Omaha daily bee., 1907-09-16
REVOLUTION PUT IN CHECK
Portugal Has Fought One of Gravest
Political Battles that Come
to Nations.

LISBON. Sept 15.-(Special. )-Revolution
has been checkmated in Portugal at least
for the present. The recent attempt to
assassinate King Carlos and the premier
has led to the arrest OF thirty republican
leaders. 1t is believed that this action on
the part Of the government will bring to
head one of the gravest political struggles
fought out in Portugal since constitutional
government began. Don Carlos dissolved
the Cortes, which had become little more
than an arena of corrupt factions and took
the strong but necessary step of refusing
to name a date for the convolking of new
Parliament He swept out OF office for
the time being both of the parties who held
and quilted Office by arrangement. changed
places with the mechanical regularity of
the figures in a Dutch clock, and fattened
with equal rapacity upon the country. Each
of them in the last few years mad obtained
majorities by the usual manipulation at
the polls in land where the vast majority
of people never go near the ballot boxes.
Each of them had failed to govern against
the obstruction OF the assembly. temporar-
lily defunct, and the growing violence and
daring of the republican agitation. Each
of the regular parties now excluded from
office and it's sweets begged in turn to
be entrusted with a dictatorship. King
Carlos could have entrusted It to either
without seeming to range himself against
the other. He was impartial between them.
and the peasants. with the more solid class
in the towns, were weary of both. But in
Portugal, as elsewhere, the kings govern
ment had to be carried on. Don Carlos
sfslled to~hts ~ffd new rnan--young. brill
liant and fearless. This was Senior Joao
7 G.. t-fo
of the interior in the party of the regener-
ators, who correspond to conservatives,
so far as any names agree with realities
in Portuguese party politics. The other
organization is that OF the progressists,
who believe they are the more liberal sec
ton of the two.
Senior Franco separated himself from
his old associates and formed new party
OF men, whose program might be described
as national liberal. or liberal unionist, one
of those combinations of strongly pa
triotic creed with enlightened domestic prin-
ciples by which the best work in the policy
of all the great countries has from time
! to time been done Senior Franco could
form a following in the country, but he
could carry no Parliamentary seats against
! the power of the regular machines. He
had proved his independence by trenchant
! criticism even of the court. In May of
| last year King Carlos took the decisive
step OF entrusting him with the formation
of a cabinet over the heads of both the
1 factions. regenerators and progressists
alike, who believed they had a consecrated
right to alternate in office at convenient
( periods.
/ Senior Franco became a premier with
out a party. He is exercising what Is
called the dictatorship until he can make
one. He is undoubtedly making one, and
/ it might be the salvation of Portugal II
this minister. prepared to devote his life
/ to the campaign against waste, corruption
and incompetence, were able to rally round
him a sufficient number OF followers to
create the basis of reforming majority In
a new Cortes.