by Carter Cox

        In August 1921, an extraordinary meeting took place between two very different people which would result in a brief and unlikely friendship. For four days at an isolated and picturesque ranch called Canutillo near Rosario in northern Mexico, the infamous Mexican revolutionary leader Francisco "Pancho" Villa played host to an intrepid American newspaper correspondent and playwright named Sophie Treadwell. The resulting article that ran on the front page of the New York Tribune on Sunday, August 28, 1921 entitled "A Visit to Villa, A Bad Man Not So Bad" earned Treadwell international notoriety. Recognized for her expertise on the people and politics of Mexico, she would go on to write a series of articles on the topic of Mexican affairs. At that time Mexico was still reeling from a bloody Revolution that saw the ousting of the progressive but tyrannical regime of Porfirio Diaz and three more successive regimes. Treadwell's sympathetic treatment of Mexican affairs allowed her to access people and information that were unavailable to most. As a result, Sophie Treadwell brought to her readership enhanced understanding of important people and events in Mexico; most notably that of Francisco Villa. That an American woman received so much respect and was able to accomplish so much in a country which at the time was generally resentful of Americans as well as totally male dominated attests to the ambitiousness and cultural sensitivity of this noteworthy writer of fact and fiction.

        Born October 3, 1885 in Stockton California, Sophie Anita Treadwell's ancestry was a mixture of Mexican, English, German, and Scot. The daughter of a judge, she described herself as "a Californian, a mixture of the old 49er and the original Mexican"(Wynn 1). Her family life was marred by the marked absence of her father, of whom she said; "The first thing I remember of my father is that he wasn't there" (Wynn 4). Despite this, it was her father, a theater fan, who introduced Sophie to the theater.

        Though she would until very recently remain an under-appreciated and unknown playwright, the theater was to become the main focus of her endeavor for much of her life. Upon her graduation from high school in 1901, Treadwell intended to pursue a career in stage acting. However, her mother discouraged her and she instead enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley (Dickey 6). There Treadwell kept her interest in the theater alive by performing with the drama club. It was at Berkeley too that Treadwell received training in journalism as a campus correspondent with the San Francisco Examiner (Dickey 6). In the year following her graduation (Treadwell graduated in 1906 in absentia due to the massive San Francisco earthquake of that year), Treadwell wrote her first full length play, and in the fall of 1907 decided to attempt a career in professional theater. A brief encounter with the vaudeville stage in Los Angeles was an unpleasant experience for Treadwell, but around that time she was able to get her first play, entitled Le Gran Prix, into the hands of a former critic and then assistant to the famous stage actress Helena Modjeska (Dickey 7). This led to Treadwell's being hired on as assistant to Modjeska in the production of her memoirs. This began an important stage of Treadwell's development as a playwright, as Modjeska inspired and encouraged her to submit her work to theater managers, and to maintain the integrity of her work in the face of criticism.(Dickey 8). It was also Modjeska who instructed Treadwell to use a male pseudonym on the assumption that female writers were taken less seriously than male writers.

        Treadwell's development as a professional dramatist was closely tied to her endeavors as a professional journalist. In 1908, she was hired on as feature writer and theater critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. She later created a sensation in San Francisco by writing two popular serials for the Bulletin. In one she used her acting skills by posing as a homeless prostitute and venturing into charitable organizations all over the city in an attempt to discover what aid was available to women in need. A serial that followed was a fictionalized account of "How I Got My Husband and How I Lost Him", which echoed her less than successful, though amiable marriage to a well known sports writer of the time. This would become the source for her first produced play.

        From the onset of her journalism career, Sophie Treadwell pushed the limits of women's place in the field. Treadwell became perhaps the first American woman to be accredited as a foreign war correspondent around the year 1915, covering WWI from various locations in France. Denied access to the front lines because she was a woman, however, she returned to the U.S. and took a job as a reporter in New York. Here Treadwell participated in women's rights issues, such as marching on the New York legislature with a petition for women's suffrage, and continued to write plays. In the Spring of 1920 Treadwell embarked upon a series of assignments in Mexico which will be the focus of the remainder of this essay. Now working for the New York Herald Tribune, she was sent into Mexico to cover the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. Treadwell's work in Mexico yielded several articles, most notable of which was her interview with the at once despised and admired bandit turned revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa.

