April 13, 1935 - DEVOTION UNDER DIFFICULTY
Mexicans of old Juarez, their service taken away, go wonderingly into churches to pray in solitude - even the bars of Juarez are thinned out and lonesome.
The Washington Daily News—Thursday—April 13—1935 Page 13
DEVOTION UNDER DIFFICULTY BY ERNIE PYLE
(While Broun is on vacation)
JUAREZ is all washed up.
Juarez, you know (and it's pronounced Wharz), is the Mexican town Just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, where during our prohibition years we went to spend our money and quench our thirst. There have been other Mexican hot spots, but Juarez was the original and the hottest.
Nine years ago I was in Juarez, and no matter which way you fell, you would fall into a bar. But today there are only about four bars catering to Americans in the whole town. Dozens of old saloons are boarded up; dozens of stores closed.
You're saying the reason is repeal? Well, yes and no. Texas is still theoretically dry. It has not yet repealed its state prohibition law, and it is Illegal to sell liquor in Texas. But that doesn't make a bit of difference to the boys down there. Actually Texas is as wet as Lake Michigan. You can stand on the sidewalk in El Paso and look right in the window of a bar. And in case you get tired just standing there looking, you can walk in and buy a drink, and drink it, and see who cares.
So, with things being like that, there's no sense in paying a quarter to get across the bridge into Juarez for a drink. And very few people ever went to Juarez for anything but a drink.
Personally I never touch the stuff, but I frequently go out with people who do. Nine years ago, so far as I could get up In court and testify, there was not a single building In Juarez that wasn't a saloon. But today they have such things as churches, jails, markets and shoe stores. They must have been there all the time, for the man said the church was the second oldest one in North America. And It certainly looked like it.
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ORDINARILY, churches or famous old buildings of any kind are very hard for me to keep my mind on. ButI went along into this church in Mexico a few weeks ago of my own free will, because I had been reading about the religious troubles there, and I knew that all services and all priests were barred in Catholic churches in northern Mexico, and I sort of wanted to see a church in a churchless land.
It was just getting dusk in Juarez. Children were running and screaming and playing on the sidewalks on either side of the church. The narrow streets were jammed with rushing, honking autos. The air was dusty, and the evening warm.
We walked thru the little churchyard into a strange stillness. The church seemed to be enshrouded in silence, as the earth is enshrouded in atmosphere. Mexico teemed on the streets within 50 feet, but the church wrapped Its silence about it, and was alone. It was very peaceful there in the churchyard, except for the wise-cracking of our Mexican guide, who was a very bad man. He called himself "The Bishop," and grinned with his gold teeth.
We went in thru the big, high door, turned just inside, and climbed a dark, creaky stairs to a small balcony in the rear of the church. The light was falling fast, and we could just make out the dark mahogany logs that were the beams; scores of them, and every inch of every log intricately carved by hand 400 years ago.
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FROM this balcony, looking forward, we could see that there were people in the darkening church below, people kneeling in silence all over the church, probably a hundred of them there on their knees, praying. We had thought there could be no worship in that part of Mexico. "No services or ceremonies." the guide said, "but they can come In alone and pray." We went downstairs.
Our guide disappeared for a minute, and suddenly electric lights flashed on all over the church. What! Electric lights in a building whose every fiber was of the spirit, whose every inch of adobe and wood was as native and as ancient as a desert night? It seemed arrogant and ruthless to flash lights upon those humble people kneeling there, each one so alone and far away.
We talked-when we had to-in whispers. Our guide talked in a normal tone, but it seemed to us he was shouting. We suggested that we not go up to the altar; that we shouldn't intrude upon the privacy of those kneelers. must see the altar, and it doesn't bother them.
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SO HE CLOMP-CLOMPED up the aisle, and we tip-toed behind, ashamed. Not a single person looked up. The faces of some were buried. Some looked straight ahead. Some held small candles aloft in one hand, and read silently from their prayer books. But every one of them had either the Intensity. or the courtesy, to pay us not the slightest attention.
The guide showed us many things, statues of saints, valuable paintings, old books, but I recall very little of it now. There was a chill inside the church, and a sadness, and I was glad when we came at last out into the warm air of outdoors.
We stopped in the churchyard for a few farewell words. As we stood there a Mexican woman, short, fat, old, draped in s flowing, dull black dress, the inevitable black shawl over her head, her prayer book in her hand, came out. Her head was lowered. She was crying. Maybe she was crying for any one of a thousand reasons, but to me, she was crying for her lost religion. Her tears symbolized the bewildered sorrow of s whole nation of people of her type, who thru the ages have had little in this world but an humble faith, and now they tell them they can't have even that, and they can't understand. It made me very thoughtful and melancholy as I stood there in the dusk of Mexico.
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AND alter that, I regret to say, we went to Harry Mitchell's bar. and met Mr. Feeney, who has been mixing them there for 15 years, who looks exactly like George M. Cohan, and who has the smile of an angel and makes you feel very much at home, and mixes every fourth one on the house.
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