Mexico under Carranza/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
| Causes of the Evils Which Have Afflicted the Mexican People Since Their Existence as a Self-Governing Nation Began in 1821 — The Remedy |
NO GOOD purpose would be served by the foregoing recital of incompetence, fatuity, and crime unless it led to an understanding of the underlying causes of Mexico's woes in order that a remedy may be found and applied. A short cut to enlightenment may be found in a brief résumé of events since the patriot priest, Hidalgo, rang the grito, or alarm, upon the bells of his little church at Dolores in 1810 to call together a few friends to begin the revolt against the intolerable oppression of Spain which cost the mother country what had been her most important dependency in the new world for nearly three hundred years. After eleven years of conflict, in the second year of which Hidalgo paid with his life the penalty of his patriotism, Mexico, in 1821, established her independence and began her career as a self-governing nation under a form of democracy.
In the ninety-eight years that have elapsed since then there has hardly been a year, except during the period under the ruthless rule of Diaz, that has not been marked by one or more attempts at revolution. That most of these attempts have been successful is shown by the fact that within this period Mexico has experimented with some thirty-eight different forms of government under eighty-five rules.
During the fifty-five years which elapsed between the date of her independence and the accession of Diaz to power, she had tried thirty-six of these several forms of government under seventy-five rulers. This excessive mutability in government which probably no other people on earth ever passed through can only be accounted for by the existence among her leaders of a contempt for law and order, a spirit of selfish ambition and lust for power and an absence of the restraints of patriotism and devotion to the public welfare without a parallel in history.
This contempt for law and order has affected the nation not alone through its influence on internal affairs; it has also resulted in several grave international complications.
In 1838, Mexico became involved in serious difficulty with France, arising from outrages on the persons and property of French citizens at different periods of her revolutionary history. In that year the French Government, wearied with ineffectual demands for reparation, sent a fleet of warships to bombard the fortifications of Vera Cruz.
In 1837, at the request of President Jackson, the American Congress passed an act authorizing him to make final demand upon the Mexican Government for redress for numerous outrages that had been committed upon the persons and property of American citizens, and to use the naval forces of the United States to enforce such demand. After years of negotiation, signalized by numerous deceptions and Violations of diplomatic agreements on the part of Mexico, the differences between that country and the United States were only partly adjusted and later, in 1846, became one of the contributing causes of the war between the two countries.
In 1861, Spain, France, and England entered into an agreement to take joint action to enforce certain rights which they had against the Mexican Government, and this afterward led to French intervention and the short-lived empire of Maximilian.
With the conclusion of the Maximilian epoch by his capture and execution, in 1867, the republic was again restored, with Juarez as president. In a short time his possession of the office was challenged by Diaz, who failed in his attempt to unseat him, but, later, in a second revolutionary attempt against Lerdo de Tejada, who had succeeded Juarez upon the latter's death, he was successful and took his place at the head of the government as President in 1876.
For thirty-four years Diaz was in the actual control of Mexico's affairs, and during this period, with the exception of four years when his creature, Gonzales, was president, he was the official head of the Mexican Government. Although a number of revolutions were attempted during Diaz's incumbency, his great ability, and the stern use of force, enabled him to suppress that turbulent element which for more than half a century had been responsible for a condition of change and turmoil, and to retain control of Mexico's affairs. During this period Diaz, for the first time in the experience of Mexico as a democracy, brought order, tranquillity, and a fair amount of honesty into the administration of its governmental affairs. He addressed himself earnestly to the material development of his country and, whatever may be thought of the character of the structure that he reared, there can be no doubt that during his term of power he showed that he was a constructive statesman of great ability — a type of strong, original, and effective character rarely produced by any country oftener than once in a century or more. During his incumbency the material progress of his country was remarkable, but the beneficent results of that progress were so unevenly distributed among the people that there at all times existed a smouldering discontent which was bound some time to result in revolt. It did so result when in November, 1910, Madero began his revolution against the man who, for so many years, had been president in name, and dictator in fact. Age had so weakened the strong man's control of affairs that, as the result of some months of activity on the part of the revolutionists, he, in 1911, resigned from the presidency and abandoned his country.
When Diaz surrendered the office of president and left the country the interest had been paid so promptly upon the national indebtedness for more than a quarter of a century that Mexico's credit was equal to that of any nation in the world. During the last few years of the Diaz administration, 36,500,000 pesos from the public revenues had been devoted to the building of great harbours and other public works, and at the date of his abdication more than 75,000,000 pesos were in the national treasury. The Mexican railroads, including those in which the government owned the stock control, were paying interest on their bonds and dividends to stockholders. Owing to the development of railroads and other public service enterprises, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing, largely by foreign capital, hundreds of thousands of Mexican labourers of the peon class were receiving much higher wages in their service than they had ever before received. Persons and property were as safe in Mexico as on any other portion of the American Continent. The old warfare between Mexican bandits and American citizens along the border, that had existed practically without interruption from 1821 when Mexico gained her independence to the accession of Diaz to the presidency in 1876, had ceased for so long that none but the oldest inhabitants on the frontier could recall the time when the Texas rangers had been organized for the purpose of dealing with Mexican raids across the border.
