Politika
- Our Parliamentarism
- Republic or Monarchy?
- Is Mars Sending Us Signals?
This issue of Politika set a domestic political quarrel beside Greek politics and a curiosity from the sky. In a signed column, Dr. Drag. S. Kojić answered Dragiša Lapčević's Politika article of 3 November on Yugoslav parliamentarism. Kojić accepted most of it but rejected Lapčević's conclusion that talk of dictatorship came solely from disregard for parliamentary order, arguing that this put the real sequence of political events in reverse. A report signed "S." said that spreading monarchist propaganda in Greece had alarmed the army, which was tied to the republic, and that General Kondylis's government had therefore banned changes to the constitution and ordered elections under proportional representation to strengthen democratic elements. A short item passed on English press claims that a Dr. Robinson in London had received from Mars a signal matching the Morse letter M.
This partial reading covers three excerpts from the front page. Because the OCR text was badly corrupted, they were transcribed from the page images. Folds damage single lines near the bottom of the page, and the column edges at tile borders cut off parts of the Greek article, so only the legible opening of that report is translated. None of the background material available for this edition deals with the 1926 claims of radio signals from Mars or with astronomers' responses, so the Mars item has no commentary.
Translation
Our Parliamentarism
The esteemed Mr. Dragiša Lapčević, who began his political career in the ranks of the Radicals and began working out his sound views on parliamentarism alongside the Radical Janus, published in "Politika" of the 3rd of this month a very interesting article on our parliamentarism. No particular objections could have been raised to that article of his, had Mr. Lapčević not concluded that it is solely because of disregard for the parliamentary order of things in our country, and as a consequence of the weakening of parliamentarism, that people are beginning to talk of dictatorship. That conclusion of Mr. Lapčević, such as it is, is mistaken, because it places in entirely reverse order certain political phenomena which, given their importance, could not have gone unnoticed by our public.
Republic or Monarchy?
The growth of monarchist propaganda has seriously worried the military circles, which by force of circumstance are bound to the republican form of government, and the government of General Kondylis has had, in spite of the liberties it granted from above, to take certain measures to protect republican institutions. The first in the series of these measures was the government's decision not to permit any change to the published constitution and to the existing state of affairs. Then came the decision that the elections be held under the proportional system, which is meant to strengthen the position of democratic elements in the new parliament.
Is Mars Sending Us Signals?
English newspapers carry a strange piece of news about Mars. If we are to believe their claim, last Friday, when the reddish planet was closest to our Earth, a certain Doctor Robinson, together with a handful of experts, at a radiotelegraph receiving station in a house in London, at 20 hours, 3 minutes and 45 seconds (let us be precise), received a radiotelegraphic call from Mars: a single sign which in the Morse system corresponds to the letter M.
Context
Who Dragiša Lapčević was, and how the column portrays him
Kojić wrote his column to answer an article Lapčević had published in Politika two days earlier, and he opened with a personal jab, saying Lapčević had begun his career among the Radicals and formed his views beside "the Radical Janus." His better-known career, however, was in the socialist movement. He was one of the founders, with Dimitrije Tucović, of the Serbian Social Democratic Party. He sat in the Serbian Skupština from 1905 to 1908 and again from 1912 to 1919, and he gained an international reputation by voting against war budgets. After the war his reformist group was expelled from the new socialist party in 1920 for issuing an anti-Bolshevik manifesto. In the early 1920s Lapčević withdrew from politics and the workers' movement. In 1926, then, Lapčević was writing about parliamentarism as a retired socialist and historian, not as a party leader. Kojić's reminder of his Radical beginnings was a polemical point, aimed at a man known by 1926 mainly as a socialist.
