East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1922-07-12
WOMEN OF MEXICAN
REPUBLIC FIGHTING
FOR EQUAL RIGHTS
By CHARLES II. 1fARKS, Jr
International News Service Staff
CorreSDOident

| international news Service starr
Correspondent.
MEXICO CITY July 12.-Partici-
patton by a delegation from Mexico
City in a feminist congress in the
United States has revealed the exist
ence of Womans Rights movement
in the Mexican capital. But the
| feminist agitation in the capital is
/ insignificant compared with the ac-
tiyities Of the militants of the state
Of Yucatan, whose high chief Sonora
Elvira Carrillo Puerto, is visitor
1 here. Sonora Carrillo is a sister of
the Yucatan governor, whom Ameri-
can press reports have pictured as q.
communist, but who recently defied
the actual communists of the state
when they undertook to paralyze the
industries and the railroads of the
southeastern Mexico by means Of u
general strike.
| Sonora Carrillo soon may be May
| or Carrilo, for her sisters of Merida
the state capital, propose to nomi-
| nate her for the post of Municipal
| President a project in which they
| have been encouraged by the recent
elevation to judgeship in San Luis
| Potosi of Sonora Dolores Arriaga
Buch.
The 200 federated feminist leagues
and parties Of Yucatan have a total
membership Of ten thnrAn1, w9oI
are working for the uplift of the sex
throughout the republic for the ee-
walton OF the home through the eli
mination Of the liquor evil, for the
l,Jt ~ Il
for increased economic efficiency
among the women workers
The feminist movement in Yucca
tan dates from 1915, when the first
congress was held. Within the next
two years it assumed a more aggres-
sive character, since which time Sc
nora Carrillo has directed the propa-
ganda, overcoming step by step the
obstacles placed in her way by So
cial, racial, religious and political
prejudice as embodied in the reacti-
onary social aristocracy.
These organized women OF Yucca
tan are particularly proud Of the re-
suits of their local option campaign
against alcoholism.
Sonora Carrillo quotes one of the
mestizas as saying:
THE less wine our husbands drinl; |
the more and better food we have, to
say nothing of the family automobile
rides on Sunday"
In the prohibition areas the wom-
en- don't hesitate to use direct action
to squelch bootleggers One time in
the district of Dztaz they took cog |
nizance of the fact that despite the |
unti-liquor law their husbands and |
sons were coming home with pockets
empty and step uncertain. The local |
league delegated a committee to find
the source of the liquor supply. They /
discovered that an employe of the
railroad, in alliance with a man of
the town, was bringing intoxicants
in from wet Valladoid When the
next shipment arrived the committee
women held up the two bootleggers, |
wrested away their containers and |
'emptied them in the street.
After this exploit the entire mem
bcrshp of the local league banded
together to convey to the governor
at Merida their protest against the
illict traffic. The station agent, APP |
parently in sympathy with the boot
leggers, refused to sell them tickets
or admit them to the railroad plat
form. This only strengthened their
determination They walked the en-
tire distance to Merida, more than
forty miles, regarding their journey
as a pilgrimage in n holy cause.
Needless to say, the governor heard {
their complaint and acted upon it,
In Merida, the central league over
which Sonora Carrillo presides, pub
fishes a weekly, La Rebeldia, OF
which Senorita Nelly Aznar is direc-
or. Under the auspices of the femi-
mist league there has also been estab-
ished u technical school for women
workers in which productive arts
md crafts are taught. From time
o time instructive pamphlets are
printed by the leagues and distrb-
ltod free Of charge to the people OF
1ucatan.