Crítica
- At Last the Englishman Cleary Has Spoken
- Politics and Crime
- THE POLICE NOW SPRING INTO GREAT ACTIVITY
Crítica's front page of 1 October 1926 kept the Vicente López murder of Dr. Ray at the centre. A reporter described finally breaking down the reluctance of Mr. Cleary, an Englishman whose servant Angela Villalba had made statements in the case, and quoted him saying that his Argentine-born wife had been raised in England, kept Saxon customs and spoke Spanish only enough to deal with the household staff. An editorial accused a rival paper that preached journalistic restraint of seeing the case chiefly as material for the next elections and of printing in full the account of María Poey's life taken from the case file. A news column described detectives from the capital and the province converging on Commissioner Santiago's office, where he told reporters that the police were hunting the thieves.
Partial reading of three front-page fragments. The OCR merges unrelated columns, and all three excerpts begin and end mid-sentence where column or image boundaries cut them off; '[?]' and '…' mark these breaks. The words 'DESPLIEGA LA' at the end of the editorial fragment are the start of the next headline, which appears in full as the third excerpt, and are not repeated in that translation. A fold damages the upper-left masthead area. The readable text of 'La política y el crimen' does not name the newspaper it attacks. No missing text has been reconstructed.
Translation
At Last the Englishman Cleary Has Spoken
[?] …offices in this city. His resistance to being interviewed is almost unbreakable; we first had to impress upon him the full, enormous significance and gravity of the problem created by the statements of his servant Angela Villalba, who likewise does not wish to deal with journalists. Finally, he shows us into the dining room, located on the ground floor of the chalet. A sober dining room, like Mr. Cleary himself, who told us in our interview:
"My wife, although Argentine, was raised in England from a very early age. She therefore keeps all the Saxon customs, so much so that she speaks Spanish only as much as is indispensable to make herself understood by the household staff." [?]
Politics and Crime
…should be jailed. That a woman, a product of her social milieu and her upbringing, should be held responsible for crimes committed by others did not trouble it. "The matter can be exploited for the next elections" is the only reflection it made.
In this way, the newspaper that spends its life talking about journalistic austerity and raising indignant protests against "the exploitation of the police story" has had no qualms about setting an example for everyone by publishing in full, letter by letter and before anyone else, the scandalous and pornographic account of María Poey's life recorded in the case file and destined to satisfy the filthiest curiosity of the worst public. …
THE POLICE NOW SPRING INTO GREAT ACTIVITY
…are to be sought among the criminals."
"THEY ARE BURGLARS ('SCRUCHANTES')"
Throughout the morning, extraordinary activity was observed today in the offices of the Investigations Division. Detectives from the capital and from the province kept arriving and conferring with Commissioner Santiago, the axis around which all activity in this investigation revolves.
Deputy Commissioner Mancho, of the province, who, as we have reported at length, has played a prominent part in this matter, went to Mr. Santiago's office in the early hours of the morning, had a long meeting with him and briefed him on the progress of his inquiries.
Santiago Speaks
Once again this morning, reporters besieged Commissioner Santiago with questions.
"We are working actively," he says, "to find the thieves and …"
Context
Why a neighbour's maid made Mr. Cleary newsworthy
The Cleary interview makes sense against the state of the case at the end of September 1926. Carlos Ray, a doctor and municipal councillor, had been shot in his Vicente López house on 10 September; his companion María Poey said two masked men had fired and fled. Later accounts of the case record that Ángela Villalba, the maid of the neighbouring house, said she had seen two men escaping while Poey shouted from the window, but that her employer had told her to say nothing so as not to get involved. The page identifies that employer as the Englishman Cleary and presents him as a reluctant witness whose reserve had to be overcome by stressing the 'gravity of the problem' his servant's statements created. His remarks about a wife raised in England, keeping 'Saxon customs' and speaking little Spanish, are the paper's quotation of him; they read as an account of a household at a distance from local life and language, which helps explain a silence the reporter treats as an obstacle. The independent record supports the maid's testimony and the employer's instruction; the characterisation of Cleary and his household is the paper's own.
