HUERTA PROMISES ACTION.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 5, 1913:
Will Smash Rebels in a Month — Priest to Lead Federals.
    MEXICO CITY, May 4.— Assurances were given in the National Palace today that before the end of the week the defensive attitude thus far maintained by the Government would be abandoned and that in thirty days anything having the appearance of a rebel organization would be broken. It was admitted there would remain the task of running down isolated bands.
    President Huerta and the War Minister, Gen. Mondragon, as well as their counselors seemed to be confident that the forces of Venustiano Carranza, the rebel Governor of Coahuila, and the rebel forces in Sonora would be made practically harmless.
    Gen. Gustavo Maas, with 700 recruits, strongly armed, is on his way to Mazatlan, and probably will proceed from there to Guaymas. Gen. Telles will succeed Gen. Trucy Aubert, with a base at Monterey, and he promises an active campaign against Carranza. Gen. Gasso Lopez is reported officially to be approaching Monclova, the Carranza headquarters.
    Many of the residents of the capital, however, do not share the belief of the Government. Some of them regard the proposed tactics as presaging a long conflict, with the rebels raiding the country and the Federals holding the towns.

    EL PASO, Texas, May 4.— Father Felix Barranda, a parish priest of Guerrero, Chihuahua, is to lead a group of Federal troops in the campaign against the Constitutionalistas of Northern Mexico. Like Hidalgo, the Mexican priest-patriot of a century ago, this modern day militant clergyman will give up the spiritual brittle for actual warfare.
    "I am exchanging the cassock for the sword," he wrote to Gen. Antonio Rabago. Military Governor of Chihuahua State. "Having been marked for death by the revolutionists, I offer my services, promising to raise a force of 200 men loyal to the Government."
    Gen. Rabago accepted the offer, commissioning the priest to raise a volunteer corps. Guerrero, in the mountainous district west of Chihuahua City, was the birthplace of the Madero revolution.