Bottom Button

Just 31 years ago, while Rough Riders drilled in Texas, German bands played "Dolly Gray" and U. S. Volunteers sweated in blue flannel shirts and tubular blanket rolls, the name of the Dutch island of Curac,ao appeared in bold headlines. One hot morning, the U. S. Consul at Curac,ao, gazing casually from his bedroom window found the normally peaceful harbor black with steel-snouted, round-turreted warships.

Hatless, breathless, he rushed to the cable office and signaled the world that the Spanish battle fleet of Admiral Cervera, long sought, imminently expected by nervous mamas at U. S. bathing beaches, had been found. The Spanish gunboats coaled and departed to face U. S. Admiral Schley. U. S. citizens looked for Curac,ao in their atlases, found it off the coast of Venezuela, a tiny button in the bottom of the Caribbean.

For the next three decades Curac,ao was no more, to the average citizen, than the name of a liqueur--an infusion of bitter orange peel so easily made and so eminently potable that to the fury of Dutch sour-orange growers, it is successfully imitated in nearly every country in the world.

Last week U. S. householders rethumbed their atlases, relocated the bottom button of the Caribbean. In Willemstad Harbor, Curac,ao, a U. S. ship had been captured, Curacao's Dutch Governor had been kidnaped.

Capt. A. T. Morris of the American steamer Maracaibo, leaned over the ship's rail smoking an evening pipe, gazing at the placid harbor of Willemstad, Curac,ao. A thin sliver of moon hung over the tanks of the Royal Dutch oil refinery on shore, shone on the yellow plaster fac,ade of the Governor's Palace.

Suddenly from the shadows on the pier swarthy individuals climbed the Maracaibo's gangplank. The leader, stepping forward, introduced himself as Capt. Rafael Simon Urbina of Venezuela. Politely he asked Captain Morris to transport his rebel army to the Venezuelan mainland.

"Sorry, gentlemen," said Capt. Morris, "I don't want to have anything to do with rebels or rebellions."

Followed a whispered conversation between Capt. Urbina and his swarthy friends. They bowed to Capt. Morris, and slipped down the gangplank again. Almost immediately the Dutch calm of Willemstad was punctuated with shots, shouts and horrid outcry. Dark figures rushed along the waterfront to little Fort Amsterdam. Half an hour later Capt. Urbina, flushed, triumphant, returned to the S. S. Maracaibo with 400 followers and the disheveled Governor of Curac,ao, His Excellency, Mr. L. A. Fruytier, captured in bed, and Willemstad's Chief of Police. Pressing an enormous pistol against Capt. Morris's abdomen, Rebel Urbina ordered him to sail for the Venezuelan mainland, 40 miles away. Capt. Morris agreed.

Ten blasts were blown on the Maracaibo's whistle. At this pre-arranged signal motor trucks loaded with guns and ammunition careened down to the pier. The munitions were stolen from Fort Amsterdam, three of whose 71 defenders had been killed in the raid.

"On to Caracas!" shouted Rebel Urbina as guns and crates were piled on deck. "Nobody can stop us!"

Capt. Morris obediently jangled the engine room telegraph. Wheezing asthmatically, the Maracaibo put out to sea. All the way to the mainland the Venezuelan rebels, inflamed with the success of the most daring filibuster in years, ate and drank and shouted again and again the words of their Captain, "On to Caracas! Nobody can stop us!"

Three miles off the mainland the Maracaibo anchored. The filibustered loaded their captured arms into the ship's lifeboats and lowered them to the sea, sinking two lifeboats in the process. Capt. Morris and kidnaped Governor Fruytier were left to return to Curac,ao or to go anywhere else they pleased. Brash Capt. Urbina attacked the garrison of Vela de Coro, fatally wounded its commander, Gen. Gabriel Lale, and prepared to move forward against Caracas and the formidable ex-Dictator, General Juan Vicente Gomez (TIME, May 20).

U. S. newspapers dwelt fondly on the word "filibuster" in describing the Curac,ao fracas, harked back to Richard Harding Davis and O. Henry.

At The Hague, Foreign Minister Beelaerts van Blockland of the Netherlands was outraged.

"Filibuster?" said blunt Beelaerts, "It was a putsch!"

The Dutch Government immediately despatched the battleship Hertog Hendrik and the destroyer Kortenaer to protect Curac,ao from any more putsche.