The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-02-17
A. STRIKING FIGURE OF SOUTH AMERICA How Castro of Venezuela Has
 Fought His Way Up BEGAN AS A SMUGGLER With Twenty-three Followers He Be- came DIctator-Rumors About
 Ills Health-RecoVered
 Is Latest Report.
BEGAN AS A SMUGGLER

New York, February 16.-(Special.) )-For months President Castro of Venezuela has been in the public eye because of ths conflicting reports regarding his health. Many times he has been reported near death and once or twice he has experi- enced the sensation of reading his own obituary. If the latest news is trust worthy the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated" President Castro Is declared to be in good health.
 These rumors from a country of ru- mors regarding it's ruler have served to call attention to the most striking figure in contemporary South American his tory.
 Seven years ago a lonely gunboat, the entire sea-ighting equipment of the United States of Venezuela, steamed from Port-of-Spain into the harbor of Caracas,
 Venezuelas capital city. The gunboat was the vessel on which the deposed President Andrade, had fled from his conqueror, Castro, only a few days be- fore. On board was the message from Andrade to Castro:
 'I return you the navy; you may need 1t for yourself'
 But Andrade was a bad prophet Cipri- ano Castro has not yet needed the navy" to save himself. Though menaced Q
 thousand times by the revolutionists and plotters, he has never lost his grip or his self-confdence in the seven years Of his usurped power.
 Though born a rude mountaineer (per- haps of mixed blood, for it has been said that he Is part Andean Indian), and reared cattle smuggler; though favored at the start with no education but what he picked up along the forced march to power, and with no wealth but what he took by dint of trickery, theft, or open violence, this man Castro has been an absolute dictator since the first day of his entrance into the capital, defying popu- lar prejudices, laws, courts of justice, secret enemies and even the most power full foreign nations.
 Boosting as he went on his way, step- ping into new tolls only to wriggle out of them the next day, looking over the brink of ruin as If to discover whether he could invent some new effrontery by
 which to extricate himself. he has sue ceeded in making his position stronger year by year, pretending at times to grant constitutional rights to his sub jects, but in reality giving them nothing; defeating each plotting opponent in turn; bullying foreigners to the last limit, but cautious enough to stop just in time to
 
 short, disregarding all the rules of law or decency for which other men, even South American adventurers, have some respect, and accomplishing through sheer courage and nerve and individual mag netism results little short of marvellous. Altogether, Castro is a mystery. Ills enemies say he Is not diplomat put merely an audacious spitfire; yet he out wits the diplomats and overcomes the conservaties of his own and other lands. and was a match for the most prudent or his traducers, a peer of the most tactful, and managed to hold together around him
 & coterie of advisers, whether through friendship or fear, who opeyed him lm- plcitly and apparently have no fault to find with the rewards he was given them for their years of service.
 There is a difference of opinion as to the progenitors of Cipriano Castro. To his biographers and interviewers he mas not given an authentic account Of his pa-
 rentape. Some say hIs mother or his father was an Italian. Others declare that he sprung from a recreant scion or span ish nobility, a runaway into the hill eoun- try of Venezuela. In any event, Cipriano first saw the light in the far away back woods of the province of Los Andes, and there. when he grew to manhood, he tend ed cattle on the hills, near the Colombian borders.
 lis elegant Spanish and his evident kn, vledge of the technicalities Of mat lanzuage have led to the supposition that he must have had some schooling in his
 boyhood, and it is assumed that he was tutored at one time or another by the l Colombian pedagogues so numerous In Los Andes.
 However it may have been with young Castro in his boyhood days, he was a herder of cattle in the early ninetles, at
 the age of 30 or whereabouts.
 One story has 1t that the cattle were
 his fathers, but again the inquirer hears
 that neither father nor son owned an acre of land. in which case the nerds must have belonged to somebody else But. anyway, Castro herded and snug gled. Being near to the Colombian Dor der, 1t is reported, he used to drive the
 herd from one country to the other so as
 to avoid the tax collectors of each coun- l try when they came around semi-annuai- i ly. Thus it happened that one day the l governor of the province of Los Andes l seized two or three oxen in lieu of taxes This seizure eventually caused Castro
 to become President of Venezuela. for his
 revolution followed visit to Caracus tS
 enlist Andrade's assistance against the l p,overnor But In the meanwhile, before 1 this stage of his career. he had become ] more ar less of A local leader among tho
 mo,,ntaineers. who had sent him to th' | na ational congress as their delegate. | was as a congressman, therefore tha
 he had first appeared in Caracas, ant
 about his experience in the Legislature
 there hangs tale
 When he first arrived in the hall Of th'
 congress. he had known nothing outside
 the narrow life of the mountains H'
 had not even worn shoes. In caracas 1 discovering that other men covered thel feet, he bought a fine pair Of paten
 leather boots. They were too me 10 p' l comfortable. Tn the legislative chaihnel
 he took them off and laid them on tn'
 desk in front of him. In the afternoon l when the session ended he put on th' | boots again and returned to the note
 where he made his temporary home
 This was a daily. occurrence. All tn' while he said nothing either in or out l side the chamber Not a speech did nc make in Sl his term as legislator Few l neopIe in Caracas knew him at all, nont 1 knew him well If was at much later day. after he had made enemies, tha
 men began to call him "El mono de los 1 Andes''-"The monkey of the Andes l That name was fastened on him because | of his tiny stature. his swarthy complex 1 ion and his vicious. snappy manners l Then too. he stopped over like
 monkey. and when he danced, as ht | learned to do in after years his un- graceful movements on the ball room flooi 1 reminded one of that animal.
 | When the governor of Los Andes took his cattle Castro straightway went tc 1 Caracas He saw Andrade. The Presi l dent would not heed his complaint but s,dad with the governor. Castro left the
 nalace very wroth Report has 1t that he went Into the public square. collected a