"Long Live Dynamite!"

Big industrial Barcelona, the proletarian "Pittsburgh of Spain" and the country's only modern metropolis, last week took for its Region of Catalonia the autonomous rank of a semi-collectivist State by proclamation, acclaim and much frenzied carousing and shooting in the streets. The great city's exultant Communists. Anarchists and Socialists still were friendly to Spain's Madrid regime in theory but in practice they had carried Catalonia off by herself on the political loose. Zealots plastered up everywhere manifestoes reading PRIVATE PROPERTY IS CONFISCATED AND COLLECTIVIZED! This meant that doors of wealthy and middle class homes were burst in by plundering Barcelona crowds. Ahead of them fled such terrified Spaniards as famed Guitarist Andres Segovia and his wife who were obliged to leave behind her jewels and his children by a previous marriage.

Another fugitive, the French holder of the Chair of Jurisprudence at Barcelona Uni-versity for the past 15 years, returned to the University of Paris declaring that Barcelona was split into four hostile factions. "The hordes now in charge in Catalonia," he said, "resamble sewer rats come up for air, and I fear it is going to be difficult to get them down into the sewers again, whatever happens. Thousands of convicts liberated from prison roam the streets and some of them have been made 'officials.' In the midst of all this the, authorities are devoting plenty of time to campaigns against religion. The word adios [good-by] is banned as it evokes the name of God. and instead everyone has to say salnd [greetings]. A party of laborers from the Workers' General Union even tried to open the doors of the Barcelona insane asylum which would have set free 2,000 lunatics. They made this attempt in an effort to embarrass the rival Anarchists.

Happily they were caught before they could set free the dangerously insane and were shot." Killer Gangs. In corroboration U. S.

Technical Director Henry Harris of the Barcelona Ecesa & Orphia Film Studios declared on escaping to Paris: "Barcelona is in the hands of gangs of young boys and girls, armed with rifles and machine guns, whose thirst for blood seems unquenchable. They kill for the mere sake of killing. They break into homes, throw all furniture, books and pictures out of the windows, pile them up and set fire to them. They are animated by a love of destruction and death. The present reign of terror and massacre in Barcelona bears no resemblance to any ordinary conception of revolution or civil war. I was held in jail for three days because they thought I looked like a German--those Barcelona radicals have an intense hatred of all Germans and Italians. They won't let either German or Italian warships into Barcelona inner harbor, whereas any British or French vessel can go alongside the docks." Two days later California Dancer Florence Miller of a Canadian vaudeville troupe known as The Tony Wine Com-pany which has been playing Catalonia, got out of Barcelona after all members of the company had been "conscripted" by the radical militia and put to work giving five shows a day for militiamen with the threat that anyone who refused to dance, sing or wisecrack would be considered a "Fascist" and shot. Said Miss Miller: "Everyone, ham actors and $500-a-week stars, were paid exactly $1 each per day, plus a meal ticket. We could eat on our tickets at the Ritz Hotel. Barcelona is one of the gayest spots today, because the Reds have rounded up so much talent." Stalemate-- Elsewhere in Spain last week the armies of conservative Generalissimo Francisco Franco and General Emilio Mola continued fighting their bloody civil war with armed Radical militia of the Madrid Government which itself estimated that 95% of the officers and 80% of the men of Spain's Regular Army were engaged on the side of the Rebels. During the week General Mola requested journalists to drop the term "Rebels," pointing out that the Franco-Mola forces are operating against a Spanish Government, many of whose members are of such a politically "Rebel" stamp that only a few years ago they sat in jail. Said General Mola: "You should call our forces the 'Patriots' but if you do not wish to do that you might call them the 'Whites'." In Madrid the Government claimed to hold territory populated by 15,000.000 Spaniards, with the remaining 8,000.000 in White territory. Putting this another way, the Whites declared that of Spain's 50 provinces they held last week 27 against 22 held by the Government. Because the world's fourth largest gold hoard, $400,000,000, is salted down in the vaults of Madrid's Bank of Spain, eminent Socialist Leader Indalecio Prieto boasted: "The Government will win because we have money, money and still more money!" With all Madrid newsorgans now in Government hands, substantial citizens of the capital read some strange bits under the familiar banner heads of what once were their favorite papers. "The only good bondholder," declared Informaciones, a Rightist organ not so long ago, "is a dead bondholder!" In red capitals screaming clear across the page Mundo Obrero clarioned THE WATCHWORD IS EXTERMINATION ! and approvingly reported that embattled miners of the Government militia were fighting under such banners as LONG LIVE DYNAMITE! A speech by Socialist Prieto in which he urged the Government militia to moderate their excesses brought a violent counter blast from Communist Deputy Dolores ("The Passion Flower") Ibarruri:-- "Im- prison the wives and children of all who are fighting the Government! . . . The life of each militiaman fighting at the front must be guaranteed by holding the mother or child of a traitor as hostage!" In Madrid hospitals, where most of the trained nurses have always been Sisters of Mercy, these nuns were ejected last week by untrained radical nurses despite the protests of Madrid doctors who warned that the death rate among the wounded was already abnormally high. Big as two cartoon Capitalists, Madrid's huge-paunched Pedro Rico Lopez ("The Fattest Mayor in Europe") remained an amazing demon of dynamic work, waddling furiously about as he bellowed orders, made successful efforts to keep food supplies moving into the capital.

