Carlos Guillermo Dávila is a Chilean newspaperman who became an Ambassador, once (in 1932) served for three months as President of Chile. When Chilean Army airmen threatened to drop bombs on the President's palace, Dávila resigned. He has lived in Manhattan ever since.
But no exile is Newsman Dávila. He is a sort of unofficial Chilean Ambassador, through his Editors Press Service, Inc. makes big medicine for Franklin Roosevelt in Latin America. Last week Carlos Dávila was on his way back to Chile in a U. S. Army bomber. With him went his wife. Herminia Arrate de Dávila.
Two months ago Señora Dávila fell ill, had one operation, then another. Physicians told her that her best hope for recovery was to return to Chile. Last week in Chile it was summer, and the warm sun of her native land might strengthen Senora Dávila's waning vitality. But she could not stand a long sea voyage, or the comparatively slow flight by Clipper.
When Franklin Roosevelt, an old friend of Carlos Dávila, heard how things stood, he knew exactly what to do. By executive decree he set aside the Army's rule that women cannot fly in Army planes, put a four-motored Boeing bomber at Senora Dávila's disposal. One day last week an Army ambulance rolled Carlos Dávila's lady out to Mitchel Field, L. I. With a crew of eight, accompanied by her husband, an Army surgeon and a nurse (Olympia Fumigalli), Señora Dávila took off in her Flying Fortress. By radio she sent her thanks to Neighbor Roosevelt. Three days later. Franklin Roosevelt's big bird of good will deposited grateful Herminia Arrate de Dávila on her own soil again.
This good-neighborly gesture of Franklin Roosevelt was not so princely as economical. Its direct cost to the U. S. was about $3.880, but the gesture was sure to be repaid—in good will and good business—a thousandfold.