- / b I ' INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY BY EDITH O'SHAUGHNESS:V- [MRs. NELSON O'SHAUGHNESSY] ' AUTHOR OF "A DIPLOMAT'S WIFE IN MEXICO," "DIPLOMATIC DAYS," "MY LORRAINE JOURNAL," "ALSAC~ ~ IN RUST AND GOLD," Tf • NEWGYORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY lll~l~~~il~H~Hiililiill~IIII OPEL0121901 ·t-' • t..\•' COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY GE O RGE H. DORAN COMPANY .-:· ' I PltINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MY SON THESE PAGES OF HISTORY \ - I This book, concerning the four Presidents of Mexico whom I have personally known, contains only what I have seen myself, or what, by word of mouth and eye in eye, I have learned from those intimately connected with the men and events of which it speaks. In the chapters relating to Huerta there will be found however, some considerations of the phenomena presented by Hispano-Indian politics, which are as distinct from those of the United States as are the flora and fauna of the two countries. Without some study of them, Mexico will continue to be a Terra Ignota, reseI?-bling, on any chart prepared for American use, those portions of the globe in seven- teenth century maps represented by blank spaces embellished with scroll-like patterns. But the tides which ebb and flood under the Mexican moon wash shores whereon the laws of climate and of race, though so diverse, operate as definitely as do our own. These differences are shown in great relief by the figure of Huerta, in whom race, environment, and tradition present themselves in the most specific form, for he always ran true to type, and acted and reacted along secular lines. He will furthermore be distinguished from other Presidents of Mexico by his struggle to maintain his government in the face of the displeasure of a Presi- dent of the United States who could starve him from V vi PREFACE without, feed his enemies from within, and ftnally bombard and take from him his principal revenue- bearing port. He will remain too, for all time, a tragic and very explicit example of the unavailing- ness of the rights of the weak when they cross the desires of the strong. His end even shows how the unrighteous man, if he be in himself worthy of perse- cution, may become a martyr, and against the blood of martyrs even the mightiest are without defense, for of all things committed to the earth it gives the speediest and most abundant' return. . . . No man may enter the womb of his mother a second time and become whole, neither can Mexico be reembodied in her one-time glories, yet she exi t , nearest if not dearest, neighbor of \ the migh ie t nation on earth, and her destinies would seem to de- pend on the will of whatever autocrat rules abo e the Rio Grande. A beneficent tyrant is the best she can hope, who according to his qualities, together 'th some instinct for facts, will extend his hand to rai e and not to crush. For his, as we have been witne s, is the power to say: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." We have finally revolved, and it has taken us se en years, in the vicio.us circle of interference in Mexican affairs to arrive at our starting point-revolution and assassination. Any one following the tracing can only :find himself · where he set out. On his round he will have encountered hundreds of thousands of dead Mex- icans, over a thousand dead Americans, and yet un- counte~ billions . of destroyed property, to say nothing of the wealth that has remained potential during the seven lean years. Saddest of all he will :find - that the PREFACE vii natural hope of the country, the new generation, ha• passed from an innocent childhood to a demoralized adolescence. The ruin would seem to be complete. The solution of Mexico's problems, nevertheless, even in a world of covetous and desperate nations gone bankrupt, is possible, and in a way so simple that it is almost an anti-climax to her tragedy. Our own rMe should be largely negative, leaving some- thing, after the way of wisdom, to time, nature-- and the Mexicans. We have but to permit her decent people, the men of education and experience that she is quite capable of producing, and whom our theories concerning an imaginary Mexico have largely kept in exile, to return and form the sort of government suited to her natural idiosyncrasies and the present stage of her evolution. An even more self-abnegatory expression of benevolence would be to . cease the sale of arms and ammunitions to any and every group of "revol ucionarios," reserving the various perfected twentieth century means of peace for the one man whom destiny (and ourselves) will have placed in control of the intricate and delicate machinery of Mexican Government. Then we may indeed stand off and survey our work, without too much shame nor through too many tears. EDITH O'SHAUGHNESSY. Paris, June, 1920. CONTENTS PART ONE: PORFIRIO DIAZ CHAPTER I In Exile, Rome, 1913-Retrospect-Triumphal Entry of the Heaven-born General into Mfficico City November 21, 1876- First Administration-Immediate Predecessors: Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, Proud and Unpopular. Benito Juarez, the PAGE Great Liberal, the "Man in the Black Coat." . 15 CHAPTER II The Love-marriage of Porfirio Diaz-He Finds an Incomparable Companion for His Splendid Years-He Rides into His Native City, Eloquent of His Martial Life with His Young Bride- His Sternness in Matters of Discipline-His Generosity To- wards Enemies-His Only Visit to the United States. . 26 CHAPTER III econd Administration-Empire-Buil ding-Social Life in Mexico City Since the Brief and Tragic Glory of Maximilian and Carlota-Don Porfirio's Family-He Leaves His Mother's Death-bed at the Call of Country-His Relations to the Church -Love of the Chase-Serenit y of Soul-Disdain of Riches- Personal Habits-T he Ypiranga . 40 CHAPTER IV Dictator of Mexico-The Revival of the Explosive Office of Vice- President-Diaz Chooses a Great Minister of Finance, Jose Yves Limantour-Unparalleled Prosperity-Ernesto Madero, Uncle of the "Redeemer"-The Single Meeting . of the Maker of Modern Mexico with the Instrument of Its Destruction. . . 61 CHAPTER V Unconsciously Experimental Forms of Porfirio Diaz' Earliest Years -He Studies for the Priesthood-His Mother's Grief When He Turns to the Law-Bugle-call to Arms-His Martial Glqry- The Statesman-Mexico's Greatness. 67 ix X CONTENTS CHAPTER VI Too Call from Exile to the Greater Fatherland-His Venerable Ashes Await in the Church of Sa.int Honore d'Eylau the Hour • .L • • of Their Return to Mexico.. . 81 PART TWO: FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA CHAPTER VII My First Sight of Francisco Leon de la Barra-An Appreciation- His Brief Visit to Mexico City, S e ptember, 1910-His Audi e nce with President Taft, March 23, 1911-Return to M exico- Minister for Foreign Affairs - Pr es id e nt Diaz Falls Ill-The Ciudad Juarez Convention, May 21, 1911. . 89 CHAPTER VIII President Diaz Writes the "Renunoia ''-His Last Hours in Mexico City-The Parting from His Successor. . . • . . 101 CHAPTER IX The Presidency Ad Interim, May 25 to November 6, 1911- Typical Scenes-The Army Celebrations in Chapul te p e c P a rk -Commission for Legislation Concerning Labor-Plot to Aa- sassinate President de la Barra. . 1 9 CHAPTER X Madero's Oft-cited Visit to Cuautla.-Zapata and His Attempts to Restore Primal Aztec Life in Mexico - The Glory th t as Spain's-Considerations concerning the Spaniard in Me."rico. . 11 5 CHAPTER XI Grito de Dolores-September 15, 1911. • • • • • 12 CHAPTER XII President de la Barra Advances the Date of His Withdrawal from Power-President Madero Takes His Oath of Office-Concern- ing the "Military Genius"-The Three Figures Seen in the Twilight, November 6, 1911. • 137 PART THREE: FRANCISCO I. MADERO CHAPTER XIII Mexico, 1911, in the Process of Redemption. Then Entry of the "Messiah" into the Mexican Jerusalem-His Fust Appearance on the International Stage at a Dinner at the German Legation -The Generation According to the Flesh of the Twentieth Cen- tury "Redeemer of Mexico." . 149 CONTENTS CHAPTER XIV Madero Haranguing an Enchanted Mob-His Reliance on the World of Spirits-Novene at the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe with Senora Madero-A Hint of Prretorian Guard -The Vice-President 1 Jose Maria Pino Suarez-The Always- xi Fatal Office. . . 160 CHAPTER XV Ma.dero Dwelling on the Heights-The Terrace of Chapultepeo- The Pyramid of the Sun at San Juan Teotihuacan-My Fare- well to President Madero. . . 167 CHAPTER XVI Madero on His White Horse Rides to His Doom-Huerta Takes the L ea ding R6le in the Mexican Drama-The Fatal Night of the 22nd of February-The Closing of the Madero Act. . . 172 PART FOUR: VICTORIANO HUERTA CHAPTER XVII First Sight of Huerta-His Antecedents-Diaz Chooses Him to Escort Him on His Exit from Mexican History-The Manner of Huert ' sAccession-TheCurtainis Rung Up Disclosing the Stage Set for the Tragedy-The "Pale Scholar of the White House'' the Hero; the Dark Indian the Villain-Appearance of the Blue-eyed Norseman. . . . • . 191 CHAPTER XVIII The Coup d 1 Etat in General and in Particular-Some Analysis of Huerta's Psychology in the Days Preceding His Accession to the Supreme Power, and a Few Pictures. . 206 CHAPTER XIX Presidential Messages-The" One-Man" Power-The Chiarosoura of Latin-American Politics-The Way of Death. 217 CHAPTER XX The Diplomatic Corps in Mexico City at the Time of Huerta'e Ac- cession to Power. 234 CHAPTER XXI January 1 1 1914-Pass Christian-The "Humbling" of Mexico 1 City-Some Idiosyncrasies of Huerta. . 254 11 Xll CONTENTS CHAPTER XXII The Raising of the Embargo, February 3, 1914 • I I ; CHAPTER XXIII · Huerta's Military Ability- His Typal Attitude toward "Reli• gion"-A Conversation Concerning the Myst1cal Life of the P.A.GS 273 Indian and the Conversion of Sinners. 27 CHAPTER XXIV Propaganda as the Finest of Arts and the Moat Expensive--Oil- Some of the Blessings of Carrancismo-Sefior Don Luis Cabrera Sows the Corruptible, It Rises Incorruptible-Oil Again 287 • CHAPTER XXV The Tampico Incident-Demand of Huerta That It Be Taken to the Hague-Instead Vera Cruz Is Taken-The Fallacy of Ar- bitration When It Does Not Endorse the Will of the Strong. 30 l CHAPTER XXVI What Brought Huerta to the American Embassy on the Night of the 22nd of April? 319 CHAPTER XXVII Ancient History, Including the Niagara Falls Conference-The Days When Villa's Star Was High-The Carranza {ask-Th Clever and Amiable "A. B. C.'s" are Asked Into the Admin- istrative Dressing-rooms When the Actors Axe Making-up 2 3 CHAPTER XXVIII The Presidential Kaleideosoope from Huerta to Carranza. 33 CHAPTER XXIX Huerta's Imprisonment-His Final "Going." • 341 ! PART ONE: PORFIRIO DIAZ OAXACA: SEPTEMBER 15, 1830- PARIS! JULY 2, 1915 Mexico's Augustan Period "By their fruits ye shall know them." INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY PART ONE: PORFIRIO DIAZ ''By their fruits ye shall know them." CHAPTER I In Exile, Rome, 1913-Retrospect-Triumphal Entry o:f the Heaven- born General into Mexico City, November 21, 1876-First Ad- ministration-Immediate Prede.!essors: Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, Proud and Unpopular. Benito Juarez, the Great · Lib- eral, the "Man in the Black Coat." Diaz needs no written praise. His works have long since been set in final and magnificent relief against the chaos that followed his disappearance from Mexi- can history. Yet a few human things concerning one to whom nothing hlfman was foreign will not come amiss. The Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, traveler and savant, passing through Mexico in the early sixties, says of him that he was the most perfect type he had ever seen, and what he imagined the kingly hero Cuauhtemoc to have been. More than half a century has passed since then. During these decades, doubt- less sometimes mistakenly, after the human way, but always in the grand manner of Empire-builders, he transformed his country, bandit-ridden, revolution- 15 16 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY rent, blood-stained, darkly passionate, where things are seldom what they seem, into something bright and beautiful and explicit among the nations. I knew him only in exile, but even then old, very old, . and hurt unto death, so much of the magnificence of his high and tragic destiny hung about his person, that I was dazzled and silent as I stood looking at him in the radiance of that Roman Easter morning of 1913. His head was of :fine proportions, somewhat square and high above the ears, his white hair was still thick, his jaw was :firm, the lines leading from I' nose to chin, though deeply cut, caused no sagging of the face. His eye, that strange hazel eye, with its very dark pupil, was piercing and still beau · ul; his forehead in spite of the many lines abo e the accentuated protuberances of the eyebrow , an t e furrows between the eyes, was stamped with a pa ·ent yet stern serenity. His visage, though stained and . yellowed, seemed to have escaped the d gr d · n -that time is accustomed to inflict upon he hu n countenance. There was nothing broken nor d f d in • his aspect, though aged he was not d r d; rather over his outward being lay, as it r , ab au- tiful patina, such as time gives to t mpl s and pi - tures, but rarely to their creators. His :figure, of medium height, was strikingly erect, and his few gestures had the noble reserve of one long accustomed to authority. Beside him stood the inco~parable companion of his greatness. In her severe, deep-blue dress, her close, deep-blue hat, a single string of faultless pearls about her throat, she was of an indescribable elegance, the storied queen in exile . . PORFIRIO DIAZ 17 She had noble, strongly-marked features and a skin of ivory-like texture and pallor. Her head was carried with a sort of lofty modesty, peculiar to her alone among the women I have known of high des- tiny. Her figure was slender-hipped, small-waisted and she had a low, gently-swelling bosom. There was something passionately shielding in her attitude, and a great tenderness in her look when it turned towards her husband, something in her naturally gentle being that suggested the vigil of the lioness over the wounded King of the Forest who feels the hurt is mortal. It is no small thing for a woman to have lived for more than three decades with the greatest man of her country. . . . After the greetings, and when he had given me the far-famed, appraising glance, we spoke of the Madero assassinations then so recent. 1 It was in deep sad- ness that he deplored the event, but without any hint of self-justification, though ruin had been wrought such as he had rescued his country from in the days of his youth, and preserved it from all the years of his power. With a look on his face which it might have worn had he been alone, he continued: 1 "I might have reestablished order,-it would not have been the first time" (here he paused for an in- stant, doubtless reviewing in memory the blood of battles and the bending of law-break~rs' wills), "but it could only have been done by a fratricidal war which would have destroyed the industries and com- merce of the country, and exposed it to international complications." 1 Madero and Pino Suarez were kille~ on February 22! I . 18 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "Bu t the evil has been greater," I hazarded (in I 1 'rench, he speaking Spanish). He made a gesture of assent, then without any trace of bitterness added simply : "It was told me that my presence was the reason for the revolution. What could I do except withdraw, making a last sacrifice to peace?" I could not speak to him of the ingratitude of n a t io ns , wh o , with such rare exceptions, put their great men to death or send them into exile. He ould h ave brooked no reproach where his people ere con- cerned , even though they had cast him out. , deep l y m o ved, I arose to go, he held me for another mo ment , say in g : "My only ambition is for m coun- try's peace and prosperity," adding, what an i . matt er t o me wh o se hand will be privileged to a om- pli s h t his? It is the only happiness I can know in e x ile." He made a slight gesture, involuntaril all- ing a t t ent io n to that hotel room in which hi oul w a s so evident l y a stranger . A s fo r myself, instead of that crude blue and 0 01 s a lon o f the H o tel Bristol where th y er r me, I s aw for a m o ment, hanging in a strang ra - par e nc y , the h igh cast l e of C h ap u lt p c . B n ath . was · the troubl e d, gun -s hot c i ty . It, li ke Rom , wa enfolded in the n at ural b e aut y , eve n greater, of its Easter morning. I sudd e nly r e ali ze d that . I was w i t - nessing one of those swift and fo rmi d ab l e vi n d i ca- tions that nature and history so met im es per mi t to greatness. Events had ag a in e x al te d Porfi ri o Diaz, as definitely as if some Fate per s oni fie d, s t ooping, had lifted his fallen statue and placed it again on its pedestal . * * * * PORFIRIO DIAZ 19 After the launching of the Plan of Tuxtepec in Oaxaca on January 15, 1876, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, then President of Mexico, fled to the · United States. Out of the ensuing disorder finally emerged the "Greatest Mexican," Porfirio Diaz, and the man- ner of his appearance at the head of the government was in the typical Mexican manner,-after a revolu- tion, by a military coup. Under his command the revolutionary army entered Mexico City on Novem- ber 21, 1876, and their leader was proclaimed pro- visional Preside , nt. The entry of General Diaz into the capital was in keeping with the majestic period it inaugurated. · Clad in a gray field-uniform, relieved only by a single row of gilt buttons on which was embossed the Mexican eagle, mounted on a mettlesome steed, astride one of the English saddles he always used, his fine eyes flashing as they glanced vigilantly about him, his lips and chin firm, his head hig~, his whole bearing stamped with an indomitable will and an unfaltering courage, what wonder that an awed popu- lace saw in him the heaven-sent leader? The revolu- tionary army which followed him doubtless resembled outwardly other revolutionary armies; we are all more or less familiar with th~m now, but no acts of violence were commi t ted, no scenes of disorder took place. Their chief's commands were too explicit, infringement meant death. Lerdo's troops-he him- self had fled the day before-made no resistance in the capital, but were swept away or melted quite . smoothly into the victorious ranks. It was the begin- ning of the great Por:fi.rian peace, of Mexico's Augus- tan Period. \ . 20 · INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY General Diaz remained but a few days in Mexico City, the government being given into the hands of General Juan Alvarez, he himself leaving to continue the work of pacification in the interior. With an army of three thousand men he marched against ~lesias, who, after making a show of resistance, :fled to the port of Manzanillo, whence he embarked for the United States. He had been elected President of the Supreme Court of Justice in 1873. This position made him virtually Vice-President of the Republic. Disputes had arisen between him and Lerdo. Beino- aggressive and very ambitious, Iglesias openl launched a revolution, after the time-honored cu tom, with the intention of ultimately assuming he u- preme power. But one greater than them all ha arisen in their midst. The Congress of April, 1877, which decreed Por- firio Diaz President for four years, laid the orner stone of the magnificent edifice known as < Modern Mexico. · '' The only visible and decidedly encumb rm furni- ture of State left in the d bris of the old di:fi , except, of course, the Constitution made of the greenest of wood, was the English Debt, the Spanish Debt, the United States Debt, on~ known as the "Padre Moran" debt, together with interior liabilities too numerous to inventory. All was done up in the frayed upholstery of banditry and revolution, and sagged and creaked 1 with poverty. The · only furnish- ings still in perfect working condition were the con- flicting passions of half a hundred years. We of 1920, familiar with Mexico in revolution, can some- what appreciate the difficulties . confronting Porfirio PORFIRIO DIAZ 21 Diaz, and the sovereign wisdom which alon~ enabled him to construct a new Mexico. In 1880 the term for which he was elected having expired, with a political vision that merited better results, he retired according to the constftutional provision that no President should succeed himself. Naturally this mark of civism was little appreciated by his compatriots, who considered that he was but biding a greater hour. During this :first term of office he was largely em- ployed in discouraging banditry, and quelling the numerous revolutions which formed themselves spon- taneously·and continuously out of the abounding ele- ments of disorder. For this, twenty yeara, of active martial life had supremely :fitted him. Knowing the physical and moral conformation of Mexico as no other man has ever known it, the potentialities of his people, the spirit and variety of their national quali- ties, he proceeded :first to give them the essential gift of peace, leaving that of liberty for a more profit- able moment. He renewed diplomatic relations with France, with Belgium, with Portugal, though on account of the big English debt, an inheritance from the splendor- loving but terrible Santa Ana, recognition was with· held by Great Britain. The difference of opinion as to the quality of the arms and ammunition supplied by England, which jamming or failing to explode, did not kill so many Mexicans as was expected, further embittered relations. Though the United States maintained its diplo- matic representative in Mexico City, Mr. Jo~m W. Foster, accredited there since the days of Lerdo, I . 2 , 2 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXIC4N HISTORY Washington, too, delayed recognition of the Diaz government, and this for a diversity of reasons, the chief of which was lack of confidence in the estab- lishment of peace, and in the security of commercial relations. Though the government of the United States was aware of the military achievements of General Diaz, it knew nothing of his civic genius. It did know that his country was bankrupt and unruly. There was nothing in ifs history since 60 years to cause the government of the United States to s . uspect that a man had appeared who in his in<Tle person would deliver Mexico from the evils of tho e six decades. His genius was soon, however, to reveal it elf cl in the rarest of all governmental garbs-in · n for facts. He proceeded to give the first great impul e to railways, knowing that better communic tion would tend more than anything else, e pt hi energy and judgment, to rid the country of an · and gain the indispensable good- ill of his r h 1n · neighbor. Lerdo had been . wont to sa th t 'b t n Mexico and the United States there should 1· m in a desert," adding "those who wish to tra r i can do so on donkeys." A more classic . pression attributed to him is, "Entre el debil y 1 fuerte, el desiert.o." (Between the weak and the strong, the desert.) The word of Diaz was : "better comm unica- tions,-roads, railways, bddges, economic relations, reciprocal services, understanding, bonds." He discovered also another short, very short way, into the green paths of prosperity. The Mexican state being bankrupt, foreign capital was the evident and only means for the development of its latent PORFIRIO DIAZ 23 riches and the suckling of its infant industries. He proceeded to make it not only safe, but pleasant and profitable for foreigners to invest their brains and money in Mexico. They brought with them the golden keys with which again to open the "Treasure House of the World." Diaz was succeeded by General Manuel Gonzalez, who had none of his predecessor's gifts and few quali- ties of his own. Riots, rebellions, revolutions were once more the chief concern of the Mexicans. Fatalistically and surprisingly they allowed him, however, to finish his term, perhaps because in the Mexican subconsciousness lay the knowledge that a great man awaited destiny in their midst. During President Diaz' first incumbency, at his solicitation, Manuel Romero Rubio, who had been Lerdo's Minister for Foreign Affairs, a charming and able gentleman, initiated by long and varied experi- ence into Mexican political mysteries, returned to Mexico from New York, where he and Lerdo had been living in exile, according to the even then traditional custom of Mexicans who had served or tried to serve their country. Lerdo's personal pride was immeasurable, and he al ways refused to return, saying "my dead body per- haps, but never alive." He die · d in New York; and when at last his body was returned to its native soil, President Diaz gave him the most splendid of burials, as befitted one who had been invested . with the Supreme Power. Lerdo's administration had been extremely un- popular, one of his so-called reforms having been the expulsion of the Sisters of Charity from the Republic, 24 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY . and the attendant closing of many hospitals, asylums, and homes for the aged. It was as President of the Supreme Court of Justice that he had succeeded t.o the Presidency, quite fortuitously, on the iudden death of Benito Juarez, July 17, 1872. A word concerning Benito Juarez, the "man in the black coat," the only civilian figure of the :first mag- nitude which had appeared in the history of Mexico since her Independence. He was a Zapotec Indian of pure race, born on the day of the vernal equinox of 1806, in an adobe hut, in the mountains of Oaxaca, on the borders of a lake known a the "Laguna Encantadora," the enchanted lagoon, from the way it had of unexpectedly drawing under to their doom even the strongest swimmers. His education began with a bookbinder of Oaxaca into whose employ he was taken at the age of twel e. From this humble starting point he was de tined t.o tread the exalted and extremely varied path of the Mexican patriot. He was to know supr me honors, likewise prisons and exile ; at one period of hi career he was a fruit peddler in New Orleans. On his re- turn to Oaxaca in 1855 he soon gath red bout him men of like political beliefs, among whom was young Porfirio Diaz, whose military star was just showing above the revolutionary horizon. On February 5, 1857, a new figure appeared in Mexican history, the gory Goddess "La Consti- tuci6n," who has since rivaled the sanguinary gods of the Aztec teocalli in the sacrifices she has exacted from the Mexicans. President Comonfort was sponsor for her, assisted by Benito Juarez, who be- came later Comonfort's "Minister of Domestic Rela- PORFIRIO DIAZ 25 tions." These "relations," be it said in passing, were of the noisiest and most disputatious kind, and Comonfort subsequently had their Minister cast into prison. Comonfort's own natural end was flight. After various eclipses and further vicissitudes, Benito Juarez emerged as President of Mexico and pro- . fessed upholder of the Constitution, though being a wise Indian, he doubtless looked upon it as Mr. Clemenceau once looked on the Peace Treaty, as something with which, though not perfect, on~ could perhaps work. This indefatigable and gifted being of iron nerves and seemingly deathless body, who had never known a day s illness, died suddenly of heart disease in the Palacio in Mexico City on July 18, 1872. His body lay in state for two days, while an awed, highly-colored, big-hatted populace defiled through the Palace to look upon his basalt-colored face, which is said to have worn an expression of surpassing, almost alarming tranquillity, despite the great sear that stretched across it. These two men, Benito Juarez and Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, were the immediate predecessors of Por• :firio Diaz, and he alone knew how strange was the heritage they left him. CHAPTER II The Lo ve-marriage of Porfirio Diaz-H e F inda an Incomparable C o mpanion for His Spl e ndid Y ea r &-He Rides into His ative City , Eloquent of His Martial L ife , wit h His Young Bride-- His Sternness in M a tt e rs of Di sc i p lin e-His Gene r osity Toward E n emies-His Only Vi s it to th e Uni te d States . It was wh il e Governor-Elect of the S t ate of Oaxaca that Ge n era l Dia z married, on November 7, 1 1, Ca r m e n R o mero Rubio, daughter of the man ho had be e n Mini ster o f Foreign Affairs und e r L rdo and who had acco mpanied him in his flight to the ni ed States. At the t i m e o f her marriage "Carmelita, ' a he was ,t o be kno wn affectionately a nd a dm i r in g ! long y e a rs to the Mexican p e opl e , a onl her s eve n t e ent h b irthday not occurring till lowing J a nu ary . Abou t Ge n era l Diaz hung visibly mu h of the mag - nificence o f h is destiny. Roman e clot h d hi t, and there w ere p o te n tialities of p l ndor about hi future. H e wa s t h e fa bl d , fa n cy-st i rring "man on horseback"; the type of m a n t h at every government of Europe openly inveighs again st a n d secretly de - sires in this year of 1920; the savio r , w ho li ke all coming to save, perlorms his task a bo ve and b ey ond the crowd, wh~ch later, after salv a tion is accom- plished, resents his disdain and fo r gets his benefits. He had fought continuously during the war against the French. The pictures of him at La Carbonera on 26 PORFIRIO DIAZ 27 his sorrel horse in his picturesque "charro" costume, a pistol in his hand, his steed pawing the air, the French in retreat, will live as long as the history of tbat t;poch lives. He accomplished many daring escapes, such as that from Puebla in 1865, when he \ as a prisoner of the French from the 10th of Feb- ruary to the 22nd of September, and which is one of the most thrilling evasions of history. 1 Courage, decision, judgment, luck, all the great military qualities showed themselves even in this feat. 1 The following relation of General Diaz's escape from prison at Puebla in 1 65 is in his o wn words : '' e were delivered over to the Austrian forces who imprisoned those of us abo e the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the fortress of Loreto. We were threatened with summary execution unless we would swear allegiance to the Empire and the majority yielded, but four of us refused, and a few days l ater I was transferred to the convent of an.ta Catarina and placed in a cell with two other officers. On the pretext of a disagreement with them, I obtained a cell by myself and forthwith began digging a tunnel, starting underneath my bed . I was on the ground :floor, in a chapel which had formerly be n the cell of a nun of miraculous powers, and there was a well in it, famous for its curati':e waters. I us e d the well for receiving the earth which I dug from my tunnel. When I had almost reached ::i. point underneath the street, after :five months' work, I was sud- denly transferred to the convent of La Compai'iia. While there I was treated with great courtesy by the lieutenant in command, Baron Chizmendia, who took me to a bull-fight on one occasion and even gave me permission to leave the prison alone on parole. This cost him dear on the return of bis superior offic e r, the Austrian Count Thun, who put him under arrest for having given me these p1·ivileges. When I took Mexico, on June 21, 1867, I found Chizmendia among the llungarian prisoners, set him at liberty and later sent him and other Hungarian officers, wh o were his friends, back to Europe on the ''Novara'' an Austrian ~rigate, which had come to Vera Cruz to take Maximilian to Europe. '' Count Thun had ret:urned to Puebla in ill humor from an unsucc essful campaign in the Sierra. He summoned me before him and after trying to induce me to give orders for an exchange of prisoners, which I refus e d to do, and expressing astonishment at what he termed my insol ence after nine months' imprisonment, he ord ered the shutters of our ce lls closed, leaving us in darkness. He increased the number of guards, authorizing them to enter the cells at any time, and to remain there if they considered dt necessary. He made me an especial victim and to the extent that I resolved to make my escape. I :first chose my birthday, the 15th of September, / 28 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY The internecine wars on the Isthmus and in Oaxaca, were also, as far as Diaz was concerned, a record of but as that was the eve of the anniversary of our independence, I could not carry out my plan because of the illumination of the streets of Puebla. So I put it off until the 20th. ' 'I have succeeded in buying some horses which were in readiness, in charge of a servant in a house near by. Two of my feDow officers were in my confidence and they agreed to invite the others to a game of cards so that I might be left alone. I had provided myself with two coils of rope, wrapped about my body, and a third coil which I~arried separately. My only weapon was a sharp dagger. '' After the night-bell had sounded, I went from my cell to a room common to all the prisoners and :finding no one there, I threw one of the ropes to the roof, caught another rope over a stone eaves - spout and climbed up, pulling the rope after me, and picking up the other. My progress across the roof to the corner of S-an Roque, the point I had chosen for my descent, was most dangerous because of a detachment of troops that occupied the higher roof of the church, over- looking the convent. Although the night was ery dark, there were frequent fl.ashes of lightning, which exposed me to discovery at any minute . '' Finally I reached the wall of the church. Here the ·roof slanted and was very slippery from the recent rains and I was in immin nt danger of falling. I had just descended to the low roof of the chaplain's house when a young man entered it from the str ct gayly humming a tune, as if he had just returned from the th a- ter . Soon after he · came out, carrying a lighted candle and pas ed by the place where I was hiding. After what se med to me an ' interminable wait, he returned and reentered th house. I a e him sufficient time to go to bed-and perhaps to sle p-and th n I pursued my way to the corner above the str et of an Roque. There st oo d a statue of San Vicente Ferrer, and it was m pur oso to tie to i t the rope by which I was to make my d scent. Tb aint as not as steady as could have been desir'ed, but I supposed that he ~ as s u sta i ned by an iron bar, and for greater sa£ ty, attnched my rope t o• the pedestal, which served also as the corn r of ho building. I d ecided that it would be unsafe to drop to the str t, :is I might b e seen by a passer-by, so I chose as my place of desc nt an open lot on t h e side of the building, without knowing that it wns a pi g-pen. As I began to let myself down, my dagger fell from my b e lt and must have wounded one of the pigs, as a great squealing en s u ed tha t t h reatened to exposo me to discovery . "U p o n r eaching the ground, I hid for a while until the noise ceased and I w a s a bout t o c l imb over the wall to the street, when I had to withdr a w quickl y o n the approach of a gendarme going his rounds and exa minin g t he lo cks o f the doors . "'When he had passed I gained the s t re et, an d was eve n ab l e t o suppress a terrible desire to cough , brought on , by t or men t s in m y chest, resu l ting from the fatigues and anxie ti e s of my fli gh t. "I ran to the hous e w h ere my guide was waiting £o1· me wit h horses and weapons. We mo u nt ed and, luckily, fo u n d t he T e o t ihu a can PORFIRIO DIAZ 29 brilliant victories, wounds, fantastic and hair-breadth escapes. At all times and in all circumstances he had been a magnetic and . romantic personality. He was of handsome and authoritative presence. His eyes, when I looked into them, were even then, at more than four-score, of an extraordinary and bril- liant beauty. What deep attraction must have lain within their glance thirty years before! ~n immeas- urable tenderness, too, one of the best gifts of strong men to beautiful women, lay beneath the absolutism of the maker and ruler of Mexico. Such was the man bronzed, decorated, aureoled in victory, who would descend from his horse at the door of the house of Don Manuel Romero Rubio, in which is now the Calle Tacuba, then Calle San Andres. There was that in Porfirio Diaz' instinct which led him to seek a woman whose qualities would be supple- mentary to his own; there was that in his destiny that enabled him to find her; and having once · found her, he exalted and cherished her to the end. gate open and so could leave the city without question. Colonel Bernardino Garcia was to have awaited me with his troops on the boundary between the States of Puebla and Guerrero, but because of having had to postpone my escape from the 15th to the 20th, I did not :find b.ini there. I then swam the river Mixteco on horseback, not daring to be unarmed even for a moment, the Imperialist forces, under Colonel Flon, being in close proximity. On arriving at the village of Coayuca, I found that a fiesta was in progress. I avoided the center of the town but while in the outskirts I met the alcalde, whom I knew. I pretended to be a merchant on the way to the coast to buy cattle. He recognized me, however, congratulated me on my escape and offered his help, urging me to stop a while as there would be no d-anger. I declined and went on. A few moments later I heard rifle shots and climbing a hill I · oould see that fighting was going on in the tol'{n. I learned afterwards that a squadron of Imperialists had made a sudden attack in the hope of surprising Garcia's guerr.illas, who were attending the fiesta. . "We cont~ued, '!ithout fur.th~r incid~nt, and after covering :fifteen or twenty miles, found refuge m the rancho of Colonel Bel'nardino Garcia, in the mountains of Oaxaca. 7 ' . 30 I~TIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY : In the unevolved being of her sixteen years this woman held predestinatedly the choicest qualities of tact and goodness in addition to her outward graces, and was to add to his autocratic rule a crowning touch of gentleness and modesty. During the period of the wars of Reform and 1 Intervention he had been the man of camps, of sieges, of blood and battles, and doubtless himself and his· methods were often rough and ruthless. The pol- ished statesman of the last three decades of his . administration was evolved, however, from this mili- tary chief. They met, with the immediateness Fate som times shows, on the occasion of Carmelita's first appearance in society, at a luncheon at the Tivoli El' eo gi n in honor of General Diaz. Afterwards at he house of the Duchess de Regla, the General and C rm lit danced together one of the charming M xi an · "danzas . ," the young girl experiencing a 1 n - ural thrill at the attentions of the m n h s gi · and achievements were ev n th n th pri e o hi nation. A few days later th y met gain at tion at the German Legation, h re hi in r evident to all. Shortly afterwards it was made known to the parents of Carmelita that the Gen ral was madly in love with her. It was Romance, age- less, repetitive and beautiful. · But whether it was as son, lover, husband or father, each and every feeling of the heart was to be experienced in its fullness by Porfirio Diaz. His de- votion to his mother gives him a typic and exalted place among the legendary sons of history. As lover, PORFIRIO DIAZ 31 his being was agitated by the extreme of passion and longing. As husband, :fidelity, devotion and adoring solicitude accompanied every act t-0 the end. He was, too, the kindest of fathers, .respectful of the needs and rights of the separate individualities of his children. Never were they to hear from his a violent, unconsid- ered word, nor suffer an arbitrary decision. I wit- nessed his final farewell from his daughter, Amada, Iris first-born. Such deep, paternal tenderness emanated from that ultimate embrace, that many who witnessed it were affected to tears. I was on my way back to Mexico in September, 1913, and for a few hours the "Espagne" lay off Santander. About four o'clock a small launch was seen approaching the ship over the glittering, many-colored, afternoon water . In it were Don Porfirio and his wife bringing Madame de la Torre, Amada, who was returning to Mexico. As he took his daughter in his arms, press- ing her so closely to him, he seemed entirely forgetful of all else save love for that child he was to see no I more. When at last she tore herself from his embrace a:nd passed up the gangway, he could be seen standing motionless, majestic, his head bared, his eyes fixed on the ship whose prow was turned toward Mexico. * * * * Carmelita's mother was a woman of superior intel- ligence, though, after the Mexican way, her abilities were used exclusively for the benefit of her family. Her portrait shows something reserved, tranquil, unalterable in her being, and the small but modish bonnet of the period, with its narrow velvet strings tied under the chin, seems fitly to enclose the firmly- 32 INTIMATE PAGES OF.MEXICAN HISTORY chiseled features and the deep, dark eyes, with their · undeviating look, of this woman, then young and very handsome. But even a faded colored photograph cannot dim the bright glance _ of Don Manuel Romero Rubio ' s eye, nor efface the pleasant, humorous lines about the mouth, revealing him a man of easy sympathies, of a tolerance of the generally unwise attitude men take towards the things that happen to them. His brown suit set off by a lightish blue tie, the broad kind, orn crossed, further reveal his type, while his rather heavy mustache and his chin-whiskers complete the r Mexican ensemble. Al together something h u.man and engaging emanates from the fading presentment of one long since vanished from the · human stag x t as the memory of his children recalls his ord and acts .. . • . Porfirio Diaz and Carmen Romero Rubio ere t o beings separated by a generation of time a d outward circumstance, which seemed to for a t n- ha ppiness for both, rather than th years of mu ual adoration, unbroken harmony and imm surable trust, which were to compose their rare and perfect union. The gift of Porfirio Diaz' h art to hi wife was as complete as the gift of his wisdom to hi na- tio;n. She was to be the love of his life. And she, so early wedded, called, scarcely out of childhood to be the mate of the maker of Modern Mexico, was in turn to find all her joy in him, to live in and by and for him all the days of her life. "He was the beginning and the end of my existence," she once said to me, "life ha,d no other meaning, no other value. I had only youth to give him; he gave me every- PORFIRIO DIAZ 33 thing. I adored him from the first and I live now only in memory and in the hope of another meeting." * * * * At the time of their marriage he was a widower of a year and a half. He had three children, one son, Por:fi.rito, afterwards married to Luisa Raigosa, and two daughters: Amada, who became the wife of Senor Don Ignacio de la Torre, 1 and Luz, the wife of Senor Don Francisco Rincon Gallardo. His father was a Spaniard and his mother was Spanish through her father, thouo-h her mother had been a Mixtec Indian. The Indian blood of Don Porfirio was therefore only one quarter. His wife, Carmelita, was of pure Spanish extraction . He was born in the city of Oaxaca on September 15, 1830, on the twentieth anniversary of the "Grito de Dolores." His cries and those of the mother bearing him were the cries of a new Mexico. * * * It was to his native city that Don Porfirio took his young bride, the wedding journey through that in- comparably beautiful country being made mostly on horse-back, with nights spent in hidden and romantic p1,1,cbios . The gorgeous valley leading to the city of Oaxaca, through which one can in fancy see them passing, is a riot of brilliant birds and flowers, and broad, shining leaves. The red-granite hills sur- rounding it are more austerely beautiful. It is inhabited by a race not speaking Spanish, often of 1 Don Ignacio de la Torre was dispossessed of his great estates in Morelos by Zapata, who had been a groom in his stables. He died in exile in New York in 1918 leavin~ no children. Don Francisco Rincon Ga:ilardo was murdered by bandits on bis hacienda of Santa Maria in Aguascalientes in 1913. His wife and nine children survive him, the last being born after bis death. 34: INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY e!ltrongly-marked Asiatic type. The · men are small, but firmly-knit, silent, and white-shirted; the women, dark-eyed, pearly-teethed, envelop their heads af t er an immemorial custom in long blue cloths, and wear golden necklaces of hand-wrought filagree. Only a few kilometers away are the unsigned monuments of an ancient civilization, the ruins of Mitla. They lie overgrown with gorgeous vegetation, among other austere, red-granite hills, outlined against the bluest of skies. Locked in these mountains, too, are treas- ures which men have always sought feverish! and for which they strangely lay down their lives,-gold and silver and copper, and also precious stone that generations of women receive from them to ear around neck or finger, or hang in ear . . . . The climate of Oaxaca is as perfect as anything earthly can be. Those who know it, may perhap for a moment, as they read these words, feel th m el es enfolded in the glittering N ovemb r beau y ha , at the close of the rainy season, lay about he ci of churches and earthquakes, as he who a i e t t son, rode into it with his adored and beautiful oung bride. It was eloquent of his martial life, for Oa aca had been besieged and taken by him three times. The first time was in 1858 under the orders of Colonel Ignacio Mejia, fighting against the chieftain Cobos who held it. In 1860 he took it under General Salinas, and was severely wounded. In 1865, being in command, he held the city against Marshal Bazaine, who besieged it for days with overwhelming forces. He held it till the last cartouche was fired, the last corn and sugar consumed, then with that PORFIRIO DIAZ 35 incomparable serenity of soul which marked all the great moments o.f his life, he surrendered with his troops, and was taken prisoner to Puebla. Again, on escaping, he took it in 1866, from General Oronoz. It was after this, with the cannon and arms taken from the enemy in the battles of Miahuatlan and La Carbonera that he began the siege of the city of Puebla, which he took by assault, on the unfor- o-ettable day of the 2d of April, 1867. A few days later, in the battle of San Lorenzo, he defeated Marquez, "The Tiger of Tacubaya," and proceeded to the siege of the city of Mexico, which fell into his po er on the '21st of June, 1867. Thus terminated the War of Intervention and the last days of the Empire in Mexico . . . . It i said that before his final retreat to Queretaro with Marquez and his two thousand armed men, Maximilian had watched in silence and despair, from behind a curtained window in the Palace, the depar- ture of the French troops from Mexico City. His hour on the Hill of the Bells was near. * * * * Oaxaca's low, massive-built houses are earthquake- resisting, with a Spanish-Moorish toucli, and because of the gold in the near mountains it is intimately connected with the history of the Conquest. 1 1 It was occupied by Diego de Ordaz, one of Oortes' most intrepid companions, who in 1521 took it from the Aztecs, the Emperor Ahuizotl having founded it some forty years be.fore. In 1522 Gonzalo de Sandoval was sent there with his thirty-five-never-before-seen horsemen, bringing about a panic somewhat after the manner of the tanks in 1918. An edict of Charles -V., July 6, 1520, :finally created Cortes Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, and the lands all about a.re known to this day as the '' El Marquesado. 11 The :first convent was established there in 1529 by Fray Gonzalo Lucero and the ancient bishopric was described as a triple vale, trefoil in shape, with the 36 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Q-eneral Diaz and his bride took up their abode in the Government Palace, built in the noble form of architecture the Spaniards introduced into Mexico. It has but one story above its Doric-columned "portales," and its cornice is surmounted by urn- like shapes. In the interior are many ample, sun- stained patios, and great stairways, leading to spacious, high-ceiling'ed rooms. On Sundays and on feast-days the "buena sociedad" of Oaxaca ongre- ga tes in the Plaza, and at all times there are chang- ing groups of Indians coming from every part of he state, belonging mostly to the Mixtec and Za otec races. Wrapped in picturesque and immemori 1 garb, they offer delicate :filagree work, bright o 1 n zarapes woven in their mountain , paint d O"Ourd and highl y - colored fruits. An incident which - shows the unswervingne of Porfirio Diaz' purpose, the compr h nsion of hi t occurr ed but two weeks after his mani er • the very windows of the stately apartm nt inh by General Diaz and his brid , a un o- In i soldier, on sentinel-duty before th doo o th p· 1 who had smoked the strano-e herb, m 1ihn na 1 hi h · city of Oax aca at the stem. One valley tends to nrcls the Pa.cm~, another towards the Atlantic and one str tches to th north. The city itself is built at the foot of ':j!, hill, sloping towards the River Atoyac. The cathedral was founded in 1553, but it has been so bombarded and pillaged that little of its beauty remains, and even more cruel than wars have been the restorntlons. The great monastery and cbm·ch of S-anto Domingo in their fo1·ti·ess-like massive- ness have resisted both earthquake and cannon. The French troops, during the war of Intervention, plundered and devastated the city, and for much of the defacement of th e Plaza of Oaxaca, Don Porfiri o himself was responsible, in the sieges he so successfully undertook. 1 Legend has it that the Empress Carlota was secretly poisoned with this herb before she departed from Mexico to make her despairing appeals to Napoleon III and Pius IX. It was at the Papal court that her insanity definitely developed. Her husband and an Im- / POR f IRIO DIAZ 37 c razes him who takes it, ha d killed an under-officer. His wife with her baby in her arms , t h a t same day of his arrest, gained access to the youn g bride, beseech- ing her to intercede with the G o ve rno r . When she implored the pardon of the u nf o rt un at e murderer, he answered her : "Though I ad o re y ou, and would lay down my life for you, I cannot d o w hat you ask me. The death of this man is as nothi ng compared to the ustaining of military disci pline t hroughout the oun tr . It cannot be kn o w n of me that I condone such an act." The end of the story is t ha t the next day a delega- tion of worn n of the city o f O axa ca sent an appeal to Pr sid nt Gonzales, wh o c ommuted the death-sen- t nc to :fifteen years i m p risonment in the fortress of San Juan de Ul ua. But hen discipline w a s not menaced, General Diaz ould show himself of a ro y al generosity. Aft r the storming of Puebla, three hundred M · an officers :fighting in the Imperial ranks fell into hi hands . Acc o rding t o the law promulgated by J uar z, all s u ch were to be summarily executed. Impr·i oned in one of the great ch.ambers of the Municipal Palace, they g a ve themselves up for lost, and begged for notari es and priests, that they might regulate t h e i r affa i rs of this world and the next. Th is was at 8 o ' clo c k in the morning. The victor sent w ord to them that they could do as they wished till thre e o'clock of the afternoon. They were even allowed to go into separate rooms with their con- p e rial Crown wer e forever lost to h e r. The world knows how she has passed the succeeding forty years of her life in the Chateau de Bouchoute, in a rayless ni g ht of insanity, kinder to her perhaps than would have been the light of memory. 38 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN ~!STORY fes~ora and notaries . . Later, all were transferred to the Archiepiscopal Palace. At half-past three General Diaz in his battle-staine~ garments, victory still shin- ing from his face ( for Puebla had been taken in the njght), appeared suddenly in their midst. He broke the mortal silence which fell upon the condemned men to say sternly : "According to the law you are all subject to he death penalty, for you betrayed your · country when she had most need of you." Then he paused, hange his tone, and continued: "In view of the fa t, how- ever, that there are so many of you, I ha e the con- viction that ultimately the Government will be inclined to mercy, but the Law would require h t you be kept in the strictest confinement till our fat be decided. I have myself so recently uff r d all things for the cause I uphold that this I would par you. Believing in the victory of the Republi , I per- mit each one of you to go forth a fr e m n, u n giving your word in writing that ou will pr t yourself for judgment at any time it be requir d of you by the Government." The scene was indescribable. The fac of three hundred men who had stepped back from d a th w re turned towards him. Among them was Colonel Vital Escamillo, who had increased from his own purse the price that Count Thun, Diaz' one-time jailor at Puebla, had put upon his head. He was unknown personally to Gen- eral Diaz, but that touch of human frailty, never wanting on any great occasion, was shown when one among those assembled, thinking to gain favor, pointed him out to the victorious General. His ges- PORFIRIO DIAZ 39 tu re of lilCOrn was for the informer, rather th an the culprit, as he answered: "He, too, is · free . " It is said, also, that after returning the loo k of the three hundred men to whom he had give n life as definitely as they had received it at their b ir t h and their beginning, he turned suddenly away o v ercome by emo ion, and left the place. Gen ral Tamariz, also among the prisoners of t hat famous day, then exclaimed to those abo ut him: "T ice Diaz has vaIJ,quished me . Once by his mili- tary g nius, now by his generosity. I w ould g ladly ser e him, even in the ranks." This act of magnanimity was of po lit ica l impo rt as 11, for it was typical of the policy o f co n ve rting en mi s into friends, which he p urs ued through all the da of his power. . . . It s while Governor o f O axa ca t hat, in 1883, General Diaz, accompanied b y his wife, made his only vi it to the United States . To see was, with Don Porfirio, to understand, a nd he doubtless set apart in the b st eclectic ma n ner so m e of our institutions for imitation,-others fo r av oidance. Mr. John W. Fo ter, who had been s o long M inist e r to Mexico, was o fficially appointed by Pre si de nt Arthur to receive and accompany t h em, t o ge th e r with his wife, on this vis i t. Carme li ta and M r. Fo s ter's daughter Eleanor, now M rs. Robert Lansin g, had been playmates at the Romero Rubio house, and at the American Legation. CHAPTER III Second Administration-Empire-Building-So c ial Li f e in M exi co C ity Since the Brief and Tragic Glory of Maximilian and Car l o t a - Don Porfirio's Family-Re Le a ves His M ot he r's D e ath-bed at the Call of Country-His Relations to th e Chur c h -L o ve o f the Chase-Serenity of Soul-Disdain of Rich e s-P er so n al Habits-- The Ypiram,ga. ' • In 1884, when Don Porfirio was again made Pre s i- dent by an almost unanimous election he continued to dwell in a house in the Calle Humbold t oppo i my first Mexican home. It was a then newl - built, not large, irregularly shaped structur ha · ng several pink cupolas, 1 with blue-painted e ilin g and was next the square building in more la ic { Mexican style, which was used as the Mini s cy of Fjnance in my day. A curious incident, concerning the building of hi house, shows how forgetful Don Porfirio had b n f money when he was in pow r, and its sour e , :fluid, unsealed, were near to his hand. In ord r to om- plete it, after his first Presidential term, he found himself obliged to ask a loan of 8,000 pesos from he Banco N acional, which owed its prosperity to him. There were, after the usual human way, men on the council of the bank who inevitably voted not to let him have it. A Spaniard among them, Don Juan Llamedo, indignantly rose and said that he would personally be responsible for the sum, and that he c , onsidered any discussion as to the solvency of Gen~ eral Diaz unbefitting the nation~ with which state- 40 PORFIRIO DIAZ 41 ment almost every one (unless somebody may have too recently tried to borrow from him) will agree. It was to this house that he returned after taking his oath of office on December 1, 1884, and I have been told, by one who stood among them, of the immense and enthusiastic crowds that waited for hours before its door to acclaim him as he drove up, again President of Mexico, and entirely competent artisan of an undreamed greatness. He continued to d ell in it for some months, driving or riding to and from the Palace, a picturesque and noble figure, " hose significance was becoming more and more appar nt. \ From there he began with unerring instinct to gather the materials for his work of Empire-building. A fe r ther scattered and defaced remnants of his fir t administration remained. With these he pro- ceed d. He promptly removed the beam from his own e e by cuttinO" his salary as President in half (from 30 000 pesos to 15,000) and further (but less popu- lar) reforms were operated on others, as he pro- ceeded to r duce, though not to such an extent, the salari s of many government officials. He was to prove as implacable towards those who unduly pil- lage the State in eras of peace, as to bandits and enemies who do it in times of war. · His complete knowledge of human nature, however, led to a tolera- tion on many occasions of what the French deli- ' cately call "le pot de vin." Shortly after his inauguration the increasing duties of State made it necessary for him to live nearer the Palace where the administrative work was carried on. In it, then as . now, were not only the :, 42 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN IJISTORY offic e s of the President, but the Senate Chamber, and the Ministries of Treasury and War . He decided not to take up his abode in the Palace itself on account of the expense the Government would be put to for the keeping up of such a vast establishment, so he moved t o a house , in the Calle de Cadena, a street lying near it. In still later years he used the castle of Chapultepec for a summer residence. It was this house of the Calle de Cadena, inhabited by h i m during the decades of Mexico's Augustan Peri o d , which a forgetful people, in the form of a h o wli n g m ob, was to surround on tlie 24th day of May , 1 911, s houting "Muera Diaz" and ''Viva Mad e r o. ' ' Fr o m i t he left the City of Mexico fore er in t h e earl y ho u rs of the 26th of May, 1911, showing once a ga in t h a t a ruler who has wrought good is as of te n h a t e d as on e who has wrought evil. The terri- fyin g ly pot e n ti al noise o f that same mob, its ebbing and swellin g mu tterings I shall never forget, dri · ng h ast il y ba c k fro m the Japanese Legation, wh re we had been info rme d o f the o utbreak, to the Calle Hum- boldt, in mort a l an x i ety l est s o mething had befall n m y lit t le bo y . Don Porfirio's son occu p ied th e pin k - c u p ol aed, n o w Bougainvillaea - hung hous e opposit e , so lon g lived in by his father. Behind its clo s'e d shutters an d b a rri- caded door, his wife was awaiting her d e liv e r a:nc e in the · midst of preparations for flight, and I r e m e mber thinking, as I looked across the street , "Woe to them that are with child." * * * * At the period of Don Porfirio's second term of office, social life in Mexico was of the simplest. Din- PORFIRIO DIAZ 43 ners would be given to incoming or outgoing Mini~- / ters, but the entertaining ended there . His wife did not, according to the then prevailing Mexican cus- tom, assist at the banquets. Since the brief and tragic glory of the Court of Maximilian and Carlota, society, as our pre-war world considered it, had not existed . During the Presidency of Benito Juarez the aristocratic and gov- erning worlds had been cut in twain lite~ally by fire and sword, and there were no overlapping ends. The conservative and upper-class elements boycotted his regime somewhat, doubtless, as I saw them boycot- tin the Madero regime . The War of Reform was too recent, and the almost daily confiscations of Ch ur h property were often ace om panied by some per onal act of Juarez, as when he permitted his sol- diers to raid, one night, the great Franciscan Convent in Mexico City . Mexican women of that · day, hose only and traditional spheres of activity were th ir homes, were atouseo. to such indignation that they marched the next morning around the convent, black-robed and protesting. They naturally never lent their beauty and their virtue to any public func- tion of his regime. Juarez had an exemplary and handsome wife, but was himself very ugly, much below medium height, thick-set, swarthy, plain-featured, without outward graces of any kind. His adventures with the fair sex, who do not demand beauty in men, were, however, nu- merous, and at times spectacular. In this he but was true to type, for it would seem, looking down the vista of history, that illustrious statesmen and war- liors are drawn on, in direct ratio to their gifts, by 44 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN ~ISTORY the eternal f erp.inine, responding even more easily than other men to the great invitation which women throughout the ages extend to them. Of the antique chase, for which they are equally well equipped, I say nothing here. Juarez' successor, Lerdo, though a great lawyer, proved to be an indifferent President from every point of view, being very indolent--what is called "muy flojo." To this was joined his excessive per- sonal_ pride. Peace and prosperity in Mexico demand, as we have seen, other qualities. _ He was unmarried, but was also of an amorous disposition, and seem to have been, to use a provincial but still expl:.cit phrase, "a fast man." During his incumbency, society was also non-existent. By society I mean those groupings about the central power of cultur beauty, elegance, wit, set in splendors of fortune and tradition, which have always accompanied the ri of nations to greatness. Now by some strang di tor- tion of the post-war lens, through which we loo on life, these attributes, once the glory of stat are replaced by drab, misshapen, unwieldly, p nurious irresponsible groupings of mediocrities, which how- ever, thanks to nature who abhors equality mor than she does a vacuum, will, in the end, disappear. Once ag~in such highly individualistic achievements as those of art and science, and the pursuit of honors and riches, natural objects of human endeavor and ambition, will reappear in their true form and value, and we shall understand and desire once more the benefits of that "just inequality," without which no State can be great . . . . During Don Porfiri?'s earliest incumb_ency his first PORFIRIO DIAZ 45 wife, a Oaxacan like himself, had died, and he had been furthermore too engrossed in the problems pre- sented by banditry, and debts internal and external, to take part in social functions, or to hold any him- self. The simple austerity of his private life, his extreme personal modesty, combined with his great natural dignity, commanded respect and admiration, apart from the romantic prestige of his military tri- umphs, and would have made him a welcome figure in an circle. Victory by arms will forever enhance the glory of civic achievements, we cannot say why, and even tho e ho abhor solutions by force see, as a lamp shinino- in the hearts of the generations, the memory and knowledge of the splendor of martial deeds,- though their end is so often exile or death. . . . When on his second incumbency, President Diaz appeared with a young and beautiful wife, related to various great families in the Capital, things began insen ibly to change. , The formation and welding of the society of Mexico City, very aristocratic and exclusive on one hand, on the other composed of new governmental figures, was, however, a slow process. The Corps Diplomatique aided this greatly, discharging one of its organic functions (which I have seen operating in other countries, between Court and industrial circles) by consorting with both and unifying social life. In the end, culminating in the Centennial celebrations, Mexico City became one of the most brilliant capitals in the Western Hemisphere, even from the point of view of society. Women when going there needed notoriously the best clothes to be had in Paris or New 46 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY York; the prestige of Diaz, which alone would have made of his capital a rendezvous of brilliant men, being further enhanced by the fact that his wife s natural and acquired elegance could vie with that of any woman. Much hospitality was then offered by the President and his wife. Everything was done impeccably, with care and distinction. Even now in exile, in a small apartment in a small street in Paris, the same dis- tinction is apparent in each simplest expression of hospitality given by his widow. Except for his children and his nephew Feliz, Por- firio Diaz was without near family. When a great man is thus, like Melchizedech, without father, with- out mother, without brothers, he is indeed cho en of he . aven, standing quite free for service. The impedi- menta of his so inscrutably predestined sue e or, Madero, on the other hand, included 232, or, accord- ing to some, 299 members of a family singularly acquisitive and active. Don Porfirio's children, fourteen, eight and six years of age at the time of his marriage to Carmen Romero Rubio, lived in perfect harmony with their young stepmother. "A situation that might ha e occasioned so many difficulties," she once said to me, "produced only the tenderest affection. They were always perfect to me. My mother, too, loved them very tenderly and was adored by them in turn." In his own earliest childhood, the home of Diaz had been devastated by the great cholera epidemic of 1833, during which his father and two sisters had died. His mother was left thus early to provide for the subsistence and education of her remaining chil~ PORFIRIO DI~ 47 dren. Even in that land of many resources and few needs the struggle wa1 hard. Her husband, Jose de la Cruz Diaz, of Spanish parentage, after having served in the army in his early youth, had been for a while a blacksmith. Later, he was employed in the celebrated mine called "Cinco Sen.ores" connected with those of "San Jose" and "El Socorro" in the dis- tric t of Ixtlan. He was soon found to be worthy of the fullest confidence, and was put in command of the small force of men who transported the ore and dis ributed the wages of the employees. It was when he as thus engaged that he fell in love with and married Petra Mori, whom he had met in the neigh- borino- town of Y odocos:~. She was of Asturian origin on her father's side, as her name indicates; her mother was a Mixtec Indian. She was of small stature, straio-ht-featured and <lark, and was to prove herself a oman of unusual gifts in the way of rectitude, charity, good sense and energy. Don Jose was a tall, strong, well-formed and handsome man, of great determination and most laborious habits. Their first married years were passed in the dis- tri t of Ometepec, near the Pacific coast, where Don Jose had rented with his savings a small sugar "finca," on which he also opened a little shop, after the secular manner of Spaniards in Mexico. Later, he moved to the city of Oaxaca, where his two youngest children, Porfirio and Feliz, were born. Porfirio was three years old at the time of his father's death. His sister, Nicolasa, always entirely devoted to him, inherited many of her mother's qualities. She kept his house and guarded his children during his widowed period, remaining unmarried until some 48 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY time after his marriage to Carmelita. Then, no longer young, she became the wife of one of his aides- de-camp and comrades in battle. His brother, Feliz, the father of Feliz Diaz of our day, was a short, swarthy; thick-built man, having none of the beauty of Don Porfirio, though he was · also of an adventurous disposition, and gifted with courage and energy. He embarked early on a mili- tary career. He was taken prisoner by the French in their first engagement on Mexican soil, and later he was among the prisoners who accompanied the escort of the Condesa de Prim, wife of General Prim, from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. He had been wounded in the battle and was taken care of by the generals wife. He afterwards successfully made his escape by attack- ing a mounted guard and getting off on his horse. Later, when he was governor of Oaxa a, he as called to quell an uprising in the town of Juchitan which then, as when I saw it in 1912, was giving ample testimony that what the Juchitecos best lo is a fight. He fell into an ambush outside the riotou town and was murdered. At the time of his mother's death General Diaz was Military Governor of Tehuantepec. Being informed · of her grave illness, he went on horseback, without a halt, to Oaxaca to embrace her a last time. He had barely reached home when a courier arrived with a message that a military crisis necessitated his immediate return to the Isthmus. Though the doctor told him his mother had but a few hours to live, at the call of country he relinquished the supreme and august privilege of holding her in his arms an9- re- ceiving her last sigh. The grief of that parting he · PORFIRIO DIAZ 49 never forgot, and late in life he would speak of it with undiminished emotion. It is typical of his patriot- ism . . . . So much has been said of Don Porfirio's irreligion that a word of his personal relations to the Catholic h urch will not come amiss. His first marriage was performed by a priest of Oaxaca. His three children were baptized and sent o religious schools, his two daughters being educated in the convent of the Sacred Heart, which institution was stablished in Mexico during Don Porfirio's sec- ond pr sidential term. His marriarre to Carmen Romero Rubio was con- secrated by Monsignor Pelagio de la Bastida, Arch- bi hop of Mexico, in the Chapel of the Archiepiscopal Palace, an ancient edifice in the Calle de Perpetua. H al o p rformed _ the marriage ceremony for Don Porfirio s elder daughter, Amada, when she became th wif of Don Ignacio de la Torre, the President as i ting at the nuptial mass. · On th d ath of Archbishop La Bastida, Monsignor Pro pero Maria Alarcon became Archbishop of M ico. H blessed the marriages of Don Porfirio's • son and younger daughter, under like circumstances. These two prelates, mep- of great gifts in very dissimilar ways, were both personal friends of the President and his family. In fact Don Porfirio always showed the greatest courtesy in his relations with the bishops of the country. He looked on the Church as on all other things - , with strict imparti- ality. He knew it to be the most durable of all human institutions, and recognized its greatness and allowed for its power. The bishops, in turn, knowing how 50 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY ardent and convinced was his liberalism, and that he would always be careful to respect the form of the Constitution, wisely seldom asked impossibilities of him. Of the many names in Mexican "Independent" his- tory, four stand out: Hidalgo, Morelos, Juarez, Diaz. Their attributes are as definite as their names, and have been stamped for all time on their various generations. The last two were each in their differ- ent ways great, typic Liberals and followed, as do men of genius, the signs of their times. Liberalism was in the air they breathed. The first two men were priests. 1 The Zeitgeist of their times was "Independence" and they, too, followed it. It is certainly confound- ing to those who would give casual judgments con- cerning the Catholic Church in Mexico that Hidalgo should have raised the first cry for freedom there and · have been the :first to put upon a banner "death to bad government." The r6le of Morelos, whose battle-cry was "Free- dom from Spain," was more complex his moti s more discussed. On freeing Mexico from what has been called . the "Peninsular economic domination," it has been reproached him that he wrote : "Our only object is that the political and military Government by Spaniards pass to the Creoles." · But into what hands should the country have been delivered? Certainly not as President Wil- son tried to deliver it a century later, into those 1 Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, born May 8, 1753, at Corralejos, Guanajuato, shot as a rebel against the Spanish Crown, July 31, 1811. Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, 'born at Valladolid, Michoacan, 1765. Captured, tried and finally shot as a rebel against the Spanish Crown, December 22, 1815. PORFIRIO DI AZ 51 o f the unprepared e ighty -fi ve p e r cent. Indian and half-breed, from whom it w o u ld ha ve b e en as prompt- ly and easily taken by the one - half of one per cent. as i t was to-day by those repres enting our · once incom- parable Carranza . The Creoles w e r e the logical in- h e ritors, the next link i n th e c ha in, not the Indians. As to the so reviled dominati on of t he pries t hood, n e ver in the most powerful day s of Sp a nish and Church rule was such a system o f bo n dag e countenanced to terrorize, despoil and destr o y t h e I n dian as that in Yucatan in the .;/0th ce n t u ry of t he syndicalism of Gen- eral Alvarado; and the g o d o f antiquity who devoured hi o n children is again ab out, for from Spain an- other domination than that of the li..,ria r s has come, in the guise of thousands o f an a rchists, who by :fire and sword and many w o rd~ c on t inue to prepare the sal- va · on of the Indian in t h e n e xt world if not in this. The Fria r s, as e v e ry b ody knows who is familiar with tbe l and cape o f Me xico, built pink and lovely church s with pat io s , w arm, flowering, tree-planted and un-bathed, wher e t h e Indian could bring his di tress s, receive educati on, of a primitive order 'tis true, and often, not a lw ay s, g et his wrongs righted. And tliese churches resem bl e not at all the bare walls o f the I . W . W . asse m b ly r ooms. T he Mex i ca n o f a ll clas s es is essentially religion- lo ving , w hich is on e of the reasons why the present r egime of t err o r a n d persecution, of closed churches and b a nished prie st s and nuns is so disastrous. The a t tempt at the destruction in the human bre a st of a beli e f in a higher power, typified first in a · small way in Mexico by the Carrancista church per- secutions, now become part of the Bolshevist world- 52 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY program, assails something so inherent in man that doubtless he himself will be destroyed in his mad assault on the things of eternity. Ah! if there were no death, if man were not cut down like grass at evening, if there were no Reaper, if each one's night wherein he works no more were not his most certain end, one . might perhaps experi- ment. But even then, who would not wish to con- sider at times things supersensual, supervisua1, the precious Res Celestia? Whatever form it may take, worship is man's :first, last and greatest right, and often his only real possession. * * * • Don Porfirio's private life, of which there are so many f'antas~ic and calumnious accounts, was of the simpler:;t and happiest. He found his pleasure in his family, and in the candid and natural joys it off red. He had little of the taste for cards or other games of chance usual to his race. He was often to be seen towards dusk, accompanied only by his wife, in th lovely park of Chapultepec, under the century-old ahuehuetes shading its broad calzadas; sometime pausing under the great tree of story, the "arbol de Montezuma," · which in addition to the glories of the Porfirian Mexico, had witnessed those of Montezuma and of the Spaniards. . . . , . To the end he preserved his great predilection for hunting and delighted in organizing s . hooting-parties. Quail, wild pigeons, snipe, rabbits, hares, abound on the Plateau,1 and sometimes, too, he would slip out of 1 A Spanish diplomat, Don .Jose Romero Dusmet, now Minister to Bulgaria, a colleague of our first Mexican days, t.old me yesterday of one of the shooting-parties at which he assisted. The guests left ~exico City early in the morning in the presi- PORFIRIO DIAZ 53 the city for a few hours' shooting, accompanied only by a single aide-de-camp. Around Cordoba, too, he often went to stalk deer. It was traditional in the family that he should spend the greater part of Holy Weekso engaged, returning for Easter Sunday with great quantities of venison, which he would distribute among his friends. His love of the chase dates from his earliest years, and there is a typical story of his boyhood, which he himself used often to recall, and which shows his natural constructive abilities. Impatient with the archaic sling and other like weapons and not hav- dential train, and were to make the once beautiful hacienda of J alpa, belonging to Don Guillermo Landa Y Escandon, then Governor of the Federal District, their rallying point. After luncheon they went out again for snipe, and were caught in one of the usual afternoon deluges of the rainy season. · In the train, on the way back to the city, Don Jos6 and Don Guillermo begged the President to get out of his wet things, as he had a servant and a change with him, but he refused-he a man of eighty-because the others could not do the same. The h'acienda of Jalpa had been built by the celebrated Conde de Regla, who had come mto possession of the famous Real del Monte · Mine in the early part of the 18th century, and was so fabulously rich that he could quite conveniently lend the King of Spain a billion pesos, and give him several fully-equipped war-ships as well. The hacienda contained many works of art, for besides the massive silver-services, and various paintings of the Spanish Masters, it was r nowned for its priceless antique Chinese v::> , ses and French proee- lains, these latter ' having been bought by the grandfather of Don Guillermo, a man of vast wealth, · in Paris, early in the nineteenth century. These were either smashed on the spot by Carrancista soldiery, or carried away by their officers to be sold. A few objects of special value were removed in baste, by what seem to have been experts, ~ppearing at the hacienda simultaneously with the entry of the Constitutionalist troops into Mexico City. Among these were the immense silver lamp bef 01·0 the altar of the hacienda chapel, bearing the date 1677, the Ribera above Don Guillermo's bed, and a chair belonging to Cortes, which are known to have found their way to the border, after which all trace of them was lost. A great silver platter hammered out by hand, that Cortes ordered made for a Church vessel, alone has been preserved. For the rest, of the once splendid mansion and its many treasures, there now remain only the walls. E. 0. S., January, 1920. 54 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY ing money to buy a rifle, out of rusty parts of pistols and muskets, bought as occasion offered for a few pennies, and which he himself put together in the forge of a friendly smith, he made his first firearm. It was out of as unpromising bits as these that he subsequently forged modern Mexico. He became very expert in the making of these primi- tive fire-arms, selling or giving them to the Indians of the Valle Grande, and he was a familiar sight seated before the door of his modest dwelling, busily combining the different parts of his muskets or trac- ing artistic designs on butt and barrel. He early delighted in all sorts of physical exer- cises. When a very young boy chance put a book on gymnastics into his hands. He proceeded to im- provise a little gymnasium in the courtyard of his mother's house, making the various kinds of apparatus himself, and :finally even establi hing a class. But best of all he loved to lose himself in the dense tropical prairies of Oaxaca, or explore it mountain fastnesses. These excursions, for which often his only opportunity- was the night, gave him a close acquaintance with the native tribes, and fo - tered his inborn love of Nature and solitud . His habit of sleeping under the stars, his delight in adventure, his resource and courage in danger, his know ledge of the habits of birds and animals, made him adored by the Indians. This life, which he fol- lowed so instinctively, was to develop his magnificent mu · scular strength, temper his nerves to steel, and later enable him to suppo rt with ease the fatigues of the martial achievements that were so great a factor in his career. Doubtless it also aided him to pre- PORFIRIO DIAZ 55 serve to a great age a vigor known to few men. It was, too, an equally instinctive preparation for his incomparable strategic successes, for his inti- mate acquaintance with the Indians of southern Mexico gave him later the power to quickly recruit his armies, and train them for seemingly impossibl e feats. This magnetic control over the inhabit~nts of his nati e State was one of the secrets of his discon- certing mobility, of the cunning ambushes he laid for his enemies, enabling him so often to win victory over forces greatly superior in arms and numbers. To the Indians he was not only a dauntless chief, an incomparable leader, but embodied almost super- natural qualities, becoming to them as a god of war, a b nign reincarnation of the god Huitzilopochtli of their ancestors. Brother-officers who, later, were to see him as the great administrator, calm, sure, prudent, farseeing, constructive, said of him that in combat he was like a lion. Over his being a great change would come, lio-ht would flash from his eyes, his nostrils would dilate, his lips would part, a bright color would lie upon his cheeks. Terrible, irresistible, invincible, they knew him for the heaven-born general and fol- lowed where he led . . . . As to money, his relation to which has been so little understood, though Porfirio Diaz knew it to be a vital necessity for the State, it was without mean- ing in his own existence. He had no personal wants:, he accumulated no personal effects . . He used only what was necessary for his being and his situation, without any accompanying sense of possession. He was never heard to say, "I would like to have this 56 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY thing or that," though he delighted in making little pre ents to the members of his family, and was al- way thoughtful about fulfilling the desires expressed b tho e he loved. When he left Mexico, he left it with hut the amount of money indispensable to a certain comfort and dignity, living modestly and re b-ainedly during the years of exile. Thi um·eality of money was a mental and piritnal · . diosyncrasy of his being. Everywhere about him were men passionately de irons of riche , lmt he himself wa alway immune from thi agele feve: of modality . . After hl ofolious entry into exico · ty he wa literally pennile"' . . o Juarez he had turned over he mill arv trona- o t.aining the run of twenty-two thousan p and an arm eqnipJ ed nd armed. 1 Hi onl o ession wa . t11e jeweled ord pre ente to him by the ity of Merieo in r o!!D.i · on of hi tl tor ie m the International a1. Thi he found him If forced t ate to a u mer in the apital. H turned hi face outhwa d to · PORFIRIO DIAZ 57 tionary upheaval, the estate passed out of his posses- sion, was pillaged and ftnall old into other ham:ls. He ne-rer reclaimed it during his long years of po er, when by simpl raising a :finger, that or anything else could have been his. In the day of his country s prosperity he was loaded ·with honors and decorations from the Powers and Principalitie of the earth. In his reception of them in his wearing of them there was never a ge tare nor an expre sion that dimmed hi perfee mode ty. He received them and wore them a if to · o he had been given and his but the accidental form on · which the huna. ey repr ented after long ear of contempt and neglect on the part of th nation her new greatne were visible te timony to her new glory. he onl deeora · ons he held in honor were tho e ained on the :field of battle in blood and danger of death. He wa of a crnpulous neatne in his . attire but in tincti el~ without an preoccupation b it .. his linen wa al way o e and bi uniforms well kept. Thi wa part of his innate ense of uitablene and pe onal di!m.i . Hi tr atmen of hi inferio of ervant was marked bv an extreme kindne and to tho e of long service he displa ed a simple affection, p:r erVl.llg at the ame timer eet for his po "tion. In Porfirio Diaz hear an lDllD earn.mg over hi p ople. He wa m re thall the friend of each h wa the fath r who I for his children. H kn~ a far · p rmitted n finite man, the details of his !roY nm.en a well it !!ttat e linea I he b en aid nn with truth that great 58 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY wrongs were committed under his rule, yet these were always without his knowledge. If a wrong could be brought to his attention, he righted it when- ever he had the unrestricted means to do so . It will be argued that he, being absolute, had in every case these means; but rulers are also servants, and any man at the head of a government, even one he himself has brought into being, cannot on all occa ions ee beyond the Chinese wall that his ministe1·s, al wa s lesser than himself, build about him. These he must inevitably serve. But in no instance can it be pointed out that abuse of power was for his personal advan- tage, or that he knowingly gave his consent to things harmful to his people. As far as the ponderous machinery of a great and prosperous government, be- coming more and more , complicated as it grew, per- mitted, they had individual access to him, and where he knew facts he gave prompt and impartial judg- · ment. It is the fashion, temporary as all fashions are, to rate the achievements of Porfirio Diaz not by the human standard, which would show him too great, but by some angelical measure. He was, like other rulers, mortal, and like them, what he admini ter d was mortal, and even so great a man as he could not disprove the scriptural axiom that there must always be rich and poor, lowly and exalted, nor overcome nature's repugnance to equality. He was of iron constitution, and during Iorig years knew nothing of the miseries of the flesh beyond wounds received~ in battle. He always arose at five o'clock, bathed, took a cup of coffee and immediately passed to the business of the day. He never seemed PORFIRIO DIA Z 59 io feel hunger; it was a matter of ind i ffer e nce t o him after a long morning's work if he lunched at one , a t two or at three o'clock. This abstemi o usness was doubtless some heritage from his Indian ance s t o r s, also in part was due to s o meth i ng natura lly self- abnegatory in his being. It is recorded o f him, t oo, that he ate with the greatest nicenes s, and that though his early life had been o f the s implest, and afterwards much of it was spent in camps a nd b attles, hi manners at table would have befitte d a pr ince. He was alike unaffected by extremes of heat and cold, and could endure easily fatig ue s crushing t~ other men . He as never vexed by trifle s, no r w as he visibly perturb d by misfortune . . Thi s d o m inion over him- elf am in part from the a~ mi r able poise of his being, in part from the long h a bit of dominion over other . Even on the night of hi _ s final departure from Mexico City he was i n fu ll p ossession of his serenity, though all about him were hu r ried and distraught, and he himself just arise n , physically weak and broken, from his bed o f pai n. The r e were no outwa r d mark of motion when, w i t h his wife, he got into the motor standing in fr ont of the house in the Calle de Cadena, at tw o o 'c loc k of that May morning,-the 26th; nor when H ue rta assisted him into the special train awaiting him at the station of the Ferr o carril M e x ic a no, no r even when, without w hi s tl e o r w o r d of c ommand, it slipped quickly out of the d ar k s t ation. But when aboard the Ypiranga in Vera Cruz harbor he had heard for a last time the voices of 60 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY . his people, gathered, thousands, to greet him, when the last hand-clasps had been given, the last "abrazos," and the Ypiranga had turned her prow to the open sea, he wept. And those venerable tears should have been caught in a golden cup by a whole people on their knees, those eyes wiped dry with the cloth of grati~ tude and repentance, to be kept, cup and cloth, as long as the nation lasts. What will they ever find more sacred? CHAPTER IV Di cta tor of Mexico--The Revival of the Explosive- Office of Viee- Pr e si d ent-D iaz Choo se s a Great Minister of Finance, Jose Yves Lim a.nto nr- Unpa r a.l l o l e d Prosperit y -Ern e sto Madero, Uncle of th e '' R dee m e r' ' -Th e Sin g le M ee ting of the Maker of Modern M e xico with th e Instrument of Its Destruction. It was in 1892 that all questions as · to reelection ceased and Porfirio Diaz became Dictator of Mexico. He had 1 d h e r out of the wilderness into green, very green places. The National Convention which nominated him candidat r vived, however, a governmental corpse - hat of th office of Vice-President. This was done by the enlightened and gifted group of young men who dominated the convention, with a view to cur- tailin0 the possibilities of revolution in the event of th death of Don Por:firio. 1 But like all things human, and especially things human and Mexican, this had its disadvantages. Don 1 Ev e r y man ye t living of this group of farseeing and patriotic Mexicans is in exile. This toleration and even connivance, at the expulsion of the educated classes from Mexico by the United States, though one has beard about it ad nauseam, is still apparently so little understood, that one may be permitted to illustrate it in the following crudest of ways: It is as if the Emperor of Japan, having decreed the person and term of office of the President of the United States, furthermore gave the country into the hands of the ''Reds'' whom we now so industriously cast from us, while the members of our Congress, the heads of banks, the founders of great industrial concerns and professors 0£ Universities were compelled to flee, leaving everything in the hands of an untrained, unilisciplined mob . Yet this is what happened in Mexico, based on but one reason, the hatred of -a foreign autocrat for the ruler of a people whom fate had placed in his power. , 61 62 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN E;ISTORY Porfirio, from the first seeing that this office would be the goal of passionate desires, awakening the always too-lightly sleeping envy, and engendering endless intrigue, had, after his simple yet genial way, suppressed the explosive office. It was only when time began to show its implacability in his own person that he conceded the matter. The Vice-Presidency seems to be a thorn in the side of every Latin-American President, and, to change the figure, as the heel of Achilles of every Latin- American Government. General Diaz was aware of this as early as 1877. He proceeded with extraordinary astuteness, and on the excellent principle of safety in numbers, to decree that the President of the Chamber, who wa elected every month, be called on to fill the Executive office in case of the death of the President. Later this right devolved on the Minister for Foreign Affairs. During the greater part of the administration of General Diaz, this post was occupied by Don Ign io Mariscal, one of the most faithful and int llig n collaborators any President of any country has er possessed. He held this position for twent -t o years, becoming what one of the diplomats called "the dean of all the ministers of the world." Such a fact is testimony both to the man and to his country. He was further highly cultured, possessed of ani- mated and agreeable manners, and though not striking of stature nor feature, was a marked and unforgettable personality. It was , largely at the instance of Don Jose Yves Limantour that the Vice-Presidency was created; Don Ramon Corral being elected to the office. Don P O RF I R IO DI AZ 63 Ramon, whatever his private sins, always c onduc t e d himself with entire political and persona l lo yalt y towards his illustrious chief . He was, too, fo r a wh ile, popular with the country . Later his conn e ction with the Cienti:ficos, in addition t o the destruct i ve offi ce of Vice-President, gave rise t o · a terri bl e c a mpaign against him culminating in t h e un answere d c harges preferred by Madero i n his " P r e sid e ntial Suc- ces ion . " Since then the Vice-Presi d e n t s o f Mexico have either died with the Pres id ent , or v a nished into void at th p chological mome n t , or, mo r e simply still, hav nev r been drawn ou t of ~o t hingness. At this mom nt 'no hay . " The procedure is of a discon- certing simp li city . . . . Don P o rfir io h a ving in his splendid years the finest fla i r fo r me n 's c ap aci t ies , Feb r uary of 1893 was to witn s a spec ial act of wisdom, for he then appointed Don J o se Yves Limantour Secretary of the Treasury and Pub li c Cre dit. How admirably this man filled his office is know n to t he world. In the closing years of his dictatorship t he I r on President saw more and more in L i ma n t our the natural success.or to the Presidency, o n e i n to w hose careful and skillful hands th e s p l endi d thing known as modern Mexico could be entrus te d , and there are many recorded conver- sations concerning the matter. There were two out- side difficulties ( what enemies of Limantour's appar- ent destiny lay within his own bein~ I cannot say). He was of French parentage; the other was his uncompromising war on what Mr. Bulnes calls "bureaucratic cannibalism." In Latin America, or 64 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY anywhere for that matter, this alone would have pro- duced an army of enemies. His incumbency as Secretary of the Treasury, which was uninterrupted, led to the result that fo 1910 Mexico's foreign debt was quoted above par and many millions lay snugly in the Treasury. Before the outbreak of the Madero revolution, the bonds of the exterior debt were selling on the Stock Exchanges of London and Paris at a premium of 5½ per cent. So high was the credit of Mexico at that epoch, that Mr. Limantour was in Europe successfully arranging a conversion of the foreign debt to 4 per cent. 1 It has been asserted, and the testimony has even been used to damn the Cientificos, of whom Liman- tour was the chief, that no Latin-American adminis- tration ever placed its country in the same credit rank as that enjoyed by Mexico during the :financial rule of these reviled gentlemen. If to lead one's country into unparalleled pa hs of prosperity is criminal, then indeed they ere crim- inal, caught by the worJd, red-handed, in the act. However, paciencia, "El Incorruptibl " was com- ing. · The Mexicans, in tbe strangest :fit of national folly ever known, were to place in the hands of a man, who was to break them into a thousand bit , the precious works of wisdom. This man was Francisco I. Madero, whose political avatars are the quickest recorded in the history: Once "Redeemer of Mexico," "Bridegroom of Mex- 1 Though never in the history 0£ Mexico have her fiscal receipts, through oil, and the world's need of it, been so gi·eat as now, the Carranza regime never even platonically discussed the payment of any kind of interest at any per cent on the National, or any other debt . PORFIRIO DIAZ 65 ico,"' her "Apostle," her "chaparrito" even, in mo men ts of extreme tendernes$, he finally came to be known, sometimes as the "monkey of Coah uila," oftener as the ''lunatic of Parras." And his death was even more disastrous to his country than his life. The hydra was a headless being in comparison with that "vengeance' of mixed and indigenous parentage, which sprang up and proceeded to destroy Mexico in his name, the r61e of "Vengador" having been played since by every villain in Mexico, and many just men in and out of it, leaving little or n·othing for God to repay. The ultimate fact ( and facts in Mexico resemble the seldom encountered white blackbird) concerning the finances of the Diaz administration in that Sefior Don Jose Yves Limantour closed his work by handing over 72,000,000 pesos in hard coin to Sefior Don Ernesto Madero, his successor · as Finance Minister: This clever and agreeable gentleman at that moment occupied the neat but also gaudy position of uncle to the "Redeemer,-'' this position being sensibly brightened as the lily is gilded, by his becoming Sec- retary of the Treasury in the ad interim Presidency. From any point of view his situation could . only be described as gorgeous. These 72,000,000 pesos in sounding coin were deposited i:a the National Treas- ury, in the Banco Nacional, and in various banks in New York, London, Paris, Frankfort, and could be seen by anybody at any time. This is how Porfirio Diaz and Jose Yves Limantour "served the Mex- icans." It will stand as a model of service for all time and its popularity will doubtless outlast that of some later models. 66 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY President Diaz saw the "Redeemer" on a single occasion. It was after the publication of Madero's "Presidential Succession," and an audience having been arranged, Madero went to the house in the Calle de Cadena and was ushered into the great man's presence. The conversation between the Empire- builder and the instrument of its destruction took the following simple turn: Madero: "It is not against you but against your system that I am working. For you personally I have all respect, but the country is ready for democracy, and we must have unbiased elections, freely and re 0 - , ularly held. It is time that you relinquish the power. ' Diaz: "Into whose hands do you counsel me to giv it, Senor?' · ' Madero: "Into the hands of an honest man. I, striking himself' on the breast, "am an honest man ( ~ hom,bre honrado) ." One can imagine the look with which that in orn- p~rable appraiser of men's abilities scanned h Ii tl man before him. Diaz: "Senor, a man must be more th n ho t t govern Mexico." After which Madero took his leav , and th rlcl is visiting the ruins. CHAPTER V Unconsciously Experimental Forms of Porfirio Diaz' Earliest Years -He Studies for the Priesthood-His Mother's Grief When He Turns to th Law-Bugle-call to Arms-His Martial Glory-The Statesman-Mexico's Greatness. The tentative, doubtless unconsciously experimental forms in which Don Porfirio's earliest years ran, are both interesting and enlightening. At fourteen he began his studies for the priesthood in the seminary of Oaxaca. This step was determined by the pious wishes of his adored mother, who desired above all things the sacerdotal life for this, her best-loved son. Hi acquiescence even for a time revealed something idealistic and self-abnegatory in his young being, and some inherent concern for t~ings invisible in one afterwards so eminently practical in government. Two years later he was brought to the attention of Don Marcos Perez, an ardent Liberal and professor in the School of Law, which formed part of the Insti- tute of Arts and Sciences of the city of Oaxaca. He soon perceived the exceptional qualities of the young Porfirio, who was even then studious, brave and wise beyond his years, and set about to persuade him to give up his studies in the Seminary and enter the Institute as law student. Though the proposition of :pon Marcos greatly attracted him, th~ thought of his mother's grief and disappointment made him long hesitate. 6f 68 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Don Marcos :finally invited him to assist at the annual distribution of prizes, when he presented him to the important personages taking part in the exercises. It was on this occasion that he was pre- sented to Benito Juarez, then Governor of Oaxaca. The relationship so begun was to be a determining factor in the career of both men. Diaz relates how on that very day he became conscious of an irresistible attra - tion for the life of which he had so unexpect dly caught a glimpse. What he was to call in later years "the greate t conflict of his life,'' then took place. The next orn- ing, pale with decision, after a night spent in f I- lowing the windings of the river Atoyac, he inform d his mother of his desire to leave the Seminary and begin the study of law. "My mother gave me a look of infinite adn When I saw her tears and . how bitter wa her di - · appointment, I was dismayed. I told her that hough every desire of my being drew me to the In ti u , and that it was nothing that could di grace h r or make her lastingly unhappy, still if her heart r set upon it, I would become a pri t. But sh 1 d me greatly and was possess d of mu h judgm nt. After awhile her tea1·s ceased, she embra ed m in silence, and left the house to go to church. Later that same day she called me to her, and pressing me to her heart, told me that she realized that I must follow out the career for which I felt myself best :fitted." It was thus that he passed to the study of law in the Institute of Oaxaca, impelled, doubtless, by some inherent love of justice, and interest in the manner of its application. This life, also, he was not long PORFIRIO DIAZ 69 to pursue. He was the heaven-born general, and inevitably his genius led him in the paths of military events. When he , was but seventeen the trumpets of the War of 184 7 sounded through the land, stirring his young and ardent soul. But again following the advice of Don Marcos, he resisted the call to battle and continued his law studies, becoming clerk in the office of Perez, who was, however, shortly afterwards cast into pri~on in the convent of Santo Domingo, charged with plotting against the Government. 1 Later the War of Reform and the French Invasion were to reveal Porfirio Diaz to himself and to Mexico. B 1 7 he had risen to the position of Jefe Politico of the District of Ixtlan. But civil war, the ardors of which had been dampened for awhile by the struo-gle with the United States, had broken out again and with renewed fury. He then gave up this po ition, corresponding so little to his real powers, and became captain of a company in the forces com- 1 Certain letters were found, written in cipher, implicating Don Marcos in the revolution. The young Porfirio, realizing the im- portance of acquainting him with the charges against him and the testimony of the other accomplices, resolved, at the risk of his life, to repay the affection that Perez had bestowed upon him by pene- trating to the convent garden and climbing to the windows of the tower in which he was con:fined. He induced his brother Feliz to join him in the adventure. They provided themselves with a long rope, chose a dark night, and succeeded in scaling a 13-foot wall without being noticed by the sentinels, crossed the gardep., climbed to the roof of the convent bakery and thence to a higher roof with the aid of their rope, and so on until they reached the top of the tower itself. While one of the brothers held the rope fast, the other let himself down to the level of the window of Perez's cell, 70 feet above the courtyard. After overcoming all these obstacles, the window was found to be closed and no communication with Perez was possible. But the young men had at least succeeded in reaching the window and knew where the guards were stationed. They made three more hazardous attempts during the nights following and :finally succeeded in talking with Perez. As a result of the information he then obtained, Perez was able to defend himself so effectually against his acousers, that he was acquitted of the charges of conspiracy and hi~ life was saved. 70 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY mantled by the liberal chief Lieutenant-Colonel Manuel Velasco, who was conducting operations in the State of Oaxaca against the revolutionary chief Jose Maria Salado. On the 13th of August of this same · year, Porfirio Diaz received his baptism of blood, for on that day, at Ixcapa, near the Pacific Coast, the two armies met. Early in tlie cwnbat Diaz was wounded by a ball in his side. He fell to the ground. To the wonder of his comrades, he wA'& seen shortly afterwards, his face shining with a strange whiteness, his uniform wet with blood, fighting in the foremost ranks. Su tained by a new and magical ardor, he was able to continue the struggle till victory was achieved. When he was carried unconscious from the field, the chi ftain Salado lay dead with many of his men . The poorly equipped government forces having no doctor among them, Diaz was taken care of b a devoted Indian in the ranks, who accompanied him on a long and torturing muleback journey across he mountains, from Ixcapa to Oaxaca. This was the first of the series of military victories which were to fling a lasting glory about hi p rson and his country. These three stages, which I have so :fleetingly indi- cated, were to leave each its mark upon his mature being. The s.piri 1mal longings of his adolescence were to reveal themselves later in a supreme love of , country, in a clear realization of her needs and his responsibilities. His inclination for the law showed itself in the beautiful and fecund order he brought out of disorder, for he doubtless dispensed as much justice and prosperity to as great a number as the PORFIRIO DIA Z 71 narrow limits of mortal li fe perm i t to a ny on~ man. His taking up of arms was follow~ d by t~ o sp l e ndid decades of martial triumphs, the glory of La C arbo- nera, of Miahuatlan, of Dos de Abril , o f Pu ebla, of San Lorenzo, of Oaxaca, o f the taking of Mexico City, were to hang forever visib l y · ab o u t him. In the battle of Miahuat l an, he comma nded the forces against Oronoz and Testard . Th i s la t te r was a natural son of General F o rey; yo u n g a nd of great · ph sical beauty, he was left dead u p o n t h e fi e ld. Diaz who happened to be pass i ng where h is body lay, had it buried with . full military ho n or s . The dog belong- ing to Testard refused to l ea v e th e s p ot, lying with his nose close agains t h is m a s t e r 's grave. Subse- quently Diaz sent the fai t h f ul animal together with a ll the li ttle pers onal b e longings founq on the dead c h ief, o ffic i a ll y t o Fr an c e to his family, saying as he co mman d e d i t to be done: "T h o se soldi e rs who fall in foreign lands die a doub l e deat h . . . . " These were the y e ars that made him strong, daring, inventive, reso l ute , undi sc ourageable, and wise in the things of h uman i t y. From being one of the greatest military men o f his d a y, he became one of the greatest statesmen and E m p ire - builders of all time. Now that th e illustri ou s e poch is finished, sealed and safe in h ist o ry, w e b eg in t o see its harmony and naturalness. I ts b rig ht e st g lory, its chief and most abiding use is that it showed to the world, and above all to the Me x icans t hemselves, their possibilities as a nation under a form of government suited to their idiosyn- crasies. What has been can be again. Were Porfirio Diaz ta live once more, once more to lead his people J2 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY out of their Egypt, his genius would show him new ways, new methods, suited to these our new times. And in the light of this man's wisdom and the splendor of his achievements, which corresponded so perfectly to the period of his country ' s evolution , how dark ~nd cruel and disserviceable are the d~ e ds of Mexico's men of to-day, and how sinister and d es truc- tive the meddling of the United States in her de s tiny. That he was to watch, in exile, the fall of each pillar of the temple he had built, that his spirit wrapped in calumny and ingratitude must haunt a country in ruins, is to the everlasting shame of the men who made the ruins. "To be a sun and not irradiate the most beautiful rays, which are those before setting; to be a torrent and be constrained to finish in the waters of a tag- nant basin; to be an eagle tliat with broken win contemplates the heavens; to see a tragedy hanging over his country, such as he had averte-d in bi outh and not able to remedy a single evil; that as hi end . . . . " Don Porfirio was a consummate reader of m n hearts, and above all of the ends of their d sires. The cold look of the oppressor, the gl am in th of the office-seeker, the uncandid and murky glan e of the envious, the hesitating gesture of the man afraid, were to him as pages in a primer. Men of affairs who were received by him tell of the extraordinary sure- ness and quickness of his decisions. If he felt a man to be honest and his requests legitimate and useful, he immediately regulated the business on which the applicant had come. He :would go into the next room, dictate a telegram or give an order, without PORFIRIO DIAZ 73 any hesitation, rarely putting the matter off for fu- ture judgment. If he had no confidence, he was still polite, but very brief; the affair would not survive the interview, and was as without hope of issue as a man in the prison of San Juan Ulua. He was, too, of complete practicality in his decisions academic discussions having little or no interest for him. He became more and more con- vinced as time went on of the value of foreign brains and capital in Mexico, desiring only to prevent a monopoly by any one Government. One of the oil pioneers told me of his initial conversation with Pres- ident Diaz, who quite frankly said he had several reasons for wishing him and his comrades success. First, he considered that men who left their own country, accepting the risks and hazards of labor in a foreign land, were entitled to help in the further- ance of their schemes, which were nearly always of mutual benefit. Second, that he realized the inesti- mable, educative value of foreign methods of work, and that by such illustration much could be accom- plished that he himself was unable to do for his people. It is thus that the wisest Mexican looked on the processes which his successors have so strangely con- demned, though from them Mexico draws to-day the very breath of her national and :financial life. With- out oil, discovered by strangers within her gates, she would, at this moment, be the least among the nations of the earth. Diaz was of an extreme sensibility in spite of his iron deeds. In a recent testimony Mr. Edward L. 74 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY . Doheny, who has doubtless had more to do than any other man with the present riches of Mexico, even from the Mexican standpoint, tells of Diaz' visible emotion when he said that he never contemplated without deep sorrow his failure to bring good con- ditions to all the working-people of Mexico. The recital of any generous act would often b.ring tears to his eyes, and he sometimes said : "How is it that I, an old soldier, am so moved by such things?' . I myself saw his eyes wet, though then he as mourning over the ruins of Mexico, as prophets of old wept over those of e:{erusalem. If to maintain order in his country, whose com- ponent parts showed a continuous and intrinsic tendency to dissolution and chaos in the pursuit of "Liberty,'' Diaz had to strike hard, he did it, and 'twas doubtless without hesitation that he sent hi famous telegram to General Mier, "Strike while th · iron is · hot," which was the decree for the shoo tin of the principle Jefes of the revolutionary Jun a in th Port of Vera Cruz on June 25, 1879. Later the bloody suppression of the Orizaba textile riots, was another example of his remorseless determination to preserve order. Late in life, at the critical moment, however, he was to have an invincible repugnance to the shedding of blood. The life of one man, or of a few men, was above the life of the country. This was no longer statecraft but his manner of showing old age. In the fullness of bis powers if, for the good of the country, the d3ath of a hundred disturbers of the peace was re- quired, he had never :flinched in decreeing it. As . a military chief he had possessed in their full PORFIRIO DIAZ 75 nees, the four Ciceroni~m qualifications for general- ship: courage, technical skill, authority and luck. Later he translated these into his conduct of civil affairs; for he was bold in his plans, attentive to the details of their carrying out, sagacious as to methods, prompt, very prompt in his decisions, and, being heavenrborn, he was lucky. His accomplishments,1 during the long years of what may now be called the Porfirian peace, "an educational peace" he himself called it, are with every year more visible, though the kno ledge of his achievements is only really ompl te wh n one looks at an electioneering sheet of the period where nothing, of course, is omitted. 'Po a polit-ioa, mucha administraci6n'' was the keynote of his rule. He knew better than any one the blind pas ionate personalism that distinguishes poli- tic in Latin-America, the disintegrating tendencies it furthers, the hatreds it fosters in its breast, and the destruction that is its natural consequence. Also that alone by peremptory decisions could he deal with it, 1 Mexico, '' the treasure house of the world,'' could open her doors again in safety, enjoying her own riches a hundred-fold, and con- trib 1ting to the wealth of other nations. Vast facilities for transport were inaugurated during Don Porfirio's dictatorship, over 20,000 kilometers of railways were constructed, mnning the length of the country, and the ports of Vera Cruz, of Coatzacoalcos, Salina Cruz and Manzanillo were entirely remodeled. Mexico City owes both her beauty and health to President Diaz, and the valley her health, if not her beauty. The admirable work of draining the valley, dreamed of and planned under the Viceroys, was :finally carried out by him. The city, which during centuries was recurrently :flooded at the rainy season, was also most unhealthy during the long dry months. He had sewers constructed, the streets paved 'and kept clean, and pure drinking water waa brought from the springs of Xochimilco. Hos- pitals, asylums, schools, and new go1ernmental buildings were gen- erously constructed, and throughout the length and breadth of the land, like reminders of his dictatorship still exist, resembling little the defaced buildings, the empty schools and asylums, the lootea churches, the destroyed railways, broken bridges, flooded mines and untilled lands of his successors. I 76 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY ' especially in its most characteristic form of envy, that besetting sin of Latin-America, and worthy pendant of the Anglo-Saxon vice of hypocrisy. To envy is due much of the extreme personalism of Latin-American politics, and a trait so salient and so determining of action, merits some study. Mexico has been called "un polis de cabezas/' a nation of heads, each individual man being convinced ( unto death, if need be) that his way is the only way. Few poli t ical Mex- icans like each other, even when they are of he same party; and they always hate each other when they differ. Yet politics necessitate political parties and, even were it not so, there would be little joy in being segregated with one's own opinion, and nobod to fight. It is a cercle vicieux, and generally no wa out save sudden death or exile, which oftener com s to Mexican politicians than to those of other countries. Knowing to the very marrow of its being, as only the man of genius can know things, that undi ci- plined, heterogeneous, passionate mas of human be- ings, the Mexican people, in his wisdom Don Porfirio had never experimented with the cruelties of a sen i- mental and unripe de,mocracy. H did no n per- mit his people to destroy themselv(UJ in their own way, so familiar since to the student of "the Mexican situation.-" He knew how slow is the growth of a representative form of government, and how yet unfit they were to assume it. He chose the surer, prompter methods of paternalism, bestowing the blessings of peace on as many as were ready for it, and imposing it on those who . were not. He continued, too, in spite of inevitable disillusions, to realize the value of the PORFIRIO DIAZ 77 example of foreign methods of labor, Se€ming to be brought as by the ravens to Mexico at that time, · but which now, alas for her, are shot at as unpleasant- habited vultures. One who reads history even cursorily will discover that nations-the United States is an example-in pursuit of their national development, continuously l ome foreign money and foreign brains. In Mex- ico alone, through the usual distortion of facts so dis- concerting there, this is anathema, foreign brains and foreign money having become symbols of turpitude on one hand and of victimization on the other. The beauty, order, and naturalness of the Porfirian scheme needed, for full fruition, time-which respects nothing that is done without it. If like Noah Diaz could have lived, in full exercise of his powers, for 7 0 years, he might have made desire for peace in- digenous even in the hearts of that one-half of one per ent. of his people, who when they :find themselves in power seem congenitally to abhor it. He was wise enough to respect the letter am"' the form of the democratic government that circum- stance rather than intrinsic fitness have so strangely impos don the Mexicans, but his genius colored and shaped it. As he breathed his spirit into it, it became something living and elastic, :fitting needs and events. It is impossible to govern, or even vote intelligently without a knowledge of facts, and in Mexico few or none of these seem to exist. A Mexican, as well as a foreigner, must be heaven-born, a half-god, to discern any. To Don Porfirio's genius for facts is due the only period of prosperity that "Independent Mexico" has known. The perception of these he was not, un- " . °I 78 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY fortunately, able to transmit to posterity. His peace has been condemned as mechanical rather than organic, but I think in this year of disgrace, 1920, we are perhaps no longer so "nice" about adjectives a pp lied to the Need of the World. Now the antics of the tragi-comic "democrac ," about as normal to conditions as an iceberg in the harbor o:f Vera Cruz, the arrival in Mexico of some 10,000 anarchists, mostly Iberian, the unbridled greed and cruelty of that one-half of one per cent. of the population in the name of "La Con- stituci6n," have destroyed his peace and hi work. Even the illustrative, rather weather-proof meth- ods of the foreign investor are intermittentl continued in · storm and stress. So much for the wa s of the "new men." Everybody is miserable. E en they themselves are exposed to the most horrid vicis- situdes, for one by one they are done to death in the back or stood before :firing-squads. · Since the world has been thrown into di order ven the blindest amongst us sees that order, not lib rty, is the :first necessity of society, and that the mo t beautiful attributes of liberty are the r straints h t wise mei:i. put upon it. This Diaz realized at all times and in all places. To refuse recognition of the great- ness of his administration because every Mexican was not happy, is as if we should reproach the Presidents of the United States with the fact that all dwelling under the Stars and Stripes are not in the possession of felicity. We do not dream of placing to their per- sonal debit the fact tp.at we permit child-labor, har- bor sweat-shops, endure slums in our midst, im- PORFIRIO DIA Z 79 prison men because of their beliefs, or condu c t our- selves in many ways according to the faultiness of mortality rather than the precepts of perfecti on. I am not sure that the deportatio n s of t he Yaquis, or the horr o rs o f the Va ll e N a cion a l, once described in such hig h co l ors by :Mr . Tu rn e r , a re more heart-breaking than the misery o f ro oms not far from mansions in ou r great ci t i es , wher e only a chalk line separates one family fr o m a no t h er a t be- getting, birth and death . Why sh ould w e be so pro u d? My ow n head is bo we d nea r ly all the time, and the only reas on I d are s o m e t im e s r a ise it, is that b u t l ately, East, West, No rt h a nd South, many men o f many rac es ha v e died gl a dly for an idea, loving som et hing unseen more than visible life and joy. E v en a casual survey of the Porfirian regime will reveal the great and simple reasons for its unparall e led prosperity. None of the practical means to su c cess were neglected. Conditions, not th e orie s , we re studied, and behind all its brilliance was a s u preme lov e of country, an undeviating direct- n ess i n he r s e rvice. "And the l and rested for thirty years." Fate p u ts a li ter al price on the head of him who a c hie ves g re at things. The evolution of a man's quali - ties, beyond a certain point, always awakens the jealousy of Nature on the watch to say "Halt," to one who overst e ps the human limits, be it through pride, by which the angels fell, or even through the instinc- tive exercise of the gifts she herself gave him in a generous moment. Mexico's greatest son, inevitably, inexorably, foredoomedly, was to be cast from her. 80 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "Far, yes" ( with a hand held out for the price) , "but no further.'' And he who would not pay for glory must die early -and even then--! CHAPTER VI The Call from Exile to the Greater Fatherland-His Venerable Ashes Await in the Church of Saint Honore d 'Eylau the Hour of Their Return to Mexico. It was in Paris, at six o'clock on the afternoon of the 2nd of July, 1915, that Porfirio Diaz passed from xile to the greater Fatherland. So gentle was his la t sigh that the companion of his splendid years and of his banishment, who held him in her arms, could not believe she was alone. There was no agony; for months he had been fail- ing visibly, surely, as a being fails that :finds no nourishment for its life. He had no definite illness, his splendid organism was unimpaired; nostalgia was onsuming him. The :fifth year of his exile had begun. It was too long. For days before he died he could not speak because of w akness, and he took scarcely any nourishment. But his eyes, brilliant to the last, would rest on his wife with the tender devotion he had always showh her during their long, unseparated life of heart and body. He never spoke to her of the death he knew was approacliing. To the last his supnme solicitude permitted no mention of the grief awaiting her, that his own love enabled him to fully measure. He never complained of his exile, neither did he show the slightest impatience at its :finality, though he sometimes sighed for "algo de Oa{JJaca,') something 81 82 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY of Oaxaca. Who shall gay what !ymbol, bird, plant or flower lay in his desire? aEs un sol pintado/' it i~ only a painted sun, he would often say of the French sun, and the landscapes and horizons in grisalille, so beautiful to us of the north, lacked to him an essential wa:rmth and color. Enfolded by Oaxaca's thick, dry heat, by its lustrous air, he would have lived another decade. He was of the stuff of centenarians. Several weeks before he died, when it was clear to all save his wife, that he was fading out of existence, a priest of Mexico, Carmelo Bley, at that time in Rome, who had been a friend of Carmelita and of her mother before her, came to Paris to bring the consolation of common memories and of a common hope. Then Porfirio Diaz washed his soul in the Sacrament of Penance and partook of the Holy Com- munion. * * * * In this he but did as the greatest of the Ancients, who also prepared himself for the last journ by prayers to the gods, for, when at suns t he took the hemlock bowl from the hand of him who brought it, he asked :-"Is it not permitted to make a libation with a little of this draught?" And when it was answered him that only what was necessary for his death had been brewed, he said :-"So be it. But at least it is just and :fitting to address, at my last moment, prayers to the Gods that they bless my jour- ney and render it propitious. This, then, is what I ask of them. May they grant my prayers." And he put the cup to his lips. And even as Phredo said to Echecrates, when he had :finished the precious· recital of the last day of Socrates:-''He was the wisest and PORFIRIO DIAZ 83 mOiJt just of men," so that priest, in tears, said, as he left the room wherein the soul of Porfirio Diaz was so soon to be separated from its body :-"Es un justo." His heart had held no rancor, nor any desire for vengeance; it was not even necessary for him to "for- give his enemies." Both justice and mercy were known to him. In the strict impersonality of his soul, he had hated no man for any reason that con- cern e d himself, which is the supreme virtue of a ruler. He never ~aid: "I will do thus and so, because I like this man, or because I dislike that one." His single thought had been "Will he or will he not be useful to the country in this or that circumstance?" During his exile men gaining access to him would try to speak to him of those who had betrayed him, and tell him how it had been done, but he would stop them saying: ''What can it matter to me personally by whom and how it was done? The country is lost. That alone matters." Even his wife was never - to hear from his lips a word of reproach concerning any man. In the days of power he had been above the hatreds of enemies, above those, more terrible still, of friends. In the days of exile, his soul, which had preserved its full sere:µ.ity, continued . to be inaccessible to them. In the victories of peace, though stern, he ":as always restrained, pursuing no evil-doer with his per- sonal wrath. In the victories of war, once the end assured, he was magnanimous, and an example to victors for all time, as when he said, concerning the French and Austrian prisoners of the War of Inter- vention: 84 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "They have but obeyed orders, as I would have obeyed the orders of my Chief. Let them keep their swords." His country's star arose with his; when his had set, it too disappeared, and there was darkness . . . . As he lay in :final quiet on that last and narrowest of all beds, his son flung over him the green and white and red flag of the "Tres Garantias" that he had so often carried to victory, both in war and in peace. Then without that blare of trumpet or beat of drum, which, had he passed down the great Avenue of the City he so loved, would have called the sons and daughters of Mexico to gather with folded hands and bowed heads, he was taken to the church of St. Honore d'Eylau. In its crypt his ashes await the hour when the passions of the people whom he loved, as a gifted and wayward child is loved by his father, shall have abated . . For a 1 ustrum now his wife has gon ery morning to pray by his bier, and sometimes I have thought it is this continued intercourse with one who is no more which gives h r a look of other-v orldli- ness; something clarified and almost virginal hangs at times about her, who for more than thirty years was an adored wife. She mourns him as she loved him, after the Spanish way of love and mourning, intense, intransitive and perfectly exclusive in its fidelity. The ship that one day will carry his venerable dust to Mexican shores will return to them the greatest riches any country can receive, the treasure of good tradition, the reminder of a glory that having been, can be again; for however blindly the nations try to PORFIRIO DIAZ 85 foreswear and disown the heritage of their past, as foolish sons squander the goods of their fathers, it rem~ins their greatest weal, their most abiding .. strength. And the place where Porfirio Diaz lies at last will be to Mexico's sons and daughters a holy place of pilgrimage. I I I , : I I ✓ PA RT TWO: FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA QUERETARQ; JUNE 16, 1863 - El Presidente Blanco PART TWO: FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA "El Presidente Blanco" CHAPTER VII My Ffrs t Sigh t of Francisco Leon de la Barra-An Appreciation-His Brief isi t t o M e xico City, September, 1910-His Audience with Preside nt T af t, Ma rch 23, 19 . 11-Return to Mexico-Minister for Fore i gn A ffa us - PreS1dent Diaz Falls Ill-The Ciudad J uarez C on ve n ti on, J\,i a y 21, 19.1.l. The magnetic use Chance makes of men's qualities is hat impress e s me as I consider this chapter in a life t his episode in a nation's destiny: the ad-interim Pr sidency of Francisco Leon de la Barra. I saw him for the first time from a distance, but at the climax of his career, on the afternoon of May 25, 1911, as he drove back from the Chamber of Deputies after taking his oath of Supreme Office. I was standing on the balcony of our house in the Calle Humboldt, whence I could see his carriage cross the broad Plaza de la Reforma and pass , the bronze equestrian statue of Charles IV. He was sitting very straight, and looking very pale and com- 1Pletely Aryan amongst the highly-colored populace that acclaimed him. Across his breast was the red and white and green sash of his exalted office. He rode in the shining equipage, with its princely liver- ies, that but the day before had belonged to the Iron 89 1 90 INTIMATE PAGES OF MBXICAN HISTORY President. ' He was accompanied by the glitter- ing, galloping outriders, their white plumes :flo at ing from their shining helmets, who had b ee n w on t t o accompany him, who at that moment w as l y ing ill, broken, rejected, in the abyss that separat e d him from the vast accomplishments of his life and t he final praise of history. The carriage disappeared down the broad Pa se o to shouts of "Viva de la Barra," followed by cri e s of "Viva Madero!", "Viva el Apostol." I thought of Mr. de la Barra then as public opinion voiced him, a suave, cultured, useful man of more than ordinary tact, belonging to no political party who for the greater portion of his life had lived out of his country, who had no encumbering affiliation who, in a word, would "do" and do w e ll. When he had :finished his "In t erinato" bearing the name of "El Presidente Blanco," relinquishing it, with nothing warmer nor redder than a handshake to the then undiagnosed visionary called the "Man of Destiny," I began to suspect him of other qualiti s than those so apparent. Now long acquaintan e 1 has proved him appreciative of all superior thing , on- sistent in act, :finishing what he begins, astute in judgment, faithful in personal relations, and as kind as humanity in its governmental aspects permits a man of political career to be. In his family relations he is a model of affectionate courtesy and solicitude, and "mafiana" is not in his vocabulary. He is a man 1 11 During the highly educative years of the Great War I saw much of Mr. de la Barra, who hM lived in Paris, since his departure from Mexico. It is this closer acquaintance with him that has made me appreciative of further qualities underlying those apparent ones that distinguished him when I knew him in · Mexfoo, FRANCISCO LEON DE LA · BARRA 91 in fact whose qualities of judgment and perseverance p e rmit his conquest of circumstances, and in turn the use of him by events. The knowledge of all t4ese things gives me an insight into a personality that pre- sents few of the so-called Mexican characteristics. This was the man, Ambassador to Washington at t he height of his country's prestige, who made a short visit to Mexico during the Centenary Celebrations. He found himself on the 6th of September, 1910, lunching with the President, then in full apotheosis, at the Castle of Chapultepec. After luncheon, at hich were present, besides the lovely wife of Don Porfirio Don Pablo Escandon and Don Ramon Alca- zar the party went out on the castle terrace:. One an picture the President and his successor, linked by de tiny, diverse in mind, in body, in each and every at ribute. The bearing of the Iron President was imposing and martial even in peace; and, when the knell of hi eightieth year was about to sound, his pi rcing and beautiful eye turned continually towards b matchless valley, glittering in one of those dia- mond-like September noons, peculiar to the Plateau. Th city he had beautified lay at his feet, the vol- anoes and the mountains alone were unchanged by his will, for even the valley he had drained and modi- fied for greater use. All was inhabited by a people that his strength and wisdom had exalted among the nations of the earth, whose envoys, gathered from the four winds, were assembled to celebrate the glory of Mexico. Mr. de la Barra · , at that time forty-three years of age, in full career, alert, fresh-complexioned, hair and mustache whitening early, immaculately dressed I 92 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY in mourning garb for his first wife, was the diplomat of story in appearance and in manner. He had been for a year and a half Ambassador to Washington, from which perspective the clouds gath- ering in the Mexican horizon were, to the weather- wise, somewhat disquieting, though the force of the "redemptory" hurricane then gathel'ing no one sus- pected. It had been thirty-five years since any one had tried to "redeem" or "liberate" the Mexicans, or even "serve'' them; but the reading of history is unfortunately no more instructive than the experi- ences of one's parents . . . . After a few days in the Capital, Mr. de la Barra returned to Washington. The situation developed rapidly in the ens.uing months. Mr. Limantour, at that time in Europe, was recalled by President Diaz. He took passage via New York, where he was awaited with the greatest impatience by the Madero group who hoped to make an early and favorable compro- mise with the Por:fi.rista government. It was then that the name of Mr. de la Barra was proposed as Minister for Foreign Affairs, ith the understanding that on the resiO'nation of Pr sident Diaz, he would become President ad interim. Mr. Limantour, alarmed by the gathering· force of the revolution and fearing American intervention, that determining ghost in Mexican politics since Maximilian, shortly continued his journey back to _ Mexico. He was accompanied to the station by the father of Madero and other members of the family then in New York. Hope was in the "apostolic" air. On arriving in Mexico City he was received im- FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 93 mediately by General Diaz, going from the station to the Palace. In the conversation which ensued Mr. Limantour, fully informed as to the Madero strength, potential and actual, stated in substance the following to the Pre ident: ''Your continued presence at the head of the go e rnment can only give rise to further troubles and di asters, even to intervention by the United States. My advice to you is to present your resigna- tion. Deeply impressed by the words of his Minister of Finance, Don Porfirio immediately decided to resign his hi()'h office. It was then that he made his historic answer:- ! could ontrol the revolution; but I will not do it for it would neces itate the shedding of blood, and, mor important than all, it might perhaps endanger th independ nee of Mexico. I had thought that my holding of the Supreme Power was with the consent and pprobation of my countrymen. But if this is not o they must have the master that they choose and I mu t re ign." . . . Imm diat ly afterwards, the Government began to treat with the revolucionarios . . . . On the 23rd of March, 1911, Mr. de la Barra received three telegrams, one from General Diaz him- self, another from Mr. Creel, and one from Mr. Limantour, informing him that he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. That same afternoon, having made up his mind that he must accept, he telephoned to the White House. 