Anyone who reads the Jornal day by day, with its pages of European telegrams, its excellent letters from world capitals, its fine literary and political essays, its Publicações a pedido where every kind of public or private matter is thrashed out, often to the great entertainment of the reader, knows everything that is going on in Brazil, is well up in European news, but will hear only faint echoes coming from North America and these as a rule only when some distinguished Brazilian happens to be travelling there, and cables are sent south dealing with his sayings and doings. When I have enquired the reason for this lack of news from North America the reply has generally been that the news services are responsible: that the arrangements made with certain European agencies cannot be duplicated. It seems as if this is a matter needing thoughtful attention, for it is obvious that the Brazilian cannot be so deeply interested in a country about which he hears practically nothing as about others which present even trivial domestic news to him in long cables every day. The same lack occurs, of course, in the United States in regard to Brazil; if accurate, frequent information were disseminated we should not read that “in the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, in Brazil, the entire population subsists on bananas as food and are famous for their strength and endurance,” or that (an item of early October, 1916) “the Brazilian coffee crop is estimated at 11,000,000 bags, the greatest ever harvested and three million bags bigger than last year’s crop,” nor should we see the “Girl from Brazil” represented upon a New York stage dressed, and comporting herself, much like a Carmen, and speaking Spanish; or read tales repeated in the press of the “little republic of Coanani” near the Guiana boundary in Brazil which has “sent its army to fight on the side of the Allies.” With the United States as Brazil’s best customer, and, at least for the present, Brazil’s greatest supplier, there should be better channels of interchange not only of information but ideas; there should be room for a Brazilian journal in New York—there is one in Paris—and for a Bureau of Information with exhibits, something on the lines of the existing Bureau in the French capital, where Brazilian hardwoods, cotton, precious stones, fibres, ores, etc., are on view. The Pan-American Union, as well as other organizations and publications with the Pan-American object in view, do sincere and arduous work which has borne much industrial and social fruit, but their labours are necessarily spread over a great field: nor can Consuls do everything, however energetic. Brazilian interchange with North America is quite important and promising enough to merit a special news service.
Other strong Brazilian newspapers published in Rio are O Paiz, O Imparcial, O Correio da Manhã issued in the morning, with a host, including A Platea, A Tarde, O Noite and the afternoon edition of the Jornal do Commercio, issued any time after mid-day: the latter has had a wonderful war-review series of articles running since 1914. Very many papers of the Brazilian press, like the major part of the non-German Brazilian people, are strongly pro-Ally, and particularly pro-French, and have no hesitation in declaring their feelings, as witness the “Liga Brasileira pelos Alliados” formed by some of the foremost men of the country, but in the case of the war articles of the afternoon Jornal there was a serious attempt at impartiality. It was possible thus to read first a criticism of the war-telegrams of the day showing that a distinct advantage had accrued to the Allies, while printed just below would be another analysis by a second contributor, demonstrating that the news was distinctly favourable to the Teutonic forces.
Also published in Rio are many technical papers, medical and engineering periodicals, etc., and some of the gay illustrated weeklies of very free speech, as O Malho, A Careta, Fon-Fon; also the Revista da Semana, a society paper. There are French, Italian and German papers, but the great home of a polyglot press is São Paulo, with its groups of immigrants. Here the oldest Brazilian paper is the Correio Paulistano, sixty years established, a daily morning paper; another in the same class and perhaps the most widely read is the Estado de São Paulo, while the Commercio de São Paulo[[5]] also has a high reputation. The Estado runs an afternoon edition, and there are many other evening papers—the Diario Popular, Naçao, Gazeta, etc. For the Italian population there is the daily morning Fanfulla, the afternoon Giornale degli Italiani and the weekly Italiano. Germans have the morning Diario Alemão and the weekly Germania. Two French weeklies seem to do well, the Messager de S. Paul, and the Courrier Français. There is a Spanish Diario Español, two Turkish papers, and in the colonies outside the city there are said to be Russian and Japanese sheets published. The city of S. Paulo counts eighty journals, the State counting over two hundred dailies and weeklies.
Rio and S. Paulo are the two chief literary centres, but every town of any size in Brazil has its newspaper. Of these perhaps the most important are the Pernambuco papers; the Diario de Pernambuco, already mentioned, bears the proud inscription of its age in conspicuous lettering on the front of its building in a square in Recife; it is a very good paper, and so is the Jornal do Recife, among several other daily sheets. Bahia has the Diario de Bahia and Diario de Noticias, amongst others, and the State Press here also publishes daily an excellent Diario Official.
Pará has quite a variety of papers, the Estado de Pará and the Folha do Norte probably the two most powerful. Manáos also supports several newspapers, of which the Jornal do Commercio and O Tempo appear to be most widely read.
Many imported foreign periodicals have a ready sale in Brazil, as the French L’Illustration, many Portuguese publications, and the Blanco y Negro of Madrid; nearly all the English serious reviews and illustrated weeklies are sold, and there is an increasing demand for illustrated North American periodicals of good class. Altogether Brazil has a remarkably cosmopolitan class of readers and therefore a cosmopolitan press.
Almost all the Brazilian authors of note have, at one time or another, contributed to the great Jornal do Commercio; this is really the cradle of much fine writing. Founded in 1827, it is today housed in a splendid building on the corner of the famous Rua do Ouvidor and the Avenida Rio Branco, the building and press equipment costing over half a million dollars.
Linked with the life of the Jornal for the last twenty-five years is that of José Carlos Rodrigues, Director from 1890 until his retirement in 1915; a great student and great organizer, possessed of international prestige, José Carlos was the moving spirit of the newspaper for a generation. He is one of the eminent figures in modern Brazilian life. At seventy-two years of age he is completing his Vida de Jesus, fruit of long years of research.
José Carlos Rodrigues is one of the constructive Brazilians. There have been many others, as the great Andrada brothers, Campos Salles, the Visconde de Rio Branco and his son, the Barão; Varnhagen (Visconde de Porto Seguro), politician and historian; Joaquim Nabuco, writer, ambassador, and instigator of slavery abolition—as were also several fine men still alive, as Rodrigues Alves, the great Paulista.
Of modern Brazilians to whom the country owes a debt there are none with more claim to gratitude than Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, who banished yellow fever from coast towns once notorious for their unhealthiness, and Colonel Rondon, who has devoted his life to the opening-up of the Brazilian interior, and besides mapping, charting, and creating telegraphic communication throughout the hinterlands of Matto Grosso, has brought whole tribes of wild Indians into civilized ways of living.