"Lousy Lovers"

Many a U. S. newsorgan was snipped or censored in Cuba while "Tyrant" President Gerardo Machado domineered, but last week his more liberal successors found something which even they resolved to suppress. Cubans lounging in sidewalk cafes had scarcely noticed that some of their U. S. visitors were reading an Esquire article entitled "Latins Are Lousy Lovers" when the Government swooped clown, confiscated all current newsstand copies of this masculine equivalent of Vogue and threw into jail luckless Marcial Perez, a partner in the firm which sells Esquire in Cuba.

Much as Vogue bolsters up U. S. feminine morale in the struggle to excel in beauty & charm against all comers, so Esquire sought to cry courage to U. S. males with an article claiming to be based on five months of U. S. feminine research in Cuba and points South. "It is a common belief all over the world that Latin men are the best lovers and Americans the worst," declared Esquire. "This is a hoax."

Specifically Argentines, Cubans and Venezuelan males were tagged by Esquire's feminine investigator as grossly overrated: "They are not gallant in a practical way. They meet you at a bar for cocktails at five-thirty, make violent love to you--and then go home for dinner." Physically "they are not only short: they are thin, too, with narrow shoulders and wide hips: in other words--bell-bottomed." Nor can they hold their liquor: "All Latins have trouble with their livers and if they drink too much they get very sick." On puerile obscenity they thrive: "The simplest reference to the bathroom and the elimination processes of the digestive tract will plunge them into uncontrollable hysterics. ' In bed Latin males, according to Esquire's female researcher, are poor company: "They spend far more time in words than in action." They are "all worn out at 23," but their "lack of masculine energy" does not prevent them from boasting of their prowess. "My advice to the American male is: Go South, young man, Go South."

Not only censorship but bombing of the press is an old Cuban tactic and last week some daring Cubans, who were rumored to be in sympathy with the radical Spanish Government, decided to destroy two Havana newsorgans considered most sympathetic with Spain's Whites. A 12-year-old touring car in which were concealed 1,500 sticks of dynamite and a time-clock detonator was parked outside the editorial offices of Diario de la Marina. Meanwhile a truck parked in front of the newspaper El Pais blew up with an explosion heard for miles, wrecked El Pais's two-story building, shattered the Church of Nuestra Senora de Monserrate across the street, broke glass storefronts for a distance of six blocks, killed four, hurt 27, and was credited with having done $200,000 damage. Police at once threw a cordon around the area, discovered the touring car full of dynamite and disconnected its time-clock before it could explode. "Today's dynamiting is truly lamentable," commented dictatorial Cuban Army Chief Colonel Fulgencio Batista, "because it shows the impossibility of reconciliation between various elements."

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