Ο THE NEW PRESIDENT OF PANAMA, DR. HARMODIO ARIAS N October 1, 1932, Dr. Harmodio Arias was inaugurated President of Panama for the 4-year term ending in 1936. Señor Florencio Arosemena, before resigning the Presidency on January 2, 1931, accepted the resignation of the Secretary of Government and appointed in his stead Doctor Arias, who constitutionally assumed the provisional exercise of the executive power pending the arrival of the First Designate to the Presidency, Dr. Ricardo J. Alfaro, then Panama's minister to the United States. Following the inauguration of Doctor Alfaro on January 16, Doctor Arias accepted the post the Chief Executive had left vacant in Washington and served his country in the capacity of Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary until November, 1931, when he returned to Panama as presidential candidate of the Doctrinary Liberal Party. The elections were held on June 5, 1931, President Alfaro winning the respect and admiration of all parties by his untiring efforts to maintain order during the trying electoral period and secure a free and honest expression of the people's will at the polls. Indicative of the high example of civic culture set by the people of Panama on that occasion was the gesture of the losing candidate in gracefully acknowledging his defeat and in expressing his congratulations and best wishes to Doctor Arias when the National Electoral Board announced that the returns so far received, although not complete, insured the election of his opponent by a considerable majority. The new President, although relatively a young man, is one of Panama's most distinguished lawyers. He was born in the city of Penonome, capital of the Province of Cocle, on July 3, 1886. Educated first in his native city and later in the capital of the Republic, at the age of 18 he won a scholarship to study abroad. He sailed for England in 1904 and after completing his preparatory studies at Southport entered the University of Cambridge, where in 1909 he received the degrees of bachelor of arts and master of laws. He then continued his studies at the University of London, graduating in 1911 as a doctor of laws. Returning to Panama in 1912, Doctor Arias was appointed Assistant Secretary of Foreign Affairs and in the same year opened a law office. In 1914 he was appointed a member of the commission entrusted with the codification of the laws of the Republic and in 1918 professor of Roman Law in the National Institute. Doctor Arias represented HIS EXCELLENCY DR. HARMODIO ARIAS, PRESIDENT OF PANAMA His inauguration for a 4-year term took place October 1, 1932. his country abroad for the first time in 1920, when he was appointed delegate to the first Assembly of the League of Nations. During the same year he was elected a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague and in 1921 served as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of Panama in Argentina. In 1924 he was elected to the National Assembly and at the request of the Republic of Uruguay represented that nation at the Bolivarian Congress held in Panama in 1926. Dr. Harmodio Arias was married in 1916 to Señorita Doña Rosario Guardia, a charming member of Panaman society. While Presidentelect of Panama, Doctor Arias visited the United States where he was received in special audience by President Hoover and entertained at the White House, as well as elsewhere in official and private circles. FAREWELL LUNCHEON TO THE RETIRING MINISTER OF BOLIVIA Following his resignation as Minister of Bolivia, Señor Don Luis O. Abelli was the guest at a luncheon tendered in his honor by the Governing Board of the Pan URUGUAYAN MUSIC BY "ELISABETTA"1 UGUAY, the youngest independent South American Republic, URUG is probably also the youngest of them all in musical history, since the other countries which form that immense sisterhood of nations are known to have had music of some nature among their mountains, valleys, plains, and hills earlier than any mention of it occurs in connection with Uruguay. On the east coast and far into the center of the South American Continent, the Indian tribes possessed some knowledge of tone, as is evident through the discovery of rude instruments, such as drums and roughly hewn flutes of bamboo and reed. I have seen similar instruments in use comparatively recently in the interior of Brazil. As for Uruguay, I do not know that she had any primitive instrument of her own, since the Charrúas, Bohanes, Yaros, and a few other tribes which roamed the land before our European discoverers arrived seem to have possessed none; at least, no historical mention has been made of any. Nevertheless it is probable that their war dances were accompanied by beats of some drumlike instrument and the striking and blowing of reeds; we also know that the call to battle was blown on rude trumpets. Since these aborigines appear to have had only the vaguest idea of rhythm, and since, in place of the comparatively tuneful songs of the indigenous tribes of other parts of America, our Indians used only screams and shouts without any tone chracteristics, there was no ethnological tradition or characteristic favorable to the development of music in our native peoples. Naturally the Europeans had their own knowledge and conception of music, but the African tom-tom and elongated barrel-shaped drums of our first negroes, who were brought by our conquerors as slaves or servants at the commencement of the eighteenth century, constituted the introduction of tone and rhythm to our native Indians. Unfortunately, the Indians were practically exterminated long before our national writers of music began their work, and therefore we do not know whether the Indians developed any musical sense. As our national instrument we claim the guitar, the old and beautiful Spanish instrument which undoubtedly was brought to our land by the brave settlers some time after 1726, and which has become part of us. From Spain also came the bagpipes of Galicia (which, however, have disappeared completely, never having been played 1 E. M. S. de Pate. |