Diario La Nación
- A MOTHER'S STORY
- A Weak Man
- FARMERS:
This page of Santiago's La Nación for 22 October 1926 set reading matter beside commerce. "A Mother's Story" opened on a prosperous farm in a Virginia village, worked by Raimundo Stone with the help of his happy, close-knit family. "A Weak Man", a story signed by Pierre Billotey, showed Mr. Valney sighing with envy at a neighbour's pretty maid until a voice from the kitchen berated León over milk boiling over. An advertisement from Saavedra Bénard & Cía. Ltda. invited farmers, on the occasion of the Animal Exhibition, to see its permanent display of farm machinery, above all the Deering brand, at Catedral 1063.
This reading covers only three passages, each cut off at a column or tile edge: "A Mother's Story" breaks off mid-word, and "A Weak Man" begins and ends mid-sentence. The supplied OCR was heavily corrupted, mixed columns and gave the year as 1920; the date 1926 follows the page image. Lines beside the illustrations, margin fragments of the facing page and the start of a fashion caption were not read. The excerpt read here names no author or earlier source for "A Mother's Story", so where it first appeared is not identified here.
Translation
A MOTHER'S STORY
In a little village in Virginia, United States, lies the prosperous farm of Mr. Raimundo Stone, who lives there and works his land and tends his animals with the help of his whole family, one might say. They are happy, healthy, very close-knit people. Throughout the whole establishment there reigns a family atmosphere, enchant-
A Weak Man
Story by PIERRE BILLOTEY.
…floor, a window has opened. A young maid leans out as she shakes a rug. She has a cheerful face, a very white neck and plump, shapely arms. Mr. Valney sighs. How he envies his neighbour, who has such a pretty maid! But a tragic voice is heard at the kitchen door.
“Idiot! Can't you see the milk is boiling over?”
It is true. The milk has begun to boil and is spilling over in gushes.
“You'll always be the same! A good-for-nothing!”
That adjective is not enough. Others rain down, each more contemptuous than the last. At last León, who had started cleaning the stove, puts down the
FARMERS:
On the occasion of the Animal Exhibition, we invite farmers to visit our PERMANENT EXHIBITION of every kind of agricultural machinery, especially of the renowned “DEERING” brand, at our premises at No. 1063 CATEDRAL street.
Saavedra Bénard & Cía. Ltda.
Context
Eliodoro Yáñez's La Nación in its last independent year
La Nación, which printed these items, first appeared on 14 January 1917, founded by four Liberal senators, and Memoria Chilena's chronology records that Eliodoro Yáñez became its sole owner in 1924. Under Yáñez the paper grew into one of the most widely read Santiago dailies, putting out editions of seventy to eighty thousand copies around 1925. The page of 22 October 1926 therefore comes from the final stretch of the paper's life as a privately owned liberal daily: in 1927 La Nación became the official organ of the Chilean state, expropriated under the dictatorship of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. The mix of fiction and machinery advertising on this page belongs to the commercial, information-led paper Yáñez had built.
Foreign material in La Nación's sections
The Virginia farm story and the tale signed by Pierre Billotey sat in a paper whose specialized sections, according to Memoria Chilena, ranged over national politics, social problems, labour mobilizations and national and foreign culture. La Nación also had an agreement with La Nación of Buenos Aires and the United Press agency of New York that widened its foreign coverage, and during the 1920s Juan Emar wrote for it from France through the sections "Notas desde París" and "La Nación en París". These records show the paper's general appetite for material from abroad; they do not identify where "A Mother's Story" or "A Weak Man" was first published, and the page itself names only Billotey as the author of the second piece.
Deering: a Chicago brand inside International Harvester
The "renowned DEERING brand" that Saavedra Bénard & Cía. promoted was by 1926 one of the names of International Harvester, the Chicago-based company created in 1902 by merging the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, the Deering Harvester Company and three smaller manufacturers. The combined firm's brands included McCormick, Deering and later McCormick-Deering, and from 1902 into the early 1920s McCormick and Deering dealers kept their original branding because the former rivals were still competing. The Santiago advertisement's use of the Deering name alone fits that tradition of separate dealer brands, carried here to an importer serving Chilean farmers.
Animal shows and imported machinery in Chilean agriculture
Saavedra Bénard timed its invitation to the "Exposición de Animales", an event the advertisement names without saying who organized it. The established model for such shows in Chile was the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura, whose aim from the start was to promote farming and defend the interests of the hacendados before the state. In 1869 the society led the first "Exposición Agrícola, Ganadera e Internacional", forerunner of the later FISA fair, and in 1893 it opened genealogical registers for pedigree livestock. It also promoted irrigation, the hiring of foreign experts and the import of machinery from the United States and Europe, and it pushed for the creation of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1924. An importer advertising American farm machinery around an animal show was addressing the same landowning public that such exhibitions had long gathered in Santiago.
Original
LA HISTORIA DE UNA MADRE
En un pueblito de Virginia, Estados Unidos, se encuentra situada la próspera granja de Mr. Raimundo Stone, quien habita allí y trabaja sus tierras y cuida sus animales con la colaboración de toda su familia, puede decirse. Es una gente feliz, sana, muy unida. Reina en todo el establecimiento un aire familiar encan -
Un hombre débil
mo piso, se ha abierto una ventana. Una doncella joven se inclina mientras secude una alfombra. Tiene una cara alegre, un cuello blanquísimo y unos brazos gordezuelos y torneados. El señor Valney suspira. ¡ Cómo envidia a su vecino que tiene una doncella tan guapa! Pero una voz trágica se oye a la puerta de la cocina. - ¡ Idiota! ¿ No ves que se sale la leche? Es verdad. La leche ha empezado a hervir y se sale a borbotones. - ¡ Siempre serás el mismo! ¡ Un inútil! No le basta este adjetivo. Llueven otros cada vez más despectivos. Al fin, León, que se había puesto a limpiar el fogón, deja la
AGRICULTORES:
Con ocasión de celebrarse la Exposición de Aninales, invitamos a los señores agricultores a visitar nuestra PERMANENTE EXPOSICION de toda clase de maquinaria agrícola, especialmente de la afamada marca " DEERING ", en nuestro local de la calle CATEDRAL N. o 1063. Saavedra Bénard & Cía. Ltda.
Source: Source: Internet Archive