VIII
The sad exodus from Chihuahua—Archbishop Mendoza—Fiat money—Villa’s growing activities—Indian stoicism—Another Chapultepec reception—A day of “Mexican Magic” in the country.
This evening, as I was coming through theZocalomotoring home from the Country Club, I found thePalaciodecked out in the national colors, to celebrate theclausuraof theCamara, which will not open until April 1, 1914. Huerta has all extraordinary powers vested in himself, and is going to run the whole “shooting-match.” Thickdéfilésof carriages and autos, full of richly dressed people, were on both sides of San Francisco, the most brilliantly, extravagantly lighted street I know. The Embassy motor was allowed to run quickly between the two lines. The town seemed so animated and prosperous that one can’t realize the horrors underneath.
Thecantinashave been closed on Sunday for several months—a wise act of Urrutia, then Minister of Gobernación. The people thus buy food, instead ofpulque, on the Sabbath, and can work on Monday—San Lunes, as the first, often idle, day of the week is called. Thepulquerías, with their sickening, sour smell, abound in all the poorer quarters, and are distinguished, besides the smell, by fringes of many-colored tissue-paper hanging from the tops of the doors. Their names—El amor divino,Hija del Mar,El Templo de Venus, etc., seem to be enticing.
The Italian minister, Cambiaggio, is “biding a wee” in Havana, having been stopped by his government....It is the question, always recurring, of not having a new minister arrive who, by presenting his credentials, places another stone in the Huerta arch....
The confidential report of Admiral Cradock tohisgovernment was filched by the press. The typewriter who made the copy was paid $200 for it. In it, it appears, he quotes Nelson as saying that the “most sacred international relationship in the world is that between England and the United States.” Most annoying for Sir Christopher!
Many of the American statesmen seem to be giving opinions on the Mexican situation. Mr. Choate, at a dinner in New York, asks, “What most agitates the hearts of Americans to-day? It is Mexico,” and then goes on to say, “There is but one thing for us to do—trust the President, and stand by him.” Andrew D. White doesn’t approve of the Administration’s policy and thinks we are drifting into war, “Which,” he continues, “is a better thing for the generals who bring it to a successful finish than for those who bring it on—Lincoln being the great exception.”
The Spaniards in Chihuahua (some four or five hundred) are having a dreadful time. The Villista order gives them ten hours in which to get out of the town; and now, as I write, that long caravan of weak and strong, old and young, fit and unfit, is wending its way, on foot, through the immense desert of Chihuahua toward Torreon—425 miles. The nights are icy cold and there are stretches of 90 miles without water; and hostile bands are ready to attack at any moment. The confiscated property will amount to millions, as the Spaniards own nearly all the mercantile establishments, as well as the upper-class homes. Villa is quoted as saying that he would like to kill everygachupin(Spaniard born in Mexico)andhis offspring. No one knows when the march and assault on Monterey, a rich old city on a hill and not easy to take, will begin. I hear that the Spaniards there want to comeen masseto Mexico City, also leaving everything. They know they will have no quarter at Villa’s hands.
The Spaniards are the traders of Mexico. They keep the countless pawn-shops (empeños); they are the usurers and money-lenders of all kinds; they are the overseers on thehaciendasand, incidentally, they keep all the grocery-shops; in fact, they control the sale of nearly everything in Mexico. The Spanish minister (with the Irish name of Cologan), whose handsome wife was born in Vera Cruz, has just been here. His life is one huge burden, and the collective troubles of Mexico are laid at our broad doors.
D’Antin leaves to-night for Vera Cruz, to take with him Dr. Silva (ex-governor of Michoacan), who, to tell the truth, has not voluntarily resigned, which is the reason he needs safe-conduct. Silva was at one time a faithful adherent of Huerta. He is to board a Spanish ship sailing at twelve to-morrow.
Last night, after dinner, Burnside and Dr. Ryan took the map to see what route the unfortunate Spaniards of Chihuahua could have followed. It seems scarcely credible, with the frontier and hospitality nearly one-half nearer, that they should have chosen the terrible march through the desert and over the mountains to Torreon, which, at any time, may again fall into Villa’s hands. Hewouldbe in a rage to find he had to bother a second time with thesameset of unfortunates! They say their route is strewn with valuables that they started out with and little by little were obliged to abandon. Isn’t the picture appalling?
