The articles in this volume were written originally
at the request of and for "The Chicago Tribune".
MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
BY
V. BLASCO IBANEZ , ,
AUTHOR OF "THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE AP?)CA.
"MARE NOSTRUM," "WOMAN TRIUMPHANT,"
ETC., ETC.
TRANSLATED BY
ARTHUR LIVINGSTON
AND
JOSS PADIN
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYBIGHT, 1920, BY
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
"First printing June, 1990
Second printing June, 1990
7
Printed In the United States of America
ATJTHOK'S NOTE
The various articles in this volume were
written, on my return from Mexico, for the New
York Times, the Chicago Tribune and other im-
portant newspapers in the United States.
When I began my articles, the revolution
which finally overthrew Carranza had not yet
triumphed and "the old man" was still alive.
Events moved rapidly while the articles were
coming out. Carranza was assassinated and
Obregon, with the militarist party, came into
power.
Works of the moment, these articles record
my various impressions of the days during
which they were written. They do not, in con-
sequence, show the unity and homogeneity of
a book written after the fact on events already
complete in themselves and easily appreciable
to the person observing them in perspective
and as a whole.
I might, of course, have remodeled these
articles and reduced them to chapter form. I
vi AUTHOR'S NOTE
might have suppressed some paragraphs to
avoid repetitions and added others to fill in
the completed picture. I finally decided to
leave them exactly as they appeared in the
press, with all their spontaneity as works of
the moment.
They do not contain all that I have to say on
the Mexico of the present. They are simple
impressions, hastily and incompletely jotted
down as circumstances warranted or required.
I regard them as the first shots on the skirmish
line, before my real battle, with all my heavy
guns in action, begins.
The final results of my observation and study
on contemporary Mexico I shall give, with
greater amplitude and more attentive art, in
my forthcoming novel called "The Eagle and
the Snake."
VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ.
New York, June 20, 1920.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION ... 1
II. THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE ... 21
III. " CITIZEN " OBREGON 49
IV. THE REAL AUTHOR OF CARRANZA'S
DOWNFALL 74
V. CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY ... 98
VI. CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY .... 124
VII. THE GENERALS 148
/
VIII. THE MEXICAN ARMY 171
f '
IX. MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE .... 191
X. MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES . . 219
MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
I. THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION
I AM just back from Mexico, where I spent a
month, and a half. In this brief period of
time I made the acquaintance of a Government
that looked strong and seemed destined to reach
the end of its constitutional days peacefully; I
witnessed the outbreak of a revolution that in its
early stages led a languid life; I saw the de-
cisive triumph of this revolution, brought about
by the unexpected assistance of political ele-
ments that had seemed out of sympathy with it;
and I observed, finally, the flight of President
Oarranza> the present uncertainty concerning
his fate, and the still greater uncertainty re-
garding the probable future of the new Gov-
ernment in process of formation.
After all, there is nothing extraordinary in
this vertiginous movement of events. Of all
things Mexican, revolutions move with the
greatest velocity.
2' " ' MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
I went to Mexico to gather material for a
novel that I intend to entitle "The Eagle and
the Snake." Among my notes there is a statis-
tical table showing the number of governments
that Mexico has had since it secured its inde-
pendence. In less than a hundred years be-
ginning with 1821 the Republic of Mexico has
been served by seventy-two different govern-
ments. Now, with the fall of the Carranza re-
gime, the record stands at seventy-three, with
time to spare before the century closes. Leav-
ing aside the thirty years of Porfirio Diaz's
rule we find that the average life of each gov-
ernment has been approximately one year.
In this series of articles I am going to tell
what I saw and what I heard in Mexico. I am
going to give the American public, in advance,
a small portion of the observations I made for
"The Eagle and the Snake. " These will be
simply the impressions of a novelist, of an im-
partial observer. I had ample opportunity to
talk to Carranza, as well as to his bitterest ene-
mies, and I was able to get their conflicting
views. I am grateful to both sides for many
courtesies received, but I hold no brief for
either party. If there is any group that has
THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 3
won my sympathy it is the Mexican people,
the eternal victim of a tragi-comedy that never
ends, the poor slave whom all pretend to re-
deem and whose lot has remained unchanged
for centuries, the everlasting dupe whom the
redeemers shower with fine phrases, never
telling him the truth because the truth is fre-
quently cruel.
Carranza's Craft Inspired Distrust
I had several fairly intimate talks with Presi-
dent Carranza and I am in a position to state
what the underlying motive of his policy was
in the last days of his* regime. I am fully aware
of the fact that Carranza is not one of those
men who can be easily probed. Accustomed to
the politics of a country where dissimulation
is one of the best practical virtues, it is no easy
task to sound him. Suffice it to say that when
Don Venustiano receives, a visitor, the first
thing he does, by instinct, is to back his chair
against the nearest window. By this simple
maneuver he places himself in a semi-darkness
so that his body becomes a silhouette from
which the face stands out like a faint white
spot. In this posture he cannot be observed
4 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
closely, while he, on the other hand, can scruti-
nize at pleasure the face of his visitor which
remains exposed to the full flood of light
streaming through the window. When some-
thing arrests his attention, Carranza has a way
of peering over the rim of his light blue spec-
tacles. It was this very trick which made the
rustic Pancho Villa suspicious of Carranza and
led the former to exclaim on one occasion:
" There 's nothing the matter with Carranza's
eyes. He has very good sight and doesn't need
spectacles. He wears them to shade his eyes
and hide his thoughts better."
But the reader must not infer from this that
Carranza is a sort of shrewd tyrant of awe-
some aspect. Don Venustiano is an old coun-
try gentleman, a ranchman, with all the cun-
ning of rural landowners and all the shrewd-
ness of county politicians, but he is simp&tico
and has a noble bearing. Despite his apparent
reserve, at times he waxes loquacious, "feels
like a student" as he puts it and then he
talks freely; he even laughs.
THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 5
His Hostility to Militarism
Carranza's fall was due to his stubborn at-
tempt to pursue an anti-military policy.
This old chieftain of the revolutionary arm-
ies, who, though born in the country, is more
warlike than many of his Generals bred in the
cities, would never permit any one to give him
the title of General. Knowing, undoubtedly,
that the chief trouble with Mexico is the incur-
able eruption of Generals with which the re-
public is afflicted, he did not care to add an-
other boil to the diseased body of the nation
by assuming the title of General.
His followers always referred to him as the
" First Chief 7 '; they never called him General.
During his campaigns Carranza wore the uni-
form of a buck private.
Now, on the eve of his retirement from office,
he took part more or less directly in the Presi-
dential campaign and he used his influence to
bring about the election of a civilian.
"The trouble with Mexico," he told me in an
interview, "has always been, and still is, mili-
tarism. Few of our Presidents have been men
drawn from civil life; always Generals. And
6 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
what Generals! . . . No, this thing has got to
stop for the good of Mexico. My successor
ought to be a civilian, a man of modern views
and progressive ideas, capable of preserving
domestic peace and directing the economic de-
velopment of the nation. It is time that my
country should begin to live the healthy, normal
life which other nations enjoy."
The ideal cherished by Carranza could not
be more praiseworthy, but at the same time
nothing could be more absurd and dangerous
than the means employed by him to carry out
his plan. Therefore, while I applaud his views
on militarism, I applaud also his downfall.
For President, the Unknown Bonillas
To invest the Presidency of the republic with
the civil character that befits it, it would have
been necessary to choose a candidate of emi-
nent qualities, a man with a long record of dis-
tinguished public service, a man of unques-
tioned popularity. And what did Carranza do?
He did precisely the very opposite thing. He
selected one of the most obscure of Mexicans.
He hit upon Senor Bonillas, his Ambassador
at Washington, a man who has spent most of
THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 7
his life away from his native land and who
even married abroad.
There is another important factor in the situ-
ation: the character of the Carranza govern-
ment in the closing days of its regime.
I am well aware of the fact that when a revo-
lutionary party triumphs in a country like
Mexico dissensions are bound to occur in its
ranks eventually; these dissensions are inevit-
able. The "deserving patriots " are legion!
They all want their reward, and the country
does not have enough wealth to go around and
satisfy every appetite. The lucrative offices
are few in number and there are dozens of can-
didates who consider themselves competent to
fill them.
There is, moreover, a situation peculiar to
Mexico. In every country one can find the
disinterested revolutionary type, the ascetic
agitator who expects to get from revolu-
tion only the ideal satisfaction of victory. Of
course, in every revolutionary movement there
are shameless self-seekers, but together with
these there are noble and disinterested vision-
aries who sacrifice themselves for the common
good and who, after the triumph of their doo-
8 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
trines, continue to live like real saints, feed-
ing on the bread and water of their enthusiasm.
Among the Mexicans who occupied the high-
est public offices after the revolution I searched
in vain for the Don Quixote, for the type that
appeared in the French and Russian revolu-
tions, the disinterested patriot who thinks only
of the common weal without regard to his own
advantage. I failed to find him. Those I met
are men of hard practical sense who never lose
sight of personal profit.
Revolutionaries Usually Rich
I was surprised to see the large number of
rich revolutionaries in Mexico. There may be
some poor revolutionaries in Mexico I hope
there are some, for in my own country I was
once a poor revolutionary but if there are any
such in Mexico their number is so scarce that
they can be counted on the fingers of one hand,
with some fingers to spare.
The majority of those revolutionaries are
undoubtedly the sons of millionaires. They
claim that before the revolution they were sim-
ple peons, ambulant vendors, subordinate em-
ployees, or mere vagabonds. Such claims must
THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 9
be forced attempts on their part to hide their
influential origin and so to flatter the popular
masses. If what they say 4 were true, their
present wealth could be explained only by some
unexpected inheritance recently received from
relatives who had heretofore ignored them.
Otherwise it would be utterly impossible to un-
derstand how men who six or seven years ago
were ambulant milk dealers, vendors of dry
vegetables or Mexican hats, hungry rural school
teachers or mail carrriers, can honestly have ac-
quired fortunes estimated at several millions of
dollars, especially since these men have wasted
considerable time in revolution. It is equally
difficult to explain how so many wives of Gen-
erals and Colonels who half a dozen years ago
were poor women of the peon class, how so
many lady friends of Generals and Colonels,
are now able to display expensive jewelry which
remind people of the gems bought years ago
by the leading Mexican families now in exile.
But let us not insist on these details. Suffice
it to say that the prominent leaders of the Mex-
ican revolution made the revolution for a fixed
purpose. They do not understand sacrifice for
the common good. Carranza had to consoli-
10 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
date his new Government. After the first few
years he was forced to limit the number of his
favorites; whereupon those who were left out-
side of the golden shower of his favors became
the bitter enemies of the First Chief.
When I observed closely the inner circle of
intimate friends who gathered around Carranza
in his Presidential palace I was struck by their
youth. The respectable Don Venustiano, with
his white beard and light blue spectacles, looked
like the head master of a boarding school for
boys. Generals of 27 and grave Ministers of
29 or 30 followed with veneration and gratitude
the old First Chief.
The Young Adonis Who Ruled
In reality, one of these youths was the real
ruler of the Mexican Eepublic during the last
few years, the real power behind the throne,
Juan Barragan, a General 27 years old, the
chief of Carranza 's staff.
Those who had a petition to make would im-
mediately think, "I shall have to see Juanito
Barragan about this."
On account of his youth and amiable charac-
ter everybody spoke of Barragan as Juanito
THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 11
(" Johnny") Barragan. A simple law student
and the son of a well-to-do family, he followed
Don Venustiano when the latter rose against
Huerta. President Carranza always showed a
certain weakness for this youth, who accom-
panied him everywhere as a beautiful and deco-
rative adjunct to the Presidential entourage.
" The Handsomest Man in the World"
It has been stated recently that Barragan
was executed by the revolutionaries of Mexico
after Carranza 's flight. I hope the rumor is
not true. Why kill him? He was the Apollo,
of the revolution. Tall, handsome, arrogant
despite his childlike features, the girls of Mex-
ico consider him the best looking man in the re-
public in fact, in the entire world. He was
almost a national glory and received honors ac-
cordingly. "With the bright blue of his uniform
and his gold braid he was a dazzling sight. He
seemed to have just stepped out of a toy box,
freshly varnished. He bought himself a new
uniform every week. Twenty-seven years of
age, fine health, an amiable character and
master of Mexico !
His enemies said that he owned a whole row
12 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
of houses in the principal avenue of Mexico
City. Impossible ! He could not have had any
money left for such investments after throwing
it away by the handful as he did. During the
last few years it has been a fine business for
singers and actresses to go to Mexico ! Thanks
to the amiable Chief of Staff, an actress could
visit Mexico and return to her native land with
savings amounting to one or two hundred thou-
sand dollars.
Barragan's power extended even to the uni-
versity. During my visit to Mexico the Gov-
ernment assigned me to that institution, which
was invited to entertain me and direct my ex-
cursions over the country. This courtesy did
not surprise me. "It is because I am a writer/'
I thought. But shortly before I left Mexico,
through the indiscretion of a functionary, I dis-
covered that a certain famous foreign dancer
had also been consigned to the university dur-
ing her journey in Mexico a year before. Was
I offended? Of course not! It was the doing
of the amiable Barragan. He received all pe-
titioners with a bountiful generosity, as though
he would die rather than fail to serve them. He
never said no to any one. He was capable of
THE CAUSE OP THE REVOLUTION 13
surrendering Don Venustiano's head if lie was
asked for it with real insistence. And Car-
ranza, plain in dress, grave in appearance, a
man of strict morals and clean life, when he
observed the elegant uniform and the gold braid
of his Chief of Staff, seemed to rejoice as
though he were contemplating his own image
in a looking-glass. On other occasions, when
the President would hear of Barragan's suc-
cesses with the ladies, he would smile with the
delight of a kindly grandfather.
''Johnny" Briefly Defends Republic
I left Mexico City without bidding adieu to
the Apollo of the revolution. His Excellency,
General Don Juan Barragan, was spending
whole days with the telephone receiver at his
ear, giving orders, with his eyes fixed on the
map of Mexico. The followers of Obregon had
already taken the field, and "the handsomest
Mexican,'' as the marriageable senoritas and
visiting actresses say, had just assumed the
duties of a strategist and was busy directing
the movements of the Federal troops.
Poor and amiable boy! I can see now why
the Carranza regime collapsed so readily.
14 MEXICO nsr REVOLUTION
Bonillas, Carranza's Unfortunate Choice
The real and immediate cause of Carranza *s
downfall was his obstinate attempt to impose
upon the country the Presidential candidacy of
Bonillas. If it had not occurred to him to in-
sist on this solution and had he allowed the
Presidential campaign to follow its natural
course, letting Generals Obregon and Pablo
Gonzalez fight it out, he might have completed
his Presidential term in peace. And he would
probably be revered as an idol to-day by his old
subordinates.
The reader will probably ask why Carranza
hit upon a candidacy so unpopular as that of
Senor Bonillas. To answer this I can offer
only conjectures, or rather I must repeat what
I heard in Mexico.
As the majority of Mexicans are firmly con-
vinced that Carranza is a tricky politician, be-
cause of his reserve and deep-laid machinations,
they give the following explanation of his con-
duct in the Bonillas affair :
Bonillas was to be a mere tool in the hands of
Don Venustiano. He had selected him for his
very insignificance because he did not belong
THE CAUSE OP THE REVOLUTION 15
to any party and because he was wholly un-
known in the country. Bonillas would thus owe
his position entirely to his protector and would
not be likely to darse la vuelta contra el
in the language of the country, or as the Eng-
lish say, to bite the hand that fed him.
This business of darse la vuelta is a Mexican
game which must be taken into account, for the
country is a famous hotbed of political treason
and there is always fear that the friend of to-
day may become the enemy of to-morrow. If
you help some one to get along in the world
in Mexico you are almost sure soon to receive
a kick from him. He will boot you to show his
self-respect and independence.
With the unknown Senor Bonillas there was
no occasion to fear such a kick. A creature of
Carranza, he would remain faithful to his chief
and he would continue to surround himself with
a circle of friends selected by his protector to
be his advisers and guardians.
Shortsighted critics did not attribute this
purpose to Carranza. They thought that the
candidacy of Bonillas was a stratagem invented
for the occasion.
"We know the vie jo barbon," they said, al-
16 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
hiding to Carranza's white beard. "He has
launched the candidacy of Bonillas for the mere
purpose of irritating Obregon. Obregon will
rise against the Government and a long war
will follow. Carranza will then declare that it
is impossible to hold elections and will continue
in the Presidency indefinitely."
Carranza as a Second Diaz
Others, more farsighted, came nearer to the
truth, in my judgment, when they discussed the
situation.
"Carranza," they said, "really wishes to be
succeeded in the Presidency by Bonillas. Un-
der the direction of Carranza and with a legis-
lature composed of Carranza deputies, Car-
ranza will see to it that the Constitution is re-
vised, eliminating the article which forbids the
reelection of the President. After the article
is eliminated Don Venustiano will become Pres-
ident again and he will get himself reflected in-
definitely. "
The method is not new. Porfirio Diaz did
that very thing. He began his political career
by rising against the reelection of Presidents,
and after he became the Chief Magistrate of
THE CAUSE OP THE REVOLUTION 17
the republic he yielded the place for a brief
period to one of his own henchmen, had his own
Constitution amended, and thus opened the way
for his thirty-year rule.
I believe that Carranza really wanted Bo-
nillas to succeed him, but I cannot refrain from
judging that in this Don Venustiano rendered
his protege a very poor service.
Of all the personages who figure in this last
Mexican revolution Bonillas is the man who in-
spires my deepest sympathy on account of his
misfortune. His role has been that of certain
good though simple-minded characters of the
comedy who inevitably pay for the faults of
others, and who, despite their reluctance to get
mixed up in quarrels, receive all the blows.
Why did they not leave him alone? He was
living so peacefully in Washington as the diplo-
matic representative of Mexico! His post
seemed destined to become perpetual. If Ob-
regon were to succeed Carranza the General
would surely keep Bonillas as American Am-
bassador, because they are both from Sonora
and have been friends since their childhood.
No matter who might be elected President,
Bonillas would be kept in his post, respected as
18 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
a good man who serves his country the best lie
knows how, and who, residing abroad, could
hold completely aloof from all domestic politi-
cal quarrels.
But, alas ! Don Venustiano conceived the un-
happy idea of selecting Bonillas as his succes-
sor and of stirring the Ambassador's ambition,
dragging him away from the sweet environment
of his family and the noble tranquillity of
Washington.
Viva Bonillas, the "Tea -Flower"!
Ten months ago the Mexicans were unaware
of the existence of Bonillas. A few knew that
a gentleman by that name lived in the capital
of the United States, and they even suspected
that he had done great things for Mexico, al-
though they were not quite sure what those
things were.
And, lo! all of a sudden the Government
launches the name of this man a name that
arouses no echo in public opinion as if Bonil-
las were a providential personage, destined to
save the country.
The people of Mexico City have a keen sense
of humor and show a veritable genius for in-
THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 19
venting nicknames. Moreover, the Spanish
zarzuela companies, the experts in light and
comic opera, play a great deal in the theaters
of the Mexican capital, so that the public of
that city has acquired the same keenness for
repartee which characterizes the people of the
popular quarters of Madrid.
Among the songs written for the zarzuela
theaters of Madrid there is one which has be-
come extremely popular and is sung in all the
theaters and music halls of the Spanish- Ameri-
can countries. The song tells the story of a
poor shepherd girl who has been abandoned and
wanders over the face of the earth, not know-
ing where she was born nor who her parents
were. She knows nothing about herself except
her nickname, which is Flor de Te, or "Tea
Flower."
The malicious people of Mexico City imme-
diately rechristened the Carranza candidate
who had come from foreign parts, the candidate
who came nobody knew whence and who was
going no one knew whither.
Viva Bonillas! Viva Flor de Te! Hurray
for Bonillas ! Hurray for ' ' Tea Flower ' ' !
And from that moment everybody lost re-
20 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
spect for Don Venustiano's whiskers and for
the terrifying face he puts on when he is in bad
humor.
In the next article I shall relate the tragi-
comic incidents through which was born, grew
and died the candidacy of "Flor de Te" the
immediate cause of the revolution.
H. THE SAD STORY OP FLOR DE TE
BONILLAS, the candidate picked by Car-
ranza to succeed him in the Presidency of
the Republic, is a man who has spent the great-
er part of his life away from Mexico. Early
in his youth he left his native country and wan-
dered into several of the American Southern
States, trying his hand at various jobs in an
effort to make an honest living and managing
to eke out the precarious existence of a worker
who is frequently forced to change both resi-
dence and occupation. Later, when he was no
longer in his teens, he studied engineering in
the Boston Institute of Technology.
When Carranza rose against Huerta, Bonil-
las returned to Mexico and took part in the
revolution. His record as a fighting man, how-
ever, was not brilliant. He even failed to be-
come a General. He merely served as an engi-
neer, marching in the rear of the revolution-
ary army with the obscure civilians who looked
21
22 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
after the administrative affairs of the new re-
gime.
After the triumph of the revolution, Car-
ranza, who needed to send to Washington a
loyal representative willing to obey instruc-
tions explicitly, selected Bonillas. The ap-
pointee knew English better than his native
tongue and he had been educated in the States
qualifications, these, which gave him a deci-
sive advantage over all the other aspirants to
the post of Ambassador to the United States.
And he remained in this position throughout
the entire administration of Carranza, until the
latter conceived the notion of naming Bonillas
his heir to the Presidential chair.
Laugihing Down the Candidate
I have told, in a preceding article, how the
people of Mexico City, surprised at the candi-
dacy of the unknown Bonillas, gave him the
nickname of "Flor de Te" (Tea Flower). At
first they called him Bonillas "Tea Flower, 9
because no one knew who he was. Later on his
enemies claimed they knew his past in its mi-
nute details, and poor Senor Bonillas became
THE SAD STORY OF FLOE DE TE 23
something worse than the little shepherd girl of
the Spanish song.
A campaign of truth and falsehood was
launched by the enemies of his candidacy, with
the vociferous approval of all those who were
willing to jeer at anything to irritate Carranza.
According to them, Bonillas's name was not
Bonillas at all. He was not even a Mexican.
His real name was Stanford, and he had
been born in the United States. Bonillas was
the name of his mother, whose blood was the
only Mexican blood that ran in the candidate's
veins. And the sympathizers of Bonillas
(friends of Carranza, public employees and sol-
diers) would publish the genealogy of the Bo-
nillas family, beginning with the founder of the
line a carpenter who came from Spain when
Mexico was still a Spanish colony.
According to his opponents, the Presidential
candidate could not speak Spanish. Every
morning the opposition press published stories
about Bonillas in which he was featured as talk-
ing Spanish and so altering the construction
and meaning of his words as to say the most
shocking things.
24 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
A Oallo for the Visitor
I myself served indirectly as a pretext for
this slanderous propaganda. When a popular
foreigner arrives in Mexico the university stu-
dents generally treat him with a gallo. A
gallo is a night procession, with torchlights,
something between a serenade and a masquer-
ade. It marches past the balcony of the house
where the honored guest is lodged ; and the stu-
dents, mounted on horseback or riding in auto-
mobiles decked with flowers and flags, or on
trucks artistically converted into allegorical
chariots, sing, shout and make laudatory or
burlesque speeches to the guest of honor; and
the public, invited by the college boys, joins
the parade, with more carriages and bands of
music.
I was treated to several gallos. The one
given me in Mexico City was enormous, more
than 15,000 persons taking part in it. The
noisy nocturnal procession, including some
long stops took two hours to march past the
Hotel Regis, where I was stopping, occupying
a room next to that of Bonillas. The candidate
for the Presidency was not to be found in the
THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 25
hotel at that time. He had decided to avoid a
face-to-face meeting with that youthful and dis-
respectful crowd, which at sight of him would
be sure to make some insulting remarks.
First came Don Quixote and his squire,
Sancho Panza ; next the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse ; and finally a large number of girls,
dressed to represent the various Spanish pnv
vincial types. But no one gave a thought to
"Flor de Te." Of course, we were in Mexico
City, and Don Venustiano was near at hand.
The horses of the mounted police kept prancing
between the carriages in the parade.
Another with a Political Turn
A few days later the students of the Univer-
sity of Puebla gave me another gallo. Car-
ranza was not at hand there. Among the groups
of masks on horseback and the carriages with
allegories of Spain and the Spanish-American
republics there was a simple little coach, drawn
by one horse and without any decoration what-
ever. Nevertheless, it was the chief attraction
of the parade. It was occupied by a young
student attired in an extravagantly checkered
suit, the traditional costume used in all the the-
26 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
aters of Spanish-speaking countries to repre-
sent the conventional Englishman. The mask
that covered his face made the crowd hilarious.
"Flor de Te! Hurrah for Flor de Te!"
shouted the people, crowding around the coach.
And when the procession filed past the bal-
conies of my hotel the youth stood up, and with
great solemnity began to greet me in a nasal
tone and with the halting speech of one who is
not master of the language he is trying to use.
"Meester Bonillas," said the mask, "greets
Meester Ibanez, whose works he has read trans-
lated into English. Within a few months, per-
haps, Meester Bonillas will be able to read them
in the original, because he is now studying the
language of the country. ? '
Made Mme. Bonillas a Lutheran
This is not true. I chatted with Senor Bo-
nillas on more than one occasion while we were
guests together in the same hotel, and I found
that he is essentially similar to all his compatri-
ots and can speak Spanish like the rest of them.
But, of course, he could not prevent the ex-
travagant fabrications of his political adver-
saries. Every day they unearthed a new "se-
THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 27
cret" from the past of the candidate supported
by Carranza,
"Bonillas has been an American citizen for
many years," they would spring one day. "Bo-
nillas, during his adventurous career in the
States bordering on the Mexican frontier, was
even the Sheriff of a small town. ' '
The candidate's family did not escape this
hostile scrutiny. It was announced one day
that Sefior Bonillas had married a distin-
guished lady of English nationality and be-
longing to the Lutheran Church. Her daugh-
ters professed the same faith and were not
Catholics ! Horrors !
We must bear in mind that the bitterest
enemies of Bonillas are men without any re-
ligious faith whatsoever. Some even distin-
guished themselves during the revolution by
unnecessary acts of cruelty against Catholic
priests. One of Obregon's Generals, perhaps
his most intimate friend, in the first days after
the triumph of the revolution, made a number
of priests and friars, whom he considered ene-
mies of the new regime, sweep the streets of the
capital. Moreover, he filled several cattle cars
with priests and sent them from Mexico City to
28 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Vera Cruz, making them go without food dur-
ing the five days that the trip lasted. Despite
this, the loudest protests against the religious
faith of the Bonillas family came from some of
these enemies who fear neither God nor devil.
"What an insult to Mexican women, who
are all Catholics," they said. "To think of a
Protestant being the first lady of the land!"
Propaganda for Bonillas
The reader must not infer from the foregoing
that the candidate supported by Carranza and
his numerous friends did nothing to counteract
this hostile propaganda,
In reality, Bonillas himself could not do very
much. He adapted his personal conduct to the
trend of events and followed the suggestions
of his protector. But the Bonillas Campaign
Committee, composed of Carranza Generals,
Senators and Deputies loyal to the cause,
worked with an energy never equaled in Mex-
ico.
I must confess that I have rarely seen a pub-
licity campaign more enormous and better or-
ganized than that which advertised the name of
Bonillas over the whole republic.
THE SAD STORY OP FLOR DE TE 29
When I reached Mexico, a few days later than
the Carranza candidate, I could not hide my
surprise as I crossed the international bridge
and entered the frontier town of Nuevo Laredo.
Low, adobe houses ! Groups of men with enor-
mous hats, as broad as umbrellas, sunning
themselves with imperturbable gravity ! Streets
with deep holes, over which my automobile
bounced, groaning with iron anguish ! And on
this gray and monotonous background, which
has remained unaltered for fifty years, a great
variety of paper signs, of all colors and sizes,
posted on the doors, on the mud walls, and
even on the ox carts standing in the plazas.
