Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 witii funding from Tine Library of Congress littp://www.arcliive.org/details/mexicoinrevolutiOOblas MEXICO IN REVOLUTION The articles in this volume were written originally at the request of and for "The Chicago Tribune". MEXICO IN REVOLUTION BY V. BLASCO IBANEZ AUTHOB OF "the FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALTPSB," "MABB NOSTRUM," "WOMAN TRIUMPHANT," ETC., ETC. TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR LIVINGSTON AND JOSE PADIN NEW YORK B. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE . Copyright, 1920, bt E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY AU Rights Reserved ftrri printing June. Printed in the United States ot Ametiett JUL 14 1920 'Ul A570672 AUTHOE'S NOTE The various articles in this volume were written, on my return from Mexico, for the "New ^Tork Times, the Chicago Tribune and other im- portant newspapers in the United States. When I began my articles, the revolution which finally overthrew Carranza had not yet triumphed and ''the old man" was still alive. Events moved rapidly while the articles were coming out. Carranza was assassinated and Obregon, with the militarist party, came into power. Works of the moment, these articles record my various impressions of the days during which they were written. They do not, in con- sequence, show the unity and homogeneity of a book written after the fact on events already complete in themselves and easily appreciable to the person observing them in perspective and as a whole. I might, of course, have remodeled these articles and reduced them to chapter form. I vi AUTHOR'S NOTE miglit have suppressed some paragraphs to avoid repetitions and added others to fill in the completed picture. I finally decided to leave them exactly as they appeared in the press, with all their spontaneity as works of the moment. They do not contain all that I have to say on the Mexico of the present. They are simple impressions, hastily and incompletely jotted down as circumstances warranted or required. I regard them as the first shots on the skirmish line, before my real battle, with all my heavy guns in action, begins. The final results of my observation and study on contemporary Mexico I shall give, with greater amplitude and more attentive art, in my forthcoming novel called *'The Eagle and the Snake." Vicente Blasco Ibanez. New York, June 20, 1920. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Cause oe the Revolution ... 1 11. The Sad Story OF Flor De Te ... 21 III. "Citizen" Obregon 49 IV. The Real Author o© Carranza's Downfall 74 V. Carranza's Official Family ... 98 VI. Condition of the Country .... 124 VII. The Generals 148 VIII. The Mexican Army . . . . . . 171 IX. Mexico's Ominous Silence . . , . 191 X, Mexico and the United States . . 219 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION MEXICO IN REVOLUTION I. THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION I AM just back from Mexico, where I spent a month and a half. In this brief period of time I made the acquaintance of a Government that looked strong and seemed destined to reach the end of its constitutional days peacefully; I witnessed the outbreak of a revolution that in its early stages led a languid life; I saw the de- cisive triumph of this revolution, brought about by the unexpected assistance of political ele- ments that had seemed out of sympathy with it ; and I observed, finally, the flight of President Carranza, the present uncertainty concerning his fate, and the still greater uncertainty re- garding the probable future of the new Gov- ernment in process of formation. After all, there is nothing extraordinary in this vertiginous movement of events. Of all things Mexican, revolutions move with the greatest velocity. 2 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION I went to Mexico to gather material for a novel that I intend to entitle ''The Eagle and the Snake." Among my notes there is a statis- tical table showing the number of governments that Mexico has had since it secured its inde- pendence. In less than a hundred years — be- ginning with 1821 — the Republic of Mexico has been served by seventy-two different govern- ments. Now, with the fall of the Carranza re- gime, the record stands at seventy-three, with time to spare before the century closes. Leav- ing aside the thirty years of Porfirio Diaz's rule we find that the average life of each gov- ernment has been approximately one year. In this series of articles I am going to tell what I saw and what I heard in Mexico. I am going to give the American public, in advance, a small portion of the observations I made for "The Eagle and the Snake.'' These will be simply the impressions of a novelist, of an im- partial observer. I had ample opportunity to talk to Carranza, as well as to his bitterest ene- mies, and I was able to get their conflicting views. I am grateful to both sides for many courtesies received, but I hold no brief for either party. If there is any group that has THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 3 won my sympathy it is tlie Mexican people, the eternal victim of a tragi-comedy that never ©nds, the poor slave whom all pretend to re- deem and whose lot has remained unchanged for centuries, the everlasting dupe whom the redeemers shower with fine phrases, never telling him the truth because the truth is fre- quently cruel. Carranza's Craft Inspired District I had several fairly intimate talks with Presi- dent Carranza and I am in a position to state what the underlying motive of his policy was in the last days of his regime. I am fully aware of the fact that Carranza is not one of those men who can be easily probed. Accustomed to the politics of a country where dissimulation is one of the