Crítica
- Armenia Was Shaken Today by a Strong Earthquake
- Argentina Granted the French an Extension
- THE REPUBLIC IN CHINA IS A CARICATURE
This front page of Crítica for 23 October 1926 was built around cabled foreign news. A dispatch dated in Leninakan described a strong earthquake across Armenia: collapsed houses trapping their occupants, destroyed telegraph lines, dead livestock, and inhabitants who fled their homes believing nearby Mount Ararat had erupted. An Associated Press report from Paris said Argentina had let France defer repayment of a ten-million-dollar loan due next February, with France paying the interest and the loan renewing automatically. From Chicago, Silas Strawn, back from chairing the international commission on extraterritoriality, described China's republic as a farce dominated by rival generals, brutal troops and railways paying tribute.
Translation
Armenia Was Shaken Today by a Strong Earthquake
LENINAKAN, 23. – A strong earthquake was felt early this morning throughout Armenia, leaving many dead and a great many injured. The entire population rushed into the streets, seized by the greatest panic. Many houses collapsed, trapping their occupants beneath the rubble. The telegraph lines were destroyed. A large number of livestock perished as a result of the phenomenon. Believing that the biblical Mount Ararat, which lies only a short distance from this city, had erupted, the inhabitants hastily abandoned their homes, but they later returned once they could be convinced that it had been an earthquake.
Argentina Granted the French an Extension
Under it, France will pay the interest on the ten-million-dollar loan next February, and the loan will be renewed automatically.
SO IT IS REPORTED IN PARIS
(Associated Press)
PARIS, 23. – Stock-exchange circles in this capital report that the Argentine government has granted France an extension on the ten-million-dollar loan, which was due to be paid in February 1[?]27. The French Treasury will pay the interest, and the loan's maturity date will be renewed automatically until France's situation allows it to make the payment.
THE REPUBLIC IN CHINA IS A CARICATURE
CHICAGO, 23. – According to Mr. Silas Strawn, who has returned from China after presiding over the International Commission on Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in China, the laws imposed by the Chinese militarists turn the Republic into a farcical institution. The railways try to keep up service by paying tribute to the generals of the various factions, the troops govern brutally by force, and the general system of government prevents China from emerging from the chaos in which it finds itself. As…
Context
How large was the Leninakan earthquake of October 1926?
The dispatch gave no figures, only "many dead" and "a great many injured," and it placed the shock in the early morning of the 23rd. Seismic catalogues record the event, also called the Kars earthquake because it struck the border between Soviet Armenia and eastern Turkey, at 21:59 local time on 22 October. The paper's "early this morning" therefore does not match the recorded local time. The catalogued quake had a surface-wave magnitude of 6.0 and reached intensity IX (Violent) on the Mercalli scale, with 360 casualties listed. The dispatch's picture of collapsing houses agrees with the record that many buildings in Leninakan and the surrounding villages were destroyed or damaged. The Soviet geologist Pyotr Lebedev, writing in 1927, counted up to 300 people killed in Soviet Armenia and roughly the same number seriously injured. These later counts give a scale for the paper's vague but alarming language.
Leninakan as Near East Relief's City of Orphans
The town struck by the quake was also home to a large orphan community run by an American relief organization. Nora Nercessian's history of the "City of Orphans" traces how Near East Relief (NER) built an orphan community in Alexandropol, the city later named Leninakan, in the years after 1919. Its account covers the expulsion of 6,000 to 7,000 orphans from Kars to Alexandropol in the winter of 1921, and the later shrinking of the City of Orphans into the compound known as the Polygon. It also describes a growing estrangement between NER and Soviet Armenia, ending with NER's final withdrawal in spring 1931. When the earthquake hit in October 1926, then, an American-run orphan community was still operating in Leninakan. The Leninakan dispatch on this page says nothing about the orphans or about relief work.
How Argentina became a creditor of France
The Paris item rested on stock-exchange talk. It said that Argentina had agreed to roll over a ten-million-dollar French loan due in February 1927, with France paying only the interest until its finances recovered. Plans for Argentine credit to France go back to the First World War. In December 1917 the U.S. ambassador in Buenos Aires, Stimson, cabled the text of a convention worked out between Argentina's foreign minister and the British and French ministers. Under it Argentina would open a credit to Great Britain of up to 100,000,000 gold pesos and an equal credit to France. Drawings on these credits would bear 5 per cent interest, and the money was to be used for buying Argentine cereals. The convention was ad referendum, so it needed authorization from the Argentine Congress. The telegram shows how Argentine credit to the Allies grew out of wartime grain sales. It does not show that the 1926 loan reported by the paper came directly from that convention.
Silas Strawn and the Commission on Extraterritoriality
Strawn, whose verdict on the Chinese republic headlined the Chicago item, was a prominent Chicago lawyer and a name partner at Winston & Strawn. President Coolidge named him one of two American delegates to the conference that opened in Beijing in October 1925, and he chaired the commission on extraterritoriality, which examined whether foreigners' exemption from Chinese courts could be ended. His report to Washington of 11 May 1926 shows the commission already discussing the outline of its report and recommendations. It also records a tour of inspection from Peking by rail to Hankow and on to other cities. South China was dropped from the itinerary because of the hostile attitude of the Canton government. Strawn himself stayed behind for the Tariff Conference and expected the commission to finish before 1 July. Even the commission's route thus reflected the political split that Strawn described in Chicago: competing military factions and a rival southern government divided authority in China.
Original
Armenia Fué Hoy Sacudida por un Fuerte Temblor
LENIKAKAN, 23. - Se ha sentido esta madrugada en toda Armenia, un fuerte terremoto, resultando muchos muertos y numerosísimos heridos. Toda la población se lanzó a las calles, presa del más grande pánico. Fueron muchas las casas que se d [?] rrumbaron, aprisonando entre sus escombros a los moradores. Las líneas telegráficas quedaron destruídas. Gran cantidad de ganado pereció a consecuencias del fenómeno. Creyendo que el bíblico Monte Ararat, que sólo se halla a corta distancia de esta ciudad, había entrado en erupción, los habitantes abandonaron precipitadamente sus hogares, pero volvieron más tarde a sus casas cuando se les pudo convencer que había sido un terremoto.
Argentina Dió una Prórroga a los Franceses
Mediante ella, Francia pagará, en febrero próximo, los intereses del empréstito de diez millones de dólares, renovándose éste automáticamente ASI INFORMA N EN PARIS (Associated Press) PARIS, 23. - En los círculos bursátiles de esta capital se informa que el gobierno argentino le ha concedido a Francia prórroga sobre el empréstito de diez millones de dólares, que debían ser pagados en febrero de 1 [?] 27. El Tesoro francés pagará los intereses, la fecha de vencimiento del empréstito renovándose automáticamente, hasta que la situación de Francia le permita efectuar el pago.
LA REPUBLICA EN CHINA ES UNA CARICATURA
CHICAGO, 23. - Según Mr. Silas Strawn, que ha regresado de China, después de haber presidido la Comisión Internacional de Jurisdicción extraterritorial en China, las leyes que imponen los militaristas chinos convierten a la República, en una institución burlesca. Los ferrocarriles tratan de mantener el servicio pagando tributo a los generales de las diversas facciones, las tropas gobiernan brutalmente por la fuerza y el sistema en general del gobierno, impide que China salga del caos en que se encuentra. Como
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina