Punctually at 3 o’clock, and true to his word, de la Huerta fetched me
in his car. Mr. Malbran was of the party, and as also Mr. Rubio, the
good-looking young man who interprets for him. To my great joy he told
the chauffeur to drive to El Disirto. It is one of the places I want to
see. If the expedition was meant to show me the poverty of Mexico, one
did not have to go far, the outskirts of the town are as sordid, dirty,
and miserable as can be. But out in the open road, (and a beautiful
road it was) we met almost a procession of Indians, one behind the
other, walking into the town with their loads. These loads consist
chiefly of terra-cotta pots and cooking utensils, piled up, in and
around a wooden case, the whole weight of which is carried by a strap
round the forehead. Thus, barefooted and bent double, heads straining
forward against the weight, muscles of their necks swollen, lips
sometimes blue, and bulging eyes focussed on the ground immediately in
front, the Indian man, woman and boy will walk twelve kilometres. De
la Huerta, pointing to some Indians on burros, said: “Those are the
privileged classes.”
“How are you going to better the conditions of these people?” I
asked....
“Caramba!” he exclaimed with a gesture of perplexity, and this needed
no interpretation.
“What is your motive in showing me ‘La misere’ of Mexico...?”
He said: “Your bourgeois friends have shown you what they had to show,”
and he referred laughingly to yesterday’s Haripeyo and the description
in the newspapers of the smart people present. “Each of us shows you
his own side...”. He went on to tell me that in olden days, the poverty
and distress was hidden from visitors as much as possible, but that
times had changed, and to-day everything was open for anyone who wished
to investigate. “It is good that foreigners should see what we made our
Revolution for.” I was a little bit perplexed, and remarked: “But how
has it helped, if the people are still in this condition?”
He explained that things were slowly progressing, that the development
was from the coast towards the centre, he said proudly, that the State
of Sonora, of which he is Governor (elected by a tremendous majority)
has no such conditions, and he expressed the desire that I might
see his State--“But these people” and he waved towards the patient
procession, remarking as he did so upon the expression of suffering in
their faces--“these people are better off even than they were. In the
days of Porfirio Diaz they worked as they are worked today, but they
worked for an employer. They were whipped to work. They were slaves.
They had even to marry according to their employers’ selection. Today
they are doing the work for themselves, they do it of free choice, and
whatever small gain they make, it is theirs.”
I quoted what a friend had told me, that the Indians would rather sell
bananas in the gutter, than own a bit of land and have to cultivate
it. De la Huerta’s face took a savage expression: “Try and take away a
piece of land from the Indian who owns it and see what happens ...” he
said.
Under the thirty years peaceful reign of Porfirio Diaz, a handful of
people prospered, a propertied class and a rich leisured class sprang
up, “But the working people were as you see them here on the road. Are
you surprised they rose in revolt?”
I told him that Russia seemed to be concentrating all her propaganda
on the next generation, and that the obsession of the moment was
education. De la Huerta said in reply, that after he became Governor
of Sonora, he increased the schools from eighty to four hundred and
twenty-seven in one year. The man is evidently full of ideas and
ideals, but he has not a free hand. He referred to the criticism of
the world, and said it was necessary to show what effort and what aims
there were. I told him that what was far more convincing than seeing
conditions was meeting people. Of himself, for instance, I had heard
great criticism, from a certain class. But it was only necessary to
meet him to see that he was a sincere idealist, and not in the least
as the world described him. De la Huerta turned to the mobile-faced
Malbran, and said: “There! Let your diplomatic mind take in all
this....” I said laughingly, that I thought the Argentine Minister
would make a very excellent Ambassador to Russia, when his time was up
in Mexico, but the others said his initiation had only just begun, and
he would not be ready for quite a while!
El Desirto is round a corner, at the top of a mountain. The mountain
is covered with trees, and profuse vegetation. Our car climbed and
zig-zagged and encircled. On our left was a precipice. On our right a
steep straight bank. We were within half a mile of Desirto, when it
suddenly began to pour rain, thunder and lightning and hail, as it
only can in the mountains. De la Huerta ordered that the car should
turn round and go back. He said it would be dangerous to attempt the
remainder of that half mile in the rain. I was terribly disappointed at
not getting there and thought him unnecessarily fussy, and alarmist,
but ... trust these people to know their own country! In less than five
minutes, what had been a perfectly smooth, good, dusty road, suddenly
became greasy and sticky, so that our car skidded crabwise down the
hill. Seeing a precipice on one side, and a car not under control
was alarming in the extreme. Behind us came a Ford, and it also slid
drunkenly down the road, and I felt that no brakes would be able to
stop it bumping us. Mercifully for us it went sideways into the ditch,
and mercifully for them it was not the precipice side! We stopped
and put chains on round our wheels,--it took time. De la Huerta was
perfectly calm and philosophical but apologetic, he said this addition
from above was _not_ part of his programme!
Even with chains our car too went into the ditch, and as by this time
the rain had slackened, I was delighted to get out and walk, but the
road was so slippery that even arm in arm, the Minister and I could
hardly stand up. I picked a variety of wild flowers, and watched de
la Huerta surrounded by clamoring Indians who wanted pesos for having
helped the car out of the ditch--it was rather an attractive scene, and
he really does love his Indians! I say “his” Indians, because he has
Indian blood in his veins, but he told me also that his grandfather
was a Spaniard from Granada and his mother was the daughter of a Polish
Jew, born in France. It is a glorious mix-up.
I asked him if it would be possible for me to stop and see Villa on my
way to California, and if so would he give me a letter of introduction.
De la Huerta laughed, he said it would be quite possible and that with
a letter from him I would be quite safe.... (Safe--from what?) I told
him I mean to leave in about ten days. “Yes,” he said, “if the Mexican
government allows you to go!” I told him about the Mexican Consul in
New York hesitating to visé my passport, because Mexico did not want
any Bolsheviks, and I said how surprised I had felt at Mexico suddenly
becoming so respectable.
“Do you consider a conservative attitude respectable?” he asked,
adding: “I call respectability having a sincere and independent
opinion, and having the courage to acknowledge it....” Then with a
sudden impulse he plucked at a scarlet flower in my hand, one that
I had gathered among the rocks, and half audibly, more to himself
than to me, he said: “That represents the life blood of these toiling
people....”
Later, when we neared home, he remarked: “Ah! if we could only work at
ease, without the shadow of that spectre in the North....”
We agreed that no country could independently work out its salvation,
except Russia, who was not overshadowed. We had got back to Mexico
City, and I was nearing my ‘home’ when suddenly he asked: “What is your
impression of Trotzky...? I told him I had compromised myself on two
continents shouting his praises!
“And Lenin...?”