LOST HOPES

The Mediterranean has lost another republic to the monarchists. General Pangalos has set his standard above the prostrate constitution of Greece. Like the two other Mediterranean peninsulas of Europe, she also has definitely succumbed to a dictatorship.

Such a row of dead republics (for Italy and Spain are really that) is startling to the votaries of government by the people. In these southern lands, popularly elected representatives are apparently incapable of wrestling with the problem of a critical period. Latin temperaments are ill-fitted to serve the causes of democracy. The political machinery of Mediterranean capitals grinds much less easily without the lubrication of fear, or admiration, to drive it forward. It is hard for the American, accustomed to a Congress, plodding undisturbed, to picture the torments of a Republican government in Southern Europe with all the responsibilities, all the antagonisms, and all the difficulties of a monarchy, and with none of the definite powers to impress a Latin populace. And so to impulsive southern chiefs of all-powerful organizations, like the armies of Spain and Greece and the Fascisti of Italy, the junking of the existing inefficient governments and the instituting of themselves as dictators seems most beneficial to all.

No despotism ever erected has permanently withstood the shifting gales of fortune. One wonders whether the present structures will be peacefully razed by their liberally minded builders or tumble sanguineously, undermined by armed rebellion. If Mussolini, de Rivera, and Pangalos approach in wisdom Plato's ideal rulers, they will retire gracefully when they have set their respective lands in order. Byron sings of Miltiades.

"Such chains as his were sure to bind."

If any of the three modern tyrants knows the golden moment for severing these chains, perhaps history will rank him with the hero of old Greece. Otherwise they will only serve to delay the eventual arrival of a sound strong Democratic government. It is their privilege either to create newer and better republics, or to undo all that has gone before.