But, notwithstanding the fact that the administration of President Diaz had produced great development along many lines, and that a much greater degree of prosperity and comfort existed among a considerable portion of the working classes than ever before, there can be no doubt that a large majority of the labourers in the service of the great land owners were inadequately paid, as they had been since the native population was assigned to the vast estates into which the country had been divided by the Spanish conquerors. Nor can there be any doubt that the welfare of the peons, descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants, constituting 80 per cent. of the population was not looked after as humanity and a proper conception of the duties of a government to its people required. And, because it was felt that the peons had been permitted to remain in economic servitude and had been denied those opportunities for education and economic advancement to which every man is entitled, many friends of the Mexican people welcomed the success of the Madero revolution in the hope that it meant a better chance in life for the submerged majority.
But before Madero had become firmly seated in the presidency, it became evident that the old spirit of political unrest and unpatriotic lust for power and loot, which had destroyed the capacity of government for good from the date of its independence to the advent of Diaz, still existed. A half dozen revolutions were started against Madero during the first two years of his term by other ambitious leaders. This struggle for power, and the consequent opportunity of robbing both public and private wealth, resulted in the unseating of Madero before he had served half the term to which he had been elected, and the assassination of himself, the vice-president and a number of his friends and supporters.
Since the close of Madero's brief and tragic career the fact is only too plainly apparent that the unsettled conditions, with all their attendant evils, which existed previous to the Diaz period, have returned in full force. In the eight years since Diaz abandoned his office and his country Mexico has had nine different presidents and at no time has all her territory been subject to the National Government.[1] At the present time its control is divided among a number of contenders for power and place, and the Carranza administration, which holds the largest area of the national territory, has so failed to impose its authority upon the whole, that a few months ago Mr. Cabrera, its leading official stated on the floor of the Mexican Congress that in at least five states, Carranza had no control.
Mexican finances have never been in such a disorganized condition, nor has the national credit ever been so utterly destroyed. For five years no attempt has been made to pay interest upon any financial obligations. The nation's industrial and financial institutions have been so completely wrecked and its income so recklessly and dishonestly administered, that during the last year the civilian employees of the government have been receiving only one half to three fourths of their nominal pay and many of the schools have been forced to close their doors for lack of funds to pay the teachers' salaries. The country, whose credit ten years ago was second to none, to-day cannot borrow a dollar in the money markets of the world.
At no period have the laws for the protection of persons and property been so poorly enforced as at the present time. Within the year, the newspapers of the capital city have reported that the streets were not safe for pedestrians after 8 o'clock at night, as numerous robberies were being committed, many of them by soldiers and officers in uniform. Never before has the government not only permitted, but encouraged and participated in, the lawless confiscation of private property to the extent that has characterized the course of the Carranza administration. Not for twenty-five years has employment been so uncertain and wages so low as at the present time. During the last five years many thousands have died from starvation and the bad sanitary conditions that have resulted from the poor government, or lack of government, of the centres of population.
So numerous and so great are the accumulated evils resulting from the contests for power and pelf, which various leaders have waged for eight years, that it is no exaggeration to say that the closing years of the first century of Mexico's experiment in self-government finds the masses of her people more hopelessly wretched than they have ever been during that long period, while the country is now under the control of elements which give no promise of future betterment.
The contemplation of such a failure of a people, during nearly one hundred years, to achieve any real progress in self-government, suggests that some factor, or factors, must exist which have worked with uncontrollable power against the good, and in favour of the bad. The cause most often cited as being responsible for the failure of popular government in Mexico, and especially for the wretched condition of the labouring classes, comprising 80 per cent. of the population, is agrarian, caused by the holding of the lands in great bodies by a small number of persons and the denial to the masses of the opportunity to secure an interest in the land. Promises to amend this condition have been made by almost every one of the more than a hundred leaders who have, in less than that number of years, begun important, and most often successful, attempts at revolution.
During the contest for Mexican independence the patriot leader Morelos recognized the need of a wider distribution of the land and made some attempt, in 1815, to allot holdings to the peons in that part of the country which the forces under his command controlled. But, notwithstanding the fact that almost every revolutionary leader who has succeeded in securing a following sufficient to unseat his predecessor and place himself at the head of the government, has announced, as a part of the "plan" upon which he founded his revolution, a determination to make provision for a broader distribution of lands to the common people, no successful and lasting effort has been made to accomplish this desirable end. All changes in land holding have been temporary and no continuing good has been accomplished. This would appear to indicate that no permanent relief of agrarian troubles can be obtained by dividing the land among a labouring class without education or means, which has for centuries been accustomed to working as employees of the property-owning class, with no experience in the control of its own labour in independent industry, and to suggest that some other and more deeply seated cause is responsible for Mexico's utter failure in her attempt at self-government.
A somewhat extensive study of the history of Mexico has impressed me with the conviction that the basis of all her trouble is racial. Mexico is inhabited by two distinct races: one the descendants of the aborigines comprising probably 80 per cent. of her total population, who furnish practically all the common labour of the country — the "hewers of wood and drawers of water" — usually denominated "peons," and who, as a class, are uneducated and non-property-holding. The other 20 per cent. of the population are the descendants of the Latin conquerors who, beginning by monopolizing all of the landed and other wealth of the country, and possessing all of its educated intelligence, have continued to hold that position of advantage, which has made them the governing race and conferred upon them, and made them responsible for, the control of the uneducated and non-property-holding 80 per cent.
