps more than any other, the attention of statesmen, educators, and the press of Latin-America. In the public discussions which will accompany the meetings of the Conference and continue after its termination, the activities of the United States representatives will be subjected to the most minute examination and criticism, both friendly and antagonistic. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that our representatives should stand for what is best and most permanent in our Latin-American relations and in our principles as a member of the Pan-American Union.

The United States delegation will be composed of the following eight members, who are fairly representative both geographically and with respect to their interests: Hon. Henry P. Fletcher, Senator Frank B. Kellogg, Senator Atlee Pomerene, ex-Senator Willard Saulsbury, Mr. William Eric Fowler, of Washington, D. C., Dr. George E. Vincent, Mr. Frank C. Partridge, and Dr. Leo S. Rowe. Mr. Fletcher, the American ambassador to Belgium, who will head the delegation, has been the United States ambassador to Chile, the place of meeting of the Conference, and Mr. Partridge has been the United States minister to Venezuela. The inclusion of a former university president and the actual president of the Rockefeller Foundation, in the person of Dr. Vincent, means that an authoritative spokesman on educational subjects will represent American educational thought. Dr. Rowe, by virtue of his position as director general of the Pan-American Union, naturally has a place on the delegation, but he would in any case be perhaps the one member who might be regarded as indispensable by reason of his thorough and intimate knowledge of Latin-American affairs

in general and his special knowledge of economic and political conditions in the various American republics. In addition, Secretary Hughes, it is hoped, will be the guest of the Chilean Government, whose urgent invitation he has accepted in the following terms:

I trust that no contingency may arise to prevent the carrying out of my present plans to attend the Conference and I shall be greatly obliged if, in conveying to His Excellency the President, my heartiest thanks for his kind offer of hospitality, you will be good enough to explain that only an unforeseen emergency requiring my presence in this country, will prevent my attending in person the Conference to be inaugurated at Santiago in March of this year.

Under ordinary conditions, the visit of a secretary of state of the United States to the Latin-American republics is an event of major significance and is so treated in LatinAmerica. In the present circumstances, the visit of Secretary Hughes to the Chilean government, whose most vexing problem has lately been resolved under his sure guidance, may be considered an event of the very first magnitude.

The high quality of the American delegation will undoubtedly be matched by the delegations from other American states, and the wisest thought of the Three Americas may confidently be expected to bear upon the problems submitted at the Fifth Conference.

II

The following is the program of the Fifth International Conference of American States, as approved by the governing board of the Pan-American Union, December 6, 1922. I. Consideration of the action taken by the participating countries and of the application in each country of the conventions and resolutions of previous Pan-American Conferences, with special reference to the convention concerning trade-marks, and the convention on literary and artistic copyright, signed at Buenos Aires, August 20, 1910.