Tourists Flee

Vienna's smoky Westbahnhof was crowded last week with worried tourists struggling for tickets and berths to Paris, Berlin, Prague, Milan--almost anywhere away from Austria. Normally U. S. tourists keep to their spartan schedule of cathedrals, art galleries, shops, with complete disregard of local politics. But since three bloody riots have been staged in the past fortnight by Austria's two pugnacious, irregular armies--the socialist Schutzbund and the reactionary Heim-wehr (TIME, Aug. 19)--and moreover since a third riot resulted in 48 woundings and three deaths, even the most earnest gallery-gazers felt it wise to leave Vienna.

With the liver-colored marble lobby of the smart Hotel Bristol startlingly empty, a committee of Viennese hotelkeepers, shopkeepers and businessmen trudged to the Austrian Chancellery, demanded to see Prime Minister Dr. Streeruwitz.

Exactly what did he intend to do, they asked, about the Schutzbund-Heimwehr riots? Vienna, they pointed out, is an oversized city in an undersized country. She needs the tourist trade to exist. Vienna makes and sells fine porcelain, furniture, pearl buttons, meerschaum pipes, leather goods, luggage,* furs, jewelry. The great Vienna International Fair, Austria's semi-annual chance to make trade contacts with other countries would open in a few days. Without tourists, the fair could not succeed. What was the Chancellor going to do?

Chancellor Streeruwitz, until recently an active businessman (textiles), listened uncomfortably to the anxious shopkeepers, then called a conference of his Ministers. From this Cabinet session came an announcement that "the misgiving noted in economic circles at home and alarming reports in the newspapers lack justification." It was announced that in the future Schutzbund and Heimwehr demonstrations will not be allowed in the same city on the same day.

Well knowing that the Austrian Government, with an army reduced to a scattered force of 30,000 men by the Treaty of St. Germain, cannot enforce the Cabinet's orders, bristling Schutzbund and Heimwehr leaders grew more than ever violent in language as the week progressed. Cried fiery Dr. Pfrimer, Vienna Heimwehr Commander: "For our brothers whom the Schutzbund have slain, the Heimwehr will take revenge in a form that will be remembered for many a long day."

*Famed in Vienna today is the luggage shop of Herr Golodarbeiter, whose daughter and cashier is demure, brown-haired Lisl Goldarbeiter. dubbed by Galveston, Tex., judges, "Miss Universe--the Most Beautiful Girl in the World (TIME, June 24).