Everywhere the portrait of a man, Bonillas,
unknown yesterday, and to-day converted over-
night into a national Messiah by the will of an-
other man living over there in a city of the
Mexican plateau! This portrait bore under-
neath it flattering promises: " Democracy,"
" Peace. " No less numerous were the printed
statements couched in pompous and verbose
language to impress the gullible and supersti-
tious rural masses, a majority of whom are
illiterate.
30 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Wrilful Posters That Fatted
Later, as I penetrated farther into the inte-
rior, I observed how the Bonillas propaganda
grew in intensity from one station to another,
until I reached Mexico City, where it became
a wild orgy of publicity. Huge posters, many
meters long, advised the people in enormous
letters to vote for Bonillas. Every open lot,
and every old house, was covered with signs:
"Bonillas represents the death of militarism!"
"If you want to see the end of revolution, vote
for Bonillas. " As you walked about the streets,
your eye w r ould be caught by large, red arrows
pointing to something farther on. And if you
followed their direction, you would meet Bonil-
las 's name a few hundred yards ahead. At
night the picture of the candidate could be seen
illuminated by indirect light and smiling upon
you from some balcony.
This obsessing propaganda, which met you
everywhere, must have been the work of some
old hand at the business. Many people said
that the partisans of Bonillas had imported a
clever publicity expert from the United States.
Occasionally your attention would be arrested
THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 31
by a printed bill posted on the walls with great
profusion. The casual transient, even if he did
not take sides in the political campaign, felt
drawn by the novelty of the document. "The
Defects of the Engineer Bonillas." "What the
Engineer Bonillas Lacks!"
Extravagance That Hurt Carranza
"Well," you would say, "it's high time some
one said something against this much-praised
man. 9 '
But from the very first lines of the document
you discovered that the defects of Bonillas were
that he was not a trouble-making General like
the "others," but a man of peace and honest
labor ; and the only things lacking in his record
were the executions and dragonades so numer-
ous in the history of his rivals.
This extraordinarily expensive publicity, the
like of which had never been seen in Mexico,
could not possibly have been financed by Bonil-
las. His Campaign Committee paid, but com-
posed as this committee was of men who had
always lived on the national budget, it is not
likely that the members made any personal sac-
rifices. In short, everybody believed that Car-
32 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
ranza was defraying the campaign expenses of
Bonillas and that he was doing it with public
funds.
This system of propaganda was, at the same
time, an indirect means of corruption. All the
great Mexican dailies, even those that were
hostile to the candidate, sold whole pages of
advertising space to the Bonillas committee
and the editors thought they were saving their
consciences by inserting a line at the foot of the
page stating that it had been bought and paid
for at advertising rates by the Bonillas party.
The net result of this was that the papers car-
ried in their news columns a few brief lines of
criticism against the Government candidate and
in the rest of the edition pictures of Bonillas
and his friends and long articles praising the
candidate and his policies.
Millions Spent in Vain
How much was spent in this campaign?
The sympathizers of General Obregon and
Pablo Gonzalez state positively that Carranza
had already used $2,000,000 popularizing his
candidate, and that he was disposed to spend a
great deal more if it became necessary.
THE SAD STORY OP FLOE DE TE 33
The need of incurring these extravagant ex-
penditures is even more difficult to justify than
the merits of the candidate Bonillas.
The mountainous heaps of printed paper, the
hundreds of thousands of photographs and the
miles of advertisements were wholly useless as
aids in a Presidential election in Mexico. To
use the election methods of a modern, politi-
cally matured country in poor Mexico, the eter-
nal victim of all sorts of tyrannies, is about as
effective as importing sewing machines into a
country where cloth is unknown. What is the
use of such publicity in a country that has never
gone to the polls?
The Mexican people, in reality, does not
know what an election means. During the long
period of his rule Porfirio Diaz always re-
elected himself. Until the unfortunate Madero
turned up, no one dared to protest against the
practice.
Before Porfirio Diaz's time the way to power
led along the path of revolution, or else the
elections were so scandalously immoral that
they provoked and justified uprisings. Since
the close of the Diaz regime the present elec-
tion was the first in the history of Mexico sched-
34 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
uled to be carried on in a modern way. We have
seen how it developed into a revolution.
The great propaganda in favor of Bonillas
seemed ridiculous, and at times ironically sad,
especially when we consider the character of the
country. So much printed paper for a poor
people in great part illiterate, owing to the neg-
lect of its rulers! So much electioneering,
when every voter knew that his preference
counted for nothing and that in the end the
candidate backed by the Government would win
out! . . .
To vote conscientiously, the elector must have
the conviction that his vote will be respected,
that it will mean something. In Mexico the
man who casts his ballot knows that he is exer-
cising a useless right. The result will always
be what the party in power decides. More-
over, the privilege of voting is a dangerous
function. If the man in power gets wind of the
fact that the voter is trying to be independent
and think with his own head, the voter is soon
brought to his senses !
Obregon and Gonzalez are right when they
justify their uprising with the statement that
THE SAD STORY OP FLOR DE TE 35
the Government had denied their candidacies
the guarantees of security and fair play. It
is true. Carranza, who is a stubborn man, in-
capable of budging an inch after he has once
made up his mind, had decided that Bonillas
should win, and Bonillas would have been the
next President of Mexico, if the revolution had
not broken out. All the States that had Car-
ranza Governors would have voted en masse for
Bonillas, as though there were no followers of
the other candidates there at all.
But Obregon and Gonzalez are no saints;
they were not born yesterday, and they cer-
tainly are not political infants. Their record
is almost as long and brilliant as that of Don
Venustiano and no one knows what they will
each cook up when the elections are announced
again.
What can we expect from a country when it
has never had an electoral body considered and
respected as a vital and permanent institution?
What can we expect from a country where the
defeated candidate always resorts to arms,
claiming that he has been defrauded?
If the elections prepared by Carranza had
36 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
taken place Bonillas would have won in all the
Carranza States. But Obregon, for instance,
who controlled the Government of the State of
Sonora, would have received every single vote
cast there, and Bonillas, who was also born in
that State, would not have received a ballot.
It is possible that real elections may be held
in Mexico in the future. Why should we not
be optimistic about it? But up to the present
time no candidate has ever failed to coerce the
national will by voting the people in his own
favor wherever and whenever he has had a
chance. And his opponents have done the same
thing, under similar conditions.
The Leper and the Plies
The candidacy of Bonillas, however, had a
strength of its own, aside from that received
from the Government. This strength was the
war-weariness of a certain class of people per-
haps the class most worthy of sympathy the
small merchants and poorer landowners, the
lower middle class, which has been suffering the
effects of an endless revolution for ten years.
I heard the complaints of this class. I visited
some Mexican cities where this element is pre-
THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 37
ponderant and saw its efforts to live in peace
and keep out of the everlasting turmoil.
Elections had come again to disturb the rela-
tive quiet to which these people had recently
become accustomed.
"Why should we hold elections?" some one
would ask me. "It would be better to have Don
Venustiano continue in office. I don't like him.
But he is in already and that is preferable to
starting all over again with a new one. ' '
Many of these people told the old story of the
leper which some of my American readers, per-
haps, do not know.
A good Mussulman takes pity on a leper
whpm he sees sitting motionless on the ground
with his sores covered with flies. To alleviate
the suffering of the stricken man, the good Sa-
maritan drives away the parasites. But the
leper, instead of thanking his benefactor, goes
into a rage and heaps abuse upon him for his
officiousness.
"Why art thou treating me as if I were the
worst of thine enemies?" the leper cries. "The
flies thou hast driven away were already satis-
fied. They were full of my substance and I
could endure them. But now they will be sue-
38 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
ceeded by other flies of ravenous appetite and
my torments will begin again. Curses upon
thine head!"
A portion of the Mexican people had resigned
themselves to endure the torment of the well-
fed Carranza flies. These people did not like
Carranza, but they accepted the successor
picked by him because they knew that Carran-
za ? s successor and his friends would prove less
voracious than the flies of any opposing party.
"If the old man has to go," these people
would say, "we'll take Bonillas. He hasn't
done anything worth while, but neither has he
done anything bad . . . and, at any rate, he is
not a General."
This business of being a General considerably
worries every Mexican who has witnessed a
revolution without being in it.
When Bonillas Returned
The entry of Bonillas into Mexico when he
returned from Washington as the candidate of
the Civil Party made many people predict the
revolution which broke out a month later. Never
was the homecoming of conquering hero pre-
pared with greater care than that of the ob-
THE SAD STOHY OF FLOR DE TE 39
scure Mexican-American engineer, converted
by the revolution first into a diplomatic agent
and later into a Presidential candidate. A spe-
cial train full of admirers (many of whom had
never seen him before, but who, nevertheless,
already worshiped him) was dispatched by the
Government to meet him at the frontier. Two
boys with the rank of General had charge of all
the arrangements, relieving Don Venustiano of
this petty labor. General Montes about 30
perhaps the only one among the revolutionaries
who hails from a military school, was the Pres-
ident of the Comite Civilista assigned to re-
ceive Bonillas, to accompany him, and fre-
quently, to speak for him. General Barragaii,
chief of the President's staff, organized the fes-
tivities in Mexico City. He requisitioned all
private automobiles not in use and mobilized all
the officials and friends of the Government, con-
centrating them in the capital.
I heard protests from certain men of the rank
and file of the Carranza forces about this tri-
umphal reception. "They ordered me," one
said, "to fill twenty automobiles with sympa-
thizers of Bonillas. I signed a receipt for
twenty cars, and when the time came for the
40 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
parade they sent me only two. What became
of the other eighteen, which, undoubtedly, will
appear as paid for, I don't know."
Despite these insignificant slips the parade
was splendid. An interminable line of carriages
extended from the station to the lodgings of the
candidate. There were hurrahs for Bonillas,
vociferous vivas from members of the police
force who appeared disguised in civilian clothes
the better to hide the nature of their enthusi-
asm. There were manifestations of approval
and sympathy from all the humbler employees.
Flowers were thrown by the basketful by the
seiioritas who were daughters of the function-
aries. In short, there was a general stirring of
the masses, who are always moved by the sound
of music and the sight of unfurled flags, irre-
spective of what the music and the flags stand
for.
Fiesta Spoiled by Obregon's Men
But the followers of Obregon decided to take
part in the fiesta. A group of Generals and
Colonels who sympathize with the General went
to meet the parade.
These Mexican Generals created by the revo-
THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 41
lntion are a set of aggressive, harebrained
boys, brought into prominence by the abnormal
condition of civil war ; boys who, to go from the
parlor to the dining room of their homes, deem
it necessary to put on a cartridge belt and a
couple of automatic pistols. In a future article
entitled "The Generals'' I shall describe this
original and dangerous type.
These warriors of the Obregon camp dis-
turbed the triumphant entry of Bonillas with
pranks worthy of college boys celebrating a
great athletic victory. First they scattered
handfuls of nails along the streets, which caused
many a blowout and much delay. Then they
pelted the solemn personages who rode in the
carriages with sticky, ill-smelling projectiles.
And when Bonillas and his staff appeared on
the balcony to address the multitude the Obre-
gonists threw balls of asafcetida and worse,
which made the speakers cough and hem and
even brought tears to the eyes of Flor de Te
and his panegyrists.
The Bonillas party found it a difficult task to
address the people. The orators had to hold
their noses with one hand, while they fanned
the air with gestures from the other. And
42 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
when, under this handicap, General Candido
Aguilar, the son-in-law of Carranza, began to
expound, with military eloquence, the superi-
ority of civilian rule and the necessity of sup-
pressing militarism, his hostile brothers-in-
arms gave up the offensive they had begun with
ill-smelling ammunition and started another
with foul language.
In loud exclamations they inveighed against
the virtue of the mothers of the men in Bo-
nillas's party ladies whom they had never
seen and finally the candidate and his parti-
sans, tired of hearing themselves called sons of
this and sons of that, appealed to the police,
who were anxiously waiting for the word. And
the disturbers of the meeting were hurried off
to jail.
Open Breach with Carranza
From that moment things happened with
great rapidity. Obregon, infected with an ora-
torical fever, started through the States in a
whirlwind campaign in favor of his candidacy.
He did not mince words. "If I am not elected
President," he said, "it will be because Don
Venustiano has decided to block me at all costs.
THE SAD STORY OP PLOR DE TE 43
But before I let that viejo barbon trick me out
of the Presidency, I shall take the field against
him."
And the bewhiskered old gentleman, who has
a temper of his own, retaliated by sending the
police to break up the meetings of the Obregon-
istas and beat up their followers. Moreover,
Carranza got hold of certain letters in which
it appeared that Obregon was in, alliance with
the chiefs of certain bandit bands which had
been defying the constituted authorities. Tak-
ing these as evidence, Carranza issued an order
to have Obregon brought to the capital and
court-martialed. He was on the point of send-
ing him to jail when Obregon escaped,
I believe that in the last days of his rule, Car-
ranza took special pains to harass Obregon
for the purpose of precipitating the revolution
which the latter was preparing. His policy
was to provoke an abortion. "If they intend
to rise against me," Carranza figured, "the
best thing I can do is to drive them to it at once.
They will be less prepared to fight."
44 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Bonillas Put in Danger
During the electoral struggle between Obre-
gon and Carranza, Senor Bonillas, the innocent
cause of the political duel, kept in the back-
ground, limiting himself to obeying the instruc-
tions of Montes, the President of the Campaign
Committee, who, in his turn, took orders from
Don Venustiano.
The ill-starred candidate ! On many an occa-
sion I saw him in the hotel at luncheon, sur-
rounded by crowds of " enthusiastic admirers "
who came from the provinces to get their first
glimpse of him. At other times I found him
alone with his son, a young student, whom Bo-
nillas 's wife and daughters had undoubtedly
ordered to accompany his papa in this adven-
ture.
Exhausted by the campaign activities, which
were a novel experience to him, Bonillas used to
go out on some afternoons for an automobile
ride in the vicinity of Mexico City. One day
at dusk a group of mounted Obregonistas, hard-
ened old guerrilleros, tried to kidnap him, to
put him away until after the elections. A bat-
tle fit for the movies ensued for the moment be-
THE SAD STORY OP PLOR DE TE 45
tween the would-be kidnapers and the police
who were escorting Bonillas in other automo-
biles. In the melee an Obregonist General was
captured, an old ranchman who happened to
find himself "by accident" on the scene of the
fight.
"You were attempting to kidnap Ambassador
Bonillas," the Chief of Police told the Obre-
gonist General.
"Kidnap that poor devil!" the rural chief
replied. "What for? What could I do with
him? ... If it had been Don Venustiano! ..."
From that day on, I never saw Bonillas again.
His partisans feared for his life. The hotel
was not a safe place, and, therefore, his Cam-
paign Committee, laying hands again on the
public funds at their disposal, installed him in
a private house.
The candidate, showing praiseworthy cool-
ness in the presence of dangers which his fol-
lowers probably exaggerated, gave constant
proof of great loyalty and obedience to Car-
ranza.
"Where are you taking me to-day? Where
does Don Venustiano wish me to go?" he would
ask.
46 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Perils of Campaign Tour
At first he attended several meetings in Mex-
ico City, packed with well-trained adherents of
the Government. Later on, he was obliged to
go to the capitals of several States to counter-
act with his presence the effects of Obregon's
campaign. And here was where his real suf-
ferings and dangers began.
It seems that the personnel of the railways is
largely Obregonista. Moreover, Mexicans do
not need to belong to the Eailway Union to learn
how to cut a railway line. To blow up a train
with dynamite or to destroy in short order a
dozen miles or so of railroad track, has come to
be a national art within the reach of everybody.
Ten years of revolution have provided ample
schooling for the purpose.
The Bonillas train endured the most romantic
trials and tribulations on its journey over the
interior States. In one place the locomotive
would come to a stop barely in time to avoid
rushing over a section of vanished track ; at an-
other point, the train would narrowly escape
plunging into a pit ; later still, it would be totally
THE SAD STORY OP FLOR DE TE 47
wrecked, with loss of lives among the military
escort.
Finally, the Obregon coup surprised Bonillas
while he was conducting his campaign in the
State of Jalisco. The enemy cut off the retreat
of the train by lifting a few rails, and the Car-
ranza candidate had to return over the rough
country to the capital in an automobile.
After this Bonillas disappeared entirely from
the public eye. He continued to reside in Mex-
ico City, but who had time to think of him?
The attention of the entire country was now;
fixed on Carranza and Obregon. War had
broken out. Montes, the President of the Cam-
paign Committee, had taken command of a
body of troops. Candido Aguilar, Bonillas 's
war-like orator, had gone to Vera Cruz to re-
cruit forces for his father-in-law, Carranza.
And Where Is Bonillas Now?
Nothing more has been heard about Senor
Bonillas. As he was in Mexico City, it is cer-
tain that unless he got out with Carranza he has
fallen into the hands of his triumphant enemies.
He lived so happily in Washington before
48 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Carranza singled him out for the honor of run-
ning for President! How he and Ms family
must miss those happy days which now seem so
far off and which, nevertheless, were passing
only a few months ago !
His life is not in danger; he does not run
the slightest risk. The successful revolution-
aries, if they have captured him in Mexico City,
must have thoughts about their prisoner simi-
lar to those expressed by the rustic General
arrested by the police at the time of the at-
tempted kidnaping. "What can we do with
this poor devil? ... If we had Don Venu-
stanio!"
Moreover, Bonillas and Obregon hail from
the same State, Sonora, and they have known
each other since they were boys. I know that
Obregon likes Bonillas, but I don't think that
Obregon 's affection can be flattering to the
vanity of Bonillas.
"A nice fellow, my friend Bonillas, " said
Obregon to me one day. "He is reliable, con-
scientious and hard-working. The world has
lost a first-class bookkeeper. ... If I ever be-
come President of the Eepublio I shall make
him cashier in some bank."
HI. " CITIZEN " OBREGON
I MET Obregon two days before he fled from
Mexico City, declaring himself in open re-
bellion against the authority of President Car-
ranza.
At the time of my arrival in Mexico Obre-
gon was campaigning for his election in distant
States of the republic. Several friends of mine,
who are enthusiastic followers of the General,
were anxious to have me meet and hear their
idol. "As soon as Obregon comes back," they
said, "we'll arrange a luncheon or dinner so
that you two men may meet and know each
other. ' '
As a matter of fact, Obregon did not return ;
he was forcibly brought back to the capital by
Carranza, who decided to try him for complicity
with the rebels who had been in arms for some
time against the Government. This was an
effective means of putting an end to the cam-
paign of insults and threats that Obregon had
been conducting in various States.
49
50 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The forcible return of Obregon to Mexico
City caused great excitement among the people
of the capital and stirred their curiosity even
more.
"What next!" they asked. "Will the old
man have courage enough to send Obregon to
jail and put him out of the running in that way?
Will Obregon start a revolution to preserve his
personal liberty!"
And when many were asking themselves these
questions with a certain anxiety, fearing the
consequences of a final break between the mas-
ter Carranza and his old pupil Obregon, my
Obregonista friends came to notify me that they
had arranged my interview with their hero.
"The General expects you to take luncheon
with him to-morrow," they told me.
Luncheon with the National Hero
I had insisted that the luncheon take place in
a public restaurant, in full view of everybody,
to avoid the possibility of false interpretations.
If the luncheon were given in a private house
to many people it might seem that I had a cer-
tain predilection for Obregon. There was no
reason whatever why I should figure as a Car-
" CITIZEN " OBREGON 51
ranzista or an Obregonista. My wishes were
more than amply fulfilled. The luncheon was
held in the Bac, the most centrally located res-
taurant in the capital. To make it even less
secret, it was decided to have it in the main
dining room, near the orchestra platform, rath-
er than in a private room.
Obregon was at that time a personage in dis-
grace. It was true that he might rise again at
any moment, but it was equally possible that he
might be down for the full count. He had en-
thusiastic friends, but he had also against him,
"old man" Carranza, an enemy of tenacious
hatreds and indomitable energy. The mysteri-
ous hour when public opinion shakes off its in-
ertia and swings unexpectedly to one side or
the other had not yet struck. The timid were
still holding aloof; the crafty were making their
calculations, but had not yet succeeded in dis-
pelling their own doubts.
Obregon was still an unknown quantity. If
you sided with him you might climb to a posi-
tion in the Cabinet, but you also might walk to
a place in front of the firing squad. The shrewd
ones were waiting for the atmosphere to clear
a little, and Obregon could count only on his
52 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
personal following, the friends who had been
faithful to him through thick and thin. The
men who watch the trend of events from a point
of vantage and eagerly await the psychological
moment to rush to the succor of the sure winner
had not yet heard the call.
The Disconcerting Obregon
When I entered the restaurant I saw Obre-
gon sitting at a table with a friend to whom he
was explaining the fine points of a cocktail
which the General himself had invented. The
reader must not jump at conclusions and infer
.that Obregon is a drunkard because I found
him so engaged. I believe he drinks very little.
During the luncheon he took beer in preference
to wine, and on several occasions he called for
water. But as a warrior who has lived in the
open air, suffering the rigor of inclement
weather and spending whole nights without
sleep, he likes to take a casual drink from time
to time to tune up his nervous system.
It would be equally erroneous to imagine him
as a Mexican chieftain of the type which we
so frequently see in the movies and vaudevilles
a copper-colored personage with slanting
14 CITIZEN" OBREGON 53
eyes and thick, stiff hair, sharp as an awl; in
short, an Indian dressed up like a comic-opera
General. Obregon is nothing of the sort; he is
white, so positively white that it is difficult to
conceive his having a single drop of Indian
blood in his veins. He is so distinctively Span-
ish that he could walk in the streets of Madrid
without any one guessing that he hailed from
the American hemisphere.
"My grandparents came from Spain," he
told me. "I don't know from which province.
Other people bother their heads a great deal
about their ancestors. They imagine they come
from noble stock and claim descent from Span-
ish Dukes and Marquises. I know only that
my people came from Spain. They must have
been poor folk driven to emigrate by sheer hun-
ger."
The personage began to reveal himself. Ob-
regon is a man who is always trying to amaze
his hearer, now with explosions of pride, now
with strokes of unexpected humility. The im-
portant thing for him is to be disconcerting, to
say something that his listeners are not expect-
ing to hear.
4 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Close-Up of the Idol
He is still young not quite 40. He has a
strong and exuberant constitution. You can
see at once that the man is brimming over with
vitality. A slight varicosis has colored his
cheeks with a number of slender, red veins,
which give a reddish tint to his complexion.
His enemy Don Venustiano suffers also from
varicosis of the face, but his nose is the only
feature that shows it prominently. It is fur-
rowed by a series of red, blue and green veins
that remind you of the wavy lines on a hydro-
graphic map. All aggressive men have a more
or less close resemblance to birds and animals
of prey. Some are thin and sharp beaked, like
hawks. Others have the mane and the arro-
gance of the lion. A few are lithe and myste-
rious, like the tiger. Obregon, with his short,
thick neck, broad shoulders and small, sharp
eyes, which on occasion emit fierce glints, re-
minds you of a wild boar.
Obregon is single and lives the life of a sol-
dier, attended by one aid, an ex-ranchman who
is even rougher than he. As Obregon has only
one arm, and, consequently, cannot devote more
"CITIZEN" OBREGON 55
than one hand to the care of his person, the
"hero of Celaya" as he is frequently called
is rather slovenly in appearance. In his mili-
tary uniform he may look better. The man I
met wore a dirty and much-worn Panama hat,
baggy trousers and a shabby coat, one of whose
sleeves hung empty, showing that the arm had
been amputated near the shoulder.
Obregon's apparent contempt for all person-
al adornment is characteristic of the man. An-
other reason for his carelessness in matters of
dress is his desire to flatter the Mexican popu-
lace, who consider that his slovenly garb brings
him closer to them.
The missing arm enables the people to recog-
nize Obregon at a distance. They greet him
enthusiastically whenever they see him. Obre-
gon is the conqueror of Pancho Villa; he is
the man who broke up the military power that
came near placing that old cattle rustler in
the Presidential chair of the republic.
Villa, Defeated, Almost Forgotten
Villa is almost forgotten in Mexico. He is
talked about more in the United States than
in his own country. A few years ago he was
56 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
"The General" among all Generals, and many
even spoke enthusiastically of his military tal-
ent, seeing in him the man who would take it
upon himself to exterminate any foreigner dar-
ing to invade the soil of the nation. Now he
is nothing but a bandit and people avoid all
reference to him. He will continue to make
trouble, but his star has surely set. Obregon
defeated him in ten bloody skirmishes, mis-
named battles, and this was sufficient to make
Obregon the hero of the hour. Moreover, Pan-
cho Villa has escaped bodily injury; he has
all his limbs. With insolent good luck he has
kept out of the way of bullets. Obregon, on
the contrary, has only one arm, thus adding
to his heroic record the sympathy that the
martyr arouses.
I sat down and the luncheon began, a lunch-
eon that started at noon and lasted until 4.
Don Venustiano, always suspicious, as is nat-
ural in the head of a nation where every one
is likely to darse la vuelta to betray and
no one knows with certainty who is his friend
and who is his enemy, spoke to me a few days
later about this luncheon. I was the one to
"CITIZEN" OBREGON 57
broach the subject. I told him frankly that I
had lunched with one of his enemies.
"I know," he replied. "But what the devil
did you have to talk about that it took you four
whole hours?"
And he scrutinized my eyes as though he
were trying to read my thoughts.
Obregon 's Debut in Chick-peas
In reality Obregon had nothing interesting
to tell me. But he is such a character! It is
so agreeable to sit and listen hours and hours
to his animated, lively and picturesque con-
versation, which is more Spanish than Mexican.
He had selected the table near the orchestra
so that he could give orders to the musicians.
He was anxious to show me that he was not
an ignorant soldier and that he loved music
Mexican music, of course, for other kinds of
music mean little to him. And while the or-
chestra played the "Jarabe," the "Cielito"
and the "Maiianitas" Mexican national airs
Obregon talked and talked, swallowing mean-
while pieces of food that he had an attend-
ant cut for him, as he can use only one hand.
58 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The General is invincible in conversation. I
can talk a great deal myself, but I was forced
to withdraw before his onslaught, as thor-
oughly defeated as Pancho Villa himself. I
listened.
He told me the story of his youth. He is
sure that he was born to be the first every-
where. He does not say so himself, but he
helps you to suspect it with modest insinua-
tions. In Sonora he was a trader in garbanzos
chick-peas and although he made rather
small profits, he is sure that he would have
become eventually the first merchant in Mexico
a great millionaire.
"You see, the revolution spoiled all that for
me. I then became a soldier and I rose to be a
General."
What he neglected to add was that, in spite
of his General's commission, he remained in
business just the same, and his enemies affirm
that he has realized his ambition to become a
millionaire. He has a monopoly at present of
all the chick-pea trade in Mexico. The peas
are exported to Spain, where garbanzos, as
they are called, are an article of common con-
sumption. The same enemifis assert that all
" CITIZEN" OBREGON 59
the farmers in Mexico are obliged to sell their
garbanzos to Obregon, at a price which he
himself fixes. That is the advantage of being
a hero and of losing an arm in defense of the
Constitution.
"All of Us Thieves, More or Less"
However, I shall not dwell on what Obregon 's
enemies say about him. The General went on
talking about himself. He has a line of risque
stories which he tells with a brutal frankness
smacking of the camp and the bivouac. They
helped me to understand the popularity of the
man. He talks that way with everybody, with
the women of the street, with the workingmen
he meets, with the peasants in the country, and
those simple people swell with pride at being
treated with such familiarity and at hearing
such amusing stories from a national hero, the
conqueror of Celaya, a former Minister of War,
and a man who has only one arm !
"They have probably told you that I am a
bit of a thief. "
Taken somewhat aback, I looked around in
surprise to make sure it was really Obregon
who had said that, and that he had said it to
60 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
me. I hesitated, not knowing really what
answer to make.
"Yes," he insisted. "You have heard that
story without a doubt. All of us are thieves,
more or less, down here."
"Why, General," I said, with a gesture of
protest, "I never pay any attention to gossip!
All lies, I am sure."
