EX-SLAVE GIRL RULES

Evening Star, Issue 18050, 18 August 1922, Page 8

EX-SLAVE GIRL RULES

YUCATAN COVERNIITJXT. Yucatan ’has turned completely, thoroughly " Communistic.” The term is more definite than’mere “Bolshevistic.” I Ignoring wholly the’Central Government at the City of Mexico, the Stale has given Itself over to a committee of es-poons. This committee is headed nominally by the Civil Governor uppointcd from the capital, but actually Is headed and inspired and completely dominated by a young woman, Bianoa Oarbonno, twenty-two.years old. Her antecedents are so unaccountable that nothing whatever 'is known of them beyond the fact that she was, until she took Into her own hands the reins of Yucatans govemment, Jii/Uo more tliun o- slave the estate of a rich land owner. The now Governor of Yucatan, appointed by President Obregon a few months ago, is Felipe Carillo Puerto. Nothing is known, reliably, of the raev dents of the Governor’s visits to the rich plantation owner for whom Bianca worked, nor the place of their next meeting. It is only known that she appeared shortly after in the streets of Menda, a beautiful and then prosperous Mexican city. Seen also in the streets of 'Merida shortly after were others of the peon’;class—men ■and women who came from Bianca's former neighborhood, and who mot in strange little buildings,and talked over certain plans with Bianoa, who was their acknowledged leader. From these meetings Bianoa would go to the palace of the Governor, and from tho palace of tho Governor she would return to the meeting®. It was understood the Governor had asked Bianca to marry him, or something of the sort, and that she had gained thereby a certain influence over bint, which was being guided by the peons who_ wore in her confidence, and who had decided, in conspiracy with her perhaps, to take full advantage of Ihoir opportunity to reach the ears of the Governor.

Without warning one night there was a quiet uprising in Merida. Several hundreds of excited men and women— several hundreds are many in any outlying Mexican capital—paraded the streets with weird torchlights, proclaiming whatever the local dialect term for a Soviet government may be. The crowd converged upon tho palace, from the front steps of which it was announced, 'through tho shrill voice of Bianca herself, .that there was now no more of such a- thing as government except as tho “ people ” expressed it—or however it was put. Tho pronunciamento was to the. effect, it soon seemed, that Communism was announced.

II was discovered, when the business interests of the city and the representatives of the plantation owners protested, -that the Governor himself was in the power of Bianca, who had become overnight a wilful, autocratic dictator, absolute master of tho ‘‘committee” formed to revise governmental affairs, and that it was her word, and not. that of the Governor, which had become the law.

It is difficult to picture the upheaval or its circumstances. The machinery of legal government was not elaborate, hut there were courts, gaols, tax collectors, and bureaux which kept the records of property ownership and upheld lawful deeds and proprietary rights. Tho bureaux promptly were taken in charge by Bianca, whose ‘‘committee” appointed now officials for them, or supervisors with power to direct the acta of the established officials. When the judges waited upon this committee, which it found sitting in another room of the Governor’s palace, they found it a silent body except for its chosen voice—the voice of Bianca, the former peon girl. The first two orders issued to the judges by Bianca were: “Take the laud- away from the present owners and distribute it among the peons—equal share to ■all. If the laud owners object shoot them. “ And make divorce free.” By “free” it was soon made evident Bianca meant give every wife a divorce who wants one, and give every man a divorce who wants one. Don’t interfere with their own family affaire by asking them what they want it for. If they ask it, give it. And so “free” divorce became, in a moment, the law of the land—as did tho division of real property. Bianca and her committee hold court daily in the Governor's palace. Whatever decrees the committee issues are first signed by Bianca and then put into effect. Later they are signed by the Governor and tiled away with the State archives. The remarkable thing is that the Governor has not yet persuaded Bianca to marry him. Cynical visitors to Merida declare this is easily understood, since, by her own decree, he could divorce her immediately if ho became wearied of her: but to these it might bo said she could do the same.