8 SELLING LATIN AMERICA 
ing after this trade which all of Europe 
strained every resource to acquire and control. 
It was urged that we had all the business we 
required; that we lacked foreign banking 
facilities; that our merchant marine was small 
and inefficient; that to go abroad for trade 
meant learning new languages, acquiring new 
customs, opening new accounts, taking more 
risks. These conditions were equally true 
when the European merchant decided to enter 
this field. He met and overcame all these 
difficulties under far more adverse circum 
stances than exist for us, to-day. His expe 
rience in this territory has charted the path 
for us to follow, and if we take advantage of 
the beacons he has erected we shall be saved 
from many pitfalls. 
Latin America with the things the world 
most requires—wheat, meat, wool, coffee, 
sugar, nitrates, minerals, woods—can never 
collapse completely through any financial 
crisis. Furthermore its power of reviving 
quickly from any unfavorable panic is truly 
phenomenal. I recall Venezuela, the year she