IN THE DAYS OF CARRANZA
I
The steamer plowed southward through a dazzling blue sea to Manzanillo,
the port of disembarkation for Mexico City.
Despite its commercial importance, this is one of the several places
on the Pacific Coast where a traveler, upon leaving his ship, takes
one hasty glance at the dirty black beach and the cluster of driftwood
shacks, grasps his nose firmly between thumb and forefinger, and makes
a dash for the daily train that will carry him somewhere else.
As soon as a boatman had rowed us ashore, Eustace and I hastened to the
telegraph office, and dispatched our message to Werner: “Foster and
Eustace slain by bandits.” Then we ran for the train. But, although an
excited crowd surrounded the station, there was no train in sight.
“There will be none to-day,” explained the agent. “Zamorra stopped it
just outside of town, wrecked it, and shot most of the passengers.”
II
By sheer coincidence, our message to Werner had been seemingly
confirmed. Following the news dispatch of this hold-up, which
undoubtedly would reach Mazatlán, the notice of our murder would carry
conviction. For the moment, we were delighted. Then the agent added:
“There may be no train for several weeks.”
And we found ourselves stranded in the filthiest hole in Mexico.
Manzanillo’s streets were of thick sand, inadequately paved in spots
with refuse or garbage, over which hovered millions of flies, and
about which a host of black buzzards were picking and quarreling. The
whole town was perched upon a narrow landspit between the murky bay
and a still murkier lagoon, and backed by low hills whose scraggly
jungle-growth the tropic sun had burned to a crisp. A few buildings
of wood or plaster rose to the majesty of a second story; the others
were low and of ramshackle structure, their driftwood composition
varied occasionally by patches of flattened tin that had once done
service as Standard Oil cans. The roofs were mainly of thatch. Interior
decoration, as glimpsed through doorless doorways, was limited to
pages from the local equivalents of the _Police Gazette_. Over the
whole unsightly place there hung an odor of rotted fish, emanating
from neighboring lagoons which had evaporated throughout the long dry
season to nothing more than a crust of reddish scum.
The principal virtue of the leading hotel--a wobbly two-story edifice
operated by a Chinaman--was that it possessed enough odors of its own
to neutralize the fishy breezes from the lagoon. The food was nauseous
and the water poisonous. The natives of the town quenched their thirst
at the stagnant jungle pools by rolling up a leaf into the semblance of
a funnel, poking it through the inch of scum that covered the water,
and drinking the fluid beneath with ecstatic sucks. Cautious foreigners
were forced to patronize the hotel bar, where the beer ascended in
temperature from lukewarm in the morning to some degree near boiling
point in mid-afternoon.
Determined to make the best of our indefinite residence, we looked
about for amusement.
There was always the beach. Its sand was black, and the rollers assumed
the shade of molasses. The women of the town, since Mexican women are
too modest to wear short-skirted bathing suits, always took their bath
in a clumsy white linen gown which reached to the ankles, but which, as
soon as it was wet, became completely diaphanous. They were as dark,
usually, as the beach, and the silhouette effect was highly educational.
When the sights of the waterfront had received due attention, we
retired to the lagoons to hunt alligators. In the larger pools, which
had not completely evaporated, we could see the corrugated tails of
the big caymans tracing a leisurely path across the surface, and
occasionally by making our way silently along the brush-grown shore,
we could surprise a greenish-gray monster asleep on the mud-flats. Our
diminutive pistols seemed to have little effect on their tough hide;
our shots brought only a splash as the quarry plunged into the lagoon;
a few bubbles would rise, and a muddy discoloration of the water would
indicate that the alligator was safely imbedded in the loamy bottom of
the pool. We tried to lasso one of them, with a loop of rope on the end
of a pole, but the monster vanished, as usual, carrying with him the
stoutest cord to be purchased in Manzanillo.
From alligator-hunting we turned to a study of natural history in
general. The town and its environs offered plenty of material. One
could scarcely walk the streets without shooing buzzards out of the
way. Sooty black in color, with ashen-gray neck curved to suggest
hunched shoulders, they hopped about with rocketing step, pouncing with
hoggish squeals upon rotted carrion, and squabbling among themselves
over its possession. One was tempted always to try the pistols on
_them_, but they were protected by law, for without their services in
disposing of the mess which Latin-American servants are accustomed
to toss from the kitchen window, cities like Manzanillo would be
altogether uninhabitable.
