Revolt

Last week the Mexican presidential campaign broke out in bloody revolt and boded well to be settled on the battlefields rather than in the ballot boxes. As the week wore on the summary executions of one of the two opposition candidates and many supporting generals seemed to hold promise of a complete annihilation of the opposition to the candidacy of General Alvaro Obregon, one-armed, onetime President of Mexico, whom the Calles administration is tacitly supporting, just as the Obregon administration, when it was in power, tacitly supported President Elias Plutarco Calles. Then as now there was a revolution; then led by General Adolfo de la Huerta, at present an exile in the U. S.; now led by Generals Arnulfo Gomez and, until his execution, Francisco Serrano.

The immediate cause of the attempted revolution was the opposition of Generals Serrano and Gomez to the re-election of General Obregon, they being the only candidates standing against Obregon. The fundamental cause of the revolt may be attributed to the almost traditional resort to arms of Mexican aspirants to the presidential power, as witness a long line of successful and unsuccessful revolutions.

The signal for the uprising was the mutiny of 800 troops in Mexico City, which was speedily put down. More serious revolts took place in Vera Cruz, Coahuila, Morelos, spreading eventually to the state of Chihuahua, San Luis Potsi, Durango. Government troops were successful, however, in overpowering the rebels at several important points and forcing them to take refuge in the mountains.

Within a single day after the first shot had been fired General Francisco Serrano was captured, tried by summary court martial and shot as a traitor. Rumors to the effect that General Arnulfo Gomez had suffered a like fate subsequently proved to be false, he being annoyingly at large. But with General Serrano died no less than 13 generals and private citizens, convicted of aiding him.

Two days later General Alfredo Rueda Quijano, and 13 legislators, were similarly shot. General Quijano pleaded at his trial that he had been duped, but it made no difference. He was led out into the sunshine, nonchalantly gallant. A large crowd gathered to see his end and more than 1,000 troops were assembled to do him a last gruesome honor. He was marched to a pile of stones and ordered to stand with his back to it. But this did not suit him and he elected to be shot with his back to a wall.

With head erect, refusing to be blindfolded, he faced the firing squad of six soldiers commanded by an officer. One last glance at the sun he took before he resigned himself to the inevitable. But as his glance swept downward he saw three U. S. newspaper correspondents and, recognizing them merely as foreigners, he waved his hand cheerily, calling out in English to them, "goodbye."

Then the volley of six rifles speaking as one sounded as the officer let his sword fall as the signal to fire. General Quijano dropped to the ground, his body convulsing. On orders from the officer, a soldier approached the quivering form and put the muzzle of his rifle against the general's head, pulled the trigger. Thus died General Quijano, brave to the last.

And on the following day General Alfonso de la Huerta, brother of General Adolfo de la Huerta, was captured, tried and shot. "Here is another rebel general," read the placard that was affixed to his body as it was exhibited publicly in Nogales, Sonora.

Despite statements from the Calles government that the revolt had been "smothered," it was by no means certain that the situation was so roseate as officials painted it. Rumors continued to pour in stating that the revolt was shaping itself into a veritable revolution. Somewhere between the two sets of statements the truth was doubtless approximated. But there was no denying that the heavy hand of the Calles forces had discouraged the revolters for the time being and had driven them into the mountains and had therefore rendered them comparatively innocuous. This being so, General Alvaro Obregon remained as the only aspirant to the Presidency.