Happy Man!
In Spain last week one of the happiest of men seemed to be Citizen Miguel Primo de Rivera.
Once more a mere citizen, after six years as Dictator, he visibly recovered all the bubbling jollity he has lacked of late (TIME, Jan. 20). "Don't quarrel over these, boys!" he cried with a rumbling laugh as he handed out two copies of the statement announcing his Cabinet's fall to more than 50 clamoring correspondents.
To one of the newsgatherers, a petite, vivacious Frenchwoman, Citizen Primo de Rivera impulsively exclaimed: "How pretty you are, my dear! You were al ways charming, charming!"* and stepping into his limousine he sped merrily away from Power.
Scooper de Gandt. No alluring French woman but a man whose blood is a mix ture of French and Belgian scooped the story of the Dictator's fall for his U. S. employers, the United Press. They put the news on their wires six hours ahead of competitors, kept on firing out detail after detail through an anxious day, while other news services periodically reported the official denials of the Spanish censor.
For three days before the story broke, employes of Scooper Jean de Gandt had stalked the Dictator night and day, noting everywhere he went and the hour when. Following are significant hours, minutes:
3 a. m.: Sleepless, distraught by rumblings from many sources against his regime, the Dictator impulsively drafts a circular telegram to the 17 principal Captains General and garrison commanders in Spain. He has appointed them all. He can dismiss them. He asks them whether they think he should continue to dictate, whether he still has their "confidence."
Of this 3 a. m. telegram the Dictator will later say in one of his last official communiques: "I felt a dizziness which alarmed me as I was writing it. I sent it straight off without even reading the text."
2 p. m.: Answers from the Captains General have not yet come in. The Dictator is on horseback, quieting his nerves with a gallop, when a summons from the King arrives.
"What is this I have seen in the newspapers about a circular telegram from you to the Captains General?" asks His Majesty King Alfonso.
It rapidly appears that the King, in whom "confidence" is technically vested, is furious that the Dictator has gone behind the royal back to ask the "confidence" of Captains General. Attempts at explanation by the dizzy Dictator are royally ignored. The Dictator leaves the Palace with his fate already sealed--unless he should decide to defy the King. Despatches covering all this are filed by Scooper de Gandt and pass the Spanish censor who will later deny their truth. Fearing that they will not pass, the Scooper dashes to a telephone, talks the scoop to Paris for relay to New York.
Midnight to 6 a. m.: The Cabinet and one or two Captains General who have hurried up to Madrid are in anxious conference with the Dictator throughout the whole night. Shall they defy the King?
They learn that His Majesty is receiving telegrams from many of the Captains General pledging support to "any Prime Minister in whom the King has confidence." The Dictator's game is therefore up. He and his all-night colleagues adopt a resolution that he has committed an "error" (i. e. the telegram) and should present the Cabinet's resignation to the King.
11 a. m.: Informal visit to His Majesty to admit the "error" and submit the resignation, both verbally. Responding verbally King Alfonso accepts the resignation, promises the Dictator to divulge nothing of what has passed, thus allowing Primo de Rivera to make the formal announcement.
6 to 8 p. m.: Last plenary meeting of the Primo de Rivera Cabinet. Formal drafting of the resignation. By this time the secret is out to everyone.
8.20 p. m.: In full uniform ablaze with medals Don Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, Marques de Estella, Duque de Ajdir, Grandee of Spain, Prime Minister, arrives at the Royal Palace and is formally received by His Most Catholic Majesty, Alfonso XIII, by the Grace of God King of Spain.
8.40 p. m.: Citizen Primo de Rivera leaves the Palace, still a Marques, still a Duke, announcing formally to the press: "I have resigned as Prime Minister because of ill health. . . . The King has been pleased to call as my successor the Chief of his Military Household, Lieut. General Don Damaso Berenguer y Fuste, Duke of Xauen ... a man of great serenity of judgment, possessed of much discretion and dearly beloved. . . .-* I am highly pleased . . . chance to calm my nerves and rest. . . . Don't quarrel over these boys! . . . How pretty you are my dear. . . . Charming, charming! . . ."
"Where are you going?" called reporters after the vanishing limousine, but the Citizen did not reply. Said one of his former aides, visibly affected, almost in tears: "I am authorized to say that he will remove to a rented home of unrevealed address."
New Dictator for Old. It lay in the power of King Alfonso to restore Spain to a Constitutional regime. He might have asked the advice of political leaders -- as George V and all other Constitutional sovereigns do -- before naming a new Prime Minister. He did not. Deliberately His Majesty continued the system of government called Dictature, ignored the will of the people, angled for the "confidence" of the Army and Captains General exactly as the fallen Dictator had done, and gave Spain for her new Dictator "just another general."
