Seven Revolutions

Revolution in Paraguay last week was No. 7. Student-patriots banged shut their books. Radical workmen threw down their tools. Down the broad, bright streets of Asuncion they marched, an ugly cat-calling mob, to pull the political tail of Paraguay's sleek, feline President Jose Guggiari.

Quick as scat the President declared martial law. When the mob reached Government House soldiers began by breaking heads with the butts of their rifles, later fired. In the bloody fray five students were butchered.

Paraguay parents raged. Leaders of the President's own Liberal Party told him he must resign. Public opinion said "Scat!" Gracefully the President, whose hair waves naturally, resigned, declaring, "I leave the Army to enforce peace by all legal measures. I will not be the cause of Civil War. Let the Congress of Paraguay investigate my acts."

Major Bray, popular Asuncion Garrison Commander, promised that the Army and Navy (five river gunboats) would preserve peace without butchery--at least without butchering students of good family. Vice President Emiliano Gonzalez Navero automatically became Provisional President, promised that Congress would investigate the ousted President's acts.* In jig time the No. 7 Revolution to force out a Constitutional President in South America since Bolivia made No. 1, subsided for the week. Observers scanned the troubled continent, saw only three republics where revolt has not successfully raised its head: two-faced Colombia/-; cattle-rich little Uruguay; oily Venezuela.

No. 1. Bolivians understand that their ousted President Hernando Siles is now "somewhere in Chile." The revolutionary Government of General Carlos Blanco Galindo held a "Constitutional Election" last January, then vanished gracefully in March after staging the ornate inaugural of elected President Daniel Salamanca. He last fortnight pleased President Hoover by agreeing to seek Pan-American mediation of Bolivia's everlasting frontier dispute with Paraguay.

No. 2. Peru's famed "Bantam Roosevelt," ousted President Augusto B. Leguia, got his start by selling U. S. life insurance, became Dictator of Peru for eleven consecutive years and has languished for the past 14 months deathly sick in a noisome Lima jail.

Meanwhile Peru has had a triple revolution. Picturesque, hard-swearing Lieut. Col. Luis Sanchez Cerro, who led the first armed revolt and was ousted by the second, became a presidential candidate after the third revolt. Peruvian voters chose by ballot between the Colonel and three other candidates, all civilians. While the vote was being counted gunmen in a speeding car riddled the residence of Candidate Sanchez Cerro with random bullets, killed nobody. Startled, but by no means unnerved, Colonel Sanchez Cerro received with a tight grin of satisfaction last week the news that he had been elected President of Peru by a majority of 4,052.

No. 3. In a farmhouse on an Argentine island just out of sight of Buenos Aires, Argentina's ousted Dictator, famed Dr. Hipolito Irigoyen, fumbled last week with heaps and bagfuls of documents, manuscripts and notes. Even when President, Dr. Irigoyen was untidy and without method, depended on his brilliant political intuition which failed at last. "I am writing!" he exclaimed recently at the farmhouse where he is kept a National Prisoner. "When I get these damned papers in order, I shall produce a politico-philosophic treatise which will be my legacy to the Argentine people."

In Buenos Aires, Lieut. General Jose Uriburu, ouster of Dictator Irigoyen and last week Provisional President, went ahead with plans for Argentina's presidential election Nov. 8 which he was determined should come out "right."

"General! General!" cried a high police official rushing most importantly into the Provisional President's office recently. "We have discovered a plot by sympathizers of Dr. Irigoyen. They plan to attempt his escape from the island by means of an airplane sent from Uruguay!" General Uriburu promptly ordered four Argentine war boats to up steam and surround the National Prisoner's island. They did so last week. Argentine planes policed the sky. Private warnings were received by Uruguayan aviation authorities that any plane entering the Argentine from Uruguay in suspicious circumstances would be shot down.

General Uriburu's candidate for President of Argentina is his spur-clinking colleague General Augustin Justo. La Prensa, famed Buenos Aires daily, observed last week that "it might be better to restore constitutional government with a fraudulently elected President" than to continue General Uriburu's swashbuckling regime which has now continued for 14 months. The old Irigoyen party (Radical) has been barred by General Uriburu from running their candidate, former President Marcelo T. de Alvear. They will run no candidate, may vote for the Dark Horse who otherwise will have no chance, a Dr. Lisandro de La Torre.

No. 4. In Paris lives ousted Brazilian President Washington Luis, a fine gentleman and rich, with few regrets. In Rio de Janeiro his revolutionary successor Provisional President Getulio Vargas has set no date on which Brazil will elect a President.

Dr. Vargas was the defeated candidate in Brazil's last Presidential election (TIME, Nov. 30), seems determined to serve out the four-year term to which he was not elected. Shrewd, he plays as little politics as possible, concentrates on assisting Brazilians to dispose of their surplus coffee by ingenious barter deals. Thus far 1,050,000 bags of Brazilian coffee have been swapped for 25,000,000 bu. of U. S. wheat (TIME, Aug. 31). On the State Railways, by order of President Vargas, briquettes of lowest grade coffee were burned last week experimentally in an effort to replace coal, which Brazil must import by purchase or barter.

No. 5. Chile's ousted Dictator, General Carlos Ibanez, dwelt last week in the four-room flat of his son-in-law Osvaldo Koch in Belgrano, a suburb of Buenos Aires. Argentina. "I expect to interest myself in business, eventually," declared General Ibanez; would not specify in what business. In Chile the Senate voted last week that General Ibanez's dictatorship (1927-31) was "in violation of the Constitution,'' directed his arrest if he ever re-enters Chile. On Dec. 5 successful Chilean Revolutionist Dr. Esteban Montero, who has been elected President in Constitutional form, will be inaugurated at Santiago.

No. 6. Ecuadorians, who take their name from the Equator, ousted President Dr. Isidro Ayora last August because neither Congress nor the Army approved his dicker with the Swedish Match Co. for a loan to Ecuador.

Strutting Colonel Luis Larrea Alba who succeeded Dr. Ayora in the name of the Army, patriotism and political purity, proved so unpopular that he voluntarily resigned. Popped in as Provisional President was Dr. Alfredo Baquerizo, harmless. He proceeded to supervise last fortnight the constitutional election that sanctifies every revolution in the end.

Most Ecuadorians were surprised, many gratified by the result. They had expected the Army-Liberal candidate, Commander Ildefonso Mendoza to win and perhaps try the old game of Dictatorship.

Instead the complete Dark Horse, Independent Candidate Neptali Bonifaz, won by a majority of over 2,000.

Senor Bonifaz is rich, one of the wealthiest landowners in Ecuador. He was the first President of the Central Bank of Ecuador appointed after U. S. "Money Doctor" Edwin Walter Kemmerer had visited and prescribed for Ecuador (1926-27). Very soon after his appointment Banker Bonifaz resigned. He had quarreled, it was said, with an aide left behind by Dr. Kemmerer to keep the bank in trim. Last week he promised a "Safety First" policy, Ecuador to be ruled by a coalition cabinet of all parties which President Bonifaz will soon appoint.

*Of suave Senor Guggiari's alleged sins, the chief was to adopt recently a conciliatory attitude toward Bolivia.

/-No other South American state faces two oceans, with major ports on each.

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