Von Hintze has just spent an hour here; he is always, like the others, advocating the mediation of The Hague, saying it would be a way out ofourdilemma, and an issue out for Huerta. Is he on the track of something that may be of service to both sides? In Washington a couple of weeks ago it was suggested from some source (probably Brussels) that the matter should be so submitted—bothsides, however, resenting it. Von Hintze brought me a dainty, gold-headed cane to replace his handsome Chinese stick that was supposed, unjustly, to have disappeared under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, on Thanksgiving Day. I made up my mind to get that cane, and I subsequently found it, accidentally, standing near the unused umbrella-stand at the Norwegian Legation, where he had left it himself that same day. The innocent was, for once, rewarded. Von Hintze is always very fair-minded and impersonal in political matters, and doesn’t lose his head when the political compass veers as wildly as it does here. He is a good friend, too, I think, and there may be something in the Hague suggestion. We may, at any day, see another faction start up; the victor of Torreon, Juarez, and Chihuahua will not care to lay his victories at Carranza’s feet. One man after another outshines his chief, commits treason, comes to power, and falls to make way for some one else, generally a one-time friend. As the clever editor of theMexican Heralddryly remarked, “A traitor in Mexico seems to be any one that doesn’t hold office.”
The Zapatistas are getting very active again, fighting hard at Milpa Alta, in the Ajusco hills near here. Some were seen at Tlalpam and Xochimilco (Tlalpam is where we often go on Sundays). Sometimes on the road to the Country Club or Tlalpam one hears the shooting.
All is quiet again at Tampico, though the dead are yet lying about unburied. The rebels got far into the town,but did very little damage to property. They wanted, people think, to get hold of a lot of the rolling stock of the railway. Tampico is a horrible, flat, mosquito-infested, malarial place, but it can give to the navies of the world the motive power that they want. It is the focus of theguerre des pétroles. Is it really true that oil is at the back of all these tragedies?
At the dinner at the British Legation on Saturday there was an Englishman, a Mr. Graham, who has a place near Durango. He told, as an eye-witness, the story I had heard before, of one of the rebel chiefs seizing the aged and saintly archbishop Mendoza while at the altar, forcing him to walk two miles over stubble fields, in the heat of the day, then putting him in a damp and filthy cell, two feet by six. Mr. Graham gave a bond for $15,000, and he was got out. This is but one of a thousand stories to the shame of the rebels.
Villa has finished the confiscation of the huge Terrazas estates in Chihuahua. We hear that the wife of the American consul, Mrs. Letcher, is among the refugees at El Paso. The Terrazas estates include palatial residences in the city of Chihuahua, banks, mines, lands, cattle, etc. Luis Terrazas is now a refugee in the United States. His sister, known as the “Angel of Chihuahua,” by reason of her endless charities, married Mr. Creel, former Ambassador to Washington. It is Mr. Terrazas’s eldest son who is held against a 500,000 pesos’ ransom, having been taken forcibly from the British Vice-Consulate.
Yesterday the run on the Banco Nacional and the Banco de Londres y Mexico for the exchange of certain bank-notes, no longer good, was enormous. Many shops are hanging out signs that notes of Chihuahua, Coahuila,Querétaro, Guanajuato, etc., will not be accepted from customers. The richer refugees coming in from Chihuahua had hundreds of thousands of such. Oh, for a few wickedcientificos!
A lot of trouble about the Constitutionalist fiat money is beginning in the north. Merchants who fight shy of it are put into jail, regardless of nationality. Its appearance, to a careful, thrifty man, must be appalling. Bills have only one signature, and any one holding them forges the missing signatures, or the nearest and most interestedjefe politicoaffixes the stamp of hisjefatura. The drawback is that it is difficult to get merchandise or food in exchange. When is money not money? That way lies economic ruin.
Huerta talks a good deal about Napoleon these days—“gran hombre, gran hombre!” (“a great man! a great man!”). In a recent speech he said: “We have a right to our independence, and we will keep it. If any attack is made against the country, all will witness something great and extraordinary.” Villa, Carranza, Huerta (Zapata, too, the chance offered), delight in ignoring the United States. On that point,allare united. The recovery of Torreon has had immense, though, of course, only temporary, economic importance. The huge cotton crop which Villa picked whenhetook the town, pressing into service every man, woman, and child, and thinking to sell it to the United States, has been shipped by the Federals to various cotton-mills, and means work for thousands.
