Baptismal Race

"No influence, national or international, including the grunts of the Pope, will cause the [Mexican] government to vary its at- titude. . . .

"The government is determined to enforce the laws for the regulation of religious societies of all kinds, even should it be necessary to recur to extreme measures. Catholics will be severely punished if. they violate the law."

Thus, with a candid vigor unusual in statesmen, President Plutarco Elias Calles of Mexico informed the press last week that the Roman Catholic Church (in 1859 reputedly possessed of one-third of all real and personal property in Mexico) would shortly be deprived of all Mexican property whatsoever and its priests expelled from Mexico, under the anti-religious statutes (TIME, July 26) promulgated to take effect July 31.

Hurry! The Most Reverend Jose Mora y del Rio, Archbishop of Mexico, met the challenge of July 31 in the manner prescribed for the captain of a sinking ship-- stuck to his cathedral.

Prudent, he donned a business suit and a derby hat, the latter concealing his pontifical calotte. Indefatigable, he baptised and confirmed, hour after hour, the swarms of infants and adolescents whose devout parents hustled them to the cathedral.

Swift Indian runners, barefoot, blanketed, brought newborn babes for baptism. Toothless Mexican gaffers, perhaps pagans* all their lives, hobbled in frenzied haste to receive a precious sprinkling of holy water.

Weak, fainting, the Archbishop was all but carried from his cathedral on the first day of his heroic labors, having performed over 3,000 baptisms. . . .

Jab! The authorities of Mexico City were vexed by this baptismal race against time. Then Dr. Gastelum, of the civic Sanitary Department conceived an idea. Next day he took a long, sharp hypodermic needle, fitted it to a syringe full of vaccine, stood at the cathedral door guarded by a lolling troop of soldiers. . . .

All who sought to enter were told that they must first be vaccinated. The soldiers' rifles answered the question, "Why?"

Dr. Gastelum jabbed often, jabbed deep, never changed or sterilized his needle, discouraged a considerable number of baptismal candidates.

President Calles reputedly ordered from the Pullman Co. last week a new Presidential Train. Cost, $500,000. Color, yellow.

*The people of Mexico are nominally almost wholly of the Catholic persuasion. Among the lower classes, however, the Holy Trinity and the Virgin are identical indiscriminately with early pagan gods and goddesses, and a sort of hodge-podge religion has resulted.