But Obregon ignored what I was saying, and
continued :
"The point is, however, I have only one,
hand, wlile the others have two. That's why
people prefer me. I can't steal so much or so
fast."
A burst of laughter! Obregon saluted his
own witticism with the reserved hilarity of a
cynical boy, while his two friends who were
with us paid tribute to the hero's jest with
endless boisterousness.
Joke of the Itching Palm
This oratorical success made the General still
more talkative. He insisted on treating me to
more stories, perhaps to show me that he held
the gossip about him in contempt, perhaps to
enjoy the pleasure of surprising and embar-
"CITIZEN" OBREGON 61
rassing me by the spectacle of a man depreciat-
ing himself.
"You probably don't know how they fonnd
the hand I lost!"
In reality, I did know, just as, for that mat-
ter, I had already heard the joke about his
being more honest than the others because he
had only one hand. But in order not to spoil
the General's delight in his own brilliancy I
assured him I did not know the story.
"You know I lost my arm in battle. It was
carried off by a shell which exploded near me
while I was talking with my staff. After giving
me the first treatments, my men set out to find
my arm on the ground. They looked about in
all directions, but couldn't find it anywhere.
Where could the hand and its fragment of arm
have gone to ?
" 'I'll find it for you/ said one of my aids,
an old friend of mine. 'It will come back by
itself. Watch me!'
"He took out of his purse a ten-dollar gold
piece, an aztec, as we call it, and raised it above
his head. At once a sort of bird, with five
wings, rose from the ground. It was my miss-
ing hand, which had not been able to resist the
62 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
temptation to fly from its hiding place and seize
a gold coin. ' '
A second ovation from the guests ! And the
man with the one arm exploded with laughter
at the naughty prank of his missing hand, and,
not to be discourteous to its former owner, I
laughed as well.
The Ambassador's Missing Watch
"And you never heard how the Spanish Am-
bassador lost his watch?"
I could see what Obregon was driving at.
This story was to be not at his own expense,
but against "that other fellow," his enemy and
persecutor. However, I pretended to be quite
innocent, so that the General could have the
pleasure of telling the story.
"A new Minister from Spain had just pre-
sented his credentials, and President Carranza
was anxious to welcome him with a great offi-
cial banquet. The thing had to be done well.
Spain had been the first European nation to
recognize Don Venustiano's Government after
the revolution."
As I listened to the hero I thought of the
grand dining hall of the palace at Chapultepec,
11 CITIZEN " OBREGON 63
which recalls the tragic days of Maximilian,
the Austrian Emperor of Mexico. I could see
Don Venustiano in evening dress, with his
white beard and red-white-and-green nose,
seated opposite the Spanish Ambassador, and
beside the latter, Obregon, Minister of War;
Candido Aguilar, Minister of Foreign Rela-
tions ; the elegant Barragan, in a new nnif onn
bought for the occasion, and all the other digni-
taries created by the First Chief.
"Suddenly," continued Obregon, "the Span-
ish diplomat raised his hand to his vest, and
grew pale. 'Caramba!' he exclaimed. 'My
watch is gone!' It was an antique timepiece,
gold and inset with diamonds, an heirloom in
the Ambassador's family.
"Complete silence! First he looks at me,
for I am sitting next to him. But I have an
arm missing, and, as it happens, on the side
nearest the Ambassador. I cannot have taken
his watch ! Then he looks at Candido Aguilar,
Don Venustiano 's son-in-law, who is sitting on
the other side. Aguilar still has both his arms,
but one of his hands, and by chance the one
next to the Ambassador, is almost paralyzed.
Neither can he be the pick-pocket! Convinced
64 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
that lie must say good-by forever to his lost
jewelry, the Spanish Minister sat out the rest
of the meal cursing desperately under his
breath.
" 'They have stolen my watch. This is not
a Government. This is a den of thieves!'
"When they got up from the table Don Venu-
stiano, with his usual dignified and venerable
bearing, stepped up to the Ambassador and
whispered, 'Here you are, but say nothing more
about it. ?
"The diplomat could not contain his aston-
ishment and admiration! 'It was not the man
on my right ! It was not the man on my left !
It was the man across the table in front of me !
Oh, my dear Mr. President, quite rightly do
they call you the First Chief.' "
If the laughter at a joke on Obregon had been
noisy, that for a joke on Carranza resembled
a cannonade.
There is no doubt about it. Obregon is an
excellent table companion. His amusing chat-
ter is inexhaustible.
Leaving his stories, he went on to the sub-
ject of his election campaign. He is as proud
"CITIZEN" OBREGON 65
of his speeches as he is of his triumphant bat-
tles. The General is a born orator, and like all
self-educated men who take up reading late in
life, he noticeably prefers the sonorous, theatri-
cal sentence which never says anything.
He invited me to attend one of his election
meetings to hear him speak to a crowd. At the
moment he had on his mind a great parade
which the laborers of the capital were prepar-
ing in his honor. It was to be headed by 1,500
Mexican women all the dressmakers in the
city. The women of Mexico feel a purely spirit-
ual inclination toward this plain-speaking
soldier, who treats every one as his equal.
He expounded his platform to me volubly:
democracy enforcement of the law realiza-
tion of the promises made by the revolution,
and which the "old chief" had forgotten dis-
tribution of lands to the poor. The real reason,
for his candidacy, the argument that has great-
est weight with him, he never mentioned, but I
could read it in his eyes.
"Besides," Obregon undoubtedly says to
himself, "besides, I made Don Venustiano
President. I took him in triumph from Vera
66 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Cruz to the Presidential chair in Mexico City.
He became President through my efforts. Now
it is my turn. Isn't that fair?"
He Is an Author, Too
Since the General had already forgotten his
jokes and stories and had now to speak with
the seriousness befitting a Chief Executive, he
gradually and imperceptibly passed from ora-
tory to literature. The General became a i ' col-
league " of mine, a man of letters. He has writ-
ten a book telling the story of his campaigns.
That has been the custom of all victorious war-
riors since the time of Julius Caesar. Why
should he not also indulge in a set of "Com-
mentaries"?
He promised to send me a copy of his book.
But to forestall the chance that his difficulties
with Carranza might prevent him from keeping
the promise, he went on to give me an idea of
the book in advance.
He said that he expressed himself simply
and with modesty. Of course his battles could
not be compared with those of the European
war. . . . "I also realize that I am only an
amateur in the military business, a civilian,
"CITIZEN 91 OBREGON 67
forced to take up arms Citizen Obregon pro-
moted to be a General: and doubtless I had
strokes of sheer luck ! ' 9
I was listening to Obregon with real
affection. I was regarding him as the most
attractive and most able man among all the
Mexican Generals made by the national up-
heaval. But suddenly the wind changed. Men
never get really to know each other. Obregon
began to twirl his sharp-pointed, upturning
mustache, and smiling in pride at his own
modesty, he lay back on his divan.
"When I was Minister of War, at a banquet
at the President's house one day, the Dutch
representative, who was a military man, came
up to me and said, ' General, from what branch
of the service did you come artillery, cav-
alry V In view of my victories he thought I
must be a professional soldier. Imagine his
astonishment when I told him I had been a
chick-pea dealer in Sonora ! He refused to be-
lieve it."
More About His Great Book
The General stopped a moment to enjoy the
impression his words were making on us.
68 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
"Another time the German Minister came
to see me. You doubtless know him by repu-
tation, Mr. Ibaiiez."
"Very well indeed," I replied. "He was the
fellow who during the late war suggested to
the Mexican Government the possibility of re-
covering California and Arizona. He used to
appear at public ceremonies in a great Prus-
sian uniform with decorations, to receive the
applause of a paid claque or an ignorant crowd
which was always hissing the plain black eve-
ning dress of the diplomatic representative of
the United States."
"Well," said Obregon, "the German came
to see me, and in his short abrupt accent said
to me: ' General, I have read your book, and
I need two copies of it, one for my Emperor
and the other for the archives of the German
General Staff. The people back in Berlin are
much interested in you. They are astounded
that a plain civilian, without military training,
has been able to conduct such noteworthy and
original campaigns/ "
"I suppose you gave him the books?"
"No, I don't care for honors like that. I
told him he could find them in the bookstores
"CITIZEN" OBREGON 69
if he wanted them. And I suppose he bought
them and sent them on home."
What a farceur that shrewd German was !
The hero doubtless remembered my hatred
of German militarism, so to emphasize his im-
partiality he jumped to the Far East.
"The Japanese Minister also asked my per-
mission to translate the book into Japanese.
My campaigns seem to have aroused a good
deal of interest over there."
"Has the translation appeared yet?" I in-
quired.
"I don't know. I don't bother about such
matters."
Popular Appeal of a "Bad Man"
A long silence. I sat looking somewhat dis-
concertedly at this man, so complex for all of his
primitive simplicity, who alarms you at one
moment by his craftiness and at the next aston-
ishes you by his complete ingenuousness.
Nevertheless, he is the most popular and the
most feared man in Mexico, the man every-
where most talked about. Some people love
him to the extent that they would die for him.
Others hate him and would like to kill him,
70 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
as they remember the barbarous outrages he
ordered in the early days of the triumphant
revolution, actuated by some perverse whim of
his very original character.
He appeals to the multitude for his some-
what rustic frankness, his good-natured wick-
edness and his rather brutal gayety. He has,
besides, the prestige of a courage which no one
questions, and of an aggressiveness, in a pinch,
like that of a wild boar at bay. To cap the
climax, he has lost an arm.
My readers must pardon me for emphasizing
this latter point. In Mexico such things are
more important than elsewhere. The people in
Mexico, who are ready to take up guns and kill
each other at a moment's notice and most of
the time without knowing why, are very senti-
mental and easily moved to tears. Mexicans
give up their lives with the greatest indiffer-
ence and for anybody at all. At the same time
they will weep at the slightest annoyance oc-
casioned to one of their loved heroes. The
Mexican populace descends from the Aztecs,
those magnificent gardeners who lovingly culti-
vated flowers and, at the same time, tore the
hearts out of a thousand living prisoners at
"CITIZEN" OBREGON 71
each of their religious festivals. Poetry and
blood, sentimentality and death! It is a pity
that Obregon's lost arm did not actually leave
its hiding place to seize the gold "aztec" which
the General's aid held out to it, in the story!
It would have been worshiped by the people
with national honors.
Value of an Amputated Leg
There are precedents for this. General
Santa Ana was an Obregon in his day. Though
the latter has never been President yet, the
former reached the Presidency several times
through uprisings or manipulated elections.
The Mexican people hated Santa Ana after his
unsuccessful campaign against the secession-
ists, who had established a republic in Texas.
The Texans defeated his army and made him
prisoner. However, at that moment, it oc-
curred to the French Government of Louis
Philippe to send a military expedition into
Mexico to enforce some diplomatic demands,
and French soldiers disembarked in Vera Cruz.
Santa Ana rushed to oppose them, and the last
shot the invaders fired hit him in the leg, and
the surgeons had to amputate it.
72 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Never did a popularity rise to such pure and
exalted heights. Santa Ana's leg, properly
pickled, was taken from Vera Cruz to Mexico
City with a great guard of honor. The Gov-
ernment bestowed on the amputated limb the
honors of a Captain General killed in battle,
and in the midst of triumphal pageantry, the
booming of cannon and the music of bands, it
was buried in the center of the city under a
great monument.
However, reversals of opinion and sudden
waves of anger must be looked for in senti-
mental peoples. Years later Santa Ana went
to war with the United States over the Texas
affair. The campaign went against him and
the Americans took Mexico City. The people
needed to vent its wrath on somebody, and
since it could not get its hands on Santa Ana,
it tore down the monument to his heroic leg,
paraded the unfortunate bone through the
streets of the city and finally threw it into a
dung heap.
His Threats Not "Celestial Music"
Obregon spoke to me about a friend of his,
a newspaper man, some of whose articles were
" CITIZEN' ' OBREGON 73
worthy of admiration. "He is ill," said the
General, "and practically dying. He has been
in bed for several months. He would be de-
lighted if you would pay him a visit."
The General and I agreed to go together.
"I am going to see the silver mines at Pachuca
to-morrow," I said. "I shall be away two
days."
"When you come back I shall still be here,"
said the General. "All that talk about the old
man's prosecuting me and putting me in jail
is just celestial music (Mexican for 'hot air').
"We shall see each other. I'll give you my book
and we '11 go and see my friend. ' *
When I got back the General had disap-
peared. He had fled from the city not to re-
turn till just now, when he comes back as a
conqueror.
Obregon did well to get away when he did.
The threats of "the old man" were not music.
A few hours later Carranza would have had
him locked up.
Carranza told me so himself the last time I
saw him.
IV. THE REAL AUTHOR OP CARRANZA'S
DOWNFALL
THE third candidate for the Presidency of
the republic, Don Pablo Gonzalez, is a per-
sonage who has been thrown into the back-
ground, apparently, by the kaleidoscopic per-
sonality and overwhelming popularity of
Obregon.
I did not meet General Gonzalez. He is not
the type of man that inspires you with an irre-
pressible desire to know him, as is the case with
his rival Obregon and other characters of the
Mexican revolution. The personality of Don
Pablo is elusive; it escapes the pursuit of the
observer however much the latter may concen-
trate his attention on seizing it. His pictures
exhibit him as a man of dark complexion, with
very black and bushy brows and mustache,
and wearing dark-colored glasses that hide his
eyes. This last detail must have given many
74
AUTHOR OF CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 75
an anxious moment to Pancho Villa, who was so
worried by the blue spectacles of Don Venu-
stiano.
Not a few people in Mexico consider Don
Pablo an expert in the great art of dissimula-
tion, and they aver that General Gonzalez wears
dark glasses to prevent the indiscreet from
reading his thoughts in his eyes. I know some
friends of Don Pablo who swear that he is an
honest man. I know likewise a great many
enemies of his who picture him as a fraud, a
hypocrite and a crook, adding that his supposed
kindness is mere sham and that he has behind
him a personal record full of deeds that cannot
bear close scrutiny.
The military history of this man is amazing.
"General Gonzalez commanded the largest
forces in the revolution and he came out of it
with the unique honor of having lost every bat-
tle in which he was engaged." Thus was Gon-
zalez described to me by President Carranza
and his most intimate friends on one occasion
when I was questioning them about the per-
sonality of this chief.
And Don Venustiano added with what
seemed to me mock seriousness: "But Don
76 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Pablo inspires so much confidence; he is so
respectable . . ."
I came to the conclusion that the most con-
spicuous role played by General Gonzalez in
Mexican life has been that of a kindly man who
inspires confidence, although his enemies pro-
test that he has never been either kind or trust-
worthy.
One of the Few Dons Left
The people who speak of Obregon familiarly
and call nearly all the revolutionary personages
by their last names, can never mention General
Gonzalez without prefixing to his name the title
of Don. Gonzalez is always Don Pablo, just
as Carranza is Don Venustiano and Diaz was
Don Porfirio. Aside from these three, there
are no more Dons in Mexico. No one would
think of calling General Obregon Don Alvaro;
he is too democratic.
When Obregon and Don Pablo were cam-
paigning independently under the government
of Carranza to win the elections for the Presi-
dency, public opinion swung around in a rather
unexpected manner. The conservative ele-
ments, the law-abiding citizens, and the re-
AUTHOR OP CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 77
ligious classes had to choose a candidate and
they all instinctively turned to Don Pablo.
This same Don Pablo had shown little re-
spect for the rights of property when he was in
command of troops. He had executed many
people openly, and his enemies accused him of
having indirectly caused the death of others.
Moreover, in religious matters he had never
given proof of definite and positive faith. But
all the cautious citizens who were alarmed by
the exuberant aggressiveness of Obregon took
pains to forget the dubious history of Don
Pablo, and they rallied around him, repeating
always the same slogan: "Vote for Don Pablo;
he is safe and sane! Vote for the man who
thinks twice before he speaks !"
There are people who instinctively follow
the man who does not talk, in the belief that
silence is the sign of all wisdom ; just as there
are others who are captivated only by those
who talk a great deal and loudly.
Why Dan Pablo Is Rich
According to his enemies, in his youth Don
Pablo Gonzalez was a peon in a factory at $20
a month. To-day he is considered one of the
78 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
richest men in Mexico, both in real estate and
personal property. How did he work the
miracle ?
By becoming a General. The reader must
neither laugh nor give this statement a false
interpretation. To be a General in Mexico
means a great deal more, from a pecuniary
standpoint, than it does in any other country
on earth, however rich the country may be. It
must be understood, of course, that by General
I mean one in command of troops ; because the
General not in command of troops in Mexico
is a poor devil who draws a miserable salary
(when it is not. withheld under accusation of
disloyalty to the Government) and whose only
hope of advancement lies in a new revolution
that may give him command of a few regiments.
Military administration, as it is organized
in all modern countries, does not exist in
Mexico. The chief in command of troops re-
ceives directly from the Government the money
needed for their maintenance, and he distrib-
utes it as he pleases. The President of the
Eepublic takes good care not to ask him for
explanations, nor is an accounting ever de-
manded. Such an offensive curiosity on the
AUTHOR OF CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 79
part of the President would be deemed intoler-
able by the gentleman in command of the
troops, and he would protest against it by ris-
ing in arms against the constituted authority.
This is the reason why a General in active
service does not need to violate the rights of
private property to increase his income. All
he has to do is to keep a portion of the money
sent him by the Government. The worst of it
is that the majority of the Mexican Generals
are two-handed, as Obregon put it, and while
they loot the public treasury with one hand,
to keep the other busy they pick the pockets of
private individuals.
Every corps commander receives at the end
of each month a large sum of money, thou-
sands of dollars, to pay for his cavalry fodder.
The commander pockets the money and imme-
diately issues an order to have the horses put
to graze in private meadows. This business of
paying for fodder may be the proper thing in
Europe where army horses cannot be sent to
graze in private fields without loud protest.
Then there are the men. The Mexican armies
treble and quadruple when they figure on paper
in the Treasury of the Ministry of War; and
80 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
they dwindle astonishingly when the pay is
actually handed out. The General who certifies
that he has ten battalions under his orders does
not have in reality more than ten skeletons of
battalions. Colonels and Captains, in their
turn, do the same when they report about their
units. All of them eat rations and receive
pay for soldiers who do not exist.
This is by no means an innovation, and can-
not be charged to the Government created by
the revolution. Such practice has been the
rule in Mexico from the earliest days of the
republic and it constitutes a national evil that
no one has dared to extirpate. Don Porfirio
himself, despite his autocratic character and his
thirty years of domination, during which there
seemed to be no other will in the country than
his own, was forced, nevertheless, to tolerate
this abuse, and never dared to stop it, although
he must undoubtedly have known that it
existed.
Until I visited Mexico I could not account for
the amazing rapidity with which President Diaz
was defeated and driven from power. He had
an army, a real, modern army, similar to that
of any powerful nation. His regiments were
AUTHOR OP CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 81
well dressed, well equipped and well organized.
His officers used to go for practical training
to the best military schools of the Old World.
In fact, the regimental bands of some of his
crack corps would occasionally go to Europe
and participate with distinction in international
band tournaments.
His Generals were professional men who had
entered the army to make it their life work.
They were men specially trained in the science
and art of war, and they knew a great deal
more about military matters than all the im-
provised guerrilleros whom the revolution later
honored with the title of General put together.
And yet, as soon as the visionary Madero
changed from preaching to action, and took the
field with his undisciplined hordes who knew as
much about war as he did and he knew noth-
ing the entire Federal Army collapsed in
short order. The country had believed in good
faith that the Mexican Army consisted of a
hundred thousand men. The people of Mexico
City saw that the garrison was not very nu-
merous, but they said: "The main body is in
Guadalajara." The people in Guadalajara
were sure the bulk of the army was in Puebla,
82 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
and the people in Puebla placed it in Vera
Cruz. Thus one great nucleus after another
was " organized," and everybody was sure a
gigantic army was on hand, though it existed
really only in the purses of the Generals com-
missioned to manage the phantom.
The only person probably who had precise
knowledge of the truth was old Diaz ; but he did
not consider a popular uprising as within the
range of possibility. He never dreamed that
Madero, whom he took for a crazy young chap,
could ever put a revolution through. The only
danger that occurred to him was an attempt
of the Generals to revolt, the way he himself
had risen against the President of his time. It
was in view of such a contingency that he was
willing to wink at everything, letting his Gen-
erals steal to their hearts ' content.
Of the 100,000 men for years and years pro-
vided for in the Mexican war budget Diaz's
Generals, recognized experts in strategy, could
put in the field only 14,000, in addition to the
detached corps kept as garrisons in the big
towns. That is the sole explanation of the
rapidity with which Diaz was overthrown and
of the sad role played by an army which he
AUTHOR OP CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 83
had showered with attentions, favors and good
pay for thirty years, the moment it came in
contact with the disorganized mobs of the
revolution.
The Verb "to Carranza"
As I remarked, Don Pablo Gonzalez has been
in command of larger contingents of men, in
times of peace as well as in times of war, than
any other General of the revolution. His ene-
mies keep busy, therefore, computing the
height of the mountains of forage he has con-
sumed and the number of thousands of soldiers
the General has recruited in his own imagi-
nation.
Such malicious speculations, which may be
quite erroneous, though they appear in part
justified by the unexplainable fortune of Don
Pablo, are not surprising. What man of promi-
nence in Mexico has not been accused of graft?
The Mexican people is fond of broad generali-
zations. To save itself the annoyance of mak-
ing nice distinctions it includes everybody in
one sweeping judgment and calls "thief" after
all the people ever connected with the Govern-
ment.
84 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The venerable Carranza has not escaped such
charges by any means. They call him the
" First Chief ... of those who come in the
night." Long ago the wags of the capital be-
gan to use a new verb, "to carranza," the
exact hnmor of which may not appear in Eng-
lish. "To carranza," in the cafes and vaude-
ville theaters of Mexico City, means "to steal,"
and you can hear people conjugating it on every
hand: "I carranza, thou carranzest, he car-
ranzas they all carranza,"
For my own part, I believe that such charges
are unfounded. They spring from the intense
passions of politics. Of all the men around
him, Don Venustiano is the one who comes
from a comfortable social station. Not enor-
mously rich, to be sure, he has never known
what poverty is. Before he threw himself into
the revolution he was a country land owner,
a rancher, with a fine piece of property and
splendid herds. Carranza has defects, but
among them I should not be inclined to place
an exaggerated appetite for money. What he
wants is power, control over men, the privi-
lege of being first wherever he is. And when
AUTHOR OF CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 85
such an ambition is dominant in people it does
not leave them time for making money; but it
often induces an otherwise honest man to toler-
ate, and even to protect, the thieving of
others.
Don Venustiano had to keep the people about
him satisfied. He was anxious to gather round
him all those who might eventually be of use
to him as men of combat. Himself a man of
unbending pride, he had to swallow the inso-
lence and foster the vices of his retainers. Un-
der his protecting wing a great deal of stealing
went on. There is no question about that. At
times the old rancher, remembering how angry
he used to get when somebody stole one of his
cows, would rise in his wrath, and talk of hav-
ing the whole crowd of grafters shot. A mo-
ment ? s thought, however, was enough to remind
him that in that case he might be left all alone.
He would end by coming to an understanding
with the culprit he had caught. If Carranza
had insisted on the strict enforcement of the
moral code he would have fallen long before
he did. More probably, he would never have
become President at all.
86 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Story of the Diplomat's New Auto
People in Mexico City told me a story of his
first days in office when he had just entered
the capital as conqueror. A diplomatic rep-
resentative had come to pay his respects to the
President, and left a splendid automobile which
he had just bought, in the court yard of the
Executive Mansion. On going out after the
interview the diplomat looked for his beauti-
fully painted car in vain. The soldiers of the
Presidential Guard relieved his anxiety. One
of the most loyal and most feared Generals
of the President had got into the car and or-
dered the chauffeur to drive off.
The diplomat thought some mistake had been
made and reported the matter to Don Venu-
stiano. The President immediately sent an Ad-
jutant to the barracks, where the General, to
keep in closer contact with a regiment of
soldiers from the provinces who followed him
blindly everywhere, was living. The Presiden-
tial emissary could not have been welcomed
more warmly.
"Say, go back and tell the old man," thun-
AUTHOR OP CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 87
dered the rustic Mars, "that I have been look-
ing for an automobile like that for a long time,
and I am going to keep it. "What does he think
we made the revolution for? What does he
think we made him President for? And if he
doesn't like that, tell him to come and get this
flivver himself . . . and I will lick the stuffing
out of him."
Don Venustiano is a man of some "pep"
himself. When he got that message he flew into
a rage and started toward the door as though
he really meant to go and get the automobile
in person. But then he stopped and began to
stroke his white flowing beard. "After all, I
am President of the republic . . ." So he or-
dered another automobile, exactly like the one
the diplomat had lost, and had it sent to the
legation.
Don Pablo Gonzalez was the man really re-
sponsible for President Carranza's fall. The
"old man" always had the highest esteem for
the General and gave him the best commands
in the army. But the perpetual "General in
Active Service" wanted to become President;
and since Carranza, with his characteristic
88 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
stubbornness, insisted on pushing the can-
didacy of Bonillas, Don Pablo finished by be-
coming the President's enemy.
While I was still in Mexico, and a long time
after Obregon placed himself in open revolt,
the General was maintaining a doubtful atti-
tude toward what was going on. No one
thought it possible that Don Pablo would ever
start an uprising himself. But it was just as
far from everybody's thought that he would
ever favor a rebellion started by some one else.
Don Pablo is not the kind of man to strike
the first blow. Respectable, prudent people
never do such things. They leave it to the
Obregons. But the General is the sort of per-
son quite willing to strike the second blow,
when his enemy, thrown off his balance, is
least expecting attack from a new direction.
Gonzalez is a man who looks before he leaps
but he leaps at the right moment.
Had it not been for the intervention of this
respectable and prudent chieftain on the side
of the rebellion Carranza would be still, at the
present moment, in his mansion in Mexico City,
giving orders to faithful Generals to combat
Obregon and Obregon ? s partisans.
AUTHOR OF CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 89
How Carranza's Plans Went Awry
The Mstory of the recent overturn, which has
not yet come to a close, may be summarized
briefly as follows: Carranza tried to impose
his candidate Bonillas on Mexico as a whole,
planning then to overwhelm Sonora, where the
center of the Obregonist movement was located.
In Sonora an active campaign against the
President was on foot, but before all the prepa-
rations were complete Carranza started to nag
the rebellious State and trample on its au-
tonomous rights. His purpose was to provoke
a premature explosion of the revolutionary
magazine.
Sonora finally rose in revolt, and Carranza
in his turn caught Obregon off guard, and was
thinking of putting the General in a safe place,
at a time when, as he thought, the Presidential
orders would still be respected. However,
Obregon got away, and his partisans in the
army began to mutiny, but obviously without
collusion with one another and with an indis-
putable lack of unity. It was a spontaneous
uprising, every one acting on his own initiative^
as happens in a powerful party, which, at a
90 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
surprise attack from the enemy, feels itself sud-
denly in danger of checkmate and has to move
before its plans are all laid.
Meanwhile, Carranza was getting a large
body of troops together in the neighborhood of
the capital. He sent his son-in-law, Candido
Aguilar, to raise additional contingents in Vera
Cruz and create a place of refuge for himself,
in case of need, in that stronghold. Carranza
did the same thing some years ago, when he
was expelled from Mexico City by Villa and
Zapata.
I cannot affirm that Carranza would have
been triumphant in the end. It is almost cer-
tain that Obregon would have won eventually,
since the present revolution has been of a pure-
ly military character, and the majority of the
army officers are strongly attached to their
former Minister of War.
But the campaign started badly for Obregon.
The first encounters between the insurrection-
ists and the Government troops were indecisive.
The struggle between Carranza and Obregon
promised to become something more than a
mutiny. It was beginning to look like a long
war that might last months and even years.
AUTHOR OF CARRANZA 'S DOWNFALL 91
At this moment another person came on the
scene, much as on the stage, a character who
has been forgotten in the first act, suddenly
appears in the last to say the deciding word in
the drama. It was the respectable, the prudent
Don Pablo Gonzalez. The blow that this kindly
gentleman struck Carranza between the eyes
had real punch behind it.
