CHAPTER VII

COSTA RICA

Concentration of the Population in One Small District--Predominance of Spanish Blood--Social Conditions Resulting from Absence of Indian Laborers--Political Tranquillity--History--Character of the Government Today--Foreign Commerce and Means of Transportation.

Although the territory of Costa Rica is approximately 23,000 square miles in area, nearly all of her four hundred thousand inhabitants, with the exception of some small groups of Indians and negroes who take no part in the political life of the country, live on one small plateau, from three to four thousand feet above sea level, surrounded by the volcanoes and ranges of the Central American _cordillera_. The population is so dense in this _meseta central_, as it is called, that it is seldom possible to walk more than a few minutes without passing a house. San José, Cartago, Heredia, and Alajuela, the four principal cities, are connected with one another by a single cart road less than thirty miles in length, and few of the smaller towns and villages are more than a day’s walk from the capital. Almost every acre, in the valley and on the sides of the mountains, is used for agricultural purposes. The people have never shown any inclination to expand into the mountainous country to the southward, where communication with the towns would be rather difficult, or into the hot and insalubrious regions on the coasts. The Atlantic seaboard, as in the other Central American countries, is given over to banana plantations, owned and worked by foreigners; and the provinces bordering on the Pacific are sparsely inhabited by an unprogressive race who are largely of Indian descent. Both of these districts, because of their products, are of importance economically, but the social and political life of the country has its center in the cool and fertile _meseta central_.

Here there has grown up a nation which is entirely different from any of the other Central American republics. The Spanish pioneers who founded the city of Cartago in the latter part of the sixteenth century were unable from the outset to establish a colony similar to those in other parts of the Isthmus, because there was no dense agricultural population to be divided up as laborers among the settlers. Elsewhere the Indians, already living in large towns and devoting themselves to agriculture, had been forced with surprisingly little difficulty to work for their new masters; but in Costa Rica there were only a few scattered tribes, in a low stage of civilization, who cultivated the soil in a rude way simply to supplement their natural food supply obtained by hunting. Unaccustomed to steady labor, they were not promising material for a serf class like that existing at the time in Guatemala and Nicaragua. The settlers nevertheless introduced the _repartimiento_ system immediately after their arrival in their new home, notwithstanding the royal order forbidding further enslavement of the Indians, and they are said to have treated those natives who were within reach with even greater cruelty than had been practiced in the other colonies.[23] In consequence of this oppression, the numbers of the aborigines decreased very rapidly, and the settlers found themselves forced more and more to do their own work, in spite of their efforts to replenish the supply of slaves with war captives from Talamanca and other unsubjugated districts. Indian labor seems never to have been a considerable factor in the economic life of the country.

At the present time there are few remnants of the aboriginal tribes in the interior, although Indian blood is still very evident in the people of Guanacaste and other outlying districts. The inhabitants of the central plateau are distinctly Spanish in race and civilization. The white families, moreover, do not seem to be of the same type as those of Guatemala and the other countries. The majority of the people of Costa Rica, it is commonly said, are descended from _Gallegos_, one of the most law-abiding and hard-working of the numerous races that occupy the Iberian Peninsula, while those of the other countries are predominantly Andalusian. However this may be, the traveler cannot avoid noticing a certain dissimilarity in appearance and in customs and personal traits, between the prominent families of San José and those of other Central American capitals.

The absence of a large Indian population had an economic and social effect which can hardly be exaggerated. The unfortunate settlers of Costa Rica, throughout the colonial period, were in a condition which caused them to be pitied by all of their neighbors. Instead of living in large towns, supported by tributes brought in by the Indians of their _encomiendas_, the majority of the creoles found themselves forced to settle in the country, where each family raised by its own labor everything that it consumed. The harvests, as Governor Diego de la Haya reported in 1719, were gathered “with the personal labor of the poor Spanish settlers, because of there being very few slaves in all the province.”[24] The colony was so poor that the name Costa Rica became a standing joke. Although there was plenty of food, clothes and other articles of European manufacture could be secured only with the greatest difficulty, because there were no exports with which they could be purchased. The people were almost completely shut off from the outside world. As those who could do so left the country, and there was no immigration, the population grew very slowly. The little community was, however, spared the problems arising from the presence of a large class of laborers of another race, and the Spaniards, although they sank into a state of dense ignorance and were forced to adopt most primitive ways of living, acquired industrious habits which still distinguish them from their neighbors. Each settler cultivated a small amount of land, sufficient for the support of himself and his family, and was prevented from extending his holdings by his inability to employ laborers and by the fact that he had no market for his products. With the growth of the population, the entire _meseta central_ eventually became occupied by little farms. There were a few wealthy and influential families, who had been given special privileges by the Spanish government, but they never occupied the dominant position which the aristocracy of Guatemala and Nicaragua had been able to assume, and the land which they held never amounted to more than a small portion of the cultivated area of the colony.

