LATIN AMERICA: In Nicaragua

Last week U. S. Brigadier General Frank Ross McCoy returned to Washington from Managua, Nicaraguan capital. Said he, in substance, to the Department of State:

Conditions of peace and good order are better.

U. S. marines and the new Guardia National are actively quelling outlaw bands.

Violent political partisanship in rife.

A few days later the U. S. marines fired at a band of irregulars, said to be attached to the forces of a General Salgado, who refused to accept the peace terms laid down by the U. S. last spring (TIME, May 16). One Francisco Barrios, “bandit chief,” fell dead.

Next day, in a four-hour affray at Telpaneca, 140 guerrillasš under General Salgado, armed with machine guns and high explosive bombs, attacked a garrison of 20 marines and 20 of the Guardia Nacional. One marine was killed and one mortally wounded; but upon the field of battle the rash guerrillas left 20 dead, carted off 50 wounded, retired into their strongholds.

Order was again established with the arrival of a strong detachment of marines from nearby Pueblo Nuevo.

šSkirmishers or “little warriors” ; actually irregulars. Not to be confused with gorillas, huge apes.