Crítica
- Argentine Pavilion at the Philadelphia Exposition Will Be Inaugurated Tomorrow
- Sacco and Vanzetti Day to Be Held in Marseille Tomorrow
- Today
Crítica's issue of 30 October 1926 carried an Associated Press dispatch announcing that Argentina's pavilion at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition would open the next day. The dispatch reported Argentine regret that the fair would close before many Americans could see an exhibit said to be complete and extremely interesting. A second AP item reported that Marseille would hold a Sacco and Vanzetti day and that two thousand Paris communists had demonstrated against the threatened execution of the two Italian workers. In the 'Hoy' column, the paper doubted the sporting value of a German aviator's flight from São Paulo toward Buenos Aires in a small 45-horsepower Farman and asked whether such raids still served any purpose.
Translation
Argentine Pavilion at the Philadelphia Exposition Will Be Inaugurated Tomorrow
Argentines regret that the exposition will close its doors before many Americans have been able to visit the Argentine exhibit, which is said to be complete and extremely interesting.
Sacco and Vanzetti Day to Be Held in Marseille Tomorrow
Two thousand Paris Communists held a protest demonstration against the threat of execution hanging over those workers and delivered a communication…
Today
A German aviator has set off from São Paulo for this city in a little 45-horsepower Farman airplane. Frankly, we fail to see what the sporting feat consists of. In the danger? Are these raids of any use when people now travel with engines of…
Context
Argentina's pavilion opened a month before the Sesquicentennial's scheduled close
The Sesquicentennial International Exposition, staged in South Philadelphia to mark 150 years since the Declaration of Independence, opened on 31 May 1926 and was scheduled to run through 30 November. An Argentine pavilion inaugurated on 31 October, as Crítica's AP dispatch announced, therefore had only about a month of the official run left, which explains the regret the dispatch attributes to Argentines. The lateness fitted the fair's wider pattern: it opened unfinished, and several buildings were still under construction in late July, nearly two months into the six-month run. Foreign participation was modest, with pavilions representing nine foreign nations alongside thirty-one states and four territories, and the Smithsonian's account names Persia and Japan among the foreign governments that exhibited. The judgment that the Argentine exhibit was complete and extremely interesting belongs to the dispatch, which itself offers it as hearsay ('it is said').
Why closing day worried exhibitors: the Sesquicentennial's attendance shortfall
The Argentine complaint that the fair would shut before many Americans could visit echoed the exposition's central failure, which was a lack of visitors. Organizers had predicted 30 million visitors; only 4,622,211 people actually paid to attend, out of about 6.4 million total attendees. Rain fell on 107 of the 184 days the fair was open. Poor attendance led organizers to keep the grounds open through December so that concessionaires could sell their remaining stock, which is why the Smithsonian gives 31 December as the end date while the official run ended on 30 November. For a country that unveiled its exhibit in the final weeks, the shrinking calendar meant its display would reach only a fraction of a public that was already far smaller than expected.
Where the Sacco-Vanzetti case stood in October 1926
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been found guilty of the South Braintree robbery and murder by a jury on 14 July 1921. The defense kept pressing motions for a new trial, including one based on a confession to the Braintree crimes by the convicted bank robber Celestino Madeiros, but Judge Webster Thayer, the same judge who had earlier sentenced Vanzetti severely, rejected all of them. The formal death sentence was pronounced only on 9 April 1927, and the two men were executed on 23 August 1927. That sequence explains why this October 1926 dispatch speaks of a 'threat of execution' hanging over them rather than of a fixed date. The dispatch calls them workers; the authorities and their own communities had long known them as anarchist militants active in labour strikes.
Why Paris communists marched for two Italian anarchists
The Paris demonstration and the planned Marseille day belonged to a protest movement that had grown far beyond the case's local roots. Defense lawyer Fred Moore's aggressive strategy turned a little-known case into an international cause célèbre, and liberals joined anarchists, socialists and communists in protesting the verdict. The case history records that by April 1927, when the death sentence was pronounced, demonstrations in the world's great cities, Paris, London, Mexico City and Buenos Aires among them, had protested the unfairness of the trial. The two thousand Paris communists in this dispatch are an example of that communist participation, and Crítica's readers were following through AP cables a cause that by the spring of 1927 had also drawn protesters in their own city.
The 1926 vogue for long-distance raids to Buenos Aires
The 'Hoy' columnist's impatience makes sense against a year in which Argentine readers had followed one aviation raid after another. The Spanish flying boat Plus Ultra left Palos de la Frontera on 22 January 1926 and reached Buenos Aires on 26 January, completing a 10,270 km journey in 59 hours and 39 minutes. In early August 1926 the Santa Fe daily El Litoral made the New York–Buenos Aires raid of Argentine aviators aboard the hydroplane 'Buenos Aires' its main international front-page story, following the crew of Duggan, Olivero and Campanelli by telegraph, and the same page reported the British aviator Alan Cobham's successful raid. Against such feats, a German pilot leaving São Paulo in a 45-horsepower Farman struck Crítica's columnist as neither a sporting achievement nor a useful one. The legible text breaks off as the column compares such raids with the engines now used for travel.
Original
Mañana Será Inaugurado el Pabellón Argentino en la Exposición de Filadelfia
Los argentinos lamentan que la exposición cerrará sus puertas antes que muchos norteamericanos hayan podido visitar la exposición argentina, de la que se dice que es completa y sumamente interesante.
Mañana Celebrarán en Marsella el Día de Sacco y Vanzetti
Dos mil comunistas de París hicieron una manifestación de protesta por la amenaza de ejecución que pende sobre esos obreros y entregaron una comunicación
Hoy
Ha partido, de San Pablo para ésta, un aviador alemán con un aeroplanito Farman, de 45 caballos. En realidad, no vemos en qué consiste la hazaña deportiva. ¿ En el peligro? ¿ Sirven para algo estos raids cuando ahora se viaja con motores de
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina