XIII
Uprising in Juchitan—Madero receives his first delegation—The American arrest of Reyes—Chapultepec Park—Side lights on Juchitan troubles—Zapata's Plan de Ayala
November 8th.
I was planning to start for Tehuantepec to-morrow, when a letter came from Aunt L. saying that the general in charge of the Federal troops was giving orders to his army from her porch, the Pan-American Railway was damaged, bridges were destroyed, and cannon were being dragged into town by oxen and placed in front of her garden.
Everybody has been going to bed dressed, with papers and valuables close by, ready for flight at a moment's notice.
I was disappointed, and would still have carried out the program, my heart was ready for her, and things were cut off here, but I was obliged to take the advice of the ambassador, to whom N. showed the letter, as the risk might not be simply personal. There seems a fatality about my getting down there. A telegram also came from her through Mr. Cummings, always so kind, saying for me not to leave till things had quieted down.
The trouble is in the form of an uprising in the district of Juchitan against the state government (Oaxaca). The Governor, Don Benito Juarez (a son of the great Juarez, I think), had tried to separate the jefe político, Che Gómez, from his office, a thing not lightly done. The result was that the Juchitecos, who dearly love a fight, gladly rose with "Che" against the Federals, who have been bottled up in the Juchitan church and barracks for days with no rest and no food; there must have been heavy losses. The firing can be heard from San Gerónimo. A few soldiers have arrived, but not enough for their relief.
The mother of the army surgeon with the troops is staying with Aunt L., and is in the greatest anxiety about her son, a fine young man, a typical Spanish hidalgo. As long as he could he sent messages, but they have had nothing from him for several days, and, of course, at any moment the Federals may be wiped out. There are at least three thousand Indians against a couple of hundred "regulars."
The government has sent down more troops. Two brigades went this morning, the Foreign Office announces, and "order is expected shortly in Oaxaca and on the Isthmus." There is already a general undertone of pessimism about Mexico in general and the new régime in particular.
The first delegation Madero received yesterday was the Society for Occult Sciences, followed by something even more tangibly intangible, the spiritualistic society. It makes one gasp. He will need all the help he can get to grapple with the situation here, but one has one's doubts about the spirits being consecutively and exclusively occupied with the destinies of Mexico, which seem to need the iron hand of flesh—and not in any glove, either.