In the mountains of Guatemala and along the rivers of Honduras the long trains rolled again. Bananas were coming back. The green fruit, lovingly bedded on banana leaves, was headed for the hatches of United Fruit ships, and ultimately for U.S. breakfast tables. Last week some 100,000,000 bananas arrived in the U.S.
War had sorely bruised Central America's banana trade. In 1943 it shrank to less than a shriveled fifth of prewar normal. While the banana liners were diverted to more pressing runs, the golden fruit was left to rot where it grew. United Fruit, first lord of the banana empire, maintained its dividends mainly through revenue from ships and Cuban sugar estates. In Central America, United helped make up for U.S. losses of Manila hemp (and incidentally kept Central Americans employed) by cultivating needed abacá.
War over, republics like Honduras, four-fifths of whose business was in bananas, were eager for normalcy. The $190,000,000 United Fruit Co., with an annual budget bigger than that of any Central American country, had a stake at least as big. But wartime had brought changes.
The trend was now away from the steaming Caribbean coast to the drier country on the Pacific side and to new areas in the Dominican Republic. Symbolizing the changing course of banana empire, United Fruit's "Great White Fleet" would operate on a large scale for the first time in the Pacific. There, presumably, it would continue to accommodate passengers in the spirit of the Great White Fleet's unofficial motto: "Every banana a guest, every passenger a pest."
Democratic Blowdowns. The war years changed the political climate. Democratic gusts blew down the Ubico dictatorship in Guatemala, today whistle ominously through the pinetops of Carías' Honduras. In the roaring times when it was never clear which went first, the U.S. flag or the U.S. dollar, to old banana hands such winds would have signaled hurricane warnings. For politically minded United Fruit was deeply involved in Dictators Ubico's and Carías' rise to power. But wily Sam Zemurray, United's big boss, radar-keen in detecting a gale, had fore-handedly trimmed sail. Now a United Fruit executive in Central America can hardly take a drink in the presence of a Honduran political exile without cursing the Carías tyranny. Says old (69) Sam Zemurray: "These are democratic times."
Long ago Sam Zemurray decided that the banana business must cease ignoring public opinion in the tiny lands where it operated. Well aware of the hatred of Central Americans not lucky enough to share its prosperity, he tempered the irresponsible tactics that had served well enough in the freebooting days of dollar diplomacy. Ten years ago there was not a school in the outlying banana farms; today, United Fruit provides free schooling (and milk enough to please Henry Wallace) for every worker's child. Its hospitals, open to all, are the tropics' best.