REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. DECLASSIFIED Authority Stateletter Whz öy Me, NARA 02:0 24 18. ll Coast, arc tile Banco Nacional de Seguros, tue Government insurance monopoly.
In the present bitter campaign for the presidency of the Republic, the Centro has officially declured itself neutral, and has stated that it will not support either candidato. Its position is that, being a group which stands Tor 1aoag rather than personalities, it will remain outside of the arena, and will criticize both candidates freely.
Lembers of the organization are free to follow their personal inclination in campaigning and voting, but the Centro has repeatedly proclaimed that such activities are not to be construed as a deviation from the group official impartiality.
Nevertheless, the Centro has been in the past year increasingly. critical of the administration of President Calderón Guardia. It has laid special emphasis on the nepotism, grart, and arbitrary misuse of executive power which, it holds, onaruotorizo this Govo rumont. The expulsion from the country of José FIGUERES in 1942 for a supposedly subversive speech made on the radio was roundly attacked by the Centro. Similar ly in liay of this year the Centro was active in opposing the Administration proposal to change the election law, a proposal which was generally interpreted as a political move to enable the Government better to control the voting in the election of February, 19448 The eventual withdrawal of this project from Congress was considered by the Centro a victory for its cause.
Criticism of the Calderón Guardia regine by the Centro reached its bitterest stage with the publication in Surco, No. 39, September, 1943, or an üllegorical article by Roberto Fernández Durán entitled La Enseianza de Tairak. In this article the thinly disguised figures of the President, members of ais family, and lanuel wora, re represented as gradually accumulating all the wealth of a mythical country by graft and robbery; their dynasty is then overthrown. This article was reproduced in the Diario of Septeuber 17, 1943, and started a series of recriminations in the daily press. Ternández father was attacked in the street oy a band of thugs and beaten, and the accusation was then made that the band was hired by the Government. Siuce that ti te sniping has been carried on by the Centro on one side and the Government and the Vanguardia Popular party on the other.
LALA ECONOMIC VIEWPOINTS OF THE CENTRO The economic orientation of the Centro is founded upon a basic set of postulates. Brierly, these may be described as the realization that Costa Rica piusst of necessity depend on agriculture as the main source of its wealth, and the conconitant contention that the economic life of the country should be so ordered that each person may receive his just portion