This is largely an agrarian revolution, and Huerta was the first to realize it. He says that everybody has made promises to the people, and nobody has kept them. I wonder, if the people ever get a chance to make promises, will they keep them? Quién sabe? However, all this is not a question of taking sides, but of stating facts.
The invitation of the United States to Huerta to attend the Hague Conference has been solemnly accepted by him; now international jurists are called on to decide if the very sending of the invitation does not imply technical recognition. It is one of those slips which occasionally happen, and Huerta is too astute to let that, or any other opportunity, pass where he can score against the United States. Things being equal, he could rouler Washington as it has never been rouléd before; but things aren’t equal, and he can only show immense courage, sustained indifference, and indomitable will in whatever may come up. Just now more and more troops are being rushed to the north.
We are delighted to hear that Warren Robbins and Jack White are to be sent here as second and third secretaries. There is ample work for all, and it will be pleasant to have friends and co-workers. It has been a wearing time for N., single-handed in all official decisions and representations.
News from the north is more encouraging, but a horrible struggle is going on. Elim and I went with Nelson to Chapultepec. Though the park is no longer crowded in the morning, as in the old days, the band having disappeared, with a lot of other things, there is still much strolling about the cypress-shaded alleys. A shining freshness filters through the old trees, the birds sing, the children play. Its beauty makes one’s heart both glad and sick. As we expected, we found the President sitting in his motor, which was surrounded by half a dozen others full of petitioners of all sorts. General Corral, in his khaki, came up to salute me and to say good-by. He had just taken leave of the President and was on his way to the station, whence he was starting to the north with 2,000 men. I pressed his hand and wished him Godspeed; but he may never again stand under those trees with a smile on his face and hope in his heart.
The President got out of his auto and I out of ours, and we had a talk, I presenting Elim. Huerta really is a charming old fellow! I told him I was anxious to go to Saltillo with the Cruz Roja. He said, “There will be work to do here in town, and I will make you head of the International League. You are very kind!” (“Vd. es muy buena, Señora.”) And he pressed my hand with those small, velvety paws of his. He has discarded the slouch-hat and now wears with his long, loose frock-coat a top-hat—(“que da mas dignidad”) “for the sake of dignity,” he said, when Nelson told him he was “very stunning.”
Afterward we went down to the Buena Vista station, where General Corral’s troops were being entrained. We found a very busy scene. There were long lines of baggage-cars, with fresh straw covering the floors; other baggage-cars containing army women, with their small children, babes at the breast, and the bigger children, who may be of service. Infants between two and ten are left behind. There is a good deal of heterogeneous impedimenta. Having no homes, these women are wont to take all their possessions with them—bird-cages, goats, old oil-cans, filled with Heaven knows what. The soldiers were laughing and joking, and the venders of fruits, highly colored bonbons, and still more highly colored sweet drinks, were having a busy time. The sun was terribly hot, so we came away, I with a prayer in my heart for the poor devils. Is “God in His heaven”? Is “all well with the world”?
Monday Morning.
I am advising Dr. Ryan to get off to Torreon. I myself telegraphed to Admiral Fletcher, asking that a box of hospital stores, bandages, cotton, iodine, adhesive tape, and bichloride tablets be sent up by the officer who is coming up to stay with us. Dr. Ryan can get off to-morrow afternoon. There is work, much work, to do, and I am sick that “my position” prevents me from going with him. My hands are trembling for work.
As to news, everybody in town is pleased, Huertistas and Villistas alike. The former have had word of complete victory—and the latter hears that the rebel forces had taken every gate in Torreon and that the Federals were in full retreat!