Heroes to Disinter

The chief of P.R.I., Mexico's largest party, had an idea: the heroes of the Mexican Revolution, though dead, might be made to contribute to national unity and, incidentally, to P.R.I, prestige. Dr. Rafael Pascacio Gamboa's suggestion: disinter the bodies of Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, Alvaro ObregOn, rebury them with full and traditional pomp in a crypt beneath the Monument to the Revolution.

Mexicans call the monument "La Gasolinera" because of its likeness to a giant filling station. It was built by Porfirio Diaz not as a monument but as the central portion of his legislative palace. But revolution caught up with Don Porfirio, the palace was never completed, and ultimately the framework was sheathed with stone, to stand as an ungainly testimony to Diaz's overthrow.

El Universal, commenting tartly on Gamboa's proposal, reported that it had left "an excellent impression . . . above all among funeral agencies, which would be charged with so patriotic and urgent a task."

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