Bolivar Day

El Libertador, South America's George Washington, was 100 years dead last week. Officials of a dozen nations united to do him honor. Messages were sent, editorials published, statues unveiled and holidays declared. Only the fact that three of the six nations which he founded have suffered either revolution or political insurrections in the past year prevented El Libertador's centenary from being even more festive.

Simon Bolivar was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1783, the son of an aristocratic, enormously wealthy Spanish coffee planter; In a series of violent, bloody campaigns he freed Venezuela, Colombia,

Ecuador. Panama and Peru from Spanish rule, founded and gave his name to Bolivia. He died penniless and in a borrowed nightshirt at San Pedro Alejandrino, Colombia, of tuberculosis, Dec. 17, 1830. Said he: "All we have gained is independence, and we have gained it at the cost of everything else. . . . Those who have toiled for liberty in South America have plowed in the sea." Phrasemakers delight in the comparison between Simon Bolivar and George Washington. Pedantic historians deplore it, point out that Bolivar was violently emotional, often extremely cruel; that while Washington constantly urged the U. S. to avoid "entangling alliances," Bolivar was an internationalist, dreamed and wrote of a League of Nations with Panama as its Geneva. The real difference is that George Washington was a large, blue-eyed, red-headed Anglo-Saxon. Simon Bolivar was a small, black-eyed Latin. Both were born aristocrats, able generals. Both were friends of LaFayette, both wrote voluminous political treatises which have profoundly affected the courses of their nations. Washington secretly, Bolivar openly mistrusted and despised the common people. Both often led ragged, ill-equipped armies. Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, Bolivar crossed the Andes in midwinter. Washington had German drillmasters, French troops to help him. Bolivar had a foreign legion of British and Irish veterans of the Napoleonic wars under the dashing General Simon B. O'Leary. Washington's insularity may have been due to the fact that he never left the U. S. Bolivar's internationalism was due to the fact that he was married in Madrid, first swore in Rome to fight Spain, visited France, Britain, the U. S., was once self-exiled to Jamaica. Professor N. Andrew N. Cleven of the University of Pittsburgh has written: "We may safely assign to Simon Bolivar a foremost place among the great of the world." The world last week honored Bolivar as follows: U. S.: President Hoover sent a message, Secretary of State Stimson laid a wreath at the Pan American Union building in Washington. In New York, Patrick Cardinal Hayes officiated at a requiem high mass. Most of the Latin American Consuls and a gentleman by the name of Emilio C. Diaz who claims official recognition as the last Tao or King of Chibcha Indians of Colombia, buried the base of Central Park's Bolivar statue under wreaths. Great Britain: Members of the Diplomatic Corps attended a requiem high mass in Westminster Cathedral (not the Abbey). Arthur Henderson, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, unveiled a tablet in Apsley House where El Libertador was once entertained by Wellington, not yet the victor of Waterloo.

Germany: For the first time since the War, foreign consuls in socialistic Hamburg wore diplomatic uniforms at a Bolivar ceremony in the Rathaus, were told that similar ceremonies were going on at the same time in Paris, Rome, Brussels. Spain. With an insidious revolution gnawing at his throne, all Spain under martial law, Alfonso XIII celebrated Bolivar Day in Madrid by riding in an open carriage under a skeleton guard to attend the memorial mass at the Church of San Francisco.

Venezuela: Rheumy, blue-spectacled Dictator Juan Vincente Gomez puppet President Juan Bautista Perez dedicated a white marble pantheon over the ashes of El Libertador. Dictator Gomez remained prudently on his heavily guarded model farm. Oldsters mourned the fact that Cenizo was no longer living to take part in the ceremony. Cenizo, as all Caracans remember, was a dog of uncertain parentage who for nearly ten years slept on the base of the Bolivar statue in the Plaza Bolivar, appointed himself its official guardian, grew fat and imperious on the bounty of cafe proprietors, was the only dog ever to be an Honorary Citizen of the Republic of Venezuela.

Bolivia: Announced a legal holiday with a two-minute period of silence. Hundreds of students and public authorities scrambled up Cerro Rico, the peak from which Bolivar first saw the country that was to bear his name.

Colombia: Declared a legal holiday, held open-air masses, military reviews. Villagers of San Pedro Alejandro eagerly awaited a golden wreath being flown from New York by Pan American Airways. In the farmhouse where Bolivar died, a golden crown was unveiled in the death chamber by President Olaya Herrera.

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