Of all the thousands of soldiers that the
President was collecting around the capital, the
large units actually organized happened to have
been all under the command of Don Pablo.
What troops in the Mexican Army, for that
matter, have not been commanded by this gen-
tleman in the course of his long and remunera-
tive military experience?
Mutiny at the Bedside
General Gonzalez slipped out of the city one
night when Carranza had Obregon only on his
mind and caused the larger part of his forces
to mutiny. One might think that the crime of
mutiny would necessarily be the same under
one chief as under another. And yet such is
not the case. The seriousness of the crime de-
pends upon the name of the leader. Mutiny
92 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
under Obregon meant certain execution for the
soldier should he chance to fall into Carranza's
hands. Mutiny under Don Pablo was some-
thing much less serious. It had an air of good
form about it. It smacked of social life. It
was a sort of parlor frolic. So the battalions
which Carranza had mobilized raised no objec-
tion to following Don Pablo. * ' That man knows
what he is about. He knows which way the
wind is blowing! We can't go wrong if we go
with him!"
Sonora was a long way from Mexico City,
and the States which Obregon had to traverse'
were not much nearer. A lot of ground would
have to be covered and many skirmishes would
have to be fought. It would be a long time
before the insurrection reached the capital.
But the respectable and prudent Don Pablo,
rising in mutiny almost at the foot of Car-
ranza ? s bed, made an unexpected and dramatic
move, which threw Government expectations
into confusion within a few hours.
When Don Venustiano tried to retire to Vera
Cruz it was already too late. Don Pablo had
blocked the road. Puebla, moreover, is the key
to the Mexico City- Vera Cruz line, and Puebla
AUTHOR OF CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 93
happens to be the only city where Gonzalez
really has a following. Puebla by tradition is
a reactionary, religiously minded city. It sym-
pathizes with Don Pablo for lack of a man more
to its taste. Around the churches in Puebla
I saw a number of election posters with the
words, "If you want religion to be respected,
if you want peace, vote for Don Pablo Gon-
zalez. ' '
Thanks to the kindly enterprise of this ap-
parently reliable man, Carranza, who thought
himself still powerful, had to flee on a moment's
notice, and, as a result, is now a wanderer in
the mountains.
His Removal of Zapata
Such coups are not without precedent in the
life of Gonzalez. Six months or more ago he
decided to have done with the rebel Zapata, and
he made good in his design. Gonzalez has never
won a battle ; but when it comes to removing a
nuisance from his path, a man whom he is tired
of, and when it comes to doing so cleanly, thor-
oughly and quickly, Don Pablo has no rivals.
Even the warmest friends of the Government,
and people who lost no love whatever on
94 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Zapata, were obliged to protest at the cowardly
manner in which Don Pablo disposed of him.
As the story goes he had one of his confidential
agents, a guerrillero, desert to Zapata with
several men. Zapata was suspicious of the new:
arrivals and asked their leader to do something
spectacular against the Government troops.
Don Pablo, accordingly, arranged for one of his
detachments to be surprised by the bandits of
his agent, who, to convince Zapata of his good
faith, had all the prisoners taken shot. Zapata,
in fact, fell into the trap, and soon after he was
led into an ambuscade and shot down in cold
blood.
Thus the heroic Don Pablo was able to add
to the list of his achievements the death of
Zapata, which many other Generals had tried to
accomplish in vain.
Such a kindly man! And so respectable! A
man you can rely on! Now, after the fall of
Don Venustiano, he and Obregon are march-
ing side by side for the moment. But Obre-
gon is a literary man, you will remember. He
is fond of phrases. I can imagine him saying
of his new comrade in arms: "His kindness
fills me with terror. ' '
AUTHOR OF CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 95
A Militant Pacifist
One of the most amusing spectacles during
the months preceding the present revolution
was the mania of all the militarists in Mexico
for "civilism" or " civilianism. ' '
Bonillas was the candidate of "civilism,"
though his leading supporters before the public,
Candido Aguilar and Montes, were Generals.
The other candidates, Obregon and Gonzalez,
insisted, however, that they were just as much
civilians as the pacific Bonillas.
"There are no militarists, there is no mili-
tarism, in this country of ours," Obregon
would say in his Ciceronian manner. "The
professional soldier died with the fall of Don
Porfirio. We are men of the people, simple
citizens, who took up arms to defend the cause
of the revolution. Now with the triumph of
that revolution, we lay down our arms and be-
come men like other men. ' '
And Don Pablo, who thinks there is wisdom
in few words, said simply:
"Amen."
Not only that. The fiery Obregon, ex-Minis-
ter of War that he was, asked the Government
96 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
to give him an honorable discharge from the
army, and he pretended to get angry when any
one addressed him as "General." He insisted
on being nothing but "Citizen Obregon, gar-
banzo King of Sonora."
But Don Pablo did not say "amen" to this.
Don Pablo went on being a General, although
he was sure his army would never be large
enough to suit his tastes. Since it would have
been hardly appropriate to call himself "Citi-
zen Gonzalez, proprietor and gentleman," he
contented himself with making his General's
uniform look as pacifistic as possible.
During the elections he spent almost as much
money on pictures of himself as the Govern-
ment wasted on the face of Bonillas. Every
bare wall in the Mexican towns carried a por-
trait of Don Pablo, with his heavy eyebrows,
his bushy mustache, and those disturbing eyes,
which, for the first time, were not obscured by
the pair of dark glasses. Underneath the pic-
ture there was a single word, and, that the il-
literate peasants might understand it better,
it was written in Latin: "Pax."
In one of the principal theaters of Mexico, a
musical revue was given, in which Bonillas was
AUTHOR OP CARRANZA'S DOWNFALL 97
made to appear as the shepherdess "Flor de
Te," and Obregon made a speech about his gar-
bcmzos and his eagerness to become President
"even if he had to use the Big Stick to get
there." But Don Pablo came on in the last act,
and in the most comic fashion. He wore a bat-
tle uniform. He had a scowl on his face. Black
eye-glasses and an enormous mustache added
to the ferocity of his appearance. Dragging
an enormous cannon behind him, he advanced
toward the footlights, and there, in a voice
which was more like the roar of a hungry lion
ready to eat the audience, he shouted: "I am
a pacifist."
"Civilism," "peace," all mere hypocrisy!
"Citizen" Obregon has remained a General,
and General Gonzalez, the man of peace, has
played another of the treacherous tricks in
which he is a specialist. The moment Carranza,
their former chief and master, decided to give
the Presidency to some one else, both of these
men became militarists again, coming to a mo-
mentary agreement, but without prejudice to
their privilege of fighting each other to-mor-
row. Mexico had to have one more revolution !
There have been so few of them in her history!
V. CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY
OF all the men who figured prominently in
Mexico during the last years of the Car-
ranza regime including those who remained
faithful to the First Chief and those who re-
belled against him Carranza came originally
from the highest social station.
While the present Generals and Ministers of
the republic were still humble laborers, petty
merchants, obscure lawyers, or simply loafers
without visible means of support, Carranza had
already been, first, a Senator and, later, a State
Governor. A silent and reserved man who
seemed to foresee his future greatness, Don
Venustiano moved for many years in General
Diaz's entourage, which eventually came to
have all the characteristics of a real Court.
It is interesting to study the portraits of Por-
firio Diaz at the various periods of his career.
In the earliest ones he looks like an Indian with
sharp-pointed pyramidal skull, coarse hair and
rough features. As the thirty years of his rule
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 99
wear on, he shows gradual but constant im-
provement. At the end the Indian had turned
white. He always wore a simple but elegant
uniform. It was common gossip that he em-
ployed expert Parisian specialists to paint his
lips and whiten his cheeks.
The society that surrounded Don Porfirio un-
derwent a similar transformation. The official
functions given during Diaz's regime eventu-
ally became as important and ostentatious as
those given in some of the regal Courts of
Europe. A Mexican aristocracy grew up around
President Diaz. In diplomatic circles the balls
held in the Mexican capital were reputed to be
the best given in America. I met in Paris the
owner of a famous restaurant who had at one
time been Don Porfirio 's chef.
"He is a real sovereign," the old chef told
me. "I don't believe there has been, since the
days of Napoleon III., a ruler able to give a
banquet as well as he or with as much pomp and
ceremony."
The Aristocratic Carransa
Carranza's association with this republican
Court had its effect on him, as it did on so many
100 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
other political personages whom Diaz converted
into barons, as it were, of his empire. Don
Venustiano is a man from the country, a ranch-
ero, but despite this origin, he has a noble bear-
ing and easy and distinguished manners, which
show that he is used to moving in good society.
He always dresses in black and goes about from
the early morning hours in a frock coat. Al-
though this gives him the appearance of a
magistrate or a professor, he looks more distin-
guished than all the young men around him,
who affect the latest fashions with all the ex-
aggeration and discord of color characteristic
of the Creole.
The figure of Don Venustiano helps to create
this good impression. He is majestically tall,
muscular and strong despite his years; and
above all, he is white, pure white. His Spanish
ancestors came from the Basque Provinces and
from the Basques he inherited the vigorous
health and the silent tenacity of that race. As
I have already stated, there is one somewhat
grotesque detail in his face a swollen nose
with a network of multi-colored veins. But this
does not show at a distance. The majesty of
his white flowing beard and the vigor of his
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FA]$IY 101
splendid stature, which gives him the appear^
ance of an old warrior, seem ito hide the "defect.
He reminds you of the conquerors who, three
centuries ago, after the conquest of Mexico,
laid aside their armor to devote themselves to
the development of the mines and the tilling of
the soil.
When the revolution made this frock-coated
man take the field and assume the command of
troops, he turned out to be a first-class strate-
gist, from the standpoint of Mexican conditions.
He always refused to be a General, but the boys
whom he elevated to that rank never failed to
ask for his advice or to follow his suggestions.
I have heard many of them tell of the mili-
tary talent of the man whom they called the
First Chief. In the middle of the night, when
they were fast asleep, he would order them,
swearing and protesting, to break camp and
take up another position. He had suspected a
move from the enemy and, sure enough, the
enemy would come; but instead of surprising
Carranza, it would be surprised by the First
Chief. Like all men born in the country who
have made long journeys on horseback driving
herds of cattle, he can read the stars and pre-
102 SXZCO IN REVOLUTION
diet file weather. He knows every irregularity
in the ground of the whole territory.
A Fighter Who Won't Quit
As I write these lines Carranza is giving
proof of his qualities as a mountain fighter.
Betrayed by almost all his old friends, sur-
rounded by enemy forces, his retreat to Vera
Cruz completely cut off, and the last remnants
of his loyal troops dispersed, any other man
would have surrendered resignedly to his fate.
But the principal virtue of Carranza is his
tenacity; a tenacity that conquers time and
space and mocks fate. It is more than prob-
able that his enemies, infinitely more numerous
than his escort, will eventually capture him.
At any rate, whether Carranza is captured
or succeeds in breaking through the ring which
his enemies have thrown around him, we have
to admit that he has defended himself against
ill-luck in a heroic manner. This man of 64,
his followers reduced to a mere handful, can
ride whole days without yielding to the ex-
haustion of age. He will fight at odds of a
hundred to one. If his horse is killed under
him, he immediately mounts another, calmly
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 103
facing a rain of bullets fired by the very men
who swore loyalty to him. The days are pass-
ing, and his enemies have not yet succeeded in
capturing him.
However great his mistakes may have been,
we must concede that Carranza is a man of ex-
traordinary energy and determination.
Carranza 's Court
What we might call Carranza's Court, his in-
timate circle, had a rather informal and fa-
miliar aspect. It was something like the co-
terie of a provincial Governor who has become
President, without giving up his old habits of
country life.
Next to General Barragan, youthful and
debonair, the man whom Don Venustiano
treated with greatest intimacy was the major
domo of his palaces, Don Pancho Serna. This
Don Pancho, like nearly all the men of the
revolutionary epoch, was of very humble origin.
He had a small popular restaurant in the out-
skirts of Mexico City and, overnight, Don
Venustiano made him Governor of the Presi-
dential Mansion, of the Palace of Chapultepeo,
104 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
and of a third residence located in the fortress
of San Juan de Ulna in Vera Cruz.
The former restaurant keeper, a jovial man
accustomed to flattering his patrons, kept his
old good humor, changing only his manner of
dress to meet the demands of his new dignity.
Every morning, the minute he tumbled out of
bed, he put on his' frock coat. His position did
not permit him to dress in any other way. The
only garment that he varied with any frequency
was his vest, of silk or velvet, as the case might
be, but always in brilliantly colored checks.
Over it he always wore a rich gold chain.
As long as Senora Carranza lived, Don
Pancho Serna's star did not rise to its full
glory. The first lady of the land had no use
for the major domo. But when Don Venusti-
ano's wife died eight months ago the major
domo became the absolute master of the Presi-
dential Palaces and of the President's affection.
The Master of the Banquet Table
The former restaurateur always sat at the
Presidential table no matter how formal the
banquet might be, and we must confess that he
did not look out of place among the guests;
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 105
because he confined himself to smiling discreet-
ly and nodding his approval to everything that
was said. After the dinner, prompted by pro-
fessional instinct, as if he were still in charge
of his old restaurant, he would always try to
find out if the guests were satisfied with the
service. I remember that on one occasion at
the end of a luncheon I attended with President
Carranza in the Palace of Chapultepec, Don
Pancho led me aside to ask me what I thought
of the luncheon. His was the anxiety of an ar-
tist who fears for the success of his work with
a critic come from foreign parts.
"It was splendid, Don Pancho, " I replied.
"The best restaurants on the Parisian boule-
vards cannot put up a better meal."
You should have seen the seraphic smile of
Don Pancho. At that moment I must have
seemed to him the most agreeable man on earth.
After that he showed me the rooms of the
Chapultepec palace, furnished during Emperor
Maximilian's reign. As the monarch's reign
was very brief, there is nothing extraordinary
about the furnishings. All they have is a few
porcelains and pieces of furniture given by
Napoleon III. But Don Pancho has never been
106 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
outside of Mexico and he asked me, with a
doubtful air, if the palaces of Europe had rooms
as beautiful as those of Chapultepec.
"I am dying to go to Madrid to see its mu-
seums and to admire the pictures of the famous
painter Belasco."
Don Pancho spoke to me frequently about
this unknown painter with great enthusiasm.
"Who the deuce can this man Belasco be?"
I asked myself. And it was long afterward that
it dawned on me that Don Pancho was thinking
of Velazquez.
There is no doubt, however, that Don
Venustiano's major domo is a man of exquisite
taste. Everybody in Mexico City talked to me
about the residence he is building for himself
in the most handsome park in the capital. It
is a house in colonial style of very considerable
proportions. Such are the mysteries of Mex-
ico ! Six years ago this man was nothing but
the keeper of a popular restaurant on the out-
skirts of the city. Now he owns an artistic
mansion in a location corresponding to Cen-
tral Park in New York. His enemies explain
the transformation by the fact that the Presi*
dent had given him a monopoly of all the meals
CARRANZA 'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 107
served in the dining cars on the Mexican rail-
ways. The privilege, certainly, was not out of
keeping with Don Pancho's previous occupa-
tion. However, the story was not true.
A "Carranza Doctrine" (Subsidized)
Carranza, people assert, disposed of this din-
ing-car business, in order to reward the literary
labors of a young lady (a former stenographer
or telegraph clerk, I don't remember which)
who is Kis favorite author. The girl placed her-
self under his orders early in the revolution
and went with him everywhere.
This young "lady of letters' 9 invented, and
expounded in several volumes, the so-called
"Carranza Doctrine." Monroe had his doc-
trine! Why shouldn't Carranza have one, too?
Just as Obregon, aspiring to be an author as
well as a warrior, wrote the story of his cam-
paigns, Carranza, to go down in history as
something more than a President, entered the
field of international law. However, he was
not a writer. The young lady wielded the pen,
while the "old man" revised the text, made
suggestions and furnished ideas.
The world has paid no attention to the * ' doc-
108 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
trine," but the lady who expounded it has de-
rived no end of profit from it. She receives
subsidies to propagate the Carranzist philoso-
phy all over the continent; and the privilege,
moreover, of feeding travelers on the trains of
Mexico.
The dear senorita! I remember my journey
from the frontier to the capital. All the food
is canned, and canned goods seem to be classi-
fied, in Mexico, like wines. The older, the bet-
ter! It took me several days to get over my
ptomaine and the resulting indigestion. The
"Carranza doctrine" may be all right, but they
should not charge so much for it.
Fortunes in Revolution Making
In Mexico nobody is surprised at great for-
tunes rapidly made. But recently "good busi-
ness" has not been so common, and such suc-
cesses have been confined exclusively to men
connected with the Government. "You ought
to have seen the early days of the revolution ! ' '
many people said to me. "That was the time
when money was made!" People got rich not
only at home in Mexico, but by doing business
with Mexico from the United States. Many
CAKRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 109
Mexicans made millions without leaving New
York.
The moment of greatest prosperity was what
may be called the second period of the revolu-
tion, when Villa, Zapata and others were con-
trolling the north of the republic, while Car-
ranza held the south. There was also a third
section of the country, Yucatan, where General
Alvarado, Carranza's agent, was exercising a
Socialist dictatorship on his own account, and,
in the clutch of an attack of graphophobia, was
legislating for everything human and divine in
literally hundreds of decrees that he composed
each day.
At that time, they say, there were three agen-
cies in New York, run by influential Mexicans,
some of whom were with Villa, others with
Carranza and others with Alvarado. I do not
believe that any one of these leaders made any-
thing out of the New York agencies. They
complied, out of political camaraderie, with the
requests the agencies made of them. The Mexi-
can landowner expelled from Mexico would
turn, the moment he ran out of money on Broad-
way, to the agency representing the part of
110 MEXICO IN DEVOLUTION
the country where his property was located.
Confiscation was the terrible weapon of the
Mexican revolution. Some of these confisca-
tions were made at the expense of political ene-
mies of the triumphant regime, but more often
they fell upon private individuals, who had
taken no part whatever in politics and whose
only crime was that of owning something. It
was quite proper to solve the social problem
by dividing the land of the rich among the poor !
And those who held that doctrine began by
seizing the lands of the wealthy. Several years
have passed, however, and the poor still own
very little land! Property would lie around,
under a decree of seizure, in the hands of Gov-
ernment employees or Generals who, country
people for the most part, had a good idea of
what land was worth. The former owners
would apply to one of these agencies for the
recovery of their lands, and they would put up
thousands of dollars to get back their titles,
with permission to return to the country.
How One Profiteer Explained It
Then there was brokerage ! All sorts of se-
cret deals were made between the Ministry of
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 111
Ways and Means in Mexico and business men
in the United States, and enormous commis-
sions were paid to the intermediaries. I know,
and everybody in Mexico knows, a gentleman
who six years ago was what they called a pe-
lado, a "down-and-out," and who to-day owns
a splendid house in New York. This change in
luck was so rapid, so astonishing, so brazen,
that Don Venustiano himself got his eye on the
man, who was summoned to Mexico to explain
his mysterious prosperity. The "old man"
was in an ugly humor and talked of jail and
the firing squad, if necessary, for the grafters.
But the accused gentleman calmly justified him-
self:
"Mr. President, you have never been out of
Mexico. You have never been in the United
States. That's why you don't understand my
making a fortune in a few years. I have friends
in New York who boosted me, that's all. In
New York you go to the theater, and your neigh-
bor in the next seat is a millionaire. He takes
a fancy to you and lets you in on something
that makes you a wealthy man in a few weeks."
He talked so well that Don Venustiano be-
gan to think New York must be a city where
112 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
everybody is rich and where you cannot walk
down Lower Broadway without stubbing your
toe on a million-dollar roll.
Another personage in Carranza's entourage
was Aguirre Berlanga, Minister of the Interior.
This country lawyer held that confidential post
a long time without any one's knowing why.
Some unexplainable caprice of the Presi-
dent! . . .
The noteworthy thing in Berlanga '& record
was that he had been the most ardent pro-Ger-
man in Mexico. All the men in the Government
were pro-Germans, but he surpassed them all
in this respect, and that is the only respect in
which he ever surpassed anybody his whole life
long.
The job of this humdrum and ignorant lawyer
as Minister of the Interior was to supervise
subsidies to the newspapers. It is well known
that a part of the Mexican press is supported
by the Government and changes policy as rap-
idly as Governments themselves change. Dur-
ing the years of the war, the Minister of the
Interior devoted all his money and all his in-
fluence to sustaining the pro-German papers
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 113
and persecuting the few dailies which sym-
pathized with the cause of the Allies.
On my travels through Mexico I met many
people who had sided with the cause of world
freedom during the war. But they were writ-
ers and teachers, people who follow intellectual
professions and hold quite aloof from politics.
The politicians and Generals were all pro-Ger-
man, with one exception Don Pablo Gonzalez.
That far-sighted gentleman predicted the vic-
tory of the Allies from the very first, while his
less-intelligent comrades, who call themselves
revolutionaries and Socialists, were wrapped in
admiration for the glory and ability of William
Hohenzollern.
Carranza's "Neutrality"
Carranza, who had never been abroad, who
knew the world only second hand and was under
the influence of a daring intriguer, the German
Minister resident in Mexico, acted badly and
deceitfully in every matter relating to the war^
He tried to justify all he did on the plea of neu-
trality, a very special kind of neutrality, which
was never anything more than a disguise for
favoritism toward Germany. Many will re-
114 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
member his note to the neutral nations asking
them to agree not to furnish food or goods of
any kind to any of the belligerents. Since Ger-
many had been swept off the sea and could get
nothing from distant nations, Carranza's pro-
posal could logically serve only to keep supplies
from the Allies.
However, let us not dwell on that. There is
no occasion to-day for insisting on Carranza's
past pro-Germanism. What many people can-
not explain is his retention, up to the very last,
of Aguirre Berlanga as Minister of the Interior.
This insignificant lawyer and kowtower to the
Germans is a young chap who listens to him-
self when he talks ; and he talks on every ques-
tion under the sun, treating them all with the
same competence. His importunateness, lack
of tact, and assertive ignorance, as well as the
unfriendliness that met him everywhere, be-
came long ago proverbial in Mexico.
The Chamber of Deputies was constituted in
great majority by friends of Carranza. Well,
whenever the President wanted a law passed
it was sufficient for Berlanga to support it, for
everybody to vote against it. When the Car-
ranza majority was most compact one speech
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 115
by that gentleman was enough to split it into
factions. Nevertheless, when people talked to
Don Venustiano about his Minister of the In-
terior the "old man's" eyes would twinkle
shrewdly, a smile would flit over his bewhis-
kered face, and he would come to Berlanga's
support.
Why He Stood by Berlanga
It was a case of personal vanity. Men of
strong will, men who delight in power, like to
surround themselves with nonentities to use as
mirrors for the reflection of their own delight-
ful greatness. "What a great man am I to
have made a somebody out of that idiot!"
Carranza doubtless felt like the Eoman Em-
peror who made his horse a Consul.
I owe one courtesy to Don Venustiano, for
which I should thank him here. He invited me
to luncheon with the most prominent of his as-
sistants and friends, and omitted his Minister
of the Interior from the list of guests. It oc-
curred to him, perhaps, that I should not care
to sit at table with the representative of Ger-
man interests in Mexico who supervised all the
intrigues there against the European Allies and
116 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
the United States of America, Or perhaps, to
avoid seeing me laugh at a man in his Ministry,
he preferred to take no chances on any inepti-
tudes Berlanga might get off in his pedantic
tone during the meal.
I have been constantly wondering what can
have happened to Aguirre Berlanga during
these last days. Did he slip off to a safe place,
or did some noble impulse prompt him to stand
by his patron in time of misfortune? Then,
again, I cannot help laughing when I think of
a queer kind of popularity that Berlanga en-
joyed. When a Mexican tried to estimate the
stupidity of anybody, he would invariably say :
"He is a bigger fool than the Minister of the
Interior." Enough said!
All Honest in Politics to Politicians
Beyond any doubt, the people of Mexico are
tired of so many revolutions. After each revo-
lution, everybody thinks: "This is going to
be the very last. We shall never have such
trouble again." But since, within a few
months, or a few years, another upset invari-
ably appears, people have finally come to take
revolution as a matter of course, much as an
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 117
invalid gets accustomed to his pain. They even
reach the point where they can joke over their
troubles, meeting each new political overturn
with good humor and getting all the fun out of
it they can.
All the funny stories about Mexico and the
republic's present leaders were invented by
Mexicans themselves, and not Mexicans living
abroad for long periods of time, but those who
have stayed at home and actually seen men and
events close at hand.
I noticed one curious thing in Mexico. "When
one Mexican politician is talking about another
of the opposite camp, he never calls his oppon-
ent's honesty into question. In the heat of po-
litical passion, he may doubt his enemy's per-
sonal qualifications and his reliability. He will
call him a sneak and a liar. He will question
the fidelity of the man's wife and the virtue
of the man's mother. "He is a thoroughgoing
scoundrel," he concludes, "but I must say that
in money matters he is absolutely straight, and,
in spite of what people say, he is really a poor
man." And the man he is talking about says
the same things about him.
There seems to be a tacit understanding
118 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
among them all to tell the truth about each
other on every point except money. They are
all anxious to make the point that there is not
a single thief in Mexican political life. On the
other hand, the lower class, the common people,
which has been putting up with revolutions for
years and years, and is always seeing its coun-
try go down hill instead of improving, smiles
a smile of bitter skepticism when the words
"unselfishness" and " patriotism " are men-
tioned.
Only the Masses Resentful
Two hundred thousand Mexicans get their
living by making civil war and taking part in
revolutions, fattening on the ruins of Govern-
ments that fall and on the inaugural feasts of
Governments that come into being. Such peo-
ple speak in all seriousness when they say that
" Liberty must be preserved" or allege that
"the Constitution is being violated." Poor
Constitution is the most frequently ravished
virgin in Mexico! But the rest of the popula-
tion, which includes millions of people, either
says nothing, with that significant silence of the
Indian, or else it says: "Liberty! Constitu-
CAERANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 119
tion! Mere pretexts for a new grab. Just
ways of making a living! All alike! All
thieves !" And in this sweeping generalization
it includes everybody in politics, pardoning no
one, not even those who have come to a tragic
death.
The Mexican people, which has a certain lit-
erary instinct and much imagination, invents
all kinds of ingenious and interesting stories to
wreak vengeance on the powers that be. Its
biting satire respects not even death. The mis-
erable populace has suffered so much and has
so many accounts to settle!
Tragedy of Carranza's Brother
The story of what happened to Don Jesus
Carranza, after his death, is a cruel but inter-
esting and witty tale. This brother of Don
Venustiano came to a tragic end. While Car-
ranza was shut up in Vera Cruz by the troops
of Zapata and Villa, he sent his brother on an
expedition to the south of Mexico. The very
escort which Don Venustiano had given Don
Jesus for protection rose in mutiny and made
him prisoner. Such jokes are nothing unusual
in Mexican revolutions. No one knows with
120 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
certainty on whom he can count. You never
know whether a friend on embracing you will
not stab you in the back.
Don Jesus, with all his staff, fell into the
hand of one of the petty chieftains hostile to
Don Venustiano, and a dramatic episode oc-
curred. The guerrilla telegraphed to the Presi-
dent, making on him a number of demands, of
a political nature, which were equivalent to an
abdication. He accompanied his demands with
a threat to execute Carranza's brother if they
were not granted. The proud and stubborn
Don Venustiano made no answer; whereupon
the guerrilla began to shoot, one by one, the
members of the staff of Don Jesus. After a
second failure of the President to answer, a
son of Don Jesus, and nephew to Don Venusti-
ano, was shot. A final telegram likewise failed
to move the iron will of Carranza, and his
brother was also executed, some hours before
the Carranzista troops, sent to free him, ar-
rived.
This blood-curdling episode aroused sym-
pathy only among the partisans of the Presi-
dent. A few small villages took the name of
Don Jesus, but they have probably lost it again
CARRANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 121
by this time. But while the friends of the Gov-
ernment were mourning the martyr, the peo-
ple, that great anonymous novelist, was ham-
mering out his story.
