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Journalism in Asunción Under the Allies and the Colorados, 1869-1904*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Harris Gaylord Warren*
Affiliation:
Miami University Emeritus

Extract

Some of the Latin American republics have produced newspapers that rank with the best in the world. In Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Colombia there have been great editors who presided over especially noteworthy journals. Political stability certainly contributed to the development of such papers as La Prensa and La Nación in Buenos Aires and of El Mercurio in Chile. While political stability is a prerequisite for continuous good journalism, freedom of expression, guaranteed by government and jealously guarded by legal institutions, is even more important. Equally important is self-discipline by the press, nowhere more clearly shown than in Chile where the important law of 1872 brought under control abuses that had plagued Chilean journalism for three decades. A free press is incompatible with dictatorial or authoritarian government, a truism amply demonstrated by the Paraguayan experience.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1983 

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Footnotes

*

Research for this study was made possible by a grant from the Penrose Fund of The American Philosophical Society.

References

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3 For a more complete treatment of the press in the postwar decade, see ibid., pp. 160–166.

4 Henrique de Barros Cavalcanti de Lacerda to Felippe Franco de Sa, Secção Central, No. 1 Reservado, Asunción, May 21, 1882, Missões Diplomáticas Brasileiras, Assumpção, Oficios Recebidos, Arquivo Histórico de Itamaraty, Ministério das Relaçöes Diplomáticas, Rio de Janeiro. Hereafter Sec. Cen., Res., MDBA-OR.

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9 Maresma, Gladis Fois. “El periodismo paraguayo y su actitud frente a la Guerra de la Triple Alianza y Francisco S. López.” M.A. thesis, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, January, 1970, p. 36.Google Scholar

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14 El Porvenir, Feb. 12, 1893.

15 Henrique Mamede Lins de Almeida to Barâo de Cabo Frio, 4a Sec. No. 2, Res., Asunción, April 5, 1893, MDBA-OR 201/4/4; Cabo Frio to Almeida, 4a Sec. No. 3, Rio de Janeiro, May 10,1893, MDBA-Despachos, 201/4/4.

16 Almeida to Alexandre Cassiano de Nascimento, 2a Sec. No. 5, Asunción, March 5, 1894, MDBA-OR 201/2/5.

17 La Prensa, Feb. 1, 1898.

18 La Patria Paraguaya, Aug. 6, 1900 and Dec. 6, 1901.

19 El Porvenir, Feb. 12, 1903.

20 La Bastilla noted La Razón’s disappearance in its issue of Aug. 6, 1903.

21 El Látigo, Jan. 8, 1888.

22 El Látigo Inmortal, April 6, 1890.

23 Ibid., Aug. 4, 1889.

24 Ibid, Aug. 11, 1889.

25 Ibid, Oct. 6, 1889.

26 Ibid., Dec. 8, 1889.

27 Ibid., Dec. 15, 1889.

28 Diario Oficial, Sept. 20, 1892; Almeida to Custódio José de Mello, 2a Sec. No. 34, Asunción, Sept. 21, 1892, MDBA-OR 201/2/5.

29 La Bastilla, Aug. 6, 1903.

30 A copy is in the Godoi-Díaz Pérez Collection, University of California-Riverside 8/ 15A/6.

31 No. 64 was published on Jan. 8, 1900.

32 Revista Mensual, I (no. 1, March 15, 1896): 1.

33 López to Manoel Moreira Castro, Paris, Jan. 22, 1854, Comisión de Recuperación del Patrimonio Histórico Nacional, Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, 7/16/4/15.

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42 El Látigo Inmortal, Oct. 6, 1889.

43 The reference was to the brutal murder of several prisoners, including the highly respected Facundo Machaín, in October, 1877.

44 El Látigo Inmortal, Dec. 8, 1889.

45 La Libertad, April 3, 1893.

46 Héctor Francisco Decoud had founded La República in 1890 to support González against the caballeristas. The paper died in 1894 with the overthrow of González.

47 Almeida to Mello, 2a Sec. No. 32, Asunción, Aug. 27, 1892, MDBA-OR 201/2/5.

48 Same to same, 4a Sec. No. 2, Asunción, Oct. 29, 1902, ibid.

49 El Centinela, May 21, 1893.

50 Egusquiza, Juan Bautista, Mensaje del presidente de la república al honorable congreso de la nación al abrir sus sesiones. Abril de 1898 (Asunción, 1898), p. 7.Google Scholar

51 Memoria del Ministerio de Hacienda correspondiente al año 1900, presentada al honorable congreso nacional en sus sesiones del año 1901, (Asunción, 1903), p. 417.

52 El Triunfo, May 5, 1904.

53 El Grito del Pueblo, June 24, 1904.