Twenty-Niner

Once the agent in Colombia of Dillon, Read & Co., suave, bankerish Dr. Alfonso Lopez was last week inaugurated President while a mob of 50,000 jammed Bogota's Plaza Bolivar and roared themselves hoarse.

Against Dr. Lopez's election last winter there was no opposition. He really began the campaign four years earlier when he assumed active charge of the Liberal Party which had not elected a President in 44 years and was considered Colombia's political mummy. With artful zeal Dr. Lopez built up tall, big-boned, Enrique Olaya Herrera, then Colombian Minister at Washington, into a popular candidate and secured his election (TIME, Feb. 24, 1930). This year President Olaya took such strenuous steps to return the compliment and secure Dr. Lopez's election that his chief opponent, the Conservative Party, put up no candidate and boycotted the polls, de claring: "No matter how the people vote, the Government will elect Lopez." After the balloting, President-Elect Lopez obtained what looked to Colombians like the tacit endorsement of President Roosevelt by paying an elaborate goodwill visit to Washington (TIME, July 9). With Banker Alfonso Lopez, as he marched in to be inaugurated last week, was his father, Banker Pedro Lopez. Said the new President in his inaugural address: ''I promise active co-operation with all countries, but especially with those in the Western Hemisphere."

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