94 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Mr. de la Barra's decisions are always rapid and followed by the corresponding act, a~other quality which distinguishes him from the large majority of his compatriots, whose decisions and their consequent acts are apt to be quick only when it is a question of flight or execution. An appointment was made at the White House for late that afternoon. On arriving he was received by Mr. Charles D. Norton, who ushered him into the small private office of the - President, in the new wing giving directly on the lawn, still covered with late snow. He found there both President Taft and Sec- retary Knox, who received him most cordially. ,, He stated the reasons for asking for an immediate audience. · "When are you going?" was the President's first question. "To-morrow at noon," he answered. There was a slight pause which President Taft broke to say suddenly: "I think, Mr. Ambassador, that you will at no distant date find yourself President of Mexico." Mr. de la Barra answered: "But no, I am not a politician. I have lived all my official life out of Mexico. They will want another type of man.'' Upon which Mr. Knox said with a smile: "We need not speculate upon it now,-time will show." Mr. Taft continued :-"It will perhaps be as well, however, to base our discussion upon that prob- ability." Then was begun a conversation lasting an hour and a half mainly concerning the problems of the relations between the two countries, though both FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BA R R A 9 5 the President and Mr. Knox were fully alive to the many interior difficulties as well, which awaited Mr . de la Barra as head of the Mexican Cabinet . Th e growth of the revolutionary party was a l ready apparent by shots across the border, as we ll a s b y tho e loudly echoing throughout Mexico, and the extraordinary contagion of the "Mader o i d ea" deter - mined all situations . Presid nt Taft, with the courtesy wh i ch h e a l w a y s brou 0 h t to any discussion, expressed his pl easu re and satisfaction at having as a personal frie n d t h e ma n with whom the important and delicate ma t ter s pe nd- ing ould be dis ussed, and told Mr . de l a Barr a t h at he could telegraph him directly c o nce rni n g any dif- ficulties that might arise, adding : -"Y ou m a y be sure that I will help you in every way com pa tible with justic , and the interests of t h e U nited States." The rather dellcate fact of th e mobilization of the American troops on the Mexic an bo r der was touched on, but I gather that, i n re gard to it, the three states- men followed carefu lly t he French maxim : "Glissez, n'appuyez jamais." The President remin d ed M r . de la Barra, however, that he had declined, wi thout Me x ican consent, to order a troop of cava l ry a c r oss the border to protect the breakwater that A m e ri c ans were constructing at the mouth of the R io Colorado, in an endeavor to save th e I m per i a l V a lley. The Chamizal claim, i nvolvi n g a p ar t of t h e city of El Paso , was discussed, and t he y al s o spoke at length concern i ng Ma g dalena Bay, whose harbor, one of the finest on the Pacific coast, will forever b~ an object of desire for several countries. It would seem i :l1at in direct proportion 96 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY to the beauty and usefulness of the natural conforma- tions of the earth, the envy and greed of the nati9ns are aroused. The El Paso rencontre of the year before was men- tioned where, on his return from California, President Taft met President Diaz. The interview had been unfortunat ely most formal. Mr. de la Barra himself was not present, having been called to Paris by the grave illness of his wife. The potentialities of the meeting were great, but some necessary, unifying, quickening process had been absent, and it had reduced itself to a conventional exchange of good wishes between the two Presidents. Mr. Taft not speaking Spanish, nor Don Porfirio English, they had been further separated by the formalities of an interpreter. Probably the most definite result was a photograph taken on the Mexican side of the International brid e . The photograph, which was sent broadcast throu h- · out Mexico, bore the caption "Two Great Pre idents of the Two Great Republics of North Am rica . " Both Executives were in evening dress, flanked by n aide de camp in protocolic garb. Don Porfirio tood straight as a die, his face bearing its usual xpr - sion of stern serenity, while Mr. Taft's wore its w< ; mted kindly smile. To a people with an eye for externals, the contrast ' was symbolic, but misleading . . . . From time to time during the White House inter- view, President Taft would emphasize his appreciation of the difficulties awaiting Mr. de la Barra on his return to Mexico, repeating: "I shall always stand for the maintenance of good relations with your coun- try." ' FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 97 What one gathers to have been in the nature of agape terminated by President Taft presenting to Mr. de la Barra a large photograph bearing the most ·appreciative of dedications, and asking one of his in return . This photograph was subsequently stolen (probably for the sake of the frame rather than the image) together with nearly everything Mr. de la Barra possessed from his house in Mexico City, when the country had been thoroughly saved by the 'l\Ie iah." A th three statesmen stood talking at the door of the Executi e office, President Taft said to him again with a smile: "Mark my words, you will soon find yourself Pres- - ident of Mexico." The farewells were cordial, even affectionate, though lacking the "abrazo," of course, that would have closed the scene in another latitude . . . . Arriving at the Buena Vista Station in Mexico City, Mr. de la Barra was received by Mr. Limantour, Mr. Cr el and the son of the President, Don Porfirito. From that moment until his final departure (flight, or es pe, in 1913) Francisco Deon de la Barra played leading r6les in the drama of his country . . . . On the fourth of April he called a Cabinet Meeting, when he gave an expose of the relations between Mexico and the United States, telling of the very understanding friendship and cordial goodwill shown by both President Taft and his Secretary of State at the farewell interview. Passing then to interior and u 17gent matters, he admitted that though the government of Don Porfirio possessed the force, the revolution seemed to have public opinion on its side, 98 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY and he suggested that an endeavor be made to recon- cile the old facts with the new opinions. From November, 1910, in hard contrast to the dazzling glories of the Centenary celebrations, revo- lutionary sounds of no uncertain caliber had been heard from time to time in Puebla, echoing through- out the North. The public in general, however, gave them small attention. The Iron President had always promptly nipped in the bud any blos om of disorder, and doubtless would continue to do so. But the banner of the revolution was a "trouvaille.' The Mexicans excel in their manufacture abo e all nations of the earth, and a people wanting, the kne not why, a change, could not resist the glitter of " u- fragio Efectivo y no Reelecci6n" embroidered on th still more attractive background of the distribution of lands. The United States as well, with th no demonstrated lack of . continuity of democratic in ti- . tutions was for a change. It was not taken into . account if the cha:µge were for the better or the worse, just a change-any change-was want d. Madero, the man whom the crowd was acclaiming . as the Apostle of "free government" (what er that may mean) over against government by a dictator had been in jail for some months in the Penitenciaria of San Luis Potosi. In October, 1910 (his imprison- ment being preceded by many dramatic adventures, hiding sometimes from the wrath of the government, enjoying sometimes a personal homage from the crowd unknown even to the Iron President), he had been released on bail of 8,000 pesos. Since then he had been almost exclusively engaged in sowing dragon's teeth the length and breadth of FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 99 Mexico, 1 in the shape of promises of everything to everybody, and which, even after they began to crop up, took on for a time in the landscape the misleadin" aspect of Manna. . . . Another and fa tally determining factor of the situation was that early in May President Diaz fell ill of blood-poisoning, after the fracture of the jaw- bone caused by the clumsy extraction of two infected molar . Some attributed his illness to a simple act of God others to the more complicated machinations of enemi s. However that may be, for days he lay in dano-er of death. Shor~ly before his malady had fully de eloped, but when he was already consumed by fe er his brain deadened by frequent injections of morphin necessary to allay the excruciating pain, Don Jose Yves Limantour, alarmed at the terrible mom ntum of events, counseled him to enter with- out delay into some sort of negotiations with the leaders of the revolutionary movement, and at the same time to change his cabinet. This he did. Un- fortunately, the masses took it as a sign of weakness, not appreciating the profound patriotism of the Presi- dent's attitude, and an immense prestige was im- mediately flung about the motives and aims of the re olution. It was the first direct step of the niaker of Modern Mexico towards death in exile. By the middle of May the revolutionary kettle was at boiling point. On the 21st of May, there met, in the extremely unpicturesque building of the Customs at Ciudad Juarez, Francisco S. Carvajal, representing the Diaz government, Francisco I. Madero, Jose Maria Pino Suarez, and F. Vasquez Gomez, representing the 100 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN ;HISTORY vevolntion. Then was drawn np the covenant accord- ing to which Don Porfirio was to resign before the end of the month, as well as the Vice-President, Don Ramon Corral, whose "press" had gone :from bad to impossible. Even with the hand of death visibly laid upon him, no one wanted him. Francisco Leon de la Barra, actually Secretary for Foreign Affair of the Diaz Government, was to be charged with the Pres- idency ad interim of the United States of Mexico. Hostilities between the forces of the Government of General Diaz and of the revolution were to cea e and general elections , would be arranged for accord· ing to the clauses of the constitution. Now practically nothing had been heard of l'La Constituci6n" for some thirty year but a the co11D- try had steadily progressed in pa h of nnaccu tom d prosperity without it, it would seem to the inno ent bystander that it might just as well have been left in its unsullied obscurity. Like the happiest woman it had no hi tor . The date of its birth and a somewha diffi ul ·nfanc. were all that was known of it. But b om contradiction, the least amorou of a po t1 seek it out and woo it on he hiohwa . Th its subsequent career is not for general and famil. use. CHAPTER VIII President Diaz Writes the '' Renuncia' '-His Last Hours in Mexico City-The Parting from His Successor. Don Porfirio wrote and signed the fateful and fatal Renuncia' 1 when he was in physical agony, the dark 1 The resignation of President Diaz · reads as follows: '' Mexico, May 25, 1911. '' The .Mexican people-the people who so generously loaded me with honors, who procl imed me as their chief in the international war, and supported me patriotically in all the work undertaken for strengthening the industry and commerce of the Republic, for found- ing its credit and for gaining the respect of friendly nations and occupying a decorous position among them;-this People, gentlemen of the Chamber, has now risen in insurrection, and thousands have banded together and armed themselves, declaring that my presence in the exercise of the supreme executive power is the cause of the revolt. '' I know of nothing that I have done to warrant this social up- heaval, but, granting that I may be unconsciously culpable, though without admitting it, this very possibility forces me to the con- clusion that I am of all people the least qualified to reason and decide as to my own guilt. Therefore, respecting, as I have always re- spected, the will of the People and in conformity with Article 82 of the Federal Constitution, I come before the Supreme Representa- tive Body of the Nation to r esign without reserve the office of Con- stitutional President of the Republic, with which I was honored by popular vote. I do this with the greater reason because, in order to retain my high office it would be necessary to continue shedding Mexican blood, lowering the credit of the Nation, demolishing its wealth, exhausting its resources and exposing it to international conflicts. "I hope, gentlemen of the Chamber, that when the passions that accompany all revolutions subside, a more aonscientious and care- ful study of the facts will lead to a correct judgment in the mind of the Nation, so that I may die, · conscious in the depths of my soul of a just and fair appreciation of the devotion to my fellow countrymen, which I have maintained throughout my whole life and will never cease to cherish. "With all respect, ' ' PORFIRIO DIAZ . ' ' 101 102 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN RISTORY door of death ajar; his indomitable will, working instinctively, alone enabled him to ac · complish fitting- ly the sacrifice. Thus was completed the last official act of this man, who, by the alchemy of his wisdom, by the working of his will, had transmuted bandits into statesmen destroyers into constructors, disintegrating indi- vidualism into national union, foreign debts into a world-credit system. He is probably the most con- spicuous example in history of a man in his single lifetime making his country great out of such ele- ments. I have sometimes thought, studying his visage, both in picture and in memory, how clearly wisdom had revealed itself in that direct et · ione look of his beautiful eye, and how the ill hat molded Mexico to use and greatness had been testi- fied to in the stern yet pitying line about his mouth. Throughout the ages, doubtless like pre sions h v lain on the countenances of the build r of natio s. I will have seen but one of them, and hat one in exile,-his work consummated and 1 o des ro ed, but he is unforgettable. And as he pas over the bitter waters, and through he Ebon Port, Mexico followed him,-and she, unlike him, is not yet arise~ . . . . The Vice-President, Don Ramon Corral, then in Paris, was increasingly ill of a cancer in the pancreas, which after being operated on, was found to be in- curable. He had already sent his resignation to Mr. de la Barra through a friend, asking him to withhold it until that of Don Porfirio was ready. After receiv- ing it, Mr. de la Barra kept it locked in his desk for \ several days, awaiting that of 'the Iron President. FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 103 But with his own power and might Porfirio Diaz also signed away the power and might of his country, and her glory, in conformity with the mysterious will of the blind and passionate race he had so long gov- erned after the only manner that could bring them, in spite of themselves, to prosperity,-"Poca politica, mucha administraci6n"-"Little politics, much gov- ernmentY When one considers the epithets applied to politics in all quarters of the globe, even by politicians them- selves (who certainly know what they are talking a bout), the man who could in any way exorcise this supposedly necessary evil, and at the same tim~ main• tain his position, was certainly possessed of supreme gifts. Immediately after the signing of the "Renuncia" Mr. de la Barra had been summoned to the house in the Calle de Cadena. He found the maker of Modern Mexico sitting in an armchair in one of the big salons. Two men besides Mr. de la Barr.a were present, Licenciado Carlos Saavedra, President of the Cham- ber of Deputies, into whose hands a few mi.nut.es later the resignation was given, and a secretary who ac- companied him. Saavedra, destined from all time to be the bearer of one of the most disastrous messages in history, was a man in the early forties, alert, with a clever eye, whose ~olitical career was just begin- ning to take form. Periodically the Presidency of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies changes; he hap- pened at that moment to be occupying the position. After his departure there was silence in the room -one of the great silences of history. The past was as dead as if a century instead of a quarter of an ) . I . , 104 INTIMATE PAGES Oli' MEXICAN HISTORY hour had slipped by. Finally Don Porfirio made a slight gesture as of one relinquishing what was no longer his to keep. Then he looked long at his successor, scrutinizing as it were what he himself had been in its new form. What his thoughts were, who shall say? Many great men have been betrayed by a single friend, and the "et tu Brutus" has sounded but too often through the ages. Many have been anquished by enemies; others have been done to dea h by mobs. Few men have been betrayed by their nation. The greater the power the greater the hurt. When he at last spoke it was simply to say: "I have already given orders concerning my jour- ney to Vera Cruz to-night, but as this af ernoon ou will be President of Mexico I beg you to confirm them to General Huerta." A few moments later Mr. de la Barra took his de- parture. One of the members of General Diaz' staff, Captain Jose Espinosa, came up to the Pr id nt- lect as he was leaving the house, and said he had been d puted with the rest of the Staff to accompany him to and from the Chamber when he took his oath of office. "Did the General command this?" Mr. de la Barra asked. ''Yes, to-day at noon," was the answer. The first orders that Mr. de la Barra himself signed ' as President were to General Huerta to escort the ex-President to Vera Cruz. At nine o'clock on the evening of that same day whereon he had taken his oath of office, driving back from the Chamber through the great Avenue to the FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 105 applause of the people who but so lately had cried death to the man who had made them great, Mr. de la Barra went a last time to the house in the Calle de Cadena to take leave of his illustrious predecessor. He found Don Porfirio in bed trying to rest before starting on the journey to Vera Cruz, arranged for three o clock in the morning. He was lying in his wifes room, a very spacious chamber, square, high- ceilinged after the Mexican way, and dimly lighted. In its depths was a large Italian tryptic in the Primi- tive style with a faintly glinting gold background, its · sacred figures only vaguely outlined in the obscurity . Mr. de la Barra sat in a large chair by the bed. Always prudent, General Diaz' first words were to beg Mr. de la BaITa not to accompany him to the station as had been planned. Then followed a last conversa- tion between these two men placed in such strange relation, and who were destined never again to meet under the sky of their Fatherland. - One can well suppose that Don Porfirio had been thinking over many long past things, as one does at the hour of any death, physical, political or moral, for he almost immediately recalled to Mr. de la Barra how he had first seen him at' Queretaro on the day of his baptism in 1863. Mr. de la Barra's grandfather, Benito Quijano, was General of Division, and Diaz himself happened to be passing through Queretaro to the North. Between that hour in the dim · and splendid church of Queretaro standing by a carved baptismal font where he saw a new-born child, to this hour, lying in the vast, shadowy room, lay four decades, Fate in her cruelest yet grandest manner having perfectly joined that beginning and this encl. 106 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY His conversation, though so great in substance, was very simple in form. Mr. de la Barra told me that more than his words, he remembered the majesty of his being m that last hour. Even in that moment of supreme betrayal and hearNlreak, his every word breathed the intensest love of country, and there was no bitterness attendant on the dolorous surprise with which he relinquished his power. But giving Mexico into the new Presidents hands was to Porfirio Diaz as if he were giving to him something inestimably precious, something that would be broken and destroyed if not carefully handled, even as an anxious father might at he hour of death commit a beloved yet wayward child in o another's keeping. "He showed me the greatest kindness and even affection, and I think he pitied me for he difficult unknown on which I was embarked, ' Mr. de la Barra told me. "The conversation was almost n ·r ly of our interior situation. I felt more and more how great was his patriotism how int n e his soli itude for his people, and my consciousness of the nobility of his spirit in misfortune increased at every word. Our foreign relations were sca1cely mentioned. Mexico was the whole world for him, in the truest sense his Alpha and Omega . . . . " If in supreme hours the vision of great men, in whom the secret and primary gifts of imagination and prophecy are forever at work, is indeed enlarged, how immeasurable must have been Don Porfirio's anxi- ety as he surveyed his passionate, undisciplined, diversely-composed race, about to be engulfed in the flood of indigenous "democracy." Its waves, FRANCISC O LE O N D E LA BARRA 107 aglitter with a dreamer's pr omises, rippled misl e ad- in g ly over the rocks of facts . . . . L a ter , in de spa i r , he was to see the destru c tion com p le t e d fr om w ith - out. . . . When the last m o m ent came, the greatest Mexican raised himself sligh t ly in bed. The new Presiden t bent over him. They gav e e a ch other the "a b razo" after the immemoria l manner i n which me;n, th r ough- out the ages, have s a id their suprerp.e farewells,- only fitting end, Bib lic, noble, personal to such a scene . . . . On iss u ing fr om the room, where the prosperity of Mexic o l a y de a d by the side of a broken-hearted man, Mr . d e la Barra found much coming and going in the li g h t ed s a lons and antechambers in prepara- tion f o r t he im p ending departure 1 The two sisters of "Car m e lit a " were with her, Senora de Teresa 1 and Sefi o ra . d e Elizaga, also Don Porfirio's son, his two daught e r s , S e no r a de la Torre and Senora de Rincon Galla rdo; the husband of , Senora de Elizaga and an aide-de-ca mp. . . . 1 Sen or a. d e T e r e sa w a s the widow of Don Jose de Teresa, the Mexican Min i ster Pl e nipot e ntiary to Austria, who renewed dip- lomatic re l a tio n s with that country in 1901, suspended since the death o f Maximi lian. It was a brief but tragic episode, for he died a few wee k s af t e r bis arrival in Vienna, leavmg his young widow a n d li t tl e son to make a lonely journey back to Mexico. · Gene r a l Diaz' chivalrous tr e atment of the Austrian prisoners at the ti me of th e taking of the City of Mexico had been much -appreciated b y th e Emperor Francis Joseph , who bestowed on him in th at same yea r of 1901, the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stephen, b r ou g ht to him by Count Hohenwarth, :first Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexi co since 1867. Prince Khevenhuller, whom General Diaz had d e f ea t e d at the b a ttl e of San Lorenzo in 1867, and made prisoner at t he t a king of M ex ico City, had been the speci a l ~ friend of Don J os~ de T e resa on his arrival in Vienna. It was he and his wife who sustained the young widow by their sympathy and friendship, and who made the practical arrangements for her sorrowful return to her native land. ./ 108 INTIMATE PAGES QF . MEXICAN HISTORY As for the thoughts of him lying in that vast, dim, silent chamber, few cou).d have followed them, for they embraced the heights and depths of national and personal disaster. But though their end is so often exile, the rise of nations to power is always due to their very few great men, whom destiny at its own hour and for its own purpose calls into being. "And it will for ev er be a difficult thing, worthy of the greatest praise, for a man to live justly, when he has complete liberty to do evil." Nature forms few in this mould. CHAPTER IX Th e Presidency ad Interim, May 25 to November 6, 1911- Typical Scenes-The Army Celebrations in Chapultepec Park- L e 2'i s l a tion Concerning Labor-Plot to Assassinate President de la Barra. Then began the ad-interim Presidency of Fran - cisco Leon de la Barra. It proved to be . a constant s t ruggle against the impatience of the Maderistas to get into power (an impatience they made not the slightest attempt to hide) ; the then-undiagnosed activities of the atavistic Zapata in the fair state of Morelos; the exactions of the disbanded army and the personal hopes of each and every Mexican patriot. Though he repeatedly announced in and out of the Chamber that he would under no circumstances be candidate for either Presidency or Vice-Presidency, there was an uneasy "quien sabe" among the Maderis- tas. It was so unlike what they themselves would do, that they could not decorously await the day of Madero's inauguration to find out if he really meant what he said. In the meantime, Mr. de la Barra, though supported by expert governmental minds, trained during the practical Por:firian era, as well as by the order-loving elements, was discovering the dis- comforts of the Procrustian bed on which the Presi- dents of Mexico are accustomed to take a somewhat broken sleep. Its coverlet is daily made up and nightly turned down by jealous, impatient politicians 109 110 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY in the name of country, or bandits in the name of liberty and the poor. It is further surrounded by the astral projections of hungry bureaucrats, envious enemies and treacherous friends. Later Madero, sleeping in that · same bed, watched over by the more fraternal ghosts of great departed, Washington, Franklin, Rousseau, Tolsto'.i, were among those he best loved, was held by dreams that had no more to do with the facts of the Mexican si nation, which were of the unavoidable, inexorable, inevitable economic order, than Tenny on s "Dream of Fair Women" had to do with the suffragette question. Don Porfirio's long and pro perous administra · on of national affairs was due to hi geniu for facts. He knew that order was the first requi ite for pros- perity and proceeded to make ord r, and e n Madero, whose obsession was liberty, was later forced to the unwilling conclusion that it com before libe1ty. After a few months of r spon ibili he was e en convinced that there can be no lib rt wi hout it. He had not, unfortunat ly, within himself b ability to bestow peace, and his 'pl n' and his 'prngr m" were both soon as demode as a I t ear's hat. "In politics nothing ages so much as incompetence," is the dictum of a brilliant Mexican polemist. One is tempted to go further and say that incompetence is a crime, against which nations are justified in pro- testing. They will, naturally, protest in their own inherent way. In Latin America by a revolution or a coup d'etat, in northern latitudes by electing some one else from whom they hope again what they had vainly awaited from the last. In either case the FRANCISC O LE O N DE LA BARRA 111 process bears within itself i ts own speci fi c a nd i n - e vitable consequences . At his first cabinet m e e t ing M r . de la B a r r a had presented the lines of c onduct he had laid out for hi s term of office . His obj ec ts w ere three: pacification , reorganization o f the p ublic s ervi c e, and p re p a ration for the presidential e l ect i o n s du e in O ct ober. In the first council of his min i sters , the 2 6th of M a y, he ex- posed this program, stat i n g that it could not be carried out, h o weve r , without t he confidence and aid of the vari o us (an d var i eg ated) poli t ical parties, and of the people. Addr es s ing himself to the country and the Chamber, h e f u rt h e rmore stated that he had not desired the Pres id e n cy, and that the happiest day of his life ( and one might add ~ the safest) would be that on wh i c h h e would relinquish it. Events pr o ve d t his to be true, but it was quite, if not entire l y , unb e lievable by the impatient Maderis- tas. Made ro at that time was most cordial to the ad-interim President, hailing him, whenever they met, as "gra n c iudadano," great citizen, at the same time d ou bt l ess wondering if he would really get out at the app oi n ted hour. Fortunate l y fo r him, however, and for the good name of M e x i c o the orde r -loving elements, at that t im e st ill in the majority in all classes, sought occa- si o ns on which to show him their confidence and re- sp ect. Various m e mbers of the since reviled land- o w n er s, intell e ctuals, and representatives of the eq u a lly reviled high finance and big industry, even we nt so fa r as to arrange a · fairly comprehensive ba nquet in his honor in the Jockey Club,-when a~ready the jealousies of the masters of the New Dis- 112 INTIMA~E PAGES ' oF MEXICAN HISTORY pensation were to be feared and were ev-erywhere at work. The "Old Army" reorganized under the command of the Minister of War, General Rascon, of patriotic and loyal record, was with Mr. de la Barra, not alone through military obedience and the still potent tradi- tions left by Diaz, but because its chiefs sa he old ghost of revolution appearing on the horizon. This loyalty of the army was crystallized in the great fete, organized in Chapultepec Park on the da . hen Mr. de la Barra returned the flag to the Thir - econd Infantry regiment. It was on this da that in pired · by the flag, opposing leaders such as G neral R es, also candidate for the Presidency, and Franci o I. Madero, (to meet their death two ear after~ ard in such tragic antithesis) made mutuall amicable speeches, as well as the Mini ter of War and Mr. de la Barra. The glitter of the se ting Meri n un tran - :figured for yet a moment the fast approachino- pecter of brotherly hate. The machinery of government ~ as still orking with the old impetus of law nd ord r, nd und r the regis of Mr. de la Barra s veral im or tan t mea ur s were proposed and carried through, such as the com- mission, presided over by the very able Don Pedro Lascurain, for the study of agrarian problems and the foundation of a national Bureau of Labor, which have both survived the succeeding revolutions. Now the days of any President of Mexico are un- certain, and the following incident is typical. On the eve of the anniversary of the death of Juarez (18th of July), towards four o'clock General Huerta, sent from General Reyes, came to see President de la FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 113 Barra at the Palace, to inform him that there was a plot on foot to assassinate him du . ring the ceremonies. A short time after the chief of police appeared to say that it would be better to change the route of the procession at the last moment. From the monument of Juarez in the A venida Juarez the President was . to go to the Pante6n of the Church of San Fernando, where the body of Juarez rests under the monument raised to him in the '80's, representing him with his head lying in the lap of a weeping woman, symbol- izing the sorrows of the nation, which he had thought to heal. President de la Barra was then to proceed on foot along the Avenue, turning in at the Calle San Diego, thence into the Avenida de los Hombres !lustres, and into the little Plaza in front of the Church of San Fernando. ' His wife said to him as he left the house, "I am suddenly so anxious; as soon as you get to the Pan- te6n, have me informed." He had, of course, made no mention of the rumors concerning the plot to his family. He was to be accompanied by his ministers, his Etat Major and his three brothers. Nothing hap- pened. The day after an army doctor said to General Rascon, the Minister of War, the President's loyal friend, that as he was sitting two days before in civilian clothes on one of those single-backed, double- seated benches in the Zocalo, two tough-looking, big- hatted men seated themselves on the other side of the bench. The name of President de la Barra being mentioned, the doctor pricked up his ears. Re heard one of them say : "I shan't do it. I have six children. · One lives but I ' ' 114 INTIMATE PAGES OE' MEXICAN HISTORY , . once, and who knows if they will pay what they promise?" Then they got up and crossed the square. "Why didn't you immediately inform me?" Gen- eral Rascon cried. "I attached no importance t-0 it at the time, but when I saw in the newspapers to-day the account of the plot to assassinate the President, I realized the import of the conversation. One of the men had a ' broken nose. I should recognize him." It is a little glimpse behind the scenes. The public sees the stage set quite sumptuously for the act. The reverse side shows a few crude lights, a lot of un- painted canvas, rough boardings and cob ebs. The usual arrangements for assassination are as simple as this described. The details alone differ-and the victim. CHAPTERX Madero 'a Oft-cited Visit to Guautla-Zapata and His '.Attempts to Restore Primal Aztec Life in Mexico-The Glory That Was Spain 'a-Considerations Concerning the Spaniard in Mexico. When, in October, Huerta, according to orders, was vigorously pushing the campaign against Zapata in Mo relos, the President received at seven o'clock one morning a visit from Madero. He was accompanied, as usual, by some nepotic group ; on this occasion, by his uncle Ernesto, then Minister of Finance, his cousin by marriage ( I think), General Gonsalez Salas, and his cousin by blood, Rafael Hernandez. Madero opened the conversation by saying that con- ditions were so bad in Morelos that he was most desirous of . having an interview with Zapata, then at Cuautla, in an attempt to come to some arrange- ment, and he begged the President to give the neces- sary orders to facilitate his going. Mr. de la Barra, greatly surprised, answered: "You must not go. It will be both dangerous: and unwise. Measures are being taken to bring the cam- paign to a successful :finish. It will be better for you, better for me, better for the country, not to interfere at this moment.' · ' Madero's uncle and General Goosalez Salas were also of the opinion that the trip to Cuautla might be disastrous, politically and personally. The President continued: 115 116 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "General Huerta is taking measures to push the Zapatistas back, and General Caso Lopez, chief of the Zapadores, has been sent into the state of Puebla, to get them on the other side. They will thus be caught between two fires. Let well enough alone." It was finally agreed, after some further con ersa - tion, that Madero should abandon the trip to uautla. All that day the President was in constant comm uni- cation with both generals, and matters were proceed- ing satisfactorily according to plan. At ten o'clock on the evening of that same da , Madero's brother, Gustavo, and Diaz Lombardo, Minister of Fine Arts, came to him in much gi a- tion. A message had just been recei d from Madero from Cuautla, begei.ng to have he mo m nt of General Huerta's troops immedia 1 sto pe that his, Madero's life, was in dang r, that th err at t excitement prevailed among h inh i nt of he town, who, because of the ad an e of th troops, and the atta k on Cu uU, a trono-llol the Zapatistas, thought h , Ma ro , s a raitor. In consternation, the Pr sid nt s i 1 to he thr men : "How is it possible that h an b th r ag in t my advice, and at such risk to him elf?' "He is lucky," Gustavo answer d onfidently for until his last day the legend of Madero's luck in- fluenced practical decisions. The others doubtless raised their hands and said, "Quien sabe ?" The President realized, however, that he would be held responsible if anything happened to the "apostle," even through his own rashness, and also that the so-desired pacification was greatly endan- ge:ued. There was no time to lose. Madero brought FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 117 back to the city on a bier would, at that moment, have been a national catastrophe. He said that he would immediately find out the real condition at Cuautla, and asked them to return in an hour. At the telegraph office in Cuautla he got hold of a confidential agent who reported that the populace, as well as the Zapatista soldiery, were in the greatest state of excitement, walking about with loaded pistols and guns, fearing the advance of Huerta's troops on one hand and of Caso Lopez' on the other. They sus- pected that a trap had been laid _ , that Madero was really allied with Huerta, and not the friend of - Zapata, as they had supposed. Everywhere were cries of "Traidor, traitor!" The only effective protec- tion for Madero would be to have the march of Huerta and Caso Lopez immediately stopped and to proclaim an armistice of forty-eight hours. This was :finally ordered by the President, much against his juagment, -any disaster except harm to the "apostle." As early as June, 1911, there were rumors of an "entente cordiale" between Madero and the "Atila del Sur." These were sometimes vague, sometimes quite definite. The "entente'' was most simple of explana- tion, the only real difference being that one revo- 1 ucionario was embarking on the Ship of State, the other was still swimming about in wreckage. Madero could never visualize him.self in his true relation to the events he wished to mould. He was about to become President of Mexico, because of in- volved, largely subjective happenings, of states of mind. These had brought him to place and to power, not facts; the facts of the situation had been deter- 118 INTIMATE PAGES OF 1 MEXICAN HISTORY mined by others than himself. He thought he had but to appear, and, at a from-all-time preordained moment, magnetically the destinies of Mexico would group themselves about his person, with attendant materialization of the millennium. The combination of events and personalities at the moment of the overthrow of Diaz is completely baffling to reason, and reminds me of a paragraph from Sir Thomas Barclay's "Sands of Fate' : 'The folly of man shifts its center from nation to nation like the wind and the storm, and the least likel ( or the most) may in turn become its victim in pite of every argument of reason, interest and national tra- dition." Never was this more typified than in the ca e of Mexico, where · national folly flew as steel to the mag- net of one man's madness. As to Zapata, time has testified in its own in xor- able manner that, in spite of the horrid hin he did, he . was neither so oppressi , so on·u nor so incompetent as the other Lib rators of hi decad . Though his methods for the distribu ion of land were generally abrupt and alwa s painful, he as consistent in his idea, directly inherited, Zapatismo having proved itself to be an atavistic, Aztec arrange- ment for the despoiling of those who seemed to have too much in favor of those who obviously had too little. The unequal distribution of wealth has puzzled and discouraged wiser men than Zapata. His method ' worked out so badly because it was completely out of date, there being no room for primal Aztec life in a country linked by railway and telegraph and hav- FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 119 ing the inestimable blessing of a Chamber of Depu- ties. Zapata being the only one of the Liberators who really set about distributing the land, if ''land for the landless" was what President Wilson truly desired in Mexico, it has been suggested that the impeccable logic of even ts demanded his recognition rather than that of Carranza. His record was, however, too pic- turesque, too anachronistic, to be really attracuive, even in what might be called the experimental period of Mr. Wilson's connection with Mexico,· and that of his uncertainty as to whether Villa or Carranza would make the best "constitutional" President of Mexico. Zapata first emerged out of the mass of the 85 per cent as stable boy to Don Ignacio de la Torre, who told me he had found him an excellent domestic. His solicitude for the poor of Morelos, and his peculiar conceptions of "mine and thine" were later · developments. The ejection of Don Ignacio de la Torre from his hacienda by his one-time servant seems to have been painful to both. Don Ignacio told me, however, that Zapata did what he could in the matter of supplying him and his friend, Don Joaquin Amor, with horses and food and some elemental sort of passport and safe-conduct in their flight across country. But it is always a poor proposition when the valet drives out his master. The followers of Zapata were almost entirely pure- blooded Indians and as easy as infants to lead . The pistol and a horse will always prove ,more stimulating to the imagination than a cornfield and the hoe, and this last any Indian (and many white men) will / 120 INTIMATE P AQ-ES OF MEXICAN HISTORY quickly drop for the noisier and more immediate joys of fire-arms. The record of Zapata's occupation of Mexico City shines, however, in comparison with that of Carranza's half-breed hordes. The Zapatista sol- diery proved to be stupid enough to pay for what they found in the shops instead of just taking it, after Carranza's "Preconstitutional' example. This was a decided blow to Zapata's prestige among other Liberators, and even among the still enslaved 8 per cent. A Mexican, a decent Mexican, is reported to have said of them, innocently but revealing! with- drawing the curtain from before his o n soul:' Poor fools, they knew no better." Another and still simpler method of Zapatista procedure i exemplified by the note at the bottom of this page. 1 1 How and to whom a lady might b~ called on to serve a cup of tea, during the Zapatista occupation of Mexico City, is shown in this quotation from a letter from Madame Simon, wife of the Inspccteur des Finances of the Banco N acional: '' I was alone in my salon one late afternoon when the militre d 'hotel came to say that there were four Zapatista. officers in 11. carriage in front of the house, and that they wished to speak with my husband on an urgent matter. A glance from the window revealed a carriage full of hats-you see the picture. othing daunted I said to the ahnm d servant: 'T ll the ranking one to come in.' .A. moment after a tall, handsome brigand with a. very large and decorative bat in his band, bis torso almost concealed by cartridge belts and armed with rifle and knife, appear d at the door. He bowed with excellent mann rs and asked if I preferred to speak Spanish or English. My English being the better of the two we carried on the politest of conversations in that language. I offered him a cup of tea. Between dainty sips he told me be had been educated in the United States and bad studied law there. His history between his American studies and brigandage in Morelos he did not reveal. The gentle object of his visit was to obtain 30,000 pesos which he needed to pay bis men. My husband appeared at this moment, and he repeated bis demand, with the additional remark that if he didn't get the money he would proceed to the sacking of Mexico City. There being no choice but to comply, my husband went to the telephone, saying that he had no such amount in his home. There was no one at the bank and it was impossible to get bold of any one else at that hour. The General began to get very impatient, suspecti~g, of course, that some trick was being tried on FRANCISC O LE O N DE LA BARRA 121 A determining factor ab o ut Z a pat a w as his instinct for the picturesque, his hab i ts, clo the s and general get - up being suited to his ends . Hi s features were straight, his mustache was dark, e v e n lust r ous; his trousers were long and tight, a nd m a n y s ilver but- tons adorned the outside seam, h i s ha t w a s big and heavily ornate with chapetas, his fi ne horses, had beautiful saddles. Indeed, at a ny moment Zapata, without a single change, c oul d have stepped on to any stage perfectly µressed for h i s r &l e . Then, too, the indestructible beauty o f the s t a te of Morelos set off his person and his " w o rks . " Vill a 's background, dusty stretches o f c h a p arra l and mesquite in the north, typified, t oo , the e t e rna l adjus t ment of race to landscape . He genera lly aff ects shabby American clothes, has an indeterm inat e nose and a front tooth is missing . H o weve r , all this is ancient history. After a somewhat lon g run-for Mexico-Villa has been supplante d in th e public imagination by a man with one arm, whic h a dvantage a more than casual study o f Mexi co a nd t h e Mexicans alone enables one to appreciate . One might as well be writing of the hi m , a n d said :finally i n a loud tone: 'If the money isn't in my h ands by 10 o' c lo ck I wi ll give orders for the sacking of the city. T he resp o nsi bili ty w ill b e on your hands. I must have money to pay my me n.' '' I n th e e nd, my husband prevailed on him to wait till 9 o'clock the n ext mornin g , telling him to present himself at the bank iat that hour. Thi s h e did, r e c e i v ed the money and departed. We thought t he affai r fo r ever c lo se d. A little lat e r, however, the whole sum was r epa i d to my h u s b a nd, to w hom it w as d e livered on his being told to s e nd for it at a c e rtain addr e ss. This proved to be a miserable hovel in a squ a lid, cut-throat part of town. The messenger saw that money and a gr e at d e al more simply thrown into one corner of the dirty room, just as you would sw ee p up rubbish. Though so carelessly guarded, such was the discipline , and honor among this especial set of thieves, that no unauthorized person would ever have attempted to touch it.'' I I I I I • I 122 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY • I "Tiger of Tacubaya" as of the "Tiger of the North," as far as actualities are concerned, and Villa is only of permanent interest in the light of the one-time glory so singularly flung about his person by Wash- ington. Dr. Gates' account of his visits to Zapata, his rides across country in the heavy silver moonlight of More- los, brigands silently gathering in mountain fast- nesses, remind one of the second act of Tro a tor the anvil chorus left out and political talk thro n in. Villages would be entered, decorated af er - he Aztec manner, with green branches and bright flower and innocent strains of music on archaic ins ruments would complete the bucolic picture. Zapata's death came about in the be t "redemp- tory" manner. He wa~ invited by Carranci tas to a meeting under formal terms of truce. Incau ·ou ly sitting at bread with the other Liberators he as done to death in the back. But his ghost, as pictur squ as his Ii ·ng body, will long haunt the lov Ii s of he Me ·can States, inciting his followers to v ng an e n though the "First Chief" of those who be r d him has also gone the well-trodden and inevitable way of tr ason and assassination. . . . His doctrines, too, have inherent reasons for sur- vival, for Morelos, one of the garden spots of the earth, is among the few Mexican states where the division of the land into smaiI holdings is feasible. But God, not man, made this to an extent possible, because of its rainfall and its irrepressible flora. The Indian of the North, to whom unirrigated land is portioned out, either starves or goes elsewhere. FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 123 But at all times he is ready to serve, to fight, to build, or to destroy according to the temper of those who lead him. And if the Indian had a bad time in the old days in the name of the · King of Spain and God, he is hav- ing a worse time now in the name of Liberty, Reform, Justice Independence . These words are known to every Indian equally with "siesta" and "mais." J)f their origin and attributes he has no cleare:r- idea than we of the great First Cause. Doubtless when his corn has been trampled · by soldiers in the name of "In- dependencia," his wife ( or wives) and daughters out- raged in the name of "Libertad," his land taken fr.om him in the name of "Reforma" and he himself is up against a wall looking with deer-like eyes into the muzzle of a gun in the name of "Justicia,"' he has a vague though necessarily brief and profitless per- ception of their meaning. Pure races act along the simplest and most direct of evolutionary lines. It is the mixed races that make the trouble. The half-breed of the rural districts has always supplied the elements of guerilla warfare in Mexico . He can often read and write, and he knows something of "the law by which sin came." In the cities the mestizo also supplies the elements of "bureaucratic cannabalism," and his propensities are evident to those he feeds on. He can always read and write, and genera lly knows envy and brotherly _hate in their perfected forms. Zapata's "Indianismo" has proved to have been quite simply a 20th century reappearance of the Aztec type, . interrupted and modified but slightly by the coming of a foreign race. It presupposes, 124 INTIMATE PAGES. OF MEXICAN HISTORY among other things, the religious life, and the re- ligious life of the Indian always externalizes itself in rites and practices, distasteful to his rationally-minded contemporaries of other climes . But the Indian with- out religion is an abortion of nature. The "old town hall" will never satisfy him. His mystical needs will forever seek nourishment in symbols, and much as he needs corn, he cannot live by it alone. That is for the brutes. Spain with all her fault knew this, and looking at history, who reveals herself onl to the free of eye, it would seem that all that ha b en done in Mexico since the days of her di co er b th white man has been done by Spain and the son of the Catholic Church, "por Dios in:finitas almas por 1 rey in:finitas tierras,"-and foreign capi al. To hese she owes all except her beaut , her natural riches and the right to revolution,1 which he x rci e o abundantly. Strangely enough Spain ha b n for d b the intolerance of the 20th c n ur point of · e to be apologetic for her form r r ne . There is ev n a Spanish saying, "Culpa fu de lo ·empo n6 de Espana." (It was the fault of th im s, not of Spain.) But in Mexico we have not done as well. We have proceeded on the assumption that the deepest need of 1 Of this last I am tempted to quote General Grant when he says, with large and quiet vision: "Now the right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural ri,ght they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by over- throwing it and substituting a government more acceptable. But any people or part of a people who resort to this remedy stake their lives, their property and every claim for protection given by citizen- ship on this issue. Victory or the conditions imposed by the con- queror must be the result.' '-Personal Memoirs. FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 125 her soul is to be a miniature United States of America. The Spaniards, historically very learned, never dreamed of making her like unto themselves. We have traversed so far along this wrong road that we will have difficulty in getting back to the natural starting point in any nation's destiny,-the impulse of her own being; and though we bind Mexico with a thousand miles of best American cord ( even made of sisal) she will in the end burst them or perish from the face of the earth as did our Indians. Middle course there is none. Another of our faults in Mexico is tangling this thread of her racial and historical continuity. This will be said to be of the thinnest, but such as it is, from it she must spin her national destinies. We snapped this thread lightly in our fingers, frayed the ends and passed on. One of the uses of the World War is that it has shown the very relative value of civilizations. In fact we live in a world of nations as naked as were our first parents, and, alas, in no Gar- den of Eden. The work of Spain in Mexico was the result of attentive and persistent measures applied by a cen- tral power working continuously, not through one or more Presidential terms, and intermittently at that, but through generations. In the end a whole was formed out of the most dissimilar groupings of race, acting and reacting according to inescapable climatic conditions. With all its black spots New Spain was a thing of beauty and use. Under our ap~pices it is simply a nuisance-except in the oil regions. As for liberty as we understand it, it was as un- · 126 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY known to the gifted Spaniards of the 16th and 17th centuries as the electric light and the airplane. Their results were obtained by methods we have chosen to anathematize. What succeeding generations will say of the twentieth century expr ess ions of liberty I shudder to think. Even as he who has not studied history understands but imperfectly this strangely mysterious present, he who considers that the pas- sions of the human heart which r e gulate the destinies of nations can be changed will also think falsely concerning the future. That each state bears in- herently within itself the se e ds of death as well as life no one will gainsay. No nation could a t tain to the might and power of Spain in h e r apo g ee exc e pt by the e:1:ercise of supreme gift and h er gr atness shown in her colonizing en e r g i e s i on e of t h e mighti- est manifestations of histor y . H e r tr e n gt h nd her glory came from her virtu e op e ratino- in p·te of her defects, and that they r e pl ac d in Me · o a lesser thing by a greater who hall den ? The grandeur of tl1 Spanish civilization of the 16th and 17th centuries is comparabl onl to that of the British Empire to-da . Both are colos al expres- sions of national crenius. The Spaniar ls in Mexico present to our attention every fault inherent to the "rorld-conditions of their day. These are especially · antipathetic to our habit of thought, though our dis- regard of the imponderable values of existence may cause us to be held by more sensitive-minded genera- tions to come in even greater contempt than we do the Spaniards in America. Brutality, rapacity, in- tolerance were used abundantly in the exploitation of the Indian, but beauty, an essential, was added to FRANCISCO LE ON DE LA BARRA 121 the beauty that they found and · the mystical life, without which neither individuals nor nations sub- sist, was encouraged and sustained . The strange but here very visible processional of fate decreed that the next exterior influence in Mexico should be foreign capital. It was applied to her as oxygen is applied to a person struggling for breath, to get her over the critical moment. She would have died without it and the most expensive illusion ever nourished about Mexico by President Wilson, expensive alike to Mexicans and Americans, is that which pictures the foreign ip.ves.tor as • her scourge. Her history shows imperturbably that at intervals, almost rhythmic, the foreign investor has been Mexico's only salvation, and at all times has enriched her. Sadness overcomes me looking at the natural processes, they are so cruel yet so unhaltable, always imperfectly viewed from some personal, seemingly expedient angle. And the battles of nations are typified by the battles nature wages in each heart. CHAPTER XI Grito de Dolores-September 15, 1911. The one hundred and first anniversary of he "Grito de Dolores" was the ea1·1ie t en emble pic- ture I was to see of the political ele ents of 19il, wonderfully framed in the centur -old Palace. 1 The city had been deluged all the fternoon b one of the heavy rains accompan ·ng he lo of the et season on the Plateau. The streets re till spla hy, the trees dripping, as we dro e do n he A enida San Francisco with the Ambassado ho had lled for us. We proceeded low 1 throu h and orderly crowd, on en r e mounted police making " ay for u . the Palace were ablaze and bo e h sky away from the Ii ·ht d qu re, blackly the ancient sm 11 urr t once designated the habitation f a ' r-lor ." Entering through the Pu rta de Honor we ent up the broad stairway, carpett d ith he hand ome red carpet bought for the Centenary celebrations of the year before. The sumptuously furnished salons were strongly lighted. The President and his wife and 1 On the site now occupied by the National Palace was once a Palace of Montezuma. Part of the present edifice dates from Cortes, notably the ancient wing of pink tezontle. The Palace, so closely bound up with the history of Mexico, has suffered many vicissitudes as well as many renovations, these latter largely made under the great Victory Revillagigedo at the end of the eighteenth century, and during the brief reign of :Maximilian: 128 FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 129 the members of his cabinet were receiving at one end of the vast Sala de los Em-bajadores. The President · was in evening dress, across his breast the broad red and white and green sash of his high office. Madame de la Barra, pretty and smiling, was in a smart Rue de la Paix gown. About them were grouped the mem- bers of the Cabinet. Don Ernesto Madero, Minister of Finance, pre- sented, as always, the appearance of a polished man of the world. He was "fin," agreeable, and doubtless technically much more competent than any other member of the Madero family. Don Rafael Hernan- dez, first cousin to Madero and Minister of Fomento, who stood near him, was of tall and handsome pres- ence, with very black hair, brilliant complexion, high arched nose, and he showed very white teeth when he smiled, which was often. Don Alberto Garcia Granados, Minister of Gober- naci6n and past seventy, experienced with the broadly human experience of :fifty years of Latin- American politics, was the only personal friend of the President in the Cabinet. He was a man of great probity as well as intelligence, and was to suffer the most tragic of deaths under the Carranza regime. General Gonsalez Salas, Minister of War, also a cousin of Madero, made a showy :figure in the rather gaudy uniform of his high rank. It will be seen that the Cabinet of President de la Barra was deeply dyed in Maderista colors. Don Francisco Vasquez Gomez, of many ambitions, was Minister of Public Instruction. Such were the :figures in highest relief among the official group. But there was another group, denser and more 130 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY portentous, that stood about Madero, who was natu - rally the real center of interest. He was smiling, but his eyes had a distant, unfocussed look, making him seem like a man in a dream . His attitude was devoid of pride and an amiable simplicity stamped his words and gestures. His wife stood near him. Her dark, sharp-featured face was softened by an expression of admiring affection and satisfaction though, even on that auspicious occa ion, there was something vigilant in her attitude. She was plainl , darkly and unbecomingly dressed . Behind them, overflowing into the other salon were as man of ~he 232 members of the Madero famil as could get to Mexico City, together with their friends an l the 'friends of their friends . I have to this da the im- pression of. something austere provincial et impa- tient and vaguely ominous in th se rrrouping . Of Madero's immediate f mil I re ember especially his mother, "Madam M r s M d me Lefai vre used to all her. Her prid was quit pardonable at the astonishina apoth o i of h r son, visibly illumined, manif stly pred s in d nd ju t i:fi. e by the greatest of all justi:fi.ca · on - u H ' sisters, Mercedes and Ano-ela tood near their mother, small, dark, thin-featured young women, in rather dull costumes. Of the many brothers I only remember Gustavo,1 familiarly called "ojo parado," whom I met there for the first time. Exuberant, "rasta," tireless, an abounding quality · of life proceeded from his being, and was his most notice- able attribute. He was tall and well-featured with red-brown hair, and a small red-brown mustache, 1 He had a glass eye. . FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 131 which did not conceal the pleasure-loving lips of his amiable mouth. He seemed to have, that evening, the gift of ubiquity, for he was always to be found in any room into which one happened to stray. He was, I fancy, of a naturally adventurous spirit, and of a creative type of mentality. Although he held no official position, he was the most dominant personality among the advisers of his brother. Indeed, the rest of the family were quite jealous of his influence with the "Redeemer." Some of the Madero women were fresh and . good- looking in their pleasant, provincial way. Ernesto Madero s wife was very pretty, dark-eyed, bright- complexioned, rather plump, "de la costa," and there was something pleasing and unsophisticated about her person, clad in a soft and ·becoming gown. But mostly the women comprising the Madero phalanx that evening wore beetling, towering toques, and tight-waist d, dull dresses, or very big picture hats and impossible high-necked, spangled gowns with trains, reminding one of King Edward's remark to Lord H - - when be appeared in a frock-coat and pearl-gray trousers in a country-house in the morning: "Good God, when will you lef1,rn to dress?" Joined to the nepotic groupings were countless others, related by expectancy rather than blood. It ' all reappears in memory like those pictures of im- mense concourses of human beings whose forms become more and more undefined until at last they melt into the horizon. About these dark archipela- goes of humanity, as I walked through the brilliantly lighted rooms, was everywhere the same "expectans expectavi" look, and the solemn, dense atmosphere, 132 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY embued with something strange, undefined, yet poten- tial. What would have been the history of Mexico had Madero been a poor orphan and the only son of the only son of an orphan, one can but surmise. For if to a few relatives are a blessing, to how many they are more disastrous than enemies and much less useful than strangers. At this moment of writing, every political man in that special assemblage is either dead or in exile. If there be an, to me, unknown exception, it but proves the Mexican rule. I was subsequently taken out to supper by Don Manuel Calero, Minister of Justice. He a tardily presented, when I found myself nearly alone in the room, by the Chef du Protocol, who ap roached me apologetically, a long list in one hand, and alero, so to speak, in the other, somewhat flu tered by the ta k of properly mating the new and di erse apparitions. We hastily followed the cort o- out o hi ·h, • bountifully-spread, flower-decorated ta le, at which we stood, instead of sit.tin , as is the cu tom. The dining room is furnished with huge, elaborately carved sideboards of Alsatian oak. 0 er the hiO'h ornate mantelpiece I noted a large and admonitory marble bust of Minerva. On the table were magnifi- cent silver epergnes and fruit-dishes, bearing the imperial and tragic crest. Even at that time when I was only in the protoplasmic stage of my Mexican development, and was steeped in the natural beauty of Mexico rather than intellectually perceptive of the idiosyncrasies of its government, I was aware that I had opened an extraordinarily interesting book. But it · was in a foreign language and I had to use a die- FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 133 t ionary for nearly every word. I found my supper c ompanion, however, to be one with whom one might e asily converse. He had clever eyes and a strong jaw and he spoke excellent, idiomatic English with a pronounced American accent. He was in deep mourning for his lately deceased first wife, even to dull jet shirt-studs and cuff-buttons. I noted, how- ever, that from time to time he smiled reassuringly across the broad table, where just opposite was a shy, smiling young woman, his bride of two weeks. He knew almost all the things we Anglo-Saxons know and many that we do not. Now every Mexican political man :finds himself in a world peopled by ' enemies who want his place, and friends who do like- wise, and the tight rop _ e is child's play compared to the feat of sustaining his equilibrium. Indeed, it is only a clever man, and he but for a brief period, who can accomplish it. Looking back on it all I am struck by the extraordinary talent of the public men I knew there, scarcely an "imbecile" among them, such as every other political system I ~m familiar with not only tolerates but fosters. They cannot exist if they are stupid in Mexico, and never was the survival of the :fittest more apparent. "What, then, is the matter?" I used often to ask myse~, and I continue to ask myself to-day, when all those elements have been washed free of illusion, and even hope in the blood of not one but many revolutions. Calero, later to be Ambassador to Washington, discovered there fully what he doubtless , then sus - pected,, that the Mexicans understand us far better than we understand them. The study of our favors, 1 • 134 I NTIMATE PAGES O F MEXICAN HISTORY our caprices and ev en o ur i ns ul ts has since become part of every public man's education in particular, and a stumbling block to Latin-America in general . I was myself, that evening, simply an easily pleased foreign woman, supping at the Palace for the :first time, not too hard to talk to, and quite willing to trim the wick of that dimly-burning lamp in whose uncertain light what is now classically known as the "Mexican situation" is regarded . In Washington, Calero was to disc o ver that easy and pleasant assur - ances , rather than dfsagreeable facts, are what su i t us temperamenta ll y where Menco i s . concerned . He g ave th~m t o us i n abundance . When Washington w o uld peri o dica ll y ask how soon peace and pro peri ty were to be rest o red in Mexico, he would answer in a f ew well - chosen, c o nciliatory words, whi h alwa had a so othing effect . O n his return from W shington he was , however, quite desperate about th si na · on an d he made a completely re el or speech i n the S e n ate Chamber concerning hi un r eful 1 · 10n . "W h o ever," he cried, "w ill be alled on to · s b arge t he d elicate dut i es o f Mexi n Amba ad o r to Wa s h ington, must array h ims If i n d om i n o a nd cove r h is fa ce wi t h a mask, i f he w ould try to main- tain the almost lost reputa t ion o f his govern- ment . . . . " The climax of the ev e ning was the ringing of the Campana de la Independencia, the "Liberty Bell" of Mexico. Nev.er in all its history since the night of 1810 had its ringing been so significant as when President de la Barra stepped out on the little bal• cony, and, raising his hand, pulled the hanging _ cord · FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 135 while its rather toneless sounds :filled the Plaza. 1 It was to ring in a new order, to herald a new day. Shortly afterwards, being the only lady of the American Embassy present, the President asked me to join him on the balcony. For a few strange mo- ments I found myself standing between him and Mad e ro . I was suddenly and acute ly conscious of the complete psychical divergence of the two men, but this feeling passed as I found myself looking down on something more impressive, more touching than any- \ thing I had ever beheld before,-an Indian people ex- pectant of redempti on. Seen from above, the crowd presented a strange appearance in the light that literally bathed the Plaza . Tens of thousands of peaked hats were seen at an oblique angle, lighter than the shadowy faces under them, upturned to the balcony. The towers of the cathedral and the fa.