BUENOS AIRES

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 4, 6 January 1930, Page 11

BUENOS AIRES

"PARIS OF AMERICA" A CITY OF RICHES WORK AND SOCIAL EOTOD (Copyright.) There are only five great-world cities —London, New York, Paris, Berlin, and Buenos Aires. The teaming cities of the Orient are only vast aggregations of people living after a local pattern, Eio de Janeiro, in spite of its tropical fertility of increase, has, like .Washington, some of the earmarks of the small town. But Buenos Aires has that indefinable atmosphere that belongs to the great metropolises of the planet. Eefounded in 1580—for the first attempt in 1535 did not "take"—the town of colonial times has long since dissolved into the soil from which it rose. The city of to-day is a creation of the last half century, and the traveller looks' in vain for relics of the regime of the captains-general and the viceroys. The very stones of the place are new, brought in as ballast in tho holds of. freighters come -out from Europe for cargoes of wheat, or hauled across from the Uruguayan shores. Only in its street names does one read the history of the city or the land— Solis, Garay^Saii Martin, Maipu, Kcconquista *fffnich ' commemorates the recapture.of the city from the British in 1807). Buenos Aires is a city of two million people in a country of eleven million, a heavy "overhead" for an agricultural nation, especially when one adds a million more for the other, cities in the interior. And the immigration policy of the government has made it, after New York, the most cosmopolitan city in the world. The remarkable absorptive power of the country is rapidly making a homogeneous population out of this Babel of the Pampa, even though the process of leavening has been, attended with some violent pains of social adjustment. Buenos Aires, is a male city—a city of Man at work and in pursuit of Woman. Cafes and theatres are full of men, and at the races at Palermo on a Sunday afternoon thero is.only a sprinkling of women to break the sombre mass of males. This predominance of tho masculine in public places —an exception is Calle Florida for a couple of; colourful hours on Saturday morning—:accounts..for the drabness of the streets of Buenos Aires. The great: cst need of rits people would seem to be the ■readjustment of the attitude of thelmale toward the female. .-■. .. :It is-the habit of superficial observers to call Buenos Aires the "Paris of America." Only..architecturally is this true, for many streets, such as parts of Callao and Santa Fc, are strikingly reminiscent of the quarter near the Etoile. ..Certainly, as a ville de plaisir it is not Parisian. It lacks tho lighter touch of Paris, and takes its pleasures more solemnly. For, after all, there is a morbidezza in the Spanish temperament that the Frenchman with the franker realism of his outlook on life, seems to have shaken' off —or never to have possessed. A DYNAMIC CITY. It is'really business that sets the tempo of the city's ways. It is a dynamic city, full of tho turmoil and stress of accomplishment/ and of unsolved problems, and, incidentally, of the noises born of violent action and movement. It is a city and a laud of vast' ;the product of the - exuberant.soil of the pampa that stretches away unbroken to the Andes. Its riches and its might are built'on wheat and meat, and wool and hides. These people are justly proud of their endless fields of grain, and their magnificent herds and flocks. Ceres is their patron goddess, and the annual stock show at Palermo is a national festival in recognition of the bounty of nature, as well as a social event of the first magnitude.' The exports of the' country arc over £200 per capita, the highest of any nation on earth. Politics determines1 the undertone of Buenos Aires life. The alignment between conservatism and radicalism is clear cut, though the so-called Radicals now in power, are Bourbons compared with the true extremists, who would erect another Soviet here on the pampa. In 1918, an attempt was made at a social revolution, but was put down with' machine guns and the grim cavalry from the northern provinces. Since then on every May Day nerves and emotions are attuned to a dangerously high pitch. Popular "mitins" are always being held to denounce something or other, and any open wall is never without its violent and inflammatory broadsides. Saeeo and Vanzetti have been made particular martyrs by the Argentine extremists, and in reprisal efforts were made to dynamite tho two American banks and the innocuous statue of Washington out in the Palermo Park. However, tod much is at stake for such violence to be tolerated, and any government in the Argentine promptly sits on the lid whenever authority and order are really challenged. More creative intellectual effort goes on in Buenos Aires than in any other half dozen I/atin-Ameriean cities. The exhibition of national literary works held last year in connection with "The Week of the Book" was a revelation of the vigorous and fruitful mind of this people. One of the outstanding features of the display was the quantity and truly high quality of poetry being produced by Argentine women. In the field of journalism "La Prensa" and "La Nacion" are among the very fevf really great newspapers of the world, and "Plus Ultra" is the most sumptuous of magazines. THE ARTISTIC SIDE. Too much has been written about the alleged artistic superiority of tho Argentine and of the rest of LatinAmerica. In its attitude towards beauty Buenos Aires presents no overgrown revival of Periclean Athens or Medicean Florence. Thero is infinitely more artistic consciousness in tho city of Mexico than in this materlialistic metropolis, where popular taste is as worldly as among our earthiest cities. Much painting is indulged in, but none of the first rank, and of late local art circles seem to be afflicted with the current malady of modernism. Yet few cities have such imposing monuments as grace the public squares of Buenos Aires, and among the greenery of the parks one frequently comes upon graceful white statues that would seem to have sprung up spontaneously in their place to delight the populace. Other vantage points for observing the more affluent Portenos, or "the people of the port," are on a Sunday morning in the Palermo Gardens or on a regatta day at Tigre or taking tea of a Sunday afternoon in the fashionable Confiteria Paris. Too often you ■will see them lavishing their revenues in absentee splendour at Biarritz or Paris, in voluntary expatriation from the land that needs their energies and their wealth. Tho real pueblo you will se« in a thousand places—sipping its coffee, or cognac in a pavement cafe, while an orchestra drones away to the mournful monotony of' the tango; or down in the crowded Bm-raeas, where discontent foments among an assertive proletariat. Altogether it is a proud and arrogant people, that holds its head high,

'unbowed,"'"by" tiny' inferiority complex. It is aggressively conscious of its nationality and confident of the lofty destiny of its country. Except for the individuals in'whom you niay inspire friendship, it is not a race that attracts your spontaneous liking. But it is much that their capacity for friendship is so great. It is a people very much to be respected and in which you sense deep reserves of strength. Though not positively hostilo to tho United States thoy aro not dazzled by its civilisation. And any overzealous American) who starts to boast of tho wonders of "God's Own Country" in this environment is liable suddenly to feel himself very lonely—and blasphemous.