White House, 1878

BOLIVIA-PARAGUAY

White House, 1878

After bitter arguments over every other point, Paraguayan and Bolivian delegates to the League of Nations peace conference on the Chaco War locked horns in Buenos Aires last week over Rutherford B. Hayes.

If the average U. S. citizen thinks of him at all, he remembers Rutherford Birchard Hayes as a Benign Beard who was the 19th President of the United States. His memory is more important in Paraguay. A well-meaning gentleman who once thought of enlisting for the Mexican War to improve his bronchial trouble, he served as a Colonel under Sheridan in the Civil War, and was elected President in 1876 over Samuel Tilden in the closest, most bitterly disputed election ever held.

Aftermath of pugnacious Paraguay's five-year war with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, ending in 1870, was a squabble with Argentina over her western boundary. The entire dispute was laid at the elastic-sided boots of President Hayes, who looked solemnly at many maps, listened to many arguments and finally awarded all the land between the Pilcomayo and the Verde rivers to Paraguay. Argentina accepted the award and President Hayes went down in South American history as a great peacemaker. Last week Paraguay stubbornly refused to allow any of the territory included in the original Hayes award to be discussed in arbitrating the present Chaco War. Bolivia, arguing that it had not been considered in the White House decision of 1878, refused to carry on further negotiations unless the Hayes award was thrown open to fresh discussion.

Meanwhile in the hot muddy Chaco itself, peppery little Paraguayan soldiers were pushing steadily forward, regardless of the League of Nations or Rutherford B. Hayes. Their objective is a collection of fortified shacks known as Fort Cabezon. Should they capture it Paraguay will control all passable roads in the war area, thus preventing any major operations by Bolivia until the end of the rainy season.

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