Father Out

Last week "The Father of the Second Spanish Republic," eloquent, softhearted President Niceto Alcal`a Zamora y Torres, 58, was brazenly voted out of office, 238-to-5, by the Spanish Cortes (Parliament).

The act ranked high among samples of the ingratitude of republics. It had been Zamora in 1931 who demanded King Alfonso XIII's abdication and proclaimed the Republic. Since then, during Spain's wild swings from Left to Right to Left in last February's general elections, President Zamora, a pious Catholic, has stayed in the unlovable middle. So outraged was he by his suspicion that his old friend Manuel Azana, now Premier, had taken part in the Left parties' October 1934 revolt that he refused to speak to Azana. On the other hand he was so suspicious of the Fascist tendencies of the last Right-controlled Cortes that he dissolved it last January. The Left won the ensuing elections. Last week it was the Left, intolerant of Catholic and Republican Zamora, who demanded his expulsion.

Grounds were highly specious. The Republic's constitution allows the President to dissolve two Parliaments, the second dissolution being subject to review by the third Parliament. If the Cortes decides that the second dissolution was "unnecessary," the President must resign. The Leftists counted as No. 1 President Zamora's routine dissolution of the Republic's constituent assembly (not strictly a Parliament), as No. 2 last January's dissolution of the Cortes.

In the debate on this high-handed motion, the Left, led by egg-headed Socialist Indalecio Prieto, solidly demanded the President's resignation, insisting that the dissolution that had led to its accession to power had been "unnecessary." Mournfully replied the old monarchist, Count de Romanones, "To dismiss even a cloakroom attendant would require eight days of preparation while the President is to be dismissed in a few minutes." The Catholic and monarchist Right, which had lost power by Zamora's dissolution of the last Cortes, abstained from the voting, knowing that any President put in by the Left could be no better than Zamora. Only five Centrist deputies voted for "The Father of the Second Spanish Republic."

Forehanded Niceto Alcala Zamora had already closed his Presidential Palace desk, gone home where he refused to receive the commission sent to tell him the bad news. Said he: "I am nobody's servant." Automatically elevated to the Provisional Presidency was another Left Republican, Diego Martinez-Barrios, onetime linotype operator, onetime Premier and Premier Manuel Azana's protege.

The next President will be picked on May 17 by an electoral college composed of as many popularly elected electors as there are deputies in the Cortes, deputies and electors sitting together. If this assembly repudiates last week's repudiation of President Zamora, the Cortes is automatically dissolved.

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