Mother Stuff

Sternest soldiers are often susceptible to what is sometimes called "mother stuff." Shrewdest generals know how to work upon the better natures of leatherneck marines by bellowing "your mothers, men! Think of your mothers!" Perhaps such knowledge suggested a course of action last fortnight to Brigadier General Logan Feland, now commanding the U. S. Marines occupying Nicaragua (TIME, Jan. 3, 1927, et seq.).

Well General Feland knows that all the might of 6,000 Marines has not sufficed after two years, to capture the Nicaraguan General Augusto Calderon Sandino (TIME, March 26). He continues to skulk with a few hundred loyal and desperate soldiers in the mountains and jungles, now and then issuing a defy to President Coolidge and "Yankee Imperialism." Evidently General Feland despaired of ever capturing Sandino, and thought that the last desperate expedient must be tried. Therefore Marines sought out Sandino's mother and persuaded her to write a letter pleading with her son to surrender. Her second husband, the General's stepfather, then set out alone to seek Augusto Calderon Sandino, bearing both the "mother stuff" and a diplomatically couched message from Rear Admiral David F. Sellers, commanding the U. S. Special Service squadron in Nicaraguan waters.

Should General Sandino now surrender, the victory for "Motherhood" and President Calvin Coolidge will seem almost as significant as the triumph of "Prohibition" and Herbert Hoover.