Zone is on a
par with that in other U. S. possessions. Of the seven of us assigned
to plain-clothes duty on this strip of seventy-two nationalities there
was a Colombian, a gentleman of Swedish birth, a Chinaman from
Martinique, and a Greek, all of whom spoke English, Spanish, and at
least one other language. Of the three native Americans two spoke only
their mother tongue. In the entire white uniformed force I met only
Lieutenant Long and the Corporal in charge of Miraflores who could
seriously be said to speak Spanish, though I am informed there were one
or two others.

This was not for a moment any fault of the Z. P. It comes back to our
government and beyond that to the American people. With all our
expanding over the surface of the earth in the past fourteen years
there still hangs over us that old provincial back-woods bogie,
"English is good enough for me." We have only to recall what England
does for those of her colonial servants who want seriously to study the
language of some portion of her subjects to have something very like
the blush of shame creep up the back of our necks. Child's task as is
the learning of a foreign language, provincial old Uncle Sam just
flat-foots along in the same old way, expecting to govern and judge and
lead along the path of civilization his foreign colonies by bellowing
at them in his own nasal drawl and treating their tongue as if it were
some purely animal sound. He is well personified by Corporal ----, late
of the Z. P. The Corporal had served three years in the Philippines and
five on the Zone, and could not ask for bread in the Spanish tongue.
"Why don't you learn it?" some one asked one day.

"Awe," drawled the Corporal, "what's the use o' goin' t' all that
trouble? If you have t' have any interpretin' done all you got t' do is
t' call in a nigger."

Uncle Sam not merely lends his servants no assistance to learn the
tongues of his colonies, but should one of his subjects appear bearing
that extraordinary accomplishment he gives him no preference whatever,
no better position, not a copper cent more salary; and if things get to
a pass where a linguist must be hired he gives the job to the first
citizen that comes along who can make a noise that is evidently not
English, or more likely still to some foreigner who talks English like
a mouthful of Hungarian goulash. It is not the least of the reasons why
foreign nations do not take us as seriously as they ought, why our
col