Justice for Chaco
Sirs:
In your issue of June 24 you publish an article under the caption "Peace without Victory." Many of the statements in this article are so grossly inaccurate that they cannot go unchallenged.
You say that "the Gran Chaco is rated as a 'green hell' by romantic Author-Explorer Julian Duguid." This popular conception of the Chaco undoubtedly has been created by Duguid's Green Hell. The truth, however, is that Duguid's Green Hell is not the Chaco. He has never been in the Chaco proper and consequently any conclusions derived from a reading of his book are very misleading if they are applied to the Chaco Boreal.
The Chaco, with an area of 297,938 square kilometers and possessing richness and illimitable possibilities, with a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants, is, today, little known. The most flourishing industrial establishments of the Republic: the great cattle ranches and agricultural colonies; the more than 500 kilometers of railroad bear witness to the civilizing capacity of Paraguay in the Chaco. That the Chaco is not the "green hell" of popular imagination may be easily realized by a consideration of the principal centres of civilization within its borders. Among these are:
1) Villa Hayes.* Centre of an agricultural population of more than 10,000. Here is established a sugar refinery with a capital of 300,000 gold pesos.
2) Puerto Emiliano, with 30,000 head of cattle.
3) Puerto Cooper, an estancia belonging to the English-Argentina Cattle Co., with a population of more than 7,000 and representing an investment of two million gold pesos.
4) Puerto Pinasco, Property of the International Products Co. (an American concern), with a capital of more than 4,000,000 gold pesos and employing 2,300 workers.
5) Puerto Casado. 3,000 inhabitants. A railroad connects the forest with the port. The estimated capital invested in Puerto Casado exceeds six million gold pesos. In the estancias there are 80,000 head of cattle. . . .
6) Puerto Sastre. Population 5,000, with an investment of 2,000,000 gold pesos in the tannin and cattle industries.
This list can be considerably extended. At the present time there are more than 2,000,000 head of cattle in the Chaco. Recent statistics indicate that approximately 200,000,000 gold pesos are invested in the Chaco of which about 17,000,000 represent foreign investments. It is affirmed that within the next ten years the Chaco will provide all the wheat necessary for Paraguay and leave a surplus for exportation. The Mennonite colony of 6,000 souls has been established for more than ten years in the Chaco and is one of the most prosperous in the world. The cotton of the Chaco has received the highest recognition for quality, and during six months of 1934 the Mennonite colony alone exported 300,000 kilograms of cotton. Do these facts bear out your statement that Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over a worthless pestilential land? So much for the "green hell."