THE SPANISH HERITAGE.

The Spanish-American republics are by and large fairly democratic on paper; for their constitutions call for representative forms of government in which the citizens are supposed to have an effective control of their own destiny. But in fact the countries of Spanish America are governed by techniques which are the very opposite of democratic, and which veil more or less successfully variants of class dictatorship. Evidences showed that in Mexico, elections have little to do with the selection of the chief magistrate, and in Mexico he has much more power than he has in the United States. The reason for this condition of affairs are many and complex, however, the factor that has been selected for discussion in this article is the Spanish character. The truth is that neither letters nor the ways of peace nor the ways of industry ever really competed successfully with the forces of war which determined the national character and molded the values of the Spaniard. Nor has the Spaniard altogether outgrown even yet the heroic values of a feudal society.