Events in Nicaragua took a vexatious turn, last week, and patient U. S. financiers with interests in Latin America did not conceal their ire.
The chief vexation suffered by the U. S. in Nicaragua, last week, sprang from an act of complete insubordination by the Conservative majority in the Chamber, which is supposed to synchronize itself with Conservative President Adolfo Diaz, maintained in power by U. S. intervention (TIME, May 16).
So completely did Puppet Diaz lose control of the Chamber, last week, that it voted virtually to nullify the vital law which was to empower the U. S. to supervise the next Nicaraguan election. As everyone knows, the U. S. Marines now in Nicaragua are there notably under the pretext that Nicaraguans themselves desire the U. S. to police the country and to hold a fair general election. Any such pretext seemed to vanish when the U. S. was repudiated by the very party which it intervened to maintain in power.
Since excuses for keeping Marines in Nicaragua can always be found, the U. S. forces continued mopping up insurgent Nicaraguans under the personal supervision of Major General John Archer Lejeune, “Biggest Leatherneck of All,” who had just arrived from Washington on the light cruiser Trenton.
Landing at Corinto, Leatherneck Lejeune flew at once to the Nicaraguan Capital, Managua, and there began to discover why some 3,000 U. S. marines have not long since wiped out the small guerrilla force of the sole insurgent Nicaraguan General, Augusta Calderon Sandino.
Unconfirmed rumors among Nicaraguan natives told that General Sandino had been killed by a U. S. airplane bomb; but Marine corps scouts convinced themselves that the report was “merely a ruse.”