        Pancho Villa was already known throughout the world when Treadwell went to Mexico. He had fought in the revolution of 1910-11 against Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz. Following the exile of Diaz, the Presidency was assumed briefly by fair elections by the leader who had orchestrated the revolution, Francisco Madero. In 1913, Madero's supposed ally General Victoriano Huerta seized the Presidency and assassinated Madero. Villa would ally himself with another revolutionary leader named Venutsiano Carranza in opposition of this new government. The ousting of Huerta led to more conflict, as Carranza took the presidency and a rift developed between him and his former allies Pancho Villa and Emmiliano Zapata. The recognition of Carranza's government by the United States infuriated Villa, and prompted him to stage raids on U.S. border towns (Tuck). The most famous of these was his attack on the New Mexico town of Columbus in 1916 in which several American troops and civilians were killed. Now hunted by both Mexican and American troops, Villa and his loyal "banditos" gained fame for their wily and elusive guerrilla tactics. Meanwhile, Carranza's government floundered and finally collapsed in 1920. While trying to escape the country, Carranza's train, loaded with money and government officials and their families, was attacked, forcing Carranza to flee into the mountains. He was assassinated during this flight by followers of a local bandit-turned-general named Rodolfo Herrero (Tuck).

        Because of her background and her love of Spanish culture, the Mexican officials deemed Treadwell simpatico (Dickey 10), and as a result she was able to gain access to important stories. Ten days after the assassination of Carranza, Sophie Treadwell offered the first account of his attempted flight, and of the subsequent investigations into the identities of his assassins . These were lengthy and detailed stories which were run on the front page of the Tribune. Shortly thereafter she was granted the first interview with the new President of Mexico, Alvaro Ombregon (Wynn 62). In these interviews Ombregon revealed his policy towards the United States, and as such were important (Wynn 73). Treadwell's growing reputation as an expert on Mexico led to several feature articles on that country. It was Treadwell's point of view in those articles that America underestimated greatly the importance of relations between the U.S. and Mexico: views which in light of Mexico's huge oil and mineral reserves were ahead of their time (Wynn 62).

        Around the same time, Villa and his followers were making moves to strike a pact with the government of Mexico. On the 28th of July, 1920, Villa signed a peace treaty in which he pledged to cease military activity (Tuck 178). Under the terms of the bargain, Villa was to be allowed to retire to a remote hacienda deep in the hills of Durango called Canutillo. It was here a year or so later that Treadwell would spend four days with the Centaur of the North. Treadwell would return to the U.S. with the epithet "La Amiga de Mexico" for her sympathetic reporting (Heck-Rabi 11).

        That a woman of that time would endeavor to undertake such a dubious journey into the hills of Durango is remarkable enough. That she was able to do it at all was certainly due to her reputation as a person who was righteous and sensitive in her dealings with the Mexicans (simpatico). For indeed all other newsmen were turned away at the border. The following account, written for a publication from 1936 called Ladies of the Press, attests to the special consideration granted to Treadwell by Villa;

                    trip, Miss Treadwell had rolled up that priceless newspaper asset,

                    goodwill, and so she was able to arrange an interview with the bad

                    man of Mexico."

  This meeting would reveal to America and the world an image of Villa that was inconsistent with his fabled reputation as a dangerous bandito.In her carreer-topping Tribune article A Visit to Villa, A "Bad Man" Not So Bad, Treadwell presents the image of a magnanimous farmer and family man; a devoted and highly respected leader of a peaceful and romantic utopia of his own design. Told in a chronological, narrative style, a penchant for colorful description abounds. Her story begins with her arrival at the train station at Rosario. Of the three hour ride by automobile from the train station at Rosario to Hacienda Canutillo Treadwell writes:

                    or any of his works to once break the illusion. Its silence,

                    and its vastness, and its beauty seem that of eternity, of

                    infinity, of God. So perfect is its smell it seems an unknown

                    paradise not yet discovered by any angel...Here dwells Villa.

Along the way Treadwell encounters a Villista officer, and sets the tone for her characterizations of Villa and his remaining followers. It is an unabashedly romantic image that she puts forth of these men:

                    me something of the same suggestion: of men worn down by

                    hardship to an unflinchable residue. Thin sinewy men, with sad,

                    unconquered eyes...I got my first feeling of what it means to be

                    a Villista: to follow the fortunes of one man for ten years through

                    struggle, triumph and defeat ; to be outcast with him to the

                    farthest mountain tops; not safe during years for one hour's

                    release from vigilance; hunger, danger, everyday companions.

                    When Treadwell finally meets Villa, her impression of him is in

                    concord with his legendary status. Treadwell writes:

.                    ...he came in swiftly, limping slightly, Villa - the Jefe .

                    He does not look like his pictures. Better looking,

                    somehow; different. Rather heavy, with a tremendous chest...

                    Villa's eyes are really remarkable. They have all the

                    intensity of deep set black eyes, but they slightly protrude

                    and are brown and small. Protruding as they do, and

                    burning, they give the effect of some fiery power within,

                    concentrated and bursting to come out...The eyes impress

                    one first, and the sense of great bodily strength, and the

                    voice.

  Treadwell gives detailed and sensuous descriptions of the dwellings and facilities of the expansive ranch, which to Treadwell seems more "like a small town". These and her portraits of Villa and his men read like a dramatic script, which is not surprising considering her passion for theater.

