Return of Butler

"Old Gimlet Eye," the "Fighting Hell-Devil Marine," returned as Brigadier General last week to Tientsin, a city which he left just 27 years ago this month as a young Leatherneck Lieutenant, eager to do hand-to-hand battle with the slant-eyed "Boxers" who then held the Occidental quarter at Peking under murderous siege.

It was to prevent a recurrence of these battles of his youth that Brigadier General Smedley Darlington Butler (see front cover) reached Tientsin, last week, commanding 1,800 U. S. marines previously stationed at Shanghai. He knew that the Southern Nationalist Chinese armies were steadily advancing on Peking (TIME, March 28 et seq.); but whether "Boxer"--trouble was brewing again he could not be certain. From Washington, President Calvin Coolidge ordered last week that no chances be taken, that the U. S. Legation and all U. S. citizens be removed to the port of Tientsin from inland Peking, should that city be seriously menaced. To keep the way of escape open, to carry out the evacuation if necessary: these were the tasks faced last week by "Old Gimlet Eye Butler."

His presence at Tientsin gave confidence to U. S. citizens in Peking. They still feared, to be sure, that the Peking War Lord, Chang Tso-lin, might withdraw before the Southern armies,, retire to his war base at Mukden, and abandon Peking to its conquerors; but with General Butler at hand, together with British, Japanese and French marine detachments, the safety of Occidentals in Peking seemed secure.

Why has U. S. President Coolidge sent Smedley Darlington Butler to this key post of high responsibility? General Butler is a name which called up very recently no more than his comic tribulations as "Dry Tsar" of Philadelphia (TIME, Jan. 4, 1926). When the President would not extend his leave to go on with that job, General Butler resigned from the Marine Corps, only to lose immediately his post as "Dry Tsar." Nothing but the complacency of the Navy Department enabled General Butler to withdraw his resignation and scuttle back into the Corps. Yet now it is General Butler who commands all U. S. marines in China. Why?

Almost certainly the explanation is that President Coolidge is familiar with the career of General Butler--the career of a fighter who takes trouble by the whiskers. This General Butler literally did when, with only 180 Marines, he was besieged some years ago in a little Nicaraguan town, by a native general with over 2,000 troops. Smedley D. Butler, then a major, went out to parley with the besieging Commander, walked menacingly up to him, seized his long mustachios, poked a pistol into his midriff, and then twisted the Nicaraguan's whiskers until he howled out orders to raise the siege and let Major Butler and his marines go. . . .

A volume of "dime novel" flavor might be compiled out of similar true stories about General Butler. He, a self-styled Quaker, and his mother, a devout Quakeress, both lied in an attempt to get him into the Marine Corps under the legal age.* Since then (1898) he has gradually become the premier "Fighting Devil" among "Devil Dogs." No man more fit, tough, wiry, profane, could have been chosen by U. S. President Coolidge to guard and protect U. S. nationals in China. Last week General Butler gave evidence that he counts on a long stay at Tientsin by ordering shipped to that city from Shanghai his private automobile.

* Said General Butler's father on this occasion : "When did thee tell them thee was born ?" General Butler: "April 20, 1880."

"Son, thy mother and I were not married until February, 1879, so do not hereafter add any more years to thy age."