IN MEMORY OF THE PLUS ULTRA
Less than a quarter ago, the centenary of the arrival of the
hydroplane Plus Ultra in Buenos Aires was commemorated; after nineteen days of flight and six
stops, its wings had crossed the Atlantic.
As a symbol of a history without ruptures, the aviators on February 10,
1926 “flew over the City and turned over the monument to Christopher Columbus, as a
tribute, since before departing, they had heard Mass in the same church where
the admiral invoked divine will four centuries earlier”.
The heroes of the feat were Ramón Franco, younger brother of Francisco,
Julio Ruiz de Alda, Juan Manuel Durán and the mechanic Pablo Rada; the stops were
six: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Porto Praia on the island of Cape Verde, three in Brazil:
Noronha, Pernambuco and Río de Janeiro and a last one in Montevideo, in the Oriental
Republic.
In our Capital the enthusiasm breaks out and in the Casa Rosada the aviators
are received by President Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear.
And even the creole thrush, Carlos Gardel, dedicated a tango to them, “The Glory of the Eagle”,
whose lyrics show that the Hispanic heritage was alive:
“From Palos, the eagle flies
and to Columbus with his great caravel
reminds us with great emotion.
It is the mother who is going to visit
the children who live in another place
in the clamor an Argentine tango arises
that says to Spain: Motherland of my love”.
The Plus Ultra is in the Luján Museum, since 1936. And in these
gloomy times, in which the inherited heritage is despised, we turn to our
poets to remember it.
First, Carlos Obligado who in his poem “Patria” states:
“Let the Fatherland cry out before the bitter world:
In Christian faith and Castilian word,
I have inherited the Word twice;
And it will not be, by my fortune, in vain
That I thus treasure divine certainty
And incomparable human heritage” (Canto II)
The poet evokes our political independence, never cultural, which moved
“against Castile, a Castilian effort”, when:
“The Mother, already exhausted from such fecundity,
alienated herself there on the slope
of foreignism and profound desertion” (Canto IV).
The second is our longed-for friend Juan Luis Gallardo, who, in these days of
orgy of the unpatriotic sellouts, since ours is alien to them, recalls in his “Idea of the
Fatherland” the importance of patriotic piety:
“What is man without Fatherland…, the man who betrays
the profound bonds that tie him to the soil?
He is barely a shoot torn off that protrudes
naked between the teeth of black cliffs”
On the other hand, patriotism locates us and can elevate us to our Creator
as he also sings:
“Love for the Fatherland will justly place
the close affections of the son and the woman,
for it coins a broader sphere, which transcends
the family anchors that bury our feet”.
“And that love for the Fatherland, which is love aimed
from the center of the soil, to the flight of the sun,
will raise in its ascent our love to the heights,
directed toward heaven, toward the center of God”.
And to say it in the words of the unforgettable Father Leonardo Castellani:
“To love the fatherland is the first love
And it is the last love after God
And if it is crucified and true
They are already a single love, they are no longer two”.
Buenos Aires, May 6, 2026. Bernardino Montejano