Importance of Being Hatless

Still Spain's "richest man," if he could escape confiscation by the Republic of his fantastically huge estates, was hawk-nosed old Don Alvaro de Figueroa y Torres Count de Romanones last week. Solemnly, fervently he declared to the Agrarian Reform Council: "Never, in all the years that I served King Alfonso [several times as Premier] did I ever avail myself of my privilege, as a Grandee of Spain, to remain covered in His Majesty's presence at Court."

By a law of the Republic former Grandees who eschewed the super-aristocratic privilege of keeping their hats on at Court are considered to have shown themselves sufficiently Democratic under the Monarchy to escape confiscation of their lands today. Last week Under-Secretary Jose Benavas of the Agrarian Reform Council hotly gave the lie to Count de Romanones. "I have learned," he cried, "that this Grandee kept his hat on in the King's presence at least once--in 1911!"

Evidence of this fatal hat-wearing 22 years ago was handed to the Council, which forthwith decided that Count de Romanones' lands are confiscate. He can and undoubtedly will appeal to the Cabinet of Premier Azana, may win leniency because of his reputation for having opposed the Dictatorship of the late, hated General Primo de Rivera.

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