In colonial times, a large part of the land belonged to municipalities rather than to individuals. As the population expanded, it became customary to give to the founders of each new village a tract of land to be held for the common use, part of it to be divided among the inhabitants from time to time according to their ability to cultivate it, and part to be held as pasture or forest. In 1841 President Braulio Carillo ordered that a large portion of these _tierras ejidales_ should become the property of those who were at the time cultivating them. This decree was later annulled, but a similar law was passed in 1848, permitting the cultivators to buy for a small price such parts of the common lands as they had fenced in and were using.[25] These measures resulted in a great increase in the number of small holdings.

The large uncultivated tracts owned by the central government have been sold at low prices to anyone who wished to buy them, or have been given away as premiums to encourage the planting of coffee or cacao. Many persons acquired large estates in this manner, especially during the last years of the nineteenth century, and a class of large landholders has thus gradually grown up. These have in most cases converted their properties into coffee plantations or cattle ranches, but many large tracts have never been brought under cultivation, because their owners have lacked the enterprise and the capital to do so. When the quantity of public lands in the more accessible parts of the country began to grow small, attempts were made to check the reckless sale of them to persons who did not intend to turn them to account agriculturally, and to encourage their division into small holdings. The amount sold to any one purchaser was gradually reduced, and in 1909 a law was passed giving each head of a family the right to claim fifty hectares of government land, free of cost, provided that he actually settle upon it and cultivate it. The greater part of the more favorably situated districts, however, have now passed into private hands, and the people show little desire to undertake the conquest of the inaccessible country outside of the _meseta central_. The establishment of new plantations and the opening of means of communication require more money and a larger labor supply than the natives of the country can provide. For these reasons, the legislation intended to increase the amount of the Republic’s territory used for agricultural purposes has not been very successful.

Although there are now many large plantations scattered here and there through the country, the greater part of the _meseta central_ is still divided into small farms. In the year 1906, there had been inscribed in the public land register 110,201 different properties, of which the average value was less than five hundred dollars American gold.[26] Even when allowance is made for the fact that there are many foreigners and rich natives, each of whom possesses a large number of separate properties, it is evident that an overwhelming proportion of Costa Rican families own their own homes. There is in fact practically no landless class, with the exception of a few thousands of laborers in the cities.

The political development of this compact community of white peasants has necessarily been very different from that of the neighboring countries, where a small upper class of Spanish descent had ruled and exploited many times its number of ignorant Indians and half-breeds. In Costa Rica the fact that nearly all of the inhabitants were of the same stock and had inherited the same civilization has always made the country more democratic, and has forced the class which controlled the government to consider to some extent the wishes and interests of the masses. The development of the Republic, unlike that of its neighbors, has for this reason been toward rather than away from the realization of the republican ideals held by the framers of the first Central American constitutions. The small landholders have always exerted a strong influence on the side of peace and stable government, for they have rarely joined in attempted revolutions, and have shown themselves inclined rather to take the part of the constituted authorities when disaffected politicians endeavored to plunge the country into civil war. Costa Rica has seen none of the protracted and bloody struggles which have darkened the history of the other republics, for the violent changes of government which have occurred from time to time have been effected rather by military conspiracies in the capital than by campaigns in the field.

The geographical situation of the Republic, moreover, has enabled it to escape from the outside influences which until very recent years made the establishment of stable government almost impossible in other parts of Central America. At the southern extremity of the Isthmus, separated from its nearest neighbors by several days’ travel through practically uninhabited territory, it has been able to hold aloof from the quarrels between the other republics, and has never been forced to submit to their intervention in its internal affairs. Costa Rica separated herself at an early date from the Central American Union, and has taken little part in the attempts for its restoration, for her statesmen have been unwilling to yoke their destinies with those of the turbulent communities north of them.