Money Talks. This week Generalissimo Franco hurled new offensive--? with redoubled violence in efforts to take Madrid swiftly, and a dispatch from the capital reported that President Manuel Azana of Spain had made all preparations to flee, if necessary, to. Valencia, whither he had sent several truckloads of his personal effects.

Premature reports several times had Government militia killing "The Richest Man in Spain," august and autocratic Count Romanones. He was three times Premier under the Monarch", and, after King Alfonso fled, escorted Queen Victoria Eugenie to the train and saw her safely out of Madrid. Last week proud Count Romanones was let out of a San Sebastian jail, reputedly after making "charitcble contributions" of 2,000,000 pesetas ($260,000). Arriving in France, he was obsequiously met by an undersecretary of the Cabinet of Socialist Premier Leon Blum. Snorted the old Monarchist: "I was not afraid because I knew I was protected by those I always had commanded and who always obeyed!"

Observers could put upon this no other interpretation except that money always has talked and is still talking in Spain, even to the most rabid Reds into whose clutches multimillionaires may fall. With his extremely rugged individualism, Count Romanones snorted further that of course the Monarchy still would be in power if it had made judicious concessions to the proletariat a little sooner, and that of course Spain's Government has no alternative except to fight the Whites. "As a Spaniard," snapped the Count, "I suffer to see all this misfortune befall my country!"

"Force with Force" Adolf Hitler's personal newsorgan Vo"lkischer Beobachter thundered last week: "The halting and search of the German steamer Kamerun on the high seas by [Spanish Government] Red Marxist marines is a serious breach of international law."

"A Spanish warship that no longer deserves the name has halted a German steamer on the high seas. . . ." echoed Berlin's Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. "This ship was under the orders of mutineers who at the beginning of the Spanish civil war murdered their officers and threw them overboard. Therefore it is not only a breach of international law but worse that has happened!"

To emotional, intuitive Adolf Hitler the state of affairs in Spain last week was such a stimulus to do something that he virtually denuded Germany of naval defense, sending the Fatherland's three "pocket battleships" to Spanish waters. Their commander, Rear Admiral Rolf Carls, bombarded Spanish Government ships with radio threats that if force was again used to so much as search another German steamer "we shall answer force with force!"

Meanwhile calm professionals of the British Admiralty and Foreign Office, without even bothering vacationing Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, applied quiet screws to Madrid. Although His Majesty's Government have always been able to interpret the laws of blockade to give the Royal Navy freedom of action, they last week easily overwhelmed Spanish Premier Jose Giral, a pharmacist by profession, with awful reasons why it would be not only against international law but positively wicked for Spanish warboats to interfere with British ships on the high seas. At week's end, Premier Giral gave the fullest assurances that British ships will not be thus molested by Spanish war boats, and London expressed urbane confidence that this went for German and other ships as well.

Another professional move was by Benito Mussolini who has been rushing every kind of Italian aid to the White forces battling Madrid. IL Duce kept this up until 48 hours before a great mass meeting of French radicals was about to force the hand of Premier Leon Blum with demands that his Cabinet rush similar aid to the Spanish Radical armies. At this psychological moment Premier Mussolini had his son-in-law Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano announce Italy's adherence, with reservations, to the French Cabinet's round robin, not to aid either side in Spain (TIME, Aug. 17). This week Premier Blum was able to enjoy a "diplomatic victory" when the Soviet Union and Germany decreed arms embargoes. Always glad to come in on anything of a pacific nature, the For eign Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Den mark and Finland met in conference at Copenhagen, solemnly pledged Scandinavia not to ship arms to either the Whites or the Government of Spain.

In Washington official suggestions from Uruguay that mediation by the U. S. in the Spanish civil war might be the course of wisdom were sidestepped by President Roosevelt. "This country," announced the U. S. State Department, "is committed to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries."

--On first seeing this name in dispatches, many U. S. rewrite men and columnists jumped to conclusions, tagged Deputy Dolores "beautiful," "exotic." She is a plain, middle-aged ex-laun-dress of cyclonic violence who insists upon wearing "widow's weeds" although her husband is alive. What Spaniards call a "Passion Flower" is an exceedingly fragile plant which shrivels at a touch. Old friends say that after she and her husband left each other to struggle separately for Communism her air of "quiet sorrow" at this estrangement earned her the nickname of the Passion Flower.

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