YUGOSLAVIA: Dangerous Decree

Most Serbians and many Slovenes write a queer, quaint alphabet, the Cyrillic. Himself a Serb, King Alexander knows that it is hard to change over to the Latin alphabet used by U. S. citizens and all his Croatian subjects. But just now His Majesty is launched on a passionate campaign of national unification (TIME, Oct. 14). Therefore he announced last week that he would shortly suppress Cyrillic by royal and dictatorial decree.

Worried Jugoslav elder statesmen reflected that if the Serbs become vexed at having to learn a new alphabet and turn from youthful King Alexander, a revolution will infallibly result. Even in Turkey, where the Latin alphabet was "successfully" imposed on a docile people two years ago by Dictator-President Mustafa Kemal Pasha, its practical adoption has lagged so grievously that last year there was published in all the Turkish Republic one, and only one, book.