THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

Evening Star, Issue 14635, 3 August 1911, Page 10

THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

YOUNG SCOTCHMAN TAKES A HAND. A graphic story of the [/art taken by Captain Blair, a young London Scot, in the capture, of the io"ii of Juarez- —one of the meet.decisive battles, in the Mexican Civil War—has just come to hand Captain Blair, who is *he nephew' of a member («{ the Sheffield Daily Telegraph ’ staff, and was interviewed by a Press representative at 111 Paso iTexas), after peace had been declared, said, when questioned as to how ho came to throw in his lot with the Mexican insurgent*: ‘‘l claim the right of every American and Englishman to tight for liberty. The Blairs of Scotland have been fighting men clear back to the 12th century: and while for 300 years pent we hive been miners, there has been in almost ovary generation of us an outcropping of the old characierirtics. During the last two or three years of our college work together, Raoul and Julio Madero and I discussed the pitiable situation of Mexico, and I thought from the first that liberty would have to bo restored through revolution. I told them that whenever the time t-ainc 1 would be with them.'’ Captain Albert Edward Blair, roundfaced, boyish, and 21 (says the correnpondant) accounted in this wav for his part nr the capture of Juarez, and declared that his family approved his course. His Scottish father acquired extensive coal properties, and came to the States 10 veers .ago. The family lives in Henderson, Ky., and operates the properties of the Pittsburg Goal Company, of Kentucky. In recognition of his services at Juarez, Blair has been made adjutant on the Staff of Provisional Minis'er of War Carranza. “' After obtaining my B.Sc. and M.E. degrees “from the Michigan School of Mines las: year. - ’ said Captain Blair, "I started on :i two years’ trip round the world. My father considered my education incomplete, and I took this means of adding to it rather than a university course. When I got to Vancouver, affairs in Mexico had become so serious that I loitered there waiting to hear from the Moderns. Early in March I received a telegram from Julio Madero, and proceeded to San Antonio, where I bought my own equipment, and went across V' Ojinaga. 1 didn’t tee much fighting there, because the siege was raised by the evacuation of the town. But there I got my first eight of bloodshed, and fainted dead away. I always w?e squeamish about the eight of blood, and thought that I would have to school myself to stand it, but when 1 got into the iea! fighting in Juarez I found that my chicken-heartednors had deserted me. —Battle Like Football.— ““How does it feel to bo under fire .for the first time? It gives you the sensation of a still football game when your team is winning--and then multiply that sensation by 10. The nearest I came to being shot was in the charge up from the church to the barracks, where Navarro mad© his last stand. Expecting fighting at close range, and my pistol having been appropriated, I took a cavalry sabre and my rifle. Running through the street a bullet tore the sabre off me, and left nothing but the belt. The;© was no time to turn back, but fortunately there was no close encounter, and I reached Garibaldi in time to he the second man to shake hands with Navarro as he surrendered.” When the order for a general advance on Juarez was given on Monday night, young Blair redo up from the camp to the outskirts of the town with Major Raoul Madero, both on one mount. Arriving after midnight at the car bam, near the end of the international bridge, they slept until nearly 4.30, the hour fixed for the general assault. One goal, slaughtered and cooked in the car barn, served as the breakfast for about 200 men, including the eight wounded, whose cots were the floors of mule stalls. All day Tuesday young Blair fought side by side with Raoul Madero and his men. Tuesday night, having had no food since the sliver of goat meat for breakfast, Garibaldi, Raoul Madero, Blair, and 20 of ther band found a supply of maizes crackers and a can of strawberry jam in the house where night overtook them fighting. While some dug loopholes and others kept firing whenever a Federal head appeared, the rest of the band feasted. For drink they tapped the kitchen boiler, which in this house had not been, emptied after the town’s supply failed. That might they slept on the porch of the mayor’s house, rolled in rugs, until the moon set, about 3 a.m. Wednesday, when they renewed their fighting. Breakfast on Wednesday was not much better than Tuesday’s supper. In a house the soldiers found half a box of oatmeal, which they cooked and ate without salt, sugar’, or milk, and two cans of asparagus. While tlicy ate and shot at Diaz’s soldiers by turns, one of the band started a talking machine in the house playing the “ Viva Porljrio Diaz March.’