Tale the People Invented About It
It must be recalled that, at the beginning of
the revolution, while Don Venustiano was mak-
ing war on the partisans of Huerta in a num-
ber of States, Don Jesus had been in command
of a division on the frontier of the United
States. I was, of course, not a witness of his
campaign, but people in Mexico say that this
Carranza was a real Napoleon when it came to
driving owners away from ranches and carry-
ing off cattle.
No animal wearing horns would ever escape
him. They all succumbed to his irresistible
spirit on attack. In a very few of such cam-
paigns he swept the territories under his con-
trol absolutely clean of cattle. Then he would
drive his prisoners, which numbered thousands
and thousands, up across the American frontier,
and generously hand them over to buyers in
the United States, in exchange for seme little
slips of paper issued by the banks.
122 MEXICO DT REVOLUTION
At this point, the Mexican story begins.
When Don Jesus died he went straight to hell.
Where else could he go? ... At that time
there was war, not only in Mexico but in the
greater part of Europe as well. You may read-
ily imagine the great number of guests who
were being admitted to hell. What a lot of in-
cendiaries of cities! And murderers! And
thieves !
Satan, who knows everything, got wind of
Don Jesus r s arrival and was anxious to make
his acquaintance. As the devil has horns and
a cloven foot, he was interested in getting a
close-up view of this invincible persecutor of
horned and hoofed animals.
' ' Where is Jesus Carranza?" he shouted
from his throne.
Absolute silence. The man in question did
not want to appear, he was so alarmed by the
interest aroused. As the last consignment re-
ceived in hell consisted of so many lost souls,
he tried to keep out of sight, hiding behind his
comrades.
Several small imps, obeying orders from
their master, went through the groups, paging
the missing person much as bellboys go through
CARKANZA'S OFFICIAL FAMILY 123
the corridors of a hotel when they have to de-
liver a message.
"Mister Carranza! Mister Carranza!"
Another long silence. And Satan, annoyed
at this lack of respect, called one of his clever-
est little devils.
"Turn into a cow," he ordered him.
Immediately there was a moo, and a fine
cow, fiery in color, began to run loose through
the throngs.
But there was one there who could run, faster
than the cow. A man leaped over the crowd
with the speed of a bullet, panting with greed,
and grabbed the animal's tail. Then he seized
the animal by the horns. "You cannot escape
me, you cannot escape me! You are mine!"
That's how Satan discovered Don Jesus Car-
ranza.
VI. CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY
WHEN we speak of Mexico and of the
absurd things which occur there, many
people imagine that that country is a half -sav-
age nation whose normal condition is a state
of violent revolution; a nation, in short, that
has no conception of the duties of civilized peo-
ples.
Those who hold this opinion of Mexico are
wholly mistaken, though their error is not at
all surprising. All nations, however advanced
they may be, always misunderstand the real
character of the neighbors across their fron-
tiers. It would seem that nations feel in duty
bound to misunderstand and slander one an-
other. It is not strange, then, that Mexico
should be misunderstood. The Mexicans,
themselves, and I include among them the rul-
ing classes, also lack a proper understanding
of foreign countries.
It may be stated that Mexico is as civilized
as any of the other countries of Spanish-speak-
124
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY 125
ing America; but she has been extraordinarily
unfortunate.
The history of Mexico during the last fifty
years may be summarized as follows: those
who tried to civilize her either did not know
how or else did not care to complete their work ;
and their successors not only failed to complete
the work of civilization, but, blinded by po-
litical fanaticism, they destroyed a great deal
of what their predecessors had accomplished.
I have never been an admirer of Porfirio
Diaz. He was simply a tyrant. The peace that
he maintained for thirty years was secured by
wholesale executions, ordered without due
process of law, and by violations of the liber-
ties of the individual. During his thirty years
of rule he caused the death, by secret and under-
handed ways, of more people, perhaps, than
have fallen in all the battlesi of revolution.
Moreover, although with his dictatorial powers
he could have given a great impetus to public
education in his illiterate country, he preferred
to keep the people ignorant. Politically and
spiritually, the long reign of Porfirio Diaz was
a misfortune for Mexico; but we must admit,
in all justice, that so far as material progress
126 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
goes, Mexico never had another ruler that could
compare with this man.
What Diaz Did for Mexico
Every conspicuously modern thing that Mex-
ico has to-day she owes to General Diaz. The
great buildings in the cities, public sanitation,
the railways, harbor improvements, school
buildings for the better classes all these date
from the time of Don Porfirio. One is amazed
to see the amount of building done or half -com-
pleted during the time of this tyrant. He kept
the spirit of his people in fetters, but he suc-
ceeded in giving the country the outward ap-
pearance of a nation.
In one particular he succeeded admirably
well. Mexico is a country that has inherited
from the Indian a certain tendency to hate all
foreigners, to shun them with an irresistible
aversion or to harass them whenever possible.
But Diaz realized that his country would be all
the greater and more enlightened in proportion
as it kept in contact with the rest of the world.
His glorious predecessor, Benito Juarez, for
whom every man of democratic ideals must feel
a deep interest and sympathy, had, neverthe-
CONDITION OP THE COUNTRY 127
less, a great defect. He was an Indian, and
through an irresistible racial instinct lie Sis-
trusted all foreigners and tried to avoid them.
As he was patriotic, and, after the imperial ad-
venture of Maximilian, had misgivings about
the possible effects of foreign influence on his
country, he tried to keep his nation in the
geographical isolation in which it had lived.
The coastline of Mexico continued to be a mere
coastline without ports, and the north of the
republic continued a desert to constitute an al-
most impassable barrier between the United
States and the vital center of Mexican life.
Porfirio Diaz reversed the policy of Benito
Juarez. He opened the ports and thus placed
his nation in more frequent communication
with Europe; he laid several railway lines
which brought Mexico into contact with the
United States. He took pains to develop the
resources of the country favoring the creation
of new industries, stimulating the development
of the mines and aiding directly the discovery
of the oil wells, an industry which grew in the
last years of his rule.
During this period Mexico did not have lib-
erty, but it had peace and prosperity.
128 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The "Cientificos"
A group of intelligent men whom the public
sarcastically nicknamed los cientificos, who
eventually adopted this title themselves, placed
themselves at the orders of the former warrior,
now become dictator, and cooperated with him.
There were Ministers who held portfolios for
thirty years without interruption. The people
naturally found this tutelage too long so long,
indeed, that the annals of absolute monarchy
scarcely show a similar example. The revolu-
tion had to come. When it did come the people
of the whole country, some because they wanted
liberty and others because they desired a
change after such a long period of inertia, fol-
lowed the revolutionary path.
To-day, after ten years, observers begin to
realize that the revolution has been of little use.
There was no more liberty under Carranza than
there had been under Don Porfirio, and, on
the other hand, peace and prosperity had en-
tirely disappeared.
The revolutionary Governments did not do
anything new. What Mexico has to-day she al-
ready had under Diaz, except that now every-
CONDITION OP THE COUNTRY 129
thing is older, almost in ruins, like a building
which gradually deteriorates for lack of some
one to take care of it and repair the damage
caused by time.
Moreover, the country has not gained any-
thing in morality. When General Diaz was in
power the people complained, as they do now,
about the lack of honesty of their rulers, and
they called the cientificos of those days thieves
just as sincerely as later they accused the revo-
lutionists.
Perhaps the people were right. I have not
seen at close range the men who ruled the coun-
try under Diaz. But it seems that poor Mex-
ico is cursed with an endless succession of
money-mad politicians.
But if the cientificos were really thieves they
differed from their successors in a particular
well worthy of consideration. The former were
constructive in their thieving, while the latter
have been nothing but vandals. The cientificos
did not squeeze their money from private indi-
viduals ; they enriched themselves with the com-
missions received from public works which ren-
dered good service to the country. Moreover,
they got rich slowly. They took thirty years
130 MEXICO IN" REVOLUTION
to make their fortunes; as they were not in a
hurry, they collected their graft with prudence
and dignity, knowing full well that their Gov-
ernment was long-lived, and there was no need
of any unseemly haste. But the latter-day
thieves have been rapid-fire grafters, robbers
of machine-gun rapidity, who knew they had
only a few years in which to get rich, and so
had to steal as fast as possible.
Mexico's Pitiable State To-day
Mexico to-day is in a pitiable plight. Of the
former railways scarcely more than the tracks
remain. The Government of Carranza took
over the lines without compensating the own-
ers. It operated them for several years, kept
all the revenues and failed to renew any part
of the rolling stock. The railway properties
consist to-day of a few hundred old cars in
very poor condition and some patched-up and
asthmatic locomotives which serve sometimes
to carry passengers who are not in a hurry,
and other times to gratify the amazing genius
the insurgents have for dynamiting trains.
The sleeping cars are full of vermin, and their
lighting apparatus is in such a state that it
CONDITION OP THE COUNTEY 131
frequently fails to work and the trains have to
be lighted with candles.
Many of the stations are mere shacks stand-
ing near a heap of black ruins, the ruins being
all that is left of a former station burnt a few
years before by the revolutionists. Further
on, one can see dozens of wrecked cars, mere
skeletons, their iron frames blackened and
twisted as if they were still suffering the tor-
ture of the explosion that destroyed them.
The ports are losing their traffic more and
more every day. In cities which were prosper-
ous once, like Vera Cruz, you can see the steve-
dores standing about in the sun, their arms
folded across the breast, with nothing to do.
That fertile country, one of the richest in the
world, can produce three annual crops, and yet
it is barely raising enough food to feed its
population. Instead of advancing, agriculture
has declined. Cattlemen, tired of raising cattle
to feed the revolutionists, have gone out of busi-
ness. The farmers frequently find themselves
left in the lurch by their peons who believe
that to shoulder a musket and follow Villa, Car-
ranza, or Obregon, as the case may be, is better
than to hoe the ground.
132 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The only export industries of the country are
the mines, which are little worked; the sizal,
produced in Yucatan, and the Tampico oil wells.
As these are the only sources of wealth which
yield an income, the Government taxes them
heavily. The oil companies especially, the ma-
jority of which are owned by American citi-
zens, had been paying Carranza, in one form
of taxation or another, about 40 per cent, of
the value of their daily output. A General who
is one of Obregon's lieutenants admits in one
of his writings that the taxes paid by the oil
companies are formidable. However, if the
oil companies failed to pay their taxes for three
months the Government of Mexico could not
survive financially, because the oil taxes are
the only reliable source of income that it has.
A really painful contrast between what Mex-
ico is and what it could become if the country
had a half decent Government strikes the most
casual observer.
Peasants Starving in a Rich Land
A common sight in Mexico is the peasant,
with his large, umbrella-like straw hat and red
poncho, squatting on the ground in an attitude
CONTMTION OP THE COUNTRY 133
of profound thought, although perhaps in real-
ity he is not thinking at all. Hours later you
go by the same spot again and find the man
sitting in the same position and still thinking.;
He has not moved. He has not done anything.
Perhaps he has eaten a corn tortilla, which con-
stitutes the principal article of his diet. And
this poor wretch, who is suffering material hun-
ger and moral anaemia, sits upon one of the
richest thrones of the earth. The soil beneath
him treasures gold, silver and petroleum, and
it can produce 90 per cent, of all the different
agricultural products known to man.
That peasant is disillusioned ; he is a fatalist
resigned to his destiny. He has been shedding
his blood for ten years in battle after battle,
always in the name of liberty. And he does
not see liberty anywhere. The men who gov-
ern his native village and province have the
same vices as those who ruled them in the days
of General Diaz. They made this illiterate be-
lieve that everything that Mexico contained
was going to be distributed among the people.
He saw how the property of the rich was con-
fiscated; but he is still waiting to see it dis-
tributed among the poor. Those who were rich
134 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
by heritage or tradition were succeeded by
newly made men of wealth, by men whom he
had known before as comrades in poverty.
All his! And the Mexican, thinking about
these things, either remains passive the live-
long day watching the trend of events, or else
he joins those who have risen in the social scale,
and hopes that civil war may last forever, that
a revolution may break out every year, that no
party may last too long in power, and that Gov-
ernments may succeed one another frequently
in order that all may eventually get a taste of
the pleasures and profits of being "in."
Suppose the American Government in "Wash-
ington should issue a new series of paper
money some day, declaring it legal tender.
Every one accepts it. Then the Government,
should any one question the money, declares
repeatedly that the debt represented by the
paper is sacred and that it will be scrupulously
paid at the first convenient moment. Then sup-
pose the same Government suddenly decrees
that the paper is worth nothing; that the State
does not recognize the promise inscribed on
the face of its notes, and that not a cent will be
paid on any of them. The financial organism
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY 135
of the country, of course, would collapse.
Such a thing would, indeed, seem impossible.
It is hard to imagine it happening in any coun-
try on the face of the earth.
Well, ithappenedin Mexico notonce,buttwice.
The Carranza Government on two different
occasions issued paper money which it forced
upon the Mexican public as legal tender and
later repudiated, a robbery more irritating
than any looting ever committed by party chief-
tains in the country, since it embraced the
whole nation in the ruin it caused.
Eecently, a few weeks before the revolution
which overthrew it, the Government launched
a new series of notes, but without daring to
make it legal tender. Everybody, in the con-
viction that it would prove valueless eventually,
refused to take it.
Carranza 's jack of all financial trades was
Luis Cabrera, a lawyer. I need not draw a
portrait of Cabrera, for he has been in the
United States frequently and is well known
here. Cabrera has a good literary education
and writes well. He was the pen and style of
Don Venustiano, and when the President
wanted to stab some enemy to the quick he
136 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
sent for Ms Minister of Finance. Many unfor-
tunate decrees went out under Carranza's name
and signature, but Cabrera, in reality, was their
author.
Cabrera Councilor at the Elbow
For four years, Cabrera played the role of an
astute councilor at Carranza's side, suggesting
ways out of many a tight hole. I must pay
homage to Cabrera's literary talent. He would
have made an excellent professor of criticism.
It was only the lack of logic in the revolution,
the lack of enough good men to go around, that
forced him to become a Minister of Finance. He
often used his ability as a writer to bamboozle
the public into believing that under Don
Venustiano 's rule, it was living in greater pros-
perity than ever before. He was always prov-
ing the existence of a superavit, an excess of in-
come over outlay; but this was true only be-
cause the creditors to the Mexican debt (a mat-
ter of hundreds of millions) had received no in-
terest for many years; because public service
had been abandoned in many ways ; because not
a cent had been given to the school teachers
(whom the Government threw back upon the
towns, while the towns, with no means of rais-
CONDITION OP THE COUNTEY 137
ing the necessary funds, simply closed the
schools).
Cabrera has a sense of humor, with a dash
of cynicism in it. In his efforts to get a for-
eign loan, without which no Government in
Mexico, whatever it is, can long survive, he
must have laughed to himself many times as he
reread the elegant fabrications that issued from
his pen, to amuse the Mexican public and throw
dust in the eyes of the United States bankers.
As the reader will surmise, the people hated
Cabrera, because he was the personification of
taxes, more taxes, and heavier taxes; and then
because of the gossip about his private affairs
and the big deals he pulled off personally from
the vantage ground of the ministry. Of this
unpopularity he was himself aware, and he
used to say ironically: "I have the honor of
being the first and most distinguished thief in
Mexico."
It is to his credit that he never batted an
eyelash before the attacks made upon him.
Lawyer Cabrera is a peace-loving man. He
fought the war through under Carranza, but he
was, like Bonillas, always with the rear guard
as part of the administrative baggage. But
138 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
this did not prevent his having in his life a
dose of that tragic fatalism all the Mexicans
mixed up in the revolution have. Two of his
brothers fell before a firing squad. Luis
Cabrera himself would undoubtedly have been
shot at this moment if the populace of Mexico
City had found him lying loose somewhere at
the time of Don Venustiano's flight. But like
a rat deserting a sinking ship, he made good
his escape several days in advance, leaving Car-
ranza to his fate.
In times of peace, when he felt himself secure
under the power that every Government has,
his audacity and self-possession were some-
thing that inspired awe. When his enemies
would accuse him of having amassed a huge for-
tune in the Ministry, he would answer in a pub-
lished article, offering to hand over all his
gains to anybody who could locate them. He
was a poor man as poor as a monk in the
desert. At first this boldness succeeded with
the public; but after a while it produced onljj
laughter.
Carranza Sound at the Last
The most terrible thing in the history of
Mexico, and the principal cause, in my judg-
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY 139
ment, of its abnormal condition, is that the
country has always been governed by Generals,
or, rather, by ' ' rough riders ' 9 from the country
districts men expert with the machete who are
suddenly put in charge of bodies of soldiers.
There have been some civilian Governments,
but they have been few and far between, like
islands lost in the sea. As every Government
has been the product of a revolution, the man
in control has always been a guerrillero, bolder
than his comrades, or more clever in leading
and exploiting them.
For that reason, Carranza's policy of having
done with militarism once and for all, by put-
ting in the Presidential chair a thorough-going
civilian, was a sound one, and exactly what the
country needed. The fallacy in it was his choice
of an unsuitable and unpopular candidate im-
ported from abroad, and the violent method he
resorted to in carrying it out.
"Are there not people in Mexico," the reader
may ask, "sufficiently distinguished to make
up a purely civilian government, like those of
other countries?" Undoubtedly there are, and
perhaps there are more such promising civilians
than in any other republic of the Latin-
140 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Americas. Mexico differs from the other re-
publics in its racial composition. In the most
progressive Spanish-American nations, the
white element predominates and is in control of
public affairs. In Mexico, the native Indians
are so numerous and the whites so few, that
the latter, as a result of the revolutions, are,
one may say, slaves of the former. In Mexico
there are, roughly, a million and a half whites
against some fourteen million copper colored
people, Indians and half-breeds. The Indian
of pure blood is a passive element in the popu-
lation and figures as mere landscape in the
country. The real source of trouble is the half-
breed, who seems to have taken over the ap-
petites and evil passions of both races, without
inheriting any of the virtues of either.
Why an Intellectual Can't Be President
From the families of pure white stock come,
as a rule, the people of studious bent, the "in-
tellectuals," who contribute moral prestige to
their country. It is safe to say that Mexico
has given more eminent figures to Spanish lit-
erature than any other of the Spanish- Amer-
ican countries. The population in general has
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY 141
great fondness for art, an instinctive taste for
music, a passion for literature and a veritable
reverence for science. But these polished
classes the whites, that is have rarely seen
one of their number in the Presidential chair.
The distinguished man of education in Mex-
ico may be a famous professor, a great lawyer,
a splendid physician. He may become a jour-
nalist and pass on to Congress, as deputy or
Senator. He may even get as high as a Minis-
ter 's Portfolio. His chance for the Presidency
is very slight. To become President you must
have been a good horseman, deft with the
machete; and such experts are commonest
among the copper colored elements. Some In-
dian blood, at least, is necessary to be eligible
for the office of Chief Executive.
Had Clemenceau, Lloyd George, or any other
political leader of the Old World been born in
Mexico, the pinnacle of their ambition would
have been the office of Minister of Education in
a country without schools the only high posi-
tion reached by the many men of culture Mex-
ico has produced in past years.
I believe it impossible, while the nation is as
it is at present, for Mexico to have a govern-
142 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
ment made up of civilians. There is no lack of
people of ability. They can be counted by the
dozen; but they live shut up in their houses,
avoiding direct contact with politics, or serving
in positions under the triumphant wielders of
the machete. You find them wandering about
abroad, trying often to get a place back home,
but feeling that their efforts will prove fruit-
less.
Force Needed to Protect Civilians
Let us suppose it were possible without revo-
lution to work the miracle of constituting a
government of distinguished peaceful civilians.
I take it for granted that such a government
would be elected by constitutional means, for
if it came into power by revolution, the Gen-
erals, and not the civilians, would surely con-
trol it. Once it got into power, to sustain itself
and do something useful, it would have to de-
pend for its strength on a national army. The
first job would be to suppress the old abuses,
correcting the easy-going manner the officials,
from the Minister down to the humblest tax
collector, have in handling public money; prose-
cuting thieves and grafters, and eliminating
CONDITION OP THE COUNTRY 143
corruption from the administrative bureaus.
This would create a host of discontented peo-
ple; and we know what people do in Mexico
when they are dissatisfied with the Govern-
ment : they rise against it, and there are always
people ready to join such an insurrection.
An army would be needed to protect our Gov-
ernment of illustrious civilians, and that army
would have to be commanded by somebody,
some General or other, a General Martinez, or
a General Perez. That General would have to
be somebody different from any General ever
heard of in Mexico so far ; otherwise he would
surely act as logically as all the famous Gen-
erals Mexico has had since the time she won
her independence.
"I am the man who keeps this Government
going. It's only fair that I should put these
pikers out of office and run things myself. Why
should I let these fellows put anything over
on me?"
And the government of honest men, of "fath-
ers of their country," would be out of business
within a year.
144 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The Strength of Militarism
Militarism is stronger in the Mexico of the
present than it was in the Germany of William
II. It is a militarism in plain clothes and frock
coats, Generals, Colonels and Captains, who go
about like other people, insisting on your call-
ing them citizens and who remind you that
before the revolution of 1914 they were simple
civilians. These men form a caste apart in the
population. They have their idols, and these
idols they are anxious to impose upon the coun-
try as a step to power.
Many people have hoped that the fall of
Carranza might mark the beginning of a move-
ment of regeneration. We shall soon be hear-
ing high-sounding phrases from this Mexican
militarism with so much of the literary and
bombastic in the language it speaks. The vic-
tors will be talking of "democracy, which be-
gins its career from this moment," of "the
bright future opening before our country," of
"the immediate realization of the promises of
the revolution," and so on. Lies and poppy-
cock, all such chatter!
The present revolution may be described aB
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY 145
the uprising of two Generals aspiring to the
Presidency against an energetic and stubborn
President bent on imposing his own civilian can-
didate by violent means. There is nothing else
to it. If Carranza had desisted from his pur-
pose of forcing Bonillas on the country there
would have been no insurrection. Mexico can
hope for nothing new out of it, nor can those
who suffer from the perpetual disorder in the
nation, which really deserves far kinder for-
tune, justifiably expect any immediate change
for the better.
Carranza may have been an evil influence,
but his conquerors are men of the same school,
without perhaps his vigor and persistence of
personality. It is useless to expect anything
now from men like Obregon and Don Pablo
Gonzalez. You might as well try to make a new
suit of clothes out of cloth already rotting and
moth-eaten. These two men are well-known
quantities. They will surprise nobody. As for
Don Pablo, some people laugh at him for his
insignificance ; others are suspicious of his enig-
matic good nature. Obregon is an impulsive,
erratic person, and the people who know him
best arc not, despite his general popularity,
146 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
convinced that he was born to lead a nation.
That kind of man would be a delicious spec-
tacle in the Presidency of a republic. The
thought of him would surely cause a stampede
of people elsewhere to go and live in Mexico.
De la Huerta Will He Succeed?
The only "new man" the recent revolution
has brought into notice is Adolfo de la Huerta,
Governor of Sonora. I do not know de la
Huerta personally, but friends of mine who
are friends of his have talked to me about him.
He is a cultivated and enthusiastic young man
of high aspirations, who seems to have kept
himself free from the blemish of politics of the
Mexican style. His attitude toward Carranza
was a noble and courageous one. He was the
first man to rise in insurrection and take per-
sonal responsibility therefor, and at first it
seemed that luck was going against him.
He has traveled and lived abroad, a valuable
asset in a country where the rulers generally
have never crossed the national frontiers. He
was Consul for some time in New York. Be-
fore this revolution began his friends knew of
him only that he was fond of art, especially of
CONDITION OP THE COUNTRY 147
music, and that -be was devoting himself en-
thusiastically to the cultivation of his voice, a
rather attractive tenor.
This young man reminds one of a virgin lost
in a crowd of rabid and shrewd old hags who
think they can become young again by rubbing
against her. Who knows whether this man can
resist the contamination of his environment?
"Then there is no way out for Mexico?" my
reader may ask.
Yes, there is probably a way out, but I do
not know what it is. I simply am sure that
there is one. I am an optimist. In this world
everything adjusts itself, sometimes well and
sometimes badly, but eventually things turn out
all right. Life is stronger than the barbarism
and stupidity of men. Sometimes the remedy
is pleasant to the taste, sometimes it is bitter
as gall ; but in the end things fall into that or-
derly rhythm without which life is impossible.
VH. THE GENERALS
I MUST begin this chapter with a story.
In the second decade of the nineteenth
century, when Ferdinand VII. of Spain de-
stroyed the constitutional regime and restored
the absolute monarchy, there was, so people
say, a very wretched actor playing in a comedy
theater in Madrid. He was not merely a bad
actor. His ineptitude surpassed anything that
the public of the Spanish capital had ever seen.
When things were getting past the limit of en-
durance, a plot was hatched to drive him off the
stage one evening with a fusillade of potatoes.
But the actor, who in his way was no fool, man-
aged to get wind of what was in store for him
and made arrangements to avoid it.
"Long live the absolute monarchy!" he
shouted, stepping forward on the stage. "Down
with the Liberals!" And the audience in the
theater fell into abashed silence. Who dared at-
tack a man with such words on his lips? Any
hostile demonstration would have been inter-
preted as an act of treason to the King.
148
THE GENERALS 149
Defenders of Present Mexican Rule
A device somewhat similar has been tried
with me by a number of people who find it to
their personal interest to support the present
Government in Mexico. And it will, in the fu-
ture, be tried by many, very many others, by
everybody in fact who thinks it will help him
along in his business to win the gratitude of
the ruling clique in that country by rushing to
its defense here.*
"He is attacking Latin America, " they shout,
like the comedian of Madrid. "He is throw-
ing mud at people who speak his own language
and are of his own flesh and blood I"
Now, in my long career as a writer, I have
done plenty of things that will protect me, with
some to spare, from any such childish insults.
In the last twenty years I have written a great
deal in defense of the Spanish-American na-
tions, and I have advertised in many countries
all that Spanish civilization has done and is
doing in the New World.
I have addressed not only audiences that
speak Spanish. Why persuade people who are
already convinced? I have spread my ideas in
150 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
countries of different languages. Many cities
of the United States have heard lectures of
mine on Spanish-American culture. I have
spoken in its defense even in Mexico itself
not the pleasantest of tasks by any means ; for
there, apart from a small minority of excep-
tional people, the public as a whole, under the
influence of a defective education, deifies the
Indian, despite all his cannibalistic and heart-
eating traditions, endows him with a whole set
of historic virtues and reviles the Spaniard
who first planted on the country's soil the
standard of Christian civilization.
The " Gunmen Who Exploit Mexico"
It is usual for people who feel themselves in
the wrong and don't know how to get out of
their mess to confuse issues by distorting their
antagonist's words. That trick will not work
with me. I say exactly what I think, and it is
useless to pretend I have said what I did not
say and will never say. Latin America (within
which the Mexican nation chances to be situ-
ated) is one thing. But the crowd of gunmen
which is exploiting and dishonoring the poor
people of Mexico is quite another.
THE GENERALS 151
I shall always defend the independence and
dignity of the nations that partake of my na-
tive blood, but the mere fact that a gang of
guerrillas, with a grip on the throat of Mexico,
happens to use my language to express its col-
lective egotism and ambition is not sufficient to
win my support. In my works I fought Ger-*
man militarism tooth and nail because I consid-
ered it a curse on the world. Must I compro-
mise, then, with Mexican militarism just be-
cause, as compared with the German, that mili-
tarism is something grotesque and absurd!
For the very reason that I am a Spaniard,
and love Latin America, I feel in honor bound
to combat that pop-gun terrorism which is dis-
crediting everybody of Spanish race. If the
Mexico of Obregon, of Villa, of the rest of them,
were located at the other end of the American
continent, in Tierra del Fuego, let us say, we
could let it fume in peace. The fact is, however,
that Mexico borders on the United States, the
most powerful nation in the world at the pres-
ent moment. Mexico, in its revolutionary
greed, has involved England, France, and all
the countries which make up world opinion.
