“Si, senor,” replied the Spaniard.

By which it may be gathered that linguistic ability on the 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 colonials do not love us and, what is of far greater importance, do not advance under our rule as they should.

Meanwhile there had gradually been reaching me “through the proper channels,” as everything does on the Zone even to our ice-water, the various coupon-books and the like indispensable to Zone life and the proper pursuit of plain-clothes duty.  Distressing as are statistics the full comprehension of what might follow requires the enumeration of the odds and ends I was soon carrying about with me.