Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-05-26
BY ANNE HARD.

- ENOR DON CARLOS G. DAVILA,
Ambassador of Chile, is well
known in Washington and else
~ where for his time work
in behalf of good relations be-
tween Chile and the United States.
This Senior Don Carlos G.. Davila Is
Just a Woodworking newspaper man,
with the lust for activity of the born
reporter, from Riga to Rio, and the
carver of a considerable power for him
self by his own exertions.
Like many a North American SIM
ilarly placed, he paid his own way
through college, gained the right to
practice law, and opened an Office filled
with law books, chairs and hopes
but empty of clients.
To pay for the books and the chairs
and to sustain the hopes, at length, he
had to get job. He got it on the
staff of Ell Mercurio-the oldest paper
in South America-and then, in find
ing the Job, for the first time found
himself.
That was only sixteen years ago.
Davila is still young man. Indeed,
the government of Chile today is mostly
in the hands of young men. The min
lister of foreign affairs is only IS.
Within four years Davila had been
everything for Ell Mercurio, from
police reporter to feature writer. But
his alert mind had not been contented
with the job in hand. 1t was always
branching out in imagination to invent
different ways of handling the paper.
Already there we're a few in Chile
who speculated about North American
WAYS, who had begun to wonder wheth-
err Chile must learn everything from
Southern Europe or whether perhaps
Northern Europe and Northern Amer
lea might not also have something that
would be useful to her civilization.
Davila was one of these. He began
studying the American press.
He left Ell Mercurio to take charge
Of the foreign service of La Nacion. He
was now in charge of all the relatively
great amount of news which Is cabled
to a large South American paper. In
two years he was promoted to be what
they call in Santiago general secretary
of the editorial department" OF paper.
A hard-boiled managing editor would
scarcely recognize himself under that
fioyery name, but such Davila actually
has become-plus little dash of being
an editor-in-chief.
Difference in Papers.
More and more. now, he could follow
his idea of producing paper upon
lines. Any one who has read European
papers will know at once what the diff
ference Is. Advertisements on the 'front.'
page: long-winded essays and general
articles where the American finds his
snappy news; political editors instead
of political news: inspired" articles in
stead of impersonal narratives Of events;
a policy of regarding paper as the
mouthpiece Of certain persons or parties
rather than as a business institution
like any other-these and other methods
differentiate the papers Of European
countries from those of North America.
In La Nacion he began to get his
chance to turn along the North Amerl-
can newspaper road.
A dramatic page was started and put
into the hands Of an artist. Sports and
financial sections were added. Cabled
news took the place of essays on politics.
La Nacion blossomed into being full
fledged newspaper as we would UNDER
stand the term And 1t blossomed so
beautifully that other papers followed
suit. Davilla had introduced North
American journalistic methods into
Chile.
So he took the next step and founded
Los Tiempos (The Times, the first
tabloid in South America.
AS so often happens under similar
circumstances with us also, the build
ing Of a paper into a profitable bust
ness by acquiring large numbers of
readers meant the acquisition by its
owner of certain political power:
Davilla had now become a personal
force in the public life of Chile.
We have Just seen that Davila intro
duced modern American journalism
into Chile. But he was not by any