        In Treadwell's account of her first conversation with Villa, he presents himself to be a humble man who has been a victim of an unsympathetic press, resulting in a misinformed and prejudiced bias against him by those who only know him by rumor and legend. Treadwell gives him total rein, quoting him directly for several paragraphs;

                    "Here you see me Senora, a simple farmer who knows

                    nothing of what is going on in the outside world...Anything

                    that such a man can say to be of interest to you I cannot

                    imagine; but I am at your service, and you are welcome."

                    "...I think no man has ever suffered as much as I from the

                    deceptions of the press; been so brutally misinterpreted,

                    'Villa, el bandito', Villa el asesinado,' 'Villa, el enemigo

                    de los Americanos.' Senorita, I am not a bandit and I am

                    not an assassin and I am not an enemy of Americans"

 
To Americans familiar with stories of Villa raiding American border towns and murdering their citizens this must have seemed an incongruent statement. But during this conversation, Villa claims that he was not among the bandits that attacked Columbus, New Mexico in 1916. He explains that the act was perpetrated by rogue bandits acting on their own; men that had been part of his army, but who had split off from Villa.

 
                    "I was not responsible for these separated bands. I could

                    not be. But, oh, how many depredations these have committed

                    in my name before I could turn my hand and my vengeance

                    against them."

        Villa is painfully aware of the image Americans hold of him, and continues to use the interview as an opportunity to tell his own versions of events that contributed to this image. He defends his kidnapping for ransom of an American rancher, explaining that it was done in response to being swindled by an American mining company which hired him to escort a cache of silver to the States. Villa also defends his taking of food and provisions from Americans and Mexicans alike as "...a need in a bitterly fought and poverty stricken revolution." He goes on to explain that he had made sacrifices in order to ensure the safe passage of hundreds of Americans out of the country in 1912 when the revolution was heating up, and again in 1915. Rather than an enemy of Americans, Villa portrays himself as their protector.

                    and millions of American dollars. Millions of pesos

                    of silver have been carried by me in safety from

                    American mines to the main line of railroads: and

                    yet your people call me "Villa, the bandit." This weighs

                    upon me. This injustice weighs. I wish your people

                    instead of judging me through your papers would actually

                    try me before a tribunal. I would ask for nothing better

                    than that, to be judged for my deeds before an open court."

        Later the conversation turns to politics, and Villa demonstrates a deep concern and understanding of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. He is curious about the men who hold power in the U.S.. He voices the importance of friendly relations between the two countries, comparing them to two neighboring ranches that will stand together against trouble from the outside. Almost prophetically Villa states that "...there might be trouble for the United States from the outside, who knows?" Yet at the same time he wants justice for Mexico, primarily in terms of oil rights. He blames bad blood between the nations on the "game of the politicos", and on Mexican envy of American wealth. He attributes America's strength to what he calls its "pueblo culto" (cultured people); "A people that could not be imposed upon". For Villa 'cultured' is synonymous with educated, and he attributes his countrymen's vulnerability to their lack of education; "my poor people!- so ignorant, so helpless, so easily imposed upon!" The following is one of Villa's most profound statements to this effect:

                    hope for Mexico was to educate the poor people. And for

                    this they could learn much from the United States."

        Treadwell provides lavish descriptions of the ranch and of Villa's administration over its various works, with emphasis upon his wise and decisive governing over all aspects of the community. Ever present is the respect afforded to Villa by his loyal and adoring followers. Treadwell makes a point of displaying Villa's devotion to the well-being of these people. Villa comes across as an enlightened autocrat who gives all his energy to the improvement of their lives; an image that must have been surprising to foreigners who only knew Villa through the detached news copy of less sympathetic reporters.

                            Every time in the two days that someone came to Villa

                    for an order - and they came to him about everything -

                    hesitation, clearly, directly, finally, as though he drew

                    all his orders from some swift, infallible source. And I

                    began to understand something of his power over men,

                    for how surely and how gratefully even the strong

                    among us respond to complete decisiveness.

                            "This is the school, Senorita. Soon it will be done. Now the

                    children go every day to an ordinary little house, and a

                    be installed here. We will have desks, books, teachers - all

                    that is necessary. The building is according to my ideas."

                    "We have no drinking here, Senorita. No gambling. No

                    disorderly houses. Not even a baile (place for dancing).

                    Nothing but work - puro trabajo."

