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Houston

LIC. JOSÉ VASCONCELOS

LA CIUDAD fué fundada por el 1835 en honor de Sam Houston, el conquistador del territorio de Texas. Fué Houston un imitador de Hernán Cortés, sin que le faltase su Malinche de la raza cherokee. Afortunadamente también, porque en su triunfo definitivo de San Jacinto intervino gran parte de azar, aparte de la inconsciencia propia del militarismo encarnado en Santa-Anna.

La ciudad de Houston, con su medio millón de habitantes, es hoy la de más porvenir en todo Texas; la segunda ciudad del Golfo de México. Después de Nueva Orleans, la primera, aunque sin llegar al encanto, ni por asomo, que a la reina del Mississippi dan su tradición y su cultura. Houston conserva todavía algo del campamento del Far West. Centro algodonero de los más importantes, todavía depende Houston de la agricultura, más que de la industria. Sin embargo, su sección industrial es ya importante.

Un bosque de chimeneas compite por su noroeste con el bosque de árboles que ha sido necesario derribar en parte para hacer sitio a los habitantes de la ciudad. Todo un inmenso bosque de encinas gruesas y pinos se extiende desde la costa sur de Texas hasta Arkansas, prácticamente hasta la confluencia del Missouri con el Mississippi, el asiento de San Luis, Missouri. Riquezas inmensas en madera y profusión de pozos petrolíferos, aparte del algodón, explican la fantástica riqueza de la región. Se encuentra ésta dentro de la zona templada: veranos extremosos que en la Reproducido de Todo, Mexico, Octubre 2 de 1947:.

ciudad están dominados por la refrigeración artificial, la campaña contra el mosquito. Inviernos severos que la calefacción interna de casas, hoteles y fábricas hace tolerables. No tiene tiempo de decaer en cuanto al traje la población, porque si en verano visten descuidados, especialmente los hombres, apenas llega el otoño, el esmero y la moda transforman la apariencia de las gentes.

Antiguamente, con antigüedad de no más de veinte años, las poblaciones americanas se juzgaban con el criterio del ferrocarrilero: tantas toneladas de carga, tantos pasajeros transportados. Ahora es el avión lo que marca el ritmo de las comunicaciones, pero sólo superficialmente. El barco y el ferrocarril siguen siendo los ejes del sistema nervioso de Houston. Colocada la ciudad en una llanura verde interminable a la vista, suecada de canales, el trabajo humano la ha transformado en puerto de mar.

Y todavía para lujo y recreo de su población, carreteras y rieles unen a Houston con las playas de Galveston, extensas como pocas y hechas de fina arena que las ondas lavan sin cesar. Es increíble la cantidad de alegría que la proximidad del mar comunica a una población. El mar y la llanura ensanchan el espíritu, crean nómadas y trotamundos, guerreros y navegantes. Las montañas estrechan el ánimo y si es cierto que estimulan la fantasía, al mismo tiempo tienden a estabilizar sus concepciones.

Houston tiene llano y mar, los dos caminos del hombre de acción. No es sorprendente, entonces, que en poco más de un siglo, la región inhóspita que atravesó Cabeza de Vaca se haya convertido en una de las más ricas del comercio mundial del momento. El genio del Virrey Gálvez no dejó de advertir la importancia de esta región y su nombre se conserva con afecto en la escuela de este

pueblo constructor y próspero; que de hallarse en la miseria ya habría hecho lo que otros, renegar de su pasado y vengar su fracaso, con la difamación de la Colonia.

Y esto nos conduce a decir algunas palabras del capital humano de que dispone Houston. Tenía curiosidad de comprobar los cambios que el triunfo guerrero había producido en el carácter del norteamericano medio. Hasta donde pude advertir, sigue prevaleciendo la disposición cordial, acentuada hoy con una cortesía más fina. En vez de la arrogancia militarista que era de temerse en pueblo an sonadamente victorioso,

halla el

viajero por doquier una afabilidad sencilla que parece increíble. ¿Depende ello de que la fuerza verdadera, por instinto trata de hacerse perdonar, manifestándose bondadosa? O bien, ¿esa falta de arrogancia es el resultado de una guerra hecha por civiles, encabezada por políticos y ganada por los técnicos de extracción universitaria?