best practical virtues, it is no easy task to sound him. Suffice it to say that when Don Venustiano receives a visitor, the first thing he does, by instinct, is to back his chair against the nearest window. By this simple maneuver he places himself in a semi-darkness so that his body becomes a silhouette from which the face stands out like a faint white spot. In this posture he cannot be observed 4 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION closely, while he, on the other hand, can scruti- nize at pleasure the face of his visitor which remains exposed to the full flood of light streaming through the window. When some- thing arrests his attention, Carranza has a way of peering over the rim of his light blue spec- tacles. It was this very trick which made the rustic Pancho Villa suspicious of Carranza and led the former to exclaim on one occasion: ''There's nothing the matter with Carranza's eyes. He has very good sight and doesn't need spectacles. He wears them to shade his eyes and hide his thoughts better. ' ' But the reader must not infer from this that Carranza is a sort of shrewd tyrant of awe- some aspect. Don Venustiano is an old coun- try gentleman, a ranchman, with all the cun- ning of rural landowners and all the shrewd- ness of county politicians, but he is simpatico and has a noble bearing. Despite his apparent reserve, at times he waxes loquacious, "feels like a student" — as he puts it — and then he talks freely; he even laughs. THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 5 His Hostility to Militarism Carranza's fall was due to his stubborn at- tempt to pursue an anti-military policy. This old chieftain of the revolutionary arm- ies, who, though bom in the country, is more warlike than many of his Generals bred in the cities, would never permit any one to give him the title of Greneral. Knowing, undoubtedly, that the chief trouble with Mexico is the incur- able eruption of Generals with which the re- public is afflicted, he did not care to add an- other boil to the diseased body of the nation by assuming the title of General. His followers always referred to him as the ''First Chief"; they never called him General. During his campaigns Carranza wore the uni- form of a buck private. Now, on the eve of his retirement from office, he took part more or less directly in the Presi- dential campaign and he used his influence to bring about the election of a civilian. "The trouble with Mexico," he told me in an interview, ''has always been, and still is, mili- tarism. Few of our Presidents have been men drawn from civil life; always Generals. And 6 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION what Generals! . . . No, this thing has got to stop for the good of Mexico. My successor ought to be a civilian, a man of modern views and progressive ideas, capable of preserving domestic peace and directing the economic de- velopment of the nation. It is time that my country should begin to live the healthy, normal life which other nations enjoy." The ideal cherished by Carranza could not be more praiseworthy, but at the same time nothing could be more absurd and dangerous than the means employed by him to carry out his plan. Therefore, while I applaud his views on militarism, I applaud also his downfall. For President, the Unknown Bonillas To invest the Presidency of the republic with the civil character that befits it, it would have been necessary to choose a candidate of emi- nent qualities, a man with a long record of dis- tinguished public service, a man of unques- tioned popularity. And what did Carranza do ? He did precisely the very opposite thing. He selected one of the most obscure of Mexicans. He hit upon Senor Bonillas, his Ambassador at Washington, a man who has spent most of THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 7 his life away from Ms native land and who even married abroad. There is another important factor in the situ- ation: the character of the Carranza govern- ment in the closing days of its regime. I am well aware of the fact that when a revo- lutionary party triumphs in a C4)untry like Mexico dissensions are hound to occur in its ranks eventually; these dissensions are inevit- able. The ''deserving patriots^' are legion! They all want their reward, and the country does not have enough wealth to go around and satisfy every appetite. The lucrative offices are few in number and there are dozens of can- didates who consider themselves competent to fill them. There is, moreover, a situation peculiar to Mexico. In every country one can find the disinterested revolutionary type, the ascetic agitator who expects to get from revolu- tion only the ideal satisfaction of victory. Of course, in every revolutionary movement there are shameless self-seekers, but together with these there are noble and disinterested vision- aries who sacrifice themselves for the common good and who, after the triumph of their doo- 8 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION trines, continue to live like real saints, feed- ing on the bread and water of their enthusiasm. Among the Mexicans who occupied the high- est public offices after the revolution I searched in vain for the Don Quixote, for the type that appeared in the French and Russian revolu- tions, the disinterested patriot who thriiks only of the common weal without regard to his own advantage. I failed to find him. Those I met are men of hard practical sense who never lose sight of personal profit. Revolutionaries Usually Rich I was surprised to see the large number of rich revolutionaries in Mexico. There may be some poor revolutionaries in Mexico — I hope there are some, for in my own country I was once a poor revolutionary — ^but if there are any such in Mexico their number is so scarce