~ade of the Sagrario were ou ' tlined by electric lights, as well as the Palace and the houses and portales surrounding the other two sides of the Square, whose trees and bushes were either of the intense-st black, or of a trembling whiteness as they cau~ht the light. Huge, spray-like green and red and white :fireworks con- tinually illumined the sky. The "Redeemer," whose garments I · was touching, stood looking down upon those he had come to save, and I think at that moment he had no doubt of his 1 It was twenty minutes before midnight, according to the legend, that on the 15th of September, 1810, the priest Hidalgo 1·ang this bell hanging in the church of Dolores, a little town in the state of Guanajuato, · calling patriots to :fight £or Liberty and Inde- pend ence . In 1896 with great pomp and ceremony, this same bell was brought to the capital, and hung where it now is, above the little central balcony of the Palace looking out on the Zocalo. l 136 INTIMATE PAGES QF MEXICAN HISTORY complete competence. The smile was gone from his face, though there was a strange brilliancy about his eyes as he looked fixedly at the swaying, sup- pliant mass of humanity. Usually so loquacious, he was suddenly silent, his white-gloved hands twitched slightly as he held the iron railing of the little bal- cony. What President de la Barra thought, I know not. His face, too, was very pale, and the light caught the colors of his red and white and green sash. Wave-like sounds came from the cro d. "In- dependencia," "Mexico," "Madero," "Libertad," "Salvador," "de la Barra," could be distinguished, though mostly it was but an indeterminate expres- sion of human hope and the strange rustling sound of crowds. Above it all the old bells of the ca hedral rang out, and a few minutes later came the deafening cannonading of the salutes. The rain had long since ceased. Immense and bril- liant constellations scarcely dimm db the fir orks and the electric lights, shone in a sky of de p t lue, with those strange, terrifyinO' pot of infinite black one finds in tropical hea ens. A I turned after a brief, awed moment, to go back into the 1 rino·ly- lighted sala, I brushed against Madame M dero, standing at the window-sill. She quickly slipped into my place, her small, darkly-clad form outlined against the brilliance of the Plaza lights . . . . Never had I seen the tools of Fate so near the human clay. The Potter's hand, too, was visibly reaching out. CHAPTER XII President de la Barra Advances the D a te of His Withdrawal from Power-President Mader o T ake s His O a th of Office-Concerning the "Military Genius" -T he Three Figures Seen in the Twi- light, November 6, 1911. In Paris, years aft e rwar ds, I once said to Mr. de la Barra: "Knowing tha t th e popularity of Madero was on the wane, and be in g convinced of his complete unpreparedness for g o v e r nment, did you never think of remaining in office on the H uertista principle, 'that the law is n o t vi o lated if the country be saved'?" Mr. de la Barra : "It w ould have been impossible. It was necessary , in the state of mind in which the country found itself , t h a t M adero be 'tried out,' other- wise it w o uld have b ee n said that had he had a chance, he could ha v e e sta blished a perfect democracy in Mexic o. It wa s a case of Scylla and Charybdis, and Mexico was wrec k e d on both. No man could have steered c ont rary to the Maderista tide. The in- a u gurat ion was set for the 20th of November, but I fe lt i t w iser to hasten the event. I therefore asked a committee of friends in the Chamber to advance the d a te f r om the twentieth to the sixth of the month. I also arranged to leave the country the evening of that s a me day, accepting the mission to Italy, to re- turn a somewhat belated thanks for the sending of the special Italian Embassy to the Centenary celebra- tions. I had promised the country to leave the Presi- 137 138 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY dency on the election of my successor and his full recognition by Congress. I kept my word. I knew the incompetency of Madero for the governing of the Republic, but I had to accept the decision of the great majority of the people. Many suggestions to remain in power were made to me, and many offers to stand by me in such an event. But I refused. Moreover, had I not kept my word, and acted ao-ainst the spirit of the law-not against the letter-I would have been called a traitor, and I would have found a :flag of in- surrection in front of me." Whatever may have been the rea ons it must always be remembered of Francisco Leon de la Barra that he could have made efforts, perhaps u cessful to keep his position, .tnany political element being in his control, and that he did not seek to retain it be ond the moment of his promise. According to a witness of the scene, Mad ro was very nervous, and even agitated at th Pala on that . morning of the sixth of Nov mber when Mr. de la Barra gave over to him the suprem power. His eyes were brilliant, but could not fi them 1 es on any person or object; he was death! pal , and more than usually talkative, his excitement generally showing itself by increased loquacity. Mr. de la Barra, in brief words, expressed ·his wishes for the prosperity of Mexico during the new administration and for the personal success of the new President. Mr. Madero then thanked him in the name of the country, hailing him as "the great citizen who had governed Mexico wisely, transmitting the supreme power integrally and in strict conformity to the law." FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 139 He gave orders that Mr. de la Barra be accom- p anied to his home by a Guard of Honor. Pascual O r ozco, the "Cabecilla" of Chihuahua, one of the Ma de r ista heroes, asked to form part of it. And it wa s thus, surrounded by the mixed escort of Presi- de ntial gu a rds and Maderista generals, that Mr. de l a Barra, deeply moved, returned to his borne, fol- lowed by an immense crowd shouting, "Viva el Presi- dente Blanco." When Madero appeared at the Chamber to take his oath, even from the distance of the diplomatic loge, bis pallor was appalling, his eyes deep - ringed, his small beard like a spot of ink. He took his oath firmly, however, but as he turned to leave the Cham- ber to go back to the Palace, where the members of the government and the diplomatic corps awaited him, he made a sudden strange movement, almost supplicatory, _ of putting his hands together, invoking what spirit or spirits I know not . He was at the summit of his desire. What frightening, prophesying apparition he met on those heights, who shall say? In the streets an immense crowd was calling him "Salvador" and "Apostol." The greatest confusion prevailed and even he had much difficulty in getting down the steps leading from the Camara, and into his motor. The diplomatic corps had arrived at the Chamber of Deputies, with garments torn, top hats furry and battered, and had :finally entered by a small side door to which they were f,or the most part en- gineered by Manuel del Campo, Third Introducer of Ambassadors . To this day I remember the sudden dim quiet of the small passage and the returning sense of personal safety, as we found ourselves shut 14 0 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY o ut from the excitement and potentialities of the crowd . Madero }).ad not called out the soldiery, wish- ing, as he said, to show his confidence in the people. The confusion, naturally, was indescribable. Even the band of the Presidential Guard was scattered and the trombones sounded from one side and the bugles from another . It was the Mexican people in the full enjoyment of a change for the worse. "Now I can put everything straight," Madero said, with a childlike smile to a foreign minister on re- ceiving his congratulations at the Palace . Doubtless at the moment he saw himself leaning down from a cl o ud of glory, dispensing happines and security to each and every Mexican . Had he been a bad man, but a clever one, with his feet on the earth and some kno wledge of statecraft, according to Machiavelli, th e hi st o ry of Mexico would have been different. His very virt u es , so multipie, so apparent, so confound- in g even, .. meant her ruin and hi · o n and that inco mpetent, sh o rt, squarish hand of his, so freely u sed in gesture , was the predestin d instrument of cata strophe . . .. M y l ast sight o f Mr . de la Barra that day of Madero ' s in aug u rati o n was as he stood on the rear platform of the special train that took him in the \ afternoon to Ve r a Cruz, wh e n ce ,h e was to emb ark for France. The crowd and disord er a t the stat ion was ev en greater than that around t h e C h a mb e r of Depu t ie s in the piorning, and it w a s w i th di ffi culty t h at t h e official world g _ ot throu g h th e w a iti ng thousands. Mounted police had been a t la st c a ll e d out; even t hey had trouble in keeping a sp a c e fr e e for the passage FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 141 of the · motors and carriages. The ex-President, with his usual punctuality , was the first to arrive, accom- panied by his wife and children. The Corps Diplo - matique, already there, proceeded to make their adieux to Madame de la Barra in her flower-filled compartment . She was smiling, and doubtless very happy to be safely descended with her husband and children from those dangerous heights whereon is placed the Mexican presidential chair. Then a long, very long wait occurred, which I spent sitting on a pile of boards in company with the Ger- man Minister, who was very pessimistic ' as to the eventual outcome of "so much legality" in Mexico. ' You will intervene in the end," he said. The French secretary, M . de Vaux, was more optimistic, and what be was fond of calling "la democratie integrale" was indeed in apotheosis. He was even unmoved by jokes concerning the famous unopened sacks of votes we had seen at the Chamber of Deputies that morning, in the Protocol office,-corded, sealed, bearing na:ively the evidences of their origin, "Colegio Electoral de Torreon," "de Guadalajara," "de Chihuahua," etc., whose numbers were to forever remain a secret. He did allow, with an unavoidable smile, that it would have been wiser to remove the bales, or at least their tickets, from the cold foreign eye. "Blood and Sand" had played a not unimportant electoral r6le in various localities, large votes having been cast for favorite bull-fighters. The confusion, even · on the safe side of the picket, continued and the screams of the wife of the Spanish Minister, separated from her daughter in the momen - tum of the "democratie integrale," made a little 142 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY change in the monotony of the long wait. The J ap- anese Charge, always active and practical, found and restored them to each other's arms. Madero, though naturally courteous, did not pos- sess the crowning "politesse des rois" and was gen- erally late everywhere. At length, however, the familiar swelling, mob-like cry arose, faint then al- most deafening, and we knew that the "Redeemer'' was approaching. He appeared on the platform, still ' smiling that probably uninterrupted smile of the morning, bowing right and left, and an expression, rather touching, of happiness and satisfaction dis- tinguished his whole being. He was still on the dizzy heights of his wis~ and hope. I remember thinking suddenly of the old ProvenQal pro erb : ''Uod keep thee from the she-wolf and from th hearts desire.' He was accompanied by his wife, two red pots of excitement on her usually sallow ch eks, her eyes very bright, and by General Pascual Orozco the "military genius'' present at all d termining mo- ments of Mexican history, true god of h r machine. 1 Even Madero, frankly and sin er ly nti-militarist, could not exorcise his presence at that moment of complete "legality." Doubtless too he preserved some secret sympathy for his comrade, stiH in the pleasantly irresponsible position of "revolutionario." No one was going to ask Orozco to divide up the land, or harry J1im about the budget. Concerning the military genius, a more , Jnevitable and essential figure in Mexico than a President, and 1 The private sec1·etary of the unalphabet bandit recently come to power is also another inevitable :figure of any Mexican drama, but of him another time. FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 143 whose species will persist through revolutionary eons, becoming extinct only when, as an organism, it finds no food for its being, I would like to quote Francisco Bulnes, who knows his Mexico as he does his doubtless empty pockets. Nearly four years ago he predicted that Obregon, Carranza's "military genius,' would one day be President. The following bird's-eye view of the history of military geniuses in , Mexico will be enlightening to those few who desire to be enlightened as to Mexican political arcana : 'General Guadalupe Victoria, the hero of the war of Independence, associated with General Santa Ana, revolted against the Emperor Iturbide and won the supreme power by means of a military coup. Another Independence · hero, General Vicente Guerrero, car- ried his revolt against President Victoria to a suc- cessful termination. General Anastasio Bustamente in turn ousted General Guerrero from the presiden- tial chair by force. General Santa Ana, the next military gehius, by means of a military coup over- threw President Bustamente in 1832 and again in 1841. Santa Ana's great friend, General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, in his capacity of military genius, betrayed him by means of a military coup and General Gabriel Valencia retaliated by overturning Paredes y Arrillaga to reinstate Santa Ana, who re- turned from exile to reassume the power by virtue of the Guadalajara coup executed in his favor. Gen- eral Ignacio Comonfort, the military genius of the Plan de Ayutla, was loyal to President Juan Alvarez, but General Manuel Doblado, Comonfort's associate, initiated the revolt of San Luis Potosi, and President I 144 INTIMATE PAGES OP MEXICAN HISTORY Alvare z prudently withdrew to his estates in the south. General Felix Zuluaga, intimate friend of Comonfort, betrayed him through the Tacubaya coup, and General Miguel Miramon, a brilliant military genius, turned against Zuluaga, and overthrew him. If the French had not appeared in 1862, General Gon- sa l ez Ortega would have carried out a revolt against President Benito Juarez. General Porfirio Diaz, the military genius of 1869, launched his P l an de la Noria and would have unquestionably overthrown Juarez h ad the latter not been called to his final acc o unting o n July 18, 1872. As the milita g nins of the day , General Porfirio Diaz wa able to carry out his c ou p against President Seba tian Lerdo de T e j ada an d by th i s means ultimate! became Pre i - d e nt in 1 8 7 6 . General B rnardo Re es, converted into th e m ili tary genius of the da prepared to re- volt aga i nst G ncral Diaz, but h " s couraO' fail d him at the critical moment and he fl 1 · no- th a p o st l e, Francisco I . Mad ro, heir to a ar fully pm- p ared revo lu tion . Pascu I Oroz o s flaming word or , t o be m o re xact, his flaming rifle on t h e · ctoty for Ma d er o , t h ereby earnino- Mm t h e title of milit:u·y ge nius a nd th e su bseque n t o b li O' ti on o f r o l t i ng against Mad er o. Th e ' Apost l ' was save d b y Huerta's sword, and his vi ct o ries o ver O r ozco p ro - claimed him the military geniu s of t he d ay . Hu e r t a followin g historic p r ecedent , b e tra ye d Mad er o and permitted the latter's Reyista o r F e lici s ta enemies to put him to death. The military ge niu s , Vill a, be~ trayed Carranza, and in the natur a l order of things Obregon will be obli ge d to betray his chief." This, too, has fulfilled itself, and the Mexican ship FRANCISCO LEON DE LA BARRA 145 of state is putting out on one of its periodic voyages into the political Mare Ignotum, in which, alas, more reefs than Happy Isles are found. Pascual Orozco, standing, November 6, 1911, on that rear platform in the fast-falling tropical night, was a lineal descendant, unbroken, perfect as to type, of every military genius since the early days of Mexican Independence. Huerta, when his turn came, took up the succession without a differing fea- ture except the essential one of the interference of the United States in Mexican politics, which has occa- sioned one of the cruelest and longest fratricidal wars of history. How often Huerta was to say to the American Charge: ' I did to Madero only what he wanted me to do to Diaz . How is my act worse than his?" . . • The attention of that great crowd at the . station focussed itself finally on the rear-platform of the special train, where, enfolded in the transient and beautiful tropical half-light, stood in high and com- plete relief, President Madero, on his right ex- President de la Barra, on his left Orozco, the "mili- tary genius." Mr. de la Barra, int~rnational, suave, smiling, immaculately dressed, showing no ~vidence of the difficulties of his months of office, was entirely the diplomat departing on a foreign mission, in the enjoyment of a · "belle gare." Orozco, in uniform, towered head and shoulders above his two com- panions. About him was the usual quiet assurance of all successful Mexican revolutionists . He was of the northern ranchero type, prominent nose, high cheek- ,_ 146 [NTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY bones, and a dark mustache covered a cruel, deter- mined mouth. An American who knew Orozco well described him to me as "a tall, raw-boned man, igno- rant and dreamy, but really beloved by the Mexican people of the Northern States." This divergence of opinion shows how difficult is the analysis of any Mexican situation. Between these two men stood the President of a few hours. His broad, speculative forehead showed very white, and his eyes and beard quite black as the light beg.an to fade. The movements of his head had grown automatic; he had been bowing uninterrupted- ly since he left his house in the early morning. His smiles was irremovable. He was, with General Orozco, to accompany the ex-President to the next station, Villa de Guadalupe. Several times he raised his arms and attempted to speak a few words, but nothing could be heard for the loud "vivas of the crowd, sounding from fences and trees and cars on the sidings. I was suddenly o ercome i h adnes , as in the pale blue night that had fallen the train bear- ing "el Presidente Blanco" mov d slo 1 out of the station to those hoarse, continu d plaudits, leaving the Indian world to darkness and Madero. PART THREE: FRANCISCO I. MADERO SAN PEDRO, COAHUILA: OCTOBER 4, 1873 - MEXICO CITY: FEBRUARY 22, 1913 "One man with a dream at pleasure Shall go forth and conquer a crown." ., PART THREE: FRANCISCO I. MADERO "One man with a dream at pleasure Shall go forth and conquer a crown." CHAPTER XIII Mexico, 1911, in the Process of Redemption. The Entry of the " ((essiah" into the Mexican Jerusalem-His First Appearance on the International Stage at a Dinner at the German Legation -The Generation According to the Flesh of the Twentieth Cen- tury '' Redeemer of Mexico.'' Few men are great of themselves alone, mostly 1 they are reckoned so because their qualities have com- bined successfully with events. Fewer still owe all their greatness to events. Such an exception was Madero. When I first set foot on Mexican soil, May 5, 1911, it was electrically charged, there was a tingling, a buzzing in the air, something unexplained yet ter- ribly potential seemed at wo:rk. All eyes were turned to the "Magnetic North," where a small-statured man of unpicturesque and thrifty antecedents, with bulg- . ing forehead, fl.a ttened nose, black beard, sallow skin, and burning eyeg, was combining in his single under - sized person the triple r6le of prophet, Messiah and apostle. Even these r61es did not overtax his powers. Unlike the prophets foretelling the destruction of the Temple, he cried that he had found a quarry from · whose shining stones new temples, automatically, 149 150 INTIMATE PAGES 0F MEXICAN HISTORY without any sweat of the brow, were to be raised. Unlike the Messiah he did not profess that there must always be humble and great. Unlike the apostles he promised riches in this world to each and every one. It was all more than life-size. This contagion of fancy spread swiftly, overpower- ingly, not confining itself to Mexicans alone. Even the proverbial, cold-eyed foreign investor, who ought, according to the laws of contagion, to have been im- mune, was seized with it, its first symptoms being a sort of political myopia. From the visible Mexican world, which, like all things human, was compo ed of both good and ill, was to arise a state compo ed of good alone. It was all anti-historic anti-philo- sophic, against experience, again t good sense, against public and private interest, and et it pre- vailed. No one looked towards the Maderista glare without being blinded . . . . Wandering about Vera Cruz in hat thi k, soft night, scented by unknown :flowers, shot b r flections of dim, half-hidden lio-hts, ut here and there by un- familiar silhouettes who were talking in vol ubl and strange accents, I had a consciou ness of being indeed in a foreign land. To it all was added the thrill of the magnetic potentialities of a nation about to be regenerated; and though the regeneration as far as we newcomers were concerned was mani- fested by tales of dynamited bridges, cut water-mains, broken telegraph lines, and sudden changes of prop- erty unrecorded before the law, it did not dispel the illusion. The Mexican individually and nationally is , able to put something mysterious into his most ordinary and indifferent acts, and at this moment FRANCISCO I. MADERO 151 . commonplace and stupid destruction was aureoled in redemption. I even thought of the majestic pro- nouncement that our own state "was conceived in . wars, born in battle and sustained in blood" and expectantly, in an imaginative and somewhat hypno- tized state, I took as it were "wove:o. paces" up the gorgeous, scented road, from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, where the gifts of Mother Earth, from orchid and coffee to pine and wheat, show themselves ranged as on shelves. At last T found myself en° veloped in that glittering, thinly-spun air of the Plateau, magic, suggestive, beautiful. And enchanted, I entered into that country of illusions where easily "one man, with a dream at pleasure, could go forth and conquer a crown." The first things were disappearing without the last things having taken their place. But neither I nor any one knew it. In defense or rather excuse of the Maderista move- ment, we must allow that Providence chooses strangely diverse instruments of salvation for nations. One can never know. France was saved at one time by a young virgin in glittering armor, on horseback, visibly inspired. Another time she was saved by a man of seventy-eight, wearing a gray busi- ness suit, gray suede gloves and a slouch hat, a heavy white mustache completely concealing his mouth, which harbors a sharp though golden tongue. And his eyes were extraordinary. . . . Madero, at the age of thirty-three-the Christ age, as his disciples often pointed out-began his public life and teaching. He spent the first - part of it a martyr in prison. Later he was a martyr out on 152 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY bail. His "Sucesi6n Presidencial" was his gospe l ac - cording to himself . He saw the past, he saw the present; the future, with which he was, unfortunately for Mexico, exclusively concerned, was impenetrably veiled . He was accompanied in all his detentions and on all his journeys by a passionate and resolute consort, like himself small, ineffective in her person, probably of superior will, but not an instrument of destiny . She accompanied him as the "soldadera' acc o mpanies her man in all Mexican camnaigns . She was in tp.is quite true to type . A st o ry which I have at first hand will illustrate someth i ng determined and sliO'htly atavistic i n her make -u p . O n being asked if she did not fear to travel in the o ut-of - the-way places to which her husbands d est in y o ften l ed her, she pulled a very long and ery thick hat-pin from her hat. saying quite simp l y : "T h i s will suffice . " O f Madero's initial sincerity no one has ever raise d a d o u b t . His honesty was apparent toe ry on ho a pp r o ac h ed him ; his la k of pr paration for go ern; m e nt wa s pr o ven imm diately he came o p o er . He did no t h ave t h e eq u anim i ty of so ul n cessa r y for sta tec r aft , no r t h e energy fo r the qui ck d e ci s ions imperative for gov e rnm e n t in Latin -A m e ric a n coun• tries or anywhere in fact. On e day when talking with Mr. de la Barra of the difficulties of his ad• interim Presidencv he said to me with a look of conviction : "In my country it is essential that those in power be able to judge s . wiftly, preserving at the same time some measure of personal serenity." Madero, on the contrary, was rash in all his prom- I FRANCISC O I. M ADERO 153 ises, indiscreet in all he s a i d, v a cill a ting in all his acts and passionately unrefl ec t i ng in a ll h is judg- ments. On the face of it, had t he n at ion b een sane, it would have been kn o w n t h a t h e wa s not the man to govern Mexico . The first time I saw him w as on the afternoon of the 7th of June, 191 1. I n t h e e a rly morning a tre- mendous earthquake had s hake n Me xico Ci t y to its foundations . Many l o oked u p on the heralding of the "Messiah" in this manner as a fav o r i ng sign from heaven,-others had d ou b t s . Late r, st a nding in the motor drawn u p in fr ont of our house in the Calle Humboldt, after h ou rs of w aiting , I caught a glimpse of a ghast l y -p a l e , dark-bearded man in a car - riage, bowing contin uou s ly to right and to left. His departure fr o m his an c estral home in Par:ras was one of_ the most r emarkable human experiences ever recorded . Pers o na l ovations such as no Crosar knew were pr o ffere d him. He could have walked over a corduroy roa d of th e faithful from the Rio Grande to the C api t a l , had it been in the twentieth century note. Every town he entered was as a Jerusalem, and he entere d it literally to the waving of palms and the sh ou t ing of Hosannas. The sick were brought in on the backs of their families from deep in the coun - . try -to be healed by a possible touch of his coat- t a il s , or a glance of his eye, or they were laid on p a vements or roads over which he had passed. The entry into Mexico City was the least of it . He then, being human after all-was suffering from a sick headache brought on by excitement, and loss of voice brought on by promises of everything to every - 154 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY body. He went to the house of his parents in the Calle Liverpool and collapsed for twenty-four hours. The next time I saw him was at our Fourth of July celebration in the very banal setting of the Ti- voli Eliseo,-like any picknicking ground anywhere, brass bands, confetti, pink lemonade, besides other more exotic accessories. In corners were cock fights " and games of chance. I was just leaving wh n I , heard an approaching, swelling, mob-like cry. It was at last the apostle whom we had been expec ing for two hours. The indistinct cries resolved th mselves into shouts of "Viva Madero,' " iva el Inmaculado, "Viva el Incorruptible," "Viva el Redentor.' I waited on the fringe of the crowd from when e I could see, standing by the table I had just qui tt d the man who had but a moment b for heard him elf called "Redeemer." He almost imm diatel b <Yan to speak. His voice had a magneti qu ali the fl of words was smooth, uninterrupted, his e tur s ere rhythmic. I was still in a half dr a a fl ding myself in that stran(T and o-or ou land an I came away after awhile under the u ti e in:flu nc of that crowd and its master, whom I had a la t s n at his work of hypnotizing M ., i o. I vagu ly fel that the hypnotic state was his normal condition; and certainly it was extraorp.inarily contagious. When I got home-I wondered, but not to any special end. I was in Mexico, in that country where the im- probable is separated from the probable by a flimsier curtain than elsewhere, where atavistic qualities are always appearing and giving an unexpected turn to situations. The next time I saw him was at the German FRANCISCO I. MADERO 155 Legation, von Hintze being the first of the foreign ministers to give a dinner at which he and his wife were present . 1 He was then at the height of his popularity, the ad interim Presidency of Mr. de la Barra relieving him I from the necessity of fulfilling his promises. Later, every promise he had ever made came home to roost, the political chicken coop being full to burst- ing, and he proved to have a rapacious, relentless, impatient family of singularly large · dimensions, some members of which were a good deal cleverer 1 Diplomatic Days, page 7 4 - July 10th. ''Last night the German minister gave his :first big dinner at which the Maderas making their debut in official international life, were the 'clou 1 • • • I found the large room rather full, with _ a hitherto unsampled Mexican contingent . . . . Madero seen at close range, is small, dark, with nose _somewhat flattened, expressive rather prom- inent eyes in shallow sockets, and forehead of the impractical shape. But all this commonplaceness is redeemed by expression playing -like lightning over the shallow, featureless face and his ple'asant, ready smile. He speaks French and some English, preferring the former ; but lapses continually into Spa nish, bis volubility being too great to brook a foreign medium, and he uses many gestures. There was something about him of y outh, of hopefulness and personal goodness, but I couldn't help wondering if he were going to begin the national feast by slicing up the family cake. '' Madame Mader o might be a dark type of New England woman, with a hint of banked fires in her eyes. There is determination in the cut of her face, which is rather worn, with an expression of dignity. She, too, is small and thin and was dressed in an ordinary, high- necked black and white gown, a narrow 'pin stripe' with the most modest of go l d broaches fastening the plain high collar. '' (Later she was to show a fondness for heavy velvets, dark brocades, thick laces and plumed hats, more :fitting tb something passionate and dominating in her temperament than to her small person) . . . . Madero told N. at dinner that no revolution had ever been carried through so cheaply from the standpoint both of men and of money. . . . He seemed very militaristic, considering that be was come to bring peace, and somewhat suspicious of the United States . N. suggested bis falling in with the views of the U. S., in the regulating of claims, and be said the following in French: 'You Americans always act on the presumption that WE! Mexicans are always in the wrong.' . . . This was in answer to N.'s remark: 'Now, Mr. Madero you are going to be President and I know when your Government' gets in you will ciear up all matters pending between t.he two countries. ' '' . . . 156 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY than he-though they had not been singled out by destiny, except as accessories. His father was a spare, straight-featured, chin- whiskered, dark man, with perhaps some Jewish blood,-who knows? But it was his grandfather, Evaristo Madero, a singularly competent man of affairs, who had laid the basis of the tribal fortunes in Monterrey. It is said that his death was caused by his dismay at finding himself the grandfath e r of a Messiah. Naturally constructive, acquisitive and prudent, he foresaw ruin and loss of all he had gathered together, though this was not to come about, as logic demanded, by a preliminary dis ri- bution of the immense Madero estates among th poor. When he died at Monterrey in the spring of 1911, aged eighty-two, he left to fourte e n ch'ldr n, thirty-four grandchildren and fif - ix great- rand- children, an honest name and a prin el inher· nee. Madero's father was also a killful a of ffair , though less gifted. When I sa him ur rise at he stupendous turn in the fortunes of the Ian had not disappeared. In his fa.mil h as an aff c ionate autocrat. His children aft r the amiabl 1 xi an custom, kissed his hand and 11 d him "papacito'' when greeting or taking leav of him. He had a very Mexican way of looking about him, ,, something strange and concealed lay in his glance, a:q.d what has been called "Mexican methods" were -vvell known to him. Re, too, was a careful, thrifty man; what he had he intended to keep. Whenever the land should be divided, he would see to it that his own remained intact. The blood of the landlord was in his veins and in the veins of his • sons, and neither he FRANCISCO I. MADERO 157 no r they ever ma de the slightest attempt to put into practice upon their huge e s ta tes the principles of the Maderista revo l ut i o n. Tli e y con t inued , after the cus- tom of the i r fo refath ers, to use the half-enslaved l abor they c o ntr oll e d in the time-honored manner. Madero's mother wa s a w oman of more than usual energy, who m u st have been handsome in her youth, and her beari n g s ho we d a very natural pride in being the mother of a s avi our , a s well as of nine or ten o ther more o r l es s g lorified offspring. Such was the "stem of D avid , " the gene r ation, according to the flesh, of the twent iet h -century "redeemer of Mexico," and the appeara nce of a Messiah in that family was co mpletely u n e xp ected. There was a pa t riarchal effect about it all that was no t, however, dis ple a sing, the external picture one of dignified pro vi n c a l s not over-given to mirth. Indeed the o n l y one o f t hem who could really laugh was the u nfortunate G ustavo, a born "profiteer," an arch- i typa l " ras t a , " wi t h a light in his single eye, and few th ings hum a n ( of a sort) were foreign to him. He r e p eate d to m e , on one of the few occasions on which I saw h im , his famous remark, that "of a family of clev er men the only fool was President," which did hono r to his perspicacity, if not to his taste. It has b e en s a id by many that Gustavo Madero was the evil genius of his brother, but Madero's evil genius was born from within and nourished by his own qualitie~, more inexorably, more sequentially than any that could have operated from without. He simply did not have the governmental virtues necessary to his position, though he was essentially honorable, and profoundly respectable in the narrowest sense of the 158 INTIMATE PAGES·OF MEXICAN HISTORY word. Gustavo was probably neither of these things, and he was very active. Such :figures appearing on the Latin-American political scene are visibly predestined to violent deaths: The hour alone is hid. Gustavo Madero was completely . cynical (all , the wise were) about his brother's promises of free land, :finding them also stupid and dangerous. He told me with that same light very bright in his single eye, the pleasure-loving lips of his amiable mouth some- what tightened, looking more "rasta' ban usual in a brown suit and a red necktie and something flashy, I forget what it was, about his cuff : "The people won't get the land, they never do an here. Its not only in Mexico as foreigners seem to believe. And as a cry for developing social unrest, it cant be beaten he added, somewhat treacherously to the Maderista creed. He was organizer of the celebrated "Porra a sort of Mexican political "rino-" but hi h h s be n less kindly described by one who wa not in it, as "an association of demagogu s enlist d for the purpo e of terrorizing society and th en mies of he gov rn- ment, replacing the fear of ba onets by the terror of mobs.' · ' The operations of this association necessitated the . handling of a good deal of money in the big way of promoting business ventures, in the small way of paying the individual ruffians and incipient liberators composing the mobs that shouted about the streets, and there was a quantity of buttered parsnips for intimate friends. Gustavo was also quite active in recomposing political shapes and shades in the FRANCISCO I . MADERO 159 Chamber, and he was peri odically harried by o p posing parties to give an account of the 700,000 p e sos got by him from the Federal Treasury .for certain expenses of the Revolution . . His clever and agreeable uncle, Ernesto Madero, who having real gifts was doubtless often anxious as to the final family destinies, at last presented a statement 1 showing that at least nearly one of the seventy-two millions that Don Porfirio left in the Treasury, even at that early date, found its way to the "step-sister Republic" to the north. 1 Buying of arms, munitions and equipments in the U. S ... $154,000.00 Honorariums of lawyers in New York, Was~ington, San Antonio ax:id El Paso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53,000.00 Confidential agency in N . Y . City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,000.00 Confidential agency in Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,000.00 Confidential agency in San Antonio, T xas . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,000 . 00 Confidential agency in El Pas o, Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000.00 Press campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,000.00 Sending envoys, journeys and minor expens~s . . . . . . . . . . 54,000.00 Total ........................................ $319,000.00 • _ (American dollars) • ., ) CHAPTER XIV Madero Haranguing an Enchanted Mob-His Reliance on the World of Spirits-Novena at the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe With Senora Madero-A Hint of Prretorian Guard-The ice- President, Jose Marfa Pino Suarez-The Always-Fatal Office. The house in which the Madero family lived as on the corner of Calle Liverpool and Calle Berlin, entered by a small Bougainvillaea-covered veranda, with a narrow hall opening into a couple of large drawing-rooms, done up very uninterestingly,-not a book anywhere, and the bric-a-brac evidently there because one cannot have etageres or center tables without them. In the furthest roo as a grand piano, Angela, the youngest of the o sis ers, having real musical gifts and a charming, n tur Uy-placed voice. From a window of this same house as I was passing by, one crystal -aired morning, in hose days ju st preceding his inauguration, I saw Madero haranguing an enchanted mob of unshod but generously-hatted expectants. The scene was extraordinary. As he flung down promises in that :flowing voice of his, they flung up "vivas," and one woman with a baby at her breast and several, not m1.1ch older, at her ragged skirts, was crying herself hoarse with "esposo de Mexico," bridegroom of Mexico. The "esposo's" face wore a constant though mobile smile, his eyes were frequently turned upwards, his gestures were 160 • I • FRANCISCO I. MADERO 161 continuous . The trees were brown with Indians, the streets crowded with others bearing banners stamped with his portrait in the hardest of colors, the inky black of the beard especially spotting the blue sky against which they floated, and there were litho- graphs of like manufacture nailed to sticks . . He presented a general whose name I could not catch, a rather fla~hy-looking man, stouter than Mex- icans usually are (he may possibly have had an early chance at the flesh-pots), wearing a good deal of gold braid and a bandolier full of cartridges. Evidently nobody wanted to see the accessory instru- m nt of regenerati on, for the crowd ignored him and continued to shout "Viva Madero." There was all the joy of anticipation on both sides. Within two years, February, 1913, this being October of 1911, the house was burned and sacked by what the newspapers of the moment styled "la furia popular." On returning to Mexico City I was to :find it a mass of charred walls, roofless, windowless, swallows flying in and out of it, and, looking at it, very natural thoughts concerning the inconstancy of popular favor awakened within me. Since then I have come to feel ( and not without anguish have I sloughed off the more radical convictions of the former woman) that I would rather put my faith in princes than in crowds. There is something formless; elusive, irre- _ sponsible and completely destructive about the rabble that defies appeal. There is not even a throne-room to which they can ultimately be tracked and held re- sponsible; you cannot assassinate them, and their judgments are always given in a blind rage of love or hate. 162 INTIMATE PAGES ·OF MEXICAN HISTORY Madero's faith in his own predestination was bolstered up by what he believed to be manifestations of extreme partiality from the spirit world. Years before, as a very young man consulting the planchette with other young men, he had, on asking what profes- sion he should adopt, received the answer that one day he would be President of Mexico. This I have heard confirmed by a member of his family-who found it extremely difficult to deal along the lines of fact and expediency with one who "in addition to being illumined was also predestined." It a~ in fact a combination impossible to handle. My husband going once to see Madero at Chapul· tepee Castle on affairs, found him in bed ill of a fever. On the little night-table b his side was a planchette of dark wood and man bits of crumpled paper were thrown about. The vi it was pursuant to orders from the Ambassador to pre ent a note con• cerning · an urgent fronti r matt r. The sio-ht of the planchette, though not pertinent to the frontier, was certainly confirmatory of hi r Ii n on the other .world, when conducting the affairs of his. As for Sefiora Madero, who was supposed to serve as her husband's medium and interpret r, I ne r myself ~w her in this r6le, nor heard anything· beyond vague, unconfirmed hints of it. I did accompany her on many occasions in the big Benz motor which was part of the presidential paraphernalia, to the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe-and whatever the spirits to whom she may have lent herself for the conduct of State affairs, she was certainly capable of rapt and ardeJ:lt supplications ' to the one Great Spirit. Her passionate solicitude for her husband knew no FRANCISCO I. MADERO 163 bounds, and she was doubtless . ready to invoke any \ aid. Her small, thin figure with its head bowed before the silver altar of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the dim Basilica, in and out of which countless In- dians were coming and going, I shall not forget. It is difficult to understand these apparent contra- dic t ions. Probably like all playing with great chances she was superstitious and propitiatory. The Madero family in their various ramifications were quite frankly Catholic. It was at the time of this novena to the Virgin of Guadalupe (March, 1912) tliat Orozco announced that he would shortly be in Mexico City and would hang Madero to the largest tree in the Plaza Mayor. Orozco, seeing where })romises had led Madero, did not concern himself to make any, but he treated his prisoners so well that they could be counted on to • promptly swell the ranks of his followers. He had quite a season at Chihuahua that winter of 1912, when balls were organized in his honor and he danced with the first and fairest in the town, always dom- inating physically with his great height and broad shoulders any gathering he attended. There were also rumors of Mr. de la Barra's imminent return from Europe. In view of the fact that things had gone steadily from bad to worse, many had begun to sigh for the sincerity, good sense and tact of which "el Presidente Blanco" had given proof. . Madero was always hungry for visible signs of popularity. Unfortunately he went to the extent of mistaking them for signs of national prosperity. His constant smile and his simple and natural ~anners, so expressive of his . innate honesty, were among his 164 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTOR~ best governmental assets. But he did not know how to punish, neither was he quick to reward. Successful statesmen do both. He was completely, fatally amateurish, and what was needed was technical gov- ernmental skill. He had a natural antipathy to mili- tarism in any form, but in the end he was obliged to have recourse to the army to sustain himself. The touching confidence in his people that marked the early days of his incumbency, when unattended he went about his presidential duties, was gradually invaded by a hint of Prretorian Guard. At the time of the revolt of Felix Diaz in Vera Cruz, October, 1912, he must have known what everybody else knew, that the Federal Government was sus- tained by force of arms rather than by the virtues of its President. His natural habitat was the clouds, hich, hen they parted, showed only a few dazzl'no- peaks. The eternal rocks of Mexican political per onali m was · what he was dashing against, and he had not the slightest instinct as to the h re bout of th harbor entrance, nor could he use the compa s. Unfor- tunately, instead of some private bark, it was the Ship of State that he was steering. He was, however, in a prophetic yet obscure way to utter a then unheeded truth, but which in the years . since has been testified to in blood and hunger · and disease by the peoples of the earth : "The .first requisite for a country's prosperity is peace, not liberty." It was in October of 1912, not quite a year after his inauguration, on which auspicious date Liberty had been the magic word, the "open sesame" to the Elysian Fields through whi _ ch the whofo M.e~- - / FRAN C IS C O I. M ADERO 165 can nation was to pass, tha t h e publicly proclaimed this. He added further, in a dvoc a c y of a bill for compulsory military service, "It w o uld s e em , if we judge by the past history of Mexic o , tha t it i s more difficult to preskrve peace when lib e r ty e x ists than when it does not . " A word concerning the Vice - Pr esiden t , Jose Maria Pino Suarez, who was to shar e a few of Madero's honors and all of his mis , fort un e s. He was a tall, slim, good-figured man, dark - ha i re d and mustached, with regular features and s o re e y e s . H e was reckoned of about average intelligence , ma king a not too showy lining for the Presidentia l clo ak , which Madero was rarely tempted t o flap back just to show what it looked like inside . His p o li tical gestu r es seem to have been of the imitative o rde r, a nd he spent much time with Gustavo. He was, too , af t er his way, a dreamer of dreams, and ha d pr oduced several volumes of unimportant poetry . The only resem blance between the office of Vice- President in Mexico a nd in the United States is the name . O ne i s as t h e violet mostly born to blush unseen and unsung . Th e oth e r , in the arena of Mex- ican politics, rese mbles those unexploded bombs picked up for souv e nirs on European battlefields. They always g o off. Of Pino Suar ez' wife I only vaguely remember an amiab l e smile , a stoutish silhouette, and some anxiety as a h o stess , t hough this w as perhaps only as regards foreign la d ies. H er tea-table I well remember, of gilt and m ar ble, und er t he strong light of a central ch a nd e lie r of pressed brass. It was laden with an unusual number of painted and beribboned boxes of '166 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY bonbons, and there were magenta bows on rather stiff bouquets of loud-colored flowers. She was sur- rounded by relatives-madre, comadre, madre- politica, hermanas, tias and primas. She had, too, many children. In the hallway was a large baby carriage, the kind for twins, or children whose ages vary by but ten months, as often happens in Mexico. They all inhabitated a big and draugh house in the Paseo de la Reforma, furnished throughout in the style of many "Louis" run together. "Epoca de un Luis, pero cual yo no se." When this rather colorless person, Jose Maria Pino Suarez, according to the s range and arbitrary values Fate places on the actors in an S ate trag d became Madero's running mat he be ame also on of the elements of his :final politi al unpopularit . At the moment of the elections the stre t r ounded to cries of "Pino--no-no--no,' in a enc d but di - pleased accents. He had been · an ob ure unimportant Yucatan ne spap r an entirely superfluous for Ma lero to ha e one so far to get him. However, insigni:fi ant as his r 1 a in life, from all time Fate had d stined him t b the companion of Madero's last hour, and to lie ith him in death. There is Ii ttle else to be said of Jose Maria Pino Suarez except, "peace to his soul." He has but gone where all must go. CHAPTER XV Madero Dwelling on the Heights-The Terrace of Chapultepec-The Pyramid of the Sun at San Juan Teotihuacan-My Farewell to President Madero. I have gone into detail concerning Madero's ante~ cedents and character reacting to environment, be- ca use without some knowledge of them Mexico's situation to-day is not diagnosable. The actual events of his incumbency, lasting not quite sixteen months and found in any chronological table of the period, are less enlightening. The weakness of the instru- ment which :finally destroyed so strong a thing as the Diaz Government reveals the presence of some essential dissolvent in the nation. The elimination of this very active element, for permanent racial and climatic reasons, will probably never be entirely accomplished, and in any theories ( or facts) con- cerning government in Mexico must always be taken into account. Madero came and went a sort of Mexican Pied Piper. The nation abandoned every usual occupation, every visible responsibility, every normal activity to follow him, and it was to the aoyss . To the very edge of it he preserved his own illusions. His great card was "legality"; it must always win. As the French Minister said, he was "more convinced of his rights than Louis XVI, more persuaded of his legitimacy than Louis XVIII." He played this card till no one knew if it were an ace or a two-spot. 167 \ 168 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY I nearly always saw him on some height, generally on the terrace of the Castle of Chapultepec. The hill of Chapultepec, crowned by the castle, is a small, strangely isolated eminence, so situated that east, west, north or south the iridescent rim of the incom- parable valley of Mexico is everywhere visible against a dazzling sky. The valley is so enchanting, so bewitching in the shifting beauty of its light, that as one looks upon it the struggles of the dark and passionate race whose heritage it is can scarcely be taken into account. Madero, living on those heights, was su pended bodily, as well as spiritually, abo e the realization of human needs and human means to their alleviation . The vague desires in his brea t for gen ral p ace and individual happiness for Meri an emed alread realized as he looked on that encanta 01 pro pect, which was his on awakening, his at night, and com- pletely exorcised realities. Once I stood with him on the top of he P ramid of the Sun at San Juan T otihuac n, her his geo- graphical and atmospheric en ·ronm nt l o or- responded perfectly and fatally to hi ps holog . This was on the 28th of February, 1912. Within the year almost to a day, he was sleeping in the French cemetery of , Mexico City. The solitary eminence on wlilch we stood put every- thing in a mirage-like, deluding perspective, and we were enfolded in a dazzling ambiance. Formerly on the apex of the pyramid there had been a splendid temple containing a gigantic statue of the Sun, made of a single block of porphyry, ornamented with a heavy breast-plate of gold. There now was Madero_, FRANCISCO I. MADERO 169 for a short time, at least a half-god viewing from the great height the kingdom given into his keeping. 1 His expression was soft and speculat:ive as he gazed about him. He seemed strangely removed from the difficulties of his situation, lifted above them as he was above the shining plain; but in the city, glitter- ing in the distance, intrigues and dissolving forces of all kinds were at work against him. The far and splendid hills towards which he was one day to try to flee, were colored in cobalt and verde antique. It was the world of fancy, not of fact. . With beauty so supreme and so misleading forever throwing its veil over the dark shape of events, how shall Mexican situations present their true forms:? And must natural beauty and political disaster for- · ever go hand in hand in a land where Nature is more powerful than man? Madero would pace the terrace of Chapultepec, his unacquisitive hands behind him, his eyes vague as they rested on the crystalline rose and blue of the val- ley and hills, his smile gentle as: he thought his: kindly thoughts. He used to wear a brown suit, with a pea- cock-blue hand-worked vest, that summer of 1912, and - he was _ doubtless still quite happy, living within the world of his own benignant desires, confident in his "luck." The last time I ever saw him or his wife 1 was on that terrace. On October 5th of 1912, , a few days before our first · 1 From a letter from Madame Lef aivre, wife of the French Minis- ter to Mexico, picturing anothe1· scene: '' April 21, 1916 . "Yesterday I called on Madame Madero. I was told that she lived completely isolated, abandoned by- her friends and treated with com- 170 INTIMATE PAGES·OF MEXICAN HISTORY departure from Mexico, I drove up the winding way in the white morning, flowers were shining softly along the embankments, the trees were feathery, unsubstantial, birds were singing. It might have been the road to Paradise instead of to the abode of care. I found the President standing at the glass doors before the grand stairway, about to get into his motor to go to the Palace for a cabinet meeting. The era Cruz revolt of Feliz Diaz was then brewing and a declared but a few days later. He looked years older than when I saw him at the German Legation. Line were about his eyes, he seemed slightl puzzl d but the morning clouds of the dazzling day s ill enfolded him, and that implacable progr e ion of M xi an events was doubtless still as shado~ as he half r - membered figures of the dream of a night. After making my adieux to him I wa sho n out on the Pompeian Court, wh re M d m Ma ro awaited me, worn too, but still d t rmin d . . . . About us were the perfum s of th rare and lo ely plete indifference by the Carrancista.s, .., ho however continue to call themselves the 'avengers of the great apoetl . ' '' She received me very coldly and stiffly, though with dignity. I was somewliat surprised, but thought it was doubtle the prop e r attitude of the wife of a martyr according to x:ican cer monial. At last, however, I understood her, when with vibrating voice and raised hand, she cried out to me that the European war was the punishment of God on the peoples who had recognized the traitor Huerta. Probably she held me personally responsible for France I She is greatly to be pitied. She adored the unfortunate madman and now she :finds herself alone, abandoned, in her little widow's weeds, she who once, garbed in spangled dresses, shared his triumphs in the castle of Maximilian. She raved for quite a while, complaining in loud tones of the United States, and above all of the American Ambassador. She added, 'Christ found one traitor among his twelve friends; my husband found many. ' She seems still to identify him with the Saviour. 'If he had remained in power the universal peace, preached by him would now reign upon earth.' I thought to myself how he had brought about a fratricidal war instead, but it was not the moment to mention it.'' FRANCISCO I. MADERO 171 shrubs of the patio, the splash of the fountain, the singing of birds, the 1 ustrous hills, the shining vol- canoes; a crystal air en£ olded us, closer than human touch, but from beneath, from the restless city some- thing disturbing arose, prophetic of the shifting will ' of the Mexican people. I never saw either of them again. 'CHAPTER XVI Madero on His White Horse Rides to His Doom-Huerta Takes the Leading Role in the Mexican DraJI\a-The Fatal ight of the 22nd of February-The Closing of the Madero · ct. Madero was to believe in what his follo ers called his "luck,'' in what he himself thought his divine mission, to the end. He had a brief tran cendent prestige in the Republic at a moment h n he seemed to personify all national aspirations. Later there grouped themselves about him men hose passions, ambitions and appetites his high office enabled him unconsciously to gratif , hile "the people" had less than before. H eem d to ha , as it were, two souls, which w r unkno n to ch other and in no way dep nd nt one ho her, but in the void betwe n th m Me · co was lost. It was further born out by M d ro how little practical use there is in a man' good inten ·ons, the only tangible but insufficient merit being the ardor that prompts them. Be this as it may, a nation of 15,000,000 beings became the subjective feature of one man's soul, and not a single fact of national existence had place in it. The attacks of the Press, 1 magnified and popular- 1 A detailed drawing of '' The Last Supper,'' showing Madero in the place of Christ, Gustavo as .Judas, and eleven other members of the Madero family seated about the table, was typical of many offensive and demolishing cartoons. After their appearance the much- vaunted '' liiberty of the Press'' disappeared. . 172 FRANCISCO I. MADERO 173 ized the ridiculous aspects of his person and his enviroJ?.ment, which lent themselves easily to cari- cature; the inconsistence of his "politique" with the principles he had so loudiy enunciated; his complete failure to develop his administrative program equally loudly proclaimed and his unexamJ?led lack of tact in · his official and social relations partly explain his rui _ n. He was, too, a "pathological case," and would have presented in the curious duality of his being, together with his insensibility to facts, a wide opportunity for experiment. What was> inexorably, to happen to him in the end can be illustrated by two or three tragic and shifting pictures.. On February 9, 1913~ without any suitable solici- tude for his situation as President, without any pru- dence concerning his person, he rode on his white horse at the head of a few hundred men, mostly only mounted police and Chapultepec cadets, down the Paseo, through the A venida San Francisco to the National Palace. The city was then in full revo~ution. When he passed through the Plaza Mayor, he found it encumbered with hundreds of dead and dying. That same day Huerta was made m11itary com- mander of the city. The first act of the Decena Tragica had been played. On Saturday the 15th of February a secret session of the Senate was held, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Don Pedro Lascurain presiding · . The Mex- ican situation was noisy by reason of the bombard- ment of the city, delicate by reason of the fact that telegrams had been received from Washington reveal - ing the decision of the American Government to send 174 INTIMATE P.A.GEs'oF MEXICAN HISTORY warships, carrying land-forces, into Mexican waters. For three days the Senators endeavored to procure an audience with Madero, but without success. They had in their pockets the following resolutions: First: That the President of the Republic be advised, in view of the supreme necessity of saving the National sovereignty and restoring peace, to tender his resignation. Second: That the Vice-President do the same. Third: That a <!ommission be appointed to inform President Madero and Vice-President Pino Suarez of the decisions the Senate had arrived at. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs suggested that all the Senators then present betake themsel es to the National Palace, to appraise the President and the Vice-President of their decisions. This was unanimously approved, and the twenty-five Senators, accompanied by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, went immediately to the Palace, wh re they cooled their honorable heels for nearly an hour. Tliey were then admitted into . one of the ante-rooms of the Pres- ident's office, when after another wait, they were :finally informed by Senor Ernesto Madero that the President, only twenty minutes before, had left the Palace, accompanied by General Garcia Pena, to visit the military positions of the Government; all this to the lively sounds of tb.e bombardment of the town by the troops of General Felix Diaz entrenched in the Citadel, and the Government forces scattered throughout the city. They besought Don Ernesto to tell the President of their decisions and to beg him to render this last supreme service to the country, saying that his resignation at that moment could FRANCISCO I. MADERO 175 b u t redound to his own glory as well as to his coun- try ·s good. They even pointed out that it would e n t itle him to the gratitude of posterity, which last notoriously causes few thrills in the human breast, and is but slightly determinative of action. Their more potent and final plea was fear of complications with the United States if peace were not immediately res t ored; without it, national independence would be j e opardized. This they considered a danger which s hould influence all personal considerations, and urged that the most legitimate rights be surrendered for the greater safety of the country. The Honorable Ernesto Madero flanked by the Honorable Manuel Bonilla, Minister of Public Works, and the Honorable Jaime Gurza, Secretary of C ommunications, having no authority, and probably no desire, to accede to their demands, the Senators and the ' Secretary for Foreign Affairs :finally took their leave. On Tuesday the 18th, the Senators were still hot on the trail of resignation, or as one of their writers m o r e elegantly puts it, "they did not relinquish their pat riotic purpose." They , were :finally, early on the morning of this day, received by President Madero who was, by that time, under no illusions as to what they wanted. But his reiterated answer to their demands was that he represented "legality," and strangely enough the "Apostle," the "Bridegroom of Mexico," ended by saying that he "would rather be the ruler of a people of corpses, of a nation in ruins, than resign." The twenty-five withdrew from the interview con - vinced that there was nothing to be done,-in that 176 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY way. They proceeded to the Military Commander- Huerta. It is recorded that he showed no visible eagerness, though he did not "thrice refuse -a kingly crown." It was told him, and I have no doubt but the words were pleasant in his ears, that the alternative before him was :fidelity to Madero, or :fidelity to the interests of the country. It is recorded that he said very little, and sat very still. He let them, moreover, get as far as tne door where it is also recorded that he topped them sa - ing: "I, too, gentlemen, am gr atl xer i ove1 conditions prevailing in the country and in Mexico City. I cannot strike the blow that ou sugge t, but I could refuse to recognize Pr id nt Madero, if I · direct~d to do so by the 1 ITT. lati e an judicial bodies. Confer with the m n in ested · h these powers, and if the two bodies agree, I will consider the advisability of telling Pr sident M dero that he must at once resign.') Upon this the Senators wi hdr , leaving Huerta in a state better imagined than s ribed. The apples of the Hesperides,-power, fam , a ti ·t u hority, consideration, gleaming in th ir gold n be uty were within his reach, the things all m n desire, sa e the sage-and even he cannot deny their value. The Senators returned shortly, accompanied by an eager majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court. All were worn out by the bombardment of the city, the national infelicities, and the evident incompe- tence of the chief executive. Huerta thereupon "con- ferred" with his officers. Two of them did not agree, -General Felipe Angeles . and General Jose Delgado. Th · ese he then quite simply excluaed from the con- FRANCISCO I. MADERO 177 ference, and later still more simply put under arrest. But he had what he needed for his new-born pur- pose-the sanction of the legislative bodies . . . . Later on this same morning of the 18th of Feb- ruary, as Madero was seated with various members of his cabinet in the Sala de Consejos de Ministros, an ornate room hung with yellow brocade, its ceiling embossed with the Imperial :fleur de lys,1 Lieutenant- Colonel Riveroll appeared before him, and pursuant to orders, asked him on behalf of the Senate and the Army for his immediate resignation. Madero listened to Colonel Riveroll in perfect calm, but as he finished drew his revolver and fired at him. He fell dead. Major Izquierdo, who was waiti°=g at the door, rushed in, and was also shot dead by one of Madero's aides, Captain Garmendia. The President, who was a man of physical courage, then without hesitation pre- sented himself at the main entrance of the Palace. When he saw the armed force standi:p.g there he cried, "Here, Seflores, is the President of the Republic." There was silence. General Blanquet 2 in an elegant 1 Thia room had further magnificent hangings 0£ green broadcloth, held by massive gold cords, and a thick carpet with corner designs, representing the national arms. In the center was a splendid table, surrounded by chairs, that 0£ the President bearing a golden eagle. On the table, besides the leather portfolio in front of each chair, was a great silver inks , tand, once the possession of Maximilian, from which the imperial crests had been erased to be replaced by the letters P. N. (Palacio Nacional). Two fine French clocks, once also his property, ticked out this other historic hour. 2 General Aureliano Blanquet was held in good repute by every chief he served. Diaz found him loyal and competent. Huerta, not over-trustful of men, bad full confidence in him. He was of handsome and rather noble presence; in spite of his mixture of blood,-some said he was a Zambo , (a mixture 0£ Negro and Indian), others that he was of the usual Mestizo blend. He was contained of speech, " with a kind mouth and something brilliant in straight-looking eyes. Legend places him as a young boy among the firing squad at Queretaro, that fatal 19th of June, 1867, when under a sJ5,y of faultless beauty, Maximilian, Miramon and Mejia stood against the 178 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY black uniform, with much gold braiding that set off his handsome face and dignity of mien, revolver in hand, in front of his battalion, went towards him and having ordered that no shot be fired, took him prisoner with his ministers. They were all incar- cerated in the Palace. A foreigner of long Mexican experience said that, when th~ great bells of the Cathedral rang out to announce the fall of Madero, the ne s as received with undisguised satisfaction by the inhabitan s of the capital. It was at noon of Februar 18th that this took place. Accompanying the sounds of the bells were new cries of "Viva Huerta." That afternoon between five and six, against the richly-colored lining of that first darkness which follo s the short crepuscular beauty of the Meri an pla u Huerta and General Blanquet showed themselves on the balcony of the Palace. adobe wall half way up the Cerro de las Campana.a. I knew him only during the Huerta regime, and the last sight of him remains with me, standing in his general's uniform, his breast a.b1aze with decorations, in front of Huerta's house in the alle Alfonzo Herrera. We had come out through the patio after the signing of the marriage contract of Huerta's son, ictor. The morning, diamond-dusted, indescribable in its shining beauty, was that of the 23rd of April, the day of the breaking off of relations between the United States and Mexico. Huerta, clad in the celebrated gray sweater and brown slouch hat, had given me his arm, General Blan- quet had given his to the President's wife. Erect, immobile, his face ashine in the brilliant air, he held his hand at hfa , cap as we drove off. In 1918 he started to organize a revolt against the Oa.r- ranza regime, leaving Cuba in a small skiff with four or five fol- lowers. After landing on the beach between Vera Cruz and Tuxpam, and waiting for a few days for Feliz Diaz, who had promised to meet him there, Blanquet and his followers went toward the interior and met a small body of Felicistas. They were attacked by Car- rancistas and most of them SUl'rendered. Blanquet tried to es- cape, plunged into a barranca and met his death from the fall. Carranza ordered his fine old head to be exposed on a pike in Vera Cruz, where it remained ttll nature had obliterated both its form and likeness. FRANCISCO I. MADERO 17~ Huerta, "the military genius," come into his inevi- table own, cried to them : "Mexicans, brothers, there will be no more fighting. Peace is here." Deafening shouts of "Viva Huerta,' · ' and "Viva Mexico," followed this pronouncement. As these two men stood on the balcony, ex-Presi- dent Madero and ex-Vice-President Pino Suarez were prisoners in some sparsely furnished rooms, slightly above the level of the palace courtyard, before which constantly changing guards had been placed. And the ir days were numbered. Huerta had in the meantime sent out the following manifesto: "To the Mexican People: "In view of the difficult circumstances under which the nation, and within the last days the Capital of the Republic have labored, in view of what I may call the state of anarchy due to the incapable government of Senor Madero, I hereby assume the executive power. Until the Chambers can meet and debate upqn t~e pr~sent situation, I shall hold Francisco I. Madero and the members of his cabinet, to the end that this point being settled, and every effort being made to unite all minds in this historical moment, we may all work together to rees.tablish peace, which for our nation is a matter of life and death. "Issued in the Executive Palace, February 18, 1913. "The General Military Commander in charge of the Executive Power: "V. HUERTA." He also arranged his status with the foreign missions by sending the following announcement to 180 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXIG .. ili HIST O RY the Americ an -Ambassador , in h i s capacity of dean of the diplomatic corps: "To His Excellency the American Ambassador, Present: "The President and Vice-President of the Republic are now in my power at the National Palace as prisoners . I trust that your Excellenc will interpret this act of mine as the pa riotic m nife tation of a