War Clock

Retaliations and counter-retaliations, like the pendulum of some deadly clock, last week were gradually swinging Brazil and the Axis toward war.

Brazil first set the pendulum in motion when, during the January conference at Rio de Janeiro (TIME, Jan. 19 et seq.), she broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis. The pendulum came swinging back with the torpedoing of Brazilian ships speeding raw materials to the U.S. Last week, when sinkings had reached four (possibly five) ships totaling 22,231 tons and had caused 51 deaths, Brazil realized that hemisphere solidarity was grim business. She reversed the pendulum, with angry weight behind it.

First Brazil ordered all her merchantmen home or into the nearest friendly port. Then President Getulio Dornellas Vargas issued two new decrees. Though his Constitution gives him the right, in case of aggression, to declare war without consulting Brazil's decorative legislative bodies, he made assurance doubly sure by reaffirming this power. The other decree amended the Constitution to permit him to seize up to 30% of Axis assets, estimated at between four and six million dollars, exclusive of blocked credits in the Banco do Brasil.

The Government started seizures by grabbing six leading German firms, including Zeiss (opticals) and Bayer (drugs). In Rio de Janeiro State it slapped a 9 p.m. curfew on Axis nationals, forbade them to travel elsewhere without salve-conducto, rounded up a few more potential troublemakers.

Rio mobs were allowed to loot German stores, manhandle German nationals. One mob piled the contents of a German-owned bookstore in the street, kindling them with the cry: "Hitler isn't the only one who can burn books." Where steel shutters halted the mob, it demanded the hoisting of the Brazilian flag. Police intervention was languid. When in the late afternoon a downpour scattered the crowds, nervous Brazilians quoted their old saw: "Deus e Brasileiro" (God is Brazilian). But next day, although further rioting in Rio was stopped, provincial mobs were permitted a similar anti-Axis field day.

Thus weighted, the pendulum plunged back toward Germany. The clock of war ticked grimly on.

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