During the first years of Central American independence, the war between the imperialist and republican parties in other parts of the Isthmus had its counterpart in Costa Rica in a short struggle between Cartago and Heredia, which favored annexation to the Mexican Empire, and San José and Alajuela, which opposed it. The victory of the republicans led to the removal of the capital from Cartago to San José, where it has since remained. For nearly half a century the government was controlled by a few powerful families, among whom the most prominent were the Montealegres and the Moras, and the number of persons who participated in public affairs was very limited. The first president, Juan Mora, was successful in organizing a fairly efficient administration and in promoting the almost non-existent commerce of the country, and Braulio Carillo, who took charge of the government in 1835, after two years of agitation and disorder, carried on the policy of his predecessor and laid the basis for the present prosperity of the country by encouraging the production and exportation of coffee, which rapidly became the Republic’s chief crop. He also definitely established the capital at San José, although to do so it was necessary to put down an armed uprising by the other towns, which desired that the seat of the government should move from one place to another. Carillo was defeated for re-election in 1837, but he regained his position by a _coup d’état_ in 1838 and for four years exercised dictatorial powers. During this period, the administration was reformed and made more centralized, the courts were reorganized and a penal code was drawn up, and Costa Rica’s share of the debt incurred by the federal government was paid in full. Carillo was overthrown by a bloodless revolution in 1842, when Francisco Morazán, landing on the Pacific Coast, won over the chiefs of the army which the president sent against him, and occupied the capital. The victor had hardly reached San José when he began to raise troops and money for an attempt to re-establish the federal union, from the presidency of which he had recently been ejected by his enemies. Angered by this attempt to force them into a war of aggression on their neighbors, the people deposed Morazán and put him to death.

During the seven years which followed this revolution, continual quarrels between political factions and constant interference by the military leaders made it impossible for any administration long to maintain itself in office. In 1849, however, with the election of Juan Rafael Mora, another era of stable government commenced. The army was reduced to obedience, and order was restored throughout the Republic. During this administration, Costa Rica took the leading part in the war against Walker in Nicaragua. Mora was overthrown in 1859 by a conspiracy in San José, and two military chiefs named Blanco and Salazar, who were allied to the Montealegre and Tinoco families, came into power. Through their influence, José María Montealegre was made president. Mora, who had attempted an unsuccessful counter revolution, was put to death, and the members of his family were exiled. The severity of the government’s action aroused much bitter feeling, but civil war was avoided by a compromise, as the result of which Jesús Jiménez was elected president in 1863 and José María Castro in 1866. The latter was deposed by a pronunciamento of Blanco and Salazar in 1868, and Jiménez, as first designate, or vice-president, again took charge of the government. The new president made a determined effort to destroy the control which the army had been exercising over the administration, by removing Blanco and Salazar from their commands and forcing the other officers to obey the civil authorities. In doing this, however, he deprived the small group which had controlled the government for so many years of its chief support.

Jiménez was deposed in 1870. A handful of men boldly entered the artillery barracks, concealed in an ox-cart under a load of fodder, and seized them, and with them the control of the city, almost without bloodshed. The leader of the revolution was Tomás Guardia, an army officer, who, unlike Blanco and Salazar, had little political connection with the great families. This man was the real ruler of Costa Rica from 1870 until his death in 1882, although he did not at once assume the presidency. His government was a repressive military dictatorship, in which his own personal followers held all of the principal offices. The great families, whose leaders were exiled and deprived of their property, were reduced almost to insignificance as a political factor, and have never entirely regained their former influence. Guardia was succeeded after his death by his close associate, Próspero Fernández, who was at the time in command of the army. When the latter died in 1885, his son-in-law, Bernardo Soto, took charge of the administration as first designate, and caused himself to be elected president for the term beginning in 1886. These two rulers did much to improve the administration and the government finances, both of which Guardia had left badly disorganized. The administration of Soto was especially notable because of the work of Mauro Fernández, his Minister of Public Instruction, who for the first time established free and compulsory education throughout the Republic. The small group which had been in power, however, had made many enemies, among whom the most powerful were the clergy. The opposition grew so strong, as the election of 1889 approached, that Soto found himself unable to impose his own candidate on the nation without incurring serious danger of revolution. He consequently allowed the first comparatively free and popular election which the Republic had ever known, in which José Joaquín Rodríguez, the candidate of the clerical party, was victorious. Many of the partisans of the government desired to retain control of the administration by the use of force, but they were prevented from doing so by the firmness of the president and by the attitude of the country people, who rose in arms and prepared to march on the capital to enforce the verdict which they had given at the polls.

Rodríguez severely repressed all opposition, and governed during the greater part of his term without the aid of Congress. In 1894 he forced the legislature to elect his friend Rafael Yglesias to succeed him. During the latter’s administration, the currency was reformed and placed on a gold basis, and the commercial and agricultural development of the country was promoted in many other ways. Yglesias was re-elected in 1898, but in 1902 he turned over the chief magistracy to Ascensión Esquivel, who had been selected by a compromise between the government and its opponents.