Of insects there was an infinite variety. We did not have to seek them;
they sought us. One could not push through the jungle without being
bitten by ants on the bushes. In the town itself, half the population
seemed to find constant occupation in picking something out of the
other half’s hair. The _peon_ women would form a small circle, back to
back, and perform this friendly little operation with one-hundred-per
cent. efficiency. In the hotel room the scratchy noise of cockroaches
scrambling up and down the wall lulled us to sleep each night.
Eustace, not content with this material for study, took up snakes
in a serious fashion. He had once earned his way through college by
feeding the reptiles in a neighboring zoo, and had formed a strange
affection for them. He maintained that they recognized him as a friend
and refused to bite. In Manzanillo he discovered a family of young
serpents--squirmy green fellows which we could not identify but which
the natives regarded as extremely venomous--whereupon he brought a
handful of them to our room, and dumped his other possessions out of
his suit-case to make a home for them. Later, when I absent-mindedly
opened the same suit-case in search of cigars, and fled precipitately,
our Chinese proprietor was greatly incensed because for days afterward
the snakes would appear at the most unexpected moments in various
parts of the establishment, to the terror of servants and guests.
It not only worried his regular boarders, he said, but ruined trade
at the bar. After a drink of hot beer, when a patron saw these things
writhing across the counter--well, just yesterday the mayor himself had
overturned a whole tray of glasses, smashed two chairs in his haste to
reach the open air, and had not returned since! And the mayor was one
of his best customers!
III
The bandit attack upon the train had occurred so close to the city
that the _Carranzista_ garrison threw up temporary barricades on the
approaches to town.
Instead of sallying forth to pursue the bandits, however, the soldiers
contented themselves with a daily parade across the _plaza_, led by
a wheezy band of four pieces, intended presumably to reassure the
civilian population.
The local _commandante_ had suddenly assumed an air of great
importance. He was a tall man with broad but extremely thin shoulders,
with a wasp-like waist, and with legs that tapered toward the ground
until one marveled that he could maintain his equilibrium in a stiff
breeze. As though to accentuate the top-heavy effect, he wore the
largest-brimmed _sombrero_ in Mexico, a pair of moustachios that curled
in several spiral twists, a flowing red necktie, six kilometers of
cartridge belt, and a massive old rifle, while he clad his slender
ankles in skin-tight Spanish trousers of a type seldom seen to-day
except upon the stage.
Seeing him alone, one felt that the rank of general was too little for
him. Seeing him with his twenty valiant soldiers, one felt that the
grade of corporal was too much.
The first qualification for a federal soldier in Mexico appears to
be that he shall not exceed four feet in height. He comes invariably
from the very lowest rank of society, which in Mexico is extremely
low. He represents the poorest--and frequently the worst--specimen of
humanity in the republic. In the days of Carranza he was ununiformed,
except in the capital, and usually barefoot. He was generally dirty and
unshaven, and his principal occupation seemed to be that of lounging on
street-corners, insulting passing servant maids.
No motive of patriotism had prompted his enlistment. In some cases
he was a mere boy attracted by the privilege of carrying a rifle. In
others, he was a _peon_ drafted against his will. In others, he was
some old devil who could earn a living in no other fashion. Having
been issued his arms, he became a full-fledged soldier. No one drilled
him. He was allowed to wear whatever clothes he already possessed,
although a faded pair of overalls was considered especially _de
rigeur_. Sometimes he received a _peso_ a day, sometimes nothing. When
I was in Mazatlán, a federal paymaster newly arrived with a satchelful
of gold for the local garrison was giving such an elaborate series of
booze-parties to his friends, that one wondered how much the troops did
receive.
Such discipline as the soldiers possessed was due solely to fear of
their particular commander. Under a _strong_ man they made pretty fair
soldiers. Under a _weak_ man they were quite apt temporarily to turn
bandits themselves. Every train in Mexico in those days was accompanied
by a guard of them, but they seldom offered resistance in case of a
hold-up.
[Illustration: IN THE DAYS OF CARRANZA ONE FREQUENTLY SAW A BANDIT
HANGING AROUND THE RAILWAY]
“Why should they?” said an Old-Timer in Manzanillo. “The bandits don’t
attack unless they outnumber the guard. The soldiers haven’t much
chance. If the bandits win, they make a lot of money. If the soldiers
win, they get nothing. So they usually cut and run.”
