Diario La Nación
- ASPECTS OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION
- Articles of Necessity and Articles of Luxury
- Travels
This partial reading of the Santiago daily La Nación for 15 October 1926 covers three pieces. A cable item from Athens reported that General Condylis, heading the government under Admiral Condouriotis, had barred the former dictator Pangalos and 34 men who sat in his dictatorship's cabinets from standing in the coming Greek elections. Julio Camba's signed column mocked a Spanish public inquiry into which goods count as necessities and which as luxuries, proposing titles of nobility and every "ex-" title as the first luxuries. A fiction fragment by Pierre Valdagne followed young Germán Haubert, who had a profitable shop and pretty Miss Luisa before him but dreamed of distant lands and explorers.
This edition reads three excerpts from the page images, because the supplied OCR is badly garbled and does not match the printed layout. The Greek item breaks off mid-word, and the Camba column and the Valdagne story are fragments that start and stop mid-sentence. The curved page and the bound-volume gutter blur some lines in the middle columns, and the strip of the facing page at the left edge cannot be read. The commentary covers the Greek report only, because the background material gathered for this edition does not document the Spanish inquiry into necessity and luxury goods.
Translation
ASPECTS OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION
A cable dispatch from Athens announced yesterday that General Condylis, head of the Ministry that accompanies Admiral Condouriotis in his government, has issued an order under which the candidacies of the former dictator of Greece, General Pangalos, and of 34 other persons who belonged to that country's Cabinets during the period of the dictatorship, are prohibited from being presented in the coming elections. General Condylis's coup d'état appears to have been recei- …
Articles of Necessity and Articles of Luxury
… luxury, by JULIO CAMBA. In Spain a public inquiry has been opened to find out which articles ought to be considered necessities and which articles are to be deemed luxuries. I take the liberty of proposing the following list of luxury articles: 1. Titles of nobility. — All of them. 2. Democratic titles with "ex". — (The ex-governor, the ex-Minister, the ex-President of the Chamber of Commerce of such-and-such a place, the ex-champion of some other, etc.) These titles, indeed, with which …
Travels
… that the prospect is pleasant, because the shop does a great deal of business and Miss Luisa is pretty; but I should like to travel. "Do as you please," the uncle replies. Nevertheless, his words had produced their effect. Germán Haubert dreamed more every day of going to visit strange lands, and spent his hours reading travel books and growing passionate about the great explorers. When he was in the company of Miss de Voquerel, he spoke to her only of the splendor of the distant regions he had heard his uncle Haubert describe, and of the adventures that he had …
Context
How Kondylis ousted Pangalos in August 1926 and brought back Kountouriotis
The government described in the cable, with Kondylis heading the ministry alongside Admiral Kountouriotis, was less than two months old when the paper went to press. On 22 August 1926 Georgios Kondylis overthrew the dictatorship of Theodoros Pangalos in a bloodless coup, formed a government and proclaimed elections for November. Kountouriotis then returned as president, and Pangalos was imprisoned for two years in the Izzeddin Fortress. According to the historian Stavros Stavridis, Kondylis promised elections and invited Admiral Kountouriotis to take up the presidency once again, which explains why the cable presents Kondylis as the admiral's head of ministry rather than as head of state. The coup did not come from outside Pangalos's camp: many of the officers who had helped him into power had decided that he had to be removed. The paper's truncated last sentence was beginning to judge how this August coup had been received.
Why the ministers of the Pangalos dictatorship were singled out
The ban reported here targeted the men who had governed with Pangalos during a regime that had become an open dictatorship. Under Pangalos, freedom of the press was abolished and a number of repressive laws were enacted; on 3 January 1926 he declared a state of emergency and assumed dictatorial powers, and in April 1926 he had himself elected president in a rigged election. Stavridis gives the reasons for the coup against him as disregard of the constitution, press censorship and the arrest and imprisonment of political opponents. Excluding the former ministers from the ballot was therefore a way of making the people who had staffed that government answer for it. On 31 October Kondylis himself explained that the decrees were meant to ensure the chastisement of those who, out of selfish personal interest, had made themselves instruments of the violation of liberties. The cable's figure of 34 former cabinet members besides Pangalos is the paper's own report; the histories cited here give no count of the ministers affected.
How the ban on Pangalos's ministers collided with the Greek courts
Kondylis's ban grew into a clash between the government and the judiciary. Stavridis describes a series of decrees issued by Kondylis which prohibited former ministers of the Pangalos administration from running as candidates. Some of those affected went to courts of first instance in Athens, Lamia, Chios and Evros and obtained writs allowing them to stand. Kondylis answered with another decree that suspended Article 92 of the Constitution, dismissed judges and denounced their rulings. Republicans and Royalists alike protested and accused him of acting in a dictatorial manner, and Kondylis then issued a third decree reviving Article 92 and reinstating the dismissed judges. The cable in La Nación therefore captured an early stage of this dispute; Stavridis does not record whether any of the barred ministers finally appeared on the ballot. Pangalos himself remained in prison throughout.
What the November 1926 election produced
The elections mentioned in the cable were held on 7 November 1926 under a new electoral law that introduced, for the first time, a simple proportional system. Kondylis's own party did not take part in them. The Liberal Union emerged as the largest group with 108 of the 286 seats, short of a majority, so the parties had to negotiate a coalition. On 4 December a government was sworn in under Alexandros Zaimis, who was not a member of parliament. This coalition, later called the "Ecumenical government", brought together the Liberal Union, the Democratic Union, the People's Party and the Freethinkers' Party, and it replaced the caretaker cabinet that Kondylis had led since the August coup.
Original
ASPECTOS DE LA REVOLUCION GRIEGA
Una información cablegráfica de Atenas anunciaba ayer que el General Condylis, jefe del Ministerio que acompaña al Almirante Condouriotis en su gobierno, ha dictado una orden en virtud de la cual se prohibe que en las próximas elecciones sean presentadas las candidaturas del ex-dictador de Grecia, general Pangalos, y de 34 personas más, que formaron parte de los Gabinetes de ese país durante el período de la dictadura. El golpe de Estado del general Condylis parece haber sido reci -
Artículos de necesidad y artículos de lujo
lujo por JULIO CAMBA. En España se ha abierto una información pública para averiguar qué artículos deben considerarse de necesidad y qué artículos se han de estimar como de lujo. Yo me permito proponer la siguiente lista de artículos de lujo: 1. o Títulos nobiliarios. - Todos ellos. 2. o Títulos democráticos en " ex ". - (El ex-gobernador, el ex-Ministro, el ex-Presidente de la Cámara de Comercio de tal parte, el excampeón de tal otra, etc.) Estos títulos, en efecto, con los que se
Los viajes
de que la perspectiva es agradable, porque el almacén produce mucho y la señorita Luisa es bonita; pero, a mí me gustaría viajar. - Haz lo que quieras-contesta el tío. Sin embargo, las palabras de éste habían producido su efecto. Germán Haubert soñaba cada día más en ir a visitar países extraños, y consumía sus horas leyendo libros de viajes y apasionándose por los grandes exploradores. Cuando se hallaba en compañía de la señorita de Voquerel, sólo le hablaba del esplendor de las regiones lejanas que había oído describir a su tío Haubert, y de las aventuras de que había
Source: Source: Internet Archive