Carranza and His
Bolshevik Regime
By
JORGE VERA-ESTANOL
Former Secretary of the Interior and
Former Secretary of Public Education
of the Republic of Mexico
Wayside Press
Los Angeles, Cal.
1920
COPYRIGHT BY
JORGE VERA-ESTANOL
FARMER SECRETARY OP THE INTERIOR AND
FORMER SECRETARY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
OF THE REPUBLIC OF MEXICO
1
TO MY COUNTRYMEN
During the year 1919 I published in
"Re vista Mexicana," a weekly periodical
of San Antonio, Texas, a series of seventeen
articles designed to show that the Mexican
constitution which was adopted at Queretaro
in 1917, and which is still in force, is spurious
in origin and that such of its articles as
effected any changes of serious import in
the provisions of the constitution of 1857
were in direct conflict with the principles
of equity and the demands of national
welfare.
At the time when the aforementioned
articles were Written, the government of
Venustiano Carranza had been in existence
more than two years and during this period
it had not succeeded in restoring order in
Mexico nor in establishing truly cordial
relations with three of the largest world
powers, the United States, France and
England. Lacking a proper foundation or
any real support, either within or without the
bounds of its own country, the Carranza
government was enabled to exist only by
the maintenance of an army of 100,000 men
and the further fact that the neutrality laws
of the United States operated to prevent the
arming of the nation against its rulers.
The defection of a single state was all that
was necessary to cause practically all of the
generals of Carranza's army to turn upon him
one after another and to bring about the
dissolution of the government in the short
space of thirty days.
And now we are concerned with the
question: "Were the Carranza policies
repudiated simultaneously with his downfall?"
Those at the head of the federal and state
governments are the same men who battled
with Carranza in 1913, who styled him "First
Chief, " who elected him president, who drew
up the constitution of 1917, and kept him in
power for three consecutive years.
But despite the identity of these men their
attitude of today contrasts favorably with
that of yesterday. No property has been
confiscated, no churches have been profaned,
no revenges have been exacted and no whole-
sale executions have taken place. Instead
of the passionate outbursts inspired by hatred
or cupidity that characterized the Carranza
revolution of 1913 there fall today from the
lips of its most conspicuous leaders words
imbued with a spirit of moderation and a
desire to conciliate. It appears to be their
purpose to give guarantees of safety to
political refugees that they may return to
their country to collaborate in the work of
reconstruction through the exercise of consti-
tutional rights rather than by the grace of
humiliating permits. And it has also been
made known that property illegally seized by
officials of the Carranza government will be
restored to its owners.
And what is more, many revolutionists of
the Carranza regime, since the heat of the
passions which inspired the mistakes of 1917
has cooled, recognize the faults of the consti-
tution of Queretaro and the injustices which
it embodies and admit the desirability of the
repeal of a considerable number of its pro-
visions and the restoration of corresponding
ones in the constitution of 1857.
Under such circumstances no effort should
be spared to legalize the constitution of 1917
by a revision of the document in the manner
prescribed by the constitution of 1857 and
reincorporated in the former, at the same
time writing into it such amendments as the
present and future needs of the country
appear to demand along political, social and
economic lines, while eliminating all those
precepts which are recognized obstacles in
the way of individual freedom, national
welfare and international harmony.
It is my wish to contribute my grain of
sand toward this constructive program, for
the opportunity at hand may, perhaps, be
the last which will be allowed to Mexicans to
accomplish, without aid or interference, the
regeneration of their country. In the hope
of stimulating deeper and more conscientious
study of the subject I have decided to publish,
in this form, the series of articles to which I
have referred above. I beg my countrymen
to read the articles in the same unbiased
frame of mind in which they were written.
Los Angeles, Cal., May 18, 1920.
JORGE VERA-ESTANOL
IV
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. The Mexican constitu- ?