Los héroes militares de la victoria son estimados, sin duda. Pero aun ellos manifiestan una tendencia hacia la vida civil y humana. Así Marshall, general, asciende a estadista y diplomático y Eisenhower se convierte en Rector de Universidad.

茶

THE GOVERNING BOARD

A REGULAR meeting of the Board was held on January 7, 1947 to consider a number of subjects. Among these were the following:

Budget and financing

A special committee presented a report on the Pan American Union budget for the Escal year beginning July 1, 1948 and on a plan for financing it. Since the regulatons of the Union require that any budget more than 25 percent higher than that for the preceding fiscal year must be approved by the governments members of the Union, this report was referred to them for consideration.

Their replies approved the suggested Judget and plan of financing for 1948-49.

A special committee will continue study of the subject and prepare a report for submission to the Ninth International Conference of American States at Bogotá.

The new budget totals $2,130,000, more than twice the present budget. Since present quotas, contributed by the member countries in accordance with their respective population, amount to only $656,399, there is a deficit, which has to be met from reserves.

The plan of financing for 1948-49 provides that 40 percent of the budget shall be covered by quotas based on population, as at present, and that 60 percent shall be paid by the various countries in proportion to their relative contributions to the United Nations. When the funds for the new budget are voted by the member countries, the Pan American Union will be able to expand its activities.

Nobel Peace Prize

The Board agreed to endorse the name of Dr. Oswaldo Aranha of Brazil, the able president of the last two Assemblies of the United Nations, for the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Aranha was for some years a member of the Board while he represented his country as Ambassador to the United States, and was later Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Natural resources

The Board voted to change the date and place of meeting of the First InterAmerican Conference on the Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources. It will be held at Denver from September 8 to 20, 1948, instead of at the Yosemite National Park in May.

Publicity

The following resolution on publicity concerning the activities of the Governing Board and activities of the Pan American Union was passed:

1. That the Secretariat periodically circulate among the members of the Governing Board a report with respect to the publicity which may have been given in the press of the United States to the discussions and conclusions reached at the meetings of the Governing Board and to the other activities of the Pan American Union.

2. That the Secretariat likewise report, in so far as the information may be available, upon the publicity given these discussions, conclusions and activities in the press of the Latin American countries.

Internal reorganization of the

Pan American Union

The fourth department chief to be appointed under the plan of reorganization described in the October 1947 number of

the BULLETIN is Dr. Jorge Basadre, since 1943 Director of the National Library of Peru, who assumed his duties as Chief of the Department of Cultural Affairs on February 3, 1948.

Dr. Basadre is known throughout the Americas as a scholar. Born at Tacna on February 12, 1903, he received his doctor's degree in letters from the University of San Marcos in 1927. At the same time he won a diploma in law. Almost immediately he began teaching the history of Peru in the University's College of Liberal Arts, and a few years later he commenced giving a course in the history of Peruvian law in the Law School. His reputation as a lecturer has taken him far afield, to the Center of Studies of the University of Seville (1933), the Center of Historical Studies at Madrid (1935), Swarthmore College (1941-1942), and the College of Liberal Arts at Buenos Aires (1942).

Allied with Dr. Basadre's professorial activities was his service as Librarian for the University of San Marcos from 1930 to 1931 and from 1935 to 1942. It was in 1943 that he assumed the post of Director of the National Library of Peru and acquired the heavy task of rebuilding and restocking it after the fire of 1943. In this, as in his other labors, he has been eminently successful. In 1945 he was Minister of Education.

Among Dr. Basadre's books are Historia de la República del Perú, which has gone through a number of editions; La Iniciación de la República; La Multitud, la Ciudad y el Campo en la Historia del Perú; Perú: Problema y Posibilidad; and Historia del Derecho Peruano.

