TABLE OF CONTENTS Page By Enrique Coronado Suárez, Assistant Editor of the Boletín de la Unión Pan Americana Dr. Gonzalo Zaldumbide, The New Minister of Ecuador to the United By William A. Reid, Foreign Trade Adviser, Pan American Union Diego Rivera Exhibits in New York. LIEUT. COL. LUIS M. SÁNCHEZ CERRO, PRESIDENT OF PERU Inaugurated December 8, 1931, for a term of five years. LIEUT. COL. LUIS M. SÁNCHEZ CERRO, THE NEW PRESIDENT OF PERU Ο N DECEMBER 8, 1931, Lieut. Col. Luis M. Sánchez Cerro was inaugurated as Constitutional President of Peru for a term of five years. The ceremonies, which were cheered by an immense throng, took place before the new national Congress, which had been sworn in just before Lieut. Col. Sánchez Cerro took the oath of office. The new Chief Executive of the Republic, the first to be elected by secret ballot and with obligatory voting, is still under 45 years Educated at the Military School, Chorrillos, he has served for over 20 years in the army of his country both at home and abroad. In 1915 he was military attaché to the then Peruvian legation in Washington, and in 1922 he left Peru on a five years' mission to Europe, where he studied in military schools in France and Italy. He found this cosmopolitan experience of interest and benefit, both personally and professionally. President Sánchez Cerro acted as head of the Provisional Government of his country for some months in 1930, but resigned the next year to become a candidate for the presidency in the election held October 11, 1931. The day after his inauguration, the President sent through the press a message of greeting to all the nations of America, in which he expressed his patriotic ideals as follows: "The government I desire for Peru is a government of order and peace, so that the country may develop its economic life along lines of mutual respect." 1 WESTERN CUBA: LAND OF SUNSHINE AND FINE TOBACCO By HUGH HAMMOND BENNETT WE were not by of the WR E were awakened not by the crowing of the cock but by the crowing of a whole cityful of lusty-lunged, raucous-throated roosters. There could scarcely have been less than 10,000 of them, and they crashed forth at the fifth hour from midnight with tumultous din. At this point my fellow scientist exclaimed, "Caramba, hombre, this explains Cuba's annual importation of 12,000,000 dozen eggs; the chickens are all roosters!" "The evidence points that way," I replied. "However, there is nothing that can be done about it; so, what about a little café y pan? The hour is propitious; there can be no more sleeping amidst this riot of chicken dulcets. Besides, this is the day for Viñales Valley. Why not get going?" Thus we were introduced to Pinar del Rio, the metropolis of the Province of Pinar del Rio, that is to say, of western Cuba. The city has other claims to distinction beyond its multitudinous population of sleep-wrecking chanticleers. There is, for example, a population of forty or fifty thousand human beings. Moreover, all the houses have frontal rows of large columns; some have another row above, accompanied by a spacious balcony. The columns rise from a point about halfway between the outer and inner edges of the sidewalk, so that each street actually has four sidewalks. The part inside the line of columns, the cloistered part, is protected from those rains which fall not too slantingly. It was a happy thought of the builders of the city to provide this special feature. It may have been something of an oversight, however, that they should not have foreseen the actual working out of the plan; that, because of the inordinate fondness of the Pinar del Rians for social gatherings about tables conveniently placed along the full cloistered length of the street, it was to be entirely impossible for one to make any practical use of the protected part, no matter what the hour or the inclemency of the weather. The endless lines of columns along Main Street are somewhat suggestive of Grecian architecture. But this architectural flavor does not in any respect make the city Grecian. Neither is it Roman, nor yet Parisian. It is Cuban, or to be more precise, western Cuban. It has been made securely this by the Pinar del Rians themselves. The energetic citizens not only have been lavish with the building of the attractive columns, but they have gone about with their brushes and painted every house in town, including the columns, yellow, buff, or cream. Many have added an attractive streak of pale blue, lavender, or pale green at odd points of the structures, but these are lost in the composite effect of the dominant color scheme; and you have as the result a pale yellow city, in toto-a clean, pretty city that fairly glistens in the abounding sunshine and the amiable spirits of its inhabitants. Of other interesting points of individuality pertaining to this most hospitable and alluring city, one especially should be mentioned. Look out the third or fourth story window of either of the two leading hotels, and a panorama consisting of acres and acres of tile roofing opens before you. It is not a case of an occasional tile-roofed structure; every building has its artistic cover of heavy, light-reddish tiles. The roofs do not, as a rule, have high ridgepoles. Many are rather flattish; and so, the whole blends into an undulating red plain of tiling. PINAR DEL RIO NOT VISITED AS IT SHOULD BE Not one foreign visitor of the tourist order was seen during the two delightful January weeks we spent in the western Province! A few Americans were seen about the vegetable districts and some of the sugar plantations; business had called them there. Strange how the many who visit Cuba during the winter spend practically all their time in Habana. Some make hasty trips to neighboring sugar centrals or run over to see Bellamar Cave near Matanzas; many go out to the festive race track, the bathing beaches, and the yacht clubs. But these places for the most part are merely suburban Habana. Habana is a brilliant city, tremendously interesting; but it is not Cuba, at least, not all of Cuba. After you have seen the Province of Pinar del Rio you are going to ask why so few visit the region. There it lies but a few miles beyond the Florida Keys, with its perfect winter climate, its good train service, a splendid hard-surfaced highway (the Carretera Central), with fairly good country roads, and scenery more entrancing than can be found over wide expanses of the United States or in some entire countries of Europe; yet few go there and no outsider knows much about the country. Did you ever hear of the magotes of the Cordillera de Guaniguanico? Of course not. The country possessing this matchless range is too near home for its existence to be suspected. The Guaniguanicos comprise one of the most beautiful and wonderful areas of mountain landscape to be found on the Western Hemisphere. The majestic. grandeur of the snow-covered Alaska Ranges and Andean peaks or |