With the election of Esquivel began an era of republican and constitutional government which was unprecedented in the history of Central America. Since 1902, the Republic has enjoyed an almost complete freedom from internal disorder, with perfect liberty of the press, and genuine, if somewhat corrupt, elections. Cleto González Víquez, who followed Esquivel in 1906, and Ricardo Jiménez, president from 1910 to 1914, were chosen by a majority of the voters in contests in which practically all of the adult male population of the Republic took part. Alfredo González, Jiménez’s successor, was placed in office by Congress in 1914, after no candidate had received a majority of the popular vote. The legality of his election was considered doubtful, but he remained at the head of the government until January, 1917. His advocacy of radical financial reforms, including a direct property tax and a heavy progressive income tax, aroused much hostility among the wealthy classes and alienated several of the more influential political leaders, with the result that he was overthrown by an almost bloodless _golpe de cuartel_ engineered by Federico Tinoco, the Minister of War. The latter was formally elected president of the Republic on April 1, 1917. Each of the recent rulers of Costa Rica has devoted himself with enlightened patriotism to promoting the welfare of the country, and great advances have been made in reorganizing the finances, in safeguarding the public health, and in providing for the education of the masses of the people.

The inhabitants of Costa Rica now enjoy more stable and more nearly democratic political institutions than any of their Central American neighbors. Constitutional government works in practice, and the letter of the law is generally respected, even though its spirit is often ingeniously circumvented. The president walks through the streets much like a private citizen, without fear of assassination or of being captured by his enemies, and the leaders of the opposition carry on their propaganda in San José without hindrance or persecution, and at times are even called in to consult with the president on matters of great importance. The press criticises the administration fearlessly and at times scurrilously, and animated political discussions may be heard every day on the principal corner of the main street of the capital. The elections are participated in by about as large a proportion of the entire population as in the United States.[27] If one candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, he becomes president, and if no absolute choice is made by the people, the question goes to the Congress, where it is decided by intrigues and deals between the political leaders. The administration is able to exert a decided influence in the selection of its successor through its control of the patronage and the army; but the final decision rests with the people or the popularly elected deputies, and it is not probable that any president would resort now to the forceful methods by which official candidates were placed in office a few decades ago. The only break in the peaceful development of constitutional government since 1902 was the _coup d’état_ of 1917. That the dissatisfied party should have chosen violent means for obtaining control of the government, instead of waiting for the election which would have been held within a year, must be regretted by every friend of Costa Rica, but this very event nevertheless gave the people of the Republic an opportunity to show their capacity for self-government. Nothing could be more characteristic of Costa Rica than the whole-hearted co-operation of all political elements in the organization of the new administration, without either bloodshed or persecution.

Government by the people, however, has not really advanced so far as the number of votes cast at the elections would seem to indicate, for the great majority of the Republic’s inhabitants still take little interest in political affairs. So long as order is maintained and their property rights are secure, they do not care particularly which group of politicians is in control and they are guided in voting more by the inducements held out by the rival candidates than by their judgments. Personalities rather than questions of national policy are the issue, for it is rarely that any candidate makes his campaign upon a definite political or economic platform. Between the elections, public opinion, although far more influential than in any of the other Central American countries, exercises little real control over the policy of the government. The newspapers are very widely read, and the people as a whole are remarkably well informed about current events, but the press nevertheless has comparatively little power, because no one believes in its impartiality or its incorruptibility.

The choice of candidates for public office and the conduct of the government are left almost entirely to a small number of landed proprietors, lawyers, physicians, and professional politicians residing in San José. These owe their influence partly to social position and wealth, but more especially to education; for although the members of the old principal families are still prominent, there are also many influential leaders who have risen from the lower classes by availing themselves of the educational advantages which the Republic offers to all its citizens. The ruling class is divided into a number of small political cliques, each of which professes allegiance to a party chief. As might be expected in an aristocracy composed chiefly of the leading people of a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, ties of blood and personal feeling play a very large part in the formation of these groups, especially as the prominent families are very large, and each is closely related with the others by intermarriage. A leader is often able to derive the major portion of his strength from his relatives alone, for the aid of ten or fifteen active and popular sons or sons-in-law, together with that of several score of brothers and cousins and nephews, is not to be despised in a country where there are at most only a few hundred active politicians. Besides his relatives and his intimate friends, however, each party chief has also a number of followers who are attached to him by the hope of obtaining employment in one of the government offices, for a very large number of persons among the upper class have little occupation aside from politics, and little income beyond that derived from official positions when their friends are in power.