man who has no other ambition than to r e his country . I beg your Excellency to a pt thi act as one which has no further object than o r ore pea J in the Republic, and to ensure h inter t of its children and those of the foreigners who have brought us so many benefits . I offer our Ex ellen m greetings and with the greate t re p I b g ou to bring the cemtents of this note o he at tion of His Excellency Presid nt Taft . I al o ou to convey this information to he v riou di lomatic Missions in this ci y . "If your Exe 11 ncy would honor me b s ndino- this information to the R b I a th Ciud cl la I would see in this action a fur her mo i e o ITT" itude from tb e peopl of this Republic and m lf to ard you and the always lori us peop l e of the Un i ted States . "With a ll resp e ct, I am , "Your Exe ll e n y s o beaie n t ser a n , "V . HUERTA . "G e ne ra l i n C hi e f o f th e Op e r ati n g Ar m y , and Mili- ta ry Commander of th e City of Mexico. "Me x ico, Fe bruary 1 8 , 1913." One can feel in these words the conciliatory, cau- tious p r o ce du re of Huerta , a t the same time his defi- nite settling down into the creaking Presidential chair. The American Embassy naturally, automatically, FRANCISCO I. MADERO 181 was- the center of activity. The Ambassador had · been tireless in his efforts to protect life and preserve what order was possible, the other plenipotentiaries sec- onding him in every way. The Cuban Minister had the cruiser, Onba, in • Vera Cruz harbor in read- iness to take away ' the Ex:President, the Ex-Vice- President and their families. It was arranged that at ten o'clock on the night of the 19th they should leave for Vera Cruz, accom- panied by the Cuban Minister and an official of the Japanese Legation, where the parents of Madero had taken refuge. The arrangement was communicated to General Blanquet, who approved it. It . was im - possible to see Huerta, who was asleep and had given orders not to be disturbed. When :finally informed of the arrangement he appeared over-prudent, even nervous as to the safety of Madero, which he was astute enough to know would involve his own. He was not yet, he said, in a position to guarantee suf - ficient protection for the trip, nor to be responsible for the temper of the population of Vera Cruz . What he doubtless really feared was that Madero, on his arrival there, would raise a counter - revolution. He decided, fatally, to keep him, for a while at least, in Mexico City . . In th~ meantime the Ministers of Spain and Ouba obtained permission to see Madero . He greeted them gratefully, hopefully. The Cuban Minister sub - sequently passed the night with him, as Don Ernesto, his uncle, had said that if he could have the pro - tection of the diplomatic corps for that night, the dead center of danger would be passed . At one o'clock in the morning, Madero, spent with the anxieties and 182 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY fatigues of his situation, desired to rest. He pre- pared, in the gloomy room, two beds made of chairs, one for himself and one for the Cuban Min- ister, Mr. Marquez Sterling, who recorded that after Madero l ay down, he fell immediately into a quiet, child-like sleep . This was the night of the 18th to the 19th of February. It had :first been arranged, for reasons hich I ignore, that his resignation should be given into the hands o f the Chilian Minister . Subsequentl it wa ~ p u t i nto th o se of Don Pedro Lascurain whose appear- a n ce at this moment as god of the Mexican machine is d i sconcerting to reason. He was a man of the s tr i ctest probity, of great piety, of unsullied repu- t at ion , o f ca l m judgment, of much di ere ion. Y th wa s se l ected by Fate to carry the re ignation of Mad er o and Pino Suarez in his hone an pru ent pock e t. Again the reasonabilities h ui tab· i ties w ere d efied by the workino- of Mexi an m i . Sho rtly before noon on Friday the .wl t h re as a C a b i n et meeting in the Palac l a ting un il two o 'c lo c k. T he l ega l status of he prison r , h x- P re s ident an d the ex-V i ce-Presid nt, a v 1ry puzzlin g and un sat is fact o ry t o the j ailors as well as to those j a iled. Mr. d e l a Barra o n th i s o ccasion begged Don Rodolfo R ey e s, in hi s capac i ty of Minis - ter of Jus t ice, to state on what tec hni ca l gr o unds they were incarcerated. H e answered tha t h e had not the nec e ssary papers, bu t co ns id er ed i t o f vita l importance that d e finite le ga l p ro ofs of Ma d er o ' s i n - . competency be forthcomin g . Don Jo rg e Vera E s ta:fi ol was of the same opinion, and Huer t a was , equally desirous to make the ma t ter sure , a t le a st eno ug h so FRANCISCO L MADERO 183 to prevent the upsetting of the presidential chair. He said further on this occasion that he did not con- sider the Palace a safe place in which to keep Mader o and Pino Suarez, and then making a gesture as if throwing something up in the air said that a paper - had been discovered on Madero that could only have been thrown in at his window. This indication that he could be communicated with and perhaps event- ually helped to escape, which was not in Huerta's plan, made him add that he thought it better that very same day to transfer the prisoners to the Pene- • tenciaria. Mr. de la Barra then asked Huerta:- "Exactly what has he done?" Huerta replied with a sweeping, long-armed ges- ture and an impatient and contemptuous glance:- "Everything. He has ruined the country. Any one of his deeds is sufficient to convict him.' · ' "Yes, that may be, _ but definite charges must be lodged against him with the Minister of Justice." The last words, the unanimous decision of all, were that, in the interests of the country, whatever was done must be done according to the strict letter of the law. When, however, the fatal transfer of the prisoners was made, Huerta took no counsel of his ministers. The next day, Saturday the twenty-second, the President with his cabinet assisted at the annual cere- mony held at the statue of George vyashington 1 1 This statue which I saw unveiled in the presence of President Madero, his cabinet and the diplomatic corps, in 1.912, was to be dragged from its pedestal two years l'ater and placed at the feet of the statue of Juarez, in the Avenue da Juarez, on the night of the 23rd of April, 1914, the date of . the breaking off of diplomatic ' 184 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY in the Plaza de Dinamarca, Mr . de la Barra, Minis- ter for Foreign Affairs, making a speech and Mr . Henry Lane Wilson, American Ambassador, respond- ing . In the afternoon was the reception at the Embassy . Huerta and the Ministers of his cabinet were present and all were very calm, especially Huerta whose face was inscrutable . Mr. de la Barra on this occasion formally presented to the diplomatic corp the mem- bers of the new cabinet. It was towards midnight of this ame day that the murder of Madero and Pino Suarez took place, a they were being transferred from the Palace to he Penitentiaria . There is a man living Colonel arde- nas, in charge of their rt, who lmo s how it came about, and he has never poken . . The v il c o vering the disaster is still, aft r se en ears, im - pe n etrable and was woven as follo At eleven-thirty of that am e ning, ~r . de l a Barra was awaken d by the rin ·n g of th te l phone . A person allino- hims lf an id -d - amp of Pr ident H u erta asked him to ome imm diate l y to h Pa l ace th at a motor had beens nt t o f tc h hi m . Gi ven t h e u nq ui et state o f t h t o n, his i fe, hourly aw a i t i ng h e r de li ve r a n ce, b egge d him not to go without s om e fur t h e r guaran tee . He ther e for e asked to speak wi t h G e n e ral Bl a nquet, who imme- diately cam e to the t e l e phone. His voice was very agitated; he confirmed the words of the aide-de-camp, begging him to come without delay as the matters relations. It is only fair to say that Huerta, polite even at that moment, had the etatu e removed as promptly as possible from this startling and uns e emly position. , FRANCISCO I. MADERO 185 concerning which he wished to inform him were t:oo grave to be communicated over the telephone. At tha t moment Don Alberto Garcia Granados, who lived near by, arrived at his house. He had hastily thrown on a suit over his night garments- his coat collar was turned up and his shoes were not laced. He too had been asked to come to the Palace without a moment ' s delay. As they drove in through the great patio they noticed an unusual coming and going of officials at that late hour. They went upstairs by the elevator built in the south corner of the Palace giv~ng on the Plaza de la Cons ti tuci6n. As they got out they saw Huerta, who was · evi- dently on the watch for them, coming towards them in a state of excitement that he was endeavoring to repress. He was in civilian clothes, and wore the old brown slouch hat of story, the brim well pulled down over his eyes, which were further concealed by his large spectacles. What could be seen of his face was deathly white. "I have the gravest news to communicate to you," and as he spo~e he drew them hastily through the large chamber where the cabinet meetings were held, into the small room known as the "Sala Particular q.el Presidente." Once there, he closed the door quickly, saying with a very nervous gesture : - "Madero and Pino Suarez have been killed." There was dead silence which Garcia Granados and de la Barra broke to say, "How is that possible?' · ' "How could it happen?" "In ~ skirmish," Huerta answered, becoming mor~ 186 INTIM AT E PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY and rp.ore agitated, "betw e en the small armed force that was conducting them, and a group of per.sons who were endeavoring to liberate them." "I thought you had transfe1Ted them safely last n ight, as was the intention," Mr . de la Barra cried i n consternation. Huerta made no answer but continued to pace the r o om, pushing his slouch hat somewhat back reveal- in g further his alarming pallor and the fixed look in h is eyes . There was something in his glance that in dic a te d that he had been drinking though his step w as eve n and there were no "copitas in he room wh ic h s ho wed, however, other sign of occupatio n. Genera l Mondragon, also pre nt then pointed out th e po ssib l y fata l con equences to the go v ernment, say in g that it was impera t i v e that he imm diately pr odu ce the proofs, sure to be demanded that thing h a d ta k en p l ace as he said . " W h at proofs do you need?' H u erta a ked addincr, "I w ill see that y ou get th m . Mr. d e l a Barra the n to l d him tha a pers on e n tire l y out si d e of p oli tics a lon could be p u t in charg o f the inv e stigation , s om e on e li k Don Jose a q u z T g l e, who was Pr e sid e n t o f t h e Co n j o S u prem o d e J us- ticia Militar. He wa s al s o the b r o th e r of t he former mini st er of th e Jus t ice of M ad er o a nd th e public would not consider him biassed in his decisions. Huerta turning to General Mondragon said with an evident air of relief : "That is an excellent idea . . I beg you to act on Senor de la Barra's suggestion. See that Vasquez Tagle begins his investigation immediately." ' Then he suddenly began to thump the table with I FRANCISC O I. M ADE R O 187 h is fist, mu t tering indi st inct w o r ds. H e h ad kep t, dur ing the conversation, o ne o f h i s fav o r it e, sma ll , b l a ck cigarettes in his hand, bu t w o u ld con tin - ually let it go out, religh t i t in a re st l e ss ma nner , or throw it away, and l ight a no the r. His v oice had its drum-like beat, th o ugh m o r e muffl e d t h a n usu a l; h e c ontinually squinted his eyes, wi t h the misl e ading Sp hinx-like look peculiar t o h i m, ac com p anied b y th e fa miliar and frequent gest u re of p re ssing his spec - ta cles closer again s t his forehea d. I t w a s evident that h e was highly stimu l ate d in a ddition to his very nat - ural nerv o us excitement, a nd t h at his Indian soul wa~ t he prey of a l ar m, v: e x ation and perhaps fore- boding . . . . The eve n t s t ill we ar s the Iron Mask; in which it differ s fr om th at of the assassination of CaITanza, wh i ch i s as r e cognizable as the proverbial palm of one's h and . 1 It was wi th the deepest misgivings tlfat Garcia 1 I o nce asked M r . d e la Barra, as we sat in his library in Paris ev o king these tr agic eve nts, long since past, but whose fatal con- sequences are even mor e evid e nt now than then: "What do yo u r ea ll y know a bout it allf It is part of history now, yo u r c ou ntry' s h is tory and mine t '' He answered me slo w ly with an expression that forced convicti o n o n me: ' 'I know no m or e than I have told you, no more than you of the c i r c umstances o f the assassinations. I have always been i nclined to t hink it was s o me te rrible -m ischan c e, and as disastrous to Huerta him - self as t o any on e . From time to time things would come to my ears, b ut t hey we1 · e ge n e rally confirm a tory of Huerta's story. After seven yea r s not h ing h a s e ver come to me in concrete form to disprove it , '' H e pau s ed a moment. '' I n e ver liked Huerta, thvugh I knew him to be s tron g a nd able in many ways.'' I thou g ht, as b e s p oke w ith an expression of distaste on his face, how very far remov e d his personality and Huerta's were-as apart as t he pol e s, as he a t and cold , h e i g ht and depth, or other dissimilar things. I w as even more understanding of them than they of each other, yet for a time they turned together, or tried to turn the spoked wheels of M e xiean government upon whose revolving depended their own fate and the fate of their country. 188 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXI C AN H I ST O RY Gra n ados and de la Barra shortly took their depart - ure, leaving Mondragon and Rod(olfo Re~s with the President . On the way back, as they drove through the dark town, they discussed hastily the presenting of their resignations, but came to the con- clusion that such an act would be, and very na ura ll , considered as definite proof of the participation b Huerta in the crime; that it would be impossible to do such an i njustice to a man of whose guilt the had no proof, a l so that further and equall irrepa1 b l e nationa l catastrophes might follow uch action. Th y s eparated at one-thirty . That morning in he un - q:uiet city , Mr . de la Barras younge t son as bor n . . . . T he Cruiser, "Cuba,' when it finall l ft Ve r a Cruz on the 25th of Februar , took with i t the par e n ts, widow, sisters and un I of the 'R d mer ." H e himself slept in th Pante6n Frnn '\\hil in th e Spanish cemet r sl pt P"n u r z · wait i ng bo t h , s o methinrr kind r than b j u fom nt o f m e n. Th e Madero episod as l o d . F m il a nd S ta t e wer e ruined . Th e death o f few p u bli me n i s a ig ni fi ant to their co u n try as their li ves . If t h hav e done well their good d ee ds r emain; if the ha v e done badly their d eat h is a b e n efit ; r aie l y does their going hence multipl y ei ther t h e good 01 the evil of their coming . An honest man was gone, but the words of Porfiri o Diaz to Madero on the occasion of their single m eeting were written in flaming letters in the Mex ic a n he a vens: "A man must be mo r e th an honest to govern Mexico.' · ' PART FOUR: VICTQRIANO HUERTA COLOTLAN, STATE OF JALISCO: DECEMBER 23, 1854- EL PASO: JANUARY 13, 1916 "Huerta must go" His rise to power and his u e of it, including his ambitions, his cruelties his expedients to sustain his government in face of the President of the nited State his puerilities, and variou oth r qualitie and attributes that combined to make him un- speakable" - Considerations on Spani h- American Politics-Huerta r lation to hi environment-His rujn in ol ·n()' th t of Constitutional Governm nt in M . · o--Hi seizure, imprisonment without trial, and death at El Paso. . . PART FOUR: VICTORIANO HUERTA "Huerta Must Go" CHAPTER XVII First Sight of Huerta-His Antecedents-Diaz Chooses Him to Escort Him on His Exit from Me.xi.can History-The Manner 1 of Huerta's Accession-The Curtain is Rung Up Disclosing the Stage Set for the Tragedy-The '' Pale Scholar of the White House'' the Hero; the Dark Indian the Villain-Appearance of the Blue-eyed Norseman. Victoria.no Huerta crosses the red background of Mexican history as a somber Indian Cresar, come to power by the sword, sustained by the sword, suc- cumbing finally to the personal enmity of a super- Cresar, embarked on the first of his private wars. Huerta has been rightly called a "unique zoological specimen"; as unique as the sea-serpent or the uni- corn and, one might add, like the Minotaur he exacted much tribute, and like the Phmnix he often rose from his ashes . . He was, in fact, not diagnosable, but I will attempt to describe him and his habits as one might any curiosity of nature, also the sociolog- ical conditions under which he was born, came to power and perished. I first saw him in the chic French restaurant of Mexico City kept by a Gaul, Silvain, who had been a chef in the Czar's household. It was a bemirrored, plush-divaned, brass-chandeliered, not over-clean 191 192 INTIMATE PAGE~ OF MEXICAN HISTORY establishment, with any number of what the Viennese call "charmants separes . " I noticed a uniformed man sitting at a little table before one of the since world-advertised "copitas," not. eating, with several other men of the same war - like, open-air aspect who were eating, as well as drinking. There was an unmistakably "redemptory" look about the group and I asked, "Who is the bron z ed, flat-nosed General with the restfess eyes and bi g glasses?" It was Huerta at that moment, August, 1911, in Co mmand of the Federal troops operating in Mor los , aga i nst Zapata. He had waving, lonO'-armed o·es- tu res, and broad shoulders, and when h tood he was u nexpectedly short. There as a sugge tion of ''m e m ent o mori" in the rather d th s head shape of his fac e, the skull formation in mom nt of ex ite - m en t, as I afterwards came to b in CJ' uri u ly ap p a re n t . That he had real il · t r t 1 n ts no one has ever denied, and doubtl an an ere acc ep t ab l e to his ends . In this he did n ot differ fr om mo re exalted generals of hi lory . It w oul d appear that Huerta had a q ui tted h imself compe te n tly (from the point of vie o f h i s s u peri o rs ) of the va ri o u s charge s c o mmitted t o h i m _ u p to the time when he unfo rtunate l y became " un s p ea kable." His star, s ee min g l y, of no great magnitude, had suffered various eclipses before i t s full appearance in the Mexican heavens. At one time, when Diaz' · army unluckily was on paper, ra t her than ready for the field, and the calls for gifted and unscrupulous warriors were few, he f9und himself over.seer for building ope~ations in the city of Mexico . . It is said VICTORIANO HUERTA 193 that h e g ot a good a mount of work, in his own s pecial way, o ut o f his workm en. But that was no t , of cour se, what he was bor n fo r, and w a s so p urely accidenta l that i t is sca rc e l y worth mentioning. He had als o been Ins pe cto r f or t he N a tional Railways in an ot he r peri od of pea c e a nd w a s for years the head of t he Geodet i c Su rvey. This last necessitated some .am o un t of book -l ear ning and, in the making of his maps , a consider a b le a cquaintance with the racial and phy si- cal comp o s i ti on of Mexico, but it also was not w h a t he wa s born for. He had evidently been of more tha n avera g e intelligence from the beginning, thoug h hi s star wa s not visible till he was nearly sixty. H e was first discovered in his native tow n of C olotlan, by a passing general who need e d some one to do secretarial work, and he was the only one who could easily read and write. Re ha d taken the fullest advantag~ of the very poor sc hooling his native town offered and was ready w hen Fate and General Guerra passed by. Later h e w as brou g ht to t he at tention of Diaz who placed him in the M ilitary A c a d e my. I learn from the most ac c ur ate of sources t b at Don Porfirio, who certainly had a neat flair for men's abilities, had an excellent o pin ion of Huerta, recognizing in him a few rare and ele me ~ tal qualities. He saw that he was not at all li k e anybody . else, and did not expect him to be. Of comple t e sobriety him - self, he regrett~d (with the re s t o f the w orld) as well as other only too apparent def ects, h is "copita" habit . . It would seem that the app raisement of that con ~ summate reader of men's hearts and attributes - should not be quite set aside. lI uerta was then in his 194 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY eleventh lustrum and what he would be in the future, he already was. About a month before the resignation of President Diaz, Huerta, who was commanding troops in More- los, had been sent for to give an account of his oper - ations against Zapata. He had come alone in an automobile from Cuernavaca, through a country inhabited by a population, the greatest desire of wh o se males was to take the Porfirista genera l priso n er. The President who had rather lost sigh of him , was very much impre ed with the calm and care l ess manner of his arrival in Mexico City, and b ecau s e of this accidental happening, selected him as chi ef o f his escort to V ra ruz on that la t tragic journ ey from the glittering height to the dark sea of ol d age, e- · ile and death. H knew he wa brave, and h e thought he was lu ky . A to the l a t of these att rib u tes, he was, howev r, mi tak n. H as als o p e r suaded of his complet lo alt and said as h e m ade the ch o ice : -"He will gi e hi life for me, if n eed be . " B y on e o f th o se strange gestures o f fate, ge n er all y quite vi si bl e i n M rico, Don Porfiri o him elf t hu s gave t o Huerta's destiny a definit shape a nd tr e nd. It was H uerta ' s fi rst pa ss in g across t h e s t ag e of the vast dr a ma, other than i n t he chorus. It was Porfirio Diaz' last choice o f a man fo r se r vice. It was even told me b y on e of the loveliest of women that when he accompanied the Iron President on that last sorro w ful journ e y to Vera Cruz, he was "divinamente perfecto," and there was doubtless in him, intuitive as he was, something that made him I VICTORIANO HUERTA 195 alive to the high and tragic significance of what was happening. It was with em ___ otion, and every mark of respect that he received the "Greatest Mexican," broken with physical pain, rejected by his people, at the station, in the small, wee hours of that fatal 26th of May, 1911, and escorted him to the waiting train. The arrangements had been made by the President of the National Railways, Mr. E. N. Brown, who was also present, to receive the illustrious exile. The cort' ge consisted of a "locomotiva exploradora" that went ahead of the train wherein the great man lay silent in pain and grief, thinking who shall say what thoughts. An escort train with troops brought up th e rear. Huerta passed constantly from one to the other, pausing occasionally, doubtless, to "fortify" himself. At one point an attack was announced, he had the order of the trains reversed, and after many anxieties, with tears and an abrazo he embarked his illustrious master safely aboard the historic Ypir~ anga. There is not the shadow of a doubt in my mind as to what he proceeded to do, and do thoroughly, once his task was accomplished. He is not the only general known to fame and fortune who has so closed an epoch. ' From that date according to the turn of military events he was often in the foreground. He himself said to the American Charge :that he had had various opportunities to overthrow the · gov - ernment much better than that he finally took. He was in command of important bodies of troops during that summer and autumn of 1911, and was among \. 19 6 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN H I STORY those who then scented the complete incompetence of Madero for government, despite his unquestioned virtues . Again during the brilliant campaign he carried out for Madero against Orozco he was in control of the army and he said he could easily have done it then-but he remained faithful to Madero as rep - resenting constitutional government, though he had a temperamental contempt for a man ho neither rewarded his friends nor punished his enemies. Later, according to his own statement, he became convinced, in company with about 99 per nt. of he popu l ation of Mexico (including ev n tho e who c oul d not read and write, and who ha no land a n d never will have), that Madero was not competent t o g o vern and that disaster was imminent . What - ever h i s involved Aztec reasonino- , .,. hatever his c ri m es, whatever his personal aims, it a he, o r ano the r , possessing perhaps more virtue, probab l y l e ss t a l ent. The iron :fist was aga in indicated by ev e n ts, as o ver a n d against the caresses o f a se n ti - menta l d em o c r acy . It was dra n in :fire in t h e h ea vens : . It w as written at every crossways . In t he lo gi c of t hing s, the d ar k , passionate, bu t a l aE\, l o o se ly- woven fabric of M exi c a n govern me nt, ne e ded once more to be gather e d togeth e r by some strong hand. The m a nner 9f Huerta's acces s ion was not of his invention. Throughout Latin-America it was sanc- tioned by precedent and confirmed by usage. He was so innocent of any possibly unpleasant criticism of . his very logical procedure, that as one of his com- patriots says of him, "Drunk with joy and rum," he sent a telegram cheeI1ully, openly to Washington in VICTORIANO HUERTA 197 which he - unsuspectingly stated that he had "over- thrown the government ." There was nothing ~ithin his historical radius to cause him to even dream what he was getting into. Now every government in Mexico since the days of Viceroys has come into being by a revolution, or through a military coup. There is no other way,- except that of evolution, and a people cannot suspend all government during that admittedly slow process. Some of the South American countries (with here and there sanguinary reversions to pure type) have evolved processes of government that do not alway~ necessitate arms or murder. · Not so in Mexico, where the Huerta Government was born and baptized according to the time-honored and only ritual. Naturally no one could convince Huerta o:f the right or reason of the United States to object to the act in itself. After the recognition of the Benavides gov- / ernment of Peru, which had fairly slopped about in blood, with attendant flight of those whose hour had not yet sounded, he realized completely that it was a purely personal matter. There was no principle involved; it depended, in the usual arbitrary way of. human judgments, on whose ox was gored. In the summer of 1913, his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sefior Federico Gamboa, ha.d drawn up one of the most dignified and masterly appeals a weak nation ever sent to a strong. it lies to the eternal credit of Mexico in general and its author in partic- ular. But like all such appeals its success depended on the appelee. It holds within its .few pages the entire cas.e of Mexican sovereignty and is, further, examined in the Hght of subsequent events, the first . I 198 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY cry registered for "Self-determination," which rather fluid expression was not then showing any signs of crystallization. It has since been worked out (in spots) in Europe, with the result that the Wilsonian Europe resembles that of the Thirty Years' war, though some one has gone so far as to say that that was a dove-cote compared fo 1920. ~ hen formuJated, the doctrine of self-determination wa seen to be like all things, even truth, very relative. There were those who could "determine" and those who could not. It depended entirely on who was doing it and where . . . . When in that August of 1913, the curtain was definitely rung up, it disclosed the stage set fully for the vast Mexican tragedy. It had be n cleared of nearly all the accessory characters, when there appeared a man of Viking origin, the pale Northman of Romance, with a blue and agr eable e causing the dark drama to develop some ba alonO' the lines of extravaganza. I refer to a man horn personally I liked, doubtless because of something similar, or extremely dissimilar, in our being . He · appeared from that upper l ft hand corner of the stage, in shirt sleeves, barking his shins, in their unpres sed trouser-legs, against the stage settings and running in to several of the dark-skinned characters already in full action. In Minnesota Mr. Lind was a pillar of society, an ornament to the legislature, an asset to the State, desirable from every point of view. In Mexico this active and amiable gentleman became grotesque. It was not his fault, but Fate's who, tiring of the senseless tragedy played by human beings, often adds an element of comedy, needing like the , VICTORIANO HUER TA 199 rest of us a good laugh from ti m e t o tim e , a n d, p ardon my Gallicism, in this case, "il y avait de q uoi. " He arrived somewhat as L ohengrin ,-by wa ter, stepping onto the stage from a barg e i n the s.hap e of a warshjp, and like this hero he was n ot t o be asked whence he came, nor why . Incidentally, we c an r ecall that when the questions was rea ll y asked, - a n d in no nuptial chamber either, like h i s p r o t o typ e , he disap- peared from view . . . . When Mr . Lind t oo k Preside nt W ilson ' s ultimatum to "go' to Pres i dent H u erta, s.ta t J n g that e v en an e l ection w ould not be a cc e pted as c learing his title, t he fi n a l cl a u s e a dded t ha t i f Mexico would do all t h ese t hin gs the m a tter of her so needed loan "could b e ea sily a rr ang e d." N o w n at io ns ne e d money obviously, but also quite a s obviou s ly t he bread of life, which is respect for the m sel v e s . The jangle of the 30 pieces of silver that w e o ffered to M e xico and which she did not take, w ill fo r ever ring in the ears of one who opens our · hi s to ry at that page. To r et urn to the play. We firia an old Indian atavis t ic, i nst inc t i v e, p r imitive, untutored and com - pl ete l y m y s t erious when the attributes of his undiag - nosable and uncatalogued being were in play . He was :fl a t-faced, dark-skinned, with small velvet - skinned hands, a good deal of movement in the. skirts of his badly fitting frock-coat, and his long- armed, waving gesture!il took up some space . Behind his spectacles was a :r e stless, inductive, deductive look when waiting for his cue , in the intricacies of the Anglo-Saxon plot from the Aztec point . of view, - or rather the Aztec plot f r om that of Anglo-Saxon 2 00 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY so l utions . And his voice had a low, drum-like beat . His stage properties were anarchy, treachery, blood, venality, and even envy among friends, of his high and u ncertain office . He was easily the villain of the play . He had every disadvantage; he was even sup- posed to be illegitimate, being pointed at as on the very left hand branch of the Presidential tree. He h ad no money, he had few friends, and these he was ready t o sacrifice if the country demanded it. Many saw bloo d dripping from his hands . What chance had h e a ga i nst o ne adorned wi t h all the virtue po e ed of a t hen unplummeted erudition, and havinO' alone the c o mbi n ation to the safe wherein ere contained th e ric h es o f a hundred million people? One might perhaps halt here lonO' enough o say th a t though Huerta was everything 1 e hat i not n ice, he was not of illegitimat bir h, hi par nt in th e shape of Mexico and th Con · ution h · ng be e n d u ly j oined in matrimon , th onl form lity la cking were the banns . ( Th re s no time .) So thi s was a li be l , pure and simpl · th ol stor of the man wh o ha d his watch sto l n o r stol one- n obody remembered w h ich - was a ll -s u ffic i nt for man's ruin, after the human way . Now the legal ( if not moral) g e nealogical tree of Huerta was as follows:- Francisco I. Madero, Constitu t ional President, Jose Maria Pino Suarez, Constitutional Vice-Presi- dent, their resignations, ~emanded and given: three days before their death, were accepted by Pedro Lascurain, Minister for Foreign Affairs, who became President by operation of the law. He was President but some _ t~enty minutes, which aliowed him time, VICTORIANO HUERTA 201 however, to appoint Victoriano Huerta Minister of Gobernaci6n (Interior). After Lascurain's resig- nation, given, it is understood, with alacrity, auto- matically by operation of the law, the executive power fell to Huerta with a provisional character and under cons.tit~tional promise to call special elections. This is the technical manner of Huerta's accession to power, and according to the Mexican Constitution by which it must be judged, there are no doubts about its complete legality. To return to the play. The hero, whose accessories were the lightnings, together with the glory and wealth before mentioned, of a hundred million people, was pale and elegantly clad. He was of virtuous origin; the only blot on his 'scutcheon being the fact that, though he had spent his life among books, he had unfortunately been but a casual reader of Mexican history. The contest looked so uneven that no one could have dreamed that he who was thus armed would need sixteen months of time as well. Huerta had several peculiarly Iriu1an ways of parrying the erudite thrusts, and they were not in any book of the game. Sometimes he would disap- pear, drop out of the situation, absent himself from the scene, reappearing only when events with their usual momentum had moved on. Sometimes he _ was present, but he would not pick up the cue--and he was completely incurious as to the nature and origin of the species called ultimatum. He was also singularly and surprisingly courteous towards his elegant antagonist (who sometimes did not pick his words), though doubtless the large choice of ribald 202 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY terms offered by the Spanish tongue was at his com- mand and were used copiously when in the wings. The manner of the pursuance of the unequal fight was a series of blows beneath the belt, and the incon- ceivable thing about it all is that whenever one was dealt the justice-loving American nation loudly applauded. The more one considers that unequal contest (Huerta had within his own being further enemies) the more one wonders what would have been the writing of history had he been permitted by Fate and the United States to work out the le · an situation, in the Mexican way. For as long as M xico is Mexico, Mexicans alone can do it. The will more- over, do it according to the idio yncrasie of the Creole, Mestizo or Indian personalit at he moment in domination. One must always remember hat at th time of which we are speaking th re a a con titu · on and that Huerta had his hand on th throt le dete mining the movements of its most ompli t d machinery. The period of his presiden y, to hange the figure too . abruptly for art (but this is nature), wa h mi ally more or less disintegrating, even actively destruc- tive. A bold but crafty man who stopped at nothing might, possibly, if left alone, by the infusion of his own • qualities into the crucible have produced a reaction that later (a. few hundred years later) would have been tolerable to an Anglo-Saxon scholar and gentleman. Huerta was so manifestly, so naively iniquitous, in his Stone-age way. At any rate it is safe to say that a million Mexi- . cans who have been served though not saved, would VICTORIANO HUERTA 203 hav e been s til l living to testify. Many will say:- "Who cares if the r e are a million fewer Mexic a ns?" But that is an o th er point o f vie w . H o wever tha t m a y b e , t h i s dark, res t less-eyed, crafty India n w as a s t range opponent for the man then sometimes known as the "pale s cholar of the White House . " Bu t hi s very peculiarities were his strength and thr o u gh those sixteen long months sus- tained him on hi s sp e ll - weaving plateau, against the ma n whose p ow er was more than Cresar ' s, whose will was m o r e un q uestioned than Peter the Great's, and wh o se m e thods have proved to be more involved than t ho s e of a ny Latin-American Dictator. It was again the meeting of extremes. The most liberty-loving nation in the world, the most tolerant people in the world, installed and suffered a one-man rule , n e ver beaten ip. the world's record. Kings have min i s t ers who sometimes die,-Repuolics have re~ - lativ e bodies called Congresses. We had one, but it became (like any meinber) inert and inoperative th r ough disuse. Our cabinet, further, proved to have no ri g hts a nd few privileges. I have come to see that t he minority rules and will always rule, and of that m i n o ri t y a few, and of those few, one, but, good God, do not call it "the rule of the people." With us it s ee ms to have been simply the majority rule worked out to its inevitable end to begin again under another form. It has been said, and it appears to be true, that species wear out, after which the grave, resur- rection, is the law of the political as well as the natural world. American institutions became so worn out that to one man was allowed unquestioned sway in his own country, and the power of life and 204 INTIMATE PAGES ·OF MEXICAN HISTORY death over a neighboring and presumably independent country. He was furthermore to be allowed · later from the recesses of his at one time curtained soul, to determine the degree and kind of American parti- cipation (with all attendant obligation s) in the af- fairs of the world. Indeed, our indifference towards our Constitution in 1919 reminded me, with varia- tions of course, of the Mexicans towards theirs. They look on the promises of their redeemers with extreme indifference, when it is not horror. Redeeming them by the Constitution in the shape of a Constitutionali t has come to be like promising them showers of gold at the rainy season; they simply get wet in t ad, or in another event, showers of bullets are hat they g et . Either way they prefer not to count on Redemp- tion , or even on Liberty from a Libera or. Anent thi l ast much camouflaged commodity, a large majority o f those all over the world ho ha lat ly t s d it, would not be averse to a sweet nin 0 d h of th good o ld servitude in the somewhat bitt r cup. As to our Constitution, we s em, for a space, to have had no reco1·dable sensations or thoughts of a n y kind concerning it. Now those of us who are honest with ourselve (an d i t i s easier to be honest with our neighbor) know t here i s n o Liberty,1 and the great principles of autho r i t y a n d discipline by which nations rise t o greatn e ss a n d individuals are made strong are for the tim e being in eclipse . The greatest lie o f th e ages is that w h ich tells us that a ll m e n a r e b or n 1 A few weeks ago in a co nversat i o n w i th An-at ol e F r a n ce I a sk e d : '' Master, what is lib e rty j '' And he answered: ' 'I;., ' amour de no t re e sc lavage. '' (Love of our slavery. ) · y VICTORIANO HUERTA 205 free and equa l. Th e re is no such thing in nature as equality and nobody is free. Certain governmental forms happily p rovide, at certain epochs for oppor- tunity, and eve n t hen what provides opportunity for one nati on and one century brings tyranny to another . CHAPTER XVIII The Coup d'etat in General and in Particular-Some Analysis of Huerta's Psychology in the Days Preceding His Accession to the Supreme Power, and a Few Pictures. Two days after my return to Mexico I found Huerta, October 10, 1913, making his second coup d'etat and quite in the "grande maniere.' He had the Chamber of Deputies surrounded whilst the "Honorevoles" were in session, conspiring against their Constitution. He simply had them arre ted in the corridors, when, having got ind h t ometbing was wrong, they were stampeding from the Chamber. He got a bag of 110, among h m re m n like Vera Estafiol and General Meixuero, and pro ptly lodged them in the all eady r th r o r ro d d Penetenciaria. The Amer· can Charo- was out until two o'clock in the m9rning in com any wi h the Spanish Minister, trying to obt in th ir r 1 ase. After a long wait at the Foreign Offi e, th y went to the Penetenciaria, where they ere shown a list of 84, the remaining 26 being unaccounted for. After the imprisonment of the Deputies, there was a constant stream of tlrnir mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, probably even "amies'' :flowing in and out of the Embassy. These delegations of women are a touching custom of the country. Such went to Queretaro to ask for the life of Maximilian from Juarez, such besought Cortes for the Chichimecs . - 206 .VICTORIANO HUERTA 207 Su c h a gain in the twentieth century came fo the American Embas s y t o en tr eat t he Cha rg e d' Aff a i r es to intercede for th eir ca pt i ve m e n. Th ey a r e mostly black-robed, a nd t he y w eep, some loudly, some quietly, and th e y r a re ly get what they ask. , Now a w o r d he re a s t o the species not only un- classified, b u t even unknown to the majority of the inhabitants o f the U nited S t ates, the "coup d ' etat." O f it s o rga nic functions and economic uses they know no mo r e th an th e y do of !he one-time functions and uses o f so m e fossil of the Tertiary period. Yet it is as freq uently found in Latin America as the jaguar, t h e boa-constrictor, the iguana or the llama, about which every one studied at school. Those who have heard of the coup d'etat mostly consider it some- thing wicked, even shameful, involving practices in which no nice nation or individual would indulge. It has been employed, however, and with success throughout the ages and its workings have often p r oved to be beneficial rather than otherwise. Some- tim e s i t is the only practical method by which order ca n com e out of dest r :uctively conflicting opinions and passi ons. In the United States they know about that q ui te respectable process, "the cutting of the Gordian knot " ; it is done every day in families and in politics an d in business, but the coup d'etat to which it is own b r other----oh, no ! It is, further, a phenomenon, that like all phenomena, has its preordained and natu- . - rally fostering spheres. It is found in Latin States rather than in Anglo-Saxon communities, though history rates Crom"iell among great men. However that may be, Huerta had the extraordinary ill - luck to do something that in a thick, though undeter- 208 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY minate way, the great majority of Americans, fol - . lowing their erudite ruler, thought was wicked. They did not like the process, though they did not really know what they had against it. Hence many tears. O ne brilliant Latin-American writer even g o es so far as to call the coup d etat "a hygienic measure against the demagogic rabble when it has sei z ed the powers of government, ke ping the popu- lati o n terrified by its excesses or prop nsity to com - mi t excesses." Re further sa s that "it is a eapon aga i nst dreamers and deluded reformer, who as soon as they gather political strength set out to go ern a n a bsol utely imaginary population; against fanatics who sh o w themselves more arbitra1 , more reda- tory, mo re cruel than the demao-ogue them el es . ' A s I write these words more n· ions than I can cou n t on my fingers, after h ex raordinary chaos r e sul t i ng from the casual h orie of the P ace Con- fe r en ce applied to a world hat n r · t d, are pra ying fo r the strong man . And h n he ppears he will appear riding on some br d of coup d etat ra t h er t han on a C on stitution, and he will take small note of th e pr ol onged twitt r ing of he Peac Con - ference , no r e v e n o f the agreeable and once-safe platitudes of in te rn at ion a l l aw-if his army b e big enough. We a r e a s sick o f medi o crities a s the L ady of Shalott of shadows. A virtuous friend who lov e s the wo r d "Constitu- tion" almost as m'uch as t he Mexi c a ns, s ay s I am quite wrong, and he would still make the world safe for democracy,-by other means than machine guns. Virtuous friend: No one denies the appearance and possible utility of the coup d'etat from time to :VICTORIANO HUERTA 209 time i n h i s tory, but the murderous methods attend- ant on it will mak e it fo r ever objectionable. I, with the sketc h of a smile on m y fa c e: ''You overl ook the fact . that the man making the coup d'eta t i s almost invariably in a hurry and has little t i me a nd less chance to choose his methods." Now a word as to t h e a cc om pa nying ci r cumstances of Huerta's a cc ess ion to power, and his quite involved character . He w as a n e x trao r dinary mixture of en- thusiasm and col d - b loodedn e s s , of generosity and cruelty, o f c l eve rnes s and ineptitude, of daring and weakness, a ll con t rasts acted and interacted behind the dusky cu r tain of his Indian soul. But in those fatal da ys of February, 1913, when so many were afra id, h e sitating or indifferent, he recognized the h our when it came, and had the courage to make it h is. Though he doubtless desired power for himself a lon e in the beginning, he came to have in the end a dev ouring and obsessing ambition to justify his se izu re of the power by the pacification and attendant pr o sp e r i t y of his country. It i s not my intention to rehearse the historically thread b a re events of the "Tragic Ten Days." A few pic tu r es will suffice to set in relief the psychology · of H u ert a during that period. Late in the afternoon of the 9th of February, Mr. de la Barra went to the Palace, to see Huerta, who had just been made military commander of the city. The Plaza as he passed through it was a horrid sight, slippery with blood, encumbered with debris, though the dead, several hundred, had mostly been removed. He found Huerta sitting in one of the big rooms, a large bottle of brandy on a near table, and in his 210 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY hand a telegram from Madero from Cuernavaca, stating that he had both men and arms and was re- turning immediately to Mexico City. He had found there General Felipe Angeles with artillery. Huerta was pale, but his face wore an expression of tran- quillity rather disconcerting to Mr. de la Barra, who was himself dreadfully upset by the condition of the Plaza through which he had just passed. He had expected some answering signs of agitation in the Commander-in-Chief. Not so. Doubtless this was the moment when Huertas in- stincts, as sure as those of the ho nd on the seen t, indicated to him the path that led to the upreme power. He found himself suddenly militar com- mander, and in the classic Mexican o ition to o er- throw his civilian chief. He proceed d alonO' normal historical lines. To the darino- alwa ne d din uch situations, he was able to ad he p tienc n eded in this particular situation. Tha Hu r lesire for the supreme power was th n in ro e of birth, no one can doubt. And ·n re olu ion the onl thing a man can be sure of is hat he i doing )1im If. What must have been th thoughts of that Indian, sitting in the National Palace, in control of the army, suddenly confronted by the nearly empty presidential chair placed across his path, and he the man nearest to it! If he moved not a moment too soon, nor a moment too late, it was his. It was equally there for Feliz Diaz to take, but he let, once again, his hour pass. What would have been Mexico's history had he answered the call of destiny who shall say? He i~ a type of man that would have been more simpatico to the pale scholar of the White House, V I CTORIANO HUERTA 211 a nd t ho ug h M adero would have been · murdered in any c as e , w e mu s t not forget that Mexico's history for more than s e ve n ye a rs is quite simply the result of the temperame n t al and unfettered dislike of one man for another . Huerta's plans we r e most simple, and later appar - ent to everyb o dy; in his m et h ods of carrying them out there was th e se cr ecy na t ural to the Indian, com- bined with _ the eq uall y n at ural in d irectness of Latin- American pr o ce d u re. It has been said of him that he a lways lai d his plans in a rigidly s t raight line, whi l e the w a y s a nd means to his ends showed a series o f b old c urves. This may be said of any clever policy. H e purs u ed these methods when bent on taking the s h o rtes t p a th to the great result-"paci:fication" - of w hich h e wa s persuaded that he was the most capable i nstrum ent. That he made a series of curves, that he ev en " looped the loop" in proceeding to this end can - no t be d e ni e d. Towards · w ashington he attempt e d the c l a s s i c m a sterly inactivity. He knew th a t Madero, hopelessly amateurish, was a dea d fa ilure as President; that a revolution to be j usti:fie d m u st replace a poor thing by a better one. H e wa s convinced he was the man to do it. All this t im e he was in daily, hourly · co:µsultation with Madero, who, with his cu,stomary lack of..,intuition, had placed him in charge of the military defense of the government. 1\..ny man who has the army behind him can crystallize himself into power at the solvent moment in Latin-America . In control of the army he doubtless went on to survey other forc · es which if he could not align with him, • would be arrayed against hi~ . These were the Feliz Diaz elements, the c o n - 212 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY servative elements represented by de la Barra's pres- tige both at home and abroad, and the Diplomatic Corps. The days from the 9th of February to the 18th were strange, determining days for Huerta, whose real genius lay in being able to control his ambitions, since the day on which he realized that it depended upon his sagacity, and above all on his patience, to become President of Mexico. On February 17 h an arrangement was arrived at by Huerta and the Diaz- Mondragon contingent. It invol ed unintentionally but fatalistically, the lives of he Presid nt, the Vice- President, and Gustavo Madero. Huerta judged he abilities of these men accurately; he nei her lov d nor hated them, especially Madero, of ho e govern- mental qualities, however, he had h poor st opinion. Pino Suarez did not exist for him. It i id that he even rather admired Gu tavo, ho h d what the French call "de la branche." He wa a tute enough to see that Madero dead by a a ination pre ented also a grave m nace to hims lf. Tb deaths of the others would cause littl stir and b con id r d but as inevitable, normal incid nts in a chang of power. It is recorded at the meeting of February 17th, while the majority were clamoring for the disappear- ance of Madero, his clairvoyant Indian brain saw that Madero's ghost would be more difficult to lay than any conspiracies of the living man, and he quite frankly stated that he preferred to take the latter risk rather than to incur the enmity and resentment his execution would incur in Mexico, and the burden of very probable foreign disapproval. What he least desired for the furtherance of his own ends was, VICTORIANO HUERTA 213 however, to happen, in the - obscure involutions of the Madero tragedy. No man escapes the results of his actions, nor of his passivity. Huerta, knowing his Mexico, that land of "no le hace," should have seen to it himself that not a hair of Madero's head was touched. Instead, a fatal negligence like to a heavy narcotic sleep a~tended this pivotal moment. . . . On awaking his attention was drawn to certain accessories of the situation. He was then immensely interested in the format~on of his cabinet, and im- mensely proud of the solid elements composing it. These were Francisco L. de la Barra, Minister of Foreign Affairs, of international distinction; Manuel Mondragon, Minister of War ( whom he afterwards sent out of Mexico in the playful yet determined manner I once recorded) ; Jorge Vera Estafiol, Minister of Public Instruction, a jurist of note, who was among the 110 deputies bagged in the coup d'etat of October 10th, and who remained some months in prison till his release was prO<!ured by the American Charge; Alberto Garcia Granados, Minister of the Interior, a great Liberal, experienced and truly patriotic, afterwards executed by Carranza in his 76th year; Toribio Esquivel Obreg6n, Secretary of the Treasury, of the highest technical ability and entire probity; Rodolfo Reyes, Minister of Justice, whose father had been killed on Feoruary 9th by a ball through his head as he was advancing with his troops against the Palace, then held by the Maderistas. These men, though personally not enamored of Huerta, were men of discernment and experience. They recognized certain strong qualifications in him. 214 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HIS'l'ORY 'rhe hour was . dark and difficult. They naturally rallied about the only fixed point in the shifting scenery of Mexican politics,-the man in control of the army, and whose abilities, furthermore, had been proved. These facts were more important than pri- vate virtues which, as they had just seen, had been inadequate to the keeping of order. Since Mexico · has been ruled and ruined by succe siv bandit several tentatively favored and one ustained by the United States, one realizes how sure the in tinct Qf these trained men were. Ord r was the fir essen- tial. Democracy was a foreign luxur to be indulged in when Mexico was safe, and in politic itua · ons will always be considered more urg nt than theories. The elimination of Feliz Diaz v as a matter of th most elementary sleight of hand. Hu rta su ge ted that he be candidate for the Pre id n , in the ne ·t general ( very "general") 1 tion , hi h a a now you see it, and now you don t arran em nt, but which seems to have been s ti factor to e er body, even to Feliz Diaz, a man of na turall nditl and generous soul. Mr. Edward I. Bell suo-g t hat those same elections w re "doubtl s t in he privacy of Huerta's mind for th fir t Tue day after the :first Monday following the Day of Judgment." This conference was held in the ministry of Gober- naci6n, a huge, white, elaborately stuccoed house in the Calle General Prim, which many had vainly striven to sell to the United Stat s for an Embassy. It is recorded that dm·ing the discussion of the best way to eliminate Madero, Huerta abruptly quitted the room. When he thus I ft Madero's fate to other men's judgment, he also left his own to them, which VICTORIANO HUERTA 215 was his irreparable, tactical error, the first step in his ruin. Huerta knew practically, instinctively, somewhat after the way that Porfirio Diaz, heaven-born dic- tator, knew, that the people of Mexico could preserve a government, but not a democracy. There a govern- . ment to live, must be as highly centralized as our own has become, and at that special moment with all forces centrifugal it could op.ly be preserved in some strong hand. His was strong. It was not until Diaz' eightieth year that there was any dissatisfaction with the strong hand methods, beyond the natural desire of the human heart for a change,-even for the worse. The "people" will always welcome the new man, be he king, president , or dictator, one of these three they must have. As for Mexico she can have but one kind of govern- ment,-her own, and it will always bear small re- semblance to that above the Rio G'rande. Suum cuique. Patriotic Mexicans will forever prefer, whilst awaiting the illusory goMen age of the Anglo-Saxon promise, a Mexican dictatorship to the devastations of a few bandits selected by an American dictator, or a foreign invasion. If Mexico be an independent state, she has undeniably a right to her own kind of rule, and in the end she can do better for herself than we can do for her. We have, as it is, only suc- ceeded in imposing on her temporarily a quintessent but alien form of dictatorship, compounded of our ul tima ta and her own ban di ts. The Carranza dic - tatorship somewhat recalls Anteus touching the ground; every time that the Carrancistas gave the 216 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY American government a slap in the face they got new strength. Carranza, to take an example, was recog- nized the day after he had expelled the American P , ed Cross from Mexican territory. Why put hims e lf out to please us? It was, quite evidently, unnecessary. If it be true that men hate their benefactors more than their enemies, Carranza's hatred of the United States was fully justified. CHAPTER XIX Presidential Messagea--The ''One-Man'' Power-The Chiaroscura of Latin-American Politica--The Wray of Death. On the 13th of October President Wilson sent a message to the Provisional government, breathing the highest morality, entirely disapproving the high- handed manner of dissolving Congress. (He cer- tainly then had every American senator and every American representative to a man behind him, when their own sub-species were threatened, though from such an apparently safe distance. They were none of them prophets.) He further said that any violence offered to any deputy would be considered as an offense against the United States, and terminated by stating in no uncertain terms tha_t he woufd not rec- ognize any President elected after such proceedings. Did this change the simple Huertistian methods? Not in the least. The "elections" took place. When Huerta read his speech on the 26th of October, "but one was missing," and that was the American Charge, whose orders were not tO" assist at this occasion which smelt of the Cresarian laurel rather than of the more human polling booth. Later on, when the new Congress was assembled, Huerta addressed that body with complete and engaging frankness, and termi- nated by the following words: "Judging the situation calmly, I cannot see that the constitutional order of things was interfered with 217 2 18 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY t hr ou gh the dissolution of the Chamber, except when t h e executive power began to invade the sphere of a ction o f the other powers . Even so, it will always be a h igh and noble duty, or at least a commendable atti _ tude, to save a nation at the cost of all principles . W h at is the use of preserving, at the cost of the na ti o n's life, rigid and inert theories whose right and usefulness will always remain subject to discussion. Th e u l timate truth is to be found in Bonaparte s ma xi m: 'In saving the country one does not violate any l a w. '" No sta tes m a n u ill contend that Huerta was wrong in con sidering that weakness in the Exeeutive, hen he _ h a s f u ll p o wer, is the greatest calamity of a nation or that any constitution has remained fix e d . Rather it is li ke everything else, subject to time, circum- stanc e a nd men . It was o n the 3rd of December that, in a d ze, I read P resident Wilson's message o Oona-res of the day b ef o re . " L i tt l e by little Huert has be n are- fully isol at ed. By a little every day his po er and pr e stig e ar e cru m b ling, and th coll pse is not far away. We sh a ll no t, I b elieve, b e obliged t o alter our policy of watchful waitino- . " The as onishing thing is, not that an autocrat sh ould have decreed such a thing, but that a people in our adva nc ed s ta ge of political development should ha ve p er mi t t e d i t . A n y political man takes any power he can, and appe tite comes with eating. Republics aie particularly ex- posed to the one-man danger, where public feeling is entirely unexpectant of it and unprepared. I say public feeling, not' public _ opinion, because this latter is but a phrase, and appraisements of men and situa• VICTORIANO HUERTA 219 tions are the result of no mental operation of the masses, but of an etat d'ame, a state of soul; the ideas, _ th e mental operations are supplied as always, in even the most communistic states, by the few. In the Russia of 1920 Lenine and his nearest disciples ~ pro- duce the ideas, and the "dictatorship of the prole- t ariat ' resembles all other dictatorships, minus cer- tain accessories that, since centuries, men have classed as desirable . It is grimy and depressing when the other is cultured, and sometimes gay; it is irresponsible where the other must make good in order to persist. In fact its outward aspect is highly unattractive. For myself I prefer a dictator in gold braid and lace, riding on a mettlesome steed, pranc- ing to a palace full of works of art, announ~ed by the blare of trumpets, to a man dressed for the moment in a blouse (while awaiting his uniform) who is strongly guarded by other bloused and camouflaged aspirants, as he slips into a large building no longer called a palace, from which the mob has previously removed the works of art by theft or destruction. One man like unto other men, who is yet raised above them by his own qualities, or still more mys- teriously and awesomely by Destiny, will forever stir the naturally torpid public imagination, and com- mand the loyalty of a people in a greater degree than can any conglomeration of individuals forming those necessary but unmagnetic bodies called congresses or cabinets. And when men no longer feel the call to hero-worship, to exalt and revere something like unto themselves, yet seemingly more than themselves, they will be indeed as the beasts of the :field. 22 0 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY It is because of all this that the nation we have been wont to consider the most politically free, could see its chief magistrate deliberately setting out to destroy the chief magistrate of a weak nation, though h is destruction included that of its constitutional g o vernment, without a restraining word. Even in l ater contemporaneous history, which is black enough , there is nothing to equal it ( e x cept the blind d estructi on s of the Peace Conference). It was com - mi tted pers o na ll y and i n the name of peace . An indi scrim i nating public, under the one-man domina - tion, made l itt l e or no outcry . That they were igno- r ant is th e exp l anation, not the excuse. No one is suppos e d to b e ignorant of the Law . Yet that which destro ye d r esembled, apart from its phraseology, that which was destroyed. The very demand, the very insist e n ce o f the President, in the autumn of 1918, that th e e l ect o rs elect along certain lines, was, with the di ffere n ce of l atit u de a l one, the Latin-American mann er , r ec allin g uno pened bal s of votes, from voters "s e l e ct e d" o r " i nd u ced . " I began, as it were, to sm e ll strang e ly famili ar sme ll s, as o f something boiling o ve r. S tar tled , but render d attentive, I found it was the P r e s i d en t o f the United States o ver - flowing the Constitu t ion , as he "earnest l y b egg ed th at the people return a Democr a tic majori ty to both t he Senate and the House of Represent a tives." I saw how scarcely any form of governmen t resists the one- man impulse when it is in full momentum, and one man, with the manie des grand e urs, to whose strength fortuitously are added the power, wealth and num- bers of a great nation, can destroy, by the very mo- mentum of his power acting on events., anything that VICTORIANO HUERTA ' is written on paper, even if it be the Constitution of the United States. I could not help smiling as I said to myself: "It's all the same everywhere; the pride of man has no limit, except death, nor his folly either." In democracies of a monarchical form there are restraints, artificial and natural, put on the usurpa- tion of rights. The people are alert, forewarned, fore- armed. The system provides against even the temp- tations of usurpation which · are recognized as la- tently imminent, and inherent to the heart of almost every man attaining supreme power. The few excep- tions but prove the rule. In a Republic such as ours when they occur they take the people, secure in the illusion that it is a government by the people, of the people, for the people, completely unawares: When the message of December 2, 1913, was read, there were but few, vested with a semblance of power, who cried out, "Pause a moment! This policy may mean the collapse of Mexico. Do we wish to ruin the Mexican State, with not so much as a glance at her history, her racial and climatic conditions, which latter, though they enter so largely into the questions confronting us, we can by no possible de- cree or governmental alchemy change?" Her history, alas! we did change, and to-day the 85 per cent, in company with the remaining 15 per cent, are walking barefoot over the broken glass of her fragile consti- tution, not meant to be handled by unskilled foreigners. It was the one-man power that unconsciously we bowed before. It always happens so in history, no matter with what names ;we cover it. For evil or 222 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY for good, individuals make their nation's history. T o- day the so-called communistic governments are not only dominated by one man, they exist or cease t o exist, as that one man exists or ceases to exist. T he hero of the hour will be forever worshiped, and o ver whatever he decrees the people will fling the glamour of their own worship. The knowledge that his power, as in our system, comes from no more holy so urce than the voting booths, around which there i s little mystery and less virtue, as any ward poli- tici a n in any town, big or 1i ttle, can tell the searcher a fter t r u th, is no deterrent . A n d in Republics there i another phenomenon to b e o bserved. I say Republics, b cau e the :fluctuating a n d generally unimaginative will of the people is mo re apparent and often more di a trous to liberty of th o ught and action, than under terns here a few skilled men avowedly ontrol the output of id ea s. It is this : a· recocrnition of the una oidable e ffe ct s o f certain causes, implicates the r ognizer in th e effect s ; if these be unpl a ant, he b come unpopul ar . Public opinion h ne er w I omed p r o p h et s exce p t b y a pr liminary sho er of stone , -what e v er i t m ay d o l ater . In the U ni t ed Sta t es a man who has discovered w fact is not dis t inguish ab l e from a man who has be - gotten on e . If he is not the father of the baby he finds on the doorst e p, he is a p t to b e saddle d w i th i t . T o go further, to indicate t h at a t hin g may h a pp en i s equivalent, in the imperf e c t l y fo r m e d di scri m i n at o ry powers of the public, to d esir i ng i t to h ap pen, a n d from thence to endeavoring to bring i t about. , If in the United States, where we live unde r the VICTORIANO HUERTA greatest constitution ever formed from the minds of men, comparable only to what Minerva produced full -fl edged from her brain, operating with the most wonderful harmony till lately when thrown out of gear by the appearance of personalism with all its accessories, public opinion (blessed by all the news fit or unfit to print and everybody able to read) is un- discriminating, why ask of the 85 analphabetic per cent. of an Indian Republic that they suddenly, over night, distinguish ca use from effect, liberty from Liberators, friends from foes? We are confronted by the fact in our own country that in proportion as we extend political liberty we have less personal liberty, the system tends to paternalism, so decried. In a state like Mexico the inverse is true. There men still go to heaveh or to hell ' in their own way and political liberty is non-e xist ent. Following on our assumption concerning conditions whic9- Mr. Dooley describes as "slightly but different from Matsachoo- s~tts," in Mexico the result has been that the lettered class, £.ecessarily the upper class and necessarily in the minority in an Indian State, find themselves in the strange political role of scapegoat for the mis- . fortunes of Mexico. Yet through know ledge, not ignorance, came her glory and her might. Any one contemplating governments sanely will, while awaiting the uncertain evolution of the sub- merged 85 per cent, choose to be governed by those who read and write rather than those who do not. And while we are about it, what had the Indian to :fit him to become, according to the Wilsonian theory, suddenly, en bloc, the ruler of his country's destinies? Evolution is slow and Mexico's four hundred years' . 