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Show MEXICO: THE LAND OF PALACES, LANDSCAPES AND MURDER . . Copyright. 1919. by Public Ludser Co. f s x x I The Ca tie of Chapultepeo and (on J X .,jXX:X Xy'- - 1 the right) Popocatepetl from Ame- f ! f 'v . J cameca x- L x P , . ' . ? 4 L ' v t 1 ft -h mmM- , X, - J , x V wA-'., - - - t--, ,.,, ,..,, , ,, $ - f --4 k x vA,,o x ? v Hh ; 5 x t xx , x v ti t r r I ' f 1 IX xt . V vxy 1 ,f i 5 I t t sv,n kn'xx'Vs , $ ill j t r, - ' X s 'x 5 ,;f', - f Uxuel--- , S t x v'xtry 1 1 j- j- " ri rx '-3-tJrpi-sr I "y l( , V A . v.ci Bv An example of the beauties of Mexlcar. scenery In the Borda Gardens, Cuernavaca "lhe peoplu iu the States don't know v.hat's been going ou. The State Department has suppressed the facts. If people would take the trouble to read 'Affairs iu Mexico.' the report of the subcommittee of the committee on foreign relations. United States Senate, 'M2 pages, they'd yet the truth." He paused for breath and continued bit-terly bit-terly : "As some of you know I've been wiped out. Just escaped with my life. My partner was killed shot in the back sitting sit-ting in a chair ou his veranda.' He recounted his own losses. ''I'm down here again after facts," he asserted. "And I'm getting them. I'm going back to the state of North Dakota and help put these Democrats out of business." "If the Nonpartisan League doesn't beat you to it." said the missionary slyly. The North Dakota man snorted contemptuously. contemp-tuously. "Those Bolshevists liemem-ber, liemem-ber, 9t2 pages. Write to Senator 'William Alden Smith, of Michigan. Did you ever hear about the agreement the refugees at Vera Cruz had to sign waiving rights to reimbursement for losses or damage to property?" The big lumberman judiciously proffered cigars, which temporarily ended the tirade against the administration. "It's been pretty bad." he admitted. "Every one close to the border, or below it. knows the conditions. But I suppose Washington has inside information. And then this European war has crowded out everything else. Where the administration went wrong " he puffed reflectively, and suddenly demanded of his attentive auditors. audi-tors. "Do you know who had Madero assassinated?" as-sassinated?" "Huerta, of course," innocently replied the unsophisticated traveler. "Every one in the United States can tell you that." Before answering the lumberman leaned from his chair near the doorway, pulled the curtain back on its rings and reconnoitered the passageway. "lv lhe way," he suggested, as he again faced them, "Let's camouflage the names. It's safer. Below the border we know that 'Vic Garden' had nothiug to do with 'Frank Wood's' death. They say that 'Happy Days' and 'All Wool' (if you get me) were the boys who engineered the job. After it was done too bad but Vic needed support, so asked no awkward questions. No one believed him when he denied the murder excepting perhaps per-haps O'Shaughnessey." "Frank's wife went to Washington with her story," added the politician bitterly. "Hence our Mexican policy." "Of course, she believed A'ic did it. He got the big job. Frank was dead ; I don't blame her," remarked the printer. "Eut why 'Happy' and 'All-Wool'?" inquired in-quired the neophyte. "V hen in Mexico ask no reasons," responded re-sponded the big man. almost sternly. "You remember the clemency Frank showed at Vera Cruz. That pardon sealed his own death warrant. Now if he had saved 'Happy' from some one else as he saved Villa then gratitude perhaps. But to pardon a man is unforgivable. Say what you will, coals of fire scorch the head. 'Frank went to pipces during the Decena Tragica. He talked and acted like a madman, mad-man, they say. Vic's idea, as proposed to a certain influential American, was to put him in an asylum. From the Mexican standpoint there were five serious charges against his sanity." He counted on his fingers: "First, . he was a spiritualist " "Like our own William James; also Oliver Lodge, Couan Doyle and many others," suggested one of the Texans. "Except that the ghost of a deceased Indian In-dian gave him sagacious political advice," continued the narrator. "Second, he was a vegetarian." The dyspeptic dys-peptic politician sadly shook his head. "Third and fourth, he used no tobacco or intoxicants." The missionary smiled. "And. lastly, he was faithful to his wife." "Ilather abnormal, taken all in all," remarked re-marked the printer, dryly. "That's what Vic told our ambassador, and I suppose he wasn't running a sanitarium. sani-tarium. Well. Frank and Vic are both gone now, and it's up to Al C. Primer." "Where do you get that?'' queried the puzzled traveler. "Al C. Primer Jefe. on the triumphal arches. In '16 they were strung from the Zocalo to Obapultepee erected in honor of all lhe patriots from Hidalgo to Al minus a few names like Portirio Diaz and Vic, who don't count in the annals of Mexico." "By the way. why didn't the president come down for that triumphal procession?" inquired the casa de cambio man. "Some say because of the tifo epidemic. Others blame it on natural discretion," volunteered the printer. The lumberman laughed. "I got it straight from headquarters," he said. "They found dynamite, with suitable suit-able wiring, concealed in the laths and plaster plas-ter of .the arches." IjTROM this point the reader may permit the traveler to rehash, in tabloid form, some of the anecdotes of murder, reprisals, intrigue, sacrilege, treason, torture and hairbreadth escapes related by various members mem-bers of the group. Those who claim that Huerta should have been recoguized by the United States base their argument solely upon . the ground of political expediency. They do not attempt to exonerate the dictator. dic-tator. Although believing him too shrewd to connive at the murder of Madero, they agree that he was fully capable of the deed The case of Senor D was cited. This patriot delivered an impassioned speech in the senate against Huerta's assumption of the dictatorship. Huerta is Eaid to have sworn. "The tongue that blasphemes me shall choke its owner." The body of the senator was found by his family. Th tongue was missing. The train drew into Queretaro. "The Mexicans in general," remarked the lumberman, "do not want to fight and pillage." ; THE Texans' purchased a "polio" and invited in-vited the traveler into the drawing compartment. com-partment. Having pooled the viands and concluded the repast, the. "friend of Zapata" dragged forth his grip and suitcase and produced pro-duced a bulky package. The contents proved to be a magnificent coat, evidently an ecclesiastical eccle-siastical robe, woven and crusted with purs silver. Judging by the weight, it contained several hundred dollars' worth of the precious pre-cious moral. "There's a choice bit of loot." said the owner. "I picked it up for tiUd pesos." "How will you get it through the., embargo?" em-bargo?" The smuggler grinned amiably : "Wearing spnarel. We'll float it through the customs on Sunnybrook." He dug out one of a number num-ber of flasks of Suuuybrook rye. offered it to the others, and took a long "nightcap." "Let's turn iu." As the train rumbled northward toward the border the traveler lay awake, thinking. In Mexico it is a case of prey or be preyed upon. This may be a representative group of "interested" Americans. They are taking chances with a people whose character char-acter and history they know. Some of them are breaking or evading the laws. Som are looking for trouble. How much protection protec-tion can they legitimately expect? Mexipo cracked just after her centennial triumph in. the height of her material achievement and prosperity. Wealthy, proud and rotten to the core, the couniry was ripe for the "Messiah." Aud Madero, in spite of his impractical idealism and impossible im-possible promises, was admittedly honest, giving himself and a vision to his country. After Madero, pulled down by wolves, came chaos, aud then the post-idealists, trading on his democratic principles. Whatever the course of the United States, the "mote and the beam" must be kept iu mind. the feet and the ground. Half way up the dark mountain a little white chapel gleamed luminously in the mystic afterglow, after-glow, reflected from the russet aud lavender slopes across the valley. A bell tolled faintly iu the distauce. "It might be the Angelus?" some one muttered. "But always al-ways different in Mexico." THE party sank to leather somewhat sobered by the episode. "During the revolution, before they gave me 'thirty-three,' said the big lumbermao in a slow, matter-of-fact tone, "I saw human hu-man bodies hanging from every telegraph post and many of the trees' along the railroad rail-road between Mexico City and Cuernavaca. The corpses were riddled with bullets. Where they were hanging low the Mexicau dogs, ravenous with hunger, were leaping up and tearing the flesh from the legs." Comment was forestalled by the return of the Texans. "Same old thing," volunteered volun-teered one, disgustedly. "Engineer and fireman fire-man off for pulque or mescal. Celebration in the village ahead. Just strung up a bandit, ban-dit, they say. Quien sabe?" Witli a shrill toot from the whistle and several ineffective shots at the yelping village canines from the Carranzista guard, the locomotive lo-comotive gathered up its train and proceeded with diguity and circumspection. The negro porter entered and lights were forthcoming. "Better pull down those curtains," advised ad-vised the lumberman, with a quiet air of conviction aud authority. "They're keen for pot-shots in the dark. No use taking chances." This precaution observed, he continued : "Things aren't what they used to be under Diaz, but Mexico is picking up." With a slightly cynical smile, "There's nothing portable left to steal. Revolution doesn't pay now." "It's a damned outrage," broke iu the acid-countenanced politician, with a cast in one eye and a baleful gleam iu the other. THE train crept lazily northward through the Queretaro twilight. It rumbled ominously omi-nously over creaking wooden bridges, spanning span-ning gorges littered with shattered steel girders and bars twisted in grotesque an-fractuosities. an-fractuosities. It crawled along embankments, embank-ments, precipitating a view upon charred timbers and heaps of rusted wheels and sleepers. From the locomotive, winding around the base of the mountain, a dense volume of black smoke poured funnel-wise, half veiling the armed guard on the roof of the box car directly behind the tender. AloDg the dusty concave sweep of the "primera and segunda coaches projected dark, unkempt heads and shoeless feet, in approximately ap-proximately equal numbers an evidence of Mexican fondness for outside travel. Back in the smoking compartment of the carro dorinitorio at the end of the train a small group of Americans were emulating the locomotive, with lighter fuel and less success. suc-cess. These men were known to each other, either by previous acquaintance or by the easy exchange of superficial traveling confidences. con-fidences. In the group were a North Dakota lawyer-politician, with mining interests south of the Rio Grande; a wealthy lumberman, lumber-man, high in the esteem of the constitutionalist constitution-alist railway administration; two young Texas sales adventurers dealing in auto accessories south and smuggling plunder, such as geld and jewelry, through the embargo em-bargo north ; a commercial printer, with headquarters in Mexico City; an American missionery, jovial aud experienced; a traveler trav-eler seeing the country and seeking information in-formation and a casa de cambio agent trading on the difference in the rate of exchange between the City of Mexico and Laredo, Tex. The agent, or currency speculator, was speaking: "The difference between 14 to 1 and 20 to 1 leaves nearly 40 per cent net profit, a good one if I carry enough of the stuff. These are not so good now." He displayed a ten-peso gold "hidalgo," a beautiful coin, the size of a five -dollar gold piece; "4.50 in the City of Mexico, $4.95 on the border. Besides, they're getting scarce. When they were down to S3. SO I carried them to Vera Cruz. Of course, the embargo on gold made it risky. But I've taken as much as twenty pounds at a time on my shoulders in a vest I had made for the purpose. They never caught me." At that moment the almost negligible momentum of the train came to an abrupt end. The sudden jolt spilled language from the sour-visaged politician "Split a switch. I'll bet," he growled. "Another big Baldwin in the ditch. That's where the rolling stock goes." "Hope to she's dumped the Car- ranzistas into the cactus," piously breathed the printer. The party peered out into the gathering gloom. A barren landscape of rocks, sand, mesquite, cactus and scrub palmettos offered of-fered neither explanation nor cheer. The Texans left the compartment to investigate. An ejaculation burst from the missionary gazing from the window iu the narrow vestibule ves-tibule passageway outside the washroom. The others crowded around him. Under a spreading tree at the wooded base of the mountain several white figures were discernible. dis-cernible. Iu the deep shadow towered a burly form, at first glance a giaut in stature. His head was bowed forward as if in prayer. But barely visible in the deceptive light, a rope stretched taut and grim from behind the heavy huuehed shoulders to a gnarled limb above. A movement amog his companions com-panions revealed a yard of distOce between |