Two Congresses

Thirty trucks crammed with bedraggled, unshaven peons rattled into Mexico City, last week following allnight, stand-up journeys from points as distant as Veracruz. They had been given firearms and bandoleers of shiny cartridges, and were promised a three-day holiday with a munificent 2 1/2 pesos a day for cigarets and pulque--all provided by district politicos in the name of Land, Liberty and the REVOLUTION. On the outskirts of the city they met hostile crowds who shouted "Viva Almazan!" and pelted them with stones. Firearms went into action, killing two and wounding seven. The peons were in a gay mood. Some of them did not know that a new Government Congress was to be installed next day and that they were to serve as shock troops should the numerous followers of defeated Candidate Juan Andreu Almazan attempt to interfere.

For many Mexican politicos the Presidential election on July 7 had decided nothing. Both Government Candidate Manuel Avila Camacho and Oppositionist Almazan claimed victory and each faction had announced that it would install a Congress, which as an electoral college would pass on the validity of its own election and on Sept. 1 proclaim its candidate President.

Installation Day arrived and Mexico City prepared for trouble. Picked squads of sharpshooters kept vigilance atop the brownstone building of the Chamber of Deputies. Others watched from adjoining housetops and armed peons guarded streets or careened through the city in trucks, shouting "Viva Avila Camacho!" Pistoleros prowled the Chamber and Senate corridors, and many Camachista Deputieselect appeared unshaven and disheveled for the meeting, having slept in the Chamber Building to avoid being sniped or kidnapped.

The Government Congress convened at 4 p.m. in the Chamber and Senate Building, but to the surprise of Government followers and crowds of spectators, no Al-mazanistas appeared and the Congress proceeded without disturbance. Amid cheers the Chamber President announced that the electoral college had been legally installed. Then a new Chamber President was elected and a seating committee was appointed to assign no out of 170 Deputy seats to Avila Camacho men. The Senate chose a similar committee to seat 58 claimed Camachista Senators.

Having announced that their Congress would also convene at 4 p.m., the Al-mazanistas outsmarted Government opponents by meeting secretly at 6 a.m. In a two-hour session they installed 150 Deputies and over 40 Senators.

Two Claimants to the post of chief executive and two legislative bodies were crowded into the political arena, and Mexicans realized that only a miracle could prevent a bloodletting. Claimant Avila Camacho sat tight, knowing that he had the backing of the Government machine.

Claimant Almazan, "vacationing" in Havana since the election, announced in a broadcast that he would return to Mexico when the time was ripe for assuming the Presidency. Then he embarked for Guatemala where, his followers announced, he would set up revolutionary headquarters in "an anti-Communist atmosphere." There he was also certain of the good will of Napoleonesque President-Dictator Jorge Ubico, who once bragged that with 300,000 trained troops he could invade and conquer the whole of sprawling Mexico. No friend of the Cardenas regime, Dictator Ubico has treated Mexican labor agitators to firing squads, has conducted his foreign policy along distinctly anti-Mexican lines. As host to Claimant Almazan, he will be more likely than ever to close an official eye to arms slipped across the border into Mexico.

Squeeze-Out? Meanwhile Army and civil officials were removed from high posts or shifted from important centres. Others, including Mexico's air ace General Alfredo Lezama, were arrested. Almazan-istas were dismissed from key posts in the telegraph, radio and telephone services. Political circles buzzed over a rumor that General Francisco J. Mugica, close personal friend of General Almazan, had been invited by U. S. Ambassador Josephus Daniels for a long conversation. General Mugica had been prominently mentioned as a compromise President to break the present deadlock.

As the peon army was temporarily demobilized at week's end, it looked as though the decks were being cleared for action, and Mexicans awaited Sept. 1, when the public proclamation of two Presidents should bring a showdown.

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