vent bloodshed to release the soldiers. They were immediately released and tension relieved. Gompers then presented the Mexican visitors with a letter heartily endorsing their project for forming a Pan-American Federation of Labor.[1]
9. CARRANZA'S REGIME.
Carranza was a land owner, described as the country gentleman type, who in a long respectable political career had never shown any particular interest in the masses. He was wholly out of sympathy with the demands of militant labor which he had pledged himself to support. In 1916, following a strike in the Federal District which paralyzed industry and traffic, he issued a decree making it a criminal offense, punishable by death, for a workman to take part in a strike, and followed up with military suppression of all radical labor organizations. He countenanced the organization of the C. R. O. M.,[2] of more conservative type, but by military action rendered all effective mass action impossible.[3] When the Queretaro Constitutional Convention met in 1916, the constitution proposed by Carranza contained no labor code and was more conservative than the existing constitution of 1857. Radical representation was, however, in the majority and forced through amendments which made the constitution of 1917 more liberal in its provisions for the masses than any other constitution in the world. Carranza made no attempt to execute these provisions, either in connection with labor or agrarian reform, but, on the contrary, abandoned
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