Word: litmus
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Dates: during 1930-1930
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Leguia's agents have for years sent him weekly reports?political litmus papers of the public's reaction to his rule. Two months ago, with the successful overthrowing of Bolivia's Dictator President Hernando Siles and his strong-armed Prussian henchman, General Hans Kundt, the litmus turned red. Trouble was brewing in the southern provinces. President Leguia promptly demoted overambitious army officers, closed universities, arrested student agitators. But the trouble spread, the litmus stayed red. One Luis Sanchez Cerro, Colonel of Sappers at Arequipa near the Chilean border, declared open rebellion fortnight ago. In four days, progressing almost without bloodshed...
...litmus was red indeed. The Almirante Gran's officers stopped saluting and arrested little Leguia. Back in Callao harbor, a U. S. physician, Dr. McCormack, visited the sick man three times, announced that contrary to current rumor the patient was "neither dead nor dying." The Junta's President Sanchez Cerro thundered that "Tyrant" Leguia "must be made to account for his acts," ordered Augusto Leguia and son Juan imprisoned in the island fortress of San Lorenzo, bastille of Peru's political prisoners. Peruvians thrilled at a typically Latin touch: jailer-to-be of ex-President Leguia, commander of the guard...