AMAZON

the economic vicissitudes through which the amazon basin passed in the period 1910-26 are trace- able largely to changes in the rubber industry. although crude rubber was sent from the amazon as early as 1827, several decades passed before the annual exportation attained commer- cial importance. with the remarkable increase in the demand for rubber, prices rose, and gatherers in the forests were sent - further afield. . about 1910-1 prices reached their highest point, yearly exportations amounted to thousands of tons and numerous river craft plied on the amazon and its tributaries. the inhabi- tants of the valley were almost exclusively engaged in rubber exploitation. the growing of foods was largely abandoned, even necessary commodities being imported. about this period, however, plantation rubber trees of the east indies were com- ing into bearing and the result was a collapse by rors of the one great industry of the region. at this juncture the world war reduced shipping available for trade in the amazon; the scar- city of imported foodstuffs necessitated a rapid change in the occupation of the inhabitants, who reverted to fishing and the growing of such crops as sugar-cane, manioc, corn, tobacco, cot- ton and nuts. expeditions.—during the period 1910-26 there were numer- ous expeditions, exploratory and scientific, into regions watered by the amazon and its tributaries. the most notable was that made by roosevelt and rondon (1913-4) down the rio duvida (river of doubt), most of which had never been visited. the journey lasted two months and covered a distance of 470 miles. the river proved to be a branch of the madeira, 910 m. in length, joining the main stream in lat. 5° 21’ south. other expeditions were the fleming expedition (1919), which stuclied the industrial possibilities of the region; and the rice expedition (1924), which made valuable scientific observations, taking many aerial photographs. the carnegie museum also sent an expedition for the study of fishes; the ellsworth, the farabee, the fawcett and other parties obtained geographic, geological and ethnologi- cal data. the rusby party and other specialists investigated flora. probably the most important commercial investigations in amazonia were those undertaken in 1923-4 by the american rubber mission financed by the u.s. government. its leader, dr. w. l. schurz, was assisted by specialists from the depts. of commerce and agriculture, and from the business world, and by experts from brazil, bolivia and peru. this party inves- tigated the regions of the rivers tocantins, xingu, tapajoz, madeira, mamore, beni, madre de dios, acre, purus, ucayali, huallaga, negro and branco, conducting a survey along a total of 37 watercourses. special partics penetrated inland and ex- amined soils and agricultural possibilities, particularly with a view to the production of rubber and sugar-cane. trading spheres-—exporters and importers recognise three trading spheres; the regions, respectively, of para (or belem), manaos and iquitos. numerous european and american steamships call at para; some proceed to manaos, while others go up the river to iquitos. motor-cars are numerous in para and manaos, and are being introduced into regions such as cobija in bolivia and other primitive scttlements. electric-light plants are in operation in larger cities and in obidos, porto velho, riberalta, cobija, alemquer, etc. river steamers are also thus equipped. the mamore-madeira railroad, 220 m. around madeira falls, opened in 1912, provides access to additional virgin territory. land telegraph and radio services operate be- tween the several cities of the region and many smaller places, thereby lessening their isolation. iestimates place the population of the amazon basin at about 1,500,000, all but 200,000 being credited to brazil. the city of para has 180,c0o0o; manaos, 40,000; iquitos, 8,000; santarem, 5,000; obidos, 3,000. it is estimated that in the amazon basin 103 about 30,000 labourers might be recruited for agricultural or other purposes. considerable quantities of rubber, brazil nuts, fish and other products were being exported in 1925. the region’s imports were on the increase. (w. a. r.) ambassadors, conference of.—the term has becn used in times past to denote the sessions or reunions of ambassadors at a certain centre, generally for the period of the execution of a treaty. the best example of this is the ambassadors’ confer- ence which sat at paris and vienna from 1815-22. it consisted of the ambassadors at paris of great britain, russia, prussia and austria. it was concerned with the execution of the treaty of vienna and cognate instruments, but naturally tended to in- terfere with other matters as well. but a strict limitation of its function to the treaty of vienna was insisted upon by welling- ton as allied commander-in-chief in france and by castlereagh, the british foreign minister. on canning’s accession to power (sept. 1822), this principle was so strictly observed as practically to withdraw england from the conferences altogether. the whole arrangement came to an end in 1826, after a period of eleven years. somewhat similar has been the experience of the ambassadors’ conference between the years 1920 and 1925. with the coming into force of the treaty of versailles (jan. 10 1920), the am- bassadors’ conference at paris became one of the organs con- cerned with the execution of the treaty. another permanent one was the league of nations (¢.v.): a third, which was not permanent, but frequently superseded the ambassadors’ con- ference, was the supreme council. none the less the conference had considerable powers. it