“I suppose that’s what they did when Zamorra held up this train?”
“No. According to reports, they pitched in and helped Zamorra rob the
passengers.”
Even though our _Commandante_ marched across the _plaza_ each day
behind his wheezy band, Manzanillo was expecting an attack, and there
was considerable speculation as to what part the garrison would
play. But the gunboat _Guererro_--one half of the Mexican navy--finally
came down the coast from Guaymas, and landed a force of sailors.
Under their escort a party of workmen marched out to the scene of the
disaster, and we followed them.
It was a jolly little picture. Pedro Zamorra, the local _bandido_, had
twisted the rails and removed a few ties at a point where the train
came around a bend. All that remained of the cars was a mess of twisted
iron and a pile of splintered boards. A thousand ashen-gray buzzards
were picking and quarreling about the wreckage. A thousand more,
sleek and content, roosted upon the surrounding hillsides. From the
tangled débris the workmen extracted the few remaining bodies of the
passengers--very nonchalantly and unconcernedly, as though this were an
accustomed task--and heaped them into a gruesome pyramid. A few cans of
oil--a match--a bonfire. The buzzards glared in silent indignation at
this interruption of their holiday. And the workmen commenced the labor
of reconstruction.
[Illustration: PEDRO ZAMORRA HAD REMOVED A FEW TIES WHERE THE TRAIN
CAME AROUND A BEND]
IV
This was a common enough spectacle in those days to the residents of
Mexico.
For years the republic had been in the throes of civil war--ever since
the downfall of the great Dictator, Porfirio Diaz.
Diaz had built up his country by encouraging the foreign capitalist
and the foreign promoter. It had become one of the leading nations of
the world. But Mexican pride had been wounded at the admission that
foreigners were essential to Mexico’s development and prosperity.
Mexican jealousy had resented the fortunes which the foreigners were
reaping. Mexico had risen to cast out Diaz, and no other man had proved
capable of filling his place. Conditions had grown steadily worse,
until a dozen revolutionary leaders were squabbling for the presidency,
each of them ruling a portion of the republic and claiming to rule the
whole.
In an effort to bring order out of chaos the American government--under
Wilson and Bryan--had recognized Venustiano Carranza as “First Chief.”
With American arms and ammunition, which proved even more useful than
the American moral support, Carranza took Mexico City and elected
himself president. In the estimation of most Old-Timers in the country,
the American government might much better have recognized Pancho Villa
or any other bandit. For Carranza, of all the contenders for power,
was the leading exponent of the doctrine, “Mexico for the Mexicans!”
His first move was to promulgate a new constitution, in many ways a
splendid document, but one that gave every right to the workman and
none to the capitalist. The foreigner promptly withdrew. And Mexico, in
the hands of the Mexicans, enjoyed a complete economic collapse.
Without employment, the _peon_ everywhere turned to banditry as the
only profitable occupation. Rebel leaders continued to dominate many
sections of the republic--Villa in Chihuahua, Pelaez in the Oil Fields,
Felix Diaz in Vera Cruz, Meixuerio in Oaxaca, and others elsewhere. And
even in the territory nominally under Carranza control, gentlemen like
Pedro Zamorra were popping up from time to time to spread a few rails,
remove a few ties, pitch a railway train over a cliff, and provide
another holiday for the buzzards.
V
Each evening in Manzanillo, when the beer had lost its mid-day warmth,
two or three Old-Timers, stranded like ourselves, would gather at the
bar to discuss conditions.
The Old-Timer in Mexico is very much of a type.
He is usually a quiet, unassuming man, with grizzly gray hair, and
friendly blue eyes. He came from somewhere in the West or Middle West,
so long ago that he has forgotten just when. He owns a mine that has
ceased operation pending the arrival of better times. He is easy-going
and fatalistic, a trifle careless about dress, blunt in manner yet
with a natural kindliness, slow of movement from long residence in
the tropics, and very fond of talking about “these people,” by which
he means the Mexicans. During the last revolution they took all his
money away from him, and smashed up his mine, but he still cherishes an
affection for them. He is waiting hopefully for another Diaz to bring
prosperity back to Mexico.