The 20 per cent. of the Latin-Mexican population, includes the half-breeds or "mestizos," variously estimated as constituting a fourth to a third of the Latin element.
A democracy, in order to be successful, must represent the will of the majority. No people can effectively participate in government unless they are endowed with a cultivated intelligence enabling them to arrive at informed opinions. In order that participation of the majority in the government of a democracy may be effective, the masses must be educated. In the last analysis, the chance that Mexico will ever have a government that will insure the prosperity and happiness of its citizens depends upon the capacity of the majority of its people, and that means the great peon class, to receive and profit by education. Any successful effort to arrive at a correct judgment upon the causes of Mexico's failure in self-government, and of the possibility of her achieving successful government in the future must, therefore, involve a study of the two races which compose her population.
First, the investigator must appraise the character of the minority, or Latin, race which, by virtue of its practical monopoly of property and educated intelligence, has given Mexico its government in the past, and this involves a study of the history, development and moral character of that race as it exists at present.
Second, the investigator must study the history of the peon or native Indian races which compose the great majority of the inhabitants, and appraise their character and capacity for profiting by the opportunity for intellectual improvement which a chance for popular education may offer.
Inasmuch as the Latin race is the one now in power, and the race which has been, and will continue to be responsible for its government until the majority of its citizenship is elevated intellectually and morally by a widely diffused opportunity for education, it would appear logical to consider the history and character of that race first.
THE LATIN-MEXICAN
The Latin element was, of course, introduced by Cortez when he conquered Mexico and established over it the government of Spain. As soon as the conquest was completed, the lands were divided among the Spanish conquerors, thus establishing the holding in large tracts, by a few owners, of the national domain. A history of the occupation of Mexico by the Spaniards says:
If, as has been generally agreed by sociologists, the sure revenge of the servile class is found in the corruption of the master class, certainly no condition has ever existed better calculated to destroy the moral fiber of a race than the condition of the Latin element in Mexico's population, during the three centuries between the Spanish conquest and attainment of natural independence. It should be understood that in what is said concerning the character of the Latin-Mexicans, the great majority of that race is referred to. I know Latin-Mexicans who are men of ability and the highest probity and whom I am glad to call friends. But they are in a sad minority, and the very fact that they are honest men prevents their taking part in the activities of the party of robbers and violators of international law and diplomatic pledges, which now control the destinies of their country. Furthermore, the qualities of character which make them admirable have, in most instances, caused their banishment.
Occasionally the Latin race has produced a popular leader of the highest character and most devoted patriotism. There can be no doubt of the honesty and the single-minded devotion to the public good of a leader like Hidalgo but unfortunately he represents the exception; the rule has been found in such conscienceless demagogues as Santa Anna, Paredes, and Carranza, and the almost numberless leaders who have not hesitated to plunge the masses of the people into the profoundest misfortunes in order to gratify the selfish ambition and greed of themselves and their followers.
It is worth while to remember that, with a few exceptions, every revolution in Mexico has been led by some representative of the Latin population and the members of that race have, on account of their virtual monopoly of the property and the educated intelligence of the country, always constituted the great majority of its governing element. Even during the war for freedom, the character of this element was illustrated by an incident which occurred in the fourth year of that contest. After Morelos had succeeded Hidalgo as the leader of the revolutionary forces, in an effort to establish some form of regular government he summoned a national congress which he intended to be "a source of union to which his lieutenants might look as to himself in case of accident." This congress was necessarily movable because it had to follow the patriot army. It was not only dependent upon the revolutionary forces for protection but also for sustenance, inasmuch as it was enabled to exist only by revenue secured by the armed forces. Shortly after the capture of Morelos by the Spanish forces, and Don Manuel Teran had succeeded him in command the congress enacted laws appropriating eight thousand dollars a year as a salary for each of its members and taking the management of the public funds from the military commander and placing them in the hands of its own officials; thus making the com- manding general, to whom congress owed not only its protection, but its very livelihood, a mere de- pendent upon its authority. The congress was promptly dissolved by General Teran who said: "That instead of attending to the interests of the people its members were occupied in taking care of themselves and calling each other excellentisimos."[3] The same historian, in describing Mexico's eleven years' struggle for freedom, is compelled to note the evil results to the patriots' cause of the selfish ambitions of individual leaders and he says, in speaking of the condition of the revolution in 1817, the sixth year of its existence:
"There was no longer among the insurgents any directing power to which the various chiefs would bow; each was absolute over his own followers and would brook no interference on the part of another leader; a combination of movements among them was rendered impossible by mutual jealousies and mistrust. Under these circumstances rule became a series of contests between the local authorities and hordes of banditti; and the wealthy and in- telligent part of the population began to look to the standard of Spain as the symbol of order."[4]
That the character of the Latin leadership did not improve is shown by the fact that within less than two years after Mexico became independent, the leader who had contributed most to that result, General Iturbide, attempted to destroy all elements of democracy in the government and, for a short period, made himself emperor. Upon his removal by a revolutionary movement, still headed by the Latin element, General Victoria was made President. Of the administration of the first regularly installed head of the Mexican government as a democracy, the historian says:
We have seen how one revolutionary leader after another achieved power and was in his turn displaced by a succeeding revolution, so that a historian writing of the condition of the country a few years after it had achieved its independence said:
"We have now to trace a sad descent. We are to see the people gradually becoming corrupt, until they appear almost to lose the faculty of distinguishing right and wrong. We are to watch the course of its principal men, see them become gradually more depraved and cease at last even to pretend to virtue. We shall see the treasury looked upon as spoils and proclaimed as an inducement to win partisans."[6]
Another historical writer, in an effort to explain the action of Iturbide in endeavouring to establish a royalist government in Mexico, says:
"It is probable that his penetrating mind distinguished between popular hatred of unjust restraint and the genuine capacity of a nation for liberty, nor is it unlikely that he found among his countrymen but few of those self-controlling, self-sacrificing and progressive elements which constitute the only foundation upon which a republic can be securely founded."[7]
The thought most strongly impressed upon the mind of any student of Mexico's efforts at selfgovernment is that, while its leaders have produced declarations of principles, or "plans" as they are called in revolutionary phraseology, which proclaimed in the most fervent language, unqualified devotion to the national welfare, the word "patriotism," as used by them, does not connote that capacity for self-sacrifice, for sinking of all selfish interest, and devotion to the public good that it means when used on this side of the Rio Grande. In short, it may be truthfully said that nowhere in the world has Doctor Johnson's famous definition of patriotism as "the last refuge of a scoundrel" been so fully realized as among the Latin-Mexican governing class.
