example, was done in numerous cases in the State of Puebla. In other cases the legislation was so unsuited to local conditions that it resulted in little more than arousing the hopes of the laborers only to disappoint them and to make social conditions on that account increasingly difficult.
While these developments were in process, the Constitution of 1917 was adopted. It reflected the conditions amid which it was drafted. Many subjects that are obviously ones that should be handled by legislative authority were crystallized into the new "fundamental law" in the attempt to guarantee to the humbler classes of the population rights that it was feared would not be assured if left to be guaranteed by ordinary legislation.
It is not to be wondered at if the agitators of the revolution found the Mexican laboring classes fertile ground for propaganda. The agricultural laborer, who is still the typical laborer in Mexico, had little to lose by the disturbance of the social order. He received the minimum of subsistence and a revolutionary band offered him at least that plus diversion which, even if of a rough sort, furnished an acceptable contrast to his daily life. Though he was not at heart dissatisfied, the glowing picture which the revolutionist orators painted was so attractive that it overcame his native conservatism. That such men joined the revolution blindly and without a clear conception of what their specific grievances were, nor of the means by which they could be righted, is doubtless true. That they joined at all is significant. The fact that there could be aroused within them a
