Show Americas America's Godmother Slumbers Peacefully Two Spanish Villages Played Important Part In Columbus' Columbus Discovery of New World Fate Played Part In Messenger Overtaking Navigator When He Left In Despair for France By JESSIE HENDERSON The New Yorker Abroad Dispatch to The Standard Examiner Copyright 1927 Consolidated Press Association SANTA FE Spain Aug 27 l If If you glance through young Johnnys Johnny's primary grade history book the chances are that you will search vainly for the name namo of oC this town and of its neighbor pretty little Pinos Puente Yet here are two Spanish villages which once cupped the fate of a whole hemisphere in fu their white straggling streets and swung the high destiny of the world Swung it high and westward some four thousand miles away from the Banos Danos cafe care of PInos Puente and an from Santa Fes Fe's small sm ll church Swung It farther than they meant FOSTERED AMERICA The sister hamlets ought to be full of American monuments and of American pilgrims Not an example ot of o the one or the tho theother theother other invisible The towns themselves catnap under the hot bot Spanish blue sky as oblivious of their grown godchild as their godchild is ot of them Yet these are the godmothers of America They sponsored her h r even before she was born And if rumor of ot her birth has reached them up to the present moment their placid somnolent furrowed age faces betray no knowledge of the event Just as well perhaps If H godmothers and go met the shock would be mutual By motor car its it's no trip at all from the outer gate of oC the Alhambra in Granada to the placid center of Pinos Puente But dont don't go o by car Mount instead a leisurely horse and ride forth Corth with resentful eyes and despairing heart By Dy the he time youve you've done the 10 miles to Pinos know how Columbus felt on a brilliant April day in 1492 riding off dis dis- disgusted disgusted disgusted gusted from front the court of Isabella after months of oC futile He was bound for France CAUGHT HIM IN TIME Somewhere along the meager main street of that alluring town let perched aslant the Clio foothills Isabella's messenger in a burst of dust overtook the traveler No monument marks the spot where the fate o of the new world and the old quivered in inthe Inthe inthe the balance while the courtier spoke and Columbus hesitated It must have been a half hale incredulous half haH relieved lift ot of the shoulders that the Genoese turned his horse around After all France in 1492 1412 was a lung long journey jour ey from Granada Back five live miles rulles he lie cantered to the tile fussy self important set set- settlement settlement of oC Santa Fe a mushroom city that at Isabella's com com- command command command mand had sprung up within SO 80 days the previous year during durin the ot tit Granada The streets like an ancient Roman Homan camp or a brand new American metropolis were laid at t right angles You can trace them easily even now for when Isabella moved out of or Santa anta Fe into Granada her village camp saw its last of oC fuss and self self- importance TOWN SEEMS DEAD DED DE D Today the place lies as collapsed c as only a war industry can collapse when war is over Dead for five centuries while the splendor of Spain waned Santa Fe Is a forlorn mummy to whom not one of her American heritors has reared so much as asa asa asa a memorial tablet She ought to be bo jeweled with memorials tiny godmother for it was at Santa Fe that Isabella shining with renewed prom prom- promises genuine genuine ones this time met the Genoese riding his bis horse At Santa Fe upon April 17 the Spanish queen and the Italian navigator wrote their names with gallant flourishes to the parchment contract which was to make them both immortal WHAT THEN DESTINY Fate Is a whimsical hussy Had Columbus taken a different road or a quicker horse hors the southwestern citizens of or the United States might today be strewing their mountain slopes and Pacific shores with petit and Norman turrets instead of with Spanish mission bungalows The president of Mexico might tie Oe named Lefevere or Benoit and South America might be bawl bawl- bawlIng bawling Ing out North America in French rench Had Columbus refused to turn back on the main street of Pinos Puente well Puente-well well he didn't Not that it matters to Pinos Puente or Santa Fe They've for for- forgotten forgotten forgotten gotten long since those little godmothers of or ours that they and Columbus and destiny met on an April morn nil |