Buenos Aires in 1911
From Argentina and Her People of To-Day by Nevin O. Winter, 1911.
From: 1911 C.E. To: 1911 C.E.
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Argentina and Her People of To-Day by Nevin O. Winter, 1911.
“What is the Camp?” I asked of a Buenos Airean one day.
“Everything outside of Buenos Aires," was his reply.
“Is Rosario a part of the Camp?'' I questioned, for Rosario is the second municipality in the Argentine Republic, and is a city approaching two hundred thousand inhabitants.
“Yes, but we would not say so in Rosario."
This little conversation reveals the pride of all Portenos, as they call themselves, in their city, for the term Camp is used as country is with us. Buenos Aires contains the wealth and culture of the republic, and is the centre of the political as well as national life. One-fifth of the entire population dwell there, for the head has outgrown the body.
“Paris is France," says the Parisian, but the importance of that capital to France is outclassed by the significance of Buenos Aires to Argentina.
Buenos Aires is a wonderful city, and its inhabitants are a remarkable people. Italians and Spanish abound there in great numbers; thousands of French, British and Germans have found a haven on the low bank of the Rio de la Plata, and it would be difficult to find a race in Asia or Africa that has not its representatives in that cosmopolitan metropolis. On the street almost any tongue may be heard, and nearly every European language is represented by its own newspaper.
It is not a tropical city, such as Rio de Janeiro, nor an indolent one, but a city of business and enterprise with a great deal of the Latin love of pleasure in evidence. Women have become open competitors of men in the offices and stores, and the old conservatism of Spain has been compelled to yield to a broader cosmopolitanism.
“There is nothing in any other city that cannot be found here,'' is the boast of the Porteno. In a general sense the claim is true. The sky-scraper, the elevated railway and the “tube" are missing, but there are few conveniences or luxuries that cannot be purchased, if one only has the price. The price is usually high, for Buenos Aires is a very expensive city in which to live. Nearly all articles pass through the custom house and have a certain percentage added to the original cost in the foreign markets.
There are almost a million and a quarter of these busy people who make their homes in Buenos Aires. In the New World it is exceeded in population by only three cities of the United States. It is as cosmopolitan as New York, and is the hub and centre of the whole republic. On the vast pampas grow the grain and meat which sustain the energies of the factory workers of Europe, who, in turn, send to Argentina the product of their looms and machine shops. It is upon the fertility of these broad leagues, which produce such great quantities of cereals, meat, wool and hides, that the people live. There is little manufacturing in the city and the absence of smoke-stacks is the most striking aspect, when viewed from a height by an American.
It is only necessary to go down to the immense docks of Buenos Aires to get a vivid idea of the vast commerce of this city. It is a scene that cannot be duplicated even in New York with its far greater traffic. All you can see along those docks is the lofty bow of an ocean greyhound heaving up now and then above the dock-shed, as the tide ebbs and flows, and each one looks very much like the other. Here in Buenos Aires they stretch along the edges of the basins, funnel behind funnel, bridge behind bridge, as far as one can see, until the vision is lost in a veritable sea of masts.
A splendid freighter just in from Europe and loaded with champagne, automobiles and other luxuries may lie next to a river boat just in from Paraguay and loaded with oranges and bananas. Giant cranes are swinging, heaped-up trucks are constantly on the move and men are carrying loads backward and forward. Here are vessels from all the carrying nations of the world, flying the flags of Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, Spain and Austria, but the flag of the United States is not visible. Out of the thousands of vessels which entered this port last year, there were only four small ships that sailed under the stars and stripes of Uncle Sam.
Out in the river dozens of boats may be seen anchored, for the freighters are oftentimes obliged to wait three or four weeks before they can enter one of the basins and discharge their cargo. Outside the vast warehouses, which are always packed clear to the roofs, are scores of trucks and drays busily loading or unloading, and conveying freight to and from the railroad freight depots and the commission houses. And just beyond the line of drays is the dock railroad, where the switch engines are busily engaged in shoving cars backward and forward.
These immense docks, built only a few years ago, are already too small, so rapidly has Buenos Aires grown. Although almost four hundred years old, this city is as new as Chicago. For generations it remained only a miserable collection of mud huts, with lots three miles deep that could be purchased for an old, broken-down horse, or a second-hand suit of clothes. When our Declaration of Independence was given to the world only three thousand people lived on these mud flats now built up with great structures. Then it began to grow slowly, until a half-century ago it had reached a population of seventy-five thousand.
Its greatest growth, however, has been in the last twenty years. A quarter of a century ago there was only a flat mudbar along the waterfront of Buenos Aires. Ships were compelled to anchor several miles out in the river. Boxes, bales and passengers were conveyed ashore in lighters and rowboats. High-wheeled carts were then pushed out into the water so that passengers could land without getting wet.
Plans for a system of docks were then prepared by an English engineer, which were completed at a cost of forty millions of dollars. Five great basins were constructed which extended along the river front for three miles. At that time, however, the tonnage of this port was less than a million. Now it has reached ten millions, and additional basins are absolutely necessary. A magnificent and commodious custom house is now being built at a cost of a million and a half of dollars to provide room for the large working force necessary to care for this immense export and import trade.
Winter, Nevin O. Argentina and Her People of To-Day. L. C. Page and Company, 1911.
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