Mexico: Pancho to the Pantheon

William Jennings Bryan once called him "Mexico's Sir Galahad." Yet Hollywood portrayed him as a cruel, simple-minded bandit who poured honey on his prisoners for the delight of watching the ants devour them. His widow denied stories of his atrocities, said in his defense that "If he didn't like you, he'd just pull out his gun and shoot you."

Whatever else he was, Pancho Villa was a born leader. In the revolution of 1910, the black-tempered peasant led the first uprising against President Porfirio Díaz, later joined that other hard-riding bandido, Emiliano Zapata, against the government of the opportunist Venustiano Carranza. Along the way, Villa's cavalry of bearded, wild-eyed "Dorados" (Golden Ones) shot up and looted villages, left the bodies of priests strung on barbed wire; they later defied the U.S. by killing 19 in a raid on a New Mexico border town, eluding a punitive force led by General John J. ("Black Jack") Pershing.

Through the years, memories of the bloody episodes have faded, and most Mexicans have romanticized Pancho's legend to make him out as an amiable ruffian who fought for the poor and humiliated the Yanquis. Former Dorados who organized as lobbying associations have pointed to his more glorious exploits. Last summer the Government named a dam in Durango after him. So it was only logical for someone to raise the question of why Pancho's name was not in gold letters in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, next to those of Zapata and the other official patriots. When legislation to engrave his name came up in the Chamber fortnight ago, one deputy objected that Pancho's name would more fittingly be inscribed in "the psychiatric annex of the penitentiary." Another cried: "He was a bandit, and a bloody one at that!"

But most of Pancho's enemies are dead. Besides, as Socialist Leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano pointed out, "A revolution has never been made with flowers." So by large majorities in both the lower house and the Mexican Senate, Villa last week was finally elevated to the pantheon.