that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, with some fingers to spare. The majority of those revolutionaries are undoubtedly the sons of millionaires. They claim that before the revolution they were sim- ple peons, ambulant vendors, subordinate em- ployees, or mere vagabonds. Such claims must THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION be forced attempts on their part to hide their influential origin and so to flatter the popular masses. If what they say were true, their present wealth conld be explained only by some unexpected inheritance recently received from relatives who had heretofore ignored them. Otherwise it would be utterly impossible to un- derstand how men who six or seven years ago were ambulant milk dealers, vendors of dry vegetables or Mexican hats, hungry rural school teachers or mail carrriers, can honestly have ac- quired fortunes estimated at several millions of dollars, especially since these men have wasted considerable time in revolution. It is equally difficult to explain how so many wives of Gen- erals and Colonels who half a dozen years ago were poor women of the peon class, how so many lady friends of Generals and Colonels, are now able to display expensive jewelry which remind people of the gems bought years ago by the leading Mexican families now in exile. But let us not insist on these details. Suffice it to say that the prominent leaders of the Mex- ican revolution made the revolution for a fixed purpose. They do not understand sacrifice for the common good. Carranza had to consoli- 10 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION date his new Government. After the first few years he was forced to limit the number of his favorites; whereupon those who were left out- side of the golden shower of his favors became the bitter enemies of the First Chief. When I observed closely the inner circle of intimate friends who gathered around Carranza in his Presidential palace I was struck by their youth. The respectable Don Venustiano, vv^ith his white beard and light blue spectacles, looked like the head master of a boarding school for boys. Generals of 27 and grave Ministers of 29 or 30 followed with veneration and gratitude the old First Chief. The Young Adonis Who Ruled In reality, one of these youths was the real ruler of the Mexican Republic during the last few years, the real power behind the throne, Juan Barragan, a General 27 years old, the chief of Carranza 's staff. Those who had a petition to make would im- mediately think, "I shall have to see Juanito Barragan about this.'* On account of his youth and amiable charac- ter everybody spoke of Barragan as Juanito THE CAUSE OP THE REVOLUTION 11 C Johnny") Barragan. A simple law student and the son of a well-to-do family, he followed Don Venustiano when the latter rose against Hnerta. President Carranza always showed a certain weakness for this youth, who accom- panied him everywhere as a beautiful and deco- rative adjunct to the Presidential entourage. "The Handsomest Man in the World" It has been stated recently that Barragan was executed by the revolutionaries of Mexico after Carranza 's flight. I hope the rumor is not true. Why kill him? He was the Apollo of the revolution. Tall, handsome, arrogant despite his childlike features, the girls of Mex- ico consider him the best looking man in the re- public — ^in fact, in the entire world. He was almost a national glory and received honors ac- cordingly. With the bright blue of his uniform and his gold braid he was a dazzling sight. He seemed to have just stepped out of a toy box, freshly varnished. He bought himself a new uniform every week. Twenty-seven years of age, fine health, an amiable character — and master of Mexico ! His enemies said that he owned a whole row 12 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION of houses in the principal avenue of Mexico City. Impossible ! He could not have had any money left for such investments after throwing it away by the handful as he did. During the last few years it has been a fine business for singers and actresses to go to Mexico ! Thanks to the amiable Chief of Staff, an actress could visit Mexico and return to her native land with savings amounting to one or two hundred thou- sand dollars. Barragan's power extended even to the uni- versity. During my visit to Mexico the Gov- ernment assigned me to that institution, which was invited to entertain me and direct my ex- cursions over the country. This courtesy did not surprise me. "It is because I am a writer," I thought. But shortly before I left Mexico, through the indiscretion of a functionary, I dis- covered that a certain famous foreign dancer had also been consigned to the university dur- ing her journey in Mexico a year before. Was I offended? Of course not! It was the doing of the amiable Barragan. Se received all pe- titioners with a bountiful generosity, as though he would die rather than fail to serve them. He never said no to any one. He was capable of THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 13 surrendering Don Venustiano 's head if lie was asked for it with real insistence. And Car- ranza, plain in dress, grave in appearance, a man of strict morals and clean life, when he observed the elegant uniform and the gold braid of his Chief of Staff, seemed to rejoice as though he were contemplating his own image in a looking-glass. On other occasions, when the President would hear of Barragan's suc- cesses with the ladies, he would smile with the delight of a kindly grandfather. "Johnny" Briefly Defends Republic I left Mexico City without bidding adieu to the Apollo of the revolution. His Excellency, General Don Juan Barragan, was spending whole days with the telephone receiver at his ear, giving orders, with his eyes fixed on the map of Mexico. The followers of Obregon had already taken the field, and "the handsomest Mexican," as the marriageable seiioritas and visiting actresses say, had just assumed the duties of a strategist and was busy directing the movements of the Federal troops. Poor and amiable boyl I can see now why the Carranza regime collapsed so readily. 