pears to be in the process of becoming a hemispheric network. Particularly in the early days it constituted an extraordinary experimental station for large volume, low cost operations, and it was of inestimable value to the small republics of Central America, which up to that time had only the most primitive connections between their capitals and their outlying provinces.

Pan American Airways System began in the fall of 1927-that is, less than twenty years ago as a connection between Key West in Florida and Habana, Cuba. This limited operation had been attempted by other United States companies but the new enterprise was properly timed with our government's plans to aid the extension of airmail services beyond the borders

of the country and thus to aid those who were planning to extend to all the Americas the benefits of the new, fast means of communications. The 90-mile route expanded with extraordinary rapidity both by the opening of routes pioneered by its organizing group and through the purchase of existing carriers in various countries. The history of the development has been told many times. Within two years the American flag was flying on regular schedules all the way to Buenos Aires via both coasts of South America and connections were established from the Texas border to the Canal Zone with service to each one of the intervening republics. By 1938 all the countries of South America had multiple weekly services and with the

impact of war frequencies were stepped up, cut-off routes established, and general traffic figures expanded to many times their pre-war level.

Pan American Airways anticipated the needs of traffic up to the beginning of the war by the development of new, faster and larger airplanes and only the need to help with the war effort served to stop a commercial expansion which placed the company ahead of all other world airlines. During this period the company, by purchase and new organizations, maintained domestic operations in Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, and Brazil. More recently new domestic airlines have been organized in several of the Central American republics, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela.

All of this has been part of a program which it was intended should make available to those elements of each country which were interested in air transportation the most modern, efficient, and safe procedures that were being evolved in our own country under the enlightened guidance of the Civil Aeronautics Board as organized in 1938.

The national companies, when operated at the high standards which Pan American Airways had set for itself, found difficulty in competing profitably with the European-controlled companies. The latter were admittedly intended to be elements of commercial and political penetration without necessarily having independent economic justification. Because of this the

United States government and Pan American Airways were glad to cooperate in maintaining the purely commercial services of these national airlines until such time as by increased utilization and greater general activity they might become selfsustaining. That time has now been reached in most cases and during the last three years Pan American Airways has carried out a program of divestment of stock ownership which has reduced its 100 percent control of the companies in Mexico and Brazil and has transferred control of the Colombian subsidiary to nationals of that country. The company is considering a similar program in Cuba. In recent years also the initial participation of the company in the newly established airline enterprises in the countries has been kept at a minority level, a policy justified by the increased interest of national capitalists in such airline operations.

In observance of the laws of most Latin American countries Pan American Airways has aided in the instruction of nationals for the operation and management of its affiliates and, with minor exceptions, the whole of the flying group of each one is now made up of national pilots. Similarly the communications and ground organizations are in the hands of local personnel which has had the benefit of Pan American Airways training. These companies in most cases act as the local representative of the U. S. flag carrier.

In spite of the tremendous increase that the airlines have had during the war throughout all of Latin America, through the positive factor of increased air consciousness and the negative factor of the elimination of other means of transport, the plans now in the process of development for their postwar expansion far surpass anything which has been done in the past. Applications of Pan American Air

ways and of a large number of othe United States carriers for operations i Latin America presuppose an increase in passenger traffic by air alone from two t five times the pre-war passenger move ment by all existing means of transporta tion. In the Chicago International Civi Aviation Conference the principal European nations as well as the majority of the Latin American republics indicated their own individual plans for expansion in this area. With a full knowledge of this vast competitive potential Pan American Airways alone has embarked on an equipment purchase program of about 40,000,000 dollars. The Company has been spending millions in addition to improve its vast chain of radio stations so that immediately on the delivery of four-engined equipment it may initiate night flying along the principal trunk routes and still further cut flying-time among the principal commercial centers of the hemisphere. The new aircraft, huge in size, and of economical operation, should permit cuts in rates to something less than half present tariffs on the longest hauls.

Thus the vision which launched the hazardous hop between the U. S. mainland and Cuba, established with the elementary equipment of its day but with a sound program of safety and economy, is now the spearhead of a vast network. Local feeders affiliated with it-competitive networks, both American and foreignnational cargo and passenger services—all contribute to bring to the western hemisphere speedy and safe flying schedules that have given to its citizens the most modern of conveyances and have skipped the slow development of surface transpor tation, in itself a retarding factor in the industrialization and social progress of all the Americas.