There are sometimes really bright things in theMexican Herald. To-day, about the United States protection of citizens, it says: “Mr. Bryan’s idea of protection seems to be built on thecafeteríaplan—come and get it. We don’t carry it to you.”
Cambiaggio, the new Italian minister, will be detainedindefinitely in Havana, Italian affairs in the mean while being in the hands of the British. I wonder how long the foreign Powers will be willing to wait and watch. What they say about our policy when N. and I are not present is probably not according to the protocol!
Another reception is to be held at Chapultepec this afternoon. I keep thinking of the four incumbents who have lived and breathed and had their being there since we arrived—Diaz, de la Barra, Madero, and Huerta. With the exception of the first two, each lived in a separate society. The members of one don’t spill over into the other. At Señora Huerta’s reception there was not a face, except those of thechers collègues, that I had ever seen there before—no homogeneity, noesprit de corps. “No me gusta” (“I don’t like it”) seems a sufficient reason for not standing by the administration, whatever it may be.
It is strange how little trace is left of those who have lived there, suffered, and grown great. There is scarcely a Maximilian souvenir or a Diazrecuerdo, not a thing of de la Barra, nor any vestige of Madero, except hisplanchetteand his library, consisting of vegetarian and spiritualistic literature, which confronts Doña Carmen Diaz’s collection of works of piety. Of course there is nothing of Huerta; his shadow has scarcely even darkened it. It was planned in a most extravagant way in 1783 by one of the viceroys, Galvez, who had the beautiful, white-skinned, red-haired bride. It was unoccupied during many revolutionary years, then refitted for Maximilian. Later Diaz used it as his summer residence. Poor Madero lived there during the sixteen months of his incumbency, and I remember him pacing up and down the terrace in that robin-egg-blue vest of his, with a visionarybut indestructible smile on his honest face; really mentally, as well as bodily, lifted above all the realities of life.
The “Hill of the Grasshopper” has always had a habitation on it. Montezuma lived there, “king and gentleman,” and many of the old ahuehuetes[7]are supposed to be contemporaneous with him. At any rate, the view that entrances my eyes is the same that his looked on. The whole valley stretches out before one, fringed by those lovely mountains. Sunsets, sometimes in golden tones and sometimes in silver, flood the valley, giving the white points of the volcanoes the most dazzling effects of light imaginable; and then there are luminous enchantments, dissolving distances, an intermingling crystalline blue and rose. How can I express its beauty! People say the light is more wonderful in Greece, but this is my “high light.” Even in the afternoons of the rainy season, when the clouds are banked high, there is always an iridescence to the grays—gray with red or blue or yellow or violet in it—never the dull tones of our rain-clouds.
Just back from agirain the city. Immense crowds around the Banco Central. This is the clearing-house for all the state banks, and each person waiting outside had state bank-notes to exchange against those more attractive ones of the Banco Nacional.
I see Cardinal Rampolla is dead. I thought of his magnificent appearances in St. Peter’s, that tall and slender form, that proud and beautiful profile, the head held high—a fit frame on which to hang the gorgeous vestments. I remember the disappointment of our various friends when Austria vetoed his election at the last conclave.I wish he might have had it; but now that he has passed through the door I would not call him (nor any one) back. The old Roman days came so vividly to my mind—and many besides Rampolla who are no more.
Elim is sitting by me, writing in two colors all the words he knows—Gott,kuss,bonnemaman,papa,mama. He has just asked “Who handed me down from the clouds when I was born?”
I am giving a luncheon at the Chapultepec restaurant on Friday for Colonel Gage and the Cardens.
The Mexican papers take great pleasure in likening Woodrow Wilson to Napoleon III., with comparisons of the Mexican policy and Sedan!
The reception yesterday did not have the snap and go of the first. We got there about six, going in almost immediately to tea, spread, as usual, in the long gallery. I stood at the table between von Hintze and Hedry, the Austrianchargé.
It seemed to me, as I looked around the table, that each minister had some strange, battered-looking female by him. They proved to be the wives of Cabinet Ministers, who change so fast that it is impossible to keep track of their better halves, produced only on this single occasion. Moheno, however, was able to produce a very pretty wife, smartly dressed, with magnificent pear-shaped emeralds dangling from her white ears, and a most lovely young daughter.
