Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-05-08
CONDITIONS IN PORTUGAL.
A Lively Review of the Difficulties OF
That Country.

| tentions q people 70 per cent. illiterate
| cannot easily maintain the repuoiieaih
form of government.-Ihe Boston Heraio
Possibly but the high percentage OF
iliteracy in Portugal is due to the brand
of government that existed while the
country was a monarchy. AS long as it
remained under the rulership of the
Braganzas nothing was done to reduce
iliteracy.
The recent history of Portugal Is such
that if the so called Lisbon revolution"
was a neighborhood affair it was defensi-
BILE enough upon the ground that the
provinces were too unenlightened, thanks
to disagreement which discouraged
education. to take any intelligent part in
national politics or any interest in the
form of government.
For a country like Portugal to await
the spread of education-with nobody
spreading it-before attempting to dump
its throne overheard would be compar--
BILE With waiting to learn how to swim
before going into the water.
OF course troubles have beset the little
republic which a few respectable citi-
Zens of Lisbon attempted to raise upon
the ashes of an empire. The petty king
dom of Portugal, virtually all that was
left of country that was once an un-
matched explorer, and the first maritime
power, with territory upon which the
sun never sets, and ambition for con-
quest that mapped out plans to conquer
Japan and China, did not deserve con-
tinued existence. The house of Bragan-
"a, which originated in a liaison between
a profiigate nobleman and a kitchen
wench, and came to the throne through
the efforts of wife whose husband was
too inert to have reached out hand for
the scepter il she had not "sicked him
on was distinguished for unthrift and
incompetency. The dynasty never
amounted to much and for several gen.
erations the Braganza kings did nothing
to distinguish themselves, save to prac-
tice gluttony and idleness. Don Carlos
was a well-meaning and easy-going fat
man surrounded by friends who knew
exactly what they wanted, and usually
got it in full measure. His murder was
a cruel, senseless outrage, but there
would have been nothing discreditable
in pushing him over the frontier as gent
ly as little Manuel and other members OF
the royal family were handled after the
revolutionists had "shot up the princi-
pal public square of the capital to show
their shot and shell and seriousness OF
purpose.
Manuel is regarded as a rather nice
boy-the tale about his affair with Gaby
was manufactured by a New York press
agent for purely commercial purposes
and palmed off upon the American public
along with the dancing girl who MADE
her fortune by standing for the story
but if he had remained king he wou.d
have done nothing more than to move
around to the head of the table and eat
where, and as, his daddy before him hao
eaten The grafters would have coHtin-
ued to hold high carnival like mice In
cheese, and Portugal would have re-
manned as poor and as benighted as be-
fore.
The minority in Portugal, who nave at
tempted to establish majority rule, seem
i to cherish creditable ambition to I'M
prove the lot of their fellow-countrymeh.
They have had hard row to noe, ana
! have been misrepresented and proW-
beaten by monarchist papers in europe
while harassed at home by royalist MALE
| violence and by the demands OF an ~
| norant public expecting Utopia as an I'M
mediate result of the overthrow OF mon-
: archy. The government has necessarily
1 been far from genuine democracy, put
| it is an improvement upon the monarchy
1 in that it has ideals and ideas. The
/ Braganza kings and their benehciaries
(, had neither-Louisville Courier-Journai.