Neville for Lejeune

Hard-faced but mild-mannered Maj. Gen. John Archer Lejeune last week prepared to turn over the swivel chair in which reposes the Commandant of the U. S. Marine Corps, to his sharp-eyed friend Maj. Gen. Wendell Gushing Neville.

Gen. Lejeune's friends failed to induce him to seek reappointment. Eight years at a desk were, he thought, enough. He will pass his last 22 months of service in open field duty on Pacific Coast. President Coolidge sent Gen. Neville's name to the Senate for confirmation as of March 5.

Both men are tough-knuckled fighters of the old Marine school. Each came to eminence through battle smoke and war fury. Both are Southerners. For each the Corps has a large, profane, unsentimental affection. Both are burdensomely decorated for bravery in action, Gen. Neville having the edge with a Congressional Medal of Honor for the cool way he seized Vera Cruz with the Second Regiment in 1914.

Gen. Neville fought through Guantanamo in 1898; through the Boxer uprising of 1900; through the Philippine insurrection of 1901; through Verdun and Chateau Thierry, commanding the Fifth Regiment; through Soissons, St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne to the Coblenz bridgehead. On the way into Germany, re-placement doughboys stole his greenish Marine overcoat, stars and all, mistaking it for a German officer's. He later found it draped comfortably around an Army mule.