Teeth

From Arica, Chile, General Pershing, Chairman of the Tacna-Arica

Plebiscitary Commission,* despatched a superficially colorless cable about his health:

"For some time past I have had need for expert dental treatment, which cannot be obtained here. I have planned during the last two or three months to take the first opportunity to visit the United States for that purpose."

Simultaneously the State Department announced that the General will return to the U. S. within a few weeks. On the day following this announcement President Coolidge at length authorized the statement that he had received a Chilean appeal respecting the Tacna-Arica situation. The text of this appeal was not made public, although it was supposed to have reached the White House almost a fortnight ago.

Tongues wagged their fastest. It began to be widely believed that General Pershing had found it utterly impossible to cajole or coerce Chile and Peru into agreeing on the terms of a fair Tacna-Arica plebiscite. Naturally Chile was supposed to concede the final break on account of the "appeal" to President Coolidge, and because of the recent Pershing-baiting tactics of Senor Edwards, the Chilean representative on the Commission (TIME, Dec. 7, 21).

In vain the State Department and the Spokesman of the White House proclaimed that so far as they knew General Pershing would return to Tacna-Arica when he regained his health, and that the President would certainly not cease to mediate between Chile and Peru. The rumor persisted that General Pershing was not ill, and was backed up by news cables from Arica which described him as enjoying perfectly good health.

Finally pressmen sought out James Pershing, brother of John, at his office in the Straus Building, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan. James regarded the questioners with a quizzical smile: "My brother let his teeth go without attention for some time, as one will. ... I suppose that his general condition too may have been weakened by the oppressive climate of Tacna-Arica, of which he has often spoken. ... I feel sure that my brother's condition is not actually alarming."

The pressmen departed and flipped a coin with themselves. Some trumpeted, "He let his teeth go"; others, "Not actually alarming." Impartial observers opined that the rumor of a complete deadlock at Tacna-Arica was growing weaker.

*Created by the arbitral award of President Coolidge (TIME, March 16) to administer a plebiscite for the purpose of determining whether the once Peruvian province of Tacna-Arica, now a part of Chile, shall be returned to Peru. The plebiscite, should have been held in 1894, according to the Treaty of Ancon in 1884; but after decades of wrangling, Chile and Peru voluntarily admitted the hopelessness of trying to hold it themselves and referred the matter to the President of the U.S. Chile desires Tacna-Arica as a strategic "buffer province" to protect her valuable nitrate fields from Peru. Peru has been incensed by the alleged "Chileanization" of Tacna-Arica by Chile in an attempt to "fix" the plebiscite.