Thin Red Squad

I've got a little list . . . Of . . '. pestilential persons. . .

Who might well be underground. . . For they'd none of 'em be missed.

They'd none of 'em, be missed. . .

--THE MIKADO

Rear Admiral Julian L. Latimer, commanding the bluejackets and leathernecks who are doing what they are told in Nicaragua, has no "little list." He wants to put no "pestilential persons underground"; but he heard last week by radio that at Washington things wern different. The Administration had "little list."

Of Nic-ar-agunn "rebels" and Mexican "Comunists";

And Borah won't be missed! No, Borah won't be missed!

For last week Senator Borah called on President Coolidge and immediately thereafter trumpeted to newsgatherers that he believes the Administration has recognized as President of Nicaragua a man who has no just claim to that office, Ser Adolfo Diaz, Conservative; and further that the Administration is intervening in Nicaragua against Dr. Juan Sacasa, Liberal, the rightful President of Nicaragua in Senator Borah's opinion--and he is the Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee.

Squad. Naturally this meant that Democrats had their "little list"

Of Administration statesmen

Who might well be underground.

Specifically, Representative George Huddleston of Alabama cried in the House: "If we do have a war with any nation under the sun I want to nominate a squad for the front line of attack, with Coolidge as right guide and Kellogg as file closer.* ... I am not willing that a single American boy shall be sent out to lose his life. . . ." He doubtless recalled from army days a squad of eight, not counting the two positions named.

Other Democrats gleefully filled up the eight squad positions left vacant by Representative Hudleston. Who better for corporal than Edward Beale ("Oil Man") McLean proprietor of the Washington Post, which said editorially last week that Washington and meet for the front rank than William Randolph Hearst, whose presses spurted jingoist menaces last week toward both Nicaragua and Mexico? Should not Robert F. Loree of the Guaranty Trust Co. of Manhattan shoulder a rifle beside Mr. Hearst, in token that the Guaranty Trust typifies "Big Business" in Nicaragua?* And Lincoln would have handled the Nicaraguan situation identically as has Calvin Coolige? Who more beside suave private Banker Loree, of course, should march Edward L. ("Oily") Doheny.

They never would be missed Oh no!

They'd not be missed.

At least so thought many who echoed Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, as he cried last week:

"We are simply bullying the Nicaraguan people because it is a small nation, and we are doing it to protect men who obtained concession from the Diaz Govern-ment that was set up there at the point of the bayonet, in violation of the Constitution of Nicaragua, by American interference. Should we have landed American marines in Italy when Mussolini overthrew the Government and set up a Dictatorship? Should we land marines or did we ever dare to land marines in Russia to protect American property and lives in Russia?"

Speaking of landing marines, why should not Commandant of Marines Major General John Archer Lejeune march in the Coolidge-Kellogg thin red squad of heroes? "Lejeune, at least, would fight," said grudging Democrats.

If one Democrat must march with the squad, Senator Ransdell, bearded Louisiana interventionist, might add his patriarchal pep to the rear rank. Secretary of the Navy Wilbur, who despatched six more warships to Nicaragua last week, all the while keeping a shroud of silence over the ugly hulking war scare, should also do his bit in the squad--perhaps a hornpipe. Finally, Democrats agreed, the very man to march in the rear rank, just in front of File Closer Kellogg, would be his former law partner, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Edwin Olds. Mr. Olds it is whom rumor accuses of successfully luring the Associated Press into printing its celebrated "Wolf! Wolf! despatch" (TIME, Dec. 27) declaring that a Mexican "Bolshevist hegemony" is intervening in Nicaragua "between the U. S. and the Panama Canal."

Altogether the news from Washington must have seemed to Rear Admiral Latimer, in Nicaragua, as it came in over the radio, like the broadcasting of an opera bouffe called "NICARAGUA BETRAYED, or Are Mexicans Bolsheviks?"

Two-Edged Threat. Aboard his flagship, the Rochester, anchored off Puerto Cabezas, Rear Admiral Latimer calmly directed the marines, landed recently (TIME, Jan. 3) as they maintained "a neutral zone to protect American lives" in such a way as to cut off the Liberal adherents of President-- Juan Sacasa from their chief base. Meanwhile President* Adolfo Diaz welcomed another detachment of U. S. marines which arrived "to protect the U. S. Legation" at Managua, Capital of Nicaragua.

Actual fighting between the Sacasa (Liberal) and Diaz (Conservative) forces continued in the interior. Since false reports of success were sent out on both sides, the true state of the civil war remained obscure, but a total of at least 500 combatant Nicaraguans were killed last week.

The forces rushed to Nicaragua bv the Navy Department brought the number of U. S. warcraft in Nicaraguan waters up to 15, and the number of officers and men available up to 4,680--enough to wipe Nicaragua off the map without more than affording much needed practice to professional U. S. sailors and marines.

Shrewd observers noted that this ridiculously large naval concentration can be moved within 24 hours to a point off the Mexican coast, should the Mexican Government fulfill its announced determination to seize certain U. S. oil lands in Mexico as "forfeited" under the new Mexican oil laws (TIME, Jan. 25, 1926). Thus the U. S. forces sent to Nicaragua last week constitute a two-edged threat.

*Mr. Loree is President of the National Bank of Nicaragua. The directorate of the Bank and the directorate of the National Railway Co. of Nicaragua interlock in the persons of several of Mr. Loree's Manhattan friends. As President Diaz gracefully put the matter, when he sanctioned the sale of 51% of the Bank stock of the Guaranty Trust Co. (TIME, Nov. 29) : "If the Bank of Nicaragua had been controlled by U. S. interests it would not have been robbed of $161,000 (TIME. May 17) by armed forces of the Nicaraguan Liberal Party."

*Recognized by Mexico.

*Recognized by the U. S.