world which
affect the working out of your problem. One is that through the
comparative infrequency of war, of pestilence, of famine, through the
increased sanitation of the world, the decrease of infant mortality by
reason of better sanitation, the population of the world is increasing.
Those causes which reduced population are being removed and the pressure
of population is sending out wave after wave of men for the peopling of
the vacant lands of the earth. Another change is, that through the
wonderful activity of invention and discovery and organizing capacity
during our lifetime, the power of mankind to produce wealth has been
immensely increased. One man today, with machinery, with steam, with
electricity, with all the myriads of appliances that invention and
discovery have created, can produce more wealth, more of the things that
mankind desires, than twenty men could have produced years ago; and the
result is that vast accumulations of capital are massing in the world,
ready to be poured out for the building up of the vacant places of the
earth. For the utilization of these two great forces, men and money, you
in Argentina have the opportunity of incalculable potential wealth, and
you have the formative power in the spirit and the brain of your people.

I went today to one of your great flour mills and to one of your great
refrigerating plants. I viewed the myriad industries that surround the
harbor, the forests of masts, the thronged steamers. I was interested
and amazed. It far exceeded my imagination and suggested an analogy to
an incident in my past life. It was my fortune in the year when the war
broke out between Prussia and France, to be travelling in Germany.
Immediately upon the announcement of the war, maps of the seat of war
were printed and posted in every shop window. The maps were maps of
Germany, with a little stretch of France. Within a fortnight the armies
had marched off the map. It seems to be so with Argentina. I have read
books about Argentina. I have read magazine and newspaper articles; but
within the last five years you have marched off the map. The books and
magazines are all out of date. What you have done since they were
written is much more than had been done before. They are no guide to the
country. Nevertheless, with all your vast material activity, it seems to
me that the most wonderful and interesting thing to be found here is the
laboratory of life, where you are mixing the elemen