He is a trifle reticent at first about talking. He is surprised that
the itinerant writer regards him as an interesting character. But he is
secretly very much pleased. Gradually he commences a yarn. It suggests
another, and that one suggests another, until they follow in rapid
succession.
Quoth one:
“I always used to carry a gun. Nowadays I’m afraid to. It’s getting
too dangerous. You can’t tell who’s a bandit. Some one comes riding up
to you, looking like any other _peon_, and just as he reaches you, his
blanket slides off his shoulder and you’re looking into the muzzle of
a six-shooter. Like as not, too, he’s got some pal covering you from
the brush. If you’re armed, they’re likely to make it a sure thing
by shooting you first and robbing you afterward. So, when I hit the
interior nowadays, I just take a bottle of _tequila_. When I meet a
bandit, I show him I haven’t anything worth taking, and offer him a
drink, and that ends it.”
Quoth another, a mining man from Durango:
“You see, there’s good bandits and bad bandits. Lots of ’em are chaps
as can’t make a living no other way. And some’s just kids that think
it’s smart, and do it because it’s so easy. Take Trinidad, down below
Rosario. Just a youngster, but he’s got the police buffaloed. Rides
into town in broad daylight and covers the barber with a Colt while he
gets shaved. Shoots up a dance-hall now and then, but don’t do much
real harm.
“Only trouble with Trini is that he likes women. He come down from the
hills one day with five of his gang, going to Rosario for something
or other, and on the way he seen a fifteen-year-old girl--daughter of
some rancher. Says he to the father, ‘I’ll stop to-morrow and take her
along home with me.’ Well, the father wasn’t thrilled at having Trini
for a son-in-law, especially so informal-like, so he sent to town for
protection, and got a couple of dozen soldiers. They was all asleep in
the shade next afternoon, when Trini gallops up, swings the girl on
his saddle--most of these country kids think it’s kind of romantic to
be taken away like that--and off he goes with her. The soldiers chased
him, of course, but he held them off in a mountain pass ’til dark, and
got away with her.
“That’s the way things are these days. I’m still trying to run my mine
up in Durango, and I’m paying taxes to Carranza for protection, but
I have to pay four different bandits to leave me alone. Even then, I
got to ship my ore unsmelted for a hundred miles. If I sent out pure
bullion, some other bandit would probably grab it.”
Quoth a third:
“There’s worse than Trini just north of here, up in Tepic. They were
capturing people so often that a prominent banker up in Mazatlán was
making a regular business of ransoming them. He went down one time with
five thousand pesos to buy another fellow’s liberty, and the bandits
grabbed him, and held him until his friends sent down five thousand
pesos more. So anybody who gets caught now is out of luck. Those
fellows have a nasty habit of cutting off your finger each week, and
sending it up, all nicely preserved in a bottle of alcohol so it can be
recognized, with a little reminder that unless the cash comes pretty
soon, they’ll send the head.”
VI
So worthless were the federal troops that many Americans whom I met
during my trip professed a preference for bandits.
[Illustration: SO WORTHLESS WERE THE FEDERAL TROOPS THAT MANY AMERICANS
PROFESSED A PREFERENCE FOR BANDITS]
One, operating a mine in Hidalgo in a town that had never contained
a Carranza garrison, had experienced no difficulty at all. Twice he
had been visited by members of Pelaez’s gang, and on both occasions
the rebels had paid for whatever they took from the company’s stores.
When the governor of Hidalgo announced that he was sending troops to
guard the mine--for which courtesy the mining company was supposed to
pay--the American protested that he needed no troops. The soldiers were
sent, despite the protest. On the night of their arrival, the company
stores were looted by “bandits.”
While I was in Manzanillo, thieves raided the ranch of Tom Johnson, an
American living a few miles south of the port. Among other plunder,
they took away five mules. A few days later a _Carranzista_ lieutenant
rode up to the ranch-house with the animals, announcing that he had
recaptured them, and demanding a reward.
“Reward!” exclaimed Johnson. “Why, you’re being paid by your government
to recapture stolen property. I won’t pay you a damned _centavo_!”
The lieutenant laughed.
“Very well, _señor_.”
And he rode away, taking the mules with him.
In recognizing Carranza, our State Department had merely created
trouble for Americans living in the territory controlled by other
leaders.
Several weeks later, in Vera Cruz, I was to meet Dr. Charles T.