The President was preoccupied and vague, drank no healths, and his frock-coat seemed longer and looser than ever; indeed, the servants had just begun to pour the champagne when, his wine untasted, Huerta gave his arm to Mme. Lefaivre, with a gesture of putting the function behind him, and, the banquet almost untouched, we all filed out behind him. He was evidently terriblybored and thinking of other things. And, anyway, he isn’t the man to conduct things twice in the same way. He stopped as he was leaving thesalonand told me he hadmuchas muy buenas cosas(many good things) to say of N. “Only good things,evenin my absence.” With that, he left the festive scene and the affair rather fell to pieces. N. had a dinner at the club for Colonel Gage, who was at the reception in morning coat. He had purposely not brought his uniform, being wary at touching the official note, which might re-echo too loudly in Washington.
I went to the Simons’, who were having a dinner for the captain of theCondéand his staff lieutenant. They were big, good-looking Frenchmen, who had been at the reception in all their glory of gold braid and decorations. Through a motor trip and a punctured tire they had missed the audience arranged for them by their minister with Huerta, and to atone they had gone looking especially official.
Yesterday I went out to see Mother Semple at the American Convent of the Visitation. Until two years ago she had had a large and flourishing school at Tepexpam. There came a Zapatista scare, thirty or forty bandits dancing around the convent one night, shooting off pistols and screaming out ribaldries. Fortunately nothing precious was broken, but the nuns were ruined, as the parents withdrew their little darlings. Now they are trying to get the school together again in a house at Tacubaya, which, though very picturesque, with an old garden and a sunnypatio, is not at all suited to the double purpose of community life and school. They have dreams of selling the big property at Tepexpam for a barracks. The government may get the barracks in these days of taking what one sees, but I doubt if the nuns will ever get the money.
Mexican calls all the afternoon. Mme. Bernal has a really lovely house, just done over, full of choice things. She herself is young and beautiful, in a dark-eyed, white-teethed, pallid way. Then I went to see Mercedes del Campo, whom I found, with her baby and an Indian nurse, in the palm- and eucalyptus-planted garden. She, like all the others, is young and handsome. Her husband was in the diplomatic service under Diaz, but since then has fought shy of the administration set. It’s a pity, as he would be an ornament to any service. Such beautiful English—such perfect French!
They are living in the house of their aunt, Madame Escandon, in the Puente de Alvarado, the street named after this most dashing of Cortés’ captains. It was near by that he made his famous leap in the retreat of the Noche Triste; the “dismal night,” when the Indians, witnessing his apparently miraculous escape, thought him a god. A little farther up from the Escandon house is the celebrated Palacio Bazaine or Casa de la Media Luna. It was presented, with all its luxurious furnishings, by the Emperor to Marshal Bazaine, on the day of his splendid nuptials with a beautiful Mexican. Here the Emperor and Carlota were often received, and it became the center of the fashionable life of the time. There are many stories of the extravagant and almost regal entertaining that went on there. Now all these splendors are, indeed, gone up in smoke; the stately mansion is a cigarette-factory. I never pass it without a thought of Maximilian and the “Ya es hora” of the guard who threw open the prison door of the Capuchin Convent in Querétaro on that fatal morning, and of Bazaine’s saddest of all sad ends.
The luncheon for Colonel Gage, who returns to Washington next week, went off very snappily. When I gotto Chapultepec I found all my guests assembled on the veranda. I excused my lateness by saying that I had been waiting for N., who was with the President. “But the President is here!” they all cried. I said, “I wonder if he would lunch with us.” They all looked aghast, but delighted at my boldness.
I then saw Huerta approaching us through the large hall toward the veranda, with the governor of the Federal district, Corona, and a pale, dissipated, clever man—for the moment (which I imagine he is making golden) Minister of Communicaciones. I went forward with someélan, as to a charge, and invited the President to thefiesta. That small Indian hand of his waved very cordially. It is literally the velvet hand, whatever violent deeds it may have done. But he said that he had a junta of much importance; he would be delighted to accept another time, and so on. There was more shaking of velvet hands, and we went back to our expectant guests, who were decidedly disappointed. It was very pleasant, as always, on the broad veranda, looking toward the Castle, visible above the great branches of the century-old ahuehuetes.
