Diario La Nación
- In the Traditional Chair of Itamaraty
- Maxims of George Bernard Shaw
- The FAT Will Become THIN
This partial reading of La Nación of Santiago for 13 November 1926 covers three items. A column by Miguel A. dos Reis greeted the rise of a new successor to the Baron of Rio Branco in the traditional chair of Brazil's Itamaraty, predicting that the countries of America would watch with curiosity and arguing that this century's international problems cannot be settled in the old moulds of secret diplomacy. A feature of maxims by George Bernard Shaw quoted him joking that, before his pen earned him anything, he already had the British Museum library in Bloomsbury and another at Hampton Court at his disposal, with no servants to keep. An advertisement promised that tuberculosis sufferers of any stage would be cured rapidly by Dr Ponndorf's cutaneous vaccine from Dresden.
This reading is partial and covers three excerpts. The OCR for the lead columns and the Shaw maxims is heavily garbled, so these passages were read from the page images. The outer left columns of the upper rows are partly hidden in the binding fold or show a neighbouring page, and some words in the small advertising type are uncertain. The masthead banner reads 'El Martes 23' and the OCR misreads the date line as 1920, while the page image shows 1926.
Translation
In the Traditional Chair of Itamaraty
The countries of America are bound to greet the elevation of this new successor to the Baron of Rio Branco with understandable curiosity. The international problems of the present century are not the kind that are settled within the old moulds of diplomatic secrecy.
Maxims of George Bernard Shaw
"I cannot say that I have much experience of real poverty; quite the contrary. Before I could earn anything with my pen, I had at my disposal a magnificent library in Bloomsbury (that of the British Museum) and another at Hampton Court, with no servants to look after or keep.
The FAT Will Become THIN
TUBERCULOSIS SUFFERERS of any stage will be cured rapidly with the famous Cutaneous Anti-Tuberculosis Vaccine of Doctor Ponndorf, of Dresden.
Context
Otávio Mangabeira, Brazil's foreign minister from 1926 to 1930
Miguel A. dos Reis's column greets a "new successor to the Baron of Rio Branco" in the chair of Itamaraty, but the passage read here does not name him. The man who took over Brazil's foreign affairs in 1926 was Otávio Mangabeira, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1926 to 1930 in the administration of President Washington Luís, so the timing points to him as the figure the column has in mind. Mangabeira came to the post from academia and politics: before entering politics he had been a professor of astronomy at the Federal University of Bahia. The column's hope for a diplomacy freed from old habits of secrecy belongs to the moment of his appointment. His term was cut short when Getúlio Vargas deposed Washington Luís and his entire cabinet in the Revolution of 1930.
Brazil's withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1926
The new minister inherited a foreign policy shaped by Brazil's break with the League of Nations a few months earlier. Brazil's withdrawal followed the rejection of a resolution to give it the permanent Council seat left vacant by the United States. On 21 June 1926 the British Foreign Secretary, Austen Chamberlain, told the House of Commons that he had received formal notification of Brazil's withdrawal, regretted it, and explained that Brazil was leaving because it was not assured a permanent seat on the Council; he added that he feared Spain intended a similar step. Under League rules a withdrawal notice took two years to come into effect after the League received it, so in November 1926 Brazil was formally still a member while absent from the League's work. The column's call for diplomacy beyond the old secret methods was written against this background, although the passage read does not mention the League directly.
Shaw's delayed Nobel Prize for 1925
The page's selection of Shaw's maxims appeared two days after the Swedish Academy's announcement, dated 11 November 1926, of Shaw's Nobel Prize in Literature. In November 1925 the Swedish Academy had declared that no Nobel Prize in Literature would be awarded that year, reserving it; after its deliberations in 1926 the Academy decided that George Bernard Shaw should receive the prize for 1925. The quoted maxim plays on Shaw's long apprenticeship: five of his novels had been turned down before he made his name as a literary and music critic, which gives an edge to his joke about enjoying great libraries before his pen earned him anything. His ambivalence about money and honours showed again later, when he accepted the Nobel honour but refused to take the prize money. The excerpt read here does not itself mention the prize.
Wilhelm Ponndorf's cutaneous tuberculosis vaccine
The advertisement sells a remedy bearing the name of a real author on tuberculosis treatment. In 1921 Wilhelm Ponndorf published, at his own expense in Weimar, a book on the cure of tuberculosis and its mixed infections, including scrofula, rheumatism and Basedow's disease, by cutaneous vaccination. The Santiago advertisement goes further than a medical claim of method: it promises that sufferers of any stage will be cured rapidly, and it attributes the vaccine to Dresden rather than to the Weimar imprint of Ponndorf's book. Both the book's title and the advertisement record the claims of the treatment's promoters; neither is independent evidence that the vaccine worked.
Original
EN EL SILLON TRADICIONAL DEL ITAMARATY
Los países de América han de recibir el encumbramiento de este nuevo sucesor del Barón de Río Branco con lógica curiosidad. No son los problemas internacionales del siglo presente, de los que se resuelven dentro de los viejos moldes del secretismo diplomático.
Máximas de Georges Bernard Shaw
" No puedo decir que poseo mucha experiencia de la verdadera pobreza; al contrario. Antes de que pudiera ganar nada con mi pluma, disponía de una magnífica biblioteca en Bloomsbury (la del Museo Británico) y de otra en Hampton Court sin criados que cuidar ni sostener.
Los GORDOS quedarán FLACOS
LOS TUBERCULOSOS de cualquier grado, sanarán rápidamente con la famosa Vacuna Cutánea Antituberculosa del doctor Ponndorf, de Dresde.
Source: Source: Internet Archive