The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1914-02-22
Paflcfo Villa, Driven to Robin Hood Life,
Declared "HnH Beast Yet Gentle at Heart
Rebel Chieftain. Hammering
at Gates of Mexico City, Is
One Of the Strangest Char
acters in the Worlds His
tory.

Pancho Villa Is according to his enc
mics. the most bloodthirsty. revengeful
and barbarian chieftain imaginable. 'haii
Indian and half beast" creature to be
viewed only with detestution and repul-
sion,
To his friends, however, he is a man
driven to a Robin Hood life by regime
of tyranny. forced to wild acts of out
Iawry in self-preseFvation, a being at
heart most gentle and humane. and be-
come by the strange yicissitudes of
Mexico the victorious general who may
in a month or two march into Mexico
City triumphant at the head OF his
rough, unkempt troops.
All accounts of Villa start with his
first Staying. Before that he is only
known as six-foot scion of one OF the
best families in Northern Mexico. proud.
naughty, athletic, dead shot, and a
born leader.
He was left the guardian of his sister,
a dark-eyed beauty, on the death Of his
father. A jefe politicC. or high sheriff,
who lived near the Villa ranch, eloped
with the girl who had been left in
Rancho's care. There was no marriage.
whether by the girls acquiescence or not
history is silent. But Pancho decided
the stain on the 'scutcheon could only
be removed by the death of the sheriff.
Overlook and Killed the Sheriff.
Mounting his swiftest horse. he gal
Hoped after the clippers. caught them, and
arranged their marriage. Then he forced
his brother-in-law to sign his own death
warrant, dig his own grave, and lie down
on the mound at the side Of it. He de-
nberateIy shot the bridegroom and rolled
the body into the pit, which he then
dIled with earth. What the sister was
doing during these proceedings is not
chronicled-
The father of the dead sheriff rode
out to the Villa ranch and was shot
dead as he knocked at the door. Then
Pancho fled into the hills and a price
was placed upon his head by Porfiorio
Diaz.
That's the way the story is usually
told. But others say there was one
day a row in an abode hut patronized
by the gamblers of Chihuahua, and an
army officer was shot dead. The as
sailant escaped to the hills and became
"Pancho the Bandit" the terror Of
Northern Mexico
All through his life this double YER
sion runs Recently there came a
story of his capturing a woman. and
marrying her by force. Then, it was
related, she fell in love with her saw
age husband and was content to fol-
low him in his campaigns. This tale
not be true, as others say he is most
faithful to the girl he married in San
Andreas four years ago.
To lead up 10 this earlier and more
authenticated marriage il is necessary
to go back a bit. When he fed after
his first staying he gathered about
himself a body of wild men Of the
mountains. outlaws like himself. Far
and wide he pillaged the estates OF the
Il rlrafE he
cised little discrimination in his TAX
ings At any rate by 1910 he had
gained the dignity of head of an ir-
regular army, with which he marched
from his mountain principally to San
Andreas about thirty-five miles west
OF the city of chihuahua. There he
made his headquarters and married. He
provided tutors for the girl wife so
that she might gain the schooling of
which she had been deprived. He him
self took advantage of the opportunity
10 study. and among other things Is
said to have at this time gained his
fair knowledge of English.
This agrees with the picture of the
Villa who recently was much impressed
by the lessons in international law he
CHANGED to receive and who announced
he would Immediately substitute these
principles for his former less merciful
code
But those who see the darker side say
that Huerta is saint compared to Villa,
and that every decent-minded citizen in
Mexico shudders at the thought of the
outlaw of the Chihuahua Mountains in
the National Palace of Mexico City.
Commissioned by Madero.
Madero's recognition of Villa gave him
his first step upward from the condition
Of outlaw leader. Madero commissioned
the bandit a colonel and thus made it