224 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY act o n the historical stage is as a moment compared to the time taken to produce the elements that com- .._ pose the United States, and to who s e pattern and i mage the Indian was suddenly commanded to fit h imself . Here and there chosen people leav e n the world, as did the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, to take some of t he ol dest . They appear in history, contribute to the worl d's riches, moral, intellectual and material; from th em after a thousand, two tho~sand y ars, e :find ou rse l ves assimilating all that we ar able of their g re atn ess according to our national idio ncra i s, a n d, a d ding our own qualities, embodying another and p art icu lar form of greatn es . :M x i c o in an anti-hi - toric, anti-philosophic, anti-common- nse ay as sup p os ed t o go suddenly from th d pths of it 5 p e r c e n t t o the heights of its 15 per c nt. Th re a a m adness in the asking that ould only mak for dis as t er. Eve n in the m o st 1 m n tal ma t rs of pr o- curin g food an d raiment, th Indian to tr to l ive under co n di ti on s that did not _ .. i t . Ile a upposed to transfo r m him se lf fr o m an Indian at i ti 11 de - pending on t h e ra in fal l or wind-c u rr nts, t o on e using int e n s i ve m e thod s whi h hi s ry geographical and me te orologi ca l c on d i tio n s d o n ot permit, u nless costly irrigation proc e ss e s ar e put in fo r ce, process e s that the Indian unaided is no more able to install than he is to harn e ss the stars. In this sudden pouring of political wisdom down his throat, which was the only way he could receive it in the short time allowed him, practically only over night, to :fit him, not alone to govern himself, but his neighbor, he seems to have choked. The wise man VICTORIANO HUERTA would have paused. Not so the arbiter of Mexico's destinies. Somewhat after St. Paul's promises for another world, in the twinkling of an eye, by the flourish of a signature, by the making of a speech in a foreign land, the Indian was expected to be something that he was not, and may prove never to have the ethnological qualities to become, even though his race persists through eons . This highminded but indiscreet and temporary ef- fort to save him from want ( which has been proven to be the unavoidable lot of a large majority of human beings, even of the superior races at various stages in their existence) , ca used him instead to listen to the confused shouts of "revolutionarios" inciting him to do he knew not what, turn he know not where, until, starving, bewildered, maddened, he died some horrid death or inflicted one. He might have remained a happy Indian; the husband of various wives, the father of many chil- dren, planting his beans as fancy or the rainfall indicated, kneeling for hours with outstretched arms in some still, dim, pink, lovely church before a candle- lit altar, worshiping a doubtless somewhat distorted image of the white man's God, or reeling from some "Souvenir of the Future" or some "Temple of Venus" in the guise of a pulque shop; his days., in any case, spent under a matchless and consoling sun, his nights under near and brilliant stars. On a return from Mexico I passed through "the dull, red hideousness of Georgia,'' and when I saw th9se treeless factory towns, built on that red grass- less soil, often without a church spire, and never a 226 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY child above a certain age playing before the doors, I did not think so badly of one-time Mexican misery. If pressed I might even have chosen it to that of my native land. Mr. Wilson unfortunately, during the period when he was interested in the subject, had in his mind a purely mythical Mexico which he endeavored to reg- ulate by subjective sentiments, mostly condemna- tory. Of the real ethical, economical, social, historical Mexico he had as little idea as astronomers of the real ethical, economical, social and historical Mars. The vague theories advanced by scientists con erning the supposed needs of the Martian inhabitants uld doubtless, if we could impose th m be as di astrous as Mr. Wilson's theories concerning M xi o c lored further by a virtuous abhorr nee for the ery depraved personality of th la t con ti u ional Presi- dent of that unhappy land. Thus to Huertas other difficulties was added a supr m ly pm rful xter- nal enemy into whose hands a might people with the unquestioning gen rosity that Us inguishes them where they have gi.ven their confidence, placed a blank check drawable against their almost incal- culable wealth and power. In the face of this, Huerta's plan, and he showed a strange acumen, was to count on the assistance of time, which caITies away alike good and evil. It was his only hope and hence his endless prevarications, sometimes bold, sometimes puerile. Huerta knew his enemy was mortal ; he had seen so many men despised or dead, that he was keenly aware of the transitoriness both of glory and of physical life. Also, any man, he VICTORIANO HUERTA 227 knew, who lives long enough will experience the in- constance of fortune. The only thing left him was a vague hope in chance, which alone could rid him of his chief enemy. Admittedly Huerta obeyed the dictates of his interest, which doubtless he confounded with those of the State. The old Indian, with the sameness of human nature come to power in difficult times, acted according to Machiavelli, that illustrious teacher of peoples as well as princes. He took his situation as it was, not as it should have been. The interior task was colossal. Like all men come to power by violence · ; he not only had to take into account _ the ambitions of those supporting him, but to endeavor to restrain the cruelties and excesses of his army. He had further more to satisfy this last, while at the same time he protected the civil population. One of the natural functions of armies is pillage, loot and rapine. He might, perhaps, and history will give him the benefit of the doubt, have fulfilled his task, for the order-loving elements showed a tendency to group themselves about him, as the only person rep- resenting Constitutional government, and with which they were inevitably destined to stand or to fall. That Huerta was gifted as well as wicked and unfortunate no one will deny. He had something of the lion and much of the fox in his make•up. His instincts were Indian, his methods Latin-American, ._the only methods, however, that circumstances had brought to his notice. An unpleasing combination, even a loathly combination, to the virtuous ruler of an Anglo-Saxon Republic. From the repugnance, even detestation, that such a combination awakened, 228 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY to trying to change its essential qualities, seems to have been but a step. Instead, however, of allowing these protoplasmic democrats to nourish themselves and evolve along their inevitable lines, President Wilson's desire was to see 85 per cent of them turned into fully developed deserving democrats over night. This being out of Nature's way, history testifies that, in the pressure, these inorganic bits were simply squashed out of any emblance to anything. But the destinies of Mexico have been, for the last seven years and more, determined by men who, though they are learned in many matters, have been totally ignorant of things Mexican, and ha e quite frankly wished to remain ignorant. The other arbiters of her destiny are kal ido o i bandit chiefs appearing for a brief time to di appear by violent deaths, whose adher nt and hem elves, forming the famous one-half p r c nt of one per cent of the population exact, in addition o he inevitable pound of flesh, all the worldl po e sions of the remaining Mexicans. Th se e in i t o holding in power, while we keep enlightened, du at d Me · cans in exile, the kind ·of men who corr sponclingly wield power in the United States. Sometimes they are rich, sometimes they are poor, after the way of good citi- zens in any country, and the sentimental "democracy" we have installed and sustained can only be enjoyed by them out of their country. Now the philosophic history of those prismatic, unstable, active manifestations, Latin-American political systems, is one of the most interesting gov- ernmental phenomena the w:orld has to show, and Mexico is not to be understood without some study VIOTORIANO HUERTA 229 of it. It abounds in what may be called rather indeterminately "human nature," which gushes out from a few elemental sources quite unmodified by the conventions that screen its governmental uses in other countries, which, however, if studied, would be found to somewhat res·emble it. The personal equation is visibly and constantly at work on the national clay, which takes a form and shape from it, easily transformable and transmutable into still something else. There is nothing stereotyped about it, except in so far as its manifestations are generally true to type, and resemble the colors of the spectrum in their variety and the acts of God in their unexpectedness. Of two determining Latin-American political attri- butes, I would like to say a word, Envy and Person- alism. The first is inherent, omnipresent. Indeed, one whose talents and situation . enable him to know his country well, has ev~n said :-"To a Latin-American of the middle-class the greatest offense that can be offered him-greater than taking his wife from him, violating his daughter, or disfiguring his face with sulphuric acid-is to have one of his friends amass a fortune. This is not to be endured. The heart of one to whom this affront has been offered is consumed by a white-heat envy, molten lead coursing through his veins instead of blood. "If the wealth has been acquired by means of defrauding the public, which in our decadent social system constitutes no stigma, then envy is capable of transforming the injured one from a lamb into a lion, from a weakling into a:q athlete, from an arrant coward into a legendary hero, from a self-seeking 230 INTIMATE PAGES OF ME~ICAN HISTORY eg o tist into a sublime patriot, so long as it gives him an opportun~ty to take vengeance on his former friend, and at the same time to defraud his country for his own benefit, even to the point of surpassing the rapacity of the first offender." Acc o mpanying this besetting, omnipresent sin of en vy is the equally active and ubiquitous Per- s o nalism. Each public man is willing to sustain to t he d eath his theory of government. In the case of a m an o f genius like Don Porfirio this is an im- m ense a d vantage ; in the usual run, it produ es dis- or de r o f the most horrid and destructi e kind . Personalism having unfortunately made it appear- a nc e i n politics in the United States during th past se v en years, there are those perhaps at la t ncrag d in th e study of it at near quarters and it ill be most u seful in future appraisements of h M ~ ·can s i tu ati o n . It is not in our tradition, nor in our n at u ral habit, to destroy a man be au f th o p inio ns he ho l ds, nor, if he happ ns to diff r, d er e wa r t o the knife, as in tatin-Ameri an t t s. Also in qu estions of nat i ona l moment, until the r on- f e ren ce , which, in parenthesis, mak s the di dained Con gres s o f Vienna appear as a aatherin of an el philo s o p h er s a n d altruists, bofh our poli ti al parti s w er e suppos e d to have equal interests and equa l rights, as the y wou l d i nevitab l y and automatically b e called on t o m a ke e q ua l s acri fi ces and bea r e qu al responsibili t i e s . Even the most casu a l survey of Latin - American politics, seen in their most a cce n tu a te d fo r m in Mexico, reveals them as h a ving some t hin g deeply, fatally and entirely personal a bout them. Whatever VICTORIANO HUERTA 231 principal is in question is not separable from the man holding it. Politics are inevitably irresponsible under these conditions, and completely destructive to the individual, whose end is almost invariably sudden death or exile. The very few exceptions but prove the rule. The great Juarez did die in his bed, but only just in time not to be caught up in the uncertainties, or 1 1 .. ather certainties, of the well- advanced revolt of General Gonsalez Ortega. Under such conditions which present themselves with - the inevitability of natural phenomena, the decr~e "to the end that bloodshed cease in Mexico" might as well have been a decree that there be a uniform rainfall there, and despite the virility and righteousness of these wo1~ds, who would pretend that they could have an effect on the seasons? Compared, let us say, with the impersonal methods of English politics, where political opponents will spend week-ends together for 20 years, and play golf in harmony for 40, with scarcely a · destructive thought ( as regards the life arid property, at least, of the opponent), the bitter personalism of Latin - American politics is incomprehensible. Yet it is a fact to be reckoned with in government in those countries, that disagreement in politics almost auto - matically becomes a matter of burning, personal hate. And further in a country whose sons if they do · not know how to live, do know how to die, having not only small regard for each other's lives, but - for their own, each and every political conception is sustained at the fullest risk to the individual. In latitudes and longitudes where there is an undue value put on life, this essential idiosyncrasy 232 INTIMATE PAGES OF ME:X:IOAN HISTORY is not taken into account. Such nations, however, with all their weaknesses have a certain scorn for those, like ourselves, over-loving of life. For all must die, though we Anglo-Saxons who can make ourselves believe almost anything that is not so, get , for the most part, no further than the general con- clusiou that though other men will and do die, ones S'elf may poss , ibly escape. In this I excep t th e Cel ; he dies for the "idea" or the faith. generously, eagerly, in anticipation and in fact. One of the things that strikes most deeply him ho contemplates with a free eye things 1:ex:ican, is the way of death. There is almost invariably a quiet d ignity about it . Few public men die in their beds. Rather swiftly, arbitrarily from some po ition in which their acts and destiny have placed h m do th " endure their going hence." A man like Don Alberto Garcia Granados ( to speak of some one I kne ) , at the age of 75, was taken by Oarrancista ol · 1 o h Escuela de Tir and there shot. He as in b d wi h a mortal illness when seized. Salt injec ·ons were given him, and he had further to be bound to a po st before the :firing squad could g t in their ork. He d ied in supreme composur of soul. The d a h f su c h a ma n and that of the most untutored Indian is outwa r dl y the same . I remember once seeing a peon p a s s d o wn the street between two soldiers, with finge r s on t h e i r gun - triggers . Not tall, he yet held ~ himself lo f til y , and t h e expression of his face was one of co mp l e t e tranq u illity . Behind him weeping, but not very loudl y , w a s h is w o ma n. A baby was bound to her heart by a blu e reb o so and a r oun d - eyed little girl too small t o be fri gh ten ed , was VICTORIANO HUERTA 233 running by her side, clutching with one hand a bit of her mother ' s skirt. In her 9ther was an orange, very probably given her by one of the guards. The pace of the group was quick. The morning was dazzling, the beauty of the earth even unto tears. In another hour that man walking under the blue dome would have closed his eyes on it. And it was not ev e n an idea that gave him his courage, it was some- thing within himself, a grouping of qualities, a lack of them some will cry, that made him, poor Indian, high and free in face of it. I who was not to die was more troubled at the sight of it, than he who was to endure it. I I CHAPTER XX The Diplomatic Corps in Mexico City at the Time of Huerta's Ac- cession to Pow e r. A glance at the Diploma tic Corps at the time of Madero's assassination, and the general attitude of the countries represented and advised concerning the recognition of the Huerta de facto government, will throw into high relief the extreme personalism of our non-recognition. We furthermore stood to gain what the other nations did by recognition, our only difference being that we were in a geographical and political position to ruin Mexico by non-recognition . During many months the diplomatic corps had been formulating,-to themselves,-of cours , we only got echoes of it, being like the proverbial husband 'the last to know,"-their ideas of what we really were about. The German minister in the politest and most veiled of language, intimated to me in a somewhat protracted conversation that our policy was evidently to weaken the Mexicans by non-recognition, and when they were sufficiently reduced come into Mexico cheaply, thus avoiding armed intervention, which wduld be much better 'for the Mexicans though it would be more expensive for us. Indeed, all the colleagues veiled behind unassailably discreet and ~ourteous remarks to our face, what they doubtless c - ~l~ed by other names behind our backs. - 234 VICTORIANO HUERTA 235 The diplomatic corps was peculiarly well composed at the time of Madero's assassination, the men rep- resenting the great nations having all, with the excep~ion of the German and Belgian ministers, long Latin-American experience, and were hence quite familiar with the phenomena that presented itself. These two gentlemen were both, however, intuitive and trained. · Mr. Stronge, the British Minister, had come to Mexico City from Bogota. Though an Irishman, he was in his · soul a peacemaker, a reconciler of factions, a man who in his heart deplored violence. The drama of the Tragic Ten Days was played out at his very door, whence he could see its every involution, as the actors appeared a : o:d disappeared from the stage, which happened to be set in part in an open space, furnished with machine guns and cannon, in front of the Legation. The minister himself often extended the hospitality of his cellar to various stars in the drama, who, if they had been able to make. their exits, would come to him begging asylum. It was here, protected by the Li'on and the Unicorn, that at nine o'clock on the morning of the 18th of February Robles Gil found Mr. de la Barra, to tell him that he had been designated Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Huerta cabinet. Though so excellently placed to see it as it really was, not as people who had not seen it thought it ought to be, Mr. Stronge did not counsel his govern- ment against recognition. He quite simply realized, as did the other diplomats, that Madero had but paid the normal though high price of political failure in Mexico. Recognition was given, not of course, at the 236 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY moment, but with that decent regard for "les con- ven~nces'' which stamps British diplomacy with such dignity, when the affair was literally cold in its grave, and the protocolic amount of grass and weeds had grown above it,_:_nicely watered with oil. Sir Lionel Carden/ who succeeded Mr. Stronge, had had ✓ thirty years' experience of Latin-America, and was peculiarly able to give his country accurate information. He was not a man to jump to extremes, nor was he one to espouse a cause hastily, in fact, he was somewhat unelastic. Due consideration of facts, and moderation, after the most conscientious scrutiny of them, would mark any decision he made or advised. He had, some 16 years before, been Con- sul-General to Mexico and was but lately come from Guatemala, where he had been Minister Plenipoten- tiary. There was nothing he saw in the situation on his arrival in Mexico City, the 10th of October, 1913, to ca use him to cable his government advising a 1 It was in 1882 during the Presidency of Gonzales that Lionel Carden :first went to Mexico. He was at the time Vice-Consul to Havana. In pursuance of an idea that it would be an exc e llent thing both for England and Mexico to renew diplomatic relations, he asked permission of the Foreign Office to go to M xico to write a commercial report on the condition of the country. He was given leave from Havana for three months. His report was such that a special envoy was shortly after appointed to go to Mexico, and Don Ignacio Mariscal went to London. Subsequently Mr. Carden was made Consul to Mexico City, occupying that post for nearly seven- teen years. There being many questions to settle during that period, he was also appointed Commissioner for the settlement of the British Claims. He learnt much about the early revolutions and the pre- vailing -conditions from General Berriozbal, who was the Mexican Commissioner. He was witness to the reconstruction of the · country under Porfirio Diaz. He was also to be witness of its destruction under Carranza. Who better than he could have advised his govern- ment f He saw from the beginning, with prophecy inspired by experience, the disastrousness of om Mexican policy. Mr. Wilson, however, was even then, '' though less than God, somewhat more than mahomet, '' and Sir Lionel's prophecy as ewll as his experience were fruitless. He died in London in the spring of 1915. VICTORIANO HUERTA 237 delay in presenting his letters of credence. Neither did his very able secretary, Hohler, who had already spent several enlightening and educative years in Mexico, have anything to reveal to him that could act as a sudden deterrent. Consequently, in con- formity with his instructions, he presented his creden• tials the day after his arrival. Huerta amid all his sorrows was destined here and there to know brief moments of triumph. This was one of them. Looking appalled and conscience- stricken on the whole disastrous period, I do not gr.udge it to him. The presentation by the British envoy of his letters on October lfth, the morning after the coup d'etat in the Chamber of Deputies, went to Huerta's head. It opened out to him the splendid, the intoxi- cating vista of possible recognition by the Unifod States, without which he knew that no gove:i;:_mnent in Mexico can stand. It was his obsession, the passion of his heart, the dream of his nights, the motive force of is days. Incidentally it was, for the United Sta s, the heaven-sent moment to present accounts. Chamizal, Magdalena Bay, the Rio Colorado, could have been literally washed off the slate, the ' claims against the Mexican government incurred during the revolution, business disputes pending for years, good or bad, vital or trivial, could have been regulated to our satisfaction, and without disaster t Mexico. It might have been a day of judgment with the difference that the judged, both goats and sheep, with their affairs pleasantly regulated, could begin to live again on the new basis. Did we take advantage of this unique occasion? Not for a moment. We simply 238 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY proceeded in the most awkward way of the country yokel, slinging the flail for the first time, and getting at everything except the chaff in the radius of the :flail, to destroy the man who was mad to please us, to strangle a creditor who was willing and even anxious to pay. It is the most stupid act our history records, defying any comparison. And they call us a nation of hard-headed business men! It was the spell of the one-man power acting as surely above the Rio Grande as below it. To return to the Diplomatic Corps. Mr. Stronge, Mr. Hohler and Sir Lionel Carden were all gentle- men in the most general and particular s e nse of the word. · They had the antipathy to violence and villainy natural to their type and kind. Instead, however, of being able to deal with the purely sub- jective Mexico projected from Washington, they found themselves obliged to take her as she was, and to decide action on the basis of daily facts, where they concerned the life and property of their nationals; also to extend what help decency and good sense prompted in related Mexican matters. The r6le was difficult. For Sir Lionel it became impossiple. Into that beautiful city, where as Consul- General he had dwelt for many ye~rs during the Por- firian peace, where he had seen the Huerta govern- m~nt, though bound hard and fast by the "watchful waiting'' policy, keeping order and endeavoring not unsuccessfully to proceed with the usual and im- mediate a:ffai _ rs of government, he was to see the C _ arranza hordes pour, barefoot, dirty, noisy, bullying, looting, violating, destroying. He was _ himself to be ordered by Carranza "to get out of the VICTORIANO HUERTA 239 eountcy in twenty-four hours, or be put out,"-only a &hor t tw o days after General Obreg6n's entry at th e h ea d of the Constitutional troops. Before returning to Mexico in April of 1914, Sir Lionel had, while in London, telegraphed to General Diaz, then in Paris, asking for an interview. His q u e stion was-:-";, Quien es Huerta ?"-"Who and what is Huerta, and what is your estimate of the situ a tion? -' ' The answer of that reader of men's hearts is on the files in Downing Street. It but confirmed the British policy of recognition of the Huerta de facto government. General and Madame Diaz drove Sir Lionel to Versailles, lunched there, and on their return a conversation took place in the apartment of General Diaz at the Hotel Astoria. General Diaz considered Huerta, in spite of his so evident defects, the "man of the hour," and doubtless thought that he might, if the load of Washington's hate were r e placed by Washington's indifference, get out of the mess. The fourth part Indian in Don Porfirio enabled him to understand the total Indian in Huerta. He could be counted on to be resourceful, preserving, patient. He was gifted to an unusual degree with the usual Indian stoicism, and he was proving decidedly skillful in :fighting Washington's guerrilla methods of warfare, doubled with the money blockade and unlimited arms and ammunitions for his enemies. To his Indian qualities Don Porfirio added the imagination of the Latin, which enabled him to com- pletely appraise this complex and faulty personality in the light of his relations to foreign nations, as well 240 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY as his potentialities where his own was concerned. His word will doubtless count with history. M . Lefaivre, the French Minister, was a man of unusual culture ,. versed in history, philosophy and Belles Lettres. His very agreeable conversation was embellished with illustration and apt quotation, and after the French manner, he easily gave of his best. He had in addition a long Latin-American experi- ence, having had various South American po ts, and from Havana, where he had been Minister, he had been appointed to Mexico, which post he had held for some :five years. He had been raised to the rank of Special Ambassador representing France at the Cen- ten ary, had witnessed the apotheosis of Diaz, had seen the gradual darkening of the Mexican land cape dur- ing the Madero regime and the loosening of the threads of government. Curiously enough he had been among those who received the exiled Maker of Modern Mexico on his arrival in Paris, hen he stepped from the train at the Gare Saint Lazare that June evening of 1911. 1 Though in the earliest stage of Huerta's incum- bency M. Lefaivre had been besought by Mr. de la Barra, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, to endeavor to hasten the recognition by France of the de facto 1 Madame Le£aivre gives this picture in a letter: '' The night of Tuesday we were at the Gare St. Lazare to receive the dethroned couple. The President seems much older and changed, but his air of serenity and dignity is quit e in keeping wit h his sad role of king in exile. Thre e or four hundred people were on the platform, all very much affected and full of the most respectful sympathy. He clasped both my hands with effusion. It is said that he is very poor. After thirty years of absolute power, he possesses only the most modest of fortunes. I sent to their hotel a magnificent bouquet in the Mexican colors, my usual eeonomy disappearing in face of this dr3ima and this injustice of history.'' VICTORIANO HUERTA 241 government, he felt the wisdom of counseling delay, in order to see what elements of power Hu erta would b able to group about him; above all what guarantees could be counted on concerning the interests of the very l arge, and at that time very prosperous, French colony in Mexico. A few days subsequent to the recognition of the Huerta de facto government by Great Britain, it was also recognized by France. To Senor Cologan, the Spanish Minister; the · situation was trying, not so much in itself, he recog- nized it as normal, but because of the excesses com- mitted by Villa in particular, and chance bandits in general, against the persons and property of his nationals. Villa, before he had become "a safe man to tie to," had declared that he intended to see to it himself that every Spaniard, with the sma.Ilest amount of hand baggage or none, got out of Mexico. When I returned in October, 1913, he had just executed nine Iberians in Torreon who had unwisely demurred at turning over to him their · earthly goods. This, however, they were :finally obliged to do after the prelimina~y ceremony of digging their own graves. Senor Cologan was a tall man, no longer young, of grave and gentle presence, - untiringly devoted to duty. He was married to a very handsome Vera Cruzana, and had been, all his life, familiar with Spanish-America. When, worn and discoura ~d, having witnessed the ruin of Mexico, and that of bis nationals ' , Sefior Cologan asked for his recall, the Minister Plenipoten - tiary who succeeded him, Sefior Caro y Szechenyi, 242 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY had but a short tenure of office. He was expelled by Carranza in February, 1916. In the billet-doux informing him to depart within twenty-four hours he was addressed quite simply as "cuidadano Caro" ("citizen Caro"), which was so resented by the dip- lomatic envoys in the Mexican capital as incompat- ible with their official dignity, that they recom- mended their own recall by their various govern- ments. Sefior Caro was refused escort to Vera Cruz by General Obreg6n, who left him to arrive or not arrive, as accident might determine. Once in Vera Cruz the Captain of the U. S. warship Dela;ware, protected him and his baggage from the "police" and saw to his safe transfer to the ship Maria Cristina, lying outside the harbor. The days of the Huertistian international courtesies were dead along with every- thing else. Italy was not at the time represented, her affairs being in the hands of the British. Austria had a Charge d' A:ff aires. The Belgian Minister, M. Paul May, an interesting and agreeable :figure among the diplomats, was naturally very astute, as well as schooled in inter- national procedure. He subsequently tried, as did Sir Lionel Carden, in the most cautious and courteous way to enlighten American public opinion as to the screaming, elbowing facts of the situation. They succeeded only in jostling the chip on Washington's shoulder, receiving in turn, both of them, a shower of stones from Washington's :fist, in the shape of a press campaign against ~hem. Th'e Belgian Legation, in the Paseo, was partic• . ularly exposed during the bombardment of the Tragic VICTORIANO HUERTA 243 Ten · Days, and M. May had known not only · anxiety, but danger. With his wife and two young children he finally took refuge in the German Legation, in the less exposed Calle Liverpool, as did also the family of M. Joseph Simon, whose house, near the Belgian Legation, had received a warning shell through the drawing· room walls. In spite of all that he had seen M. May, recognizing how coy is legality in Mexico, and how wary about r _ eturning when once frightened away, counseled his government to follow the other governments in the matter of recognition. The diplomats, with the exception of von Hintze, spoke Spanish admirably, M. May being almost per- fectly polyglot, and · the affair had to them only the usual mystery which they had discovered every Mex- ican is apt ~o fling about his simplest as well as his most complex act. M. Joseph Simon, at that time Inspector of Finances of the Banc.o N acional, was an important figure in Mexico. Highly gifted, of wide inter· national experience, of reputation so unsullied that neither enemies nor friends could assail it, he went, in the summer following Huerta's accession to power, to France to advise a loan for the de facto govern- ment. This was first and very naturally with a view to protecting the enormous French j.:µterests, to , be safeguarded only if the actual responsible govern- ment were safeguarded. The loan was arranged on his representation, he being in a unique position to know the facts of the situation, and loans are notoriously made, where possible, according to fact rather than fancy. On his 244 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY way back to Mexico in October, he learned, to his astonishment, at the first port he touched at, Havana, that while he was on the water his government bad been informed by Washington that any loan made by France to the Huerta Government would be con- sidered "an unfriendly act." The French government very naturally called it off. From that moment Huerta's :financial fate was sealed, together with that of billions of foreign property in Mexico, it being the first definite step of that unhappy country toward repudiation of her Foreign Debt. The great work of Diaz and Limantour collapsed completely, when France thus renounced as did other European states, her own policy towards Mexico t~ follow that of "watchful waiting." In due time these same nations, when international war indebtednesses are being reckoned up (in the necessarily unaltruistic attitude that attends final reckonings, where benefits are forgot and future favors not visible enough to inspire a lively sense of gratitude), will present their large Mexican accounts to the United States. As to the representatives of the Latin-American States to the City of Mexico, they were not at all in the dark as to what had happened. Each had but to turn any chance page of his own history to find enlightening resemblances. Cimmerian darkness pre- vailed alone in the north. Mr. Henry Lane Wilson, Ambassador to Mexico since 1908, and dean of the Diplomatic Corps, had spent seven years as Minister to Chili, and was also not surprised by the phenomena that presented itself. He had long been a student of Latin-American politi- cal history. He also had witnessed the apotheosis of VICTORIANO HUERTA 245 the Diaz Adminstration, :fitting end to thirty years of prosperity along non-elective lines. He knew, mor e o v er, how delicate was Mexico's governmental machin ery , by the skilful workings of which alone her peace was to be maintained. He :f!aturally tried to acquaint his government with facts that could be gauged only by those daily confronted by them in their naked aspect, and conversant with their acces- sory phenomena. All other Spanish speaking foreigners were in- · formed as to the situation and able to read the very clear writing on the . wall. The Ambassador had been convinced at an early period of the complete incom- petence of Madero for government. It was demon- strated to him daily by :first-hand facts, not fancies or theories. He knew, furthermore, that it was time wasted for Mexico. Events have proved him right. He quite aptly described the Madero regime as active and annoying in small matters, and evasive, sluggish and neglectful in big things. He had come to consider that the responsibilities of office, and the disappointments resulting from the intrigues and jealousies all about him had shattered Madero's reason. He likened the last months of his incumbency to a mild reign of terror, marked by exaggerated espionage, a reckless squandering of public money, imprisonments accompanied by other and more final disappearances, and above all by the muzzling of the Press, though its freedom had been one of the brightest jewels in the Maderista crown. What Madero was fitted for really, was the quiet life of a country gentleman nursing benevolent ideals in a blameless and sheltered existence. 246 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY When the revolutionary machinery after its secular manner began to turn again, the Ambassador saw its meaning and import. His first idea was to protect the life and property of his nationals, which he did admirably, seconded during all those days of the Decena Tragica by his charming and courageous wife. His second was to try by the weight of his authority as Ambassador and dean of the Diplomatic Corps, to save what was still to be saved for foreign interests in Mexico. As dean, messages from foreign representatives as a body passed through his hands to the Mexican authorities, who communicated their answers in like manner, the United States Embassy thus becoming the natural focus of events. _ The Ambassador proceeded according to the now effete theory that our government has primary duties relating to the protection of the life and property of its own nationals, and secondary duties growing out of proximity and our announced policy to afford pro- tection to foreigners as well, who, because of that policy, cannot use their own means of protection. When Huerta became military commander of the City of Mexico on the 9th of February, the full light thrown on the center of the stage whereon he had stepped showed him embodying every characteristic, possessing every accessory of the secular "military genius,'' the typic man with the army at his back, who inevitably appears at such moments in Mexico. He could only act true to type and precedent. Whatever was to be saved out of the situation, was to be saved by him. This the Ambassador and his colleagues realized, and they have, alas, been abun- .., VICTORIANO H UE R TA 247 danily-justi:fied. Doubtless the tes t i m ony of the men compriBi.ng the diplomati c c o rps at tha t tim e w ill be accepted by history ( which finally ju dg es me n and events in relation to their o rigin and env i r o nm en t ) rather than the prec o nceptions of an a li e n mind, working spasmodically, and which in th e en d de ta ched itself from the matter somewhat as a ma n d e t a ches himself from a slightly unpleasant , on l y h a lf- r emem- bered dream. Few history-determi ni ng fa cts a r e a s clear as the hatred of a President o f the U nited States for a President of Mexi co . It h a s been called mere pedantry to p u t t he bl a me fo r e v ents on any one man . This excepti o n p r oves th e rule. Had it come ab o ut throug h the im p lac a b le force of economic destinies, o r the equa ll y i m placable encroachments of the str o ng, on e c ould view it more calmly, saying with Eccles i aste s: "All things ar hard . . . What is it that hath been ? The sa m e thing that shall be. What is it that hath been do n e ? Th e same that shall be done." Huerta was mo re over the choice, free, or imposed by ci rcum.stances , i s a hai r -splitting detail, of the best e l ements of t he country, the elements represent- ing traditi o n , l ear nin g , ex perience, statecraft. All those things , in fac t , that until the incursion into civ ili zati on of the "Reds" have been considered gov- . I ern m e n ta l assets by the wise men of the ages, were primar il y in Me xi co to be denied, cast out, called anat hema. It sometimes seems to me that first from Wa shin g ton was wafted to Mexico that fatal seed of disintegration which the civili~ed world in horror sees g r .ow like the tiny mustard seed into the greatest tree, darkening in its deep shade the bright works 248 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY of the ages. If the best elem en ts of Mexico recog- nized the Huerta dictatorship, it must be that there was · some reason for it worthy of consideration. They were faced by facts, which bore little or no re- semblance to the subsequent theories on which non- recognition was based. In looking at it now in the light of history, world-history and Mexican history, the only mistalre committed was one inherent to the situation. This was that Madero did not take asylum in the American Embassy. And this was due to that strange clouding of events, which takes place in Mexico as inevitably as atmospheric changes take place, after certain pressures. Some mist, atavistic, indispellable, intervenes between men and situa- tions. This bri~s about a suspension of mental processes; with everything possible and nothing accounted probable, nobody ever foresees the inevi- table outcome of a situation, though it will be the outcome of a hundred analogous situations. Cer- tainly the negligence of Huerta himself in those days, incidental doubtless to the excitements and preoccu- pations of fast-occurring events, was to be fatal to him, attd in the end to draw him as well as Madero into the dark Chamber of Death. That Francisco I. Madero would, however, have been assassinated at some later date is certain. His violent going hence was a natural act of the organic political body, but had Huerta delivered him to the American Embassy marked, "valuable," "fragile," "to be handled with care," and got a receipt for him, he might have de- layed his death, and saved himself, perhaps. In- stead there was some fatal slipping of the cog. It is · more than possible · that in those repetitive, VICTORIANO HUERTA 249 histo1ical moments, the death of Madero as a solu- tion, quite logical, presented itself to Huerta. He might even, as better and worse men than he have done, in like hours, consummated it himself without turning a hair, had a perfectly safe and explicit occa- sion offered itself. That he . did so, history has failed completely to prove, and if all the men who desired the death of enemies were hanged, no state, however rich or populous, could provide sufficient rope or enough hangmen. Of Herr von Hintze, in the light of after events, I can be permitted to speak more at length than of these other gentlemen. His character and subse - quent appearance on several world scenes are not without interest. About him there was an unsolved personal equa- tion: was he a cynic, was he a true-type sentimental- ist? I never knew. There was at times a suggestion of something pas- sionately contained in his being, though his usual outward aspect was calm, even cold. Looking back on his personality in the light of his later career I see that the leit-motiv of his existence, the root of every thought and act, was love of country and of emperor. He had been for many years personal and intimate friend of the Kaiser as well as the most devoted of subjects and servitors. During those seven years in St. Petersburg which preceded his appearance in Mexico he had been special Na val Attache to the Czar, and had kept up, it was rumored, a private corre- spondence with his master, even over the heads o.f Ambassadors. , 250 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY In Mexico he found himself revolving in a strange o-rbit and the natural splendors of those far heavens were not as consoling to him as they were to some of us. To use a good old word, fast disappearing, I think he was often desperately homesick. He was entirely devoted to duty, of great industry, hafd with his subordinates, very impatient of their mistakes and still more of their weaknesses. But be asked of none of them something he would not have asked of himself. As was inevitable, he had a profound contempt for Latin-American methods of procedure. They were not even intellectually, academically, interesting to him, and he investigated them only in so far as was necessary for the further- ance of the prosperity of his nationals. Though possessing himself so entirely, there were moments when something was apparent that had no relation to the qualities of hardness and contempt. Sudden foars would come into his eyes and a look of the solitary bird . setting out towards some peak. These revelations of personality, infrequent as they were, affected one as one would be affected at sud- denly throwing back a curtain and looking out on an unexpected panorama. He was a Prussian, and the Prussians being Orientals, their psychologies are generally inaccessible · , or else repellent to us. I took him for a judge of people, and alas, those who read human nature, unless they be essentially bumble-minded, which he was not, are apt to become disdainful. What one sees is so often horrid, or useless, which is worse. He had much personal dignity, and though not in- sensibl~ to the little pleasantries that galvanize- the VICTORIANO HUERTA 251 diplomatic body in distant posts, there were few made at his expense. Sentiment was also an essen- tial part of his make-up; "la petite fleur bleue" being more than a mere botanical specimen in his button- hole. He had a high-arched nose, a small sensitive-lipped mouth, full-socketed blue eyes . under arching brows in a high forehead, and his face was broad between the ears. On the second finger of his right hand he always wore a large amethyst ring. Apart from this revelatory touch, he dressed in English-looking clothes, very carefully put on. He was evidently a map. of wealth, his father had been in some sort of trade, he himself having been ennobled by the Kaiser. His numerous dinners over which he presided, often curiously and unnecessarily anxious, were of the best, with vintage wines and costly imported fruits and delicacies. The Legation was spacious, comfortable and per- fectly hideous. His own things having been water~ soaked in transit, he had rented an expensive, fur- nished house with a large garden in the Calle Liver- pool. It belong~d to a weal thy German, and the great square hall was furnished in hatracks and high jardinieres in the form of giant pansies in their own natural colors. If he was ever disturbed by the ugli- ness of his dwelling, I never heard him say. From the railing of the second story of the high square hall he had hung some ancient and beautiful rugs, the only attempt he made to cover its . ugliness. Since then he has signed pages of history in many parts of the world. A day or two after our arrival in Berlin, ~he end of 252 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY that fateful September of 1914, at luncheon, at the house of the banker, Paul Schwabach, I heard to my surprise that he was in town, and that this most fas- tidious of men had just made the voyage in a small Scandinavian boat disguised as steward,-and how he must have hated the dirty dishes and the smells! We had sailed in the Mauretania {en route for Vienna) on the 9th of the month. Dr. Edward Ryan, who has continued during the World War the bril- liant career begun in Mexico, said to me when he came to bid us good-by: "Guess whom I saw yesterday-von Hintze! I was about to speak to him when to my surprise he put his finger to lips and disappeared around the corner I of Wall and Nassau streets." In Berlin the address given me was a small, second- class. hotel. I sent a note asking him for luncheon, but received no answer until two days later, when I got a telegram of regret from Rotte1~dam, to which were added the words: "They rush me to the west." He was then en route to Pekin. How he was able to get out there at that moment of the world's history I know not. On China's declaration of war, which it was report- ed he was able to delay for some time { and which since the Shantung adjudgment the Chinese are said to imme:i;i.sely regret), he began another fantastic jour- ney, which he brought to a successful end. After a short period as Minister to Norway, in July, 1918, he reappeared as Minister of Foreign Affairs for the space of a few weeks, to be replaced ( he was in an untenable and useless situation and must have known it) by Dr. W. S. Solt VICTORIANO HUERTA 253 When I was in Alsace visiting the French Military · Mission, those days preceding · the .Armistice, his name was picked out of the gossipy air one day by Commandant Poulet-as among the Parlemen- tarians. He was not in the final list, however. It would have been another position untenable to one whose pride and devotion are equally boundless. CHAPTERXXI January 1, 1914-Pass Christian-The "Humbling" of Mexico City-Some Idiosyncrasies of Huerta. Seeing how difficult it is, even with unlimited ink and paper and a button-holed public ( which, whether it will or not, must read and listen), to throw light on the Mexican scene, we can realize the desperation that Huerta felt at his powerlessness to dispel Wash- ington's ignorance of a si~uation that it insisted on regulating; and time was passing. His impromptu New Year's speech of 1914 at Chapultepec was, as his public l:tterances always were, most polite. He stated • that he knew Mexico was not the equal of great Pow- ers like England, Spain, France or Germany, genially ignoring both the United States and my expectant eye as I stood but two removes from him at the table in Maximilian's dining room where the New Year's refreshments were served. He said he realized, too, that she . had not their many blessings of culture and enlightenment. He then compared Mexico to a minor, an adolescent, but possessing a right to her own de- velopment along her own lines. He begged the mercy and the patience of the Powers. I found his speech both tragic and touching, and bearing little resem- blance to the arrogant demands of the Carrancista government since so familiar to us. The next occurrence, the "Conference' · ' at . Pass Christian on January 3rd, ~o eagerly awaited by all, 254 VICTORIANO HUERTA 255 p r oduced a few thistles, but no _ fruit. Mr. Lind, borne there o n th e wi ngs of a battleship to meet the President , was "very satisfied with the progress of th e rebe l s" in ge n era l. Mr. Bryan was further to puz z le the n at io ns by stating that Villa was an "ideal- i st , " a n d Mr . W il s on that "he was perhaps the safest m a n to tie to." · Th is po te n ti ally momentous occasion was found in the end to have r e sembled a play depending on sce nery and general stage setting for effect rather than on the pith of its dialogue, which in this ca s e se e ms to have turned largely, as Mr. Lind in- formed both his friends and his enemies, on the sins and offenses of the Catholic Church. This informa- tion was the result of certain observations he had made from the rather restricted perspective of that dim back Consulate room in Vera Cruz. That the Church worked in conformity with the laws of race and climate, modifying them where it could, other- wise accepting them, was a fact out of the range of vision of the patio door. . The mysteries of a people's political and economic destiny seem to have occupied but a brief part of the four-hour play at Pass Christian. The villain was certainly doomed, which was all that mattered. But Mr. Lind was in as unfortunate _ a position for · the reception and giving of information as a tin pan turned upside down, having earned the contempt of those whose plans he was there to further, and the hatred of those whose plans he was there to thwart. So only what these two fairly comprehensive portions of the population did not mind spilling was brought to his attention. ,I 256 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Sugges , tions for "humbling" the City of Mexico, which Mr. Lind had found "very proud," were also made at Pass Christian, as Mr. Lind further confided to various friends, who in turn confided it to his enemies. The suggestions were largely concerned with aiding the ungrateful Villa to get there, and later the equally thankless Carranza. From the be- ginning the idea of both the President and Mr. Lind was the elimination of Huerta by domestic rather than by foreign warfare. It looked so much better. The "humbling" of the proud city has since been thoroughly accomplished. The only difference be- tween that procedure and the ageless methods applied to Carthage and Warsaw, is in the name. It was known as "service," even "human service" ; and the hundred million comprising the United States ac- cepted it, at the time, as such. Looking back on it all, it seems incredible. Mr. Wilson from the first was essentially non- fatalistic concerning Mexico and left nothing to God 1 which is often the supremest expression of statecraft; for if we will it or not, world forces, time and change, are stronger than separate desires, even of hate. The facts of the Mexican situation were, however, 1 I had the other day the following bit of conversation with Turk· han P::isba, the chief of the Albanian mission to the Peace Confer- ence apropos of whom the winged remark went about Paris that '' in proportion as the nations are small the men representing them are great, and in proportion as the nations are great the men representing them are small. ' ' I:-" Bonjour, and how aJ.'e things goingt" Turkhan Pasha:-'' Comme-ci, comme-1.}a,'' with a gesture whose expression lay almost entirely in the movements of his :fingers. '' But I am a fatalist. One must leave something to God,-and that ' is what no one in the Conference has yet done,'' he ended with an easy and tolerant smile, though some of the wisdom of the ages lay in his eyes, and much of it in his words. , VICTORIANO HUERTA 257 then to be seen, as they are to-day to be seen, and are as visible as the White House from the south side of Lafayette Square-if you are looking that way. The optical delusion unfortunately persists, but it would seem at last time to let the Mexicans attend to themselves, there is every chance that they will do it better than we. When Huerta asked the American Charge what was the upshot of the Pass Christian Conference and was told - there was no change, his face remained perfectly impassive. He proceeded with an almost sublime self-control and a wisdom that should have had its reward, to regulate several rather large and pressing American claims. How often he said, "I don't ask help from your gov- ernment, but don't help my enemies, and I w:ill do what I can for you." The situation was almost en- tirely a personal equation, and the quite pathetic eagerness of Huerta to please the United States in- creased as time went on, and he more and more un- derstood the imminence of disaster if he were not recognized . . His public mentions of President Wilson were always couched . in terms of extreme respect and courtesy, as were they in any private conversation between himself and the American Charge d' Affaires. It was always, "Su Excelencia el Senor P.res.idente _ Wilson"-"El Ilustrado Presidente de Usted,'·' your learned President, etc. This unfailing tact and courtesy was what made the continuance of personal relations between him and the American Charge · d'Affaires possible. Some will say that this was his craftiness and turn it to his discredit, but from what- ever motive his politeness proceeded, under any and 258 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTOR Y every provocation, to the last, when he was desperate, brought to bay, his patience and his self-control per- mitted him to con t inue it. What he really thought, or what he said to others, I know not,-though I sus- pect. The glance of Huerta, even half concealed behind t hose big glasses, had something strange and arrest- ing about it, though he might be talking in his usual debonair manner of pleasant and easy promises. That Mexican pony and saddle for my little boy that he used to terrify me by the playful menace of whenever we met, belonged fortunately to that same incorporeal species as the sheep roasted whole, under · the earth, in a certain kind of ashes, that he used periodically to promise to send to the wife of the French Minister .. Both these entirely subjective be- ings formed, however, easy and engaging subjects of conversation. His entry into matters of greater mo- ment with the men of the Diplomatic Corps, by a grin and the demand, "y las muchachas" ( "and the girls"), was also but a short and genial way of get- ting to matters of national concern. He knew that all men are grass, and a dig of the Presidential :fist in a diplomatic rib often accompanied such ques- tions. It was somewhat like an Anglo-Saxon's in- troductory mention of the weather, and was not peculiar to Huerta. Reports of it, however, gave him a bad name in certain latitudes, where such customs prevail only after dark. Huerta's true passion was recognition. For it he would have bartered his soul, and his failure to win the favors of that heartless mistress will remain VICTORIANO HUERTA 259 among the tragedies of Mexican history. His acces- sory obsession was "pacificaci6n." If he ever slept, except at hours inconveni~nt to others, is not recorded. When the request for a train to take ex-President Madero to Vera Cruz was pr~- sented, he was asleep, and had given orders not to be disturbed. It recalls the sleep of the conqueror he so admired on the morning of the battle of Wat e rloo. The reports of his labors placed them generally very late at night or just before dawn, when, not having eaten for many hours, his Indian brain was highly intuitive, active, suspicious, but without fear, his conscience doubtless also presenting, after the classic manner of men in analogous situations, no ob- stacles to the consummation . of his ends. That an im - mense personal pride and ambition, a boundless desire for justification in the world's eye accompanied all this, I am also sure. He believed in his Star unto its fatal setting· in the dark waters of the Rio Grande. He had, too, that pervading and serene assurance com - mon to all revolutionarios come to power, with which I grew familiar, combined with a special sense of his own worth, old condottiere that he was. Doubtless in the bottled company of those whom his enemies called his "best friends;" Hennessy and Martell, he evolved plans and strategies for the "pacification" of Mexico which, though difficult _ of fulfillment, would not have been impossible, except for the old man of the sea, in the shape of the United States, that he found on his back. His retreat, spirituous, not spiritual, as it was sometimes called, at Popotla, on the outskirts of 260 J:NTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Mexico City was described to me as the last expres- sion of simplicity, though in the American news- papers it was depicted as a gilded haunt of luxury and vice, its Sardanapalian orgies being often re- counted in detail. It was really composed of three small rooms, one of which contained a large but cheap table and some cane-seated chairs which were used by such cabinet ministers as could get in. (We have seen like situations since.) Cabinet meetings, one military attache was wont to say, generally con- s , isted of Huerta himself and advisers in the shape of "copitas." He certainly needed no help to throw the Washington ultimata into the waste-paper basket. Allusions to Huerta's drinking became a habit, "une idee fixe." No one, however, that I knew, had ever seen him really intoxicated. They had at most seen a peculiar and concentrated steadiness in his eyes, and an increase in courage. · In another room was a small iron bed, over which was flung a sarape, and the most diminutive of wash- stands and wash-basins. The third room was a sort of kitchen, presided over by a wrinkled old "solda- dera," who could be seen fanning the coals of the · . primitive "brasero" with the traditional turkey-wing, when preparing the more than simple repasts of the President, comprised largely of enchiladas, tortillas, tomales, and other classic Mexican dishes with a good _ deal of chili, the Indian's salt, thrown in. Such was the "haunt," really only a place where, away from the palace and his home, he found a some- what relative quiet. He cared little for personal com- fort and less for pomp and 1uxury. And is it not natur~l that he, a full-blooded Indian with primi- VICTORIANO HUERTA 261 t i v e habits and instincts of abstemiousness, added to th e hard training of guerilla and otp.er warfare, should have cared little for thein? In this he re- sembled many generals of history, and he would have betrayed his type had he shown any desire for the rumored Capuan delights. The Popotla retreat had furthermore a high wall about it, and driving past it one always saw a few Indians lounging or lying about the entrance, bear- ing little resemblance to any Prretorian guard, nor giving any hint of Cresarean splendors within. On leaving the house in the Calle Liverpool where he dwelt with his family in the early months of his incumbency, he removed, not to Chapultepec Castle, which would have been in tradition, and his right, but to a quiet, unpretentious house, though attrac- tive in the Mexican way of large rooms and sunny, flower-planted patio, in the Calle Alfonso Herrera, a quiet and unfashionable quarter, reminding one of F Street in Washington, west of Lafayette Square. There was nothing that indicated the money-lover in Huerta. 1 His aim and his desire were other. He had a dream, too, and be it said to his credit, he dreamed few at his country's expense, of being in Washington, a man in a black frock coat talking statecraft, practical statecraft, with other men in black frock coats. ~e knew nothing about "breaking _ :1 The statement before the Congressional Committee of Mr. William Bain Mitchell of the Banco de Londres y Mexico is enlightening. On the occasion of the loan demanded by Huerta from the various banks in Mexico City for the purpose of stamping out the Carranza revolt, the witness states that though packages of bank-notes which had been delivered to the Treasury of the Government were returned to the bank of which he was manager for the purpose of buying drafts on Europe for various members of the government, in no case did he ever see a draft bought in favor of Huerta. Q62 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY _ the heart of the world," or "making the world safe for democracy," or about "wars to end war," or any of the matters we have so abundantly learned about since. But he knew a spade when he saw it, and he often called it a "bloody shovel," or the Spanish equivalent, which is worse. "After the country is pacified," he once said to the American Charge, "I am going to Washington in my best clothes," and here he took off his top hat, looked at it lovingly, smoothing its furry spots with that small bronze hand of his, "just to show them that I am not a blood-smeared savage clad in a breech-clout, with a bottle of aquardiente in one hand and a machete in the other." The diplomatic receptions were held at the Castle, and as may be imagined, were as many-sided as Huerta himself. His "society" acts were ingenuous and like nothing else that I have ever seen, resem- bling not at all the cosmopolitan ·"correction" of the de la Barra receptions, nor the "fade" provinciali ty of those of Madero. Sometimes they were gay and short, sometimes they were long and sad. Sometimes Huerta talked, and sometimes he didn't. They all, however, bore the sta;mp of his personality and his mood. The first was given on the 19th of November, when the hand of the super-flumine Lord was heavy upon him, and he was already busily engaged in getting rid of members of his cabinet, who were more impatient and less optimistic than he of "recognition" and its attendant advantages, and who doubtless got on his nerves. His methods and manners, too, were at times probably unpleasant, and it was beginning to be VICTORIANO HUERTA 263 apparent that he was unlucky, the greatest of all crimes in a public man. ( In getting rid · of his cab- inet, however, he but presaged the later methods of his illustrious antagonist to the north.) Villa was running true to type in and about Torreon. Mr. Lind had just taken an impatient de- parture from Mexico City after what the Belgian minister, M. May, called his second "fausse couche," the first having taken place the previous August. The convening of Congress, which had been set for the 15th, was delayed. The American charge was in possession of one of the periodical ultimata, though for two days he had been unable to find Huerta, to deliver it to him, as he knew for what he was being sought. Garza Aldape, Minister of Interior, had just made one of those forced descents from the Plateau to Vera Cruz and Europe, with which we afterwards became so familiar. The diplomats thought the ultimatum, when delivered, would mean war. It was under these conditions of what might be called seismic disturbance that the first official re- ception of the President and his wife took place. Everything was extremely well done on this occasion. To whom this was owing, I know not; there was an abundance about the buffet, a multiplicity of lights and flowers that had not been observed during the more provincial and less picturesque Madero regime. But underneath it all were the same secret hostilities, and the sempiternal Mexican personalism at play. He came about six o'clock, walking quickly into the Salon of the Ambassadors to the strains of the national anthem, and looking scrutinizingly about 264 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY him . The assembly rose. I was presented, which presentation was the "clou," under existing poli t ical conditions, of the reception . He was of an e x t r eme courtesy, regretting that "so good a lady" ( tan buena Senora) as I should find matters still strained on her return; that he hoped for a wa y o u t o f the very natura l difficulties, and pe r hap s , wi t h a sm il e , "now that y o u have returned, things m a y take a t u rn for the better . " It was such a wel- co me as an y head of a nation trained in courtesies mi g ht have o ffered under similar circumstances. W i th H u er t a , It was pure instinct . The n ex t reception, on December 17th, lacked the sn ap and g o of the first . Huerta was silent and pre o cc u pied . The champagne had scarcely been p o u red when he gave his arm to Madame Lefaivre, who was on h i s right and, wines and viands untasted, h e l ed t he way back into the Salon of the Ambassa- do r s, f r om which he shortly d isappeared . After which the re c e ptio n fe ll, as it were , automatically to pieces. The interior :financ ia l si tuation was then very bad . Eno rm ous runs on the Banc o N acional and the Banco de Londres y M ex ico w e r e ta ki ng place and many shops were hanging out si g n s t o th e effe ct t hat no tes of certain states in the north like Chih ua hu a, Coa - huila, Queretaro, etc., would nof be acc e pted. H u e rt a was also faced with the im m inence of an act mo s t repugnant to his pride and against his common sense, the repudiation of the Foreign Debt. Fiat money was making its disturbing appear- ance on the fiscal scene, and Carranza's voice was :tirs.t br.eijthed over the Mexican Eden in really VICTORIANO HUERTA 265 audible accents ( with an empty echo of gold and sil- ver) when he began in the north in 1913 to accost the uncorrupted Porfirista-Limantourian currency. He proved himself a sad rake wh~re it was con- cerned, for it promptly fell from its proud estate, and became the constitutionalista fiat money, a scan- dal to the country and a stumbling-block unto the nations. Bills began to appear shamelessly and quite inade• quately covered with but one signature, . often simply that of the nearest and most interested jefe-politico. The charms of these bills were sometimes enhanced, though insufficiently for purchasing purposes, by the picture of a high-busted, floating -haired female. Others had a design of crossed guns and bandolier in one corner, in the oblique lower corner were the volcanoes smoking to heaven, while the bias space between the corners had the untraceable name, "Lopez" (like to Smith or Jones), almost concealed in an unending, labyrinthian flourish. 