From talk of dictatorship in 1926 to the royal dictatorship of 1929
Kojić accepted that Yugoslav politicians were talking about dictatorship, but he denied that this talk was simply the result of disregard for parliamentary rules and a weakening parliament, and said Lapčević had the causes the wrong way round. Actual royal dictatorship came a little over two years later. In June 1928 the Croatian Peasant Party leader Stjepan Radić was assassinated in parliament by Puniša Račić, a Montenegrin Serb and a politician of the People's Radical Party, the party Kojić's column names as Lapčević's starting point. King Alexander used the crisis as a pretext, abolished the Vidovdan Constitution and on 6 January 1929 prorogued parliament and took control of the state. He appointed a cabinet answerable only to himself and imposed tight press censorship. Politika itself carried the king and his proclamation on its front page of 6 January 1929. The 1926 exchange shows that the questions of parliamentary breakdown and dictatorship were already being argued in public years before the king acted, though these pages do not show that the debate itself led to his decision.
Kondylis and the Greek election of 7 November 1926
The report signed "S." appeared two days before Greeks voted on 7 November 1926. Kondylis was a firm Venizelist who had opposed the restoration of King Constantine I in 1920. On 22 August 1926 he overthrew Theodoros Pangalos's dictatorship in a bloodless coup and called elections for November, in which his own party did not take part. The paper said proportional representation was meant to strengthen democratic elements, and the 1926 vote was in fact the first Greek election held under a proportional system. No party won a majority, and the Liberal Union came first with 108 of the 286 seats. On 4 December a government under Alexandros Zaimis, who was not a member of parliament, was sworn in, with the Liberal Union, the Democratic Union, the People's Party and the Freethinkers' Party in the coalition. The coalition thus included the People's Party, which had not recognized the new constitution.
Kondylis's own restoration of the monarchy in 1935
The Greek report presents the army and Kondylis's government as defenders of the republic against monarchist propaganda. Nine years later Kondylis led the restoration of the monarchy himself. On 10 October 1935 he and several other officers called on Prime Minister Panagis Tsaldaris and forced him to resign. That same day Kondylis forced President Alexandros Zaimis to resign, declared himself regent, abolished the Republic and called a plebiscite for 3 November. The official count showed 98 percent of voters in favour of the return of George II, a suspiciously high total that was probably obtained through fraud. Zaimis was the same man who had headed the coalition formed after the 1926 election. The general whose government the paper described as protecting republican institutions was the one who ended the Second Hellenic Republic.
Original
Наш парламентаризам
Уважени г. Драгиша Лапчевић, који је своју политичку каријеру зачео у редовима радикала, а своја правилна гледишта о парламентаризму почео израђивати уз радикалног Јануса, дао је у " Политици " од 3 о. м. један врло интересантан чланак о нашем парламентаризму. Томе његовом чланку не би се могли учинити нарочити приговори, да г. Лапчевић није закључио, да се само због непоштовања парламентарног реда ствари у нас - и као последица слабљења парламентарности - не почиње говорити о диктатури. Тај и такав закључак г. Лапчевића погрешан је, јер он поставља у сасвим обрнути ред извесне политичке појаве, које по својој важности нису могле бити незапажене у нашој јавности.
Република или монархија?
Развој монархистичке пропаганде озбиљно је забринуо војне факторе, који су, силом прилика, везани за републикански облик владавине, и влада генерала Кондилиса морала је, у пркос октроисаних слобода, предузети извесне мере у циљу заштите републиканских установа. Прва у низу ових мера била је владина одлука да не дозвољава измену објављеног устава и постојећег стања ствари. Затим је дошла одлука да се избори изврше по пропорционалном систему, који треба да појача положај демократских елемената у новоме парламенту.
Марс нам шаље сигнале?
Енглеске новине доносе о Марсу чудновату вест. Ако њиховом тврђењу поклонимо вере, прошлог петка, када је црвенкаста планета била најближа нашој земљи, извесни доктор Робинсон, са неколицином стручњака, у пријемној радиотелеграфској станици у једној кући у Лондону, у 20 часова, 3 минута и 45 секунди (будимо тачни), примио је радиотелеграфски позив с Марса, један знак који у Морзеовом систему одговара слову М.