Again, Mexitl

Mexitl was the God of War; the deity the most honored by the Mexicans--Storia Antico del Mexico.

--Francesco Saverio Clavigero, 1780.

To the great and furious war god after whom their land is named, Mexicans again paid costly homage last week--by flying at each others' throats. There is no surer way of pleasing God Mexitl (see map). Exalted in that one of the 13 heavens which is his own--the fiery blue heaven, where the din of ghastly battle never ceases--this old pagan deity may well have looked down, last week, upon his people and exulted, "How little they have changed!"

Eighteen thousand warriors--the greatest single army in recent Mexican history --were rumbling out of Mexico City in freight cars, led by ex-President General Plutarco Elias Calles, to do battle with the rebels in Durango, Chihuahua and Sonora. As bombing planes roared into the zenith, as President Herbert Clark Hoover hastened the despatch of 10,000 Enfield rifles and multitudinous rounds of ammunition to the Mexican government, as despatches announced that poison gas would be used, God Mexitl must have ruefully reflected that his own symbolic arms are a shield made of reeds tufted with eagle's down, and a handful of spears, each with an eagle's tuft. The peculiar insignia of his godhead, the so-called "stellar mask" resembles only incidentally that worn by burglars, and its purpose is not to conceal but to exalt.

There is, of course, an important religious element in the present Mexican situation. The government consists of the anti-Catholic, broadly Socialist and efficiently militant forces of President Emilio Fortes Gil and General Plutarco Elias Calles--a burly, bull-necked fighter who would certainly have the sympathy of God Mexitl. Arrayed against the government are the avowedly pro-Catholic, Conservative, and less efficiently militant forces of Presidential Candidate Gilberto Valenzuela, called by his enemies El Capitan de los Cristeros (TIME, March 18).

The great social and religious forces now interacting and savagely opposed were first generated in the 16th century when Spain overthrew the pagan empire in Mexico, imported the Catholic Church, and set up in Mexico City an inquisition to extirpate such beliefs as that in Mexitl.

The absolute antithesis between Christ and Mexitl--peace and war--is all the more striking because of their resemblance in one important respect. Historian Torquemada, in his Monarchia Indiana, wrote it down that "A woman named Coatlicue or Snake-petticoat [the mother of Mexitl] . . . one day . . . saw a little ball of feathers floating down to her through the air, which she taking . . . found herself in a short time pregnant. . . . Then immediately [Mexitl] was born, fully armed . . . and held as a god, born of a mother without a father--as the great God of Battles."

Another legendary deity who may well have watched the sanguinary progress of Mexicans, last week, is Xochiquetzal (see map), ancient goddess of both licit and illicit love, the patroness of mothers, and especially the tutelary deity of women who accompany and gratify soldiers marching to battle. So little has Mexico changed through all the ages, that last week much of the rough camp work and cooking for both rebels and federals was done by such patriotic women.

Mighty Battle. The chief engagement impending last week was the clash expected between General Calles' 18,000 Federalistas and an estimated 10,000 Insurrectos under General Jose Gonzalo Escobar, who captured and then lost, earlier in the week, the fourth largest city in Mexico, Monterrey, captured in 1846 by doughty U.S. General Zachary Taylor in a most decisive battle (ultimate result: Texas, New Mexico and California are now United States).

Operating with General Escobar, last week, was the fierce and redoubtable General Francisco Urbalejo, a full-blooded Yaqui Indian. Carnage of a particularly gory sort was predicted when the half-savage but well-armed Yaqui Insurrectos and General Escobar's rebel troops clashed with the Federalistas near Torreon.

General Plutarco Elias Calles, as usual, would direct his side of the battle from his famed olive-green staff car, an especially built and armored railway carriage containing every implement required by a Generalissimo.

Vera Cruz Falls. The great oil port of Mexico was captured, early in the week, and then lost to federal troops by General Jesus Maria Aguirre, who fled toward Yucatan. At Pennsylvania Military Academy, Chester, Pa., U. S. A., Cadet Leon Aguirre, doughty general's son, said: "Father can take care of himself. He is an experienced campaigner."

The federal army which took Vera Cruz --and appeared to have squelched the revolution south of Mexico City--was commanded by General Juan Andreu. now chief of staff to General Calles. Leaving the Vera Cruz situation quiet in the hands of a subordinate, General Andreu hopped by airplane to the rebel area in the north. Trainload after trainload of artillery (on flat cars) and soldiers (in box cars) which had started from Mexico City for Vera Cruz were switched back and rushed to aid General Calles.

Hero Moseley. The "Big River" or Rio Grande is part of the frontier between the U. S. and Mexico. Facing each other on opposite banks stand twin cities. El Paso and Juarez--queer twins. El Paso is a clean, Babbitt city, with little skyscrapers; but dirty Juarez is a town of low adobe structures where drink and vicious company are easily found. In Juarez last week General George Van Horn Moseley, U. S. A., acquitted himself right well as a Hero of Peace.

The situation was that the Federalistas in Juarez were waging a hopeless battle against Insurrectos under General Miguel Valles. A stray bullet fired by an Insurrecto traversed the Rio Grande and broke a window pane on the 13th floor of El Paso's First National Bank. Also in El Paso, a two-year-old U. S. girlchild, Miss Lydia Roberts, was killed by a second stray bullet, and a third despatched "the most popular U. S. citizen in Juarez," jovial "Teddy" Barnes, bartender of the famed Mint Cafe. With a bank, a baby and a bartender all involved, General George Van Horn Moseley went into action.

Hurrying across the International Bridge General Moseley intervened between the Federalistas and Insurrectos, and arranged that the former, hopelessly outnumbered, should evacuate Juarez, retire across the International Bridge and submit to internment at Fort Bliss. Firing was stopped on the basis of this agreement; some 350 federals crossed the river and were interned.

Shortly afterward Hero Lindbergh inaugurated the Mexico City-Brownsville, Tex., air mail route, flying a tri-motor Ford plane. Prior to the Colonel's departure from Mexico City, a New York Times correspondent filed this cryptic despatch: "An aviation authority who prefers not to be quoted says there are 80 first-class Mexican pilots, who, with the use of as many planes, could soon end the rebellion."

Soon after the authority spoke, the Vought aircraft factory in Long Island City, N. Y., was roaring and rattling by day and night to produce Vought Corsair bombing planes for the Mexican federals. How many, Planebuilder Chance Vought refused to admit, on the grounds that it was "military information."

Masses Resumed. Throughout the northern states controlled by the rebels, Catholic priests were permitted to resume the public celebration of the mass for the first time since General Calles (then President) commenced to enforce the anti-Catholic laws (TIME, Feb. 22, 1926). In Nogales, Sonora, Father Jose Pablos grimly said: "It is a fight for life! Either this present movement must triumph or we [Catholics] must once more give up our liberty."

"Hypnotized Rabbit." From all this it must not be supposed that the causes of the present civil war are purely religious. There is also the very strong if not major element of personal rivalry--"dog eat dog" --among Mexico's many men of the sword. It is of the very first significance that, last week, neither the government nor Chief Rebel Gilberto Valenzuela laid any great stress on such appeals to principle, credulity or reason as helped to win the Great War. Any fight in Mexico is, at bottom, just dogfight, though the triumph of General Calles would mean the continuance of his Socialist Anti-Catholic policies. During the week General Calles' so-called "puppet," President Portes Gil, called at the U. S. Embassy--something which no Mexican President has done for many, many years--and expressed to Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow the Government's extreme gratitude for the rifles and ammunition which President Hoover is permitting to enter Mexico in hopes that the federal soldiers will thus be aided to make a quick peace. During the week Finance Minister Luis Montez de Oca announced that he had spent $5,000,000 "on the expenses inseparable from mobilization."

The rebel publicity bureau in Manhattan's Hotel Pennsylvania issued a pronouncement stating that, "The present occupant of the Mexican Presidency has the power of a hypnotized rabbit. He is purely and simply another cloak in the mysterious and diversified wardrobe of Calles.

"The American people want the truth. Here it is. We are trying to free Mexico from the odious and inhuman tyranny of the dictator who has made robots of the President, the Cabinet and other creations out of his bag of tricks."

A more authoritative statement was made in Sonora on behalf of Chief Rebel Gilberto Valenzuela, presidential candidate and El Capitan de los Cristeros: "When the federal government comes to its senses and sends Calles out of the republic and Fortes Gil (provisional president) agrees to permanent legal operations of government and the carrying out of elections, religious liberty and the pursuit of business without the interference of assassins, then all associated with the revolutionary movement will agree to a settlement."