The various leaders may have different political ideals and economic theories, which to some extent influence their relations to one another, but it can hardly be said that any of the present parties have definite principles or programs. Each desires primarily to win the elections in order to put its followers in office; and the platforms and the utterances of the leaders are shaped with this end in view, with the result that they receive little attention and less credence. When it is necessary in order to obtain control of the government, leaders of widely different points of view will join forces without any suspicion of inconsistency, and it is no very uncommon occurrence for a prominent member of one party to join another and very different group, because of a quarrel with his former associates or simply because the change improves his chances of advancement. Sectional jealousy is no longer a force in politics, since the capital has so far outstripped the other towns in population and wealth, and religious questions are rarely injected into the campaign. Attempts have been made to organize a popular party among the laborers and peasants, and this party has achieved some notable successes at the polls, but its policy when in power is very similar to that of the other factions. There is in reality little ground for political rivalry between the different classes of the population.

The so-called parties have so little permanent organization that they can hardly be said to be in existence during the greater part of the presidential term. About a year before an election, the heads of the stronger groups, who are often perennial candidates, begin to organize their own followers, and to bargain for the support of the less powerful leaders, with a view to inaugurating their campaigns. Committees and clubs are organized in each town and village, and desperate efforts are made to secure the support of influential citizens who are not permanently affiliated with any party, and to arouse the interest of the voters in general. Processions and serenades are organized to show the popularity of each candidate, and orators are sent to every town and village on Sunday afternoons to entertain the voters with abuse and denunciation of the rival aspirants. Party newspapers are established, but they confine themselves to printing long lists of local committees and adherents and to describing meetings and ovations. One may search their columns in vain for serious discussion of the issues of the campaign. Several of the regular newspapers take sides more or less openly, while others maintain an ostensible neutrality, but the press as a whole seems to have little influence over the voters. As the contest progresses, feeling runs higher and higher among the politicians, and the voters become first interested and then excited. The meetings and ovations, the continual political arguments on the streets, resulting in an occasional riot, and the wholesale treating by the party workers in the drink-shops, distract the attention of the people from their ordinary occupations, and temporarily disorganize the entire community. Elections are therefore looked forward to with a certain amount of dread by the more respectable classes.

Since the adoption of the law of 1913, the President, the members of Congress, and the municipal _regidores_ have been chosen by direct popular vote instead of by electoral colleges. The balloting takes place on the same day in all parts of the country. Each citizen must inscribe his choice in a book where all may read it, and every party has representatives at the polls to secure fair play. This system prevents fraudulent counting, but it also encourages corruption and the exercise of improper influence on the individual elector. Bribery is practiced openly and on a large scale by all parties, and the voter is often prevented from exercising his own discretion in casting his ballot by the fear of offending the local authorities or other powerful personages in his village. The amount of intimidation and coercion, however, is insignificant as compared with that in the other republics, and attempts to influence voters by such means are generally condemned by public opinion. The president is prevented by the constitution from seeking his own re-election, but one of his associates is usually frankly supported by the administration as the official candidate, and thus has an immense advantage over his opponents, even though recent presidents have refrained from using the army and the police to interfere with their enemies’ campaigns or to keep the adherents of the opposition party away from the polls on election day.

The large supplies of money which are perhaps the most important factor in the campaign are obtained by contributions from members of the party, who hope to obtain offices for themselves or their friends in the event of a victory, and from native and foreign business men who desire special concessions. The banks of San José usually assist one candidate actively though secretly, and considerable amounts are also obtained from certain rich speculators, in return for favors contingent on the election of the candidate whom they support. Consequently a new administration comes into office bound by numerous more or less improper pledges, and burdened by a considerable party debt. After the election of 1913-14, the victorious group liquidated a portion of its financial obligations by a levy on all office-holders, who were presumably the chief beneficiaries of the party triumph.