2=lut 8,11 this was no more substantial than a dew-sprinkled cob- web, when taken to a real bank, where there was a real receiving-teller. Thrifty men began to get anx- ious, and they have been anxious ever since. If the story of the Carrancista :finances did not mean ruin to Mexico, and the sealing up of the treas- ure house of the world to the nations of the earth, since gone bankrupt, it would be comedy pure and simple, and would bring some sort of a sickly smile to the face of him who surveys it, even if he has "invested in Mexico" and is a "liar." At the reception given on the 18th of March to celebrate the betrothal of Victor, his second son, and / / 266 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY the daughter of General Hernandez (whose head, it is reported, was subsequently given to General Obre- gon on a platter for a Christmas pre~ent), Hu e rta was in fine foather. The plot was thickening, but the conservative elements were at last out in force. It was Mexico ~gainst the United State s , rather than Mexican against Mexican, and much was po s sible. The upper classes in their various iniquitous form s , notably land-owners, financiers, savants, etc., w e re to the fore. There seemed to be some promise of cohe- sion, something that Huerta could count on within the country. He had called that morning a meeting which had been attended by various important hacen- dados . , in which he had begged their support in the national crisis. Their attitude had evid e ntly been very satisfactory. His wife, too, was smiling. Her handsome face, generally grave, was lighted by a look of happi _ ness in her fine eyes, noticeably fine in a race in which, whatever else of form and feature may be lacking, the eyes are almost invariably beauti- ful,-large-socketed, with something deep and dark in brow and lash, and a beautiful smooth oval shadow underneath. All was set off by a really good dress of white silk veiled with fine black lace, the famous big round diamond so much discussed, hanging about her neck. The "tearless old man," electric, magnetic, car- ried off the occasion in a masterly way. Of his speech on that occasion, I would recall here but one sentence: "Struggle is the essence of life, and those who are not called on to struggle, are forgotten of heaven." Concerning his own marital relations, he alluded to himself as "a model," adding, after a slight pause, VICTORIANO HUERTA 267 when one of the diplomats whispered to me that the big diamond was probably the offering of a contrite heart--"but a mediocre one." He received the felicitations of the guests with a genial and courteous cordiality. It was the last time I saw him in that mood. Events were rolling up with immense momentum. The next and ultimate reception was on the 15th of April. The "Tampico incident" had happened. The officials were all more or less uneasy, the few wives and daughters at the reception, silent and em- barrassed. It was a Balshazzar's feast. Never had those walls been more scrawled with signs. Within the week Vera Cruz was taken, and the juggernaut disfavor of Washington had started out to crush Mexico and her people. Huerta was then in the last ditch and doubtless knew it. It may have been a relief after the wearing suspense, the endless defer- ring of hope, the continual acrobatics necessary to preserve his balance. After a long talk with the American•Charge behind the closed doors of the bed- room next the large Salon, the assembly awaiting on the palm-banked terrace, listening to the Rurales clad in their silver embroidered costumes, white felt hats with a heavy cord of scarlet repeating the flam- ing note of their cravats, he suddenly appeared. Expression was wiped from his face, which was like a mask. He came straight to me, offering his arm. But the Chef du Protocol headed him off, the minis- tress of Guatemala being his destiny . r was put on his left. He was restless and silent. I quoted him the pacifying but untrue words of ~anta Teresa: "La paciencia todo lo alcanza" ( patienc e attains all 268 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY things). "Patience,-! am made of it," he said in the course of the conversation that followed, I embar- rassed, he desperate; he added, "I keep my mouth shut," and pulled his lips together and frowned deeply. I remember feeling an odious and guilty un- easiness. It is only comfortable to crush the weak at a distance. I felt like both the upper and nether mill- stone, with Mexico between. I complimented him on his speech of the day before at the barracks, which had really been a masterpiece for a man keeping his bal- ance on the edge of the abyss. His face relaxed for a moment when I said it might have been delivered 1 by the Emperor of Germany to his troops. He thanked me with something grateful yet desperate in his look, but for the rest, as any gentleman anywhere would have acknowledged a compliment. His coat seemed to hang loosely over his sh<?ulders, and there was something shrunken in his body. The next day he discarded the frock coat and top hat which he had told the American Charge that he intended always to wear, as it "gave more dignity,'' and was seen in a slouch hat and a thick, formless gray sweater. During this harassed period, he outlined what to many seemed a practical policy for the solu- tion of the agrarian question in Mexico. He was often heard to say that next in importance to the restoration of order was that of working out some plan by which the people, after due preparation, would have an interest in the land, and therefore some vital reason for desiring and maintaining peace. After witnessing the fiasco of the Madero plan for the di~tribution of lands, which was as impossible of VICTORIANO HUERTA 269 ful:fillme _ nt as slicing up the moon, he meant to try other means. He saw no reason for holding uut to the people the suicidal delusion that they could get it other than by their own efforts and hold it other · than by their own labor. The land problem, as far as his struggles with the United States and with the internal enemies of the government permitted, was much in his mind. But during his incumbency the demand unfortunately was on nearly all occasions for the sword rather than the plow. Indian himself, he knew what land means to the Indian-not a spot that he has paid for and been taxed for. It is more . It is ambience, tradition, en- vironment, deathless group-instinct of the past. From it he draws the breath not alone of his body, but of his spirit. And ignorant as the Indian has been and is and will be, he feels for his land atavistically something that the spry tenant-farmer of northern latitudes and modern times can never feel. If we look at the facts in the case, as , early as the March after Huerta's accession to power, his gifted Secretary of the Treasury, Toribio Esquivel Obre- g(m, introduced before Congress a bill that asked in the President's name for an appropriation of seven millions of pesos to buy lands for the purpose of dis- tributing them among the poor in certain farming districts, not dependent for success on non-existent irrigation processes. One of his last public civil acts before the breaking off of diplomatic relations ~m the 23rd of April, 1914, and at which I was not able to be present, was the distribution of land in person to Indians in the valley of Mexico. It _ was about this time that he was also preparing to send representa- 270 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY tives to the Electro-Technical Congress to be held in Berlin, and that his persecuted government was still :finding time to discuss such matters as the subter- ranean hydrology of the Plateau. When Congress reopened on the 1st of April, the week before the fatal "Tampico Incident," Huerta showed a rare emotion when the American Charge d' Affaires told him he could not be present. Prob- ably he then foresaw death and disaster. He wound up his speech to the Chamber by say- ing: "Before I leave this hall, I must engrave upon your hearts this my purpose, which on another occa- sion I communicated to the National Assembly, in the most explicit manner, the peace of the Republic. If in order to secure it the sacrifice of you and me becomes indispensable, we will know how to sacrifice ourselves. This is my purpose, my profession of political faith." . . . . · The sight of Huerta at the Cafe Colon and at "El Globo," sitting before a table with the damning "copita" in front of him, talking sometimes jokingly with thos . e accompanying him, sometimes silent, be- came familiar to all. In his automobile, going up the Paseo, through the Park gates en route for Popotla, he was also a frequent figure, followed by one or more automobiles filled with ignored cabinet ministers in frock-coats and eager generals, new and old, in decora- tion-hung uniforms, who had not achieved an audience at his last stopping place, or who had seen Huerta prepare to depart when they . were in the middle of a sentence. He let his followers bore him as little as possible. , Eve~ Huerta's fifth or sixth ' Minister for Foreign VICTORIANO HUERTA 271 Affairs, Querido Moheno, mutated from a - clever but chauvinistic and somewhat turbulent Deputy, and whose ardors Huerta doubtless thought to cool by the responsibilities of a Portfolio, could be seen on the chase. One of the diplomats told him he looked like Mirabeau and doubtless he wished to save Huerta as his prototype did the Court. Possessing real oratori- cal gifts, his great head, with its bushy hair, gener- ally thrown back his small, brilliant eyes lighting his swarthy face, he was perhaps not unlike the great Tribune. His successor, Portillo y Rojas, thin, pale, well- dressed, anxious, and honest, was less given to the elusive sport of running the President to earth, but even he, as well as the other Ministers, were apt to keep it up as long as breath and strength lasted. Both pursued and pursuers dashing down the broad avenue remain in my memory as figures , with outstretched legs on some antiqu~ frieze representing a chase. All judgments being subjective, the least one can do is to give one's own testimony rather than another's. Some study of Huerta will show him to have been at all moments of his destiny a man stand- ing in high relief against events, imparting color to whatever he touched; something vivid, vigilant, and unafraid continually emanated from his person. Indeed his dauntless pp.ysical courage, in both big and little things, was his greatest natural gift and reacted magnetically upon those about him. It was known that he went by preference to a barbe;r whose brother he had had executed and who had sworn 272 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY vengeance against him; yet day after day the Presi- dential throat was calmly presented to · his razor. Another determining attribute was that peculiar, m u:ffled, drum-like cadence of his voice. It was the martial tone and though not loud was as a call to arms. Opinions about what he · did and said, as well as what he was, were generally conflicting even at the moment of their occurrence. Time has but further confused instead of clarifying them. A French diplomat, now safe in what he calls ''le port des lettres," said to me the other day, illustra- tive of divergent opinions as to a happening fo the Peace Conference/ that during one of the aerial bombardments of Paris, he and a friend, after some hours in a cellar, issued forth to see if the raid was over. It was not, and near the door a man was lying dead. On his return to his cave-dwelling companions he was asked what he had seen. He replied that just outside was a workman in a blue blouse lying dead. His companion, who had looked upon the same spec- tacle, said: "But no, it was a poilu in his blue tunic." It was the subjective fact, which is as near as blind mortals ever get to the truth, and our only guide as we go feeling· our way through life. It will forever be the supreme individual treachery not to hold to it. One may be led into many wrong paths, but they can never be as disastrous as that leading to the abyss of hearsay. 1 As no minutes were kept of these informal and cloistered meetings, by which the fate of Europe, Asia and Africa wa.s decided, the emi- nent statesmen attending them could never be pinned down to d efinite statements. '' I didn't say that,'' or '' I didn't mean to give that impression," was the usual remark when reference was made to dis- cussions of the day or the week or the month before. It proved to be neither~ simple nor as satisfactory as it seemed at the time. CHAPTER XXII The Raising of the Embargo, February, 1914. Huerta ' s position at the :c : 1.0ment of the raising of the Embargo on arms and ammunition into Mexico from the United States was formidable, from the point of view of "pacifi.caci6n." He had over 50,000 troops and could get more. He had control of the Federal Revenues, and he saw his way to a sub- stantial interior loan. The aristocratic classes were behind him, willingly or unwillingly is a detail. The example of Don Luis Garcia Pimental is probably a fair one. In his usual high-handed manner Huerta had exacted con- tributions, Don Luis having immense sugar planta- tions. He had replied, ''Give me men to harvest and I will give you contributions.'' Huerta gave the men; Don Luis the contributions. The clergy were with him, impious as he was, for he represented legality. A large per cent of what we- once styled the intellectuals, now more modishly called the "intelligentsia," were with him. So were the rural classes ( with the exception of the Morelos Indians, strongly commanded by Zapata), and the lower urban classes, too, wanted peace, peace. Of course the business world wanted it, and was . ready to aid in its establishment. Huerta , had fur- thermore been recognized by every great and Ii ttle ' 273 . 274 INTIMATE PAGES 0:b., MEXICAN UIS'l'ORY power, whose representatives found themselves treated with courtesy and their demands with con- sideration. Such was his eagerness to please the United States that he would have decimated a Mexi- can regiment to give satisfaction for the loss of an American life, had it been asked of him. Things had not been so promising since the Augus- tan Period. His Mexican enemies he could easily have handled. Villa was held anathema by the British. The Ben- ton murder case, with Villa, the murderer, untried, was contrary to all British precedent, which upholds the dignity of its subjects at any cost ( which, how- ever, never comes so high as not doing it). The Terrazas ransom matter and the excesses in Durango and in Tamaulipas, the looting of Chihuahua, even at that early date, made all very doubtful if Villa were really "a safe man to tie to." Carranza himse~f was at that time quite negligible. He had no soldiers except a few State troops, no arms nor ammunitions-, and he had no support from m . en in the capital who had known him but as a silent and somewhat lethargic senator in the Federal Con- gress. Senor Rabasa who had sat by him for fifteen . years had never even heard the sound of his voice. He was, however, of excellent presence, his face having, indeed, been his fortune. He was nearing the end of middle life. In the warmth of Washington we all know what hatched from that dry old cocoon. Pandora's box is nothing to it. It has been said that President Wilson's horror of Huerta sprang from his own great virtue, but even so he 13eems . , as . some one has pointed out, scarcely justified, in the punishment VICTORIANO H U ER T A 275 on circumstantial evidence only of murder, b y dragging 15,000,000 human beings int o a fra t ri cidal war. As Mr. Wilson's duties at h o me at that time prevented him from engaging in the affa i rs of th e world, and unfortunately rendered it qu i te im pos - sible for him to take over the government of Me xico himself/ and to carry out his views for th e 85 pe r cent thoroughly in his own way, on the princip le th a t if you want a thing well done, do it y o urself, th e only reasonable alternative was to let the w o rk b e done in their way, by a man who happened to b e t h e legal President of his country. Acc o rdi n g t o t h e con st itu- tion of Mexico he was even as legal as Mader o , t h o u g h there were certain superficial differe n ces abou t his legality that made it l e ss o ft ener o n h i s ton g u e . When therefore on the 3 r d of F e b r u a ry the Em- bargo was raised, the M e x ic a ns were committed to a fratricidal war, that s t ill, a fter seven years, is in full vigor; for only fr o m th e blood of b r others could the etiolated being of the Carr anza fa ction g ai n size and strength to fight the str ong cent r al power. The pos- sibility o f t his hi d e o u s nou ri shmen t was supplied from abroad . The war that w e b r ou g h t about leading to the trium p h o f Ca rra nza o v er the est a blished gov- ernment of his count ry i s as sanguinary, as anti-social , as destr uctive of th e rights of men and of property as any tha t was eve r waged. It was decreed on the 3rd d a y of F ebruary, 1913, and a free and great and ju st ice-loving people allowed it. On that day there w as the usual courtesy, but a gravity in the manner of 1 The observation of the witty Frenchman was still on the lap of the g o d s , or r a ther on th a t of the P ea ce Conference, to the effect tl rn , t though the dictum of Lo-qis XIV had been, '' I am the State,'' Mr. Wilson's was, '' I am all the States.' ' 276 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY the heads of Missions to w horn the American Charge communicated the fact, in conformity with his or- ders. In every man's heart lay a great though unspoken reproach. The Spanish Minister, who had been so helpless in face of the cruel disasters that had befallen his nationals, largely as a result of our fancy for Villa, made but a weary gesture of accept- ance. It was doubtless to him but one more inex- plicable and cruel mistake. The French Secretary was polite, but quite impassive. He was marri e d to the sister of the man, General Rincon Gallardo, who, as Chief of the Rural Guard, was doing admirable work in keeping order. There was indeed nothing to be said. The German Minister, who was seen later in the day, remarked quietly and very coldly, "Another step to Panama." Later I drove out with Lady Carden, sitting afterwards · with her in the parched, new gar- den of the Legation. Sir Lionel, though perfectly polite, was aghast, realizing the magnitude of the disaster. He was a man of very handsome face and bearing in th~ traditional, blond English way. Standing at the door, the brilliant light of that Feb- ruary noon-tide revealed the trouble of his spirit. He saw a whole people, by the stroke of an alien pen, being precipitated over the abyss. As a man held in an evil dream, he could make no gesture to warn them from a disaster so avertible. It was not until · evening that the American Charge was able to track Huerta to the Palace. He drove hastily there to inform him of the decree, in con- formity with his orders from Washington. It wa~ about 7 :30. The British Minister was with the • I VICTORIANO HUERTA 277 President, whose voice could be heard raised in vio- lent protest, the door being half open. The American Charge thought that Huerta had at last lost patience, and prepared himself for the worst. After a few minutes the interview terminated. The President accompanied Sir Lionel to the door, bade him fare- well, and stood courteously waiting while the bearer of the evil news passed in. He was suddenly quite calm, and had never been more polite nor more friendly. He did not mention President Wilson, but said very quietly that the raising of the Embargo would but give a recognized name to the smuggling over the border that had been going on for several years. He repeated many times that the future would justify him and his acts, that the whole atti- tude of the American government towards him was "una persecuci6n." He never flinched, though his mind must have taken note of the new and probably insurmountable difficulties with which he was faced. On the termination of the interview he ordered the classic "copitas," and said rather pathetically that he greatly appreciated the Charge's4Courteous atti- tude in those difficult days, that he was "muy neces- sario" to the situation, and that he would still hope for some solution of matters. The interview then terminated, Huerta accompanying the Charge to the door, as he had done the British Minister. There was no different measure in his courtesy. Such was the fatal day of February 3rd, 1914. CHAPTER XXIII Huerta's Military Ability-His Typical Attitude Toward ''Religion'' -A Conversation Concerning the Mystical Life of the Indian and the Conversion o f Sinners. Huerta's conduct of the campaign in Morelos against Zapata was marked by energy, decision and considerable :finesse, and would have borne early fruit, but for certain mysterious deterrent forces, always· handicapping any military plans he made. The Minister of War, Gonsalez Salas, even made the statement, towards the end of Mr. de la Barras in- cumbency, that in three days after Madero assumed power the Zapata question would be solved. There naturally followed lively discussions in the Chamber of Deputies as to what that magic word would be, and if it were to be said that it might as w 11 be said quickly. It was not, however, until to Huerta was en- trusted the campaign against Orozco that his mili- tary genius became apparent. This miniature cam- paign, for he never had more than 7,000 men under his command and we are since accustomed to speak of millions of men arrayed against other millions, was, however, a model of generalship; the great military qualities were all shown by him, as well as some foreshadowing the ability he displayed in the greater contest between himself and the President of the United States. His advance from Rellano to 278 VICTORIANO HUERTA 279 Bachimba in that June and July of 1912 was a series of brilliant victories. He became the "military genius" of the hour, and we have seen how potential is that role. His prestige increased from moment to moment. Later the music we all stepped liveliest to in Mexico City was the Bachimba March, where he completely routed Orozco, and the Rellano Waltz, where he had wiped out the stain of General Gon- salez Salas' retreat with the Federal troops, after the crushing blow struck by Orozco. That Huerta and Orozco were one day to lie side by side in the Concordia Cemetery of El Paso was on the lap of the gods. The curious Fourth of July reception marking Orozco's defeat, that the Maderos held at Chapultepec, had nothing to do with the weighty and august f es- tival of the step-sister Rep~blic to the north. Ex- cept by polite and mindful colleagues, we were only incidentally congratulated as we took our departure. The single subject of conversation was the Bachimba battle of the day before, the flight of Orozco towards the American border, and the entry of Huerta at the head of his victorious troops into the Chihuahuan capital. Both the President and Madame Madero were radiant at the rout of the man in whom, not six months before, they had placed the fullest faith. The walls of the Castle of Chapultepec were quite thickly scribbled with writing, yet nobody looked or read. A strange wind came up as tea was being served on the Pompeian Terrace, designed under Maxi- milian, bringing with it a short, almost terrifying, darkness. Everything was blown about, vases over- turned, there was a great flapping of table-cloths, 280 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY a holding on of hats, and it was impossible to follow the President's speech. His last words to me as I made my adieux were, "Order is now complete," and I daresay he believed it, though his astute consort, acting along less psychic lines, must have had misgiv- ings. It was the only Mexican campaign where Huerta had a chance to show his gifts, though he was to manifest generalship of a high order .(for which history rather than his contemporaries will give him credit), in keeping, during long months, out of the strategical traps laid for l_!im above the Rio Grande. But no man can escape not simply his fate, but the laws of nature, which work so inexorably that lesser things must be destroyed by greater things and weak- ness must give way to force. Governmental protection of the enemies of government was his mischance every- where, from the partiality of Madero for Zapata in the Morelos campaign, to the partiality of the United States for Villa and Carranza in his "Amerlcan" campaign. And a general must have luck. A word as to what a somewhat conventional- minded missionary acquaintance called "Huerta's religion." He probably did not ''love Jesus," neither . would he have called for hymns with "more Jesus" in them had he been at Sunday-school. His true attitude was doubtless uncertainty (not peculiar to himself) as to the essence and shape of the hereafter, mingled with an uneasy feeling that he ought to propitiate whatever gods there be by burnt or other offerings. That he recognized the value of the Catho- lic church to the Indian, that it clothed in actual · form the visions of an Indian race, that he had some instinctive, not theological, knowledge of its supreme VICTORIANO HUE , RTA 281 and vital uses in government, also as an element of prosperity and happiness, I have no doubt. He knew, · too, that society cannot exist without inequality of fortune, and that this inequality is impossible to sup- port without religion. His enemies, and those of the Church, said he desired to sustain the Catholic party to further his own ends. The Catholic party on the contrary, found that the Huertista cymbals, when struck, were apt to give back a faint and uncertain sound. He was in his usual position, on both horns of the dilemma. In the night that shrouds his birth, • one cannot know if he were baptized in the fafth, but he was manied in the faith; he had his children baptized in the faith. As the world knows, he died in the faith. To him the church was as integral a part of Mexico as her seasons, her rainfall and her , droughts. He was mostly respectful and conciliatory to the minis- ters of religion, doubtless recognizing the church as one of the few available rocks on which to build his 1 state; that he was completely uninterested ( except politically) by dogma, I also do not doubt. Ameri- can Missionaries were protected, though not pam- pered, by him, as a part of his policy towards the United States. He knew their labors would be in the end but as seed sown in the wind. He let them sow. I myself am often mindful of · a conversation I once had on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, one late prodi- gally beautiful afternoon with an anxious, . hard- working, conscientious converter of men's souls, who seemed mystifyingly alien, even superfluous, in that riot of vegetation and human nature which is the 282 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Isthmus. Mr. Smith was small of stature, narrow- shouldered, with a red-rimmed yet righteous eye. There was something arrestingly etiolated about him (though perhaps it was only the background), some- what as if his Maker at the hour when his being was decreed had rather stingily thrown in the condi- ments. He didn't like the immemorial way things were done on the Isthmus and he had little solicitude for its beauty. I (though not especially interested) asked, "What form ~s your work taking?" Mr. Smith (authoritatively, determinedly, but somewhat unfortunately) : "We're going to teach them, for one thing, habits of cleanliness." I (surprised) : "But haven't you seen them bathing every evening at sunset in the stream that flows through the town?" I would add for the reader's enlightenment that the entire population, men, women and children, bathe every evening, and without bathing suits either, such is the inherited impulse of the Indian towards water in the Hot Country. All this I indicated, but even more delicately, to Mr. Smith. He (rigidly) : "We want to stop just that sort of thing, and by law, if necessary." I (feeling brighter than I probably was, and de- sirous of meeting him on evangelical grounds) : "St. Paul says, 'through the law came sin.' Why disturb their innocence?" He ( disregarding this remark, facts not scholastic disputation, were pushing him on) : "Another and more important item of our program is to teach them agriculture, . Nine-tenths of them (sweepingly) know VICTORIANO HUERTA 283 nothing about it. We intend to be thoroughly prac- tical in all we do. I've heard they still use forked sticks for plows in many parts of _ the country, and I've seen them with my own eyes cutting large tracts of grass with pieces of tin." I glanced at Mr. Smith. His complexion was that of a man who had lived all his life between walls. I further saw that he had pale hands, with narrow- nailed, short fingers, and I couldn't say if his cravat pin were in the shape of a whip or a rather fanciful cross. "But in Sonora vast stretches are under cultiva- tion, and they even export a huge amount. They'd xport everything if nobody were looking," I ended with a smile, but it evoked none from him. He was in earnest. I began to get restless. The theopneustic methods of agriculture, broad as they were, did not really interest me. At that very moment under a dome of aquamarine and lemon, getting indigo and gold at its edges, down by the high, now fire-red, incandescent mud-banks of their stream, women with long, deeply-flounced skirts of white or pink or blue, the end of the flounce caught up at the waist, making an oblique and flowing Tanagra-like line, were has- tening to their spectrum-colored bath, accompanied by naked brown boys, long-skirted little girls, and men dressed in white shirts hanging out over their trousers, both of which articles they were ready to discard when in sight of the stream. But Mr. Smith had something insistent about him and I delayed. He : ''To come down to brass tacks, we intend to knock all their superstition on the head." 284 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY I: "What are you going to do about the mystical life of the Indian? No one lives by bread alone." His face hardened. He : "Mystical life! Do you know I saw an In- dian tying a poor little bird to the feet of one of those Madonnas the other day?" . I: "He must have been in pretty bad trouble, and needing help"-( tentatively) . . He brushed aside with a single gesture me and the Indian and the bird and the Madonna. "We intend to foster, it will be slow we know, en- tirely different standpoints and habits. The Union Publishing houses, the Institutional Churches, the Social Centers will become to them, in time, what the old town hall is to us, places where they will meet and learn to discuss civic and social problems.'' In a flash I saw them iathering immemorially, and not to the Union Publishing House, not to the Insti- tutional Church, nor to the Social Center, but as for the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe on a biting, hyemal night ( December 12th). Whole families would have come sometimes :fifty kilometers, some- times a hundred, on foot, and many who lived in the outlying villages would have done it on their knees. That crowded, twilight Plaza before the Church re- sembled little and would continue to resemble little the old town-hall evoked by his words. In that cold dusk they might be their own ancestors, so unchanged were they by four hundred Aryan years. Doubtless Mr. Smith's zeal would have redoubled could he have seen the images in their minds of the "Cause of Cau · ses," for before the Church was built, on the same spot, there was a temple to the Aztec Ceres, Tonant- VICTORIANO HUERTA 285 zin, their Mother, too. But whatever it all was, it was their 9wn as much as Mr. Smith's own probably non-resemblant idea of the Deity. Again I put out my hand to take leave of him, but still he held me, saying: "I don't think you quite understand the impor- tance of our work, and the self-sacrifice it entails." (On the lndialns, I hatefully thought.) "Every American man and woman should take a vital in- terest in it." The green fig tree in the garden was become a scarlet-gold. The huacamaia with the red and green head and the blue tail was armored in ruby and emerald and sapphire as it flew out of its burning branches. It was the strange, synthetic, compensatory hour before the fall of tropical night. As in a dream and from a great distance his thin voice reached me : ''We are going to make this country over before we finish." With an effort I answered, for visions of motion- less Indians, with outstretched arms, kneeling in dim churches, besought me: "A country without worshlp which~ the heritage of life and a people whose only treasure it often is--' · ' I was stopped by an invading dismay. He couldn't change the heart of the Indian without breaking it, but he could possibly defeat beauty and love, here on their own ground, and tarnish forever the glory of the "patria chica." I knew then that I was ~ot for Mr. Smith, nor he for me. There was a sure way. 286 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "I'm a papist," I began, but stopped, for startled, he gave me a look such as an uplift worker might give on suddenly discovering a - haunt of vice. The edifice of our conversation fell to pieces, like a jostled house of cards. I contemplated Mr. Smith vaguely, for what I knew was the last time, then forgot him, and went out into the brief twilight, thick and heavy with the scent of an unknown tree in full flower. Sweet, an- cient impulses stirred vaguely within me, but they were not for the conversion of sinners . . f . I . I , CHAPTER XXIV Pr op a ganda as the Finest of Arts and the Most Expensive--Oil- Some of the Blessings of '' Carrancismo' '-Senor Don Luis Cabrera Shows the Corruptible, It Rises Incorruptible-Oil Again. Huerta had no propaganda, and in this twentieth century it has shown itself to be the most powerful weapon of offense and defense ever conceived by man. Any one attempting to µght without it is as a man with a sling before heavy artillery. Its operation on the masses is like concealed fire. It awaits but the moment that is its own. Under Huerta's successful rival it became the finest of arts-though the most expensive. It is a lesson in the way propaganda funds should be handled. Never skimp-after you have taken all you want for yourself. Carranza was even able for the not over-discrimi- nating American public to create a type. It is the most successful thing he did. At an early day one saw on all sides in Washington and New York re- spectable Mexicans, rather silent except when speak- ing of the Constitution, who, as far as nature permitted, became Carrancista in looks as well as deeds. They grew long beards, when they could, were easily thin and dark, and looked old enough to be pas , t the age of follies. When they did open their mouths it was to breathe gently of "Libertad," 287 288 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "Fraternidad" and "La Constituci6n." If they ever raised their voices it was to deplore Don Porfi ri o ' s ' pernicious one-man rule and Huerta's blood t hir sty ways, and above all his horrid, alcoholic tas t e s , for of course none of them eve_r drank anything s t ron ge r than chocofate. They could get any amount of money, together with consignments of arms and am- munition (which last they generally lost to uncamou- flaged bandits prowling along the road between the Rio Grande and Mexico City). A part of the enlightened press of the country fell before their propaganda. Even the "Nation" showed a tendency to treat Carranza as if he were a saint in a niche, and was ready to sell his relics to the faith - ful. The past years have been hard years and we have all sat at school, the school of facts, and the books, alas, have been written in blood; but for all this we still too o.ften mistake black for white, and when we do not happen to be color-blind, fail to distinguish the size or shape of near objects. So convincing indeed was this special propaganda that the "Nation" could print, without a sign of a smile, paragraphs about President Carranza's submitting a law to "clarify" the petroleum situation, when \tis already as clear as day to those who are roboea and those who rob, which two categories are fairly inclusive of all who have to do with petroleum. It could also print an interview with the "divine breath of the fatherland," as one of his eulogists called Carranza, concerning the dissemi- nation of knowledge, where he says, among other things, "In the meantime, my government prefers to VICTORIANO HUERTA 289 give its best efforts to the extension of primary edu• cation." The starving, unpaid teachers, the starving, untaught children and the empty schg.ol buildings , were the facts in the case. However, there was and doubtless continues to be one department of primary (and advanced) education liberally endowed by the government, where the professors are the best to be had for money. This is the education given new fol• lowers of Constitutionalism by their private secre- taries, and is a more systematic corruption of the green and sometimes well-intentioned, land-distribut- ing bandit from the country than ever was practiced on any crown prince or any plutocrat's son for his moral ruin. He is put up to new and scientific ways ~ of despoiling the people (he used simply to take what he happened to see if it pleased him, and he was not out- numbered). In the white)ight of Carrancism he dis- covers a dozen other ways . The secretary further- more tell him all the naughty and pleasant things there are to do in town. In fact educates him thoroughly for his r&le of Liberator, putting him especially through every tense of the new . verb in the Spanish tongue, cwrranciwr, to steal like a Carran- cista. As to such, however, it has been said since a century that it is impossible to have liberty in Spanish America as long as there are Liberators. These last seven lean Mexican years have amply proven it. When the "Nation's" interviewer, sitting in a spacious room of the Palace with the First Chief ( who had previously given him a ''firm hand-clasp, ana a pleasant smile," doubtless also waving his be- nign white beard at him), chirped blithely that Ile 290 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "would be glad to know what may be expected in the way of irrigation and scientific land-culture as a resultof theimpetus,given under your direction,by tke Department of A.griculture"-the italics are mine- the joke was on the 85 per cent, there still was not the ghost of a smile on the "Nation's" face, though it loves this special 85 per cent. Now it is known that one of the results of the impetus given under Carranza's direction was the stripping of the Federal Depart- ments of furniture, books, scientific instruments, records, tapestries, typewriters ( animate and inani- mate), and that of the School of Mines and the Department of Agriculture, he left but the walls. Neither is what happened to the crops themselves a secret as a "resu.J.t of this impetus." But if, according to the propagandists, the sit- uation was 130 satisfactory, why did 130 many Mexicans die daily of starvation and disease, to say nothing of bullets? And why could not the First Chief get a penny's loan from any foreign nation on the face of the earth? Another attractive but cozening cry of the Constitu- tionalists was that raised about the education of the masses, even in the jolly Pre-constitutional days when the constitution performed any acrobatic feat de-· manded of it ~y its owners and exhibitors. It could stand on its head, it could swing by its teeth, and its sleight-of-hand tricks have never · been surpassed any- where or at any time. It was further adorned with the ring of Gyges. But to return to the matter of dissemination of knowledge under the Constitutionalists: The cap- tion of "a revised system of education, from the VICTORIANO HUERTA 291 common free schools all over the republic to the national university at the Capital," was what was presented to the American public ; and they took it in-not all of them, but enough of them. How- ever, one of Mexico City's own newspapers said: "116,311 children of school age in the Federal District (Mexico City and suburbs) are receiving no instruction at all. This figure, which is all the more significant and discouraging in that it relates to a section which is usually considered the most cultured of the Republic, has been taken from the statistical data just published by the Bureau of Education. There being about a million people in the Federal District, there should be about 200,000 children at school . . . . The school census taken at the beginning of the present year (1918), which was 1.1,nqi1,estionably deficient in several respects, shows an enrollment of 89,689 children who are receiving no education at all. These :figures, which offer much food for thought, bring ~ut strikingly the lack of education as compared to former years." This is what appeared after the statement had been seen by the censor. It is also a fact that Carranza, of naturally sluggish and unreacting temperament where educa- tional progress was concerned, was the only governor who opposed the establishment of schools under the auspices of the Federal Government, when Madero, in the execution of a law initiated in the time of Diaz, was trying to further elementary instruction. It appears that in spite of the large appropriations for education, which stayed on paper just long enough to permit of the money being got from wher- 292 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY ever it was and distributed to the nearest, dearest :few within the golden I1ng, the §Chools, with such rare exceptions that they but prove the rule, comprised only those kept as national bric-a-brac in the capital to show to the incidental foreign investigator. ( This last had replaced in the natural Carrancista evolution the almost extinct species of foreign investor, extinct except in the oil regions, where it still persists in spite of predatory tribes and govern- ment :fiats, the lowest forms of biological life being notoriously the most persistent.) The facts are that there were thirty-seven fewer schools in the City of Mexico alone than there were in 1910-though the city was never so crowaed, for everybody goes to town now, as it is well to be near the seat of the "redemptory rebellion" set in the "crystalline-purity of the national ideals." But in the meantime realities, the "realiora," as Ivanoff calls the eternal absolutes, were that the youth of Mexico City slept in her cold, devitalized night streets, awakened to drink from her filthy gutters, stood about the doors of restaurants, if they had strength to get there, hoping for some scraps from the tables of the "Liberators." It was quite natural that the only aml1ition of the boys ' was to become Liberators on the plan they saw so success- fully pursued, and of the girls to get to know a little later (not so much later as in northern climes) some of the Liberators. This is what the bright, strong ones , , boys and girls, saw as the only way out of misery. The others, and their name still is legion, wha.....are ill and stupid drag out the hungry hou~s of the day and the cold hours of the night till VICTORIANO HUERTA 293 they are "redeemed" in another life, or lost in this. Under Porfirio Diaz 11,000 primary scho _ ols were established ( and working) , and these many schools and the opportunity for education they gave, con- tributed to the extraordinary prosperity of Mexico during his rule . Now even the past prosperity of the country, by some singular clouding of the per- ceptions, is held up for anathema and derision. The two men who succeeded Diaz, Madero and Huerta, also furthered as much as lay in their power and situation the development of public instruction. The past, "the true fatherland," was near enough to fling some of its glory about the uncertain present, and there was in both these men, so divergent in their qualities and their defects, some underS'tanding in one of them, some instinct in the other for tlie glory of that past, and both had desires, unborn though they were, for the advancement of Mexico. One of these men failed because of his lack of admin- istrative qualities, the other because of blank spaces in his moral being which singled him out for destruction by the virtuous arbiter of the destinies of the United States of America and those of Mexico. To return once more to the dissemination of knowledge under Carranza. To the suffering of unfed, unoccupied children must be added that of those who in normal times would have taught them. They have been condemned to a misery unknqwn to their colleagues in any part of the world, even in a world where the most important traditionary act, that of imparting knowledge to the young, is always underpaid. One of the reasons for the depopulation of the schools is the fact that in the majority of cases 294 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY the teachers were not paid at all. They had to choose between starvation and the imparting of knowledge to starving children, and some other occupation. The two million and some pesos of the Congressional appropriations for Education could not find their way even to a small number of teachers and schools. Some hand of some Liberator was always waiting to snatch it; for Carranza was feverishly generous in recompensing his friends. Never was any tyrant of ancient or modern times more ready to enrich his upholders than this "everlasting idol of free peoples," as he was called by those he loaded with gifts-they could take anything belonging to anybody through- out the length and breadth of the land. It has been said by a contemporary Mexican of trained and brilliant mind, now, of course, in exile, concerning the generous habits of the First Chief, that: "If one of his friends wins a battle, he gives him one, two or three million pesos (paper), a fine country house, valued at no less than one million 1 (gold), · various town residences in the most fashion- able quarter of the town, and a hundred women chosen from the most beautiful and attractive of the Republic. A Convention further expresses its appre- ciation of h:is services by a vote of thanks, a medal, a diploma, and a further decree that the victor's name be inscribed in letters of , gold upon the tablet in the Convention Hall." Now,. this same man, Senor Bulnes, who knows his country well, having aided in its glories and been witness to _its miseries, says further and finally and from the safe distance of the green isle of Cuba : "In VICTORIANO HUERTA 295 Mexico to steal is to live. Not to steal is to fall into the pit dug for cowards and honest men, the hope of stealing being implanted as deeply in the soul of the revolutionario as the hope of heaven in that of the Christian." Though over a hundred and fifty millions from taxes came into the hands of the Carranza Govern- m e nt, according to the now known returns of the fiscal year of 1918-1919, the government never, even in words (which are cheap enough), approached the delicate subject of the Foreign debt. Even the shower of gold in the oil districts (where the Biblical quotation to the effect that "the oil hath languished" is not to the point though "the ground hath mourned, the corn is wasted and the wine is con- founded"), was no incentive to promises. To inter- estingly illustrate this special propaganda and Article 27 of the new Constitution, why did they not array Carranza as Danae and put hlm in the "movies"? The oil wells could have made Jupiter look like the proverbial thirty cents. The god in the guise of an oil well visiting Carranza in languorous Danaesque attitude in the seclusion of the Palace ( instead of that of the tower of bronze) would, too, have brought mythology up , to date, and incidentally kept interest alive. · Now as to oil: the quite simple facts in the case are that prior to the advent of the foreign oil-devils, the Mexicans either completely ignored their petroleum fields, or had the oozing, horrid indications fenced off so that neither man nor beast, straying, could fall into them and lose his life. As far as the Mexicans I 296 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY were concerned, that was all there was to what has proved to be the determining factor in 20th Century labor. It was - known further to a few pious ones of a studious turn of mind, that it had been used in primal Aztec days to grease the floors of temples. The nation made · the strange mistake of considering Madero as the Messiah. He had, on the contrary, been in their midst in the guise of oil, long before Madero was begotten. To-day the weal th of Mexico is measured by her petroleum; together with what a certain syndically-minded "Libe rator" has left of the hene- quen industry in Yucatan, for of the mines one hears little or nothing. Now the only salvation I see, for Mexico, "liberty" and "service," brotherly love and prayer having been unsuccessful, is oil, and certainly some consideration is due those who discovered its being and its uses. The oil prophets spent rather a long, dry time crying in the desert. Those timidly following them in the delinquent form of investors had cause during some years to think that the prophets they listened to were false . Now the oil companies never pretended to be as Cresar's wife. Mexico, to mix the metaphors and the sexes, was as a difficult mistress, dark, passionate, uncertain and, until they appeared, unknowing of her greatest power. They wooed her in the face of every difficulty, enhancing her charms with such · new and splendid gifts that she became the coveted of the nations and, after the immemorial manner, a source of strife. Then peace came to be the great desideratum, the peace at any price so much descried, the joys of love being notoriously enhanced by VICTORIANO HUERTA 297 relative quiet-if not complete security. The oil men could make Mexico rich, but they found to their sorrow that they could not inflict on ker the appar- ently undesired and undesirable state of _peace. They did (and are doing), however, whatever is possible in the way of paying a high enough price to enough "Liberators" and other competitors for her new loveliness, to command it intermittently .to grace their fabled orgies in the oil -fields. These devotees of oil sometimes lost their lives and frequently all their money. They generally worked eighteen hours a day, discovering further that it was no virgin El Dorado they had taken to their bosoms. Being a liar or a vulture in Mexico is not as uni- formly pleasant and profitable as ft looks from New York or even San Antonio . / God often chooses strange means to accomplish His ends. The oil companies, slippery with iniquity, ' not having an "ideal" to bless themselves or Mexico with, and of a natural shamelessness that made them cover themselves confidingly but _ quite insufficiently with the breech clout of the New Freedom, a drill in one hand, a large bag of backshees~ in the other, yet are the saviors of Mexico. Nature has a fondness for repairing the ravages of man, returning often good for evil, and rarely forgetting to reward the ill-doer. Her lack of discrimination or even common decency in placing under the Carranza government, at a vital moment in the world's history, the most valuable spot on the face of the earth, th€reby enveloping the First Chief's rela- tions to Mexico in . mystifying cross-lights, or rather I 298 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY l becoming half-lights, is almost enough to make one lose one's faith in an All-Wise Providence. Right under the noses of the predatory tribes (in these are included the iniquitous foreign in~estors, the rainbow-colored brigands, and those preyed on; i. e., the innocent Mexicans and almost as innocent Americans, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Germans) she caused an embarrassing number of oil wells to spout up, more in fact than can be restrained, for the quite exclusive Constitutionalist government. Indeed, it is said that in some places the 85 per cent are even afraid to plant beans, for at the slightest touch of the soil out gushes "el petroleo" and no one wants to die for oil. He prefers to live on it. But even this was not enough. When Nature really gets going she is always splendid, sometimes terri- fyingly generous, and, as before pointed out, she rarely forgets the wicked. The oil flood not being sufficient for the carrying out of her vast ideas, she has called attention to a new and at the same time old source of splendor. In the mountains, in those wondrous, treasure-bearing Cordilleras, fresh veins of ore have been discovered, but mostly lying so deep that only perfected, but, alas, accursed foreign methods can dig them out. It out-Humboldts Humboldt and his treasure house, though he might have changed his simile of "Mexico being like a beggar sitting on a bag of gold," to that of a beggar / sitting by a stream of oil, had he written in 1918 instead of 1807. In spite of all this Carranza's very gifted Minister of Finance used to refer to the money situation strangely enough as "muy delicado," never even VICTORIANO HUERTA 299 whispering a word concerning Mexico's foreign obli- gations beyond an indication that the right door is much further north, above the river in fact. Senor Luis Cabrera has been called the brain of the Carranza Government, and his reason for all things was the quite simple and uncontro- vertible one, "La Revoluci6n es la Revoluci6n." He began life as an "educator,"' in plain words a schoolmaster, after which he studied law and human nature and was, when I met him, among other things, attorney for the Tlahualila Cotton Company, then in straits about its water, which was wanted by the Maderos. We lunched with him at the invitation of Mr. James Brown Potter at the restaurant of Chapul- tepec, at the foot of the Castle hill, on dazzling, diamond-like noon. He is a small man with dark hair and mustache, and features rather indef- inite, after the Mexican way. But there was much life in his eyes, an expression of alertness, indicating an immediate ( and doubtless protective) perception of strategic positions and values. He proved later to have a strange, destructive mind, together with the Midas touch, but these were not apparent at the time, at least not to me. He seemed but one of the typical, clever lawyers of exceeding "malicia" 1 ( without which the species cannot exist) produced by Mexico in abundance and sometimes called her curse. Long afterwards in New York I 1 This word, probably the earliest learned by a fol'eign invester :from his indigenous attorney, I would like to explain for those elect having no "interests" in Mexico. It means not only "malice, envy and all uncharitableness'' but also shrewdness, cunning and dissimu- lation. There is even a verb '' maliciar'' most useful and protective, that goes with it, meaning among othel' things to '' suspect mali- ciously.'' 300 INTIMATE PAGES . OF MEXICAN HISTORY asked one of his colleagues, whose name I would mention except that it might cost him his house and his life, what were the real qualities of Seiior Cabrera. (It was when he had first begun to supply from his own abundant store the deficiencies in the First Chief's gray matter.) He answered im- mediately: "Inteligencia mediana, audacia superior, perver- sidad ilimitada" ("Average intelligence, superior audacity and limitless perversity"). Now the only one of these attributes to whose falseness I can testify is the first. I found him bright, a good deal brighter than the average, so perhaps the other statements are inaccurate too. dPues quien sabe? Though now that I think of it he has since also showed his "superior audacity.-" From one hour to another he put Mexico on a gold basis. All the prec- edents which obtain in such cases, even guarantees, , · were brushed aside with the masterly gesture. . . . He took no note of the dictum of Huerta's god, Bonaparte, that it "takes many years and skillful ministers to change the :financial system of a coun- try." The only difficulty was tbat everything that had existed before had to be destroyed. The operation was exceedingly painful for about 14,900,000 of the population. I understand, however, that those who lived through are going to recover . . . . And Seiior Cabrera himself is as rich as the oft-cited millionaire of antiquity. There was a hint of the visibly inspired about it all, making one think of St. Paul, for somewhat after the words of the Apostle, "The corruptible was sowed corruptible and it arose incorrupt_ible.n VICTORIANO HUERTA 301 Yet the facts are, according to the American official auditor of the Carranza government, in the' somewhat uninventive , position of one under oath, that Mexico's debt is 500,000,000 pesos and that a safe maximum of her indebtedness in the future is 550,000,000. Figures speak and, as in the megaphonic noise of these just quoted, my voice would be unheard, I say no more, except that one cannot call it statecraft, nor even "Liberty," nor yet "human service." As is evident from these last figures I have been reading in company, I trust, with a large part of the population of the United States, the hearings of the "Sub-Committee of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate." , In section one, after reading the testimony of a few ants crawling about and wondering when something would appear that I could see with the naked eye, Mr. Doheny, bearing all the predatory marks, that is, visioned, acute, bold, industrious, inventive, undiscourageable, stepped onto the scene with the free and easy stride of the wicked, and I felt as if I were hearing of deeds like unto those of the first conquerors of Mexico. He, too, came, saw and con- quered, not by the sword nor even by fire, and what he, and the very f~w like him did in Mexico, is com- parable only to the achievements of the Spaniards to whom, up to the era of the foreign investor, Mexico owed everything except her loveliness. He again unlocked her storehouse, turning the key in the fever-ridden, j"Q.ngle-grown regions of Tampico, in which now flourishes the Rose of the , World's Desire, all the nations of the earth beginning and 302 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTOR Y ending with Mexico having reasons to rejoice. In distant lands those that walked now drive, those th at stood all day at machines, or broke their ' b a c k s shoveling coal, by the gentle pressure of a fin ger r e le a se an incalculable motive power, in a w o r l d where everybody and everything are amove. In Mex i co itself many that were lean grew fat. When lo oked at with a free eye, the discovery, or theft, de ve lo p - ment or · exploitation ( the fact is so splendid th at n o epithet can hurt it) of oil is one of the mi ght i est achievements of man, with the greatest good to t he greatest number (though some, of course, g et mo re than others, there being no such thing as equali t y). The accounts of the tribute paid to Pelaez, the native Chief of the oil regions, remind one of the tribute paid to the tribes the Conquistadores encountered on their march to Anahuac. Like unto them the oil companies pay not one, but many tribes. There is a slight difference in methods, for nowadays when tribute is to be paid to Pelaez for instance, the oil companies receive a document bearing the ominous, majestic and once happiiy little-used words: "Reform, Liberty, Justice, Law." Leaving the fields of fancy, a few limpid facts as to the recent career of the Stars and Stripes in the oil fields may be stated-with charity toward all and malice toward none. The Carranza government was recognized by the American government after which it was, of course, very rightly upheld by the American government. It even obtained in the United States the arms and ammunition which were used in its campaign against Pelaez, the rebel master of the oil-fields, and paradox- VICTORIANO HUERTA 303 ically the keeper of order there. Pelaez was com- pelled to resort to the familiar "aux armes, citoyens" to defend the life and property of himself and neigh- bors, also of the oil companies. He received the support, which cannot be called platonic, of all shades of complexions and opinions. The corresponding limpid facts concerning the career of the Carranza government in the oil-fields are : That the Carrancista generals looted the oil camps, stealing provisions and arms, blackmailed the companies, took possession of their boats and auto- mobiles, held up their paymasters and killed their employees. The drillers and pipeline men, unfor- tunately for consistency, only felt comfortable when in Pelaez' territory. Pelaez exacted tribute from the oil companies of from $30,000 to $40,000 a month, with which to support an army number- ing 2000 to 3000 men; do?btless also not forgetting himself and his friends and the friends of his friends. The oil companies seem to have been willing, even eager to pay this amount in return for protection. The fly in the ointment, however, was that they were compelled by fickle circumstance to allege that they were paying it under duress and because of threats by Pelaez to destroy their property, threats which, in fact, were never made. (He knew a good thing when he saw it.) The oil companies approached the American government on this :fictitious and some- what unctuous basis, and the American government, from its uncomfortable perch on both horns of the dilemma, gave its assent to the payment of tribute . That the oil companies have long since lost their 304 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY innocence is scarcely a matter for wonderment, though, of course, for regret. Some of the pipes transmitting the oil would seem to have been run for a time, not only to the sea and to _ railway stations, but to the rather constricted out- let of the Palacio in Mexico City, where the First Chief and his bright few friends drew it off, unfor- tunately, into a bottomless pit. This, however, is but a detail. In Mexico the influence of natural forces ( mostly mysterious), rather than those of men, is more potent than elsewhere. In spite of the completely destructive acts of the most predatory of species, Mexico is getting richer every day. Not even the Constitutionalists have been able to restrain the lavish hand of nature. The motive force of the world is to be determined, as well as many political destinies, by an element found in Mexico in supreme and increasing quantities. It confounds all logic as well as all morality. The just and the unjust will be impartially exalted. If, on the other hand, to uncover the face of the earth, revealing undreamed magnificences, to bring a fabulous prosperity to its inhabitants, be a crime, to build schools and hospitals and model dwellings ( quite after the manner of the Spanish Friars), to caus.e the land to flow with oil, behind which fl.ow milk and honey, to enrich the nations of the earth, to change the motive power of the world, if all this be a crime, then the oil men are criminals. To one, ho~ever, who studies with a free mind the significance of oil in the modern world, it will not be found to be VICTORIANO HUERTA 305 entirely a record of the unedifying habits of vultures and delinquents. Of course, Mr. Doheny got rich, and so did his companions and many of his enemies, but so also did Mexico, and never, never did cause and effect, the machinery by which the entire universe, including every act of private life, is regulated, more majes- tically nor mor~ accurately balance themselves ; , CHAPTER XXV The Tampico Incident-Demand of Huerta That It Be Taken to the Hague-Instead Vera Cruz Is Taken-The Fallacy of Ar- bitration When It Does Not Endorse the Will of the Strong. The Huerta-Tampico incident, in the light of the subsequent Carranza Tampico and Mazatlan inci- dents, appears as a screaming farce. A European who was iii Tampico that April of 1914 drew me a diagram of the port, the position of the Federal and rebel forces, and of the dock in the forbidden military zone, approached by a launch from our gunboat in the innocent pursuit of petrol. The story is simple and · even artless. Firing was going on at the time between the Federal troops and the Rebels. The Marines, with their petty officer, were arrested by Colonel Hinajosa, acting under general orders to allow no one to approach the dock, and were taken to military headquarters. They were almost im- mediately released and before the American govern- ment could make any demands , , General Zaragoza had made his apologies to Admiral Mayo. But it was the heaven-born opportunity to get rid of Huerta, one of those preordained "accidents" by which just men as well as fools are confounded, the gods having even less regard for the rights of a man than have his fellow-men. As to the subsequent "serving" of the Mexicans, which followed the Tampico •incident, President ~ 306 VICTORIANO HUERTA 307 Wilson stated, and it has, in the echoing halls of time, a puerile ring not then apparent, "We have gone down to Mexico to serve mankind. We do not want to fight the Mexicans. We want to serve the Mexicans if we can, because we know how we would like to be free, and how we would like to be served if there were friends by ready t~ serve us." In this year of 1920, the Reds, knowing we would like to be free, and how we would like to be served, are busily engaged in trying to free us and serve us. We, however, being strong, respond to their friendly efforts by deporting them as foment.ors of disorder, overthrowers of our government. The Mexicans were weak and could not deport us, so we :finally succeeded in overthrowing constitutional gover:Qment in Mex- ico. We can but express the pious hope that, with the help of God, no foreign nation will ever have a chance to serve us to the same extent. I do not intend to go into the intricacies of the Tampico incident. Anybody can rea~ the official reports of the Congressional Committee on Foreign Relations-Mr. Buckley's fol" instance-if he is suffi , . ciently interested, or "A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico" ( out of which many things were cut on the Pauline principle that "though all things may be true~ i all things are not expedient"). I only mention the stupid matter because it led to the taking of Vera Oruz in pursuit of the service of the Mexicans. Everybody knows all about it. Mr. Daniels himself has carefully explained that the Huerta-Tampico incident "was different" from all other insults to the flag, notably those offered by Carranza himself at Tampico and Mazatlan, "in that 308 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY then the purpose was to force Huerta out of Mexico." Huerta said to the American Charge, when he was urging him to give the salutes to the flag :-"This is only one more thing,-what will it avail if I concede the matter? Washington is bent on destroying me." Later on hearing of the taking of Vera Cruz through the Mexican Sub-Secretary of War, the Charge d'Affaires was faced with the delicate task of procuring from General Huerta what protec- tion might be possible for American life and property. He went immediately in search of the President and found him sitting in his automobile in the Park of Chapultepec surrounded by several members of the Cabinet and military officers. Huerta wore an austere but not unfriendly expression. The Charge greeted him with the words, "Sefior Presidente, what have you h . eard from Vera Cruz?" Huerta's look darkened as he replied: "Your Government has taken the port _ of Vera Cruz. We thought that you were friendly towards Mexicans and would not shed their blood and we further depended upon the Treaty of 1848." The Charge expressed his personal regrets at the death of any Mexicans and proceeded to talk to him regarding steps to be taken for the immediate protection of his nationals. Huerta answered that Americans in Mexico were his friends and that the Charge could rest assured that he would do everything within his power to prevent outbreaks, which might lead to their being injured . He further said that he did not consider that he was at ' war with the American people, but only with their Chief Executive, who bore him a per _. sonal grudge, adding that he did not desire to go down VICTORIANO HUERTA 309 to history as the President of Mexico under whose administration injury and suffering had come to the friendly citizens of a neighboring state, with which Mexico had been at peace for over 50 years. He said that he would instruct the press to make no mention of the situation at Vera Cruz in the after- noon editions, that he would give the Military Com- mander of Mexico City and those of other places with- in his control, orders to have troops ready to suppress any disturbances. He then gave the Charge a note to the Governor of the Federal District instructing him to confer with him concerning the protectio~ of American citizens within his jurisdiction. The Gov- ernor agreed that the City should be patrolled that night by mounted police and an extra guard was sent to the Embassy and to the American Club. No Amer• icans at that time were assaulted nor killed within the Federal District, nor anywhere in Mexico within the territory controlled by General Huerta's Government. Any individual crime committed by Huerta, and after the manner of autocrats, in pursuit of their ends,-he would have stuck at none--would have been a thousand times, nay, a hundred thousand ti:i;nes less disastrous than the individ- ual and collective horrors that the service of humanity has entailed on Mexico. That there are, two moralities, no student of history, or even ' of ethics, will deny, the private morality which concerns the individual and his Maker, and the public morality which concerns the welfare of tbe race over which a man is called to rule. There was a moment when Huerta appeared as the Man of Destiny, preordained in his small, soft hand, / 310 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY to preserve the legality of the government of Mexico, till one more worthy of esteem should be found. He was quite apparently a man such as appears at times in a country's history to fulfill a certain task, whethey he be saint or sinner is not of the slightest importance to the State or to Destiny. If he be devoured by ambition, sustaining himself by plots or by arms is also a detail; the essential is that he sustain himself and with himself the State. 