N. had been driving with the President for an hour before lunch, and had asked him for the release of three Americans, long imprisoned here. Huerta assured him that they should all be set free, whether guilty or not, just to please him; and at six o’clock this evening the first instalment arrived at the Embassy, delivered into N.’s hands by two Federal officers. And so the work goes on. Huerta is veryprime-sautier. Once before when N. had asked for the punishment of some soldiers, convicted of deeds of violence against some Americans, he responded promptly: “Who are they? Where are they? They shall all be killed!” N. protested, aghast at the possibly innocent untried sheep suffering with the guilty goats.Anything, however, to please N. in particular and the United States in general. There is really nothing that the United States couldn’t do with Huerta if they would. All concessions, all claims, pending through decades, could be satisfactorily adjusted. As it is, Huerta keeps on at his own gait, not allowing himself to be rushed or hustled by the more definite energy of theRepublica del Norte, playing the game of masterly inaction and scoring, for the time being, on Washington. After all, you don’t get any “forwarder” by waving copies of the constitution in a dictator’s face. He ignores his relations with the United States, never mentioned us in his speech to Congress, and probably put the ultimatum into the waste-paper basket. I am beginning to think that, in the elegant phrasing of my native land, he is “some” dictator! The New YorkSunspeaks admiringly of the way in which he continues to treat Mr. O’Shaughnessy with a friendly and delicate consideration.
Red Cross all the morning. It is wonderful, the stoicism of the Indian, where pain, hard pain, is concerned. A rather amusing incident occurred to-day. I asked a man who had had his hand shot off if it were a “Zapatista,” “Constitucionalista,” or “Huertista” deed. He raised the other paw to his forehead, answering with great exactitude, “No, señora, Vasquista.” I thought the Vasquista movement had long since died the usual unnatural death.
I see that the new Austrian minister to Mexico has arrived in the United Statesen routefor his post, and the new Italian minister arrives at Vera Cruz to-morrow, after a wait of three weeks at Havana, for “ourhealth,” not his. As is the custom, some one from the protocol has gone to meet him and bring him up to the city. TheEuropean Powers evidently mean to carry out their program independent of “watchful waiting.” It will be rather hard on our government when two more representatives of great nations present their credentials to the “Dictator.”
People say it is a pity that Huerta did not, on assuming power, declare formally that he would have a dictatorship for two years, until such time as the country was pacified, leaving out entirely any question of elections. However, that is “hindsight.” Apropos of Villa, I see one of the United States papers chirps: “Is a new sun rising in Mexico?” I have seen several rise and set on the reddest horizon imaginable, in my short Mexican day. As a butcher Villa cannot possibly be surpassed. But “who loves the sword shall perish by the sword,” is always true here. I spent the morning at the Red Cross, washing and bandaging dirty, forlorn Aztecs. This year they have the beds made according to our ideas. Last year they used the blankets next the body and the sheet on top—it “looked better.”
Calls and card-leaving all the afternoon, with Mme. Lefaivre, fortunately. We generally do the “bores and chores” together, chatting between addresses. Now it is half past nine. I am looking over one of Gamboa’s books. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs last August when Mr. Lind arrived, and drafted the famous and entirely creditable answer to “Mr. Confidential Agent.” He is sometimes called the Zola of Mexico.
Just home from Mass. I go to the Sagrado Corazon near by, built mostly with money given by themuy piadosoLascurain, a man of the highest integrity and large personal fortune. For a long time he was Ministerfor Foreign Affairs, and for twenty minutes (as I wrote you), President, between Madero and Huerta.
I am now writing, veiled and gloved, waiting for the picnickers to assemble here. About ten or twelve of us are going to Mme. Bonilla’s lovely garden in Tacubaya.