And the disgrace falls back upon every one of
152 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
us who, by ties of Spanish blood, feel associated
with that unhappy people.
In a subsequent article on " Mexico and
Latin America," I shall say something about
the damage which the abnormal state of affairs
in Mexico, by reason of the Spanish language
of that country, does to the prestige of Span-
iards in general and particularly of the Span-
ish-speaking States of the Americas. Human-
ity, as a whole, does not know geography. It
generalizes dangerously in its judgments of na-
tions and races. Most people, when they think
of poor Mexico, with one stupid revolution suc-
ceeded by a more stupid one, take no trouble to
distinguish that country from Argentina, Bra-
zil, Chile, or Uruguay. "The usual Latin
American stuff ! What can you expect? ' '
Truth Improper for Export
There is only one way to remove such false
impressions, and that is to tell the truth. Yes,
the truth! But Truth is the last lady on earth
that some people care to be introduced to. A
few days ago I met a Mexican who furnished
me with some of the data I used in my articles.
I was not writing a novel. All those stories, all
THE GENERALS 153
that gossip, all that talk about graft and rob-
bery, I got either in Mexico or from Mexicans.
' ' It 's a shame ! " he said to me. * * Those articles
of yours are a disaster for Mexico !" ''Wait a
minute!" I said. "For Mexico, or for the peo-
ple who are bossing and robbing Mexico? If
the latter, I tell you frankly, I'm tickled to
death. I wanted to get those fellows! How-
ever, that 's not the point. Was I, or was I not,
telling the truth f "
I could see by the expression on his face that
he was going to say it was not all true. But he
remembered then that a number of the items
had come from no one but himself. "It was
the truth," he answered with conviction. "But
there are truths and truths. The truth we can
tell to our friends. But do you have to go
shouting it from the housetops?" And he
added, after a moment's reflection, as though
something brilliant had occurred to him : ' ' You
might have kept those articles for Spain. "We
don't mind what people think over there. But
publish them in the United States ... Of all
places ... !"
The reader will get the point. The truth about
actual conditions in Mexico is not considered
154 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
down there as proper goods for export to the
United States. As for the opposite of the truth
export all you want, and no questions asked !
But any one who describes things as they are
is an enemy of Mexico!
A Militarism Based on Disorder
Perhaps I should not stress the comparison
between German militarism and the militarism
of Mexican brand. German militarism seems
to have gone forever; but that of Mexico is in
the flush of youth, and it has a long and busy
life ahead of it.
German militarism was based on tradition,
on hierarchy, on order, and besides, it origin-
ated in the victories of 1871 and in the conquests
of territory those victories resulted in. Mexican
militarism is based on disorder, on the sudden
attack boldly conceived, on the insurrection con-
sidered as a means of advancement. In its
whole history, Mexican militarism shows only
a series of civil wars, resulting in execution
for private citizens, plundering for towns, de-
struction for the National Railways. We have
yet to see what it could show, in the way of in-
THE GENERALS 155
telligence and professional skill, if it had to
deal with an attack from abroad.
The German Generals set up an Emperor
who was Emperor once for all, and passed the
office on to his sons. The Mexican Generals
set up a republican Emperor, from time to time,
in accord with their own desires and ambitions.
Yesterday it was Carranza, "Our First Chief, "
"Our Beloved Leader" but for the moment,
and all rights reserved to kick him out and
"suicide" him, if necessary! To-day it is
Obregon, hail-fellow-well-met, the chief with a
smile and a slap on the back for everybody!
And to-morrow, somebody else, any one at all,
provided he promises to give what his prede-
cessor failed to give, because there are not
enough easy berths in the Mexican Government
to accommodate all who would like to fill one.
Everybody's Generals
In former times there were, in Mexico, only
such Generals as belonged to the regular army,
soldiers by profession, like the professional
soldiers of every other country. Now there
are Generals and Generals! There are Gener-
als appointed by Carranza. There are Gener-
156 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
als created by Villa. There are Generals manu-
factured by Felix Diaz. There are Generals
counterfeited by Zapata. Who is not a General
down there? During my visit in Mexico City,
whenever I was introduced to a simple Colonel,
I rubbed my eyes for a second look, and al-
most with pity for the poor fellow. "What's
wrong with this man?" I thought. "He's not
even a Brigadier."
Another point of difference between militar-
ism in Europe and that of Mexico ! In the old
world, the General carries a sword and swears
by it. The Mexican General in the make-up
supplied by the revolution, does not know what
a sword is. He never wore one. He carries a
revolver in his belt, and I can imagine him
swearing a theatrical oath: "By my six-
shooter!"
Whether Generals or Colonels, they are all
boys, scarcely of voting age, boys scandalously
immature and still infected, for the most part,
with the bellicose aggressiveness and perver-
sity of the youngster in the preparatory school.
Most of them held small jobs under the Gov-
ernment of Porfirio Diaz ; or else they were or-
dinary laborers, or even idlers, ne'er-do-wells,
THE GENERALS 157
who enlisted under the revolutionary banner
and managed to win the little gold eagle which
is the symbol of their present grade.
The Thrill of Catchwords
The highest original social rank that I f onnd
represented among the Generals was that of
university student. Scattered among the few
officers of urban origin there are Generals who
were formerly rancheros, or cowboys from
the cattle ranches. These illiterate rustics lis-
ten to their city-bred comrades with wide open
mouths, and kindle at every mention of the
words ' ' liberty, " ' ' democracy, " " redistribu-
tion of property,'' and so on phrases they do
not understand at all, but which send thrills of
sacred consecration up and down their backs
whenever they hear them.
All these Generals boast of their humble ori-
gin, and go out of their way to refer to it as
a title to distinction. Some of them are "So-
cialist Generals," while others claim even to
be Bolshevists. However, their "comrades" of
the rank and file must be careful not to carry
the principles of brotherly love into matters of
discipline. The "Citizen General" is quite
158 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
capable of ordering a hundred executions or so
just to "keep order." The Generals, as a rule,
ihate uniforms. Many of them never owned
one. They pin the gold eagle to a coat lapel
or to their enormous felt hat, and they are
ready for dress parade.
Their Wonderful Revolvers
The General's outfit has one other distinc-
tive mark the revolver. I remember that, as
a boy, I used to notice how Generals in Spain,
France and other European countries, when
tbsy were in citizen clothes, wore red sashes
under their waistcoats. This was an indication
of rank; and when they wished to be recog-
nized they simply lifted the flaps of their vests.
The Mexican General also has a sash, but a
sash of tanned leather, a "Sam Brown" affair,
stuffed with fifty cartridges or more, and a re-
volver usually worn in back. When, as you
walk down a Mexican street, you meet a gen-
tleman with the lower part of his vest unbut-
toned, just enough to show the belt and the car-
tridges, you cannot be mistaken. He is a Gen-
eral, or at least a Colonel, "of the revolution."
He is taking his pistol out for a constitutional.
THE GENERALS 19
And what guns they wear ! If you have never
seen the revolvers of the Mexican War Lords,
your education is still incomplete. The wildest
dreams of the most delirious German fire-eater
who ever lived are surpassed by realities in
Mexico. There are machine-gun pistols. There
are pistols with folding stocks that can be in-
stantaneously transformed into rifles. There
are large-bore pistols made for firing explosive
bullets. I left the country without getting to
see the famous "papa and mamma" pistols.
But I was assured by people whom I trust that
there are pistols in Mexico which when they are
discharged say "papa" and "mamma," like
the mechanical dolls of the toy shops. Some
of them even play a piece of music.
The Dueling Type
At times you meet a short, hollow-chested,
neurotic-looking fellow fine points, these in a
regular soldier. You wonder whether that is
a man or what in the world it is. There is no
doubt in this case either. This time it is a
pistol taking a General out to walk. Then
again you are sitting in a train and suddenly
you start with surprise. A General has just
160 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
vanished through a little door marked ' ' Gentle-
men," but before hurrying away he has taken
off his belt and parked his artillery on the seat
beside you.
The arguments that spring up at all hours
of day and night between these armed men are
a source of danger not only to themselves but
to the public. At best one General kills an-
other at high noon in some candy store on the
principal street of the city, and nobody arrests
him. Then again two Generals will open fire
in the middle of a public park, and the cannon-
ade does not stop until all their ammunition
has been exhausted. A matter of thirty or
forty minutes, perhaps, and no casualties
unless perhaps some passerby, not knowing
that two Generals are scowling at each other
in that particular place, runs into a bullet be-
fore he can get away.
But Everybody Totes a Gun
To be fair to the Generals, I must add that
they are not the only people in Mexico who
carry guns. Revolvers are as indispensable as
neckties to a gentleman's wardrobe. Mexico
City since the revolution began has lived the
THE GENERALS 161
life of a dime novel. The " movie" men do
not have to rack their brains for subjects. They
read the papers ; murders, assassinations, high-
way robberies, kidnapings, bands of masked
men ! The capital, no less, was the home of the
famous "Band of the Gray Car." The Mex-
ican public has always supposed that gang to
have been in the employ of Generals. People
are even more specific. They allege that its
leader was one of the present candidates for
the Presidency of the republic.
The only difference between General and
civilian, in the matter of revolvers, is that the
Generals wear their guns in full view while
ordinary people keep them half concealed. The
revolver is used for all sorts of purposes.
Whenever I was at a picnic in the country and
a bottle had to be opened, some friend was sure
suddenly to produce a pistol. "It's so much
simpler, you see." And civilian or soldier, as
he might chance to be, he would hammer away
at the metal top of the bottle until it came off.
And the weapon was loaded all the time.
162 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Explosive Under Trappings
Mexico is a blessed country ! There is some-
thing affable, vehement even, about its cour-
tesy. When a friend shakes hands with you
he throws one arm over your shoulder. And I
adopted the manner myself. But when I got my
arm over the shoulder of an acquaintance I
used, out of curiosity, to let my hand fall gradu-
ally downward toward his belt. It never got
quite that far. In the neighborhood of the
man's waist I would always encounter a sort
of metallic framework. It was the revolver and
its sheath, along with a whole magazine of car-
tridges. The Mexican revolver is intended for
the long-drawn-out battle. It required a lav-
ish supply of munitions.
For the life of me I could never find out
whether the Dean of the university also carried
a gun. The sly fox always avoided my em-
brace and his studious precautions against any
such contingency left me convinced that my
suspicions of him were well founded. ' ' Oh, my
dear So-and-so, so glad to see you!" And I
went around embracing them all one after the
other and they all had the inevitable revolver.
THE GENERALS 163
When I say all, I mean all Ministers, Under
Secretaries, Journalists, Deputies and Sena-
tors, and these latter with good reason, because
debates in Congress often end with an exchange
of a bullet or two outside the chambers.
Carranza Wore One, Too
Even Carranza, as President of the republic,
used to carry, under his severe ceremonial frock
coat, a horse-pistol with an extra large supply
of munitions. Poor Don Venustiano! He
knew his times and his people only too well!
He felt himself surrounded by experts in dar
la vuelta, by people only too ready to bite the
hand that was feeding them. He was sure that,
sooner or later, he would have to defend his
own life. What, probably, he never foresaw
was that the men trusted to guard him would
rouse him one night with cries of "Viva Obre-
gon!", empty their guns into him point blank,
and then assert that he had died a suicide ! Car-
ranza a suicide! Carranza, the most stubborn
man in the world, the "mule in the President's
parlor/' as his enemies used to say! For any
one who knew Carranza, that suicide story is
164 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
the most brazen, the most impudent, calumny
that could ever have been cooked up.
This gang of country louts and roisterers,
who call themselves Generals and are running
the country for what there is in it, are for the
moment worshipers of Obregon. Obregon is
one of them. I might call him, even, the Mex-
ican General par excellence; and his followers
adore him because in him they see their own
image triumphant. They all pretend to be in-
sulted if you accuse them of militarism. Mili-
tarists? Not they! They are "revolution-
aries!" They are, and they are going to re-
main, simple ' ' citizens ' ' !
The Revolutionary Caste
Nevertheless, they form a caste apart from
the rest of the nation. They support and pro-
tect one another; and now again to get one of
their number in power, they have gone back
to the barracks, or to the mountains, to incite
existing troops to mutiny, or to raise new
forces, and produce a revolution that is Kevolu-
tion No. 64 in the course of a single century!
Despite all his defects Carranza, during the
last months of his life, had a sound conception
THE GENERALS 165
of what his country needed. He wanted to cre-
ate a government of civilians; he wanted to
hand the Presidency over to a man who had
never been in the army. He was determined to
have done with Generals and militarism once
and for all. As the leader of a long revolution-
ary war he knew better than any one else what
Mexican militarism means for that country.
But he chose a bad candidate and was over-
confident of his own strength. He forgot that
treason is a fundamental in Mexican national
politics, and the reward for his noble endeavor
has been defeat and assassination!
At this moment militarism is in higher as-
cendancy in Mexico than ever before. The
civilian Provisional President, Adolfo de la
Huerta, well meaning and estimable youth that
he is, represents only an interlude in Mexican
affairs. Should he try to impose his own ideas
upon the course of events he would fall over
night. Militarism is in command in Mexico,
and militarism means Obregon.
Obregon's Chances
"How about the rest of the country ?" some
one may ask.
166 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The rest of the country for yeafrs past has
not figured in political intrigue, and it has no
desire to figure there. The floor is held now
by those who have succeeded in the recent insur-
rection, by militarists or by civilians standing
with the militarists in the hope of getting some
berth which only a civilian can fill.
It will be useless for Obregon to talk of "free
speech." If he were a newcomer in Mexican
life, a few fools might believe him. But Obre-
gon is only too well known. Nobody has for-
gotten the victims he once ordered his sub-
ordinates to shoot, nor the storekeepers he set
to sweeping the streets, nor the respectable
prisoners he herded in cattle cars. Obregon is
a Proconsul of the Eoman decadence, when au-
thorities used to write jokes and puns around
their signatures to death warrants. Nobody
in Mexico is going to do any talking. The
closed mouth is the symbol of prudence there.
"But will Obregon hold the support of the
militarists I"
No!
It is the part of logic to say "No." Car-
ranza had far greater prestige than Obregon
will ever have. He was "Leader" and "First
THE GENERALS 167
Chief" in reality! He could not find enough
plums to go around! And he was murdered!
The moment Obregon is unable to make good
on all the promises he has made, and to satisfy
all the ambitions he has aroused, the moment
his offices are all filled and many of his present
friends are left out, the disappointed people
will unite with other disappointed people, the
cry of "Death to Obregon! Viva Tom or Dick
or Harry !" will be raised and Mexico will
have one revolution more. As I shall show in
another article on "The Mexican Army," the
elements for such a new revolution will not be
lacking.
"But what is your idea, then," several
friends of mine have asked, ' ' in attacking Mex-
ican militarism with such harsh revelations!"
The answer is easy. I want to contribute all
I can toward the destruction of that militarism,
which is the principal cause of the backward-
ness and anarchical state of affairs in which
Mexico is living. So long as that country does
not suppress its Generals, who are everlasting-
ly bent on tyrannizing over it, so long as it is
not ruled by pacific citizens able to think in
modern terms, Mexico will remain a sad ex-
168 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
ception, an object of loathing and disgust,
among all civilized peoples. The well-to-do
classes of Mexico have fled the country and are
wanderers on the face of the earth. The mid-
dle and professional classes have continued
living at home, but under deplorable conditions,
and either not daring to speak at all, or saying
what they really think in as low a voice as
possible. What else can they do, if militarism
is in the saddle? Where can they find protec-
tion, if the strongest portion of the people, kept
in ignorance, formerly by the priests and now
by Generals calling themselves liberators, fol-
low the military men blindly on receipt of
a rifle and on a promise of $2 a day, and a free
hand?
I have with me a number of letters from
Mexicans, written to me before I went to Mex-<
ico and after I got there. They read like the
lamentations of slaves, denouncing the crimes
of their oppressors and doubting whether there
will ever be justice in that country. Many of
the letters contain insults addressed to me, and
I shall keep them because of those insults, be-
cause of their delightful injustice. When I was
noticed at the capital in the company of men
THE GENERALS 169
in the Government my correspondents thought
I had "sold out to the oppressors of the real
Mexico." They imagined I was going to raise
a paean of eulogy in honor of Carranza and the
militarism which was doing so much wrong to
the nation and was finally to turn against its
chief. They were looking for an avenger to
denounce their oppressors, and they foresaw in
me one more defender of tyranny.
I imagine that by this time they have realized
their mistake. I had to frequent the circles of
those in power to see things in their true light
Now I have seen what I wanted to see, and I
go on with my work.
Wanted, an Aroused Public Opinion
"And what is that work?" you ask.
Simply to tell the truth to the damage of
triumphant militarism! And if I should suc-
ceed in the task it would be a great day for
Mexico ! A writer, to be sure, is a small man
for such a big job. But just as I have spoken
here in the United States I shall go on speak-
ing in Europe and everywhere else. And who
knows ? German militarism was a far stronger
and a far less ridiculous thing. But no slight
170 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
influence on fts ultimate destruction came from
the uprising of public opinion against it
throughout the world. I shall work to create
such a public opinion, to isolate the militarism
in Mexico, to deprive it of all mistaken support
abroad. Then we shall see whether it grows
stronger or weaker; whether finally it does not
die without a friend in the world ; whether the
peace-loving and intelligent classes of people
in Mexico must go on living in oppression and
humiliation as slaves to the first machetero
that comes along; whether they are not able to
govern themselves as people do in other mod-
ern countries !
And in this idea I shall go on with my % work
iinless the Mexican militarists take it into their
heads to " suicide" me, as they did Carranza.
THE MEXICAN ARMY
MEXICO once had a regular army that was
well organized and quite comparable to
the military establishments of other countries.
This army was demoralized, first, by the revolu-
tion of Madero. During the long civil struggle
led by Carranza it fell to pieces completely.
The so-called Federal Army was then abolished
as a dangerous institution created by Porfirio
Diaz. Even the officers' training schools, the
military academies, were closed. Anybody who
had ever held a commission as a Federal officer
was regarded with suspicion by the triumphant
revolutionaries.
The "army" now rampant in Mexico is made
up of the old revolutionary bands, gradually
whipped into the outward appearance of regi-
ments and led by former guerrilleros newly
baptized as Colonels. "When such regiments
are stationed in Mexico City or one of the large
towns they are equipped, after a fashion, with
uniforms, though the privates never quite suc-
171
172 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
ceed in all looking alike. On holidays the offi-
cers make a more dazzling display of scarfs
and gold lace than any other soldiers on earth,
and this bellicose splendor is often in grotesque
contrast with the oily skins and unkempt beards
that it adorns.
But in the outlying districts the soldier is an
ordinary peasant, with that enormous Mexican
sombrero which everybody knows, two well-
filled cartridge belts stretching bandoleer-
fashion from shoulders to waist and crossing
at the breast, and, finally, a rifle. Bayonets are
not used in the Mexican Army. The city bat-
talions sometimes carry them to piece out their
"uniform," but the soldiers do not know what
they are for. They are, in fact, of little sig-
nificance in Mexican warfare, a matter of long-
winded fusillades at limit range, the outcome
of which each General can interpret to his par-
ticular taste, reporting grand strategic concep-
tions or happy tactical maneuvers a la Na-
poleon, as he sees fit. The General with the
most cartridges and the greatest endurance in
firing them is the one who gets away with the
victory.
Obregon against Villa was a Joffre or a Foch
THE MEXICAN ARMY 173
so long as he had his back to the port of Vera
Cruz. Cartridges came in there every day
from the United States, for the American Gov-
ernment was backing Carranza, ungrateful and
unappreciative though the First Chief proved
to be. Villa, on the other hand, without any
support across the border, received no fire-
works at all. Eventually he had to decamp,
"routed" by the great one-armed strategist of
Celaya.
An Army of Both Sexes
The Mexican Army is composed of men and
women.
No one has ever decided conclusively which
of the sexes makes the better soldiers.
The Mexican takes his wife everywhere. He
is a sentimental chap, readily susceptible to
feminine charms and quite likely to be unfaith-
ful to the woman he has sworn to love and
cherish. But he cherishes her all the same.
His spouse goes with him into sorrow and joy.
She shares his comfort and his hardship.
When you are traveling on a Mexican rail-
road you can give odds that more or less con-
cealed somewhere on the train are the wives of
174 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
the engineer, the fireman, the brakeman and
the conductor. If you feel inclined to prove it,
just start a row with one of the trainmen. You
will at once have a hysterical woman on your
hands, shrieking at the top of her voice and
defending her "man" literally with tooth and
nail. If an accident ever happens to one of the
crew the most heartrending scenes result in-
evitably. A Mexican refuses to go anywhere
without his "old woman." This epithet is a
term of endearment. The "old woman" may
be twenty years old.
It is the same with the army.
To count the women you count the soldiers.
Every one of them has a wife, following the
regiment everywhere. Most often, also, he has
a number of children along.
In peace times in the capital you may see a
detachment with shouldered rifles on the way
to relieve guard or on an expedition into the
country. Just imagine ! Alongside the column
and keeping step with the men marches a line
of copper-colored women, wrapped in black
shawls. They are lean and wan, as though the
turmoil of that life, without rest or quiet, kept
all the flesh stripped from their bones. Each
THE MEXICAN ARMY 175
woman carries a basket on one arm. Trotting
along at her side are a number of barefoot
youngsters. Some of the little fellows are
naked. They keep smiling at their daddies,
but with a respectful eye out for the officer, a
sort of much-feared god, who is always shooing
them away when they run up to take their
father by the hand.
The "Soldierettes"
Around the barracks at certain hours of the
day the doorways and sidewalks are crowded
with women, sitting elbow to elbow there in
correct military alignment. With their black
shawls over light-colored dresses they remind
you of so many penguins lined up on the edge
of some cliff on the glacial oceans. Each of
these women they are dubbed "soldierettes"
by people of wit has a basket at her feet. She
has brought her " man's" dinner.
Eight there in the middle of the street, or it
may be in a railroad station or out in the open
fields, the soldier sits down on the ground with
his wife and children round him. And he eats
his meal with majestic deliberation and slow-
ness. The women are usually dirty, and often
176 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
they are in rags and tatters. The miserable
life they lead does not lend itself to personal
refinements. But the delicacy, the neatness and
even the primitive taste with which they pre-
pare these meals is something astonishing.
The basket contains, besides food, a large nap-
kin or tablecloth, so to speak. It has a colored
border, with wide fringes, so that the woman
can stretch it tight on the ground. The plates
and deep dishes are in earthenware, with
painted frets, suggesting the pottery of the
Aztecs.
After the soldier has eaten he gets up,
tightens his belt and takes his gun. The little
ones wipe their mouths and noses with their
knuckles and devotedly kiss their daddy's hand.
He pats them on the head in benediction.
"God keep you!" is his stock phrase of fare-
well in revolutionary times, "and here's hop-
ing they don't kill your papa!" The young-
sters do not understand, but the lean, copper-
colored woman standing there in her black
shawl lowers her head in fatalistic resigna-
tion. Death ! It is so easy to die in a country
of revolutions! That was what her other
"man" said as he went away never to come
THE MEXICAN ARMY 177
back. That was the way also with the "man"
before that one.
Faithful Unto Death Only
For the "soldierette" or "hard-tack," as
she is also called (the actual word is gal-
leta), is faithful beyond reproach to her
"man"; bnt she goes to another without the
slightest hesitation the moment her "husband"
is killed or throws her over. What good is a
"soldierette" without a soldier? Neither pas-
sion nor beauty figure in these unions. The
quality the Mexican soldier most values in his
"old woman" is her skill in finding something
to eat and in spreading the meal on the ground,
her ability to "stand up" under hard work.
When a soldier falls he wills his woman to
some more fortunate comrade in arms. Since
the Mexican Army takes men of all ages, fifteen-
year-old boys may be seen living with "hard-
tacks" old enough to be their mothers or their
grandmothers. And there are wrinkled old
men, with white stubble on their chins, who get
their meals from girls in their teens, whom
they have inherited from soldiers killed in some
previous skirmish.
178 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
It is during actual fighting in the field that
the "soldierette" gives proof of all her powers
of endurance and self-sacrifice. Many Mexican
Generals have thought of abolishing her, but
in ttie end they have had to compromise with
her and finally to seek her support. What else
can be done in an army destitute of a supply
and sanitary corps? The sick and the wounded
cannot be abandoned to chance. The "soldier-
ette ' ' makes up for more than one deficiency in
the Mexican military system.
Not only does she look after the soldier.
Sometimes her attention is needed by the chief.
"Have you a bite to spare f" the Captain
asks one of his men during a halt on march.
The officer, not provided as a rule with "hard-
tack/' is much worse off than the private.
6 i No, Captain, but the Indian will be back soon
and she'll be sure to have something. " The
"Indian" is another pet name used by the sol-
diers when they get tired of the "old woman."
Foragers of Sorts
When the troops are on the march the "sol-
dierettes" form the advance guard. They keep
several miles ahead, so that when the men
THE MEXICAN AEMY 179
arrive the fires will be burning and the meal
ready. The towns and villages are more afraid
of the women than of the soldiers themselves,
though the latter have only the vaguest notions
of property rights and the value of human life.
The "soldierette" will march for whole days
with a brat clinging to either hand, another in-
visible one awaiting its call into the world, a
pack of clothes and bedding on her head, and
often, to top off the outfit, a parrot.
With so much impedimenta you would think
that woman had trouble enough. In point of
fact, she passes over the country like a scourge
of God. Along her path not a tree remains
with a piece of fruit, not a garden with a tur-
nip, not a coop with a chicken, not a barnyard
with a pig. She sweeps everything before her,
and the landscape behind has the parched, bar-
ren aspect of the desert. It is as though a
plague of locusts had settled on the land. That
woman can pick up a good meal in sterile places
where any ordinary human being would starve.,
A village may have been sacked seven times in
one week. Give her the chance for an eighth
time over and she will turn you out a regular
Sunday dinner.
180 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Sometimes as they march long distances
ahead of their husbands the "soldierettes" of
one regiment will meet the "hard-tacks" of
another troop which is advancing to give battle.
If both bodies of women are not specially hun-
gry, if some previous pillage has satisfied all
immediate needs, the passions of patriotism
and politics find occasion to express themselves
in noble animosity. The women and children
throw sticks, stones and epithets at each other
till the males come up and start the real show.
More often, however, both crowds of "sol-
dierettes" are short on provisions of one kind
or another. Then they get together on friendly
terms. "People have got to live. Why should
civilians have to scratch each other's eyes
out?" And the ones who have food share it
with those who have only money. But Mexican
money is often worthless. They much prefer
to sell supplies for cartridges. The "men" of
the "soldierettes" are running low on ammuni-
tion. The Government troops, on the contrary,
have just received a fresh and lavish supply.
The Federal "soldierette" will walk back sev-
eral miles looking for her "man."
THE MEXICAN ARMY 181
"They won't take money, " she reports.
i ' They say you get nothing to eat unless you
can pay in cartridges." Her "man" expresses
no particular interest in the matter. He has
been in the same fix himself. "Well, here you
are, then!" And he passes over a handful of
.44s, one of which may kill him two hours later
in the day. The one thing certain is the dinner.
Death, at the worst, is only a possibility!
The Mexican's indifference to death is not
courage really. Courage is that positive com-
pulsion the man in commodious circumstances
feels when, voluntarily and fearlessly, he goes
out to meet self-sacrifice and danger. The
Mexican has, rather, a mere contempt for life.
It is fatalism, absence of fear, more exactly.
Death, no matter in how terrible a form, will
not prove much worse than life as he is living
it! That is the feeling.
Songs of the Army
Mexico is peopled by music lovers and its
inhabitants turn to poetry and song by instinct.
The most respected men in any regiment are
the ones who can play a guitar well and sing a
song for the bedtime hour. The musician's
182 MEXICO DT REVOLUTION
comrades look after him and vie with one an-
other in doing him favors. They keep him
away from the firing line, and their first
thought as a battle begins is to see that the
guitar is in a safe place. " What would happen
if we lost our music? "
Another curiosity ! With the exception of an
air sung by Villa's men called "The Cock-
roach'' (La Cucaracha), all the songs of the
revolution are named after women. There are
"La Adelita" and "La Valentina," for in-
stance. The "Valentina" is the "Marseillaise"
of the present-day Mexico. When you hear
that song around a Mexican camp, look out!