14 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION Bouillas, Carranza's Unfortunate Choice The real and immediate cause of Carranza^s downfall was his obstinate attempt to impose upon the country the Presidential candidacy of Bonillas. If it had not occurred to him to in- sist on this solution and had he allowed the Presidential campaign to follow its natural course, letting Generals Obregon and Pablo Gonzalez fight it out, he might have completed his Presidential term in peace. And he would probably be revered as an idol to-day by his old subordinates. The reader will probably ask why Carranza hit upon a candidacy so unpopular as that of Senor Bonillas. To answer this I can offer only conjectures, or rather I must repeat what I heard in Mexico. As the majority of Mexicans are firmly con- vinced that Carranza is a tricky politician, be- cause of his reserve and deep-laid machinations, they give the following explanation of his con- duct in the Bonillas affair : Bonillas was to be a mere tool in the hands of Don Venustiano. He had selected him for his very insignificance — because he did not belong THE CAUSE OP THE REVOLUTION 15 to any party and because he was wholly un- known in the country. Bonillas would thus owe his position entirely to his protector and would not be likely to darse la vuelta contra el — in the language of the country, or as the Eng- lish say, to bite the hand that fed him. This business of darse la vuelta is a Mexican game which must be taken into account, for the country is a famous hotbed of political treason and there is always fear that the friend of to- day may become the enemy of to-morrow. If you help some one to get along in the world in Mexico you are almost sure soon to receive a kick from him. He will boot you to show his self-respect and independence. With the unknown Senor Bonillas there was no occasion to fear such a kick. A creature of Carranza, he would remain faithful to his chief and he would continue to surround himself with a circle of friends selected by his protector to be his advisers and guardians. Shortsighted critics did not attribute this purpose to Carranza. They thought that the candidacy of Bonillas was a stratagem invented for the occasion. *'We know the vie jo harhon," they said, al- 16 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION luding to Carranza's white beard. "He has launched the candidacy of Bonillas for the mere purpose of irritating Obregon. Obregon will rise against the Government and a long war will follow. Carranza will then declare that it is impossible to hold elections and will continue in the Presidency indefinitely.'* Carranza as a Second Diaz Others, more farsighted, came nearer to the truth, in my judgment, when they discussed the situation. "Carranza," they said, "really wishes to be succeeded in the Presidency by Bonillas. Un- der the direction of Carranza and with a legis- lature composed of Carranza deputies, Car- ranza will see to it that the Constitution is re- vised, eliminating the article which forbids the reelection of the President. After the article is eliminated Don Venustiano will become Pres- ident again and he will get himself reelected in- definitely. ' * The method is not new. Porfirio Diaz did that very thing. He began his political career by rising against the reelection of Presidents, and after he became the Chief Magistrate of THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 17 the republic he yielded the place for a brief period to one of his own henchmen, had his own Constitution amended, and thus opened the way; for his thirty-year rule. I believe that Carranza really wanted Bo- nillas to succeed him, but I cannot refrain from judging that in this Don Venustiano rendered his protege a very poor service. Of all the personages who figure in this last Mexican revolution Bonillas is the man who in- spires my deepest sympathy on account of his misfortune. His role has been that of certain good though simple-minded characters of the comedy who inevitably pay for the faults of others, and who, despite their reluctance to get mixed up in quarrels, receive all the blows. Why did they not leave him alone? He was living so peacefully in Washington as the diplo- matic representative of Mexico! His post seemed destined to become perpetual. If Ob- regon were to succeed Carranza the Oeneral would surely keep Bonillas as American Am- bassador, because they are both from Sonora and have been friends since their childhood. No matter who might be elected President, Bonillas would be kept in his post, respected as 18 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION a good man who serves his country the best he knows how, and who, residing abroad, could hold completely aloof from all domestic politi- cal quarrels. But, alas ! Don Venustiano conceived the un- happy idea of selecting Bonillas as his succes- sor and of stirring the Ambassador's ambition, dragging him away from the sweet environment of his family and the noble tranquillity of Washington. Viva Bonillas, the "Tea Flower"! Ten months ago the Mexicans were unaware of the existence of Bonillas. A few knew that a gentleman by that name lived in the capital of the United States, and they even suspected that he had done great things for Mexico, al- though they were not quite sure what those things were. And, lo! all of a sudden the Government launches the name of this man — a name that arouses no echo in public opinion — as if Bonil- las were a