met every week at paris and dis- cussed the execution, first of the versailles treaty, and then of all the others. it consisted of the representatives of great britain, france, italy and japan, with the american ambassa- dor attending in the capacity of a spectator after 1921. many of the technical decisions under the treaties were actually taken by the ambassadors, and in a large number of cases important interpretations were given. on the whole the ambassadors’ conference tended to the advantage of france, for the full technical staff of her foreign office was available for every question, while the other powers were generally represented only by their ordinary embassy staffs. it is difficult to give details of their activities when so much mystery obtained concerning them. on the larger aspects of reparations they were not influential. the german aspects were always withdrawn from them while mr. lloyd george was prime minister, and, after his fall, the same policy was continued by his two successors. similarly the settlement of austrian and hungarian reparations, though discussed in the ambassadors’ conference, was decided by the league of nations. on the other hand their decisions were sometimes final on questions of frontiers. in the case of albania, a frontiers commission was appointed at paris, and had thrashed out the question before the matter was transferred in sept. 1921 to the league, which finally settled it in nov. of that year. but, except in the case of memel and the plebiscite areas, the complicated frontiers of poland, left unsettled by the peace conference, were decided by the ambassadors. they also reorganised the frontiers established between poland and russia by the agreement of riga. the most important function performed by the ambassadors’ conference was undoubtedly in oct. 1921, when the ex-emperor karl for the second time returned to hungary with the view of regaining his crown. the “ little entente”’ (czechoslovakia, yugoslavia and rumania) threatened very strong measures against hungary. but, largely as a result of the ambassadors’ intervention, karl was arrested (oct. 24), and a law was passed by the hungarian parliament which abrogated his sovereign rights (nov. 3). the ambassadors’ conference thus averted a dangerous crisis, and was held to have proved its value. its action in 1923, in connection with the corfu incident, brought the conference into some discredit, and produced con- siderable discussion as to the desirability of limiting its powers. shortly after he became prime minister, mr. ramsay macdonald 104 announced that its powers would be limited to the execu- tion of the versailles treaty, and this policy seems in effect to have been continued. much of its executive work has ceased since disarmament has been achieved in all ex-enemy countries, and since practically all financial matters have been transferred to other authorities. the greater weight in the authority of the council of the league, marked by the presence of british and french prime ministers in 1924, and of great britain’s foreign minister and france’s premier in 1925, would appear to be a sign of the de- cline of the ambassadors’ conference. it is significant that the greco-bulgar frontier dispute, which arose in oct. 1925, was referred not to the ambassadors’ conference, but to the council of the league, at paris. (see supreme council.) binliography.—h. w. v. temperley, /zistory of peace confer- ence (1924); a. j. toynbee, survey of international affairs, 1920-23 (1925). ci. we ve amendola, giovanni (1882-10926), italian politician and journalist, was born at naples april 15 1882. he entered jour- nalism at the age of 18, and eventually became rome corre- spondent of the milan corriere della sera, which he left in 1921 to found a paper of his own, z/ mondo. in 1org he was elected deputy for sarno in the province of salerno and re-elected in 1921 and 1924. after the war he devoted himself entirely to politics as a democratic liberal and a supporter of nitti. on nitti’s fall, june g 1920, he joined the opposition to giolitti, and became minister for the colonics, first under bonomi, then under facta. he opposed fascism from the first, and after mussolini’s advent to power he became in some sense the leader of the heterogeneous opposition groups. after the matteotti crime he was the leader of those who withdrew from the chamber to the aventine (see iraty). his devotion to constitutional principles led him during the election campaign of 1924 to declare the electoral law enacted by the fascist govt. to be unconstitu- tional and therefore null and void. ‘though generally re- spected for his honesty, he did not show the qualities necessary for a great political leader. his two publications una battaglia liberale (1924) and la democrazia dopo il 16 aprile 1924 (1924) made known his political faith. his death in hospital at cannes april 6 1926, was thought to be the result of the two attacks on his life on dec. 26 1923 in rome, and in aug. 1925, while on holiday at montecatini. americanism, a term first used by john witherspoon, president of princeton university, in 1781, designates (a) any word or combination of words which taken into the english language in the united states, has not gained acceptance in england, or, if accepted, has retained its sense of foreignness; and (b) any word or combination of words which, becoming archaic in england, has continued in good usage in the united states. the first class is the larger and has the longer history. the earliest settlers in virginia and new england, confronted by plants and animals that were unfamiliar to them, either