Dr. Basadre's scholarship has been recognized by membership in the Peruvian Academy of Letters, the Peruvian Society of History, the Chilean Academy of History and Geography, the Argentine

Academy of History, and the Society of Americanists of Paris. The University of Bogotá conferred an honorary degree on Dr. Basadre in 1946.

Dr. Basadre first came to the United States in 1931-32 at the invitation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was most recently here in 1947 for the Assembly of Librarians of the Americas. The Assembly honored him by election as chairman of its continuing committee.

The Department Chiefs previously appointed are: Dr. Charles G. Fenwick, International Law and Organization; Dr. Amos E. Taylor, Economic and Social Affairs; and Lowell Curtiss, Administrative Services.

SPECIAL EVENTS

A collection of Argentine landscapes by Juan Manuel Sturla was exhibited at the Pan American Union between January 7 and January 18, 1948. Señor Sturla, who was born in the province of Córdoba, Argentina, in 1907, is a self-taught artist.

His first exhibition was held in Buenos Aires in February 1947. Country scenes. of his homeland provide Sturla's favorite subject matter for his oil paintings.

January 19, 1948 was the opening date for a Pan American Union showing of oils, pastels, and drawings by a young Mexican artist, Francisco Dosamantes. For more than a year the group has been widely circulated among museums and galleries throughout the United States, and remained on exhibition at the Pan American Union until February 8.

A native of Mexico City, Dosamantes studied at the Fine Arts School there and worked as a protegé of Diego Rivera. He is considered one of the outstanding members of "the third generation of modern Mexican painters," and his works are included in numerous institutions throughout the United States and Mexico.

Dosamantes is also well known as an engraver and as a teacher of drawing and painting. After living for a time in New York, he recently returned to Mexico to complete a new set of murals in Michoacan and resume his teaching.

Message of the President of Honduras

ON December 5, 1947, the President of Honduras, Doctor Tiburcio Carías Andino, delivered his annual message to Congress.

One of the first things the President said was that even during the most critical days of the war, Honduras was able to maintain a certain degree of economic and financial prosperity, without the necessity of rationing and other Government controls. As a matter of fact, the Honduran people have fared very well during the last few years, as a result of numerous measures the Government took to raise the standard of living. The increase in sanitation facilities, for example, and the establishment of a number of social welfare services have greatly reduced the ravages of malaria and other endemic diseases and have improved the physical and moral well-being of the people in general.

Intellectually, also, the life of the nation. has been enhanced by the promotion of various cultural pursuits and the emphasis given to public education. Among the most evident achievements in the educational field, as the President later pointed out in his speech, are the experiments which have been made with new teaching systems and the adoption of a plan to increase literacy. In connection with this, many new schools have been established for both adults and children, and during the first year of the plan's operation, 20,000 Hondurans have learned to read and write. Other important advancements have been the establishment of a normal school for training rural teachers

and the founding of a new school for nurses. Education, the President said, has progressed so that it is now within reach of the masses.

Since 1935, when a law was passed extending the Government's protection to all phases of recreational activity, great stress has also been laid on physical education. A number of facilities have been provided for this, including a gymnasium and a national stadium.

Prior to 1940, little serious effort had been made to cultivate the artistic talents of Honduran youth. In that year, however, the National School of Fine Arts was established, an institution which has achieved remarkable success in its work. The school has held a number of fine exhibitions, both at home and abroad, as, for example, the one which took place in New Orleans in 1946.

In speaking of other internal improvements during his administration, President Carías mentioned the communications systems. He stated that since he had come into office, 500 miles had been added to the country's highways, 126 new bridges had been built, and numerous others reconstructed. With the investment of $595,000, it was possible to extend the national railroad by 14 miles.

The President went on to say that he was pleased with the progress that had been made in Tegucigalpa in the construction of parks and buildings, the paving of streets, and the amplification of public utilities, particularly with reference to water supply and electric power. Other improvements now under way include the building of a modern airport outside the capital, a bridge over the Guacerique