providential personage, destined to save the country. The people of Mexico City have a keen sense of humor and show a veritable genius for in- THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 19 venting nicknames. Moreover, the Spanish zarzuela companies, the experts in light and comio opera, play a great deal in the theaters of the Mexican capital, so that the public of that city has acquired the same keenness for repartee which characterizes the people of the popular quarters of Madrid. Among the songs written for the zarzuela theaters of Madrid there is one which has be- come extremely popular and is sung in all the theaters and music halls of the Spanish- Ameri- can countries. The song tells the story of a poor shepherd girl who has been abandoned and wanders over the face of the earth, not know- ing where she was born nor who her parents were. She knows nothing about herself except her nickname, which is Flor de Te, or ''Tea Flower." The malicious people of Mexico City imme- diately rechristened the Garranza candidate who had come from foreign parts, the candidate who came nobody knew whence and who was going no one knew whither. Viva Bonillas! Viva Flor de Te! Hurray for Bonillas ! Hurray for * ' Tea Flower ' ' ! And from that moment everybody lost re- 20 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION spect for Don Venustiano 's whiskers and for the terrifying face lie puts on when he is in bad humor. In the next article I shall relate the tragi- comic incidents through which was born, gi-ew and died the candidacy of ''Flor de Te" — the immediate cause of the revolution. n. THE SAD STORY OF FLOE DE TE ONILLAS, the candidate picked by Car- ranza to succeed him in the Presidency of the Eepublic, is a man who has spent the great- er part of his life away from Mexico. Early in his youth he left his native country and wan- dered into several of the American Southern States, trying his hand at various jobs in an effort to make an honest living and managing to eke out the precarious existence of a worker who is frequently forced to change both resi- dence and occupation. Later, when he was no longer in his teens, he studied engineering in the Boston Institute of Technology. When Garranza rose against Huerta, Bonil- las returned to Mexico and took part in the revolution. His record as a fighting man, how- ever, was not brilliant. He even failed to be- come a General. He merely served as an engi- neer, marching in the rear of the revolution- ary army with the obscure civilians who looked 21 22 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION after the administrative affairs of the new re- gime. After the triumph of the revolution, Car- ranza, who needed to send to Washington a loyal representative willing to obey instruc- tions explicitly, selected Bonillas. The ap- pointee knew English better than his native tongue and he had been educated in the States — qualifications, these, which gave him a deci- sive advantage over all the other aspirants to the post of Ambassador to the United States. And he remained in this position throughout the entire administration of Carranza, until the latter conceived the notion of naming Bonillas his heir to the Presidential chair. LaugMng Down the Candidate I have told, in a preceding article, how the people of Mexico City, surprised at the candi- dacy of the unknown Bonillas, gave him the nickname of "Flor de Te" (Tea Flower). At first they called him Bonillas ''Tea Flower, ' because no one knew who he was. Later on his enemies claimed they knew his past in its mi-, nute details, and poor Senor Bonillas became THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 23 something worse than the little shepherd girl of the Spanish song. A campaign of truth and falsehood was launched by the enemies of his candidacy, with the vociferous approval of all those who were willing to jeer at anything to irritate Carranza. According to them, Bonillas's name was not Bonillas at all. He was not even a Mexican. His real name was Stanford, and he had been born in the United States. Bonillas was the name of his mother, whose blood was the only Mexican blood that ran in the candidate's veins. And the sympathizers of Bonillas (friends of Carranza, public employees and sol- diers) would publish the genealogy of the Bo- nillas family, beginning with the founder of the line — a carpenter who came from Spain when Mexico was still a Spanish colony. According to his opponents, the Presidential candidate could not speak Spanish. Every morning the opposition press published stories about Bonillas in which he was featured as talk- ing Spanish and so altering the construction and meaning of his words as to say the most shocking things. 24 MEXICO IN REVOLUnOM A Gallo for the Visitor I myself served indirectly as a pretext for this slanderous propaganda. "When a popular foreigner arrives in Mexico the university stu- dents generally treat him with a gallo. A gallo is a night procession, with torchlights, something between a serenade and a masquer- ade. It marches past the balcony of the house where the honored guest is lodged ; and the stu- dents, mounted on horseback or riding in auto- mobiles decked with flowers and flags, or on trucks artistically converted into allegorical chariots, sing, shout and make laudatory or burlesque speeches to the guest of honor; and the public, invited by the college boys, joins the parade, with more carriages and bands of music. I was treated to several gallos. The one given me in Mexico City was enormous, more than 15,000 persons taking part in it. The noisy nocturnal procession, including some long stops took two hours to march past the Hotel Regis, where I was stopping, occupying a room next to that of Bonillas. The candidate for the Presidency was not to be found