bor- rowed the indian names or invented names of their own. examples are afforded by raccoon (1608), chinkapin (1608), opossum (1610) and squash (1642) among indian words and by bull-frog, canvas-back, cat-bird and live-oak among inventions. the former tended to take anglicised forms. thus the indian isquontersquash (at least, that 1s how the early chroniclers re- corded it) became squantersquash and was then reduced to squash, and oichock became woodchuck. many other words came in as the pioneers gained familiarity with the indian life. such words as hominy, mtoccastn, pone, taproca and succotash remain everyday americanisms. the archaisms, of course, showed themselves more slowly. they had to go out of use in england before their survival in america was noticeable. but by the beginning of the 18th cen- tury there was already a considerable body of them, and all through that century they increased. the english language in great britain, chiefly under the influence of pedantry in the age of anne, was changing rapidly, but in america it was holding to its old forms. there was very little fresh emigration to the colonies, and their own people seldom visited england. thus | amendola—americanism by the end of the century “ i guess ” was already an american- ism, though it had been in almost universal use in england in shakespeare’s day. so, too, with many other verbs: fo wilt, to whittle, to fellowship and to approbaie. and with not a few ad- jectives: burly, caity-corncred, likely and clever (in the sense of amiable). and with multitudes of nouns: cesspool, greenhorn, cordwood, jeans, flap-jack, bay-window, swingle-tree, muss (in the sense of a row), stock (for cattle) and fal/ (for autumn). meanwhile, american english had begun to borrow words, chietly nouns, from the non-english settlers, and to develop many new words of its own. to the former class the dutch con- tributed cruller, cold-slaw, cockey, scow, boss, smearcase and santa claus, and the french contributed gopher, prairie, chowder, ° carry-all and bureau (a chest of drawers). other contributions came from the germans of pennsylvania, the spaniards of the southwest, and negro slaves. the native coinages were large in number, and full of boldness and novelty. to this period belong, for example, backwoods, hoe-cake, pop-corn, land-slide, shell-road, half-breed, hired-girl, spelling-bee, moss-back, crazy-quilt, stam p- ing-ground and cat-boat. these words were all made of the com- mon materials of english, but there was something in them that was redolent of a pioneer people and a new world. in their coinage the elegances were disdained; the thing aimed at was simply vividness. at the same time, verbs were made out of nouns, nouns out of verbs and adjectives out of both. in 1789 benjamin franklin, who had lived in england, de- nounced fe advocate, to progress and to oppose as barbarisms, but all of them are good american to-day, and even good english. noah webster, the lexicographer, gave his imprimatur to fo appreciate (in value); to eventuafe was popularised by gouverneur morris; and no less a hero than washington is said to have launched to deramge. many inventions of that daring era have succumbed to pedagogical criticism, e.g., fo happify, to com- promi and to homeologise. but others equally harsh have gradu- ally gained acceptance, e.g., to placate and te deputise. and with them have come in a vast number of characteristic american nouns, ¢.g., breadstuffs, milcage, balance (in the sense of remainder) and elevator (a place for storing grain). divergent meanings of words.—it was during the same period that a number of important words, in daily use, began to show different meanings in england and america. some familiar examples are store, rock, lumber and corn. what englishmen call a shop was called a store by americans as early as 1770, and long before that time corn, in american, had come to signify, not grains in general, but only maize. the use of rock to desig- nate any stone, however small, goes back still further, and so does the use of /usber for timbcr. many of these differences were produced by changes in english usage. thus cracker, in england, once meant precisely what it now means in the united states. when the english abandoned it for bisci7t the americans stuck to cracker, and used biscuif to designate something else. how shoe came to be substituted in america for the english beot has yet to be determined. there is indeed much that remains obscure in the early history of such americanisms. until very lately, american philologians kept aloof from the subject, which they apparently regarded as low. until george p. krapp, of colum- bia university, took it up, there was not even any serious inves- tigation of the history of american pronunciation. thus the american dialect of english was firmly established by the time the republic was well started, and in the half-century following it departed more and more from standard english. the settlement of the west, by taking large numbers of young men beyond the pale of urbane society, made for grotesque looseness in speech. neologisms of the most extravagant sorts arose by the thousand, and many of them worked their way back to the east. during the two decades before the civil war everyday american became almost unintelligible to an english- man; every english visitor marked and denounced its vagaries. it was bold and lawless in its vocabulary, careless of grammatical niceties, and further disfigured by a drawling manner of speech. the congressional debates of the time were full of its phrases; soon they were to show themselves in the national literature. american legion—american literature policing the language.