Ya Ha Firmado

(See front cover)

For many a year a bust of kinetic little Dictator President Augusto Bernardino Leguia has stood in Lima's Governmental Palace bearing the clarion inscription NO FIRMO! ("I Will Not Sign!") This is a reference to the oft-told tale of how, on an occasion since commemorated as Character Day, he refused to sign his own abdication when threatened with death (TIME, Sept 1). The memorial still stood last week, when a hasty paintbrush edited the inscription to YA HA FIRMADO! ("Now he has signed!").

President Leguia had signed not only his abdication. U. S. correspondents who had variously reported him fortnight ago as: 1) staging a counterrevolution, 2) fleeing the country on a warship, 3) sailing from Panama on a U. S. liner, knew last week that he was back in Peru, a very sick man and a prisoner.

Continuously since 1919, off and on since 1908, Augusto Bernardino Leguia has ruled Peru. In that time he has raised Peru to a position in South American affairs only second to the potent ABC powers, Argentina, Brazil, Chile. A network of railways, fine roads have been built. The oil and copper industries have been developed. Peru (not all his compatriots regard this as a blessing) has been opened up for foreign capital. With the aid of U. S. diplomats the 46-year-old Tacna-Arica boundary dispute with Chile has been settled. The disadvantages of the Leguia regime are the disadvantages of any dictatorship. Peruvians have a very great fondness for personal liberty. But in the past 20 years they have had little of it. Hundreds have been exiled, thousands imprisoned, not a few shot for small cause.

One of the great rallying cries of the Leguia regime has been the advancement of Peru's Indian population. Possibly with the best of intentions small President Leguia has not only made enemies of hundreds of old Peruvian families, by confiscation of their ancient estates, distributing their land to Indians, but he has made enemies of the Indians by forcing them into virtual slavery through his road-building campaign. By the law of Conscription Vial (road conscription) all Peruvians must work two weeks a year on Peruvian highways. Moneyed Peruvians evade the road gangs by paying a highway tax, so do other Peruvians who have friends in office. Indians who have neither money nor influence must work on the roads not only for the legal two weeks but so long as greedy contractors can hold them.

Leguia's agents have for years sent him weekly reports--political litmus papers of the public's reaction to his rule. Two months ago, with the successful overthrowing of Bolivia's Dictator President Hernando Siles and his strong-armed Prussian henchman, General Hans Kundt, the litmus turned red. Trouble was brewing in the southern provinces. President Leguia promptly demoted overambitious army officers, closed universities, arrested student agitators. But the trouble spread, the litmus stayed red. One Luis Sanchez Cerro, Colonel of Sappers at Arequipa near the Chilean border, declared open rebellion fortnight ago. In four days, progressing almost without bloodshed, the revolution forced President Leguia to invalidate his statue, sign his own abdication.

"Senores Representantes," he cried dramatically, "upon resigning irrevocably the supreme command of the republic, I state that I served my country with all the energies of my heart and all the lights of my brain."

General Manuel Maria Ponce, a Leguia friend, was placed in command of the revolutionary Junta (military government). Ex-President Leguia and his son Juan fled to the cruiser Almirante Grau, begged to be taken to a neutral port. Other members of the numerous Leguia family scurried to the safety of Lima's foreign embassies.

When the Almirante Grau was a few miles at sea a wireless message was received that the revolution had failed, Leguia was once more President. Promptly the cruiser broke out the President's flag, fired a 21-gun salute. Officers came to salute again their Commander in Chief. Little Leguia was in no condition to receive them. The bitterness of defeat had affected his kidneys, driven him to bed with an acute attack of uremic poisoning.

Then came another message. General Ponce was deposed as leader of the Junta. New ruler of Peru was the revolution's starter, vigorous Colonel Sanchez Cerro. Further the Junta warned the Almirante Grau that if the cruiser did not immediately put about, return Augusto Leguia to Peru to await proper punishment, the cruiser would be considered an enemy vessel, its crew subject to court martial.

The litmus was red indeed. The Almirante Gran's officers stopped saluting and arrested little Leguia. Back in Callao harbor, a U. S. physician, Dr. McCormack, visited the sick man three times, announced that contrary to current rumor the patient was "neither dead nor dying." The Junta's President Sanchez Cerro thundered that "Tyrant" Leguia "must be made to account for his acts," ordered Augusto Leguia and son Juan imprisoned in the island fortress of San Lorenzo, bastille of Peru's political prisoners. Peruvians thrilled at a typically Latin touch: jailer-to-be of ex-President Leguia, commander of the guard placed over him, was a Lieutenant Alfonso Llosa just released from the same prison by the revolution after serving one year of an indefinite sentence imposed by Leguia.

