February 16, 1923

62
The Nation
Roads, the first modernhighways that Yucatanhad

ever
connected its towns and villages, and pierced
the jungle to the great
ruined stone cities of the ancient
Mayas. Pride of race, the-desire to reawaken in his longoppressed countrymen the consciousness of their past glories
stimulated Carrillo to do this. His gray eyes, his straight
regularfeatures,his
tall erect frame bespoke hiswhite
ancestry. Buthisgreat
flashingsmileandwhiteteeth,
his passionate yet gentlekindliness-these revealed the race
to which his heart beat true. Felipe Carrillo, the Socialist
governor, has done more f o r archaeology than all the governments I haveseen down hereputtogether,said
Dr.
Sylvanus Morley, the Carnegie Institutes resident archaeologist. And he was able largely throughGovernor Carrillos
efforts to conclude an arrangement with the Mexican Government by which theseruins, neglected and crumbling
since the Spanish conquest, will now be excavated and restored.
Under Carrillo the filthy Yucatan penitentiary became
a penological model, Stripesandnumbers were abolished,
mail was no longer censored, visitors were admitted daily,
and a mans wife or sweetheart allowed to spend-one whole
day a week with him. Educationwascarried
on within
prison walls, and each inmate was made expert in
a craft
of his own choosing. In the courtyard the prisoners were
at work building a swimming pool.
Yucatans new divorce lawwas based on Felipe Carrillos
conviction, embodied in the civil code, that marriage is a
voluntary union based on love entered into for the purpose
of founding home and therefore to be dissolved when
eithercontractingpartydesires
it. This law brought a
rush of Americans but less than a score of Yucatan
couples took advantage of it in the nine months since its
promulgation.Birth-controlinformationwas
also freely
available in Yucatan, and with the assistance of Mrs. Anne
Kennedy, executive secretary of the American Birth Control League, t w o dinics-the first to be
legally established
inthis hemisphere-were recently opened in Merida. It
was Carrillos plan to have scientific contraceptive informa-tion made available to every newly married couple.
Felipe Carrillos death at thehands of his and Mexicos
enemies was in part due t o his own kindliness and to his
trust inhis fellow-beings. Evenafterthe
massacres of
1918 he had refused t o countenance reprisals. He believed
in peaceable anddemocratic evolution. Hehad been repeatedly counseled t o a m his Mayas. When thetreason
of De la Huerta and the bribes of the hacendados brought
about the revolt of the garrison in Merida, the Maya countrymen armed with machetes were prepared
to rush in to
his defense. Buthewas
unwilling to countenance the
slaughter that would have preceded their victory over the
soldiers rifles. Too late he consented to sendone of his
trustedfriendstothe
United Statestosecure
fire-arms.
Meanwhile he slipped quietly out of Merida to take refuge
among his Indians in the country
believing that the reactionary coup would be short lived. Someone betrayed his
whereabouts. A rebel column attempted to capture him and
he barely escaped to the coast, where a sloop was waiting.
A terrific norther of the kind that sweep over the Gulf
drove hiscraft backonto the rocks. Hewastakenand
wit) his three younger brothers brought
back toMerida.
F o r a week they were kept in jail, then cold-bloodedly murdered. According t o custom the De la Huertistas will undoubtedly pretend that he was trying to escape, or that
[Vol. 118,No. 3054

-
he was accidentally shot during an attempted rescue, or

possibly will endeavor to blame some subordinate.
Thusperishedthemost
enlightened, themost
ageous, the most lovable man in Mexico. Her tragic history
of blood and tears has offered no nobler, no sweeter figure
a s a sacrifice to human freedom.
S Mr. Howard Carter and his
helpers have penetrated

further and furtherwithinthe
tomb of Tut-ankhmen and as the great doors of shrine after shrine have
swung out t o admit them still nearer to the sanctum sanctorum, the Drifter may as well confess t o a steady sinking
of the heart. Now that the sarcophagus, in a11 its polished,
rose-colored splendor, is at last exposed to view his gloom
is profound. He doe8 not, of course, deny or wish t o mitigate the archaeological value of these treasures of ebony
and bronze and faience and alabaster,
their desirability
a s objects of a r t ; but he was unequivocally relieved when
King George issued a royal edict
against the last desecration:prying modern eyes, however reverentlyproceeding
in thenames of science and beauty, shallnot see the Pharaoh
stripped to his dry, rattling skin; the
mummy clothes a r e
t o be left intact; for this little dignity left tohim, let
ankh-Amen take what consolation he may.
*
HISterrible-curiosity,thisyearning
t o uncover the
bones of an epoch o r a king, is not peculiar to our
age of scientific investigation. When in 1790 anattempt
was made t o locate -Miltons exact burial spot in St. Giless
Church, Cripplegate, and the coffin was finally exhumed, the
investigators not only opened the inner casket but made o b
with various souvenirs-a few hairs and some of the teeth,
even a thigh bone. This seems t o everyone a revolting disturbance of the peace of the dead whether renowned or not;
andtheDrifter
is not disposed t o compare with it the
patient and careful work of the pre3ent Egyptologists, done
for the most unselfish motives. Both affairs, however, show
the curious attitudes thateven the bestof men have toward
their heroes. If the Drifter ever again presumes t o advise
a young man o r woman as to his or her choice of a career
he will urge moststronglyagainst
heroism. Dont be a
hero, my child, he will say, there is little in such a career
while it lasts and it is as fleeting a s a bird before the wind.
Take the ease of Master Sergeant Samuel Woodfill, recently
mustered out of the army after twenty-two years and five
months of service. For
act of extraordinaryheroism
the sergeant was acclaimed by General Pemhing and hi5
grateful countrymen the greatest hero
of the-World War.
Yet the only reward Sergeant Woodfill received, in addition
tocertain decorationsand medals, was thehighest noncommissioned rank in the army and retirement pay for life
of $133 a month. Thus does a great nation repay ita heroes!
* * + + e *
MORE recent case of the decline in a heros standing

was caused by the hero himself. A young gentleman
was so unfortunate as tolose both his legs by some accident
o r other; his convalescence wasspentamongsurvivors
of
the battle of Chateau-Thierry. It is quite possible that the
warriors wereunduly reminiscent; a t any rate the young
gentlemanemerged
fromthe hospital confident thathe

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62

Roads, the first modernhighways that Yucatanhad

[Vol. 118,No. 3054

he was accidentally shot during an attempted rescue, or

S Mr. Howard Carter and his

helpers have penetrated

MORE recent case of the decline in a heros standing

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