The choice of the voters does not always inspire the respect which it would in a democracy more conscious of its power and more jealous of its rights. The people of Costa Rica have more than once shown that they were ready to compel respect for their will when their interests were at stake, but as a rule they are disposed to recognize any administration which controls the capital, regarding civil war, with its attendant destruction of crops and livestock, as a greater evil than submission to an illegal government. It is not strange, therefore, that a defeated faction should occasionally attempt to seize the barracks in San José by force or by strategy, or that the president should exact conditions from an opponent victorious in an election before turning over to him the command of the military forces. No candidate opposed by the government has ever obtained the presidency without either making a compromise with his predecessor or else overcoming the latter’s resistance by force, for even the freely elected presidents of the last decade have in every case had the approval, if not the active support, of the previous administration. The strength of the government, however, in reality rests far less upon the army than upon the disapproval of the people as a whole of any attempt to displace the constituted authorities in a disorderly manner, for the army itself is almost insignificant as a military force. There are a few troops in the barracks of the capital, but elsewhere order is maintained entirely by the civil police. It is a proud boast of the Costa Ricans that their government employs more school teachers than soldiers.

The President of the Republic has an almost absolute control over the machinery of the government. He not only appoints all administrative officers, but also in practice exercises a dominant influence over the deliberations of the Congress, where his ministers initiate the most important legislation. Even when his personal followers do not have a majority in the Chamber, he can usually command one by the use of patronage or of money from the treasury, which is often paid to the Deputies in the form of fees for professional services to the government. As party lines break down soon after an election, the minor political leaders who make up the legislative body are apt to be influenced less by hostility to the administration than by a desire to maintain their following in their own districts by securing public works for their towns and employment for their constituents. In times of emergency, moreover, the Congress itself frequently vests the President with practically absolute power, as it did when the country was passing through the economic crisis which followed the outbreak of the European war.

The Judicial Department, however, is far more nearly independent of the Executive. The Supreme Court, which is elected by the Congress every four years during the political slack season in the middle of the presidential term, appoints and removes all subordinate magistrates throughout the Republic. Politics enters very little into the composition of this body, partly because of the strong sentiment in favor of a non-partisan judiciary, and partly because party lines are almost non-existent at the time when the judges are chosen. The subordinate positions are also saved from the spoils system which rules in other departments of the government, although it is inevitable that purely personal considerations should enter to some extent into the appointments. The administration of justice is on the whole prompt and efficient, although the magistrates are not always distinguished for erudition or ability and those on the supreme bench sometimes show a human desire to make sure of their re-election as the time for this draws near, by keeping on good terms with the President and with the members of Congress. They are generally honest and impartial in their decisions, however, and their incorruptibility, with hardly any exceptions, is undoubted. That not only the people themselves but also the foreigners in the country have confidence in the courts is shown by the fact that there has been a conspicuous lack of the complaints of denial of justice which have complicated the relations of some other Latin American republics.

The local administration is highly centralized, but the people of each district enjoy a certain amount of local self-government through their municipalities. The representatives of the central government are the executive officers of these bodies,[28] and the Department of _Gobernación_ has a final veto over all their acts, but the _regidores_ are freely elected by the people of each town and village, and have very wide powers in matters of purely local interest. The lack of funds, however, arising from the fact that the municipalities have no source of revenue except certain license fees and fees for public services, forces them to leave to the central government many of the functions which are assigned to them by the constitution, and especially the support and direction of almost all the more costly public works, and at the same time makes them politically subservient to the President and the Congress, which can provide or withhold appropriations for local purposes. President Alfredo González attempted to make the local units truly autonomous, by authorizing them, in the fiscal legislation passed just before his fall, to levy direct taxes upon their inhabitants by adding a percentage to the national direct taxes.

The central government itself, thanks to a long period of internal peace and to the patriotism and ability of the men who have been at its head, has reached a high degree of efficiency and of usefulness to the community. Private rights are generally well protected, and the oppression of private citizens by the officials, while not unknown, is unusual. The security of persons and property is guaranteed by a well-organized police force, a fairly efficient judiciary, and an excellent land registry system. In spite of the difficulties presented by the mountainous character of the country and by six months of heavy rains every year, the Republic possesses a fair system of highways, although in this matter there is still room for improvement. The government-owned and operated railway from San José to the Pacific Coast compares favorably, at least in the service rendered, with those controlled by foreign corporations in other parts of Central America. There are sewers in the larger towns, and aqueducts supply healthful drinking water even in the small villages. The public health is also protected by a rigid quarantine service, by a veterinary service which inspects live cattle and meat, and by the regulation of contagious diseases and prostitution; and the government employs forty physicians in various parts of the country who treat the poor in their districts free of charge. Many of the public services, because of the lack of experience and training on the part of the officials, and because of the poverty of the government, are still in an unsatisfactory state, but they at least show an earnest desire on the part of the authorities to promote the welfare of the country.