in the THE SAD STORY OF FLOS DE TE 25 hotel at that time. He had decided to avoid a face-to-face meeting with that youthful and dis- respectful crowd, which at sight of him would be sure to make some insulting remarks. First came Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza ; next the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ; and finally a large number of girls, dressed to represent the various Spanish prob- vincial types. But no one gave a thought to *'Flor de Te." Of course, we were in Mexico City, and Don Venustiano was near at hand. The horses of the mounted police kept prancing between the carriages in the parade. Another with a Political Turn A few days later the students of the Univer- sity of Puebla gave me another gallo. Car- ranza was not at hand there. Among the groups of masks on horseback and the carriages with allegories of Spain and the Spanish-American republics there was a simple little coach, drawn by one horse and Avithout any decoration what- ever. Nevertheless, it was the chief attraction of the parade. It was occupied by a young student attired in an extravagantly checkered suit, the traditional costume used in all the the- 26 MEXICO IN KEVOLUTION aters of Spanish-speaking countries to repre- sent the conventional Englishman. The mask that covered his face made the crowd hilarious. ''Flor de Te! Hurrah for Flor de Te!'' shouted the people, crowding around the coach. And when the procession filed past the bal- conies of my hotel the youth stood up, and with great solemnity began to greet me in a nasal tone and with the halting speech of one who is not master of the language he is trying to use. ''Meester Bonillas," said the mask, ''greets Meester Ibanez, whose works he has read trans- lated into English. Within a few months, per- haps, Meester Bonillas will be able to read them in the original, because he is now studying the language of the country. ' ' Made Mme. Bonillas a Lutheran This is not true. I chatted with Senor Bo- nillas on more than one occasion while we were guests together in the same hotel, and I found that he is essentially similar to all his compatri- ots and can speak Spanish like the rest of them. But, of course, he could not prevent the ex- travagant fabrications of his political adver- saries. Every day they unearthed a new "se- THE SAD STORY OF FLOE DE TE 27 oret" from the past of the candidate supported by Carranza. "Bonillas has been an American citizen for many years," they would spring one day. ''Bo- nillas, during his adventurous career in the States bordering on the Mexican frontier, was even the Sheriff of a small town. ' ' The candidate's family did not escape this hostile scrutiny. It was announced one day that Senor Bonillas had married a distin- guished lady of English nationality and be- longing to the Lutheran Church. Her daugh- ters professed the same faith and were not Catholics ! Horrors ! We must bear in mind that the bitterest enemies of Bonillas are men without any re- ligious faith whatsoever. Some even distin- guished themselves during the revolution by unnecessary acts of cruelty against Catholic priests. One of Obregon's Generals, perhaps his most intimate friend, in the first days after the triumph of the revolution, made a number of priests and friars, whom he considered ene- mies of the new regime, sweep the streets of the capital. Moreover, he filled several cattle cars with priests and sent them from Mexico City to 28 MEXICO m REVOLUTION Vera Cruz, making them go without food dur- ing the five days that the trip lasted. Despite this, the loudest protests against the religious faith of the Bonillas family came from some of these enemies who fear neither God nor devil. ''What an insult to Mexican women, who are all Catholics," they said. "To think of a Protestant being the first lady of the land ! * ' Propaganda for Bonillas The reader must not infer from the foregoing that the candidate supported by Carranza and his numerous friends did nothing to counteract this hostile propaganda. In reality, Bonillas himself could not do very much. He adapted his personal conduct to the trend of events and followed the suggestions of his protector. But the Bonillas Campaign Committee, composed of Carranza Generals, Senators and Deputies loyal to the cause, worked with an energy never equaled in Mex- ico. I must confess that I have rarely seen a pub- licity campaign more enormous and better or- ganized than that which advertised the name of Bonillas over the whole republic. THE SAD STORY OF FLOE DE TE 29 Wlien I reached Mexico, a few days later than the Carranza candidate, I could not hide my surprise as I crossed the international bridge and entered the frontier town of Nuevo Laredo. Low, adobe houses ! Groups of men with enor- mous hats, as broad as umbrellas, sunning themselves with imperturbable gravity ! Streets with deep holes, over which my automobile bounced, groaning with iron anguish ! And on this gray and monotonous background, which has remained unaltered for fifty years, a great variety of paper signs, of all colors and sizes, posted on the doors, on the mud walls, and even on the ox carts standing in the plazas. Everywhere the portrait of a man, Bonillas, unknown yesterday, and to-day converted over- night into a national Messiah by the will of an- other man living over there in a city of the Mexican plateau! This portrait bore under- neath it flattering promises: "Democracy,'* "Peace." No less numerous were the printed statements couched in pompous and verbose language to impress the gullible and supersti- tious rural masses, a majority of whom are illiterate. 