The French sociologist, Gustave le Bon, as the result of his study of the influence of the Latin element on government in the Americas, says;
"In general and fundamentally the political problem of the Latin-American democracies is the problem of public thieving."
This expression, as applied to all Latin-American republics, may be too broad, but it certainly does no injustice to the record made by the Latin element in Mexico.
An educated and public-spirited Latin-Mexican, Francisco Bulnes, who for many years was prominent in the political, industrial, and literary life of his country as a member of its Senate and House of Representatives, a civil and mining engineer j the head of various civic commissions, an editor of important periodicals and a profound student of Mexican affairs, has recently published a book entitled, "The Whole Truth about Mexico." While this book reflects the bitterness of feeling, disgust and despair that may be natural in a patriot witnessing the frightful ruin wrought by the evil ambitions of some popular leaders and, therefore, may appear extreme in some of its statements, there can be no doubt that the intelligence and opportunity for knowledge which its author possessed make him an authority upon conditions in Mexico and give special value to his appraisal of the human element as it is reflected in the government of that unhappy country. Bulnes, in explaining the causes which have led to Mexico's utter failure in self-government, says:
"Unfortunately, it is a fact that the ideal of the middle-class family is to be part of this bureaucracy and that the ideal of the bureaucracy is to rob the union and individuals whenever possible. The mother is no longer the just matron who shed the radiance of her virtue over the home and reared men for God, country and humanity. In these days there are mothers who urge their husbands, sons, sons-in-law, and brothers to steal from their country. Sons are reared with this idea and it is carried to the point of inculcating that this public theft is a legitimate necessity, that it is an art, a sign of distinction. The result of this schooling in depravity has been that the lower classes have had this baneful example before their eyes for many years, which has destroyed the slender thread of civic virtue possessed by them at the time of the declaration of independence. It also threatens to destroy all personal virtue, because it goes without saying that a home which is a den of thieves cannot be the nursery of virtue and morality."
And again, in describing the spirit of public plunder which has actuated what the author refers to as the bureaucratic element, composed of those who serve their country in official positions, he says:
"In all the homes of bureaucrats, mothers, aunts, wives, sons and daughters, servants and friends advised the head of the house to 'do business' with the government; if they were employed, even more so. 'Doing business' with the government meant, of course, stealing. They were advised to take everything on contract, from laying fifty thousand kilometers of railroad to removing the trash from public office, all to be manipulated so as to redound to the personal benefit of the contractor. If it was not possible to obtain contracts, the judges ought to steal sentences; the court secretaries the papers bearing on the case; the clerks, the public trust; the chiefs of departments, the office furniture, the hospital supplies, the prison food, the arms and ammunition of arsenals; they should rob the troops of their pay; impose fines upon all; steal justice under any form; steal wholesale and retail; steal even the ink stands, pencils, paper, typewriters, and typewriter ribbons, in a word, everything that could be taken ought to be taken, however low and The Whole Truth about Mexico;" Bulnes, page 27. unethical the means employed to accomplish it might be.
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This dark picture would appear incredible if we did not find it repeated by various authorities and if we did not see it being reënacted with its darkest shades accentuated by the looting that characterizes the government which has been recognized by the United States. The story of Carranza has been written from day to day in the columns of Mexican newspapers, in the discussions in congress, in the operation of public utilities, such as the national railroads, where plunder, rather than public service, have been the end achieved by public officials. It must be always borne in mind that when the government of Mexico has been mentioned, government by the Latin minority race is always referred to. The bureaucrats denounced by Bulnes, the army paymasters who have robbed their pay chests, the railroad superintendents who have demanded bribes for transporting merchandise, the army officers who have been found selling the munitions placed in their hands by the national government to the various bandit forces, are nearly all members of the governing Latin element.
