364 SELLING LATIN AMERICA 
large sums in practically all of our sister re„- 
publics. .With each step in this direction we 
as a nation, and also our manufacturers and 
merchants, become more firmly entrenched in 
the Latin American commercial world, and 
our mercantile supremacy in these lands is 
more positively assured. 
As a typical illustration, of what can be done 
in these countries when the subject is handled 
intelligently let me mention the case of the 
United Fruit Company, which operates in 
Colombia, Cuba, and practically all of Cen 
tral America. Starting in 187a with a small 
beginning, this organization is now one of 
the most solid to be found anywhere in the 
world. In Costa Rica alone they have in 
vested over $19,000,000 in bananas, while 
enormous sums are also being expended in 
other countries in sugar, coffee, cocoa, cocoa- 
nuts, the development of mines and the building 
of railroads and hotels. In fact the prosperity 
of all these nations is directly due to the 
presence of this great organization, which 
finds a market for its products in Europe