During the last three years, remarkable progress has been made in improving sanitary conditions. The campaign against the hookworm, inaugurated in 1914 with the aid of the International Health Commission of the Rockefeller Foundation, already promises to effect an incalculable change in the condition of the country people, an immense number of whom suffer from this disease. The representative of the International Health Commission has been made the head of an official department under the Ministry of Police, and all local health officers and police officials have been placed under his orders to assist him in the examination and treatment of patients and the execution of sanitary measures designed to check further spread of the disease. At the same time, he has been made Director of the School Medical Corps, in which capacity he has done much to secure proper care for the health of the children and to improve hygienic conditions in the schools. With the earnest co-operation of the government, notable results have been obtained even in the short time which has elapsed since the work was begun. It is impossible to estimate what the final effect of work such as this will be, for the extinction of the hookworm alone, to say nothing of the other results of the campaign of medical education and sanitary improvement which has been undertaken, cannot but have a lasting effect on the happiness of the people and on their capacity for labor.

The field of activity in which the rulers of Costa Rica have perhaps shown the most interest has been that of education. Its school system gives the Republic one of its strongest claims to be ranked among the progressive communities of the world. The nation which a century ago was so illiterate that it was difficult to find enough men who could read and write to fill the public offices, now provides free and obligatory instruction for all of its citizens, with a primary school in every settlement where there are thirty children to attend it. In 1915, there were 1,108 teachers and 34,703 children in the public schools.[29] New buildings and equipment are being secured as fast as possible, and new courses of technical and agricultural training are being introduced everywhere. There are five institutions for the secondary education of both sexes, two in San José, and one each in Cartago, Heredia, and Alajuela, offering instruction similar to that given in American schools. These have somewhat over eight hundred students in all. The latter are chiefly from the middle classes in the towns, but the brighter children from the country schools are also encouraged and financially aided in continuing their education after they complete the primary course. A national normal school has recently been established in Heredia to provide teachers for the entire system. Besides the government institutions, there are schools of law, pharmacy, music, fine arts, textiles, agriculture, and domestic science, most of them in San José, which receive some aid from the treasury. How high the percentage of literacy is, is attested by the large circulation of newspapers in the country districts.

An examination of the work of the government shows that the men who control the destinies of the Republic, however regrettable their political methods sometimes are, do not seek power solely for their own profit. If there is a large amount of favoritism and graft in official circles, there is also much progressive spirit and true patriotism. Most of the government employees are appointed for political reasons, but they ordinarily perform their duties with as much energy and zeal as can be expected in tropical America. Public money is often misused, and improper considerations sometimes govern the letting of contracts, but public works are nevertheless well executed. Wholesale theft from the treasury, which is too often regarded with cynical indifference in other parts of the Isthmus, would not be tolerated by public opinion in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica’s freedom from internal disorder has enabled her to attain a prosperity which has entirely transformed the backward and poverty-stricken community of colonial days. In 1821, her people had almost no means of communication with the outside world. They produced nothing which they could export, and they were separated from either coast by several days of difficult and dangerous traveling. Commerce with the outside world, however, began soon after the declaration of independence with the development of the growing of coffee, which was exported for the first time in 1835.[30] The importance of this crop increased rapidly, especially after the construction of a cart road, which was completed in 1846, to the Pacific port of Puntarenas. The Costa Rica berry soon acquired and still holds a high reputation in the European markets.

The exporters at first encountered great difficulty and expense in shipping their product, which they had to send around Cape Horn, or later by the expensive route of the Panama Railway. The government, therefore, early endeavored to provide more adequate means of transportation. In 1871, work on a line from Puerto Limón on the Caribbean Sea to the capital was begun by Mr. Minor C. Keith. After difficulties which seemed almost insuperable had been overcome and thousands of lives had been sacrificed in the deadly lowlands of the East Coast, through train service to San José was finally opened in 1890, and the Republic found itself for the first time in direct communication with the United States and Europe. The railway, which still carries the greater part of the imports and exports, was leased in 1905 for a period of ninety-five years to the Northern Railway of Costa Rica, a concern owned by the United Fruit Company.