1 This is particularly true in La tin-America, where once legality destroyed, it is, as we have abundantly seen, the devil's own task to reinstate it. With all its drawbacks, I believe in the rule of the strong ( nothing is so disastrous as weakness) ; it is the only thing that really works out politically, and its appli- cation will not destroy what few (if any) illusions the Peace Conference has left me. My only objection is to veiling the application with such words as human service, rights of small nations ( some small nations), Freedom (new or old), fraternity, or even Democracy, which last has come to have a dull-eyed, been-out-all-night look, most unattractive. The strong, and quite naturally, have always devoured the weak (the only laws one cannot evade are Nature's laws), and the history, ancient or modern, of every nation that has arisen to greatness proves it. To the victors inexorably belong the spoils, and they always take them, but the process has lately been presented to the public, which is as innocent now as in the period of the Roman wars against the Barbarians, or the Barbarian wars against the 1 Napoleon to his prother .T oseph: "When it is said of a king that he is a good man, the reign is a failure.'' VICTORIANO HUERT.A 311 -Romans, whichever you like, as the "triumph of virtue." No right can dream of existing in visible shape that is not sustained by might. Lovely and eternal truth her~elf survives but in one way,-by exacting the lives of those who serve her. Touch her ever so humbly, and one dies the death. Yet her service is more alluring than any other, the death one dies dearer and more beautiful than any life, even as the children of this worls:]. rate life and beauty. Her rewards are withheld from her servants, and those who serve her not, are generously, visibly recompensed. Yet she is the greatest of all things, and the heart dilates in the straightness of life, and the soul burns in its cold at thought of her. But only he who giveth his life shall find it, and we all, who have honors or riches to sacrifice, resemble more or less the young man of scripture who was told that to gain the heaven ( of truth) he must sell all that he had and give it to the poor, and ''being rich, he was very sad.'' Again, why should any of us be proud? . . . Even before the Huerta mess had been boiled down to the sediment of the "Tampico insult to the Flag," the foreign representatives began to hint about the Hague Tribunal. It was so evidently created for just such things. The Belgian Minister, astute and really desirous of helping clear up an unnecessarily com- plicated situation, walked about the Embassy draw- ing-room one day as on · air, with an Eureka look upon his face. The German Minister, less mercurial, and not optimistic where things Americo~Mexican were concerned, became, for him, almost enthusiastic, saying :_:..."Though nothing will come of it, it ought 312 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY to be tried." What they said to each other as they descended those honeysuckle, geranium-grown Em- bassy steps under those dazzling Mexican heavens, I have no means of kno'fing. Later, when the sword of Damocles fell, in the guise of the Tampico affair, Huerta made a formal offer to submit the matter to the Hague, and abide by its decision. Instead, Vera Cruz was seized. Now I am quite shamelessly on the side of the strong; it is obviously the only side on which to be. Seize anything you want, and hold it if you can, is the framework of international rela- tions. There is at times a little plaster and stucco work done, giving amiable and accomplished gentle- men of various nationalities a chance to dine together in the · evening, after they have sat around a green table in comfortable armchairs during the day. But these mild pleasures are only enjoyed when no one of these gentlemen has anything to negotiate that awakens national passion, or threatens commercial policies. After wars, conquerors do not seek justice, nor any Kingdom of Righteousness, they wan~, quite ele- mentally, vengeance on the nations they . conquer, and who have cost them blood and money. Nations have always committed predatory acts at certain moments of their evolution. Glance at our own history. In the last century, when we were still in an almost sacra- mental state, the sons and grandsons of the men who were insp'ired visibly by grace to form the Consti- tution of the United States, the greatest constructive single work in history, took a piece of territory one- third the size of their own country from Mexico. When the Mexican government, brought tQ its knees, VICTORIANO HUERTA 313 tried among other things to make the stipulation that we should not have slavery in Texas when we took it over, Mr. Twist, the man then doing diplomatic busi- ness at the old Mexican stand, replied indignantly that he woul.dn't even consider submitting such a preposterous proposition to the President.-"Autre temps," but not "autre moeurs." To-day the phrase that we went to war to make the world "safe for democracy" or "went to war to end war" in the name of justice and right is simply comic, with the deep undertone of tragedy that accompanies the hasty though implacable decisions of the strong. To return to Huerta. If in 1914 we had even con· ducted ourselves as we did in the war of 1847 which, though General Grant called it an unholy war, was a war, and after the immemorial manner of wars resulted in definite conquest, annexation and respon• sibility on the part of the conquerors, we would have been acting as the strong have always acted and always will act.1 Our "watchful waiting" methods in 1913 and 1914 unfortunately had all the destructive force of war and none of its manifest advantages, not even its name. We did not assume full responsibility for any part or parts of Mexico, neither did we allow her to be responsible for herself. The reasons for the subsequent disaster are clear. The Treaty of Guada- lupe of 1848 was as scrappy a scrap of paper in its small way as was ever seen. Peace, limits., brother- hood, arbitration, were its devices. But when more than half a century later, a President of Mexico was eager to submit · the essentially trivial Tampico 1 In the case of these annexations of 1848~ one h~s seen no tracE) of ''irredentism,'' which vindicates the act, 314 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY matter to the Hague, the most peace-loving of com- moners, then Secretary of State, brushed aside the proposal. It did not suit the purposes of our Presi- dent. It also illustrates in its small but perfectly luminous way the fallacy of arbitration as a measure to peace, when it does not suit the strong; and we might, with advantage to all, bury the League of Nations (which is not even a novelty) quickly and decently and lay a myrtle wreath upon its tomb, rather than keep the corpse unburied, smelling to heaven. It would seem, furthermore, in the rather bright light of subsequent world-history, that all that per- sonal passion and national greed will permit of con- trol was more than adequately provided for by the Hague Tribun:;tl. Why build a bigger Peace Palace when the rooms of that we once built found no tenants? However to return to Huerta. He was an Indian from the State of J alisco, in control of the supreme power, and he acted with his usual fidelity to type. To demand of him that he be something that he was not, of Mexico something that she is not, was quite simply to invite the most evitable political disaster of modern history. From all time autocratic governments have dis- - posed of their enemies as Huerta was disposed of. A dead enemy is more desirable than a live one. Machiavelli recommended it, and it has been prac- ticed since and was before with the minimum of inconvenience and the maximum of result. Ethical solutions are notoriously irksome in the home and in the state. It is easier to p11:nish a child VICTORIANO HUERTA 315 because he has not obeyed some arbitrary or foolish command than for his elders to be vigilant and care- ful as to the kind of command they give, or once given to fit it into an orderly scheme of things. So in a weak, neighboring state it is a nuisance to find out what is really the matter. Bat them on the head, jail them, sell them arms and ammunition and buy their loot is easier. Being of pure Anglo-Saxon origin, I have cast off cant with difficulty. A dozen times a day T find myself, even in the curtained alcove of my soul, tempted to call things by names so undescriptive of them that I know the angels weep. Once on the scent of truth, however, it is a pity to stray off. · I have, besides, in company with a few ' millions of my compatriots, drawn some benefit from the politi- cal education received, nearby and far off, at the hands of the chief of my nation. From him I learned of the two measures, and how empty a thing is idealism: there is simply nothing in it. History is a succession of facts, clarified or distorted by the man having most power in any situation. If, as in the case of the United States, complete and undivided power is vested in an individual together with all the billions we can dig from, or grow in, or raise on our national territory to further increase his might, he can pretty well turn the world upside down or change its face. And there was not one out of a hundred million who jumped in front of him when he dashed off with the bit _ between his teeth, upsetting the European buggy, and running over the American Constitution. As has been aptly said by _ one of our resigning Cabinet ministers, "Everybody is afraid of 316 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY everybody else," and sometimes instead of crying, "What's the matter with Mexico? " one fe e l s like crying, "What ' s the matter with the United Stat e s?" But at least let us look in the eyes, if we can without laughing, this practical joke that the United States has played on democracy. There is something almost god-like about it. One of those so-decried limited ( or unlimited) monarchies would not make the ~an looking for freedom laugh quite so hard, nor cause him, at other times., to shed so many tears. In the case of Mexico, Don Porfirio's iron finger pointed to a golden age . The exponents of the new order on the other hand in "their fierce passion for reconstruction" quite simply tore up the railways, :flooded the mines, blackmailed the iniquitous but necessary oil com- panies, sold the crops and the cattle across the border, looted the churches and banks, closed the schools and hospitals, and saw to it that every woman above the age of twelve contributed her mite to the population. In administrative circles of 1920 this sketch of the New Order may appear somewhat breezy, but not so breezy nor nearly so amusing as Mr. Dooley's sketch of our benefactions even in the Golden Age, that I came across the other day. As the sense of humor is the only possession a man cannot be deprived of by Government decrees,-his hope in a future life, his love of his neighbor, together with all his material possessions are easy to take from him,-so easy that it is done every day everywhere, I quote it : "What's th' throuble in Mexico i" . . . "Me xic o, I learn, is a considherable sthrip iv mountain an ' homicide or poly-ticks, extindin' fr 'm our soutliern bo1·dher in th' gin 'ral shape iv a broken leg. It is • VICTORIANO HUERTA 317 bounded on th' north be th' Rio Grande river, which is navagable be pedesthreens f 'r thousands iv miles fr 'm it's source an' be th' wishes iv th' people iv Texas, an' on th' south be more throuble f 'r th' 'Monroe docthrine. It's sooil projooces an abundance iv rocks iv all sizes an' it's climate is iv a sandy complexion. It's inhabitants range in color fr 'm dark to darker, an' many iv thim ar 're iv Indyan exthraction but th' Indyan has not been completely exthracted fr'm all iv thim. In recent years large numbers iv th' young men iv th' land have become pathriotes, or as they ar 're called in Mexico, ban- dits, in preparation f 'r a pollytickal career, but . many iv thim have failed on account iv bein 1 ' too tender hearted whin ilivated to office. Often a succissful Mexican bandit has turned out to be a weak an' sintimental sicretary iv th' threasury. '' Mexicans enjye • a republican fo1·m iv government, often whin away fr 'm home. They have a constituchion which can be found in th' catalogue in th' national Muzeem, in th' departmint iv humor. Th' prisidint is ilicted be th' people on 'y he don't let thim know till he informs thim that his predecissor has committed suicide be shootin' himself in th' back. They have no throuble with their ex-prisidints beyond seein' that th' grass is kept cut. In fact, there is no - such term as '' ex-prisidint'' in th' language. Th' former exicutive is ayether spoken iv as ''Th' late prisidint,'' or ''Th' remains'' or if he survives, he is known as ''Th' fugitive fr 'm justice.'' As soon as th' new exicutive has claned up th' office he removes th' 1·ilitives iv his predicissor an' negotyates a loan. Th' Cab 'net takes th' oath iv office on Choosday, on Winsday it takes th' cash drawer and on Thursday, whin th' prisiclint an his term expires simultaneously, it takes th' boat f 'r Paris, persooed to th' coast be th' incomin' ad- ministration, who serenade th' ship with gatlin' guns. Thanks to it's nachural aptychood an' our binivilince, civilization is ma.kin' gr 'reat sthrides in Mexico, sthridin' in wan day an' sthridin' out th' next. Although niver admittin' thim to th' fam'ly, we long ago adopted thim, an' we have since bin a kin' iv a great brother to thim, ofl'erin' to :fight any wan that intherfered with thim fr'm time to time to show thim their place, an' takin' annythin' away fr 'm thim that we wanted. . • . "We flooded their sunny land with th' best flowers iv our civiliza- tion, with life insurance agents, an' sewin' macheen canvassers, an' Standard Ile, an' excursions fr 'm Ioway to give thim free lectures on th' 'Evils iv th' Bullfight' an' 'Th' Siesta,' their two favorite forms iv athletics. In their domestic throubles we presarved a care- ful nootrality an' put it on th' shelf in th' panthry. We took no sides on 'y askin' cash in advance f 'r arms an' ammynition an' in- sistin' that both parties shud shoot south whin near th' Rio Grande, so as not to disthur b th' Sunday School picnic parties watchin' th' rivolution from th' Texas shoores iv that · brawlin' torrent. Natru- ally they return our affiction £ 'r them, often unopened. Th' love iv this simple people f 'r their gr 're-at hearted binif actor is such that Americans who have lived long in that country get th' habit iv walk- in' backwards out iv all public places so's not to offind them. Th' prisidint iv Mexico, before th' late prisidint was Gineral Perfurio Diaz. He was a wise · ol' red man an' he knew that there's nawthin' so dangerous as an angry binifactor who feels that he ain't getti.n' 318 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY anny returns on his invistment. So he was always palite to us, d 'ye mind, an' he kept us in a good humor be threatinin' his own fellow- citizens, as he often called thim, f 'r he was full iv fun, worse than he threated ours . But he grew old, his inimies were all dead, an' public office held no charm f 'r him. Wan day he sees a man with wh i skers comin' up th' sthreet with a brass band. 'Who's thaU' says he, to th' thrusted chief of polis; 'That's th' new prisidint,' sez th' faithful subordinate, reachin' f 'r a gun. 'Well, thin,' says Gin 'ral Diaz, 'I suppose I '11 abdicate,' which he did, out of a window, an' is now in Europe laughin' bis head off ivery time he reads a pa-aper.'' CHAPTER XXVI What Brought Huerta to the American Embassy on the Night of the 22d of April Y What brought Huerta to the American Embassy that night of the 22d of April I shall never know, .nor what the thoughts accompanying him as he passed, in his gray sweater and soft hat, through those fatal and implacable doors. He was a man of much natural hope, and though the passports were lying on a table in the private room of the Charge d' Affaires, all was not yet con- summated. He may still have hoped when there was nothing more to hope, and combinations, cunning and futile, been at work in his brain. But whatever his sins, were they blacker than the night that awaited him, I must remember him as he was at that moment,-composed of mien, elevated in thought, his heart · seemingly ready for what Destiny would be pleased to send him: He came borne on the :flooding of his Fate, and doubtless I saw him not as he was:, but as he might have been. After that the tide began to ebb . I look back on that visit and see it elemental in its simplicity, with something of tribal habit about it. His external errand was direct as life . From all time rulers have asked foreign envoys to the wedding of a son, bidden the stranger within their gates to iw 32 0 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY the marriage feast, catching them up in the stitch of the generations . His errand being spoken, the rest was of equal s implicity, - life, death, and fear, and his words dis - c l a i med rancor toward a mightier people and their master, - his enemy . Ou tside was the trampling of horses' hoofs, the Ru r a l Guard, a hundred strong, surrounded the Em- b a s sy ; there was the clanging of arms and staccato stre e t sou nds . / The night was sweet-smelling,-of honeysuckl e an d geranium and heliotrope; a damp - ness, unu s u a l a t that hour and season, hung in the air and distill ed doubly the heavy evening scents . Calm as hi s c o untenance was and few as were his weavin g , u ndisturbing gestures, I think Huerta was neverthele ss i nvaded by a deep excitement, conscious even to p ri de, o f the huge injustice of man and fate. And though th e d ar k waters we r e t o swiftly bear him into t he s ma ll er, less enn o bling irrita - tions of d e fe a t a n d r u in, they had n o t yet done so . He was s t ill m as t er o f h i s s o ul, still U)lited t o hi s country's d e stin y , still s t amped with national trage d y . He was wi t hout fea r an d i n that moment death, as were birth and lif e , wa s but the " fu l fi llin g o f the natural law to which w e must all submit. '" H is on l y words to me concerning his e n e my were: "He has not understood"-even as th e y wer e to b e , at the hidden hoD:r of his death, his last words concerning him. . . . It is no small thing to h a ve seen the ruler of a people at the flooding of his fate and theirs, even though its waters were the da r k waters of despair. And those two pale Aryan silhouettes, my husband and myself, what, in that hour and to that Indian VICTORIANO HUERTA 321 sta n ding by that life flood, could we have symbolized but t he una s sailable fact that the weak have no rights w hen they c r oss the will of the strong? 1 1 ' ' At half past seven an ofij.car appeared in the drawing room, as v o n H in t z e and I wer e sitting there alone, saying that the Presi- den t was out s ide. Von Hin t ze d eparted through the dining room, after h astily h e lpin g me and McKenna to remove the tea-table. There was no time to ring fo r servants. I went to the door and w aited on t h e h o neys u c kl e a nd geranium-scent e d veranda while the t e arless old In d i an , not in his top-hat (' q'u e da mas dignidad'), but in his gray sweate r "aD.d s oft hat, more suitable to events, came quickly u p t he s te ps. It was his :first and last visit to the Embassy during our incu m b e n c y. ' ' I l ed him into the drawing room where, to the accompaniment o f s t amping hoofs outside, of clanging arms, and footsteps coming a nd g o in g, we had a strange and moving conversation. I could not, for my country's sake, speak the endless regret that was in my he ar t for the official part we had beeI!. obliged to play in the hat ef ul drama enacted by us to his country's undoing. He greeted m o c a lmly. '' Senora, how do you dot I fear you have had many annoy- an ce s.' ' ' Then he sat hack, quietly, in a big armchair, impersonal and in sc rut a bl e . I answered as easily as I could that the times were dif- fi c ult for all, but that we were most appreciative of what he had don e for our personal safety, and that of our nationals, and asked him if there was nothing we could do for him. He gave me a long, p ie r c ing look, and after a pause, answered: · '' 'Nothing, Senora. All that is done I must do myself. The mo- ment has not come for me to go. Nothing but death could remove me now.' '' I felt the tears come hot to my eyes, as I answered-taking refuge in gen e ralities in that difficult moment-' Death is not so terrible a thing.' '' He answered again, very quietly, 'It is the natural law, to which we must all submit. We were born into the world acc o rding to the natural law, and must depart according to it-that is all.' '' He has wavy, interlacing, but not disturbing gestures as he speaks. He went on to say that he had come, in his name and that of his senora, to ask N. and myself to attend the wedding of his son, Victor, the next day. And notwithstanding much advice to the contrary by timid ones, we think it expedient to go. The safety of all hangs on his good-will, and it will be wise, as well as decent, to offer him this last public attention. Jus , t then Nelson came in." After greeting the President, he said, rather hastily, 'They have taken the arms away.' "Huerta answered wi~h a gesture of indifference, 'It must be,' adding 'no le hace' (' it doesn't matter'). ' 'I told him with a smile, which he qu _ ite understood, that it wasn't much in the way of an exchange. (As we had taken seven- teen million rounds of ammunition, and God knows how many guns 322 INTIMATE PAGES O~-, . MEXICAN HISTORY and rifles in Vera Cruz, his haul at the Embassy did seem rather small!) He does not want us to go out by Guadalajara and Manzanillo, and, unless compelled to cut the line, he gives us his train to-morrow night to Vera Cruz, with a full escort, including three officers of high rank. '' 'I would go myself,' he said, 'but I cannot l eav e. I hope to send my son in my place, if he returns from the north, as I expect.' ' 'I was dreadfully keyed up, as you can imagine; I felt the tears gush to my eyes. He seemed to think it was fear that moved me, for he told me not to be anxious. I said, 'I am not weeping for myself, but for the tragedy of life.' '' And, indeed, since seeing him I have been in a sea of sad- ness, personal and impersonal-impersonal because of the crush- ing destiny th~t can overtake a strong man and a country, and personal, because this many-colored vibrant Mexican experience of mine is drawing to a close. Nothing can ever resemble it. ' 'As we three stood together he uttered, very quietly, his last word: ' ' ' I hold no rancor toward the American people, nor toward su Excelencia el Senor Presidente Wilson. And, after a slight pause, he added, 'He has not understood. ' . . . ' ' - " .d DipZorr14t's Wife itn Mexico" CHAPTER XXVII Ancie nt H i story, Including the Niagara Falls Conference-The Days Whe n V illa ' s St a r Was High-The Carranza Mask-The Clever and A mia ble ' ' A. B. C. ' s are Asked Into The Administrative Dressin g - roo ms Wh e n the Actors Are Making-up. Be for e the appointment of the delegates of the Huert a government to the Niagara Falls Oonference, a n ey e-witness tells me that Huerta entered into a str ange, subjective state. The impasse in his fate was complete. He still had patience and there was an accretion of the natural stoicism of the primitive Indian, but he had li t tle hope. He was paralyzed by .inaction and made ne1·vous and "jumpy" by the way the light-hearted, thoughtless boys at Washington continued to prod h im in his cage. His eyes, too, were troubling him. The invitation of Arge:r;itina, Brazil and Chili c a used hope to revive. It was an improbably possible iss ue, and he was of a generation still innocent con- c e rning Peace Conferences. After some inevitable cro ss -purpose workings between himself and his ca binet, three men of standing were appointed to r e present Mexico in Washington, Sefior Don Emilio Rabasa, Senor Don Luis Elguero, Sefior Don Agustin Rodriguez. Emilio Rabasa, tall, dark, thin, dis- illusioned, is a historian and jurist of international reputation, and was many years in the Senate, where he represented in a scholarly and enlightened way the interests of his country. Luis Elguero had never held public office. Though of the land-owning class, 323 324 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY he was patriotic, cultured, and on his estates con- tinued a system of paternalism that had brought the usual amount of happiness, and furthermore a max- imum of seeurity, to those who served him. Sefior Don Agustin Rodriguez I do not know personally. He is a gifted jurist, and no word has ever been spoken against his probity. 1 These three men were, in their country, and after their way, the . corresponding type of men that the British Govern- ment, the wisest and most powerful that exists, is wont to select for important missions. Neither they nor their fathers before them had been "revolucion- arios,'' probably not even "uplifters." They had lived in the world of visible traditions and responsibilities, once considered worthy of respect. They had never murdered individuals, nor robbed haciendas, nor pil- laged the State. They inhabited good houses, adorned with works of art and furnished with libraries. Fur- thermore, they were conversant with the past history of their country, and familiar with present actualities. The worst that can be said about them is that they were upper-class men. After their departure, Huerta, though very rest- less, continually smoking small, black cigarettes, and 1 A spectrum-colored book could be written on the subject of the practise of the law in Latin-America. The licenc.iado, as the lawyer is called, though of a profession which :flourishes greenly in all countries, has reached certain typal perfec- tions there, which, however, being climatic and racial, are not to be judged according to the latitude and longitude of Washington. Hum- boldt, of whom it has been said that he was the only ll).an who ever noted realities concerning Mexico, said:-"Latin-America is one vast law-suit, from Monterey to Buenos Ayres.'' There was a time when enlightened Viceroys begged that no more men of law be sent out from the Mother Country, and to-day these men, with less responsibility than the administrative classes, much more learning than the lower classes, :µid often gifted by Nature as well, find themselves in a posi- tion of determining influence. / VICTORIANO HUERTA 325 stopping often at the Oaf e Colon, and El Globo for a "copita," entered again into a period of hope. Some- thing was being done. It seemed a heaven-sent oppor- tunity for the American Government to learn some · - thing about the ethnological, ethnographical, climat- ical, economic, political phenomena of that Terra Ignota lying to the south. It was the first chance Huer t a had had to send a high-class group to present the case of Mexico to Washington. He and they were will~ng to do anything, to make any concession, that was consistent with the continued independence of Mexico. It was another occasion when men . of good will could have given peace to Mexico. , The whole was complicated by the somewhat hasty invitation to Carranza to be represented at the con- ference and his equally hasty refusal. But there is nothing perfect, even in Washington. Before leaving Mexico, the astute gentlemen com- posing the Huerta delegation, foreseeing that the internal situation, summed up in the "Huerta must go" policy, was what really interested Washington, and that whatever else might be demanded, Huerta's 175 pounds of flesh ( or whatever it was) would be exacted, got the promise from de la Lama, his clever Minister of Finance and his closest adviser, that he would resign on the nomination of a neutral can- didate. Even more important than the resignation of one man, however, was what was going to happen to 15,000,000 human beings, at the mercy of a wrathful, foreign god. Villa's star was still high over Washington, but another was rising higher, that bright and evening star, Venustiano Carranza. It put into sharp relief 326 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY the blackness of the heavens wherein had been written our promise to Huerta to appoint, on his resignation, a neutml government. Continuing in the light- hearted way, before mentioned, of marauding boys, "cet age est sans pitie," we took no acc . ount of the promise we made to these duly accredited envoys of the Huerta government. Even Mr. Bryan is recorded as saying apropos of the matter :-"When you can't keep a promise, you can't, and that is all there is to it." It is indeed all there is to it, as we have since seen, both in war and in peace. It was simply the age-sea s oned manner of solving situations between the weak and the strong, and then, as now :-"la raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure." There seems to have been no idea at any time of appointing a neutral president. It was Carranza, provisional and permanent President, though Car- ranza's continuous and final attitude to Washington can be summed up in the old saw :-"A wife, a dog and a hickory tree, the more you beat them, the better they be." This method he pursued with com - plete success. A word here concerning what I call the "Carranza mask/' one of the strangest appearances in the strange history of Mexico. It is nature's cruel joke on t~e land of the cactus and, one might add, on a regrettable number of Americans, dead and alive. Huerta's face was dark, flat, cruel, crafty, strong, relentless, and he had a sense of humor, revealed in easy gesture and a s-qdden brightening up of expres- sion, that sometimes unexpectedly determined sit- uations. Carranza's visage was saintly. All are familiar with it. Benignity br~athed from every line. ' VICTORIANO HUERTA 327 Could an evil, self-seeking thought find harbor in a soul whose light shone so brightly through the win- dows of those kind, blue-spectacled eyes? That pa- tient listening ear,--could it ever have taken in the word "politics," still less "graft"? Could not the widow and the orphan have confided their all to him? Would not his word have been better than any other man's bond? Could this excellent gentleman have cleaned up a town other than with a street sweeper? Would he have hurt a :fly? Much less would he have had the head of General Blanquet severed from its body and exposed on a pike in Vera Cruz. Does he bear any resemblance to Herodias? That noble stretch of forehead seemed destined for the home of philosophy, in company with philan- thropy. Would one have said that the space behind when tapped gave back a hollow sound? That Don Luis Cabrera did his thinking? He looks, too, naturally voluble. It is recorded, however, that for years his voice was never raised in the Chamber of Deputies. When at last he broke his golden silence, it was in the copper of such words as "if our Constitution forbids us to confiscate, then for a space we will do without our Consti- tution." · He was, too, made in the large ranchero mold, towering above his compatriots. Would - one say that he could climb a balcony with _ the gayest of Lotharios? Yet, oli yet, if spotless Washington but knew. In his face and · attitude was a general expression of "Suffer little ones to come unto me, together with 328 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY the heavy -laden." Would you think that he had relieved a large portion of the inhabitants of Mexico of the burden of their earthly goods? He sits with serenity, unacquisitively, slightly leaning back. Could one dream that he was rapacious, tireless? There is absolutely nothing of avidity about his posture; it rather suggests renunciation, refusal:- ((I take a 'gratificaci6n' for myself or the State? Never!" Yet no one at the head of any government was ever gifted with such a genius for confiscation. "The greatest amount for the fewest number" has been t~e motto of Mexico ever since Carranza realized to his wonder and delight that he had found favor i.n the sight of the administration above the Rio Grande. Somewhat as Esther before King Ashuarus, that long-bearded old Constitutionalista was found fair, so fair that he could scarcely believe it, until it was proven to him by those first warm embraces of a bewitched administration, over which for a time a chaste veil was drawn. But now the dream is dreamed, the somewhat troubled night is over, a cold, gray dawn has broken and we have to arise and do dis- tasteful things, such as betraying old loves and giving witness that "Might is Right," and that the devil does get the hindmost. Since 1913 I have got rid of all my politico- sentimental impedimenta, and certainly I have seen nothing since the raising of the embargo on arms and ammunitions in favor of Villa ( February 3, 1913) against a government duly installed, to the signing of the so-called Peace Treaty (June 28, 1919) bearing under its h~art the seed of fifty wars, VICTORIANO HUERTA 329 to cause me to restock myself. The garments simply - are not cut so that one could be seen out in them. If I am to live in a world of illusions, I would prefer to stay at home, clad in some made-over things of my grandmother's. Those · old poke bonnets that she and her generation put on when the sun of reality got a bit hot in the garden of ideals were not unbecoming, and those scarfs were charming that they twisted about their shoulders when they walked in the twilight talking of altruism and humanity ( which were still good-form words), plucking mignonette and helio- trope, and somebody would quote from Emerson. Those were good days when many really believed that "every secret is told" (it was not at all like the tongue-in-the-cheek, open Oovenants, openly arrived at), that "every crime is punished, every wrong redressed in silence and certainty." The good gentle- man was even able to "put it over" two generations when he stated that "justice is not postponed." In my early girlhood I kept a copy of the "Essay on Compensation" (large print, wide margins, soft green binding) under my pillow, convinced that it was the Key to Life, temporal and eternal. This was not due to extreme youth, because its dicta were accepted along with numberless analogous things in child-like faith by a great nation, except perhaps by·a few political bosses and kings of industry, but they were careful not to tell all they knew. Why, good God, the only things that invariably bring their punishment, and without postponement, are our virtuous acts. Yet hath my soul seen other things than those 330 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY taught by rulers of States and even New England poets: The true "Visio Pacis," swelling the hearts of the elect to bursting; holy enthusiasm, scorching the souls of martyrs; the blessed lamp of sacrifice burn- ing in the dark window of events. Death and love alone are not postponed. . . . To return to our Mexican muttons. In June, 1914, Villa, the "military genius," acting true to type, when I his many differences with Carranza had been, appar- ently, patched up, · suddenly ( or slowly) revolted quite openly against his civilian chief, after which the convention of Aguascalientes was convoked (in Villista territory) and the candidate of Villa, Eulalio Gutierrez, was named President. Eulalio Gutier- rez' real use in the Mexican political cuisine was to keep the lid from rising off the boiling water till Villa could see his way to holding it down himself. History records a great deal of kissing on this solemn occasion of the Convention, unlimited "abrazos" were ex- changed, each one imprinting a further special kiss on the green and white and red flag of the Three Guarantees , . When these colors were chosen in 1823 they were meant to symbolize in red, the union of Mexicans and Spaniards in the bonds of brotherly love, in white, religious purity, and green was for independence. One of the usual Mexican bric-a-brac collectors present at conferences is said to have stolen this much bekissed symbol for his private museum. To return to Villa's star. For reasons that I can- not yet understand, Washington received its rays gratefully, ad!lliringty. "Though a Roman Catholic, VICTORIANO HUERTA ' 331 Villa neither smoked nor drank." 1 He "was a safe man to tie to." 2 He was an "idealist." 8 • • • General Scott was empowered to give him full military honors on various occasions, notably at the famous meeting when American met Mexican on the bridge over the Rio Grande. At a deli~ate nfbment he was empowered to gently upbraid him for his indiscreet looting of Chihuahua, Villa having not yet understood, probably had not been able to take in, the measure of the indulgent love felt for him by "ashington. When it was whispered to him that he was lo ed unto death ( even unto the death of Amer- · icans), and that he was the nearest man to the Presi- dential Chair at that moment, he is reported to have dashed back to Chihuahua, and had those of his fol- lowers executed who had carried out his rash and ill-timed orders. All these days the tongue was in the cheek of the A. B. C.'s. It must have been great I fun; neither they nor the United States stood to lose a penny or their lives. It was to the shrewd and able Latin-Americans an advanced course in North- American procedure, and cheap, very cheap. As a . school for statesmen, nothing has been seen like it, except the Paris Peace Conference, where, for the education of the two men forming the omnipotent Anglo-Saxon Diumvirate, in the elementals of geog- raphy, ethnology, ethnography, to say nothing of language, vivisectitm was, by way of easy illustra- tion, practiced on a large part of Europe. The A. B. C. Conference was less costly. Its clever and amiable members doubtless without batting an eye- 1 Mrs. W. J. Bryan. 2 President WUson. 3 W. J. Bryan. I 332 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY lash, even _ at one another, found they were to be asked to go behind the scenes, even into the dressing rooms of the actors, where they could see how every effect was prepared, how every juggle was made. Their ;reports to their governments on Washington's pro- cedure must have been epoch-making, and will be useful in twenty-five or a hundred years, when, according to inevitable mathematical progression, the importance of South America in the decisions of the Western Hemisphere will be fully evident. As all the world knows, the extremely simple results of the Conference were that the Huerta dele- gates left Niagara Falls, and Huerta left Mexico. The Washington scene-shifters then threw the light of the afore - mentioned bright and evening star over the stage . After that came the World War and we paid little or no attention to what we had done in Mexico. CHAPTER XXVIII The Pr01Jidential Kaleideoacope from Huerta. to Cirranz&. I FRANCISCO S. CARVAJAL Fate, not completely unmindful as to the needs of the "85 per cent" allowed to succeed Huerta, for the short space of 42 days, a man honorable among men where all were not, alas, "honorable, honorable men.' · ' This was Licentiate Francisco S. Carvajal, Judge of the Federal Supreme Court, and whose name I first heard when he was made Representative of the Diaz government at the Ciudad Juarez Convention, May 21, 1911. Since then he had, as far as the momentum of circumstances permitted, maintained an inde- pendent attitude towards the various factions. The same momentum, however, at last pressed .him to the top. He realized soon the impossibility of holding out against the policy of the United States, breaking out always in the most unforeseeable ways and the most unexpected places (the constitutionalists, on the other hand, breaking out exactly where they were expected). Having, too, a decent solicitude for the protection of Mexico City as well as the other pop- ulous portions of the Republic from the unparalleled excesses which were characteFizing the Constitutional army, Carvajal decided to invite Carranza to take a 333 334 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY pacific possession of the Republic in general and t h e City of Mexico in particular. To this end he sent General Lauro Villar ( a former Mad eris ta General) to parley with the First Chief. But this "universal heir of the granite-like soul of the sublime Juarez" proved implacable. He insisted on the unconditional surrender of the government, without, however, giving any guarantees him self where that much besmirched goddess, the Mexican Constitution, was concerned. Carvajal, it is told me by one who knew his short incumbency from within, thought at one time of resisting Carranza, rather than deliver over to him without guarantee the sacred person of the Constitution. He still had at his dis- position various contingents of the Federal Army, and could have counted also on the sympathy of the "85 per · cent," each day visibly less enamoured of Freedom. At this fatal moment, doubtless decreed from all time for the expiation of Mexico's sins, rather than the uplift of the submerged, he received offtcial notice that the American government demanded his unconditional surrender to Carranza. Not being a madman, nor even a "unique zoological specimen," Carvajal saw that resistance would be useless. He was obliged to abandon the city and the Carrancistas ~ntered. The Carvajal Provisional Presidency was one of the children of the A. B . C. Conference and was born at Niagara Falls. It was almost the only one (and there were many ) that lived long enough to draw a breath, and even it was not sure about its father. It seems unnecessary to go into details as to what VICTORIANO HUERTA 335 happened when the tribe chosen by Washington, rather than by God, entered the City of Mexico. It was then that the jolly "Pre - constitutional" period was really inaugurated and the qemise and bur ial of the Constitution became an accomplished fact. With the Constitution, side by side in the same grave, after its annihilation, which was almost immediate, lay the legislative bodies, those of the courts, the social and religious life of Mexico and of the country's :financial and credit system. The ruin was complete. Not only Huerta had "gone,'' but for the time being everything else in Mexico except its geographical position, above which the heads of what is still left of the submerged 85 per cent can at times be seen swimming around in the oil. It reminds one of pictures of the flood in family Bibles · . II EULALIO GUTIERREZ December 13 7 1914, to January 29, 1915. Eulalio Gutierrez first came to the attention of the upper few as a dynamiter of bold and inventive capacities. In lower circles he had been known as a hanger-on at an American mining plant, doing in a dense and heavy way the least amount of work compatible with his presence on pay-day. From this somewhat obscure, even protoplasmic condition, he evolved rather quickly into the more complex organism of a Carrancista General, his next recorded organic change taking place when, according to Mexican laws of evolution, his species began to 336 INTIMATE PAGES OF l\::EXICAN HISTORY -differentiate itself from other types of Constitution- alists. His :final mutation was into the Chief Execu- tive of the Mexican nation, in connection wi t h the Presidency of that short-lived body, the Aguascalien- tes Convention,-while waiting for .Villa to mutate in the same way. He was a broad-shouldered, bull-necked, heavy- paunched, small-headed man, with very long, hanging arms and a dark and terrible eye. He moved heavily, but was expansive both as to wine and women. He dwelt in a :fine house in the Paseo de la Reforma, confiscated for the purpose. Among reforms proposed by him was th'e use of the Guillotine rather than the firing-squad, the waste of ammunition on individuals having got to be excessive. The dark chronicles of his rule tell of mysterious disappearances, sudden stifled cries in the streets at night, volleys towards dawn; and "get out that I may get in" was the order of the day. The Sovereign Convention clipped no wings. Article four expressly and at the same time broadly stated, that the Chief Executive could only be put out if h~ decided any measure of high political im- portance without letting the others know. It was a sort of super-constitution. "Liberty, Justice and Progress" was the banner-cry. On January 29, 1915, Eulalio Gutierrez . aban- doned Mexico City, Villa being then in sight of it. He was accompanied by his general, Lucio Blanco, young, pale, smartly dressed, uninterruptedly amorous, and ten millions from the National treasury. VICTORIANO HUERTA 337 m GENERAL ROQUE GONSALEZ GARZA January 30, 1915, to May 30, 1915. The story of this President of Mexico reads some- what as a fairy tale. He is remembered grate- fully alike by Mexicans and foreigners in Mex- ico City. He was once in the Villista ranks. His mutation from a Villista general into the Chief Executive came about through a union of Villistas and Zapatistas against Carrancis.tas. On his arrival at the Presidency at the age of thirty-five (Fate having caught him young if not innocent) he dis- covered that his political parents, who were also his military subordinates, were insisting on exercising I their time-hallowed rights to destroy life and prop- erty. Furthermore in the Convention then being held in the Capital, a group of Bolshevist theorists, led by Soto y Gama, were busily engaged in weaving a neat but gaudy program to confiscate property, take over all public utilities and establish a socialist state. Roque Gonzalez Garza, with a courage that only those who resided in the city at the time can appreciate, curbed for a while · the activities of both the army and of the Convention. He even went so far as to espouse the · cause of the people of Mexico. His unpopularity with his party increased, of course, in direct ratio as he showed an interest in the welfare of the people in general and the inhabitants of Mexico City in particular. The Convention tried to depose him. He was 338 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY threatened with a&sassination, and was even attacked by a Za pa tista general and two hundred or three hundred followers, in the early hours of a spring morning, at the Sanz Hotel where he incautiously resided. He was not killed and is now enjoying the rewards of Mexican virtue, exile and poV'erty, in San Antonio. In s.pite of his integrity, his courage enabled him to continue to dominate the situation for several months. The times were not propitious, however, for such a man, and to the regret of the inhabitants of Mexico C~ty, he was :finally obliged to wing a hasty flight from his high position. I give but one incident of his administration, demonstrating his complete unsuitability for office. The Zapatistas on entering Mexico City had mur- dered an American by the name of MacManus, who owned a real dairy ( not a powder factory) and having cows that gave milk, on the outskirts of Mexico City. Gonzalez Garza unwisely investigated the mat- ter, with the result that · he awarded the widow 100,000 pesos, the equivalent at that time of $20,000 American money, and saw that it was paid to her out of the Treasury. This is the only case of reparation having been made for the murder of an American during the Revolution. Exit, on the run, of Roque Gonzales Garza. .VICTORIANO HUERTA 339 IV LICENTIATE FRANCISCO LAGOS OHAZARO July 31, 1915, to October, 1915. Licentiate Francisco Lagos Chazaro succeeded him, having been decreed President of Mexico by the ''Sovereign Revolutionary Convention." He was from the State of Vera Cruz. A compatriot says of him that he was "muy vivo" ( very lively, or very cute, as you take the wor<I. classically or colloquially), with a bright eye, using many gestures, and the words "Libertad" and "La constituci6n" were often , on his lips. I leave the reader to fill up the gaps in delineation. These three g·entlemen, however, were but chance beads on the long thread the ' Gray Sisters were busily spinning, for from August 20, 1914, Venu - stiano Carranza, First Chief of the Constitution- alist Army, was in charge of the full and com- plete executive powers. The sequence of events alone demanded that they make an appearance till it was , quite safe for the First Chief to come to Mexico City. But the links in the chain are incomplete unless we go back to the fateful date of March 26, 1913. Since that day Carranza and his friends had lived by the light of the Plan of Guadalupe, the light of which lamp, however, would not long have shone be- fore them, had it not been kept trimmed and burning by the super-:flumine ''Champion of Constitutional , Government on this continent." It begins , th us : 340 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "I, Venustiano Carranza, have seen fit to decree the following {there are seven articles but the first is so inclusive, as well as exclusive, that it is the only one we need quote) : 'The plan of Guadalupe of March 26, 1913, shall subsist until the complete triumph of the revolution and, therefore, Citizen Venust.iano Carranza shall continue in his post as First Chief of the Constitutionalist revolution and as depository of the executive power of the nation, until the enemy is overpowered and peace is restored. · ' " It is extremely elastic, except that phrase which made him the depository of all the powers though, alas, not of all the virtues of Mexico. CHAPTER XXIX Huerta's Imprisonment--His Final "Going." I The story of Huerta after he had been arrested in attempting to enter Mexico to head a revolution against Carranza, ~nd charged with breaking· the neutrality laws, runs as follows, and is brief and bald and terrible as Destiny in her most careless moments. It was on the afternoon of a sultry July day in the Federal Court room in El Paso that Mr. Tom Lea, his attorney, first saw the "silent old warrior," as he calls him, advancing with outstretched hand, courteous manner and a long searching gaze. He had been arrested . a few hours before at New- man Station, eighteen miles northeast of El Paso on the Rock Island Road, as he stepped from the train to greet General Pascual Orozco. These two men, once victo_r and vanquished, at fast fatalistically to involve each other in death, were then arrested, together with Huerta's two sons-in-law and General Ca us, an octogenarian and inocuous son of Mars, and thrown into the common jail with men of various colors and crimes. A cash bond of $15,000 was, made for Huerta, $10,000 for Orozco and smaller sums for the others, after which General Huerta was rem- . porarily released from custody, · though kept under the strictest surveillance by United Stares officials. The next day, however, orders we-re received from 341 342 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Washington for them all to be taken again in to cus- tody. Orozco escaped shortly after his arrest, forfeit- ing his bond. An attempt was made by Huerta's attorney to have Huerta freed on a larger bond than the first. He was, however, told by the govern- ment authorities that Huerta would under no circum- stances be released. Habeas Corpus being the only remedy available, he was advised of his rights, but in that imperious way of his he answered, "Get these other men bonds, and they can keep me, for I will go when I wish." Probably in his Indian way he felt as did Ulysses, when, striking his breast, he chided his heart, saying: "Bear this, too ; thou hast supported greater things." He did not know it was the end. A few days afterward he was removed to Fort Bliss, seven miles from El Paso, and put into the abandoned hospital,-a civilian prisoner, in a mili- tary cantonment, with a guard of six civilian secret service men, and furthermore under bond. His wife and children, his two old Indian sisters and other members of his family, came to El Pa o soon after his arrest. Every day towards evening they would go out from the city, with something of tribal dignity about them, to visit the captive chief, and take him little offerings. They never saw him, however, except in the presence of his jailors. The mutual · affection and devotion of Huerta and his family was most touching. To fhe U!3Ual Mexican marks of respect for the head of the family, was an added measure of reverence for one so unfortunate and so patient, all realizing that "the things which VICTORIANO HUERTA 343 before his soul would not touch, now, through anguish, were his meats." Senora de Huerta had rented a modest, two-story residence on Stanton Street, which is all there is to the legend that Huerta, his pockets full of money, or rather his wife's pockets full of money, had bought, among other valuable real estate in El Paso, a large apartment building. In the meantime, Huerta remained in the aban- doned hospital; it was cold and damp and meagerly furnished. He became ill a;nd was transferred, in company with his guards, to one of the small four- room cottages originally bull t for officers. His way of life remained unchanged. He took little exercise, eating scantily of the unaccustomed :food, and what- ever may have been his "copita" practice in the days of his power, it is recorded that during his incarcera- tion he drank no brandy nor spirituous liquors of any kind-neither did he ask for any. All this time he is said to have been the soul of wit and courtesy, showing himself well versed in world-politics, deeply interested in the Great War in general, and in France, the country of Bonaparte, in particular. His stoic Indian fatalism was very much in evidence, though an ironic sense of humor caused him to bewail at times that he had been fool enough to let himself be taken prisoner. . Sometimes, in company witn hi~ guards, he was allowed to go to the army tent of Father Joyce, Chaplain of a regiment stationed near. He used to call it "the parsonage." On a mesquite stick for a pedestal was a little statute given to Father Joyce by 344 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY Senora de Huerta,-a copy of the Moses of Michael Angelo. "There," said Huerta, when he :first saw it, "is something to laugh at. After they put me out of Mexico, they came up against anarchy and barbar- ism. Here again may be barbarism in Texas. Moses in marble with the te · n commandments on his lap on a mesquite stick in a tent! Look out, Father, the wind may blow against the tent, the tent may fall against Moses and down he may tumble and you will be accused, as I was, of breaking the ten command- ments all at once." He would spend long hours standing on the :ver- anda of the little Fort Bliss cottage, looking to- wards the Mexican horizon, and he talked much of "mi pais." Sometimes in speaking of his own and Mexico's misfortunes, he would say: "I failed be- cause I was obliged to try the impossible. Mexico cannot live without the favor of the United States, or, at least, without the enjoyment of its indifference. I had neither." Often, too, as he ~tood looking to the south, he would paraphrase Lerdo's famous remark, saying: "Would that the desert between Mexico and the United States had remained a desert-and that the friars had never brought donkeys from Spain!' At night , his pleasure was to watch the stars shin- ing above the Southern horizon. He was well versed in astronomy, and the great processional of the heav- enly bodies, which he would hail by name as the seasons brought them into view, seemed · to give him solace. Often he would get up in the small hours of sleepless nights and watch them in silence from the narrow veranda. VICTORIANO HUERTA 345 Whatever the impatience ravagj.ng his breast, he betrayed Ii ttle of it, beyond occasionally asking his attorney if he were not soon to come up for trial. After a few months, however, a great physical ch a nge was apparent in him. He grew thin, al- m os t emaciated, became very nervous and ill-at-ease, tar ting at the slightest sound. It was doubt- le s s at this time that Huerta realized with an intui- t i v e realization that permitted no self-deception, that he was lost, his power vanished, his cause dead. Be ing thus done with hope, the physical ill that mig ht, in other circumstances, have been held in ch e ck, took an unresisted course. The hour of his arrival in El Paso had been again the hour of destiny, his and his country's ringing loudly in the old Indian's ears. They were both caught in that same destiny. Huerta should have died at Vera Cruz, or even in Mexico City. An assassin's arm or a foreig::i bullet would have been equally propitious to his renown. But, as in his life events were · untoward, so in his death. He was to die as one guilty, before so proven, showing how unescapabl:Y each accomplishes his des- tiny in its intrinsic form to the end. The continual presence of his jailors wore on him greatly, for he had, like all men of his race, - a need of solitude. They had become much attached to him, and rendered his imprisonment as easy as possible, but their orders were never to let him out of their sight, day or night. Though he continued to joke with them in his few words - of broken Eng - lish, it was evident that he was failing. His priest and his attorney, becoming alarmed, advised the au- 346 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY thorities of his condition and protested at his further confinement. For some weeks., however, they could get nothing done, and he gradually grew worse, lying on his cot the greater part of the time, with his face turned to the wall. It was tragedy, grim, antique-the vanquished in the hands of the victor, and as always-woe, woe to him! Hope, liealth, desire to live had finally departed from him. We who have seen many men of many countries in captivity can picture well the faded passion of the look that lay upon his face. No man knew better than Huerta that death is I nothing in itself, "for all submit to the natural law," both in their coming and their going, and the manner is the same for all, but to live the daily death of the , vanquished, the unconsidered, and the captive-for that he found no fortitude. Huerta's attorney conferred at last with Judge Crawford, then Assistant District Attorney at El Paso, telling him that the General was so ill that recovery was improbable, that it seemed outrageous that he should die in confinement, every failing , · breath watched by jailors. Judge Crawford accom- panied Mr. Lea to Fort Bliss. It was only too evi- dent that the old Indi;:tn was gravely ill. They tele- 1 graphed to Judge Camp, the District Attorney at San Antonio, and word was received to release General Huerta on his personal recognizance. · The United States Commissioner, the Deputy U. · s. District Attorney and Hu'erta's attorney then repaired to Fort Bliss and this was taken in a further sum of one thousand dollars, after which he was remov~d to VICTORIANO HUERTA 347 the little house on Stanton Street wh~re his family received him. It was here that he made his will, leaving his bond, which amounted in all to $38,000 and was the only thing he possessed, to his wife. This she never re- covered, and is living in poverty in Itavana. Part of the bond was claimed by counsel, part went to bondsmen for the protection of the bonds of Pascual Orozco (which was, of course, forfeited), and Fuentes a nd Quiroz, Huerta's sons-in-law, and others. The re- mainder was lost in favor of the government of the United States. It was at this house, too, that Fate was to make the most grotesque of all her gestures where Huerta was concerned, reminding one of "grand guignol" p e rformances, of penny dreadfuls. It would have be e n even indecorously melodramatic, had · it not b e en her way of pointing Huerta from the human stage, the always august act, whatever be its form. On a bitter January night, a large man with thick, black whiskers, speaking excellent Spanish, knocked late at Huerta's door. He was admitted. He told Sefiora de Huerta that he was a physician and a great admirer of her gifted and persecuted husband. He asked to examine him, after which he statecJ. that unless an immediate operation was performed, in thirty-six hours he would be among the dead. He so alarmed both Huerta and his wife that they con- sented to the operation that same night. The black- whiskered stranger then made two abdominal inci- sions, without anesthetics, and furthermore did not sew up the wounds; after which he returned to the night of mystery from whence he came. Huerta died 348 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXiCAN HISTORY thre _ e days after the fantastic and fatal occur- rence . . . . So much for his body . . The disposition of his soul, too, belongs to history. During his captivity, he partook frequently of the Sacraments of the Church. He would seem to have known something of that third stage of man's spiritual journey, which is reconciliation, after those others,-innocence and deviation, for he died in the fullness of the faith in which, under the glittering J aliscan sun, he was born. What its meaning was in his Indian soul who shall say? Nor what the images of repentance and hope it called forth. He who reads all hearts alone knows if the years of deviation were blotted out. Huerta was doubtless guilty of many things. Was he a criminal? He was pursued by fate as was the * family of the Atridre, sharing in the crimes, not of the gods, but of his country. Yet he paid his price in full into his enemy's hand, and any man who has so paid takes on again the :first dignity of his being. Mexico, too, has paid in full, and though the evil deeds of the weak are unpardonable, shall we not show some virtue in our own strength? . . . It was on thf: night of the thirteenth of January (1916), shortly after eight o'clock, that Huerta's attorney was called by telephone to the house on Stan- ton Street. It was only too evident that the old Indian lay on his death-bed. His face, which had become very small, was gray with that strange In- dian grayness preceding dissolution. His eyes, once vigilant and restless, were dull and quiet. VICTORIANO HUERTA 349 Kneeling about the narrow bed were his wife and children, and his two old Indian sisters. His wife still beautiful, and beloved by all who knew her for her virtues and pitied for her misfortunes, had not ceased during many hours to recite the sorrowful mysteries of her rosary. His daughter Elena, who kept his hand pressed closely in hers, had a voice of exceeding beauty, and at intervals would sing familiar hymns of the Church and songs of the Patria whose soil he was no more to tread. A Mexican priest and an American army Chap- lain knelt near continuing to absolve him. The final and majestic words of the dismissal : "Go forth, 0 Christian soul, from this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty who created thee," made of the lowly room a mansion-hall . . . . Outside, in corridor and vestibule, were friends also fallen from high estate, partakers of his misfor- tunes and of their country's. In the street were many Indians in prayers and tears, for it is recorded of Huerta that even in his poverty he was never too poor to dispense alms. . . . Towards the last his wife entreated him to make the famous "statement'' that he had so often prom- ised. But he answered her: "No, to what end? I die at peace with God and man. I forgive all who have injured me-most fully the President of the United States, for he never understood, and I ask pardon of all whom I have wronged. The rest I leave to God, into whose hands I entrust my poor family." After this he became restless, twitching at his covers, muttering indistinctly, in evident solicitude for his wife and children. Once they caught the words: 350 INTIMATE PAGES OF MEXICAN HISTORY "If any money is ever realized on anything I pos- sess, let the poor have a share." . Then raising himself slightly, he begged his daugh- ter to sing again, saying, "Thy voice is like an angel's voice." Shortly afterwards he ent:ered into the death- agony. He sp<;>ke only once more and the words were very simple, "todo por los pobres" ( all for the poor). A few minutes before nine o'clock he passed away, his face turned to the South . . . . Huerta had "gone." . . . By a curious coincidence it was on this night that a mob, numbering several thousand, surged up and down San Antonio Street, the eighteen dead bodies of the San Isabel Massacre having arrived at six o'clock from Chihuahua. Another massacre, which, as an eye witness said, 1 looked as if it were going to shame that of St. Bartholomew, was averted by City- police Captain :Sall and two provost guard , who with drawn revolvers, held the crowd at bay on Broadway Street, on their way to the Mexi an Quar- ter of the city. This act turned the heads of the mob back towards · san Antonio Street, giving time to rush soldiers to the center of the city, who there dispersed the · crowd, which had meant to kill and burn in re- taliation for the murders at San Isabel by the "idealist" Villa, · once considered "tbe safest man to tie to." . . . On the second day after his death the mortal re- mains of ex-President Huerta were carried as quietly as possible to the Concordia Cemetery, , east of the city, where they were placed in a stone vault beside VICTORIANO HUERTA 351 those of Pascual Orozco, who had been shot and killed by the Texas Rangers, a few months before, near Van Horn, ninety miles from El Paso. Father Joyce, the priest who had anointed him for his last journey, and Mr. Tom Lea, his attorney, were the only Americans i~ the little gathei'ing that heard the heavy, iron-grated door close upon the form and features of Huerta, crushed at last by what he had been wont to call "el Coloso del Norte." . . . His end was as the end of many men of history, who at their birth and their beginning have received, with many gifts, many defects. But in the pitiless Northern light flung about his person and his acts, separating him from the deter• mining virtues and failings of his race, as the spot- light does the single figure, only his defects were visible. Yet he possessed some intrinsic qualities, making him perhaps worthy of his disasters .. . .. In the end he was even to outrun the law's delays, leav- . ing hjs unjudged case to the mercy of history . . . . What was tp be, had been. Huerta "gone,"-and gone with him the last shred of legal government in Mexico . . . . And who shall restore to Me~ico "the years .which the locust and the bruchus and the mildew and the palmer-worm have eaten?" THE END' '. of ' . ' Day s,, ' , D i p lom;,i 's Wife ' in Al ex~= ~, H ifity Lorraine J o urnal,,, e t c. ~ / L INTI 1 1ATE PAGES OF . . l M ·~ EXIGAN · HISTORY . ® EDITH . 0.SHAUGHNESSY ( MRS. NELSON u· HAUGHNESSY ) After five · years or more of so-called "non - int e rfer n " in Mexican affairs we find ourselves precis~ly wh r w b g a n : the Mexican government overthrown and rival faction . ' e kin g our recognition and support . To whom are we t o give it? l pon what evidence ar w to <l - cide who is to have our favor? Is there any way of d terminin g what principles should guide u s ?' Mrs. O'Shaughnessy writes from a full and intimate knowled~ of Mexican affairs. Ir .If s ~ tting fo r th the records and personalitie of Mexico's executives, <- nm Dh u. to the present day, she speaks from personal knowled~ ~ i a · ned while in Mexico and from private sources of information which enable her to publish here fact never before set down in th€ .i. t full significance. She also sketches those underlying traif° i ~ of M .. ,~· kan character that should not be ignored, and fundamental principles that determ'ine the political relations of the two p£:oples, an appreciation of which is necessary to lead us out of the straits to whkh our djplomacy has brought us. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy has made a constructive contribut1on to the d itcussion of the Mexican problem. The book makes fascinating reading . It is intimate, vivid and - true. We must, sooner or later, face and solve the Mexican problem. To understand Mexico is our only hope. This boo does much to make th~t possible. RGE H. DORAN COMPAN¥ ' l Publishers ::=f Cover Title page Preface Contents Part one: Porfirio diaz Part two: Francisco Leon de la Barra Part three: Francisco I. Madero Part four: Victoriano Huerta Back cover