The Walking Protest

There is a story told in Madrid about the time General Franco entered a jewelry store to buy a diamond necklace for his daughter Carmencita and found himself without the necessary cash. "But I am Franco, head of the Spanish state!" he said. "Then, naturally, you have identity papers," replied the skeptical storekeeper. But Franco had come without identity papers. "Then, perhaps you could give us some other proof," said the shopkeeper. "For example, the celebrated bullfighter Dominguin was here last week in the same predicament, and when we asked him for proof, he took a cape and made a pass with it, and we knew at once that he was Dominguin." Franco pondered the problem for some minutes, then said: "I'm afraid I can think of nothing." "Take the necklace," said the shopkeeper. "You must be Franco."

General Franco's notorious inability to think of any solution for the problems that beset Spain was never more in evidence than in the past month. A heavy-hoofed inflation is galloping through the Spanish economy. Franco's henchmen handed down two wage increases last year, and though they tardily ordered shopkeepers to keep prices pegged, the cost of living has leaped 25%. Last week, spurred by an announced 20 centimo ( 1/2-c-) rise in streetcar fares, the people of Barcelona (pop. 1,280,000) decided to make a protest. Word raced through the Catalonian capital: "Don't ride the streetcars."

The day of the carfare hike dawned bright and chilly, and Barcelona's 463 streetcars started on their runs. Not a soul climbed aboard. Subways and bus lines were also nearly empty. Thousands of people who work two jobs to earn enough to live on got up at 5 a.m. to walk to work; their bosses, even at City Hall, were sympathetically tolerant of tardiness. Word had passed that there were to be no noisy gatherings, no overturned streetcars--just the simple protest of walking or hitchhiking.

Spreading Boycott. There was nothing the police or the Guardia Civil could do. But students ringing a triumphant peal on the university bells gave the heavy-handed cops the excuse they needed. A police riot squad, backed by a fire-department engine squirting dye-stained water, charged into a group of 200 students in the College of Arts and Letters. Later, red-bereted Franco Guards reported a "black deed" committed by the students: a university portrait of Franco was missing and turned up later behind the medical school, with the word TRAITOR written across it. Governor Felipe Acedo Colunga closed the university.

As the boycott began to affect downtown shops, bars, restaurants, theaters and even (for Catalonians, a big sacrifice) soccer games, Barcelona became like a dead city. There were whispers of a general strike. Clandestine pamphlets appeared, citing "the incapacity of some authorities" and demanding their dismissal. The boycott bore the mark of some planning, but by whom? An informed guess was that disaffected young Falangists were its base organizers.

Drifting Nation. Francois one talent --survival--has made him skillful in manipulating the forces that support his regime: army, church, party. He plays off the Monarchists against his Falangist party bosses, leaving both in doubt as to his successor. Last September Falange Secretary-General Jose Luis de Arrese and Agricultural Minister Rafael Cavestany, alarmed by Spain's drift, presented Franco with draft laws for a totalitarian state headed by the Falange Party. Franco stalled. A fortnight ago Arrese and Cavestany resigned. But faced with the unrest that is stirring throughout Spain (riots in Seville as well as boycotts in Barcelona), the Falange bosses last week withdrew their resignations.

In a land where the will to revolt is tempered by memories of the cruel 1936-39 civil war, many signs point to a restive twilight of the regime.

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