This article presents a comparative analysis of the Oliveira Lima and José Enrique Rodó"s first works about the United States and the possibility of using them as a model for a Latin American civil order. We argue that they intended to determine the values with which could be selected new elites to fight against the caudillos but the sharp disagreement between them on the sources of legitimacy of those elites made opposite their respective evaluations on the North American society.
Oliveira Lima; José Enrique Rodo; American identity