Continuing my work my research on the Pan American Union

The Bulletin of the Pan American Union also took time to document educational exchanges between the United States and Latin America. The Bulletin announced in its September 1907 edition the establishment of an essay contest. Any law student form North or South America could submit an essay comparing the legal systems of the United States and a Latin American Country. The hope was to increase understanding or awareness of legal systems across the Americas. The reward for winning the essay contest was $1000 dollars which accounting for inflation and increases in consumer purchasing power would be $25,600 as measured by MeasuringWorth.com. This is a significant sum of money for winning an essay contest.

               The Bulletin also includes speeches given by prominent scholars on Latin America. One such speech was given by scholar Dr. Hiram Bingham Yale University who advocated for a greater scholarly interest in Latin American to make their friendship with the United States permanent. Furthermore, he advocates that more Latin American archives be moved to the United States for study and protection. The implication of course being that Latin Americans don’t realize the value of their own history or preserving it. Dr. Bingham is advocating a more solid friendship between the US and Latin America, but in his mind the United States is leader of that friendship.