—after the civil war there was an increase of national self-consciousness, and efforts were made to police the language. [free schools multiplicd in the land, and the schoolmarm revealed all her 1mmemorial preciosity. a clan of professional grammarians arose, led by richard grant white; it got help from certain of the literati, including lowell. the campaign went to great lengths. “jt is me” was banned as barbarous, though it is perfectly sound historically; eye-ther was substituted in polite usage for ee-ther, though the latter is correct and the former is on the part of an american an absurd affectation. but the spirit of the language, and of the amcrican people no less, was against such reforms. they were attacked on philologi- cal grounds by such iconoclasts as thomas r. lounsbury; they were reduced to vanity by the unconquerable speech habits of the folk. under the very noses of the purists a new and vigorous american slang came into being, and simultaneously the com- mon speech began to run amok. that common speech is to-day almost lawless. as ring lardner reports it—and he reports it very accurately—it seems destined in a few generations to dis- pose altogether of the few inflections that remain in english. ‘ me and her woulda went ” will never, perhaps, force its way into the grammar-books, but it is used daily, or something like it, by a large part of the people of the united states, and the rest know precisely what it means. on higher levels the language of the americans is more de- corous, but even there it is a genuinely living speech, taking in loan-words with vast hospitality and incessantly manufacturing neologisms of its own. the argot of sport enriches it almost daily. it runs to brilliantly vivid tropes. it is disdainful of grammatical pruderies. in the face of a new situation the american shows a far greater linguistic resourcefulness and daring than the eng- lishman. afovie is obviously better than cinema, just as cow- caicher is better than plough and job-holder is better than public- servant, the english seldom devise anything as pungent as rubber-neck, ticket-scalper, lame-duck, pork-barrel, boot-legger or steam-rolley (in its political sense). such exhilarating novelties are produced in the united states every day, and large numbers of them come into universal use, and gradually take on literary dignity. they are opposed violently, but they prevail. the visiting englishman finds them very difficult. they puzzle him even more than do american peculiarities of pronunciation. of late the increase of travel and other inter-communication between england and america has tended to halt the differen- tiation of the two dialects. it was more marked, perhaps, before the world war than since. but if it ever vanishes altogether the fact will mark a victory for american. the american cinema floods england (and the rest of the english-speaking world) with american neologisms, but there is very little movement in the other direction. thus the tail begins to wag the dog. how far the change has gone may be observed in australia. there a cockneyfied pronunciation holds out, but the american vocabu- lary is increasingly triumphant. in canada it long ago overcame the last vestiges of opposition. bibliiograpiy.—there is no satisfactory dictionary of american- isms. the best is richard h. thornton’s american glossary (1912), but it is based wholly on written records and is thus incomplete. george philip krapp’s the english language in america (1925) 1s valuable to the student of american pronunciation, and contains much miscellaneous matter of interest, but there are gaps in it, and the author opposes his own evidence by arguing that english and american show few important differences. an extensive bibliography is in hf. l. mencken’s the amertcan language, 3rd ed. (1923). in 1925 dr. louise pound, of the university of nebraska, began the publication of a monthly, american speech (baltimore). ces ae american legion.—an organisation of world war vet- erans who served honourably in the armed forces of the united states or who, as american citizens, entered the armed forces of a government associated with the united states in the war. organisation was effected at a series of meetings held at paris, france, march 15-7 1919; at st. louis, mo., may 8-10 1919; and at minneapolis, minn., nov. 10-12 1919. a national charter was granted by act of congress, sept. 16 1919. 105 the membership attained its maximum (750,799) in 1021, standing at 609,107 in 1925. the legion maintains a national headquarters at indianapolis, ind., and publishes the american legton weekly, its official organ. its activities have been directed effectively toward the passage of the national defence act (1920), the creation of the u.s. veterans’ bureau (1921), the appropriation of government funds for the care of disabled veterans (total 1920-4, $2,044,044, 169), and the passage of bonus bills both by the federal and state governments in favour of those who served in the world war. a programme for the aid of war orphans was devised in 1923; and in 1925, with the aid of the public, a fund of about $5,000,000 was raised to endow per- manently the legion’s child welfare and rehabilitation work. the legion also initiated the preparation of a code of national flag etiquette. see annual reports to congress; m. james, a [istory of the american lesion (1923); e. putnam, “the american legion—a brief outline of its history and accomplishments’ (1923) and ‘“ the american legion,” in annual report of the american iistorical association, vol. 2; ibid., vol. i, p. 199 seg.