Toddling Step

For most of the 424 years after Magellan called at Guam, the people of the Marianas had little but grief at the hands of their Spanish, German and Japanese masters. But U.S. suzerainty is something different. There was word last week that an election had been held on Saipan.

In the pretty village of Charan Kanoa, where banana trees line the streets, there were speeches and posters, dances and rallies. Trooping to the village hall, Chamorros and Carolinians cast secret ballots. When the results were totted, tall & balding Elias Sablan, 46, had beaten 25 other candidates for the office of chief.

A former policeman and government official at Yap, Chief Sablan went to a German school on Saipan, speaks English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Chamorro, Carolinian. In his new job, something like an American mayor’s, he is responsible to Navy civil affairs officers.