Priests Into "Pork"

Amid the savagery of Spain's abortive revolution month ago, brawny workmen slew several priests, chopped them into chunks and exposed the flesh in butcher shops tagged "pork."

No screaming tabloid made this charge last week but the sedate Osservatore Romano, personal newsorgan of His Holiness Pope Pius XI. Added the Church's mouthpiece with bitter irony: "It cannot be hoped that the political world will act against such monstrosities, because the political world acts only when crimes are connected with political objectives, such as the assassinations of Chancellor Dollfuss and King Alexander. In Spain the victims were only obscure priests."

On the very day of this Papal blast a self-appointed commission to investigate Spain's atrocities reached Madrid. Led by the 5th Earl of Listowel, the investigators consisted of M. Charles Bourthomieux of the French Court of Appeals. Miss "Wee Ellen" Wilkinson, a pert proletarian and onetime British Labor M. P., and Lord Listowel's secretary, a Czech named Katz.

As spokesman for the political world His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to Spain, Sir George Grahame, begged the commission to desist. "I urge you. Sir," he told Lord Listowel, "to put aside your roles as self-appointed inquisitors and return to England."

To Spaniards there is something decidedly special about an English Lord. Spanish beggars are apt to address any tourist as "My Lord"; if that fails, as "My God"; and finally, if they get no coppers, as "Rosbiff Goddam!" Last week shaggy old Premier Alejandro Lerroux, who put down the proletarian revolt by having over 3,000 rebels shot, felt that the least he could do was to receive Lord Listowel & Commission in his private rooms at the Cortes. Spanish blood was up, Spanish honor at stake. Same afternoon, in the Cortes, Spain's No. 1 Catholic politician, Fascist Jose Maria Gil Robles, leader of the Catholic Popular Actionists, was as hot as any Spanish Communist against foreign probing of Spain's private atrocities. "Down with these Listowels!" roared Gil Robles, "put them across our frontier!"

When every Madrid newspaper of consequence denounced the Commission as an "affront to Spain," French Commissioner Bourthomieux discreetly took the first train for Paris. The Britons and the Czech stuck, to be jeered by hoodlums in the streets. Armed with a letter from Premier Lerroux, they sped to Asturias, the "Atrocities Province," presented their credentials at Oviedo to Major Doval, the Military Acting Governor. "Certainly, my Lord and Miss Wilkinson," beamed the Major, "it will be a pleasure."

For the Commission it was scarcely that. Irate Asturians shook their fists, screamed insults and threatened to rush the guards provided by Major Doval. After half a day of leading the Commission up & down gutted streets in which priests' flesh may or may not have been sold as pork, the Major dropped a hint.

"You see, my Lord," he nervously observed, "Premier Lerroux has made me personally responsible for your safety. Perhaps now that you have seen everything in Oviedo your object in coming to Spain has been attained?"

With the jeers of Oviedo ringing in his ears, Lord Listowel accepted with alacrity this invitation to flee. In the Major's high-powered car, escorted by soldiers, the Commission dashed to Santander, just missed a boat for England, dashed on and were put safely across the frontier into France. On the train to Paris they were offered copies of a French journalist's report on Spain's atrocities appearing in the weekly Je Suis Partout. This charged that Spanish nuns were raped indiscriminately in Asturias, that some 30 priests were butchered or "roasted alive slowly," that prisoners taken by the rebels were ordered to stand motionless for hours and shot when they finally moved. Most intriguing to the French investigator was the conduct of a "jealous Red Don Juan" finally captured by soldiers after he had sated his lust on numerous nuns.

"You can throw me into jail because of my outrages," said the Red Juan, "but you cannot get back at me by doing the same to my wife. Before I was captured I killed her with my own hands."

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