All this constitutes a discouraging picture which would be without a ray of hope for the future if we could not discover in the 80 per cent, of the Mexican people who are descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants, some qualities which, if encouraged and developed, might promise to furnish that moral element which, so far, has been conspicuously lacking in the great majority of the Latin population and which must be brought out if popular government is ever to be made successful. So the investigator must turn to the peon element.
THE NATIVE MEXICAN
When Cortez conquered Mexico, it was occupied by a number of distinct families, or tribes, so that the learned Mexican, Orozco y Barra says there were eleven distinct language families, comprising thirty-five idioms and eighty-five dialects. The most important of these tribes or families were the Aztecs and probably next in importance the Tezcocans.
The Aztecs, while not in complete control of the area which now composes Mexico, were the dominant power of the table-land and had their great capital city in its central valley. As nearly as can be learned, they occupied the country in A. D. 1325 and were, previous to that time, nomadic in their habits.
The Tezcocans occupied a portion of the great central valley and appear to have marched with the Aztecs in their development of civilization. The descendants of both the Aztecs and Tezcocans, together with those of all other native populations, have come to be referred to as Indians or peons, and have, since the Spanish occupancy, constituted the common labourers of the country. These two great races had proved their native intellectual power by developing a civilization between 1325 and 1519, when the Spaniards under Cortez first introduced them to the old world, of which Prof. Thomas Wilson, the ethnologist, says:
The material progress of the aborigines was shown not only by their architecture and manufacturing, but by the extent to which they had developed horticulture and agriculture, as witnessed by the descriptions of the exquisite pleasure gardens and parks surrounding the residences of the kings of the country and their nobles. Prescott describes with much enthusiasm the system of laws which these people had established and the judiciary they had organized for enforcing them. And when Prescott, writing of the crime of larceny, says: "Yet the Mexicans could have been under no great apprehension of this crime, since the entrances to their dwellings were not secured by bolts or fastenings of any kind," he mentioned the quality which differentiated the native Mexican from the descendants of the conquering Latin race more clearly than does any other racial characteristic.
They had created a highly developed machinery of government, with systems of public revenue, of military and civil service, and had developed a method of recording, in permanent form, not only the history of their country, but the daily transactions of business and government.
The work of their artisans in metal was described by their Spanish conquerors as exquisite in its artistic perfection and the few examples of it still remaining in European museums bear out the truth of this description.
The intellectual advance of the people is well demonstrated by the fact that their astronomical researches and development of the science of mathematics had enabled them to devise a calendar more accurate than that which Imperial Rome possessed in its proudest days.
While most of the literature which the native races had placed in permanent form was destroyed through the narrow superstition of their Spanish conquerors, a few examples have been preserved which indicate not only a high degree of mental refinement but a very elevated code of morals.
Any one who has read the translation of the poem of a Tezcocan king, and the letter of advice of an Aztec mother to her daughter, contained in the appendix of Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico," must have a high idea of the intellectual and moral qualities of a people capable of producing such expressions of elevated thought. And there appears to be no doubt that the civilization of the Aztecs and Tezcocans had spread until it existed in a greater or less degree throughout all the country which we now know as Mexico.
That people of the character of the native races of Mexico as described by historians should now be represented after four hundred years by those whom travellers know as the ignorant and often brutalized peons, would seem incredible were it not that the world has had such terrible and pitiful examples of the power of injustice, wrong, and oppression to produce racial disintegration and degradation. It is an historical fact known to students of sociology that the servitude most destructive of the physical, moral, and intellectual qualities of its victims is economic and industrial rather than chattel. It has been often said that the chattel slave finds protection in the fact that he stands as the representative of a certain amount of property or wealth to his master, while the economic slave represents to his employer, if he be unrestrained by the prickings of conscience, only the labour that can be obtained from him. As illustrating this, it may be said that probably no owner of chattel slaves ever treated them so harshly as some mill owners of England who chained children to spinning and weaving machines, so that they could not flee from the torment of their occupation, before England became wise enough to protect her people from such conscienceless exploitation. Prescott has made sympathetic note of the effect of the tyranny of the conquering race upon the native races of Mexico. He says:
"Those familiar with the modern Mexican will find it difficult to conceive that the nation should ever have been capable of devising the enlightened polity which we have been considering. But they should remember that in the Mexicans of our day do they see only a conquered race as different from their ancestors as are the modern Egyptians from those who built, I will not say the tasteless pyramids, but the temples and palaces whose magnificent wrecks strew the borders of the Nile at Luxor and Karnak."[10]
The account of the industrial slavery of the aboriginal Mexicans contained in the historical quotation appearing in part first of this chapter goes very far toward explaining their racial degradation.
That the account quoted of the treatment of the aboriginal Mexican population by their Latin masters is no different from that which would be found in any honestly written history of Mexico, and that the conditions described have continued since the end of Spanish control to the present time, is shown by the following, taken from Mr. Bulnes's book:
Most interesting and enlightening evidence of the way in which the so-called democratic government of Mexico, as controlled by the Latin element representing the employing interests, has exploited the peon population by legislation is shown in its dealing with what was known as the Ejidos lands.