A single poem, a book, a song, sometimes has led a man to fame and glory. There is something fascinating in the manner in which a book alone comes to represent the life of a man and, gradually, the life of a generation, of an epoch, and finally wins a place among the sacred treasures of mankind. There are even times when the name of the author disappears and a poem relentlessly takes its place. Man then becomes legend, just like Macías El Enamorado only a name and a handful of lyrical poems-the lover par excellence in the Spanish tradition. In the Middle Ages another legend flourished, a love of a different character: the love of a boy of nine for a girl of eight from which a poem was to be born that would remain forever among the greatest artistic accomplishments of man. Dante was the boy, Beatrice the girl, and Vita Nuova the little book whence the legend sprang. Dante promised that he would say in the Commedia what no one had ever said about women. Today there are many who think that Gabriela Mistral has said it in Desolación. There is also the legend of a love in this book which is the book that led her to the heights of international fame.

volverlo a ver, no importa donde, en remansos del cielo o en vórtice hervidor bajo unas lunas plácidas o en un cárdeno horror

1"... to see him again, no matter where, in heavenly glades or in a vortex of fire, under a placid moon or in a flaming dread

These are Gabriela's words, but it is Dante's world-the world of Francesca and Paolo illuminated by the splendor of another passion, just as intense, as tragic, and as transcendental. Like Francesca, when the time came for the supreme decision, Gabriela defied the divine power by being merciful and pious in the very midst of damnation. She loved when the occasion called for desperation. She refused to be parted. She followed the beloved shadow-he committed suicidethrough the paths of earth and heaven, in ecstasy and in tears. It has been said that frustration led her to sublimity, that she found escape in the love of Christ and reward in her love for children. But her love for children is no longer Desolación.

There is a realm in her poetry that shines with the joy and the dream which are sheer magic. The realm of miracle in which roses, clouds, waves of the ocean, and songs of birds join to inspire the wanderer before he sets out to discover the world. It is the realm of Ternura2, the word that our Spanish American children sing. Unconsciously, perhaps, they sing it in praise of her whose life is a living example of courage, strength, and faith.

She was born in a village of Chile 56 years ago among poor and hard-working people. She became a self-educated rural teacher and as such she lived an anonymous existence serving in the most remote places along the coast of Chile. One day

2 See Selected Bibliography, below.

she won a prize in a literary contest. Her poems were published in books designed to teach children to read. She won acclaim as a poet before publishing her works in book form. She went to Mexico as the official guest of the government to take part in educational reforms. Her New York friends of the Instituto de las Españas gathered her poems and published the first edition of Desolación. Since then she has been honored by many peoples; she has served in the League of Nations and, as a diplomat, she has represented Chile in both Europe and America. She has been looked upon as the most distinguished woman writer of Latin America and as a great defender of woman's rights. Her poetry has been touched by the fervor of

social reform and it has carried her message wherever the humble, the poor, and the persecuted have clamored for protection. It is a well known fact that all the proceeds obtained from the publication of Tala, her third volume of poetry, went for the relief of Basque children who had been left homeless as a result of the Spanish Civil War.

She has shown deep concern for the fate of the Jewish people, perhaps as a result of her long and careful study of the Bible. For her language is undoubtedly Biblical. The Old Testament's river of milk and honey sensually flows deep under many of her songs. The blood of Calvary stains every one of her descriptions of twilight. The night that brought Ruth and Boaz together, with all its disquieting mixture of sensuality and mysticism, became an exciting subject in Gabriela's poem; perhaps more so than in Hugo's. And although her protest against the persecution of the Jews is most genuine and her knowledge of the Bible is profound and filled with admiration, there might be another reason to explain the Biblical nature of her poetry. I do not mean a psychological one. In the critics' interpretation and judgment of her work, the events of her life have weighed much too heavily. The reason might be the Elqui Valley where Gabriela was born; a land that seems to have been lifted from the Bible and set down in Chile for the good of our poetry and the danger of our souls. A valley through whose ample heavens huge clouds. race to infinity. A land of warm and strange scents. Elqui produces the sweetest raisins and the most disturbing mystical individualists. It could be the land of the Song of Songs suffering under a blight of human selfishness and injustice. Gabriela has rejoiced in the eternal spring, but has also grieved among the miseries of mankind. She has been pure Chilean when