Butler to Grocers

As every one is now well aware, Major General Smedley Darlington ("Old Gimlet Eye") Butler, U.S.M.C., has two congressional medals. Last month he defended his right to the second one by loudly protesting aspersions cast by the Haitian Minister to the U. S. (TIME, May 4). Last week, the State Department hav-ing accepted the Haitian Minister's equivocal apology, General Butler took time by the forelock and refreshed the country's memory of how he won his first medal. His immediate audience was a group of grocers assembled in the same Philadelphia Elks' Club where General Butler was cut off the air for broadcasting the word "hell" while talking about his second medal-winning exploit.

In 1914, the General told the grocers, President Wilson, preparing for war with Mexico, sent him to ascertain the garrison strength of Mexico City. General Butler was with the fleet at Vera Cruz. "So one night I went over the side and rowed ashore. After various experiences I landed in Mexico City as an American capitalist seeking to invest money in some substantial Mexican properties. After inspecting all the water works, electric light plants, transit lines and gas works, I noticed two forts overlooking the city. . . . I chased a butterfly and managed to look it all over before the soldiers ordered me out. The second fort was inspected in the same manner.

"Then I obtained a job in a railway office as an accountant. . . . The President of Mexico, Huerta, was afraid to trust Mexicans to guard him, so he employed Cubans, and I met one in the railway office. I told him I was an American Department of Justice agent and was after a murderer from Ohio, who I was sure was in the Mexican army. Then he helped me some by showing me several garrisons.

"I went to [U. S. Charge d'Affaires] O'Shaughnessy and together we bluffed our way into Chapultepec Castle. We went to the second floor and there was old Huerta drunk in bed. I became so intimate that I sat on the edge of the bed and emerged with an order to inspect all the garrisons of the capital. After looking over the 23 garrisons . . . I decided that I had better head for Vera Cruz and the fleet, because, if they learned I was an American Marine officer I would have been shot.

"As my train entered the outskirts of Vera Cruz, I saw two Mexican secret service men across the aisle watching my bunk. . . . I headed for the rear in my underwear as though I was going to wash. Then I slipped from the train and dressed under a box car. When I reached the American consulate I left my maps and went out to cable Mrs. Butler I was safe. . . . I learned later that they had spent two weeks dragging the bay as they felt sure I had fallen overboard. But I was restored to the Navy list and that ended that little junket."

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