Evening star., 1933-04-09
Sindbad Returns to Bagdad
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

II believe that the white man of
Western Europe is the most able and
progressive of earths types, and that
the men of the United States are the
most able of the Western European
stock. I believe that the yellow anc
red men are less able, and the black
men least able Of ALL
With this credo as a background.
John Houston Craige, a captain of the
United States Marine Corps, went into
the black republic Of Haiti in that
most intimate of capacities, chief of
police, and has brought back what is
probably the most incisive and feel
| ing description and Interpretation Of
| the mystic voodoo island and its peo-
ple which has been published.
Every man has his PRIDE" writes
| CAPT. Craige "and the man who is not
proud of his race is poor sort Of
man" Although convinced of the rela-
tive inferiority of the black, and after
living in the nation where blacks out
number the whites hundreds to one,
and where they have revealed every
conceivable shade of knavery and saw
agery as well as simplicity and bravery
and almost incredible depths of super
stition, he says: L would much rather
dine with an interesting Negro than a
dull white man."
Capt Craige had early training as a
newspaper man and is that rare crea-
ton of the profession, a reporter. Al
though lent by the United States
Marine Corps to serve as an officer of
the gendarmerie of Haiti, he proved
himself still a reporter with a seeing
| eye and one able to marshal and disci-
pline words as capably as his military
record shows he can marshal and dis
cipline Soldiery. The tale he brought
back is compact of all that makes
Haiti realm out of almost dipso-
maniacal imagination, so unbelievable
that he compares the experiences of
his tour of duty to the Arabian Nights
Tales. He calls his book BLACK Bagdad" /"
He still rubs his eyes in establishment
at the true things he put in it ana
keeps always by his side the wanga,
the charm given him by voodoo priest.
| to protect him against the death spell
which was laid upon him by witch,
a suspected loup-garou who had woven
her enchantments against him when
he, in his official capacity, had found
it necessary to discipline her.
Vestiges of Primeval Savagery.
| Capt. Craige was not detailed to the
Haitian gendarmerie for more than a
decade after Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler
| had made the first American clean up
| in the island. He found the inhabi-
tants at stage of civilization materi-
ally advanced over what it had been,
due to the efforts of the Marines under
! Butler, but still so many vestiges OF
primeval savagery that, although he
had adventured from within the Arctic
Circle to the Equatorial Antipodes, he
was unprepared for so complete a
plunge into a strange past He had
scarcely arrived in his territory, half
as big as New Jersey and peopled by q
quarter million Negroes, than he en-
countered a prison guard who, in cold
| blood shot down TRUSTEES he was as
signed to watch for the sole reason
that the affections of his girl were
growing cold because he had never
killed man. Nor could this young
gendarme quite understand why he was
accused Of murder. Capt Craige was to
learn that such reactions were normal
in Haiti.
Hinche was his headquarters, provin-
cial capital of the basin in the center
of the Haitian part of the island. Eighty
miles from Port au Prince, Hinche was
in the heart of darkness. So remote In