REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES DECLASSIFIED Authority Stateletter Inhz by ML, NARA Date 2498. 13 so long that they are practically national institutions. The other candidates, with the exception of Julio Acosta, are untried and untested. at least in the popular mind. León Cortés ability is recognized, but his political ideas and his temperament are not reassuring. The same applies to General Volio, while candidates such as Arturo Volio and Manuel Francisco Jiménez are distrusted on account of their friends and associates and their general reputation for sharp practice.
Contributing to this distrust of men is fear of ideas. Communism has gradually gathered strength since its introduction into Costa Rica about 1930. There are other elements vaguely Fascist in their tendencies; shortly after General Tolio return from Europe, he issued a so called manifesto to the country calling on his supporters to rally around his leadership in a movement designed to combat Communism and to work for the vague New Deal embodied in the platform of his ola Reform Party. The political forces that are in evidence throughout the world are thus cropping out in Costa Rica as well. The final result of this introduction of new and in some cases dangerously radical ideas will probably be to strengthen and consolidate the forces of conservatism. The latter are really synonymous with the large landowning cafetelero class that has almost uninterruptedly dominated the nation politics. This class is inherently