Before the advent of the Latin in Mexico and since, many of the labouring class lived in small settlements or villages. To these villages, from Aztec times, appertained certain areas known as Ejidos lands, which were the common property of all. Upon these village commons the peon could have a garden, or maintain a few goats or fowls. This small opportunity of contributing to the family livelihood relieved him from absolute economic dependence upon the employer upon whose great estate he worked.
Some years ago a law was passed by the Mexican Congress under the provisions of which the common lands, the use of which the villages of peon labourers had enjoyed for hundreds of years, were sold and became the property of the employing class. Thus was destroyed by act of the national government the last refuge which the peon had from absolute economic exploitation by the employing class.
But hope can be found for the future of the masses under the stimulus of proper opportunity for intellectual development in the fact that through the darkest experience of their night of servitude and degradation, individual members of the race have shown more than ordinary ability. An instance of this is found in the historical work of Ixtlilxochitl, often referred to and quoted by Prescott. This historian, who had produced a most interesting and authoritative account of his people, was a descendant of the royal family that furnished the kings of Tezcoco.
The fact that Mexico's most talented painter was a pure-blooded Aztec, would seem to indicate that the race has not lost the capacity for artistry as expressed in some of their creations which appealed so strongly to the admiration of their Spanish conquerors.
I was much interested in an account by Mr. E. L. Doheny, who first discovered and developed Mexico's great petroleum deposits, of his experiences with the common labourer. Mr. Doheny, being a man of warm humanitarian impulses, decided that it was his duty so to manage his Mexican enterprises that they should contribute as much as possible to the comfort and well-being of the common people. As one means to that end, shortly after he first began work in the oil fields nearly a score of years ago, he secured numbers of peon boys who were given a careful apprenticeship in the mechanical department. He assured me, with warm expressions of gratification, that these boys developed into mechanics of the highest order, so that he was finally able to entrust to them important mechanical work of his great plants, some of which required a very high type of skill. The most brilliant and interesting example of what the native Mexican can do when he has an opportunity for mental development is afforded by Juarez, a pure-blooded descendant of aboriginal ancestors, a lawyer by profession, who in the course of his career demonstrated himself to be a leader of great ability and a true patriot.
Almost without exception, foreigners who have had years of experience in employing Mexican labour have testified to the moral character, the loyalty to his employer, and fidelity to his duties, exhibited by the peon when he has not been corrupted by the evil influences of the Latin, element.
As the result of careful investigation and observation, I hope and believe that if the descendants of the aboriginal Indians of Mexico should ever have accorded to them a full and free opportunity for intellectual and moral improvement, they may be made an element in the citizenship upon which a successful democracy may be founded; but I am forced to the conclusion that, so long as the Latin element is in power, this opportunity will never be conceded to the majority race.
A somewhat extensive reading of history has failed to show an instance in which a country occupied by two distinct races, with the minority race in control by reason of its possession of the property and educational opportunities, a government fair to the majority has ever resulted. Students wno are interested in this phase of government will find a striking parallel between the history of Mexico during the four hundred years that her territory has been occupied by a majority aboriginal race, and a governing minority alien race, and that of Egypt, during the more than twelve hundred years since that country was conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs. When this race conquered Egypt, they became the possessors of its land and of what educational opportunities existed, and thereby became the governing element, although they were always much in the minority.
The majority native race became the labouring class, commonly known as the fellaheen the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for the governing class. This condition continued for about nine hundred years until the country was conquered and its government taken over by the Turks. Afterward the Turks, associated with the Arabs, who were of the same religion, continued to be the governing element, with the fellaheen majority still continuing to furnish the common labour of the country. Just how this minority of property-owning and educated aliens controlling the non-property-owning majority of the native race has worked out for twelve hundred years, is shown in a most interesting way in Lord Cromer's great book "Modern Egypt." We find there the same conditions appearing to result from the corrupting influence of the servile majority working upon the moral character of the governing minority, that we have found in the history of Mexico.
For more than twelve hundred years the government went from bad to worse in corruption and inefficiency until, finally, it became necessary for an alien country, England, to assume control in order that it should be made to discharge its international obligations and, at the same time, give a chance in life to the submerged majority. And there can be no doubt that since the English have controlled the Egyptian government, the fellaheen, for the first time in more than twelve hundred years, have had something approaching a fair chance in life. During all that period and until the control of England was established, the fellah, who worked the lands and furnished practically all the other common labour, was the economic victim of his Arabian and Turkish masters. He was given of the results of his labour barely sufficient to sustain life; he was denied every opportunity for economic or intellectual improvement, and he became largely what the Mexican peon, under the economic rule of his Latin masters, is to-day. Under the control of the English administrators he has, for the first time, received something more than a bare living as the result of his industry and, by the extension of popular education, is beginning to receive those opportunities for intellectual improvement which will eventually make him a man among men and qualify him to take a part in the government of his country.
Every student of Mexican affairs can read with much advantage Lord Cromer's work, especially Book IV, in which the story of the effect of the government of an alien minority upon the native majority of Egypt's inhabitants is told.
The evidence of Mexican history, during the four hundred years in which that country has been controlled by an alien minority race, corroborated by the example of every other country in which similar conditions have existed, admits of but one conclusion; namely, that the ultimate salvation of Mexico depends upon its majority race being elevated and improved by a broad and effective scheme of popular education, and also by a chance for the betterment of its economic condition, which can only be afforded by an honest and efficient administration of its government.