It was while building this road that Mr. Keith began to plant the banana farms which later developed into the enormous Caribbean properties of the United Fruit Company. Costa Rica still leads the Central American republics in the production of this fruit. Almost the entire East Coast has now been brought under cultivation, and English-speaking communities of Americans and Jamaica negroes have grown up everywhere along the railroad and its numerous branches. In spite of the ravages of the disease which has attacked the older plantations, more than eleven million bunches of bananas were exported from Limón and its tributary ports in 1913,[31]--a quantity the immensity of which can only be grasped when we realize that it would provide approximately a dozen bananas for every man, woman, and child in the United States. The Fruit Company is of course very powerful in this region, where even the police duties of the central government are to a great extent exercised through its agents. In the interior, the “United” has less influence. It has many friends as well as enemies among the party leaders, and it has not encountered so intense a spirit of jealousy and hostility towards foreign enterprises as is found in certain of the other republics; but whatever efforts it has made to influence the outcome of presidential and congressional elections, in order to be in a more advantageous position to ask concessions from the government, have usually been conspicuously unsuccessful.

In addition to the Northern Railway, the Republic has another line, owned and operated by the government, from San José to Puntarenas on the Pacific Coast. This also was commenced during the administration of General Guardia, but it was not completed until 1910. Being shorter and on the whole less expensive to operate than the Atlantic road, it should eventually become a formidable competitor of the latter when adequate transportation is provided by way of the Panama Canal.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, when the price of coffee in the world’s markets was high, the Republic enjoyed an era of great prosperity. The wealthier families were able to travel and to study abroad as they had never done before, and both society and the government entered on a period of extravagance, of which the magnificent national theater in San José is an enduring memorial. When the coffee prices fell, there was a reaction which checked the development of the country’s natural resources. The area under cultivation in the interior has now remained practically the same for many years, and the exports of coffee, which have declined in value, have increased little or not at all in quantity.[32] During this time, many of the more prominent native families have become impoverished, and the upper classes as a whole have hardly shown either the energy or the adaptability necessary to maintain their political and economic leadership under modern conditions. They devote themselves to politics and to the learned professions, but there are now comparatively few of the wealthy landholders who form the most influential class in the other Central American republics.

Banking, commerce, and mining are almost entirely in the hands of foreigners, although the majority of the coffee plantations are still owned by citizens of the country. These immigrants have identified themselves more completely with the community than in any of the other republics, often intermarrying with the natives and taking a prominent

## part in local affairs. San José, although not so large or so wealthy as

Guatemala or San Salvador, is more like a European city than any other capital in the Isthmus.

The industrious, sturdily independent peasant class in the country districts has been little affected by the changes which have taken place in the cities. Throughout the _meseta central_ there are countless small farms, which not only supply their owners with corn, beans, and sugar cane for food, but at the same time frequently produce a small amount of coffee, which is sold to the proprietors of the large cleaning mills to be prepared for export. The farmers not only cultivate their own properties, but also work for several days in each week on the larger plantations. As wages are fairly high, they thus have a money income which enables them to live far better than their brothers in the neighboring countries. Most of them can read and write, and they are able to give their children educational advantages little inferior to those enjoyed by country people in any other part of the world. During the last few years, as we have seen, they have even acquired a not inconsiderable political power, which will become more important as they become more experienced in its use. It is these small landholders who have made Costa Rica what she is today, and who offer the strongest guarantee for her future.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] See L. Fernández, _Historia de Costa Rica durante la Dominación Española_.

[24] Quoted by Fernández, _op. cit._ p. 316.

[25] Costa Rica, _Colección de Leyes_, VI, 133; IX, 453.

[26] For these figures, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Manuel Aragón, formerly director of the Costa Rican statistical office.

[27] In the election of 1913, 64,056 votes were cast. The total population in that year was estimated at 410,981.

[28] In this Costa Rica differs from the other republics, where the _alcalde_ and the local representative of the central government are two distinct persons, theoretically independent of one another.

[29] Costa Rica, _Anuario Estadístico_, 1915.

[30] Bancroft, _History of Central America_, Vol. III, p. 653.

[31] Costa Rica, _Anuario Estadístico_, 1913, p. xxxvii.

[32] The annual exports of coffee averaged 13,478,941 kilos, valued at 8,835,726 colones for the ten years 1891-1900; and 14,478,605 kilos, valued at 6,709,767 colones for the ten years 1901-1910. (Costa Rica, _Resúmenes Estadísticos_, 1883-1910.)

The exportations in the years 1912-1915, according to the _Anuario Estadístico_ for 1913 and for 1915, were as follows:

Value in Year. Kilos. colones. 1912 12,237,875 7,623,561 1913 13,019,059 7,752,750 1914 17,717,068 10,028,731 1915 12,206,357 8,022,166

It should be noted that the value of the colon in 1915, and during a part of 1914, was approximately 20 per cent less than under normal conditions.

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