Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-03-25
The Attila of the South
New York Times.

According to an Associated Press dispatch
from Mexico City. the government forces under
General Gonzalez have pretty nearly cleared
the state of Morelos of the Zapatist bands that
have raded, looted and possessed it for nearly
10 years. Emiliano. Zapata, grandlloquently
dubbed "the Attila of the South" with General
De La o and General Palofax, his chief cap
tains of banditry, and few hundred retainers,
is said to have been driven into almost inn
passable mountains" in the southwest Their
capture "is expected almost every day." 1t will
be prudent not to be too hopeful, since Zapata
is hard bird to catch. His submission and the
pacihcation of Morelos have been reported too
often.
His forces seem to have been on short ra-
tons for some time. Many have had to surren-
der for want of drinking water. At the rate OF
50 day they are said to be giving up their
rifles In some previous pretenses at surrender,
these precious tools, which raise peon to the
dignity of robber, were mostly withheld.
landholder, is essentially an Indian peon with
gift of leadership, great cunning, and reent-
less ferocity Msdero furnished him with arms
in 1910. He harried not only Morelos, but
Oaxaca and Guerrero. His program was the
expulsion of foreigners, land for the Indians.
poor were robbed later. In his native state of
Morelos score or so of great propretors held
most of the land. He plundered, burned, killed.
No prisoner was spared. He left track of
ruin in hacienda and village. His work of de-
struction in the south largely forced the
collapse of Diaz. Playing his own hand keep
ing apart from Madero, from Huerta, whom he
threatened to hang, and from Carranza twice in
1914 master of the capital, this Indian agrarian
reformer, despoiling all the time the country he
pretended to be so eager to divide among mis-
people, nursed the ambition to be president and
lord of Mexico. Ready to treat ambiguously
with the government when too hard pressed
raiding and hiding secure in inaccessble~fast-
nesses and bursting out in rapine so soon as oc-
cason offered, Matchmaking the mine owners
and foreigners generally, massacring railway
passengers and pillagng ammunition and other
trains, Zapata, with forces varying at different
times and probably always overestmated, has
been master for years of region naturally rich
His state of Morelos, only part of his domain
at times, has been sugar country since the day
of Cortez and it produces coffee, rice, and so on
literally. Under the sway of Zapata it has suf-
fered losses that long years will hardly make
up, even if the government carries out success
fully its plan of breaking up the great landed
properties into little farms. 1t is a sufficient
testimonial to the character of Zapatas reign
that children l6 years old stare in wonder at a
civilian Zapata's ragged, cotton-clothed fol-
lowers or the government troops in uniform are
the men they have been used to see.
Zapata seems to belong to some other CEN
fury. Savage, boastful, fond of loading his per-
son with diamonds and gold. polygamous,
patriarch of bandtry, he fulflls the book-and-
boy idea of robber 1t is comforting to hear
and good to believe that he used to live in
mountain cave 40 miles long and stored with
supplies and ammunition"