Instead of the Marines

Dutch-blooded President Franklin Delano Roosevelt this week started U. S. Minister to Haiti George Anderson Gordon on a 5,500-mile sea journey from sunny squalor to scrubbed prosperity, from slender mulattoes to broad-beamed Nordics, from Haiti to The Hague, where he will be accredited to regally pink-&-white Queen Wilhelmina instead of to duskily diffident Haitian President Stenio Vincent. Saying an official goodby to Port-au-Prince meant having sent down from Manhattan presents for pickaninnies in the hospital patronized by Mrs. Gordon and choice viands including meat for the banquet Minister Gordon served to mulatto dignitaries who, of course, banqueted him in return--President Vincent at his estate, "Kenscoff." As the Gordons sailed last week on S, S. Pastores, the Haitian press spokesman pontificated in French: "All functions on the occasion of Minister Gordon's departure were perfectly successful. He left the impression in Haiti that he is a diplomat both correct and loyal."

Ceremonious, courageous and irascible Dutch Premier Dr. Hendrikus Colijn should like ceremonious, courageous and irascible George Gordon. Cracked a State Department official two years ago when Minister Gordon was dispatched south: "When the Haitians get to know George, they'll think we have sent them back the United States Marines." Matter of fact, deeply cultured Mr. Gordon was astonished and charmed by the erudite French culture he found typical of many mulatto statesmen in Haiti, and it was fun for diminutive Mrs. Gordon to appear at a Haitian ball one night with dashing Dictator Trujillo of the nearby Dominican Republic, although often enough her partner was Haiti's humdrum, dusky President Vincent.

The Duchess of Windsor, years ago in Washington when she was the wife of an impecunious U. S. Navy officer, used to send over her seamstress to copy Mrs. Gordon's gowns, by permission, when the latter would return from Paris with another trunkful. Of aristocratic Dutch descent, the U. S. Minister's wife, nee Vandergrift, has many friends, some relatives in The Netherlands.

In adjoining Germany, just after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, Mr. Gordon was Counselor of the U. S. Embassy during feverish weeks while the Reichstag was burned down and the Nazis pursued their bludgeoning Revolution. With the then British Ambassador to Germany Sir Eric Phipps vigorous Mr. Gordon teamed and they were long the only two diplomats in Berlin who stickled for their nationals' rights and stood up to the Nazis. They are credited with having persuaded that non-Nazi German gentleman, Baron Constantin von Neurath, that it was his duty to stay on as Foreign Minister when, upset by the havoc Nazis were playing with the traditions of the German Foreign Office, the Baron had determined to resign.

"Haiti has a big coffee crop this year, and is producing bananas on an increasing scale," Minister Gordon told ship-news reporters this week. "She will ship her usual crop of a million stems of bananas to the United States this year and she will probably triple or quadruple that figure in a very few years. The Haitians have an extremely friendly feeling for us--they consider the United States their best friend."

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