Leak

On This Historic Spot

Gavrillo Princip

Proclaimed Liberty

On Sunday, June 28, 1914

So read a memorial plaque, solemnly unveiled last week at ominous Serajevo. The letters of pure gold are deeply sunk in green marble. Pensively upon the stone broods the image of a frail young man. He proclaimed liberty by foully assassinating the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary. But the World War which followed did liberate Serajevo from Austrian rule. Therefore to his people a foul assassin is a Hero (TIME, Feb. 3).

"What words can we add to this great deed?" cried the Chairman of Jugoslavia's secretive Naroda Odbrana, a nationalist organization famed for desperate deeds, and in which Princip was a leader. "What shall we say of Princip? NOTHING! His glorious memory can be most highly honored by silence."

A little learning has King Alexander of Jugoslavia as to what the rest of the world thinks of assassins. Shrewd, His Majesty ordered news of the Princip memorial suppressed, and when it leaked out commanded the Foreign Office to dismiss the Chief Censor. Frightened, stupid underlings at the Bureau of Censorship freely passed despatches telling how Dictator-King Alexander had almost succeeded in keeping the world ignorant that his people have glorified a deed doubly foul--for Assassin Princip slew not only the Heir of Austria but also His Royal Highness' morganatic wife, Sophie Countess Chotek, mother of two sons who still live in Austria, a daughter who lives in Czechoslovakia.

Teacher Karlovci of the High School at Shremskki, last week looked up from his desk into the muzzle of a loaded revolver, pointed by a 17-year-old student he had suspended for slovenly work.

"Bang!" and again "Bang!" went the revolver, but agile Teacher Karlovci had slipped from his chair under his desk in time to escape assassination.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.