VI
In any Central-American republic, one notices a “homey” quality lacking in the larger territory of Mexico.
In these smaller nations, every one of any prominence knows every one else. The capital is something of a Latinized Main Street. This is more true of the little countries to the south, but Guatemala is not completely an exception. Its provincialism manifests itself particularly in the newspaper, which savors always of the local country weekly, although a flowery verbosity gives it a unique distinction.
In Mexico City, one finds a press quite the equal of the American, with a several-page daily edition that shows an appreciation of news values, and a Sunday edition complete even to rotogravure picture section and comic supplement. In Guatemala City one finds a little four-page sheet, published apparently by some gentleman who desires an organ for the glorification of his friends and the vilification of his enemies.
On its first page is the feature story of a party given last night by the editor’s brother-in-law, Don Guilliermo Pan y Queso Escobar, whose palatial mansion was graced by a felicitous gathering of our most illustrious men and our most charming women, truly representative of the very cream of our distinguished society, and so on with an ever-swelling multitude of flattering adjectives. Beside it is an account of the Commencement Exercises of the local stenographic college—of which the editor’s uncle is the principal—an event which seems to have been a complete success, for it was celebrated with an éclat both artistic and educational unsurpassed in the history of our city, and every number of the delightful and uplifting program was greeted by rapturous applause, the audience sitting spellbound as the estimable, virtuous, and pulchritudinous señoritas of the student body demonstrated their efficiency by taking down in shorthand, almost word for word, the speech of the director, our sympathetic and greatly admired fellow-countryman, Don Ricardo Cantando y Bailando Chavez, to whom great credit is due for the distinction and finesse with which the entire entertainment, and thus and thus, until the article closes with a list of the persons present, the illustrious and distinguished everybody in the audience who wore shoes.
On the last inside page, hidden among the advertisements, are the brief cablegrams from the rest of the world, announcing the death of Lenine, the invasion by France of the German Ruhr, and such other unimportant events as the destruction of Tokio by earthquake, the election of a new American president, or a war in Europe.