A murder divided along newspaper lines
The editorial 'La política y el crimen' belongs to a press war over who killed Ray. According to later histories of the case, La Razón and Última Hora backed the hypothesis that María Poey was guilty, while Crítica endorsed the theory of Commissioner Eduardo Santiago that the killing had been a robbery attempt. Some papers described Poey as the 'prototype of an adventurous woman, lacking scruples'. Politics was built into the case: Ray sat on the Vicente López council and was active in local politics for the Antipersonalist Radicals, a faction of the governing party, and the other man detained, José Pereyra, was a fellow councillor. The readable fragment of the editorial does not name the paper it attacks, so which rival was meant cannot be settled from this page. What it does show is Crítica defending Poey as a woman shaped by her 'social milieu and upbringing' and blamed for 'crimes committed by others', while accusing a rival that preached restraint of printing her life story from the case file 'letter by letter' and weighing the case for the coming elections.
Capital detectives, a provincial case
The police column reflects a jurisdictional overlap. Vicente López lay in Buenos Aires province, next to the city of Buenos Aires, and the case was in the hands of criminal judge Julio M. Facio, based in La Plata. Yet the investigation the page describes revolves around Commissioner Santiago, whom later accounts identify as head of Investigations of the capital-based police (called the 'Federal Police' in those accounts), with the provincial deputy commissioner Mancho coming to report to him. Timing matters too. The judge had ordered Poey, Pereyra and the servants detained after an autopsy reported cyanide, but on 29 September, two days before this issue, the report of a commission of the university's chemistry faculty reached him concluding there were no traces of cyanide. That result undercut the poisoning theory on which the detentions had rested and so lent weight to the robbery hypothesis Crítica favoured, which helps explain the page's picture of detectives from both jurisdictions converging on Santiago to hunt 'the thieves'.
Where the hunt for the thieves led
The robbery line Santiago was pursuing did eventually produce suspects, though not quickly and not cleanly. According to the case histories, in December 1926 a criminal named Víctor Antía, badly wounded and arrested during another robbery attempt in Buenos Aires, confessed to taking part in Ray's murder with two accomplices, and police recovered part of the stolen goods. On 30 December Poey and Pereyra were released after 90 days in custody. The matter did not end there: the accomplices later retracted, saying their confessions had been obtained by police torture, and judge Facio, finding irregularities in police records, ordered on 7 November 1927 that they be freed, that several police officers be prosecuted and that Poey and Pereyra be detained again. An appeals chamber then revoked that detention and cleared Poey and Pereyra, while keeping the accused men under prosecution and setting aside the case against the police. The activity reported on this page is thus an early stage of an investigation whose methods would themselves come under judicial scrutiny.
Original
Por Fin Habló el Inglés Cleary
[?] critorios en esta ciudad. Su resistencial reportaje es casi inquebrantable; de bimos antes significarle toda la enorme transcendencia y gravedad del problema creado por las declaraciones de su sirvienta Angela Villalba, que no desea, tampoco, entenderse con periodistas. Finalmente, nos hace pasar al comedor, ubicado en la planta baja del chalet. Un comedor sobrio, como el mismo señor Cleary, quien en nuestra entrevista nos expresó: - Mi esposa, aunque argentina, fué desde muy pequeña criada en Inglaterra. Conserva pues todas las costumbres sajonas, y tan es así que habla español solamente lo imprescindible para entenderse con el servicio de la casa. [?]
La política y el crimen
fuera encarcelado. Que una mujer, fruto del medio social y de la educación fuera responsabilizada de crímenes ajenos, no le preocupó. " El asunto se puede aprovechar para las próximas elecciones ", es la única reflexión que se hizo. De esta manera, el diario que se pasa la vida hablando de austeridad periodística y alzando airadas protestas contra " la explotación de la nota policial " no ha tenido inconveniente en dar el ejemplo a todos publicando íntegramente, letra por letra y antes que nadie, el relato escandaloso y pornográfico de la vida de María Poey consignado en el sumario y destinado a satisfacer las más sucia curiosidad del peor público. DESPLIEGA LA
DESPLIEGA LA POLICIA AHORA GRAN ACTIVIDAD
deben buscarse entre los maleantes " SON SCRUCHANTES " Durante toda la mañana, en las oficinas de la División Investigaciones se observó hoy extraordinaria actividad. Continuamente llegaban pesquisantes de la capital y de la provincia, quienes conferenciaban con el comisario Santiago, eje sobre el cual giran todas las actividades en esta pesquisa. El subcomisario Mancho, de la provincia, que, como lo hemos informado ampliamente, tiene destacada actuación en este asunto, concurrió en las primeras horas de la mañana al despacho del señor Santiago, con quien tuvo una larga entrevista y a quien informó acerca de la marcha de sus averiguaciones. Habla SantiagoUna vez más los periodistas acosaron a preguntas esta mañana al comisario Santiago. Estamos trabajando activamente - dice-para dar con los ladrones y has
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina