"Last Conservative"

Once Mexicans went to church on Sunday. Now they parade the streets, cheer speeches by their labor leaders. One fine Sunday recently, 25,000 CTMists (Confederation of Mexican Workers) assembled before the National Palace in the capital to hear their labor boss, large-eared, dapper Vincente Lombardo Toledano, CTM Secretary General. Shouting, waving his arms, Orator Toledano hurled imprecations at the enemies of labor. The Mexicanos were enthusiastic, but not enough to suit Toledano. Dramatically pausing, the fiery-eyed labor leader leaned forward on the rostrum to grip his listeners once more. He was going to tell them something. The Government of Mexico, his roar rose to crescendo, faces danger, immediate danger, danger of a Fascist plot--a plot in which high officials of the Government are involved!

If this was oratorical bombast it was not so received. For several days denials and reiterations flew back and forth. The Attorney General began an investigation. Last week, recriminations produced results. Swarthy, heavy-jowled, ox-shaped General Saturnine Cedillo, Minister of Agriculture and last Conservative remaining in the Cardenas cabinet, resigned.

For months, radicals led by sour-faced General Francisco Mujica, Minister of Communications & Public Works, and Toledano have been hurling charges of "Fascist" against 240-lb. Cedillo. Backed in his home state of San Luis Potosi by 7,000 men, the last private army in Mexico and apparently in high favor with President Cardenas, Cedillo felt secure. His agrarian army was largely responsible for booting out party-boss and former President Plutarco Elias Calles in 1934, replacing him with liberal-minded Cardenas. Time & again, the blustering General Cedillo, riled at Leftist indictments, handed in his resignation, but Cardenas refused to accept it. Recently they sat down to breakfast in the President's home, Los Pinos, in Mexico City.

"You know, Mr. President, that there are some members of your Cabinet who do not frankly cooperate with you. I am one of them," said the blunt Indian-blooded General. Fork poised in the air, Cardenas replied: "I appreciate your frankness, General Cedillo, and in spite of our differences, I continue to count on your help."

But the rift widened, Cedillo, who had risen from a bandit leader in the days of Pancho Villa to absolute boss of San Luis Potosi State, owner of a huge estate and palatial Las Palomas, stubbornly opposed the agrarian socialism of Cardenas. Landowner Cedillo favored small, privately-owned individual farms, objected to the communal ejidos set up by Cardenas.

Radicals seized upon these differences, encouraged uprisings at Chapingo Agricultural School. Fortnight ago, students demonstrated against "Fascist" Cedillo. The Minister of Agriculture peevishly complained that the undergraduates, many of them students he had appointed, should remain loyal. He wired Cardenas at Yucatan: "Order War Department to present for my disposition 200 soldiers to be sent to Chapingo Agricultural School to stop riots. Should you fail to comply . . . please accept this as my resignation. . . ." The threat failed. Cardenas replied, "Your resignation has been accepted." General Cedillo hurried his bulk off to the safety of his own bailiwick.

Some months ago Cardenas, in order to curb the General's power in his own state, had several anti-Cedillo men nominated as Congressional candidates in San Luis Potosi. Last week, two delegates presented rival credentials to the electoral college. In a friendly gesture to the resigned General, it refused to recognize Cedillo-hater Professor Aurelio Manrique, instead seated his opponent. Smarting from the ignominy of having his flowing black beard, bushy eyebrows snipped off by Cedillo's men in an election row, Manrique cursed the deputies for being afraid of Cedillo, flourished a pistol. As he was rushed out the door, he fired a verbal shot: "Goodby, rogues!"

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