Bolivia's Tyrant

In Bolivia there are fewer whites than in Minneapolis, and there are some 3,000,000 Indians and "cholos" (mixed breed). One cholo is named Saavedra. Well educated, he is a shrewd lawyer, was once head of the National University, has traveled abroad. Some time ago he conducted a revolution. Now he is President Saavedra.

President Saavedra has been classed as one of the three most tyrannical of all South American tyrants. He is classed with President Gomez of Venezuela and President Leguia of Peru as the ne plus ultra in tyrants.

But his Consul General in New York came to his defense last June and wrote articles telling Americans he was benevolent, not tyrannical.

Thereupon Claude O. Pike of the Chicago Daily Tribune rushed down to Bolivia to get the facts. The most specific charge (and to Anglo-Saxons the most heinous) was that Saavedra suppressed the press. The second, like unto it, was that he cruelly banished and incarcerated opposition journalists and politicians.

Mr. Pike returns with the verdict that Saavedra does suppress the press, that he does incarcerate his political disputants, that, in short, he is a tyrant; but also that none of these things is regarded as indecent in Bolivia, and that most of his victims await, without rancor, their opportunity to return to Bolivia to do unto Senor Saavedra as he did unto them.

Mr. Pike established:

1) That on June 2 martial law was declared and part of the staff of El Diario, La Razon, La Verdad and El Liberal (opposition newspapers at La Paz) were imprisoned and the rest were given the choice of a two-days' trip on muleback into the interior of Bolivia or deportation by rail. The latter was the more popular choice.

2) That on July 19 a decree was issued putting all cable companies under Government control, so that no news despatches could leave Bolivia uncensored.

Bolivia is the only South American country without a seaboard. Saavedra, who has been overseas, is regarded by foreigners at the capital as a gracious gentleman, and his unadvanced political methods are the less easily understood.

Commentators do, however, point out that freedom of the press has rarely been regarded as sacred in the eyes of Latin statesmen, e. g., Mussolini.

The conclusion taken in the Bolivian matter seems to be that Bolivia, like other empires, kingdoms and republics, possesses as good a Government as it deserves, and exactly the kind of Government which it is intelligent enough to want.