Arizona State Miner

"Wild Bill" Donovan a Bit Hard-Boiled

For obvious reasons the Department of Justice is attracting public attention these days. Incidentally, Attorney General John Garibaldi Sargent is a new sort of figure in cabinet circles. And certainly his chief assistant, Col. William J. Donovan is no less individual. He was commander of a cavalry troop in Buffalo, N. Y., saw the "signs in the sky" and was ready for hard fighting when the United States went in. He came back with the Congressional Medal. And it was shocking, the way his men used to talk about him, "He is the toughest so and so," they said, "that ever lived. Why, blink blank him, he don't care no more for a man's life, the blinking so and so, than he does for a cracker." And when men talk that way about an officer—well, you know what I mean. He was then lieutenant colonel of the One Hundred and Sixty-fifth infantry, Forty-second division—the Rainbow. Incidentally he deposited the medal with the New York chapter of Rainbow division veterans, saying: "This medal was truly won by our entire command."

Maybe this is why his friends call him "Wild Bill." But in Buffalo he was also a bit strenuous as United States district attorney along certain lines; his friends fared just exactly as did strangers. Anyway, now he is the executive head of the attorney general's department at Washington.