"Greatest of All Time"

"Greatest of All Time"

A French general, a British general, an Italian count, a Mexican major and a suave Spanish diplomat named Don Julio Alvarez del Vayo stopped the war between Bolivia and Paraguay (see p. 15) but nearly all their kudos was stolen last week by Montevideo's well-publicized Seventh Pan-American Conference (TIME, Dec. 11 et seg.').

Wliooo! Wheee! Piercing siren screams roused the Conference and all Montevideo. The siren belongs to El Pueblo, newsorgan of Uruguay's Dictator-President, Dr. Gabriel Terra. When it shrieks there is urgent news. So many Montevidians rushed pell mell to see what was being chalked up on El Pueblo's bulletin board that the police had to be called out. Though it was afternoon El Pueblo, confident that no other Montevideo paper could get the story, announced with the dignity of a Dictator's newsorgan that it would print no extra, that the public would have to wait for El Pueblo's regular edition next morning to learn the details, but that "the conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay has been settled."

Since President Terra had been appealing to Bolivia and Paraguay for peace in the name of the Conference, Montevideo and many a headline reader throughout the world jumped to the conclusion that the Conference had "settled" the conflict. Facts are that a long-suffering League of Nations Commission has been wallowing about in the swamps between Bolivia and Paraguay. Its members, the major, the two generals, the count and Spanish Chairman Alvarez del Vayo began by conferring in Asuncion with Paraguayan President Eusebio Ayala, a onetime professor of philosophy. They wallowed across the Chaco battlefield and were in La Paz when harassed President Daniel Salamanca of Bolivia received the awful news that his main army had been wiped out by the Paraguayans with a loss of 15,000 men (TIME, Dec. 25). To the League Commission Bolivia proposed an armistice. The Commission relayed this proposal last week to Paraguay, received a counter proposal for an eleven-day truce which Bolivia accepted. Then the Com- mission wired Dictator Terra and his El Pueblo siren shrieked.

Conference sessions at Montevideo promptly became a peace festival. To keep the record straight the Conference voted congratulations to the League Commission but to hear the delegates talk they sounded like peacemakers. "If we can make peace between Bolivia and Paraguay," said U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, "this will be the greatest Conference of all time."

Suddenly, just as the Conference was about to go into a plenary session, Bolivia's delegation announced that Paraguay had broken the truce by capturing four forts after the ceaseing signal. This Paraguay's delegation hotly denied. The Conference's plenary session was promptly called off and once again the League Commission took over. The Commission announced that it would appoint a sub-commission that would plunge into the Chaco and report whether or not the truce had been violated. Its Spanish chairman set out for Montevideo to preside there at a peace conference between Paraguayan and Bolivian plenipotentiaries especially dispatched last week from Asuncion and La Paz.

With Secretary Hull hurrying the Conference to a close, its concrete achievements, aside from stealing the Chaco limelight for a few days, were: P: Unanimous adoption of the resolution favoring equal nationality rights for women on which the U. S. delegation refused to vote fortnight ago on direct orders from President Roosevelt. The President reversed his orders last week after a tempest of protest had been blown up in Washington by that pallid dynamo of political white lightning Dr. Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party. She mobilized assorted Senators, Representatives and even Amelia Earhart who pleaded "Please help women gain equality in nationality." As unanimously approved by the Con ference, which urged that it be signed and ratified by all nations, the draft Nationality Treaty consists of 29 words written in the first instance by Dr. Alice Paul. Full text: "The contracting states agree that from the going into effect of this convention there shall be no distinctions based on sex in their law and practice relating to nationality." P: Unanimous declaration by all Conference states that none will intervene in the affairs of another. In taking this pledge Secretary Hull said that his Government pledged itself only to the extent that the Montevideo declaration is in harmony with President Roosevelt's speeches since he entered the White House.

To take the curse off this blanket reservation, Mr. Hull cried: "No government need fear intervention on the part of the United States under the Roosevelt Administration!"

Packed with Latins, the Conference gallery applauded furiously when Nicaragua's sardonic Carlos Cuadra Pasos drawled: "These fair promises from Mr. Hull ought to be recorded in writing." They were recorded only in the minutes of the Conference which bind nobody. P: Adopted in a 52-minute session 21 resolutions, honoring Explorer Columbus with a lighthouse in the Dominican Republic, honoring Bolivar the Liberator, honoring the discovery of yellow fever carriers by Cuba's Dr. Carlos Finlay, encouraging aviation experts to "convene to study the lighting of airways."

*Jessie Dell, longtime (1925-33) U.S. Civil Service Commissioner and highest paid ($10,000) woman in Government employ. An able Georgia Democrat, she was ousted by President Roosevelt last May to make for his own job hunters. Miss Dell is an ardent member of Dr. Paul's Feminist Party.

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