Monday, Aug. 06, 1928

"Serbian Angels"

The king of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes rules three major peoples and several minor, despite the fact that all are lumped together as "Jugoslavia." Last week. King Alexander incensed his Croats to fury by entrusting the task of forming a cabinet to a Slovene who promptly grouped about himself Serb ministers. The 800,000 Croats in the U. S. echoed Croat Publicist Stanko Hranilovich when he_ declared in Manhattan last week: "Since 1918 the Croats of Jugoslavia have been oppressed and terrorized by the Serbs. . . . Croatian schools have been closed and now Croatian children are taught that they are Serbs living under a Serbian heaven, ruled by a Serbian god who is attended by Serbian angels." The new Slovene Prime Minister is a Roman Catholic priest, Father Anton Korosec who was Minister of Interior in the recently fallen cabinet of Serb Velia Vukichevich. The cabinet was obliged to resign by the titanic scandal which ensued when a deputy of the government party shot two Croatian deputies dead on the floor of the Skupshtina (parliament) and wounded three other Croats, including famed Stefan Raditch, leader of the Croatian party (TIME, July 2).