We had a peacefuldia de campoin the old garden, the strange Mexican magic making beautiful things more beautiful and transfiguring all that is ordinary. Mme. B., an Englishwoman and, incidentally, acordon bleu, was sitting under a yellow rose-bush when we got there—looking very attractive in white lace and beating up the sort of sauce you make yourself, if you can, or go without, in Mexico. We partook of an excellent combined luncheon—we all brought something—under an arbor of honeysuckle and roses, with true Mexican lack of hurry. Afterward we strolled over the near hillside in its garb of maguey and pepper trees. The volcanoes looked inexpressibly white and beautiful in their aloofness from our troubles, though the hills at their base are the stamping-grounds of hordes of Zapatistas, and often the smoke of fires indicates their exact whereabouts. With true Anglo-Saxon disregard of native warnings, we sat for a long time under a large pepper-tree,arbol de Peru, which, the Indians say, gives headache, unable to take our eyes from the soft outline of the city, swimming in the warm afternoon light. Countless domes and church spires were cut softly into the haze, the lake of Texcoco was a plaque of silver far beyond, and above all were the matchless volcanoes. To complete the first plan of the picture, an old Indian, atlachiquero, was quietly drawing the juice from some near-by maguey plants, after the fashion of centuries, with a sort of gourd-like instrument which he worked by sucking insome primitive but practical fashion. It looks to the uninitiated as if the Indian were drinking it, but its final destination is a pigskin slung athwart his back. After tea in the garden, on which a mystical blue light had fallen, we motored home in the quickly falling dusk, the thin, chilly air penetrating us like a knife.
Advices have come that the rebels are again attacking Tampico. They evidently got what they wanted at the last attack—four cartloads of dynamite and lots of rolling stock, and are in a position to give a tidy bit of testimony as to the value of the Constitutionalist principles.
Zapata had a narrow escape the day before yesterday. He was surprised by Federals at Nenapepa, as he and his followers were sitting around their camp-fire. He barely escaped in the skirmish, leaving behind him his precious hat, a big, black, Charro hat, wide-brimmed and pointed crown, loaded with silver trimmings. It was brought to town by Colonel Gutierrez, greatly chagrined because he could not also bring what had beenunderthe hat. The image of Zapata on his charger, dashing through fields of maguey, up and downbarrancas, is very characteristic of the brigand life so much the thing in Mexico just now.
The new loan of 20,000,000 pesos has been underwritten by a lot of foreign bankers, principally French, I think, though some in New York are supposed to be “involved.” It will keep things going for another couple of months or so, and then the “sorrows of Huerta” will begin again. As it is, he can continue for that length of time to play with the kindergarten class at Washington. A nice cable came from Mr. Bryan saying that the State Department was much gratified at N.’s being able to procure the release of the American prisoners I mentioned.
The banks here have been given legal holidays from the 22d of this month to the 2d of January. That isoneway of solving the banking problem. It is supposed to be for the safeguarding of the depositors, who, however, are crowding the streets leading to the closed banks, wild to getoutwhat they putin, to confide it to the more trust-inspiring stocking.
To-day is Huerta’s saint’s day,Sanctus Victorianus. There was a reception of the gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps at the Palace. The doyen made an address dealing in safe but pleasant generalities, and Huerta replied, protesting that he had but one idea, the pacification of Mexico. The German minister is away to investigate the murder of one of his nationals.
I again visited the tuberculosis hospital this morning and was interested to see patients risen from the dead, so to speak, and walking once more with the living. The climate here is ideal for cures. I took some Christmas packages to the Red Cross, then went to the Alameda. On three sides of the Park the Christmas booths are set out—puestos, they are called. The Indians bring their beautiful and fragile potteries from long distances, and endless varieties of baskets and toys, and last, but not least, their relatives, so that family life in all its details can be studied. They are selling, cooking, dressing, saying rosaries, examining little black heads for the ever-present visitants—a familiar Mexican occupation at all seasons. The smell of Christmas trees and greens, banked along the street, mingles with odors of peanuts and peppers,enchiladas, and all sorts of pungent foods.
Thecohetesare going off as I write. They are noisy crackers, making sounds like rifle-fire. Their use is an old custom that is observed for the nine days before Christmas; but in these troublous days one is led tothink rather of pistols than of the advent of the “Son of Peace.”
A very nice letter came from Admiral Cradock, saying that he has just got back to Vera Cruz from the Tampico fray, the sojourn enlivened by some “good tarpon-fishing.” He will not be able to return here for Christmas, as he intended, but hopes we will soon run down to Vera Cruz and be dined and saluted by him on theSuffolk.
There are a thousand things to do about Christmas. We trimmed the tree last night and it is locked away in the bigsalon, presumably safe from infant eyes.