They held in esteem only such people who were striving to improve their physical and spiritual state. They held no one in contempt because he was poor, ignorant, dissipated; full of disease and depravity. They knew the time was close at hand when a desire would be born within the soul of each for a knowledge of Truth; that the scales of disease which obscured the light from their soul would decay, and victory would cry out. These very people who secretly hated their foster-mother were the stumbling-blocks to every enterprise, headed by a person of Anglo-Saxon origin, particularly if the advocator be of American parentage and was born in the United States north of the Rio Grande.
They aided and abetted the clergy. They fought strenuously against any modern improvements in the Catholic Church. Their ancestors were so bold once, that they held a meeting of indignation, when some of their brethren of more modern ideas were determined that the poor of the church, as well as the rich, should have comfortable seats; they contended that it was a relic of slavery and heathenism for people to prostrate themselves on a dirty floor to worship.
The voluptuous, avaricious priests hated to see the innovation. They knew it meant a waning of their power. Yet when questioned by the advanced members of their flock, they could not refuse their consent.
The opposing party were petted and pampered by the priest, who consoled them by saying—and truthfully—that upon them the salvation of the church rested. It was a terrible, terrible day when the long, barren church, save for the candelabras, the paintings of the saints and images of Marie and Jesus, and its wonderful altar of purple and gold, was furnished with comfortable seats for the poor; the very poor, who with their centavos, centavos (which they obtained mostly by begging and plundering), helped to build the magnificent cathedrals, and entirely supported a vast army of parasitic creatures called priests, in idleness and voluptuousness.
The few in Chihuahua who were so unfortunate as to have for their ancestors a class of people wedded to catholicism as practiced in Mexico in 1899, and adhered to it, needed the sympathy of every enlightened person seeking for spiritual knowledge.
Francisco R. Cantu y Falomir was the most prominent member of the few who resented the present régime of things, simply because his forefathers did a hundred and thirty-eight years ago. He was a man of great wealth. He insisted on the “Don” before his name and invariably signed his mother’s name, Falomir, to his own, as was the custom then.
His family ate tortillas and frijoles three times a day; drank pulque, aqua miel, mescal, and aguar’diente—the latter two when they wished their troubles drowned; both of which are powerful intoxicants.
The male members of the family wore sombreros, short ornamental coats, sashes of many colors; and skin-tight trousers of light colors. The women and girls of the family wore black rebozos, and lace mantillas over their heads; the criada cooked on the brasero, and never failed to serve ensaladas and tomales on holidays and feast days as was the custom from time immemorial up to the date the Republic became a part of the United States. This family was spoken of by their townsmen as oddities and were rather liked for their old-fashioned ideas; they were hospitable to the extreme with their own countrymen, and generous to a fault to the poor of Mexican lineage who adhered to the religion of their fathers. They were unobtrusive in social affairs and political affairs, but interfered in everything commercial where it was possible.
Their interference was always in a quiet way, however, and attracted the attention of no one but those directly interested. They inherited the cunning and silence of their ancestors and acquired more unconsciously, by long contact with races which held them in submission. It required no effort to conceal their real feeling toward the country of which they were now a part, which took them under its protecting wing at the earnest solicitation of their best people at a time when the growing Republic was bereft of its main support; the great and noble leader, Diaz, who caused every avenue of progress to be opened up for his people. A man who loved the Mexican people, for whom he had fought and labored, next to his God. The American people claimed him as one of their heroes, and even the present generation honor his memory with as much fervor as if he had been one of them, as if the Republic he established and maintained had been a part of the States.
Don Francisco R. Cantu y Falomir’s ancestors belonged to the faction which strove to make the Church stronger; to the faction opposed to Diazism, to progress. He seemed to take an uncanny pride in nourishing the frightful skeleton he had inherited.