Pirates: Samaritans

"I have the honor to inform you that on this day your mine has been reduced to ashes. . . . The losses which you have sustained in the aforementioned mine you may collect from the Government of the United States and Mr. Calvin Coolidge, who is truly responsible for the horrible and disastrous situation through which Nicaragua is passing at present.

"As long as the Government of the United States of North America does not order retirement of its pirates from our territory there will be no guarantee in this country for North Americans residing in Nicaragua.

"In the beginning I was confident that the people of North America would not be in accord with the abuses committed in Nicaragua by the Government of Mr. Calvin Coolidge, but I am now convinced that North Americans in general uphold the attitude of Coolidge in my country; and it is for this reason that all that is North American that falls into our hands assuredly will have come to its end.

"(Signed) Augusto Calderon Sandino, "(Seal)"

Such was a letter found last week amid the ruins of the two Nicaraguan gold mines owned by brothers of U. S. Ambassador to Italy Henry P. Fletcher which were recently gutted by Nicaraguan guerrillas with a loss of $2,000,000 (TIME May 7).

The letter, if authentic, establishes the disputed fact that the $2,000,000 raid was personally carried out by General Sandino as a formal act of militancy against the people & government of the U. S.

Only last fortnight U. S. Brigadier General Frank R. McCoy said, upon arriving at Washington from Nicaragua: "Sandino is just a little fellow prowling among the caverns of the mountains. ... If it weren't for the newspapers in the U. S. nobody much would know about Sandino. . . . People can't understand why 4,000 marines can't catch him quickly . . . but a fugitive might escape capture for a long time right in New York or Chicago."

General McCoy will return to Nicaragua to supervise on Nov. 4, 1928, in the name of the U. S., a Nicaraguan parliamentary election. Last week a detachment of Marines under Captain Robert S. Hunter were finally able to locate some of the elusive Sandinistas near Mount Pena Blanca. Result: Captain Hunter and Corporal William L. Williamson were killed, as were five Nicaraguans. The most lofty concept of what the U. S. is accomplishing in Nicaragua was recently voiced by U. S. Marine Corps Commander Major General John A. ("Leatherneck") Lejeune. Said he: "The Nicaraguan people need help, and the Marines are doing God's work in playing the Good Samaritan to them."