Not a Jot, Not a Tittle

Fifteen Presidents of Latin American republics all received, last week, a stirring appeal:

". . . It is your duty, Senor President, as the representative of a free and sovereign people, to protest diplomatically or with arms . . . against the crime being committed by the Government of the White House, in cold blood, in our unhappy Nicaragua. . . .

". . . It may not be long, Senor President, until the United States seeks to place your country in the same dependency with Nicaragua, Panama, Porto Rico, Cuba, Santo Domingo and Haiti. . . .

(Signed) Augusto C. Sandino,

Chief of the Nicaraguan Republic, General."

Prudently the 15 Presidents minded their own business. Well they know that Augusto Calderon Sandino is merely the Chief of those Nicaraguans who still object to the supervision of the Nicaraguan Presidential Election of last week by U. S. Marines.

The two Presidential Candidates were probably about equally acceptable to President Calvin Coolidge. The Liberal candidate. Jose Maria Moncada, was formerly a General actively insurgent against the Marines; but President Coolidge's representative Henry L. Stimpson (now U. S. Governor General of the Philippines) offered General Moncada and his men such generous terms (TIME, May 16, 1927) that they have ever since strongly endorsed U. S. supervision of the election. The Conservative candidate, Adolfo Benard, personally visited Washington, D. C., before commencing his campaign, and is in clubbable harmony with the aspirations of the U. S. State Department. The only men who might have made trouble if permitted to run are General Sandino (Liberal), who is still pursued by U. S. Marines after eluding them for more than 16 months, and General Emiliano Chamorro (Conservative), who was disqualified by a ruling of the Electoral Commission, presided over by U. S. Brigadier General Frank R. McCoy.

Thus it made not a jot or tittle of difference to U. S. citizens, last week, whether Candidate Moncada or Candidate Benard was elected. As a matter of fact Moncada was elected.