Amnesty in Interregnum

Out of jails all over Spain and across frontiers they poured last week. 9,000 monarchists, clericals, politicians. Some of them had been behind bars or exiled two years, when tousle-haired President Alcala Zamora finally signed Spain's bitterly argued political amnesty bill. Greatest excitement took place before the gates of Cadiz Military Prison where a cheering crowd of bullfighters, waiters and young aristocrats assembled to welcome paunchy General Jose Sanjurjo, sentenced to death in 1932 for his abortive attempt to stage a monarchist revolution in Andalusia.

"The news is the most welcome I have ever received." said the general. "I shall retire to Gibraltar, then to Portugal to observe the political situation abstractly."

Meanwhile for three days Spain was without a Government. Rows with the radicals in the Cortes, whose rioting brothers were carefully omitted from the amnesty bill, forced the resignation of staunch Rightish Premier Alejandro Lerroux and his cabinet. Tugging at his unruly hair, scratching at his stubbly chin, President Alcala Zamora attempted to find a Premier. The choice of either reactionary Catholic Leader Gil Robles or shrewd, radical Manuel Azana might easily start a civil war. Finally he picked a political dummy for Alejandro Lerroux named Ricardo Samper Ibanez, an owlish, spectacled lawyer from Valencia and Lerroux's onetime Minister of Industry & Commerce. All but three of the Lerroux Cabinet were reappointed. Most notable omission was cultivated dome-browed Salvador de Madariaga, trilingual veteran of dozens of League conferences at Geneva.

With May Day approaching all Spain was edgy with nerves. A State of Alarm was declared for the second time in two months while armed Civil Guards took stations before every Madrid church after radicals had fired eight of them by night.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.