How these conditions may be brought about is the vital problem for which a solution should be found. That we cannot depend for it upon the Latin-Mexican element which has misgoverned Mexico for four hundred years would seem to be evident. We have seen by the testimony of historians of the past, and observers of the present, what has been and is the fate of the peon element composing 80 per cent. of the population at the hands of the governing minority.
The stories told by representatives of the Red Cross and other recent observers, as quoted elsewhere in this volume, seem to show that nearly a century of so-called "popular government" in Mexico has left the condition of the peon very much where it was when the government of Spain ended. During that period he has been appealed to for his support by more than a hundred leaders of revolution and each appeal promised him an amelioration of his condition. That the promises have not been made good by the last revolutionary leader, the Latin-Mexican chief of the party now in power, appears to be very fully established by evidence that cannot be disregarded. Looking back from his present pitiful condition, through the history of four hundred years, the peon can say with Prometheus:
"No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure."
I cannot believe that the salvation of the Mexican peon can be brought about in any way other than that in which corresponding changes have been wrought in other countries similarly situated.
What Mexico needs, and what I believe she must have, is the intervention in her affairs of some saving power such as England has afforded to Egypt and our own nation has afforded to the Philippines, and to Cuba, in a degree, under the authority of the Platt Amendment. I had hoped that when the so called "A. B. C. Conference" of the diplomatic representatives of Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Guatemala and this country met to consider the fate of Mexico it would by concert of action originate some such movement to rescue twelve millions of people from a condition which has for so long been a disgrace to our common humanity. I had hoped that the peons would be given that chance in life which every man should have but which they never have had, and never will have at the hands of the governing element of their country if we are "to use the history of the past as a prophecy of the future." In saying this I realize fully that I am challenging the convictions, or the prejudices, of a great many people. For myself I can say that I am expressing a conclusion which I have endeavoured to avoid but which a conscientious study of Mexican history and conditions, with the sole desire of arriving at the truth, has forced upon me.
If those who resent this conclusion would be better satisfied by continuing conditions in Mexico that have produced, and are producing, so much agony to so many human beings, they probably will be gratified, for there does not now appear to be any prospect of the sort of intervention in Mexico's affairs which I am forced to believe will be necessary before any permanent amelioration of the condition of the unfortunate masses can be achieved.
But this need not, and should not, interfere with some effort to better the condition of those victims of Mexican misrule who are citizens of other countries, most largely of our own. It is not necessary to establish by argument the correctness of the definition of our country's duty to its citizens living or having interests in other countries as that duty has been expressed in a hundred declarations from our Department of State, and never more fully, or correctly, than by the plank of the Democratic National Platform of 1912, already quoted. That our Government, since the revolutionary conditions in Mexico began nearly eight years ago,has not discharged that duty to our citizens having interests in Mexico nothing but the letter of our Secretary of State, quoted in Chapter IV, preceding, is needed to show. As a reason for this failure we have been told that it was our duty to show patience and forbearance in our dealings with Mexico with the hope that such an attitude would be rewarded by such changes as would give to the unfortunate majority of her people a government such as they had not had for four hundred years. There can be no doubt that officials in Washington who have dictated our policy with reference to Mexico believed this and were actuated by motives of what they conceived to be the highest humanitarianism. But surely, before the lives and rights of so many American citizens were risked, our officials should have made a careful effort to judge whether or not there was any reasonable indication that the element in Mexico which they were indulging, at so much cost to American citizens, could reasonably be looked to for the accomplishment of the humanitarian desires which inspired them. If those officials had realized that the element to which they were extending an indulgence so costly to many of our people had been responsible for Mexico's misgovernment for nearly a century, they certainly would have hesitated before staking so much upon the possibility of this element giving to Mexico a better government than it had ever before given.
It will not do to say that the Carranza revolutionists expressed aspirations and intentions for the government of their country of the most exalted kind. History shows us that nothing is more characteristic of the Latin-Mexican element than the use of high-flown language in the declaration of their intentions where the government of their country is concerned. And the same history shows us that, during the ninety-eight years of the control of popular government by this same element, more than a hundred leaders of revolution have pledged their duty to their country in language as fervent and eloquent of patriotism as any that the authors of the "Plan of Guadalupe" used in making pledges which they afterward promptly violated when trusted with the government of their country. Readers of history will recall the fact that Santa Anna, who was probably the most perfect demagogue ever produced in Mexico, embodied his pledge of duty to his country, and of sympathy for her unfortunate masses, in language as eloquent and high-flown as any ever used in the pronunciamientos of that country's numberless revolutionary leaders. As a result of his eloquence and of the fact that he had lost a leg in the French bombardment of Vera Cruz, he succeeded in inducing his people to call him to the chief place in their government three separate times, and each time he signalized his election by promptly betraying the people whom he had pledged himself to serve.
Certainly our government officials must see by this time how utterly false and hollow have been all the pledges made by the party now in power in Mexico, both to its own people and to the nations of the world. If this demonstration has been made, then the question would seem to arise: Is it worth while to continue to sacrifice the rights of our citizens for a consideration which we ought to know by this time will never be delivered? If, as a people, we feel that we have no right to interfere to protect the vast majority of the Mexican people from the long agony inflicted upon them by a minority of their countrymen, surely we have the right to intervene to protect our own citizens against the same criminal minority.