A revolution is about to break out. And yet
its lines are not so bloodthirsty after all. It is
the lament of a wandering drunkard address-
ing himself to a girl named Valentina! The
last stanza, however, is alone sufficient to justify
the immense popularity of the song:
Valentina, Valentina,
Eendido estoy a tus pies.
Si me han de matar maiiana,
Que me maten de una vez.
THE MEXICAN ARMY 183
"Valentina, Valentina, dead-drunk I lie at
your feet. If they are going to kill me to-mor-
row, they might as well kill me now."
The whole psychology of the Mexican people,
its fatalistic resignation, its contempt for
death, its acceptance of the misery in which it
is living, its inability to buck up and rise, is
worked into those last two lines. That is why
the song is loved so much. It expresses a na-
tional philosophy. "If I have to die to-mor-
row, I might as well die now."
Revolutionaries by Necessity
There is no fear that any Mexican revolution
will prove a fizzle for lack of men. It might
fail for lack of arms, for lack of cash, for lack
of understanding between its leaders. But men
it will always find in abundance.
The moment it is whispered around that a
revolution may break out peons begin to get
scarce around the plantations. Any number of
them prefer to risk hunger and thirst in the
desert, provided there is the chance of getting
into a town once in a while with a rifle and a
free hand !
Then there is the great mass of indifferent,
184 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
resigned people who fear not even death. Here
we find a great majority of the Mexican popu-
lation, which never start a revolution, but are
simply forced into it. "I was living on my
farm and bothering nobody,' 7 says an old
fighter. " First they took my cow; then they
took my horse. Finally I said to them: 'Well,
if you are going to take everything, give me a
rifle and I will go with you/ And my old
woman felt the same way about it. After all,
what else was there to do?" And so the civil
war got one more soldier and one more
" soldierette. "
The ignorance, the mental apathy, the irre-
sponsibility of these men, is something astound-
ing. They fight each other and they kill each
other without the slightest idea of why they are
doing it. Meanwhile the newspapers in the pay
of the Generals write pompously of the " enthu-
siastic troops of the revolution" and "the
sacred principles for which they are offering
their lives. "
There was a moment during the second
period of the great revolution when Villa was
fighting on one side, Carranza on another and
the government emanating from the Pact of
THE MEXICAN ARMY 185
Aguas-Calientes on still a third. Some of the
troops got mixed up as to whom they were
fighting for, and they were not sure which
viva to shout as they began their battle. The
point was this: If they cried "viva the wrong
person' 7 and the political situation kept
changing from hour to hour they might get a
volley from the troops beside or behind them.
"Say, who the devil are we for?" one soldier
asked of the man next to him as they fired their
first shots.
"How should I know?" was the answer.
"Better ask the Captain."
"And I wasn't sure myself," said that officer
to me, as he told me the story in Mexico a few
weeks ago.
Recruiting, Mexican Style
When a man fails to join an insurrection out
of fondness for firearms or out of fatalistic in-
difference, there are indirect ways of persuad-
ing him to become a soldier.
I know a Mexican General who enjoys a great
reputation among his admirers for his skill in
raising troops. "He takes to the mountains,"
they told me, "with one attendant and a few
186 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
rifles. He turns up at the end of the month
with 500 men. Give him two months and he
will have 5,000, and so on till he gets his army."
One evening when I was dining with the Gen-
eral in question he confided some of his trade
secrets as an organizer to me. I remember one
of his feats in particular. He had come to a
mining district to raise some troops. It was a
busy place, with everybody working, and wages
were good. Nobody wanted to be a soldier.
So, on the pretext that the operators were
"enemies of the common people," the General
had the entrances to the mines blown up. He
enlisted 300 men the following day and a thou-
sand before the end of the week. He told the
story, moreover, with a show of real pride.
At times these improvised soldiers exhibit a
heart-winning ingenuousness. One of them
during a battle was crouching with one knee on
the ground and firing away into the air with
the conscientious regularity of an honest fac-
tory hand kicking a f ootpress. He started with
a hundred cartridges. Every now and then he
would look at his bandoleers. ' ' That's forty ! ' '
"Now that's fifty-five !" When they were all
gone he got up and started for the rear. Meet-
THE MEXICAN ARMY 187
ing his Captain, he said: "Here, boss, here's
your gun!' 7 The Captain looked at him, but
did not understand. "My job's done. I burned
the whole hundred of them. Give the next
batch to somebody else. Equality, you under-
stand, boss! That's what revolution means. "
And he was off to look up the "old woman."
Such a concept of war is, of course, a ridicu-
lous one, and it is only fair to add that the
Mexican soldier kills and dies with absolute
indifference. The "soldierettes," poor beasts
of burden that they are, or incubators for sol-
diers and "soldierettes" of future revolutions,
also develop heroic courage under certain cir-
cumstances. They care as best they can for the
wounded falling on the field, and when their
"man" is killed they take up his gun and carry
on the fusillade. They have been known to
work strategems in battle worthy of the hero-
ines of antiquity.
Once in an action, where the regiment of men
was advancing along a road, I was told that
the "soldierettes" and all their children
marched along a parallel road. As the women
proceeded they began to brush the sun-parched
trail with branches they had cut from the trees.
188 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
A great cloud of dust arose, and the opposing
General was completely deceived. "They have
cavalry, . . . probably artillery!" And he or-
dered a retreat.
"Generalettes" for Generals
The Generals of the revolution feel that same
hankering for home life which makes the pri-
vate insist on his "hard-tack." The "Gen-
eralette" is as necessary to while away the dull
hours of bivouac as the "soldierette," and she
rides with her husband on his campaigns.
That is the way with Mexicans. I hope that
in my novel, "The Eagle and the Snake/' I
shall have room to analyze more thoroughly the
many contradictions in Mexican psychology.
A Mexican can be at one and the same time
both sentimental and cruel. He will burst into
tears at a sad story, and he will order out a
firing squad for an execution ; he is passionately
devoted to home and family, but he is never
satisfied unless he is tramping over mountains
and deserts in support of an insurrection.
Tradition also figures large in the minds of
country people, especially, in Mexico.
Villa is a perfect specimen of this latter type.
THE MEXICAN AEMY 189
Villa does not smoke. Villa does not drink.
His only weakness is women, and the presence
of a woman is enough, to upset him completely.
At the sight of one his massive lower jaw, but-
tressing that well-known Villa face, has been
known to drop, while a trace of foam began to
appear at his lips. One might suppose such a
man capable of carrying off a lady by main
force. Worse things than that figure in Villa's
biography. But, as a matter of fact, Villa is a
man of principle.
" Things have to be done proper like," says
he, "the way God and Holy Mother Church
commands."
And when he finds a woman to his liking he
marries her with all the established rites and
the greatest possible solemnity.
Once he promoted an Indian curate, a rela-
tive of his, to be Bishop to celebrate in suitable
dignity, miter and all, his marriage to a Mexi-
can stenographer. The employee in charge of
the Government marriage register brought his
book to the ceremony, and Villa, who can write
nothing but his name, affixed his signature to
the matrimonial record. Then he went off with
Ms bride to the Pullman car in which he used to
190 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
live all the time, much, as the old-fashioned ban-
dit chiefs used to live in their dog tents. The
next day, when Villa woke np in the morning,
the first thing he thought of was to send for the
marriage license man and his book. That poor
devil obeyed the summons, trembling like a
leaf, and sure that his time had come.
"You have that book, eh? ... Well, . . .
show me the page !"
The record in question was pointed out to
him and the text explained. At last he was con-
vinced, because he recognized his own signa-
ture. And he calmly tore out the leaf, folded it
up and put it in his purse.
At last his conscience was clear!
He was a man of morals, with respect for es-
tablished institutions. He was faithful to his
first wife, his real wife, and he intended to re-
main so. He was not going to leave any docu-
ments around that some day might cause a
scandal.
IX. MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE
THE Mexican capital is a city of gloom.
In daytime, under a dazzling sun and a
sky of deep blue, it has movement and anima-
tion. Besides, pretty women, with great deep
eyes and golden complexions, are going about
the streets. But when the night shuts down
Mexico City resumes its mood of somber
melancholy.
This quality of sadness and loneliness is only
intensified by the brilliant lighting of the
streets. Some ancient towns seem to shake off
their habitual gloom when, after sunset, they
are shrouded in romantic semi-darkness. But
Mexico is one of the best lighted cities in the
world. New York may surpass it in its Great
White Way with its electrical advertisements,
but the majority of New York streets are pitch
dark as compared with those of the Mexican
capital.
Electricity costs very little there. It comes
from a waterfall of enormous horse power that
191
192 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
lights all the cities of the Mexican plateau and
drives the machinery in the factories and
mines. That is why the street lighting of Mex-
ico City is the best in the world. Every twenty-
five feet there is an iron column with five large
globes. The streets blaze like a conflagration.
The lamps seem to meet a few yards ahead of
you, shutting you in between two narrowing
walls of fire.
The Night Lonesomeness
And underneath all this splendor, as intense
as the brightness of noontime solitude, noth-
ing, emptiness, made more acutely notice-
able by the occasional appearance of some pas-
ser-by. In this city of brightness the after-
dinner problem of any one unable to go to a
theater is something maddening. "What can
I do ? Where can I go ? "
I used to go for a walk every night along the
principal avenue of the city, wincing under the
blinding glare. Before long I oanae to know
by sight all my habitual companions on this
promenade, much as you come to know by sight
the people who eat regularly in your restaurant
or stop at your hotel.
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 193
One of them was a dog.
It was the same dog every night, and after
several meetings I felt like wishing him good
evening.
There was also a man escorting his wife
the same man and the same wife each time >
and at the end, though I had never spoken to
them, I felt that I had known them all my life.
They did not miss an evening. And other
habitues went by along this great avenue, so
royally illuminated, but as deserted as a village
road families returning from some party,
some tertulia, loitering pairs of lovers, or
hurrying taxicabs.
Every so often a small motionless group of
people the entrance to some theater or movie
show ! Beyond them silence again and solitude !
Again that electric lighted vacuum in which
your footsteps echoed as in a tomb.
I found Mexico a very silent city.
Past Gaiety of the Diaz Regime
People who have lived there all their lives
assured me that in former times it was not like
that. They said that under Diaz this city,
which a famous traveler of the era of Spanish
194 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
rule referred to as the "City of Palaces," had
a night life as elegant and amusing as any great
metropolis in the world.
I am inclined to believe them. In those days
there was peace and prosperity, though liberty
may not have been so great. People could go
out on the streets at night without running very
serious risks. But now, after ten years of per-
petual upheaval, bad business, and personal in-
security for any one not connected with the rev-
olutionary profession, how can the capital avoid
an appearance of sadness and discouragement?
Besides, the old wealthy families which sup-
ported the amusements of other days have now
been reduced to poverty or else they have gone
abroad into exile far from Mexico. The newly
rich are not anxious to display their wealth.
They affect very modest ways of living, to
avoid any questions as to how they may have
made so much money in such a very short time.
The worst of it is that the present situation
offers no outlook toward better things. People
had gotten used to life under Carranza, the way
you get used to a disease. He was bad enough,
but a new revolution would make things worse !
Many optimists believed there would be no
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 195
more violent overturns of Governments. But
the present revolution came all the same. And
we may be sure it will not be the last. It is an
insurrection led by a number of different men
for a single Presidency. In it are the seeds of
several other revolutions, which will follow at
greater or lesser intervals of time.
I can imagine all that the faithful inhabitants
of Mexico, who never deserted their country,
have seen and suffered in these last years. And
so I can understand why it is they stick to their
houses at night and never go out except for
some very urgent reason.
Germanism in Mexico
I do not attach so much importance to those
early days of the great revolution's triumph,
when the houses of the rich were pillaged and
libraries and works of art were destroyed.
Many revolutions, in the flush of first success,
have been marred by episodes like these. The
poor native, neglected by everybody, conserva^
tives and liberals alike, had never been sent to
school, save to the school of violence. He
thought he was within his rights in tearing
books to pieces and burning or selling them.
196 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
A carbine meant more than a volume in Ms
eyes. The native looks around him in Mexico,
and his peasant's insight into things tells him
that it is not by reading books that people get
to power and rule over other men. He sees that
the successful man is the man on a bronco, with
a lasso coiled around the horn of his saddle, a
rifle slung over his shoulder and a machete
dangling from his fist.
The discouraging thing is that the pardon-
able initial violence of the revolution was fol-
lowed by the systematic, calculated violence of
so-called peace, one act following another like
the scenes on a theater program cold-blooded
outrages like those German militarism planned
in Europe to overawe its foes with terror. The
peaceful, harmless persons who remained in
Mexico lived through all that. It was to escape
all that that so many families fled to New York,
Los Angeles, Paris, London or Madrid.
Every triumphant General moved into the
house that he liked best; and the domestic in-
stincts of the Mexican guerrillero, which blend
with his harsh and cruel disposition, were
turned loose without any restraint. "This au-
tomobile for the 'old woman.' " "This parlor
MEXICO 'S OMINOUS SILENCE 197
set is just what mi India has been looking
for." That was the case with the German sol-
diers in the French cities. They plundered, but
with the preferences of their wives and daugh-
ters in mind.
Public and Private Robbery
When people have been on a visit to some
conqueror's mansion in Mexico City they often
go away nudging each other: "Did you notice?
That furniture in the dining-room used to be-
long to*So-and-So. ' ' There are women who quite
openly wear famous gems given them by their
husbands, but which once belonged to other wo-
men. The more prudent ones proceed some-
what differently. A popular actress in Mexico,
whose mission it was in recent years to receive
love letters from the Generals, along with
jewels from the booty of revolution, has a gold-
smith working for her who does nothing but
transform lockets into rings and rings into
breastpins. In the new form it will be harder
for the original owners of the gems to identify
them.
In addition, there was robbery under private
management, with all the mystery and intrigue
198 MEXICO IN KEVOLUTION
familiar in the detective story and the movie
drama. Especially notorious and terrifying
was the "Band of the Gray Car."
A well-to-do family, venturing to leave home
for an evening call, on returning would find the
house open, all the trunks and safes forced,
every drawer turned topsy-turvy, and the ser-
vants bound and gagged. On a table would be
a note : "Do not report to the police. Silence is
golden. Truly yours, The Band of the Gray
Car." That would be the end of the matter.
People would talk, of course, but in secret, with
their friends. This Band dealt particularly
with the homes of wealthy exiles, where such
operations could be conducted with virtual im-
punity. Any passer-by, seeing the formidable
vehicle parked in front of a house, would do his
best to get as far away as possible, and as soon
as possible.
There was good reason for fearing the ter-
rible car. Its joy riders, though ordinary ban-
dits themselves, proved to be all-powerful. The
active leader of the Band, according to common
report, was a young General, with a suspicious
record and notorious morals, who kept a num-
ber of actresses supplied with jewelry. Accord-
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 199
ing to the same gossip, the " man-higher-up " in
the whole business and at this point one seems
to enter fairy land was no less than one of the
candidates for the Presidency, at the time chief
of police.
Gray Car an Unsolved Mystery
I repeat that the story is hard to swallow,
and I refuse to believe it. But for many people
the former police chief remains ' ' the man of the
Gray Car." During the recent election cam-
paign, his political enemies put a film on the
screens on every circuit in the republic. It was
a detective story dealing with the Gray Car out-
rages. The purpose of the film was divined by
everybody. It aimed to keep the memory of cer-
tain doings fresh in the public mind.
The real truth is that the mystery has never
been solved. When this General had given up
his public office, Carranza started out to satisfy
the public demand for a clean-up. He succeeded
in catching the Gray Car and all its occupants
red-handed. But the men corraled were mere
tools, nothing more, common burglars hired to
do a certain job. "They are bound to squeal,"
people thought, in the expectation of sensa-
tional revelations. "They will denounce the
200 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
men higher up to save their own skins, " But
the thieves died, one by one, in prison before the
cases came to trial. Some were murdered out-
right. Others "died suddenly." But not one of
them talked.
Danger to life was, for some years, much
more serious for residents in Mexico, than
danger to property.
Worse Looters Than Villa
The Zapatistas are the most slandered of all
the numerous political groups in that much di-
vided country. In reality Zapata's followers
were the only sincere revolutionaries. They
formed a sect rather than a party, and Zapata
was a prophet whom they obeyed. "Land for
everybody !" That was his slogan. His men
were barbarians, something like the Huns.
They would fall upon Mexico City much as the
barbarian invaders used to sweep down upon
Rome. But they were honest men. No one in.
my hearing ever accused Zapata or any of his
followers of getting rich off their raids. They
smashed everything they could lay their hands
on, but they never carried any of the pieces
away in their pockets.
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 201
Among these unselfish vandals of the revolu-
tion we must reckon Villa, too. People who
called themselves important many a time had
to go and pay homage to this chieftain, or jus-
tify their manner of living before him in the
famous Pullman car, which was his regular
domicile, and which is, to the history of contem-
porary Mexico, what Attila's tent was to the
dawn of the Middle Ages.
But what I was going to say is this. The
presence of the Zapatistas and the Villistas, so
long denounced as bandits, even by the very men
who used them early in the revolution, was
much less feared by the honest, hard-working
citizens of Mexico, than the approach of Gov-
ernment troops.
"And now for the Carranzistas, " they would
say, as the bands of Zapata or Villa retired,
and they would begin to weaken at the knees.
And who were the Carranzistas ? They were
Don Pablo Gonzalez and Alvaro Obregon!
"Old Man" Carranza was way behind, com-
ing from Vera Cruz, with all his cabinet furni-
ture.
202 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Don Pablo's Murder Jakes
Gonzalez and Obregon represented trium-
phant * ' Carranzismo. ' '
Genial, lovable chaps, these two old cronies,
who, now that Carranza has been put out of the
way, ask the world to accept them as two men
of the future, two political virginities !
Don Pablo, so deferential toward persons and
so meticulous about legality, would summon a
group of officers.
"Gentlemen, you are a court-martial. Put
So-and-So on trial and have him shot. He is a
nuisance."
The court would come to order. The defend-
ant would bring proof of complete innocence.
His counsel would thrash around and tear their
hair, and the court itself would end by asking
for the culprit's release.
That would not disconcert Don Pablo. He
would draw his pen through the verdict and say
to an Adjutant : "Go and get that So-and-So. ' 9
Mr. So-and-So would be at home, surrounded
by family and friends and receiving con-
gratulations on his acquittal. Then the new
summons would come. "More red-tape to un-
MEXICO 'S OMINOUS SILENCE 203
wind, I suppose," the unlucky man would say.
"Perhaps I forgot to sign some paper."
A half hour later he would be in front of the
firing squad.
Ill-humor was the characteristic of all Don
Pablo's practical jokes.
How Obregon Behaved
Obregon, for his part, had a lighter touch.
His jests were more expansive, more theatrical.
He is something like the Kaiser, in this respect,
and doubtless in recognition of spiritual kinship
with the man, William II., as Obregon claims,
wanted to read .the book the Mexican Napoleon
had written. The parallel can be pushed fur-
ther. Obregon has an amputated arm; the
Kaiser has a withered hand. They are both
"cracked," as the phrase goes, both fond of
sensational speeches, dramatic attitudes, and
ostentatious military reviews.
On his entry into the capital, Villa's con-
queror took advantage of a public meeting to
insult the whole population at one stroke. "You
Mexico-Cityites are so many females. Why
don't you dress in petticoats? This woman here
is more of a man than the best of you. Here,
204 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Citizeness, accept my pistol." And lie pre-
sented a revolver to a "citizeness" on the stage,
who was bearing a Sam Brown and had been
much in evidence among Carranza's soldiers.
The business men in Mexico City won this
tribute from the General's eloquence, because,
like the business men of Guadalajara, Puebla,
and other important centers, they had refused
to join the revolution.
The so-called hero of Celaya liked to slap
shopkeepers in the face, or set them to sweep-
ing the streets. When his humor was most ex-
pansive, he would dwell on the Spanish ances-
try of the merchant class, and address some
vulgar epithet to Spain. Mexican nationalism
usually expresses itself in obscene insults to
other nations.
For the rest, he too ordered executions and
executions, but as I said, always with a touch of
good humor.
Genial Stories of His Aide
One of Obregon's most delightful "parlor
stunts" or after-dinner amenities is to narrate
the life and miracles of General Benjamin Hill.
" . . . and then Hill, you know how Hill
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 205
is Hill puts his gun between that grocer's
eyes, and says ' Charge, Fido,' and the poor fish
kneels down to be shot. But Ben doesn't even
have to pull the trigger. The fellow has croaked
from sheer fright . . . sheer fright!"
"..-.', and then Hill Hill was always like
that he lines 'em up against the wall, and
bang! Oh, Hill is a terror, when he gets go-
ing. . . ."
M . . and then, Hill, he bundled that bunch
of priests into a train of cattle cars and sent
them off to Vera Cruz, telling the engineer not
to break the speed laws. That's a time they
went to bed without their suppers! The trip
took several days. But Hill always was an
atheist, you know."
" . . . and then Hill, he says to those
gachupins ('gachupin,' like 'gringo,' for the
American, is what a Mexican creole is called),
he says to those gachupins, either you come
across with the cash, or you get the firing squad.
And the gachupms came across . . . came
across!"
As Obregon tells these tales of General Hill's
prowess, he underlines the fine points with a
smile that he would make a smile of disap-
206 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
proval. In your astonishment, as yon listen,
yon ask yonrself, "But who can this Hill be?
Some superior of Obregon, whose orders Obre-
gon can criticize bnt not countermand?"
Not at all! Hill is simply Obregon 's Chief of
Staff, his ranking Lieutenant, who does nothing
without permission.
It is a case of cruelty masked by a jovial or,
as I said, a good-humored hypocrisy.
Real Types of Mexico's Rulers
The silence of Mexico is not confined to the
external aspects of the town. You feel it in in-
dividuals as well.
The more intelligent, the better educated a
man is, the greater his intellectual distinction,
the more taciturn and reserved he appears.
People venture to talk only behind closed
doors and with friends whom they trust im-
plicitly. They have lived through such terrible
experiences ! They have such good reason to be
afraid !
Some of my critics who find it to their inter-
est to misinterpret me, since they cannot dis-
pute the accuracy of my story, assert that I am
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 207
describing a vaudeville Mexico, with notMng
but burlesque characters and villains.
They are right. I am painting just those
types, but I add, that those types are the men
who govern, or pretend to be governing, the
country. Behind them, keeping modestly and
carefully out of sight for to show themselves
would mean sacrifice or exile are the real peo-
ple of Mexico, the people I respect and would
like to see in power.
The Good Men in Exile
Mexico has any number of honest, cultivated,
distinguished citizens who have never been gen-
erals but have thrown credit on their names in
the arts of peace. Where are they? Some of
them have stayed, out of patriotic devotion, in
Mexico but attracting no attention to them-
selves, and hoping that politics will never dis-
cover them. Others have fled the deadly en-
vironment. They are in Cuba, in Europe, in the
United States.
Against these men I shall never speak. In
them lies the hope of Mexico, the only hope of
salvation and restoration that remains. Their
time will come when Mexico, exhausted from its
208 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
frenzied dance of militarist anarchy, falls
breathless to the ground. What connection is
there between such people writers, historians,
physicians, lawyers, celebrated men born in
Mexico, who laid the foundations of the nation's
prosperity and the tortuous Don Pablo, the
megalomaniac Obregon, the cattle thief Villa,
and their gangs of pistol-bearing generals?
Why should criticism of the excesses of such
criminals, or ridicule of their absurd presump-
tuousness, imply that Mexico has no people fit to
manage an honest, unselfish and progressive
civil government?
The reason why I respect the Mexican exiles
and have confidence in them, despite the fact
that I know few of them personally and inti-
mately, is precisely because they have been liv-
ing in other countries and have acquired the
broader outlook on national and international
affairs that Mexico lacks seriously.
Hostile to Foreigners
They say that under Porfirio Diaz, Mexico
had some respect for other countries of the
world, that Mexico welcomed the foreigner and
understood he represented progress. That is
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 209
not the case to-day. I have never seen a coun-
try more hostile to foreign things and ideas,
more inclined to savagery in international rela-
tions.
To understand why, you have only to know
its rulers personally. Hardly one of them ever
crossed the frontiers of Mexico. Carranza was
a man of unquestionable native talent. Yet he
talked like a simpleton when he discussed the
United States or Europe; and when I disillu-
sioned him on some of his misconceptions, he
opened his eyes in astonishment, as though he
were listening to a tale of magic and magicians.
Some of his Ministers could expatiate on the
defects of the United States from first hand
knowledge. They had spent a week-end once in
San Antonio, Texas.
Luis Cabrera was the expert of the crew. He
was the most traveled of them all. He "knew"
the United States, Argentina aird Chile, and he
had toured Europe. His "knowledge" con-
sisted in repetitions of charges against Ameri-
can or European political figures which he had
read in some opposition newspaper, and often
an unimportant sheet at that. The true great-
ness of America, for instance, what the Ameri-
210 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
can people has done or is doing, was a closed
book to him. In his eyes other nations were
poor copies of Mexico.
Where Ignorance Is Satisfaction
The victors of the moment are no better off.
A few of the young men have been to the thea-
ter on Broadway and they can talk about pink
legs they have seen in the musical revues. I
believe Don Pablo Gonzalez once ventured as
far as Paris, but I am not sure. Obregon, cer-
tainly, has never been in Europe and only once
in the United States. That was in connection
with his corner of the garbanzo or chick-pea
market during the revolution proper. The mur-
dered President, Don Venustiano, gave him the
exclusive right to export chick-peas and Obre-
gon cleaned up a tidy sum of money on the deal.
The revolutionary underlings know still less
about other countries. How can they be ex-
pected to esteem the foreigner? In Mexico I
heard Deputies and Senators say complacently:
6 ' We don 't need any outsiders here. They come
only to fleece us."
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, all devote
large appropriations to advertisement abroad.
MEXICO 'S OMINOUS SILENCE 211
They are anxious to attract immigration and
capital. They understand that it is the for-
eigner and not the native who is exploited. The
immigrant leaves his capital, his labor, and
most often his life, in the adopted country. He
becomes attached to the land as an element of
order and productivity, and he raises children
to inherit what he leaves.
Mexico, quite to the contrary, hires savages
to go to Congress and say: "Keep the foreigner
out." And it serves her right. The only civ-
ilization in Mexico was put there by the for-
eigners whom Porfirio Diaz brought in. All
that survives will survive through their efforts.
The trouble is that foreigners are becoming
fewer and fewer, and there will soon be none at
all unless peace and security are restored.
Hatred for Profit
There have been revolutions in the past in
other Spanish-American countries, and they
occur occasionally there still. But in them it is
a question of native thrashing native. They
leave the outsider alone. Not so in Mexico. The
rural populace has been taught by so-called rev-
olutionaries to hate everything foreign, and the
212 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
first thing the natives do when they mutiny is
to attack the merchant class: "Death to the
Spaniards! Down with the gacfaupinsl'* Their
antipathy is not all a matter of historical tradi-
tion. Spaniards constitute the majority among
business men. If the natives cannot find a
Spaniard, an American, a Frenchman or an
Italian will serve their purpose just as well.
The important thing is that he have a plate-
glass window in his store and a strong-box with
money in it. When they have cut the mer-
chant's throat and cleaned out the money
drawer they go back to the mountains to defend
the sacred principles of revolution.
I have been in Mexico and heard with my own
ears the admissions and complaints of my Span-
ish countrymen. "I have made and been
robbed of three fortunes. Now I'm going to try
once more. Just when I'm getting on my feet
a revolution comes along and takes in a week
all I have made in five years." They stick to
the game as the ruined gambler sticks to the
card table. Besides, they were brought up in
the country and have formed attachments there.
They have broken all outside connections. "You
see, I'm not so young as I was. It's too late to
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 213
start over again somewhere else. Where could
I go?"
