Last Capital

Twenty-one republics, 18 European colonies and one huge kingdom make up the New World. Long linked by democracy the republics have been drawn together swiftly since the first international airline was projected in 1918. The first international flight from the U. S. to Havana took place a year later. In the decade that followed New World airways were extended until capitals once weeks apart were separated only by hours. Last week a Pan American Airways plane zoomed over the tropical forests of Paraguay and sat down at Asuncion, thereby linking the last capital of the 21 American republics by regular plane service to the air network which serves all the other 20.

Until airplanes livened the sky the backbone of South America's transport was mule pack trains. Its short railways feed river and coastal steamers, wander a bit over the Argentine pampas, Uruguay, southern Brazil; only one main transcontinental railroad exists, from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso. Beginning with an organization of Germans and Colombians, regular airplane service started in Colombia in 1919. Barnstorming Americans followed after the War and one of them, Elmer Faucett, remained in Peru to establish one of the leading air services of that nation. Chile, through her military forces, undertook to develop and control her own, still does. Both France and Germany soon hopped the South Atlantic (over which for nearly ten years they have maintained an airmail service). Starting in 1927 from the U. S., P.A.A. began its great encirclement of South America which today brings New York within five days of Buenos Aires--by far the greatest development in South American air history--which now touches all of South America's 13 capitals. Now South America has over 60,000 mi. of air routes in regular service, 288 airports, 26 separate flying companies and 52 private flying clubs. Last week the National Aeronautic Association's President Charles Francis Horner took occasion to mention, not untruthfully, that international air lines have done more to promote industrial good will, confidence and understanding "than generations of diplomacy."

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