Jesus Flores Magon, whom we knew as Minister of Gobernación under Madero, a strong and clever man of pronounced Zapoteca Indian type, is going to Vera Cruz at N.’s suggestion, to see Mr. Lind. Flores Magon, who knows his people, says there is no use in “trying out” another government here. Though he was in Madero’s cabinet, he is now for the sustaining of Huerta. He thinks another government would only mean another set of traitors, who would, in turn, be betrayed. N. asked him if he were convinced that Huerta had other aims in view than the graft and personal aggrandizement his enemies credit him with. Though not unreservedly enthusiastic, he answered that he thought he had within him the elements necessary to control in Mexico, but that, like all Indians, he was cruel. Lind is out-and-out for recognizing the northern rebels, or, at least, raising the embargo on arms and ammunition. A terrible policy, it seems to me. Taking from the possessors to give to those desirous of possessing can hardly mend things—here or anywhere. Nothing that Mr. Lind has seen or heard has modified in the slightest the ideas with which he arrived.
Delendus est Huerta is the mot d’ordre, and I find myself assisting at the spectacle. I am dazed at this flying in the face of every screaming fact in the situation. N. went to see Moheno yesterday, with the usual bundle of claims against the government, and M. said, in a wild, distraught way: “My God! When are you going to intervene? You are strangling us by this policy.”
We hear from a railroad man (they are always informed) that there are two thousand well-armed men in Oaxaca, doing nothing—simply awaiting orders. They are Felicistas. Everybody is waiting to betray everybody else.
I had to stop writing for a few minutes; one of those strange accompaniments of life in Mexico has just manifested itself—a slight earthquake. The doors that were ajar swung quietly open and as quietly closed themselves. The chandeliers were thrown out of plumb in a rhythmic way; there was a sliding sound of small objects from their position and then back. I had an unpleasant sort of depolarized sensation. It is all over now—the temblor, as they call it. But I feel as if some ghost has passed through the room, leaving me not quite the same.
January 20th.
The papers have the report of the five hours’ conversation between Flores Magon and Lind at Vera Cruz. Lind is reported as saying: “Flores Magon is a splendid gentleman, with the welfare of Mexico at heart.”
We continually ask ourselves what is going to happen. Mexico is not, by any means, starved out; there is plenty of food, there is money for oil stock and bull-fights, and other necessaries. We may have to see Pancho Villa in a dress-suit. He has collected wives, as he would anything else, in his paso de vencedor through Mexico, and I understand that some of them are curios. I suppose accident will decide which one he will turn up with as “first lady in the land.” A recent portrait of one of them drove a woman we knew nearly crazy. It showed the “bride” decked out in an old family necklace forcibly taken from our friend, with other valuables, before her flight from Torreon.
Yesterday I went to the christening of the Corcuera Pimentel baby. The young mother, very pretty, was still in bed, enveloped in beautiful and costly laces, and the house was full of handsome relatives. After I had congratulated her, Don Luis, her father, took me out to tea. The table was laden with all sorts of delicacies, foreign and domestic. I partook of the delicious tamales, appetizingly done up and cooked in corn-husks à la Mexicaine, and drank atolli aurora, a thick, pink drink of corn-meal and milk, flavored with cinnamon and colored with a dash of carmine—though less exotic dainties were pressed on me.
January 21st.
Yesterday was a busy day. To show you how difficult it often is to get hold of Huerta,—N. was up and out at seven-thirty, looking for him. He went to his house—gone. He went to Popotla, a place Huerta has in the suburbs near the Noche Triste[8] tree. Not there. N. came home. I was just starting down-town, so I drove him to the Palace, where one of the aides said the President might be found at Chapultepec—the restaurant, not the castle, which he does not affect. We again went the length of the city, from the Zocalo, through Plateros, up the beautiful, broad Paseo. Huerta was just passing through the entrance to the Park in a big limousine, followed by two other automobiles containing secretaries and aides. N. got out of our auto and went into that of the President, the others keeping their distance. There is always more or less “waiting around” on royalty. They sat there for an hour, I remaining in our auto, during which time N. procured the release of Vera Estañol, one of the most brilliant of the Deputies, imprisoned since the coup d’état of October 10th. Huerta also sent one of his aides with a note to the Supreme Court, written and signed by him, telling the judges to render a just decision in a case affecting American interests, which is now before the court. This case has been in the Embassy nearly twenty years, and four of our administrations have tried, without result, to get justice done through the Embassy, using every form of diplomatic representation. Though N. saw him write the order, and the auto which took the note started off in the direction of the Supreme Court, and returned, having delivered it, no one can tell what wink may later be given the judges.