Show NEWS THIS WEEK by lemuel F parton paron spanish onion redd peddlers lers epic story Is recounted EW YORK As an itinerant na onion peddler juan march used to tie up his daily earnings in his shirttail shirt tail he hpretty nearly had spain that way too at the start of his h is war against the republic which he bankrolls lan ban krolls and more or less personally conducts from rome where according to today s dispatches he is now in residence foreign correspondents put the finger on mr march as the main financial spark plug of the war bothin its origin and continuance ti nuance blasco ibanez is pretty tame reading after even a cursory look at senor marahs career he is is a financial genius one of the richest men in the world who never saw the inside of a schoolhouse that is as a pupil at the age of forty he had a string of twelve banks steamship lines newspapers beautiful estates and hispano cars and he read or write a word always signing his name with a big X born in the island of majorca of desperately poor parents he was a sack carrier in a corn merchants shop and then an itinerant peddler his parents were members of an obscure jewish sect known as chu ile he went to africa as a laborer la and became a grower of tobacco in the years that followed juan march was trailed jailed hounded and persecuted by national and international ter national police around the mediterranean as a smuggler his biographers say that if the international struggle for control of the mediterranean should eventually I 1 require a more detailed knowledge adge of coves and inlets than italian naval maps map s now supply senor march can supply it he has per explored them in the dark of the moon say current news accounts and could smell his way into any of them blindfolded the money rolled in in the post war var years senor march was back in in spain investing many millions in vast areas of land which made him one of most imposing grandees grandeas gran dees traveling with an entourage of generals and flunkies flun kies in his pana limousines his was the buildup of primo de rivera as dictator qu quite ite a few years before the overthrow of alfonso the drive for the breakup break up of big land holdings was gamm gamins momentum and senor carew march combating it became the most knost powerful and resourceful contender for fascism in spain the republic jailed him for eighteen months details of his release are obscure but when the jail doors swung outward the real troubles of the republic began according to dispatches of last august and september senor marahs bank in palma on majorca was the financial mainspring 0 of revolution and palma was the not only of planes cannon and munitions but of the african riffs miffs being landed on a coast which he knew from gibraltar to istanbul A lot of blood has flowed under the bridge since he peddled onions onions but at fifty seven there probably an onion or a cannon peddled around the mediterranean that he know about lowdown low down on kipling kiplin if RF DERIC F VAN DE WATER a good reporter who became an author snapped into the old time routine when he saw that kipling story lying around loose in vermont his published account of why kipling left america after his thundering row with his brother in law looks like the freudian key to the poets impassioned dislike for this country that passage in his memoirs about the hallowed peace of canada and the hellhole hell hole just over an invisible line seems to require some such explanation his rancor in in this connection always has suggest ed some most unhappy experience here mr van de water fills us in and the story is still good after forty years one can be more charitable toward kipling after learning of his troubles with the reporters mr van de water Is a good choice to cover the literary beat ile he is a grandson of marion harland the novelist who was mary virginia hawes hancs terhune Tc rhune I 1 ler her children are albert payson terhune christine terhune herrick and virginia terhune van de water all well known writers educated at new york university and columbia mr van de water was a reporter and editor on several new york newspapers and later a new york literary critic he is the author of seventeen novels and a vast deal of critical writing taking time out tor for fishing with the slightest provocation he has a summer home in vermont and how he came to run down the kipling story Q consolidated news F features e agures service |