Sturgis and his wife, who had been held prisoners for many months by
_Zapatistas_ in Chiapas. Dr. Sturgis, a retired dentist, had lived a
quiet life for years upon his farm in Southern Mexico, practicing his
profession gratis among the _peons_ of his neighborhood. One day a
party of rebels kidnapped him and his wife, and brought him to the
bandit camp on the Rio de la Venta, where they set the Doctor to work
on the bandits’ teeth, while Mrs. Sturgis was assigned to labor with
the native women. Mrs. Sturgis’ mother, who also had been kidnapped,
died after a few weeks. Neither the Doctor nor his wife were young, or
robust, yet Cal y Mayor, the _Zapatista_ chieftain, constantly added
insult and injury to their toil and privation.
“Why do you go out of your way to hurt us?” Mrs. Sturgis asked him.
“Because your Gringo president has recognized my enemy!” he answered.
For months they remained prisoners. The chieftain used Mrs. Sturgis as
a messenger to other bandits, on missions which he considered unsafe
for his own men, always holding her husband as hostage for her return.
At last, when illness had rendered the Doctor unfit for further work,
they were released, with one horse for the two of them, and with only
five _tortillas_ as food for their journey of sixty miles through a
tropical jungle. When, after six days, they reached their farm, they
found that the Carranza government had declared them rebel sympathizers
and had confiscated their property. Strange natives were gathering the
crops they had sowed. Friends provided funds for their journey to Vera
Cruz, where they were to embark for New Orleans. When I met the frail,
gray-haired couple in the Vera Cruz consulate, they were on the verge
of nervous breakdown.
Yet compared with some Americans, they were fortunate. Many of the
stories one picked up at that time were unprintable, particularly those
of young girls who fell into bandit hands.
“We went up to Washington,” said one Old-Timer, “with actual
photographs of two American women after the rebels were through with
them. And those fellows in the State Department just raised both hands
and shook their heads, and told us: ‘But such things can’t possibly be
true!’”
VII
Everywhere in those days _Carranzista_ generals could be seen
disporting themselves in the _plaza_.
“If they’d get busy, couldn’t they clean up the bandits?” I asked an
Old-Timer in Manzanillo.
“Quite likely. But that’s hard work. And they don’t really want to. If
they licked all the bandits, the need for so many generals would cease.
A general has a pretty good job, you know. Even though he doesn’t get
so much salary, he pads his expense account with fodder that the horses
never smell, and his payroll with the names of several hundred soldiers
that don’t exist.”
He showed me the newspaper account of a battle wherein General
Somebody-or-Other with a force of four thousand men, had just defeated
Villa in a bloody engagement.
“Now I happened to see the General start on that campaign. He had only
two hundred men. And if my suspicion is correct, he never met Villa.
It was a lot easier to sit down and write a telegram describing an
imaginary victory. The President cited him for distinguished service,
and he came home a hero. Carranza does the same thing. Instead of
cleaning up the country, he just sends out reports telling the rest of
the world that Mexico is now at perfect peace.”
VIII
Eustace and I occupied our enforced sojourn at Manzanillo by writing up
the many stories we had gleaned from the Old-Timers, and mailing them
home to newspaper editors.
If the American government still insisted most stubbornly in giving
Carranza a chance to make good, the American public was waking up.
Newspapers were beginning to publish accounts of Mexican outrages upon
American citizens and their property. The American press was commencing
to expose the Carranza régime.
So many were the stories coming up from Mexico that readers were
prepared to believe anything. In fact, they were ready to believe too
much. For the news contained in the message we had dispatched upon our
arrival in Manzanillo--“Foster and Eustace slain by bandits”--when
disseminated by the worthy Mr. Werner, traveled rapidly to the border,
and brought back to Manzanillo, from a former associate of mine in
Nogales, a telegram inquiring about the details of our death.
Eustace and I regarded the whole affair as a joke.
We wrote my friend a joint letter, explaining that we had merely been
captured by Zamorra, and had made our escape from his camp, after
having thrashed him and his fellow cut-throats with our bare fists. And
when at length the railway resumed operation, and we could resume our
journey to Mexico City, we rode away, blissfully ignorant of the future
consequences of that absurd letter, rejoicing that Manzanillo was a
horror of the past. Having attacked President Carranza consistently in
all our newspaper articles, we were eager to visit his capital to learn
whether he were really so bad as we had pictured him.