30 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION Skilful Posters That Failed Later, as I penetrated farther into the inte- rior, I observed how the Bonillas propaganda grew in intensity from one station to another, until I reached Mexico City, where it became a wild orgy of publicity. Huge posters, many meters long, advised the people in enormous letters to vote for Bonillas. Every open lot, and every old house, was covered with signs: ''Bonillas represents the death of militarism!" ' ' If you want to see the end of revolution, vote for Bonillas." As you walked about the streets, |j| your eye would be caught by large, red arrows pointing to something farther on. And if you followed their direction, you would meet Bonil- las 's name a few hundred yards ahead. At night the picture of the candidate could be seen illuminated by indirect light and smiling upon you from some balcony. This obsessing propaganda, which met you everywhere, must have been the work of some old hand at the business. Many people said that the partisans of Bonillas had imported a clever publicity expert from the United States. Occasionally your attention would be arrested THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 31 by a printed bill posted on the walls with great profusion. The casual transient, even if he did not take sides in the political campaign, felt drawn by the novelty of the document. "The Defects of the Engineer Bonillas. " * ' What the Engineer Bonillas Lacks ! " Extravagance That Hurt Carranza "Well," you would say, "it's high time some one . said something against this much-praised man. ' ' But from the very first lines of the document you discovered that the defects of Bonillas were that he was not a trouble-making General like the "others," but a man of peace and honest labor ; and the only things lacking in his record were the executions and dragonades so numer- ous in the history of his rivals. ^ This extraordinarily expensive publicity, the like of which had never been seen in Mexico, could not possibly have been financed by Bonil- las. His Campaign Committee paid, but com- posed as this committee was of men who had always lived on the national budget, it is not likely that the members made any personal sac- rifices. In short, everybody believed that Car- 32 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION ranza was defraying tlie campaign expenses of Bonillas and tliat he was doing it with public funds. This system of propaganda was, at the same time, an indirect means of corruption. All the great Mexican dailies, even those that were hostile to the candidate, sold whole pages of advertising space to the Bonillas committee and the editors thought they were saving their consciences by inserting a line at the foot of the page stating that it had been bought and paid for at advertising rates by the Bonillas party. The net result of this was that the papers car- ried in their news columns a few brief lines of criticism against the Government candidate and in the rest of the edition pictures of Bonillas and his friends and long articles praising th© candidate and his policies. Millions Spent in Vain How much was spent in this campaign? The sympathizers of General Obregon and Pablo Gonzalez state positively that Carranza had already used $2,000,000 popularizing his candidate, and that he was disposed to spend a great deal more if it became necessary. THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 33 The need of incurring these extravagant ex- penditures is even more difficult to justify than the merits of the candidate Bonillas. The mountainous heaps of printed paper, the hundreds of thousands of photographs and the miles of advertisements were wholly useless as aids in a Presidential election in Mexico. To use the election methods of a modern, politi- cally matured country in poor Mexico, the eter- nal victim of all sorts of tyrannies, is ahout as effective as importing sewing machines into a country where cloth is unknown. What is the use of such publicity in a country that has never gone to the polls? The Mexican people, in reality, does not know what an election means. During the long period of his rule Porfirio Diaz always re- elected himself. Until the unfortunate Madero turned up, no one dared to protest against the practice. Before Porfirio Diaz's time the way to power led along the path of revolution, or else the elections were so scandalously immoral that they provoked and justified uprisings. Since the close of the Diaz regime the present elec- tion was the first in the history of Mexico sohed- 34 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION uled to be carried on in a modem way. We have seen how it developed into a revohition. The great propaganda in favor of Bonillas seemed ridiculous, and at times ironically sad, especially when we consider the character of the country. So much printed paper for a poor people in great part illiterate, owing to the neg- lect of its rulers! So much electioneering, when every voter knew that his preference counted for nothing and that in the end the candidate backed by the Government would win out! . . . To vote conscientiously, the elector must have the conviction that his vote will be respected, that it will mean something. In Mexico the man who casts his ballot knows that he is exer- cising a useless right. The result will always be what the party in power decides. More- over, the privilege of voting is a dangerous function. If the man in power gets wind of the fact that the voter is trying to be independent and think with his own head, the voter is soon brought to his senses ! Obregon and Gonzalez are right when they justify their uprising with the statement that THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 35 the Government had denied their candidacies the guarantees of security and fair play. It is true. Carranza, who is a stubborn man, in- capable of budging an inch after he has once made up his