        It is clearly important for Treadwell that the reader take from the article a sense of the man behind the myth. She devotes much of the article to anecdotes that put him in the context of the family unit. His family life, which consisted of a wife, two sons, aged nine and seven, and two young daughters (not to mention his extended family of villistas) appears a happy and healthy one. Treadwell reveals Villa the father through his older son Augustin, of whom Villa boasts; "This boy, senorita, can ride any horse on the ranch. And shoot!- show your rifle to the senorita, my son." Yet again and again Treadwell 'zooms in' to capture "the impression of great, of profound sadness" which she at times observes in Villa. In one surprising passage Treadwell relates a theological conversation Villa has with a visiting friend in which he ponders the question of the existence of God.

                    mysterious. And I tell myself all these questions are

                    too big for the little minds of men to answer."

        If Treadwell was hoping to cull from Villa reams of first-hand anecdotes of his exploits and adventures from the revolution, she was probably disappointed. Only on the last night of her visit does she attempt to coax out such material. Perhaps sensing that this would be sensitive terrain, Treadwell describes how she had sought the advice of Villa's wife on how to approach the topic. At first he is characteristically reticent to boast of himself, responding; "Ah, senorita, a man does not talk of these things." Treadwell persists:

                    T: "Well, will you not tell me why you fought for ten years?
 
 
                    V: "That is simple senorita. I first went into revolution

                    because life was insupportable for the low people during

                    the time of Diaz - and I was of the low people. I followed

                    the little Madero. Then he was killed by Huerta. And I

                    overcame Huerta. Then was Carranza. But nothing was

                    better for the low people. Nothing had yet been won. So

                    I kept on fighting until - well - now Carranza is dead and"-

 
                    T: "How do you feel about the death of Carranza?"

 
                    V: "...a horrible stain that will defile the history of my

                    poor country forever."

                            "Well, he is dead. And the patria needs peace. More

                    than ever the patria needs peace. So I have quit fighting.

                    I am a farmer. When I thought it was best for my people I

                    would not quit fighting. And when I thought it was best

                    for my people I would not go on fighting."

 
Villa estimates the number of battles he has participated in at around 1300. Treadwell does then manage to persuade Villa to recount one particular narrow avoidance of capture while gravely injured from battle. He shows Treadwell the scars on his leg that attest to the reason that he "shall never walk well again and why I have pain without ending." Asked to tell of other "brave things", Villa withdraws, deflecting the praise to the men he commanded.

Treadwell sums up the article with unchecked praise for Villa. She not only affirms his hero image of a selfless defender of the underclasses, she also distances him from the bandito myth by distinguishing him from the "discontented 'patriots' involving themselves in every sort of plot against the present victors...Villa alone stays with his land - and works!" Treadwell hides none of her admiration for Villa in her closing comments, and even goes so far as to suggest that he is better suited to a role as a police officer than that of a farmer:

                            I , for one, feel that in spite of his ignorance,

                    his profound ignorance, he has great gifts, extra-

                    ordinary gifts, gifts amounting to genius - for

                    organization, for order, for command. This and

                    a supreme instinct for handling common men.

                            I can see him at the head of a national

                    organization of rurales, of mounted police, making

                    Mexico to its furthest sierra safer to travel than in

                    Central Park at noonday -- yes -- by a whole lot.

                            I, for one, know of no man to whose integrity

                    to protect and to whose power to defend I would

                    more confidently intrust either "my money or my

                    life."

                            Viva Villa!

        If there is a criticism to be made of Treadwell's article, it is that perhaps, by today's standards at least, she allows too much of her personal awe of Villa to come through. By portraying Villa with such a positive slant, it may be that she over-simplifies Villa's complex persona. Her implied acceptance of Villa's accounts of events as the real truth may or may not serve to clarify the historical record. One should note, however, that the protocol at that time between a female journalist and a man like Villa no doubt called for restraint in interviewing, so it is to her credit that she opted to focus on Villa's winning characteristics, thus maximizing the impact of her thesis. Today we would probably expect a bit more objectivity and less mellifluous prose in a front page article of a major newspaper. Her piece is more akin to an editorial commentary of today.

        Regardless of these issues, it is undeniable that Treadwell's work added to the world's understanding of Francisco Villa. Her unique ability to get close to him allowed her to reveal facets of Villa's personality that were previously invisible to the outside world. After all, Villa the revolutionary was at this point in his life a beaten man, and a new side of him was taking root in the Canutillo hills that no other outsiders had been allowed to see. Unfortunately few would ever see this side of Francisco Villa, as he was assassinated on the 20th of July in the year 1923; just two years after the meeting with Treadwell.

        The story of Sophie Treadwell and post-revolutionary Mexico is a compelling one for its rich intermingling of cultural, political, historical and gender issues. Her achievements as a professional woman were ahead of her time. Her reporting revealed to the world stories as amazing as they are historically significant. Her recognition of the importance of U.S. - Mexican relations and her inter-cultural savvy foreshadowed our modern era of NAFTA and political correctness. Her skill in writing of both fact and fiction has left behind a legacy that only recently is being fully appreciated.