advocating the mediation of The Hague, saying it would be a way out
of _our_ dilemma, 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--_both_ sides, 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 the _Mexican Herald_ dryly 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 the _guerre
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.
_December 17th._
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 wicked _cientificos_!
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 interested _jefe
politico_ affixes the stamp of his _jefatura_. 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, _all_
are united. The recovery of Torreon has had immense, though, of course,
only temporary, economic importance. The huge cotton crop which Villa
picked when _he_ took 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 the _Mexican Herald_.
To-day, about the United States protection of citizens, it says:
“Mr. Bryan’s idea of protection seems to be built on the _cafetería_
plan--come and get it. We don’t carry it to you.”
Cambiaggio, the new Italian minister, will be detained indefinitely
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!
_December 17th._
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 the
_chers collègues_, that I had ever seen there before--no homogeneity,
no _esprit 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
Diaz _recuerdo_, not a thing of de la Barra, nor any vestige of Madero,
except his _planchette_ and 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 visionary but
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.
_December 18th._
Just back from a _gira_ in 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 Austrian _chargé_.
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 terribly bored 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 the _salon_ and told me he had _muchas muy
buenas cosas_ (many good things) to say of N. “Only good things, _even_
in 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
the _Condé_ and 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
sunny _patio_, 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.
_December 19th._
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 got to 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 some _élan_,
as to a charge, and invited the President to the _fiesta_. 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 very
_prime-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
the _Republica 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 York _Sun_
speaks admiringly of the way in which he continues to treat Mr.
O’Shaughnessy with a friendly and delicate consideration.
_December 20th._
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 States _en route_ for his post, and the new Italian minister
arrives at Vera Cruz to-morrow, after a wait of three weeks at Havana,
for “_our_ health,” not his. As is the custom, some one from the
protocol has gone to meet him and bring him up to the city. The
European 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.
_December 21st._
Just home from Mass. I go to the Sagrado Corazon near by, built
mostly with money given by the _muy piadoso_ Lascurain, a man of the
highest integrity and large personal fortune. For a long time he was
Minister for 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.
_Evening._
We had a peaceful _dia de campo_ in the old garden, the strange Mexican
magic making beautiful things more beautiful and transfiguring all that
is ordinary. Mme. B., an Englishwoman and, incidentally, a _cordon
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, a _tlachiquero_, 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 in
some 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 been _under_ the hat. The image of Zapata on his charger,
dashing through fields of maguey, up and down _barrancas_, 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.
_December 24th._
The banks here have been given legal holidays from the 22d of this
month to the 2d of January. That is _one_ way 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 get _out_ what they put _in_, 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.