The Daily Alaska empire., 1939-02-16
SPANISH IN5URGENT LEADER HAS ALWAYS BEENA FIGHTING MAN; FRANCO SETTLES OLD S(0RESN
 SPAIN BY BATTLING HIS WAY BACK 10 THE TOP
By The AP Feature Service

The scene is Las Palmas, capital of the Canary Islands.
 A short man with black hair, black eyes, dressed in the uniform of a Spanish army officer, climbs into a waiting plane. A moment later a British commercial pilot swings into his seat. turns on the ignition. A whirl of the propeller and the plane catapults into the air headed for Morocco.
 It is July IT. 1886. The Spanish rebellion is on.
 The man in uniform is Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, military com mander of the Canary Islands, a mean, remote post for one who once commanded Spain's foreign legion, who headed the nations war col- lege.
 One of his most prized decora- tions came from Alfonso, the last King of Spain. Serve me always, ? said Alfonso on that occasion to Franco, suppressor of the Riffs in Morocco. But Alfonso was no longer King, and the Spanish thorne was existent when Franco started an armed insurrection against the Republican government he hated and which distrusted him
 Now. two and half years after the Spanish civil war began, the world is still asking: What is this rebel leader really like?"
 Long Military Career
 Generalissimo Francisco Franco is 46 years old. He comes of a middle class family in Ferrol. Galicia. The military career beckoned early: at IA he was a cadet in the Alcazar, Toledo, Spain's West Point.
 He is short, stocky, like Mussolini; at times he wears little mustache like Hitler. Unlike the two Middle European dictators. he is not a speechmaker and he has been a soldier all his life.
 At g he was in Morocco. fighting the Riffs. His courage and coolness won admiration from friends and foes-and so he was able to rally the Moors under the Insurgent flag for they could respect man who had fought them so bravely.
 At 34 he was the youngest briga- Iint. cror ir1 tlan os.y ,1 flxr known in European military circles as an able strategist
 At 42 he won two nicknames, the man of the hour and "the butcher" It came about in this way.
 In 1894. four years after the abdi- cation of Alfonso, rightist elements in Spain won control of the gov ernment from the left. Immediately strikes and riots swept the country. Tn Asturias and Catalonia it was open rebellion and the left Repub lican Party's executive committee announced The handing over of the republic to it's enemies is a monstrous deed"
 Then Franco entered the scene from the Balearic Islands, whither he had been sent as military gov ernor in a move by the Republic to get him out of Spain. The rightist regime headed by Alejandro Ter roux recalled him to suppress the workers revolt and he did it with a mailed fist, bringing in his for eign legionnaires to mop up.
 ''Man of the Hour"
 When Franco got through in As turias and Catalonia he was. 'the man of the hour" to rightist Spain; but to the workers he had crushed he was "El Carnicero" the butcher. The name explains the stubborn re- sistance of these two provinces to his second invasion during the present war.
 Franco is married, has daugh- ter aged II. His face is dark and oval, with an aquiline nose. A smile perpetually flickers over his face. His ability to relax is shown by an