That right we have abrogated for nearly eight years, but there is yet time to accomplish a great deal that justice, to speak nothing of humanitarianism, would appear to call for if we would cease to expect at the hands of the dominant class of Mexico the justice for the masses which we humanely desire, and insist upon the sort of government which the rights of our citizens demand.
In doing this we will be rendering a sort of service to the unfortunate masses of Mexico. If, when the spirit of loot and robbery began to assert itself as a part of revolutionary conditions nearly eight years ago, we had said to the Mexican leaders: "You can kill and rob each other to your hearts' content; for we have no right to dictate what your actions shall be so long as they concern only yourselves, but if you invade the personal or property rights of any American citizen, we will use the whole power of our great nation to see that the offender is punished," we would not only have been rendering a proper service to our own citizens but a very humanitarian service to hundreds of thousands of Mexican workmen who were engaged in serving American enterprises in their country.
That such an attitude upon our part would have prevented most of the evils which our people have suffered at the hands of revolutionists no one who knows the character of the Latin-Mexican leaders can have any doubt. The Latin-Mexican recognizes force as the only influence that can control his actions. He has no conception of, and no respect for, any other influence. Like his brothers, the Bolsheviki, the I. W. W., and the Germans, he cannot understand the failure or refusal to use force to accomplish a purpose if it is at command.
By the policy that we have adopted we have not only encouraged every sort of offense against our own people but we have also encouraged the destruction of business enterprises in Mexico owned by our citizens and those of our allies upon which hundreds of thousands of the peon element of that country depended for a living. In addition to that, we have, as we now must know, by every encouragement and assistance that we have given the Carranza element, to that extent assisted in delivering the unfortunate masses of Mexico into the hands of the class which is now, as it always has been, their worst enemy. In a well-meant effort to serve these unfortunate people we have actually assisted in imposing famine and death upon thousands of them.
In truth, the result of our handling of the Mexican question during the past eight years, and the effect upon the masses of the people, who appeal most to our sympathy, of what we have done, emphasize the wisdom of the saying that "sympathy without understanding is never effective and often dangerous."
Certainly the results of our efforts to help the greatest sufferers in Mexico have not been such that we can point to them with pride satisfaction. We have helped to destroy hundreds of American lives and hundreds of millions of American property. We have also assisted in turning the government of Mexico over to a party which is destroying the lives of thousands of its own people and confiscating, and spending in vicious and immoral living, the property of other thousands.
Would it not be better now for us to go back to the idea of doing our simple duty to our own and leaving the Mexicans to their own devices if we feel that we are not warranted in rescuing the suffering masses of them from the criminals who are imposing upon them so many of the miseries of "self-government" as it exists in Mexico?
- ↑ Presidents of Mexico from Diaz to Carranza:
- General Porfirio Diaz, 1873-1883; 1888-May 25, 1911.
- Licentiate Francisco Leon de la Barra, May 25, 1911-Nov. 1, 1911.
- Don Francisco I. Madero Nov. 1, 1911-Feb. 19, 1913.
- Licentiate Pedro Lascurian, 7:01 p.m. Feb. 19, 1913-7:46 p.m. Feb. 19, 1913.
- Gen. Victoriano Huerta, Feb. 19, 1913-July 15, 1914.
- Licentiate Francisco Carbajal July 15, 1914-Aug. 13, 1914. (The presidential office was vacant for six days and the city was under the command of Gen. Alvaro Obregon. From Nov. 25, 1914 to Dec. 13, 1914 the capital was occupied by the Zapatistas.)
- Gen. Eulalio Gutierrez Dec. 13-January 29, 1915. He acted as executive in connection with the presidency of the convention and in charge of the executive power. He abandoned Mexico City.
- Gen. Roque Gonzalez Garza president of the revolutionary convention, succeeded as acting executive Jan. 30, 1915-May 30, 1915.
- Licentiate Francisco Lagos Chazaro. "The sovereign revolutionary convention" decreed Lagos Chazaro successor to Gonzalez Garza and he took possession of the office July 31, 1915 and retained it until the convention was dispersed by the Constitutionalist army in October, 1915.
- Venustiano Carranza, August 20, 1914 to Nov. 24, 1914 First Chief of the Constitutionalist army in charge of the executive power. From Nov. 24 he abandoned the capital and removed the executive office to Vera Cruz. Elected Constitutional President March 11, 1917.
- ↑ "History of Nations," Vol. 22, page 104.
- ↑ "Mexico and Her Military Chieftains;" Robinson, pages 57: 220.
- ↑ "Mexico and Her Military Chieftains;" Robinson, page 74.
- ↑ Mexico and Her Military Chieftains;" Robinson, page 144.
- ↑ "Mexico and Her Military Chieftains;" Robinson, page 150.
- ↑ "History of Nations," Vol. 22, page 255.
- ↑ "The Whole Truth about Mexico;" Bulnes, page 149.
- ↑ "History of Nations," Vol. 22, page 80.
- ↑ "Conquest of Mexico"; Prescott, Book I, Chapter II.
- ↑ "The Whole Truth About Mexico"; Bulnes, page 74.