Foreign News: Gunboats to Nicaragua

The U. S. gunboat Galveston steamed through the Panama Canal last week turned northward and cast anchor in the Nicaraguan harbor of Bluefields. Simultaneously the U. S. gunboat Tulsa anchored off Corinto on the opposite (Pacific) coast of Nicaragua. Thus U. S. cannon faced each other across the 200 mile extreme width of a nation with which the U. S. is at peace. Several hundred U. S. marines were landed with fighting equipment at Bluefields.

Why?

To date the U, S, has not recognized the regime of General Emiliano Chamorro who forced the Nicaraguan Congress to elect him President after he had virtually seized that office by a military coup (TIME, Sept. 21). Neither has General Chamorro been recognized as president by a potent Nicaraguan faction led by onetime Vice President Sacasa, whom General Chamorro compelled Congress to banish. Operating from Guatemala, Dr. Sacasa has launched a series of insufficiently prepared and unsuccessful revolts. Last week these counter revolutions were deemed of sufficient magnitude by Secretary Kellogg to call for the presence of U. S. gunboats to protect U. S. commercial interests in Nicaragua. Anti-Chamorrists, vexed, declared that the U. S. is protecting a regime which it will not recognize.