No Exception to Spain
When the European nations present their
claims on Mexico the Spanish Government,
which has an affection for that country, as it
has for all the American republics of Spanish.'
language, will send in a bill also, less in the hope
of collecting it than with the idea of emphasiz-
ing the extent of Spain's forbearance. Robbery
will be the least important item. The world will
then know how many hundreds of Spanish citi-
zens have been put to death by the regenerators
of the Mexican people, Obregonistas as well as
followers of Villa.
"But they were interfering in politics. They
were supporting Porfirio Diaz. ' '
Such countercharges will be made by the very
men who shot these Spaniards. It will be a
case of a defendant acting as his own judge and
his own witness.
The fact will not prevent those executioners
of Spaniards from finding some hack writer in
Spain to defend them at so many dollars a;
volume and write their panegyric.
214 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
I confess that my own ideas on Mexico have
changed somewhat since I went there and saw
things at first hand.
Some people may think it strange that a man
known as a revolutionist in his own country
should treat many revolutionaries in Mexico so
harshly.
"Well, yes ! If all the revolutions in the world
were like Mexico's I would be a reactionary.
Real vs. Fake Revolutions
My revolutionary disposition makes it im-
possible for me to compromise with a fake
revolution.
I have passed many years of my life trying
vainly to overthrow the Spanish monarchy and
set up a republic in Spain. I have been in jail
I don't know how many times for plain speak-
ing in my newspaper publications or for com-
plicity in attempts at armed insurrection.
I was court-martialed and sent to jail for a
year and a half (and I served my sentence) for
opposing the war between Spain and the United
States and upholding Cuba's right to her
independence.
During my political career I lived in extreme
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 215
poverty. I could not write. I could not work
at any profession. All my time was taken up
with the revolutionary cause. I never held of-
fice. My only public position was that of Dep-
uty to Parliament, to which I was returned
seven times, in a country where Congressmen
receive not a cent for their work in the Cham-
bers.
I fought a losing fight. But how can I com-
promise with the false Mexican revolution,
where every leader has gotten rich, or, if not,
has simply not succeeded in getting rich and is
cooking up a new insurrection so that his turn
may come?
I am not afraid of revolutions in principle,
provided after destroying they know how to re-
build. But I have no use for the Mexican revo-
lution, which breaks everything to pieces, car-
ries off all the debris it can gather into its arms,
and then does nothing whatever to replace what
has been lost.
Burlesque and Boredom
The Eussian revolution may seem to many
people to be the work of lunatics ; but the luna-
tics are honest in their madness; they are
216 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
dreamers, willing to live on bread and water
for their ideals. There may have been robbery
in Russia, as there is in every revolution, but
robbery by the scum of society, the worthless
element that exists everywhere. Lenin and his
intimate circle of friends have not been laying
up money during these last years.
Is there a Bolshevik in Mexico who can say
as much?
As an anti-militarist and true revolutionary
I cannot sympathize with Mexican militarism.
I am consistent with myself. I fought German
militarism, which had a tradition glorious in
its own eyes and a scientific outlook as well, be-
cause I thought it a menace to the world. I can-
not make peace, therefore, with Mexican mili-
tarism, though that militarism is an affair of
clowns and savages, menaces no other nation by
its power, and simply discredits Mexico and
everybody who chances to speak the language
used by its absurd heroes, who are burlesques
part of the time and bores for the rest.
As a Spaniard I hate the men who have
aroused the sleeping barbarism of the poor na-
tive to hatred against the foreigners. Those
men have caused the murder of many innocent
MEXICO'S OMINOUS SILENCE 217
Spaniards. They are the ones responsible for
the death of many Americans employed in the
mines and oil districts in Mexico.
As a lover of Spanish-speaking America, of
the so-called, though badly so-called, Latin
America, I feel deep hostility, not toward Mex-
ico as a people and a people that is having mis-
fortunes enough and to spare, but toward the
fictitious Mexico of the false revolutionaries
who have brought the country to its present
pass the only Mexico, unfortunately, which
outsiders are able to see from a distance.
The Evil in the Show Window
Mexico's proximity to the United States
makes her the show window of Latin America.
Mexico is the first thing people see as they turn
their eyes southward. It is useless to talk of
the marvelous progress of the South American
countries. All that a hundred and ten million
Americans can see is the Mexico of the present,
a show window of horrors, with blood-stained
samples changed from day to day.
And, thanks to the sad advertisement the
Mexican revolution, accomplishing absolutely
nothing that is useful or good, has been giving
218 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
us for the last ten years, we Spaniards and
citizens of Spanish America have been more
and more discredited each day.
The Americans of the United States put us
all in the same boat. We are all sharers in one
disgrace.
On this point, and on the relations of Mexico
and the United States, I shall have something
to say in my next article.
X. MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES
fTHHE politicians of the Mexican revolution
JL know nothing about the United States.
They have never, as a rule, been outside their
own country. They also know nothing about
Europe. But the ignorance they show on all
matters touching the republics of Latin Amer-
ica (so called) is beyond conception.
Carranza was always dreaming of a scheme
of his to build up a league of Latin-American
nations ; its purpose was to counterbalance the
power of the United States. He thought such a
league would give him strength and enable him
to put on a bold face in Washington.
Don Venustiano, on at least two occasions,
outlined his plan to me. I should hardly call it a
plan, perhaps, for it never reached the blue-
print stage. In reality, Carranza was not on
friendly terms with a single man of importance
in South America.
Needless to say, Mexico was to play the lead-
ing role in the future league, and Don Venusti-
ano was to be director general.
219
220 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The sense of personal importance is a charac-
teristic of present-day politicians in Mexico.
It is matched only by their absolute ignorance
of everything that goes on beyond the Mexican
frontiers.
In a way their logic could not be sounder.
Mexico has fifteen million people. No Spanish-
speaking nation in the Americas has so many.
Then, Mexico is the oldest of the Latin- Ameri-
can countries, and age before beauty.
Explaining South America
I remember the flush of anger that came over
their faces one day when I failed to suppress an
exclamation of surprise at one of their ques-
tions. " Which city is the larger and prettier,
Buenos Aires or Mexico? Can Argentina be
compared in any way at all with the Mexican
Republic?"
"Excuse me, gentlemen," I said, "have you
gone crazy? Buenos Aires is the leading Amer-
ican city after the large centers in the United
States. Buenos Aires is the second Latin city
in the world. It comes next to Paris. It is
larger than Borne. It is larger than Madrid.
The Argentine Eepublio is the second largest
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 221
grain-producing nation in the world. The
United States alone exceeds her figures for
cereals; as for meat, Argentina leads every-
body. "
"But Argentina has only seven million peo-
ple/' they answered proudly; "there are fif-
teen million Mexicans.' 7
"That would let you out, if it were a ques-
tion of counting noses and ignoring quality.
Those seven million people in Argentina pro-
duce ten times as much as you and they spend
twice as much money abroad. That is why their
commerce prospers. They export to the whole
world. They are rich.
"And don't forget another thing. The popu-
lation there is all white. They are not revolt-
ing all the time. They invite foreigners in to
share their wealth, because they know that the
greater the immigration the faster their coun-
try will progress."
And the Advantages of Peace
I went on, then, to talk about Chile, witH a
population still smaller than that of Argentina,
But Chile is utilizing all her resources above
and under ground. Splendid mines, splendid
222 MEXICO IN EEVOLUTION
agriculture. And she has built up national in-
dustry. " Chile," I continued, "leaves an un-
forgettable impression upon every foreigner
who visits the country. She welcomes him with
open arms. In the course of a whole century,
Chile has had but one real revolution."
Then we passed on to Uruguay. ' * Uruguay, ' '
I said, "was once a very troublous State. But
now things have settled down there, and the na-
tion has been enjoying a prosperous era of
peace. Uruguay has developed her natural
wealth to such a point that her money tops
world exchange.
"But don't forget one thing," I said. "All
those nations are nations of whites. As for
Brazil, her prosperity in recent years is phe-
nomenal."
' ' Wait a minute ! ' ' they interrupted. ' ' Brazil
has many negroes. The majority of the popu-
lation is black."
"It doesn't matter which race is in the ma-
jority, ' ' I replied. ' ' The only relevant question
is the race and civilization of those in control.
Brazil has always been governed by a minority
of very intelligent people, up-to-date on inter-
national affairs. Without interruption for
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 223
twenty-five or thirty years, Brazil kept Baron
Rio Branco a sort of Porfirio Diaz of diplo-
macy in charge of her foreign relations, with
the result that Brazilian diplomacy has been the
cleverest in the New World. She has got all
she wants out of the United States and will con-
tinue to get what she wants."
"But there are Spanish- American republics
in as much confusion as Mexico," they objected,
"and just as fond of revolutions."
"Yes, my dear friends," I said, "but the
noise a firecracker makes depends on the place
where you set it off. It doesn't sound so loud
out in tlie street as it does in the parlor, for in-
stance. You can do things out in the backwoods
that would get you into jail if you tried them on
Fifth Avenue in New York. When a revolution
breaks out in some country in the interior of
South America, only the people there need
worry. Revolutionaries down that way, be-
sides, are careful not to murder any foreigners.
Their capers get half a dozen lines in the big
world newspapers, and the day after everybody
has forgotten them.
224 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Plain Words About Mexico
"But Mexico, luckily or unluckily, is the most
conspicuous place on the American Continent
It also has the best acoustics. Mexico is the
head of our Spanish-speaking world. It is high-
est north, in immediate contact with the United
States. You are the show window in front of
which a hundred and ten million Americans
walk by every day. And what do they see?
Nothing but horrible and disgusting exhibits!
If the display itself were not bad enough, you
would have other claims on world attention.
Your revolutions last for years and years, and
you break all records for the number of for-
eigners you kill.
"You never ask anybody when you feel in-
clined to start one of your revolutionary merry-
go-rounds. You don't want to be told by any-
body. Very well! It's your business and you
can run it to suit yourselves, I suppose. But
then you have no right to expect us Spaniards
to palliate your crimes, or attempt to justify
them out of family pride, because we all happen
to speak the same language.
"Mexico has been a disgrace to everything
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 225
Latin American and Spanish for ten years past.
Humanity at large is under no obligation to
specialize in political geography. As a matter
of fact, no one knows the whole world well, not
even the best educated people. A few of us try
to learn what we can, a very few of us. The vast
majority of people are alike everywhere, in the
United States, England, France and all other
places. And the moment they hear a word of
our language, they say, in a superior manner :
* Oh, yes, Spaniards ! South Americans ! Mexico !
Villa!'
"That settles the matter for them. That is
all they know or care to know. A shrug of the
shoulders finishes the argument. Why should
they talk with or about an inferior section of
humanity?
"They are ignorant people, I know. I have
met people in the United States who imagine
that Mexico is in South America and they are
surprised to learn it is as much a part of North
America as their own country. But American
ignorance is no excuse for the conduct of revo-
lutionary Mexico, nor does it free us from the
reproach that Mexico brings upon us all.
226 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The Show Window of Latin America
"Having said that Mexico is a show window,
I am going on with the figure. Latin America
is the shop and the United States is the street.
Only those Americans who have done business
inside know that on the shelves there are high-
class, up-to-date goods. A few American buyers
know that there are peaceful, progressive coun-
tries in Latin America Argentina, Chile, Bra-
zil and Uruguay. They know also that other
countries still have revolutions because they
have not yet reached their full growth, and be-
cause, like Mexico, they have ignorant masses
of natives, governed, however, by intelligent and
distinguished whites. There is Peru, for in-
stance, or other Northern Eepublics too numer-
ous to mention.
"But the immense American majority that
simply goes by on the street, the immense ma-
jority that makes up public opinion in the
United States, has no idea of what is to be
found inside the shop. It sees only what is in
the show window. And what is that? Decapi-
tated heads, to begin with, for Mexico still de-
capitates people and puts the severed heads on
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 227
exhibition; then machetes dripping with blood;
then a string of murdered foreigners; then a
President, perhaps, shot by his bodyguard;
then a friend clasping hands with a friend and
driving a knife into his back; finally an edu-
cated man serving as councilor to a bandit, pro-
moted General !
"It's time that show window were washed
up a bit. Mexico, the real Mexico, has a much
better line of goods to advertise than that. All
you have to do is change the management inside.
You need to put some one in charge who knows
more about books and less about machine pis-
tols. And until the change is made, we must go
on attacking and protesting, in the good name
of the America of Spanish language.
Not Fifteen Millions That Count
"You say there are fifteen millions of you,"
I continued. "You may be that big, some day,
when you get a school system in Mexico and
pay your school teachers. For the present,
there are two millions of you whites only, a
scant two millions, at that, and you don't know
where they all are. There are five or six mil-
lion pure Indians. I don't consider the Indian
228 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
such a bad fellow after all. But what have you
done with him? You have robbed him and mal-
treated him worse in one century of independ-
ence than the Spanish administrative routineers
did in thrice that space of time. Your liberal
laws deprived him of his lands. Your revolu-
tions have shot Indians down in great masses
by making them fight for things they knew
nothing about. Not one of your political par-
ties has made the Indian go to school. The In-
dian may amount to something when your na-
tion gets prosperous. Now he is nothing but
the eternal victim of your political lies.
"Then we come to the majority of the Mexi-
can population, the detritus, the erosion, aris-
ing from the meeting and amalgamation of two
races. You have from seven to eight million
mestizos, half-breeds, whitewashed Indians or
bronzed white men. There may be a few decent
individuals among them, as there are in any
mass of people. But the majority of them are
loafers, fond of noise and big talk, soap-box
artists with a gift for the theatrical pose, idlers
and bums, who never did a stroke of hard work
in their lives and hate any kind of success that
Is not attained over night. They are the raw
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 229
material of your revolutionaries. They take to
politics like ducks to water, but to a politics of
persons and not of ideas.
' ' There are not fifteen millions of you. There
are two millions at the outside. Make it five,
if that suits you better. You might be able to
scrape together three millions of serviceable
mestizos, who are good, at least, for something,
though not for much. In the future, when you
get to be governed by men men. in the best
sense of the word and not by Generals, when
Mexico gets to be a truly civilized nation cap-
able of living in peace with itself, then you may
really become the second nation of the Americas.
You will have not only fifteen million people,
but many more; for your potential wealth is
enormous, and foreigners will flock here the
moment danger is past. As it is, poor Mexico
must remain a third-rate nation among the other
Spanish-American republics, and that thanks
to the counterfeit revolutionaries. "
Incapable of Broad Vision
Whenever the Mexican notables started to
talk about the South America they were anxious
230 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
to attach, to their interests, they went com-
pletely off the track.
Cabrera, Don Venustiano's Minister of Fi-
nance, was the only one at all acquainted with
those countries. He had been in Chile and Ar-
gentina for some months during the European
war, trying to organize a "Congress of Neutral
Nations," which, in reality, was to support
Germany.
What did he learn on that visit?
I must advise my readers that I lived six
years down there myself, and I think I know
those places a little bit better than Cabrera,
He saw all the bad points about Buenos Aires
and Santiago, but he had no eyes at all when
it came to anything really great. There was a
look of pity on his face as he talked about Ar-
gentina and Chile. What were they compared
with the grandeur of revolutionary Mexico?
As I listened to his chatter, I had to admire the
man's power of imagination, his ability to
squeeze reality into his own narrow vision and
to find only things that flattered his vanity.
Don Venustiano, crafty and redoubtable as he
was in political intrigue, proved to be the easi-
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 231
est of easy marks when it came to some purely
intellectual question.
He had to find a name for the league of Span-
ish-American nations he had in mind.
Well, he might have called it the Hispanic-
American Federation, or the Ibero-American
Alliance, or the Latin- American League. But
that all seemed so insipid and hackneyed to
him, so blase.
The "India- American Federation"
I suppose he must have turned to the Madame
de Stael of the revolution, the ex-stenographer
or telegraph-girl, who had invented the "Car-
ranza Doctrine." In any event, somebody or
other produced this masterpiece: "The Indio-
American Federation."
Dear old Don Venustiano! He must have
been thinking of the South American statesmen
as so many showily dressed mulattoes or half-
breed Indians, with faces as swarthy as those of
the Ministers and Generals he had gathered
around himself.
When I heard that "Indio-American" idea,
I could hardly help laughing in his face. I could
232 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
imagine what the Argentine, Chilean and TJra-
guayan leaders would look like when they re-
ceived that proposition. The foremost men in
Argentina come from old colonial families.
They are polished and refined in manners.
They went to school for the most part in Paris.
Chileans have the dignified and chivalrous
bearing of the warriors of the Conquest, to
which they add a perfect English education.
In Uruguay, the cultivated people show strong
European influences in which the noblest Span-
ish tradition predominates.
"Indio- American nations I"
It would be just as appropriate to enter the
White House in Washington and ask the Presi-
dent of the United States to take off his glasses,
paint two red and blue rings around his eyes
and replace his regulation tophat with a crown
of feathers !
Mistakes of the United States
I must frankly confess that the policy of the
United States toward Mexico in recent years
has been a bad one.
It is not so much that the policy in itself has
been bad.
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 233
The trouble with it has been that it has not
been a policy.
From Mexico, the United States has looked
like a boat steered by a drunken helmsman. It
was as likely to head in one direction as an-
other. None could tell where it would finally
land.
I admire Wilson's wartime attitude toward
European affairs. But, with his bitterest
enemies, I recognize that in matters relating to
Mexico his procedure has been incoherent.
He was with Huerta and against Huerta, with
Carranza and against Carranza, At one time
he was even with Villa, the bandit. I remember
that years ago I saw an important American
newspaper which carried a picture of Villa
and an article entitled "The Mexican Napo-
leon."
I also recognize that all that Wilson did he
did in the best of faith and with the object of
arriving at the best possible solution. There
were moments, besides, when the Mexican mess
was involved enough to turn the steadiest man
in the world crazy.
But Wilson's indecisive and variable conduct
was fatal. Any policy at all, had it been con-
234 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
sistent and continuous, would have been pref-
erable.
That, however, is beside the point. Many
writers have dealt with Wilson and the Mexican
question. I need not say over again what others
have already proved so clearly.
How Carranza Used Us
As contrasted with Wilson, and once he was
firmly seated in power, Carranza pursued a
policy that was coherent, invariable and con-
tinuous.
Thanks to Don Venustiano, a new means of
governing became familiar in Mexico. Very
efficient recipes for controlling individuals and
groups had been inherited from earlier regimes.
The prison and the firing squad have always
been considered persuasive instruments for
bringing one's enemies to reason. But it some-
times happens that large portions of the popu-
lation have to be intimidated. A general exe-
cution being impossible, some other device must
be resorted to. Carranza hit upon the "threat
of American intervention/' "Yankee treach-
ery, " "the American menace, 1 ' "the peril from
the North."
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 235
During the last days of my stay in Mexico,
I could see that things were going badly. The
newspapers, which always took their queue
from Barragan, who took his, in turn, from Don
Venustiano, began to speak of the "Yankee
peril" and "United States intervention " as an
imminent possibility. Obregon's uprising, ac-
cording to the editorials, was planned to fur-
nish a pretext for aa American invasion of the
country, and Uncle Sam was waiting the word
across the frontier, much as an actor stands be-
hind a piece of scenery on the stage ready to
come on at the dramatic moment. Such re-
ports aimed to prevent sympathizers with the
insurrection from joining in.
The "Iron Heel" Upon Cuba
Some of the dailies sent shivers up and down
their readers' backs with the most terrible
prophecies.
"If another revolution succeeds in Mexico,"
they said, "if the order established by the benef-
icent Government of Carranza is overthrown,
the Americans will invade our territories; the
iron heel will be pressed upon our necks; we
shall fall so low in the scale of nations, our lot
236 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
will be so sad and so disgraceful that we will be
virtually slaves, comparable only with . . .
Cuba,"
I was as much surprised at this comparison
as I had been over Minister Cabrera's observa-
tions on Argentina and Chile. The hardest man
in the world to convince is the man who wants
to be wrong.
"My dear Sir/' I said to the editor some
days later, "go all over Cuba, if you wish, and
I am sure you will fail to find that iron heel.
The only American footwear you will discover
on that island will be the zigzagging boots of
some New Yorker who has fled to Havana to es-
cape prohibition. Cuban real estate has quad-
rupled in value in recent years. People there
are too rich, if anything; they are wallowing in
money. Eevolutions have gone out of style in
Cuba, When anybody tries to start one, they
just send him up to New York for a good time
on Broadway."
The journalist looked at me half in surprise,
half incredulously. The wife of a General, one
of the newer hatch, gave me that same look
when I laughed at her on one occasion. The lady
told me she was anxious to spend a few weeks in
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 237
Havana, but did not dare to go because she had
never learned English.
Value of the "American Danger "
The "American danger" is, as I was saying,
one of the secrets of successful government in
Mexico. The Generals are always using that
argument. Otherwise the people might be in-
clined toward a civilian rule. Since the danger
of intervention exists it is quite logical to leave
military men in power; although those Gen-
erals, quite aside from their personal courage,
know just about as much military science as
I do.
Carranza, for his part, was never in such good
humor, never so self-assured, never so con-
vinced of his mission on earth, as when he was
arguing a diplomatic question with the United
States. Several of the diplomats I met in
Washington were following the Mexican nego-
tiations with this country as a matter of pro-
fessional interest, and one of them, a man of
letters, found a phrase that summed up the situ-
ation exactly: " Carranza is doing his best to
cultivate the incident. "
238 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The "cultivation of incidents," as well as the
delight was also the supreme talent of Don
Venustiano. When he received some demand
from the United States he must have smiled as
a boxing master smiles when he sees an open-
ing for a tap on his pupil's jaw. "Why, here is
another incident just as things were getting
dull. I must cultivate it carefully. If I manage
right I can stick in the world's head lines for
a month or more. ' '
Carranza in His Element
Diplomatic proceedings, like legal proceed-
ings in court, have their delays and postpone-
ments. I do not know the usual time allotted
for replying to a diplomatic communication.
Call it ten days ; it was ten days of keen amuse-
ment and anticipation for Don Venustiano.
First he would see Cabrera, his Mephistopheles,
and then would call a council of licenciados,
"doctors of law," professional squabblers of
the district courts, expert in nosing out the
trivial excuse, the fantastic objection, the mi-
croscopic point of legality. Their masterpiece
of deliberate absurdity would be ready on the
tenth day, and it would reach Washington at
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 239
two minutes before midnight. " Fifty years
ago, and again one hundred years ago, the
United States Government took the position
now maintained by the Mexican Republic. . . ."
The answer would be always in such terms.
Washington, irritated at the delay, would im-
mediately reply: "Omitting your review of
ancient precedents, kindly give a definite answer
to the demand now in question. "
Another smile of Don Venustiano. . ..* .
Another council of licenciados. . . .
Another interval of ten days.
And then: u ln reply to note one thousand
three hundred and seventy-seven, we beg to
point out that on the point it raises, the United
States Supreme Court ruled in 1827. ..."
Weeks and even months would go by in this
nervous expectation. A matter that two seri-
ous business men could have settled in five min-
utes would assume the proportions of a world
crisis. Newspapers would issue extras. People
in the United States would begin to speculate
on the chances of war. Parties in Mexico would
talk of getting together to resist intervention,
likely to break on the following day.
Meanwhile in the Presidential palace in the
240 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Mexican capital a venerable old man would be
winking slyly behind a pair of blue glasses and
stroking a white beard in wise satisfaction.
Home Estimate of "Old Whiskers"
Don Venustiano would always yield in the
end, before public tension became overstrained
and the game got too dangerous. He would do
simply what had been asked in the first place ;
but it would be thought in Mexico that he had
done much less and that, thanks to its energy
and skilful diplomacy, the American invasion
had been stopped on the threshold of the coun-
try and at little cost to the dignity of the nation.
The "old man " knew what he was about, and
he knew his people well. I have heard his most
relentless foes say of him: "Old Whiskers is
a . . . " (and here the worst of epithets and
the most atrocious slander), "but you've got to
give him credit for one thing he's a patriot,
and he has kept the Yankees out many times.
No one could handle the international situation
better."
And Carranza's admirers would imagine in
all good faith that in Washington, President,
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 241
Cabinet, Senate and House were seeing with
terror in their dreams the red-white-and-green
nose, the white beard and the ogrelike smile of
Don Venustiano.
That is the way with Mexicans. They escape
from the cruel realities which surround them
by caressing the illusion that they are first in
something. Thus can be explained Cabrera's
complacent disparagement of Chile and Argen-
tina, the iron heel that is oppressing Cuba, the
tyrannical imposition of English upon Ha-
vana's schools, and the flight of American
statesmanship before the terrible Carranza.
Unfortunately, however, Don Venustiano has
trained a school and created a succession in
Mexican diplomacy. All who are to follow him
have learned the lesson that "the incident must
be cultivated.'' As new disputes arise with the
United States, their solutions will be deferred
as long as possible that somebody may be able
to pose as the savior of his country.
And if some General-President is unlucky
enough not to come by an "incident" honestly,
he will be quite capable of making one for him-
self.
242 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
The Present a Time to Be Amiable
I am well aware that for some months to come
there will be no "cultivation of incidents" im
Mexico. Carranza himself did no such garden-
ing while, with his future problematical and in-
secure, he was staying in Vera Cruz and needed
.American support. He began the game long
afterward, when he thought himself solidly es-
tablished in power. Obregon and his friends
will be very deferential, very polite, very hum-
ble even, if necessary, toward the United States.
Their position has not yet been consolidated.
Their Government has not yet been recognized
by other nations. A corpse is standing in the
way the corpse of "old man" Carranza. So
the corpse of Madero rose menacingly in the
path of Huerta!
Besides, there is a question, a question of the
first importance, which dominates all other
Mexican questions and demands an answer
urgently.
Mexico, which might be the richest country
in the world, next to the United States, is in a
very precarious situation. The taxes on p-
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 243
troleum and minerals (both owned in large part
by Americans) and the proceeds of internal im-
posts are barely sufficient to meet the most
pressing State expenditures.
The revolution destroyed much without re-
placing anything; and the absence of all that
was stolen, or dismantled to nobody's profit, is
beginning to make itself felt.
The result is that, to go on living, the coun-
try needs a loan of hundreds of millions.
Carranza had the project of a loan in mind
for a long time before his death, though he
never had the courage to propose it publicly.
He was conscious of his bad reputation in mat-
ters of national finance. All the banks in the
world would say "no," in comment on the do-
ings of his financial advisers with foreign banks
and foreign enterprises in Mexico. Besides he
was jealous of his reputation with the lower
classes, and he preferred to leave the Presi-
dency without having negotiated a foreign loan.
That pleasure he was reserving for Bonillas,
who, he supposed, had powerful financial
friends in the United States and would be in a
position to find millions.
244 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
Plea for a Loan Coming
The new governors of Mexico will come out
with their request within a few weeks, or a few
months at most. Formerly such petitions could
be addressed to a number of possible sources ;
English, French and German financial firms
existed in abundance in Mexico. But now they
have all failed or else are badly in need of
money for themselves. The United States is
the only market open. When they want ready
money they will have to come here.
American financiers do not require any advis-
ing. They know all they need to know about for-
eign countries and their minds must be already
made up concerning Mexico. That country has
not paid interest on its old debts for several
years, and its fake revolutionaries are alone to
blame. They have dishonored themselves in the
eyes of all their creditors, completely destroy-
ing the remnants of Mexico's prestige surviving
from a happy time when the republic was
solvent and could get money anywhere.
If I am not mistaken, American finance will
make this answer: "We will lend you nothing
at all. A loan to you would serve to foment
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES 245
militarism, aggravate present wrongs and per-
petuate a crying shame. We should be glad to
help Mexico in her distress and give her ample
credit; but only when the republic has a civilian
government, a government of people who have
traveled, who know how to develop a country,
who know how to deal with people of other na-
tions, and are able to think as white people
think. To you Generals, not a penny!"
And in fact the way to put an end to mili-
tarism of the Mexican kind, a militarism so de-
ceitfully revolutionary, so immoral and so Ger-
man, is not to give a penny.
THE END
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