mind, had decided that Bonillas should win, and Bonillas would have been the next President of Mexico, if the revolution had not broken out. All the States that had Car- ranza Governors would have voted en masse for Bonillas, as though there were no followers of the other candidates there at all. But Obregon and Gonzalez are no saints; they were not bom yesterday, and they cer- tainly are not political infants. Their record is almost as long and brilliant as that of Don Venustiano and no one knows what they will each cook up when the elections are announced again. What can we expect from a country when it has never had an electoral body considered and respected as a vital and permanent institution? What can we expect from a country where the defeated candidate always resorts to arms, claiming that he has been defrauded? If the elections prepared by Carranza had 36 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION taken place Bonillas would have won in all the Carranza States. But Obregon, for instance, who controlled the Government of the State of Sonora, would have received every single vote cast there, and Bonillas, who was also born in that State, would not have received a ballot. It is possible that real elections may be held in Mexico in the future. Why should we not be optimistic about it? But up to the present time no candidate has ever failed to coerce the national will by voting the people in his own favor wherever and whenever he has had a chance. And his opponents have done the same thing, under similar conditions. The Leper and the Flies The candidacy of Bonillas, however, had a strength of its own, aside from that received from the Government. This strength was the war-weariness of a certain class of people — per- haps the class most worthy of sympathy — the small merchants and poorer landowners, the lower middle class, which has been suffering the effects of an endless revolution for ten years. I heard the complaints of this class. I visited some Mexican cities where this element is pre- THE SAB STORY OF FLOR DE TE 37 ponderant and saw its e:fforts to live in peace and keep out of the everlasting turmoil. Elections had come again to disturb the rela- tive quiet to which these people had recently become accustomed. ''Why should we hold elections?" some one would ask me. ' ' It would be better to have Don Venustiano continue in office. I don't like him. But he is in already and that is preferable to starting all over again with a new one. ' ' Many of these people told the old story of the leper which some of my American readers, per- haps, do not know. A good Mussulman takes pity on a leper whpm he sees sitting motionless on the ground with his sores covered with flies. To alleviate the suffering of the stricken man, the good Sa- maritan drives away the parasites. But the leper, instead of thanking his benefactor, goes into a rage and heaps abuse upon him for his officiousness. "Why art thou treating me as if I were the worst of thine enemies'?" the leper cries. ''The flies thou hast driven away were already satis- fied. They were full of my substance and I could endure them. But now they will be sue- 38 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION ceeded by other flies of ravenous appetite and my torments will begin again. Curses upon thine head!'* A portion of the Mexican people had resigned themselves to endure the torment of the well- fed Carranza flies. These people did not like Carranza, but they accepted the successor picked by him because they knew that Carran- za 's successor and his friends would prove less voracious than the flies of any opposing party. "If the old man has to go," these people would say, "we'll take Bonillas. He hasn't done anything worth while, but neither has he done anything bad . . . and, at any rate, he is not a General." This business of being a General considerably worries every Mexican who has witnessed a revolution without being in it. When Bonillas Returned The entry of Bonillas into Mexico when he returned from Washington as the candidate of the Civil Party made many people predict the revolution which broke out a month later. Never was the homecoming of conquering hero pre- pared with greater care than that of the ob- THE SAD STORY OF FLOR DE TE 39 scure Mexican-American engineer, converted by the revolution first into a diplomatic agent and later into a Presidential candidate. A spe- cial train full of admirers (many of whom had never seen him before, but who, nevertheless, already worshiped him) was dispatched by the Government to meet him at the frontier. Two boys with the rank of General had charge of all the arrangements, relieving Don Venustiano of this petty labor. General Montes — about 30 — perhaps the only one among the revolutionaries who hails from a military school, was the Pres- ident of the Comite Civilista assigned to re- ceive Bonillas, to accompany him, and fre- quently, to speak for him. General Barragaii, chief of the President's staff, organized the fes- tivities in Mexico City. He requisitioned all private automobiles not in use and mobilized all the officials and friends of the Government, con- centrating them in the capital. I heard protests from certain men of the rank and file of the Carranza forces about this tri- umphal reception. ''They ordered me," one said, 'Ho fill twenty automobiles with sympa- thizers of Bonillas. I signed a receipt for twenty cars, and when the time came for the 40 MEXICO IN REVOLUTION parade they sent me only two. Wliat became of the other eighteen, which, undoubtedly, will appear as paid for, I don't know." Despite these insignificant slips the parade was splendid. An interminable line of carriages extended from the station to the lodgings of the candidate. There were hurrahs for Bonillas,' vociferous viva