"I Lament"

While Dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez was fighting the "civil disobedience" of his people (TIME, May 22), the death of a U.S. boy provided the final push to topple the tyrant from power. At the height of the civil revolution, 17-year-old Joseph Wright (son of a U.S. father, a Salvadorian mother) was talking with friends on a street of strike-bound San Salvador. In obedience to a police command, they dispersed. But one policeman fired, killed Joseph instantly.

U.S. Ambassador Walter Thurston acted quickly, made a formal call on Martinez. Asked the Ambassador coldly: "What can I inform my Government?" "I lament," replied the Dictator. "I shall inform my Government," said Thurston, "that you lament." Reports of this move convinced the Salvadorian people that the U.S. stood at their side, corrected the bad impression the Ambassador made during an earlier, unsuccessful military revolt by refusing to give asylum to enemies of Martinez.

Joseph Wright's funeral climaxed the popular movement against the Dictator. At the request of the boy's mother, there were no speeches, no noise, no overt demonstrations. But practically the entire city of San Salvador gathered to watch the procession. Hundreds followed the coffin in absolute silence.

Last week the Salvadorian people were trying, enthusiastically but amateurishly, to set up a democratic government. Students and popular leaders crowded into the Assembly, shouted down reactionary Deputies (appointed by Martinez), demanded the ousting of all the henchmen whom the Dictator left behind when he fled to Guatemala.

But Martinez's men were busy too. These worthies were eager to restore dictatorship, head off badly needed land reforms.

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