In 1921 the High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of Spanish forces in Morocco was Don Damaso Berenguer, and a disastrous bloody hash he made of it. Potent, resourceful Moroccan Sultan Abd-El-Krim repeatedly wiped out Spanish forces larger than his own, and in 1922 the High Commissioner resigned in dis grace, greatly weakening by his fall the prestige of his patron King Alfonso.
Directly as a result of popular discon tent and army disgust at the bloody Morocco fiasco, the then Captain General of Catalonia, Primo de Rivera, marched upon Madrid in 1923 with the "confidence" of his fellow military satraps and-- it is generally believed--the connivance of the King. His Majesty thought in 1923 and continued to think last week that extra-Constitutional methods would best bulwark his Throne.
Suspicion into Hate. Among Dictator Primo de Rivera's first acts was to pardon (in 1923) disgraced General Berenguer, then under sentence of 20 years' imprisonment. In 1924 the Dictator again kept the General out of jail, allowed him to spend a pleasant month in a remote Spanish castle in lieu of serving six months in prison, as did several of Berenguer's friends, for the crime of denouncing at a public banquet the Dictature.
In 1926 the King--still partial to General Berenguer--made him Chief of the Casa Militar (Royal Military Household ). Many believe that the wily General managed in this intimate post to sow suspicion, then hate, between King and Dictator. The seed has been four years in sprouting --and economic factors have been at least as potent as intrigue.
Money & Honor. In January 1930 the Spanish peseta sank to 12.08-c-, the lowest exchange value since the War.
Vital, this statistic showed with finality that Soldier Primo de Rivera had failed to win the battle of Spanish post-War readjustment, though he did settle the Morocco question (by scotching Abd-El-Krim with the aid of France); did give Spain the longest period of internal peace under one Government she has enjoyed in the 20th Century; and he did put through zealously the more obvious kinds of "reforms," such as road building, which appealed to his soldier sense. Himself accustomed to military discipline since he joined the Army as a stripling of 14, he could never understand why it was not good for all Spain to be disciplined, why the press should not march in lockstep with the State.
As usual in Spain it was a point of "Honor" that finally pricked Dictator Primo de Rivera in his political vitals, caused a draining of his Power which he himself has feared and hinted at in nervous, plaintive statements for months.
New Cabinet. Jaunty, rich, immensely popular, as fond of champagne cocktails as the King, is famed Jacobo Stuart Fitz-James, Duke of Alba (TIME, Dec. 2). Well known to be His Majesty's closest crony, the Duke was recently rumored as a successor to Primo de Rivera, who said at the time "I would never stand in the Duke of Alba's way."
Last week the first duty of Prime Minister Berenguer was to settle the "strike" of Madrid University students. They were romping about the city, half clowning, half in earnest, shouting, "Down with the King! Death to policemen!"
Easiest way to pacify the students, popularize the Cabinet, seemed to be to appoint the champagne-cocktail Duke as Minister of Education. To oblige his pal and King, blithe Alba took the stodgy post, settled the students' strike in a day, helped immeasurably with his national popularity and prestige to bolster the otherwise undistinguished new Cabinet:
Prime Minister (Foreign Minister) and Minister of War--General Damaso Berenguer.
Finance and National Economy (ad in-terim)--Manuel Arguelles.
Public Works--Leopoldo Matos.
Justice and Worship--Jose Estrada.
Public Instruction--The Duke of Alba.
Labor and Pensions--Sangro y Ros de Olano.
Marine--Vice Admiral Salvador Carvia.
Interior--General Enrique Marzo.
Senor Manuel Arguelles, though he once before served as Finance Minister, was considered last week too puny to hold for long what is by far the most important post in the new regime--so desperate are Spain's financial straits. It was ominous that the great Catalonian industrialist-- ''the Andrew Mellon of Spain"--Senor Francesco Cambo, refused to take the Finance Ministry, though besought to do so by Dictator Berenguer and King Alfonso. His reason: they would not give him a free hand, dared not agree to his proposal that a deep slash must be made in appropriations for the Army, which annually consumes 10% of Spain's revenue.
Trite but apt was the comment of London's Daily Herald, organ of Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald: "The new government will be like the old. Spain is ruled by Bourbons who have neither learned nor forgotten." Of course Dictator Berenguer announced last week that he would hold Parliamentary elections "as soon as possible"; but Dictator Primo de Rivera made the same promise, without keeping it for six long years.
* Parisian editors think they know the value of allure in wheedling news. Nearly all the correspondents of French papers at the London Naval Conference (see International) are smart women.
* In 1926, Primo de Rivera said publicly: "I would rather run a sword through myself than shake hands with Berenguer. the crocodile:"
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