Hero Cerro. Once in -jail, Augusto Leguia was quickly forgotten by the Peruvian man-in-the-street. Hero of the week, cheered to the echo on his every appearance was the President of the Junta, Colonel Luis Sanchez Cerro, in many ways an even more spectacular figure than deposed Dictator Leguia. If five-foot-three Dictator Leguia is a bantam, pugnacious Colonel Cerro, five-foot-flat, is a molecule of a man, an explosive molecule. Brown as a berry, he has been fighting all his life. He is scarred with 16 gunshot wounds. In 1914 leading a revolution against the then President of Peru (who bore the good Nordic name of George E. Billingshurst) three fingers of his left hand were shot away. In 1921 in an unsuccessful revolution against President Leguia his right arm was crippled and part of his skull crushed. Singlehanded this pocket wildcat silenced a machine-gun nest, received 14 more bullet wounds. Exiled in 1922, he filled in his spare time by serving in the Spanish Army in Morocco against the Riff. Last week he flew from Arequipa to Lima to take charge of the government. At the flying field, cheering followers tossed him to their shoulders, carried him three miles to the city gates, where, balanced precariously on the roof of a motor truck, he rode through the streets in triumph. At the gates of Government Palace he cut reporters short.

"I am a doer, not a talker," he snapped. "In the words of the great Lord Nelson Peru expects 'every man to do his duty.' "

Pounding a table with his clawlike left hand he thundered denunciations against "Tyrant" and "Traitor" Leguia, accused him of selling the country's petroleum reserves to foreign capitalists, raising the national debt from 80 to 600 million soles (i sole--4Oj/). Bluntly he referred to the President's Civil Guards as "Jackals" and "Terroristic Instruments."*

Hat in hand, a delegation of Callao dockworkers called on Colonel Cerro at his new official residence, the 16th Century Palace of that superb ruffian Pizzarro, conqueror of Peru.

"Free us, sir, from Yankee imperialism,"/- said the spokesman. "Peruvians don't hate foreigners who come to work with us. We hate those who come to exploit us."

"Give me time, gentlemen, give me time!" said Sanchez Cerro. "At least I promise that I will not become contaminated with the vices of the politicians."

Mercenary Grow. At least one U. S. citizen was in a most uncomfortable position last week. Part of President Leguia's scheme to modernize his country, cement friendly relations with the U. S. was to turn the small Peruvian Navy, the Peruvian airforce over to U. S. officers. According to this plan Captain William S. Pye and Captain W. O. Spear were given furlough from the U. S. Navy to take charge of the Peruvian Navy as members of the "U. S. Naval Mission." Lieut. Commander Harold Grow, "resigned" from the U. S. Navy to become Captain of the Peruvian Air Force. When revolution broke out fortnight ago Captain Grow obeyed the orders of President Leguia, loaded his plane with 20-lb. bombs, flew south to bomb the rebel city of Arequipa. He was captured. Snapped Colonel Cerro last week: "Grow was a mercenary hireling of the Traitor Leguia. He flew toward Arequipa carrying bombs. The consequences of his action might have been incalculable. He will be judged before a military tribunal."

U. S. State Department' officials realizing that Cerro would be perfectly within his rights in shooting Lieut.-Commander Grow, admitted that "a very delicate situation exists," hastened to make urgent unofficial pleas for Grow's life. They had one potent weapon: Sanchez Cerro as well as Augusto Leguia needs U. S. official recognition. Unofficially the U. S. hinted that with Lieut. Commander Grow dead, recognition would be "difficult."

In New York last week the recently appointed U. S. Ambassador to Peru, Fred Morris Dearing, left off vacationing, hurried aboard the Grace liner Santa Clara.

"I'm going down to look things over," said he.

* It was these same Jackal Guards that shot the 14 holes in Colonel Cerro in 1921.

/- About 300 U. S. citizens have business, live in Lima. Some $250,000,000 of U. S. money is invested in Peru. Principal firms: All America Cables, Inc., subsidiary of I. T. & T. (monopoly of Peru's telephone and telegraph service), Northern Peru Mining & Smelting Co. (Guggenheim) ; Cerro de Pasco Copper Corp. of New York; National City Bank of New York & J. & W. Seligman & Co. ($85,000,000 govern-ment loan); several mining companies operated by William Randolph Hearst; W. R. Grace & Co. (shipping, textile mills); Standard Oil of N. J.; Frederick Snare Corp. (engineers of the port of Callao).

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