Martyr Home

The U. S. Government made a martyr of Ramon Grau San Martin last January when "garage diplomacy," initiated by U. S. Ambassador Sumner Welles, forced him to end his four-month regime in resignation. The youngish (49) bachelor surgeon moped off to Mexico City and exile. His successor as Provisional President, Carlos Mendieta, has played a smart and liberal game but has not erased the memory of martyred Grau from the minds of Cuba's lower classes. Still practically ungovernable, they believe in Grau. Last week 100,000 of them, students, workmen, Negroes, sailors, swarmed around the docks in Havana Harbor to welcome their martyr home.

At the pier Ramon Grau walked into a cheering, raving mob. His automobile inched slowly along, finally collapsed in the crush of admirers climbing upon it. At his home he walked out on the balcony to speak but the great, warm roar of the mob drowned out his words. He went back inside, stood uncertainly for a moment listening. Then he keeled over in a faint.

As soon as he physically could, Grau told newshawks that he had come home to attend to his personal affairs. But: "In the face of the cry of the masses for me to help them solve their problems, I cannot elude my responsibility." He demanded an immediate election for a regular President and Assembly. With that he hit the Mendieta administration on its Achilles heel. Mendieta sacrificed his own chances to be a full-term President by accepting the Provisional Presidency and now he wants a run for his money. Last week he gave Grau's followers, the National Revolutionary Party, permission to celebrate Grau's arrival. But he was seriously alarmed for his own political life by a demonstration such as has not been given any Cuban politico in a generation.

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