Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/220

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MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA

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