tion of 1917 is illegitimate, viewed
from a legal, political or revolutionary
standpoint 3
CHAPTER II. The Assembly of Quere-
taro, which approved the constitution
of 1917, did not represent the will of the
entire nation but merely that of an arm-
ed minority of the proletariat. ... 13
CHAPTER III. Religious freedom is
necessary to peace of conscience. The
constitution of 1917 denies this freedom 23
CHAPTER IV. No other problem in
Mexico transcends that which involves
the education of the masses. Recog-
nizing this, the constitution of 1857
stipulated that education should be
free 33
CHAPTER V. The constitution of 1917
places odious restrictions upon educa-
tional freedom. It also places impedi-
ments in the way of carrying out any
national educational program which
the federal government may undertake. 42
CHAPTER VI. Considerations of hu-
manity and the precepts of social
economy demand that labor be digni-
fied. In this respect the constitution of
1917 is progressive, though it reaches
certain extremes which are incompat-
Contents
PAGE
ible with a desire to guarantee security
for invested capital 55
CHAPTER VII. The Constitution of
1917 very properly confers upon the
State the power to exercise due vigilance
for the preservation and conservation
of natural elements; but Carranza has
endeavored to utilize this prerogative
to the extent of socializing industries of
a private nature 64
CHAPTER VIII. The military caste
appropriates two-thirds of the nation's
revenue while the school-teachers go
hungry 84
CHAPTER IX. Under the provisions
of the constitution of 1857 private
property could be expropriated only
upon the payment in cash of a sum
covering its actual value. Under the
terms of the constitution of 1917,
expropriation becomes nothing more
than spoliation, since no advance cash
payment is required and the indemnity
allowed covers only a portion of the
actual value of the property. ... 96
CHAPTER X. The laws enacted by the
Federal Congress since 1884 and prior
to the year 1917 have vested in the
owners of the surface soil the deposits of
petroleum, coal and other mineral
fuels contained therein. The consti-
VI
Contents
PAGE
tution of 1917 despoils these owners of
their previously granted rights. . . 106
CHAPTER XI. The constitution of
1917 withholds forty per cent of the
soil from foreign investors and also
prevents stock-holders of mercantile
corporations from lending their power-
ful aid to agricultural enterprises. . .122
CHAPTER XII. The constitution of
1917 imprudently confers upon the
executive powers of the nation and of
the states the discretionary power of
determining, in every instance, the
landed areas which may be owned by
stock corporations engaged in non-
agricultural enterprises 129
CHAPTER XIII. The so-called agrar-
ian problem in Mexico is not one which
involves the land. It is concerned
with matters having to do with irriga-
tion, investment problems, rural bank-
ing institutions and the organization of
an autonomous agricultural class. The
constitution of 1917, instead of pro-
viding guarantees to property and
facilitating colonization, fails to recog-
nize the efficacy of patent titles or the
force of res adjudicata and the pre-
scription in questions pertaining to
rural property and at the same time
injuriously restricts the land-holding
capacity of foreigners 137
vii
Contents
PAGE
CHAPTER XIV. Commendable safe-
guards against illegal manipulation by
capital are provided by for the consti-
tution framed at Queretaro but, here
again, iniquitious extremes are reached,
for exemptions necessary for the
stimulation of new industries are
denied and the spoliation of the banks,
authorized by Carranza, is legalized. 171
CHAPTER XV. The electoral preroga-
tive should be limited to properly
qualified voters. The constitution of
1917 timidly undertakes to restrict
suffrage but does not guarantee, satis-
factorily, the freedom of the press. . 195
CHAPTER XVI. The constitution of
1917 restricts the powers of the Federal
Congress, while, on the other hand, it
increases the political, co-legislative
and even the judicial prerogatives of
the Chief Executive. As a matter of
fact, it makes dictatorship constitu-
tional . . 210
CHAPTER XVII. Carrancism and the
constitution of 1917 are the most effec-
tive proof of the failure of President
Wilson's attitude toward the Mexican
question. Further pursuance of simi-
lar 'foreign policies would inevitably
lead to similar results. . 225
Vlll
CARRANZA AND HIS
BOLSHEVIK REGIME
CHAPTER I
THE FEDERAL Congress of Mexico, com-
posed of the Chamber of Senators and the
Chamber of Deputies, was the only legitimate
body authorized by the Constitution of 1857
to revise and amend that Constitution. To
accomplish this the action of a two-thirds
majority of said body, followed by the
ratification of a majority of the State Legisla-
tures, was necessary.
Nevertheless, Carranza called together a
special assembly which met in Queretaro, the
sole object of which assembly was to approve
the fundamental code which is in force today
in Mexico.
Carranza foresaw since his first decree of
September 19th, 1916, that the nation or, to
use his own term, the * 'reactionaries' '-
would not fail to protest against the bastardity
of the Constitution's origin. He, therefore
4 Carranza and His Bolsfievik Regime
at once attempted to justify himself by
advancing the argument that the revolution
of Ayutla, which overthrew the tyranny of
Santa Anna, had also convened a Constituent
Congress and sanctioned a fundamental code
without abiding by the regulations of the
Constitution of 1824.
What ignorance, or shall we say duplicity,
did he display in citing this precedent!
According to the wording of the "Plan de
Ayutla" amended at Acapulco "Those of
its good sons who launched forth to vindicate
their rights so scandalously trampled upon,
cherished not even the vaguest idea of impos-
ing conditions upon the sovereign will of the
nation, either re-establishing by force of arms
the federal system or restoring things to the
same state in which they were at the time of
the 'Plan de Jalisco': for, all those things
relating to the form under which the nation
must definitely establish itself must be sub-
mitted to the Congress which shall be called to
that end; thus is it made known publicly and
explicitly even now."
Consistent with this program, the fifth
clause of the above mentioned plan promised
the nation that "fifteen days after the president
'ad interim' undertakes his new duties, he
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 5
shall convene a special congress in conformity
with the provisions of the law enacted for
that purpose on the 16th of December, 1841,
which shall devote itself exclusively to the
work of organizing the nation as a popular
representative republic and investigating the
acts of the present government, and those of
the provisional executive, which are treated
of in Article 2. This constituent congress
is to meet four months after its convocation."
Thus we see that the Revolution of Ayutla
did not offer to restore to the nation a former
constitutional system, but rather to convene a
constituent assemblage, the form of which
had been previously agreed upon, with the
object of drawing up a representative, re-
publican and popular constitution.
This was the explicit pledge of the Revolu-
tion of Ayutla and it was carried out to the
very letter. Nor did the leaders of that
revolution deceive the people with the in-
tention of dragging them into armed strife,
nor did they defraud them after victory was
obtained.
The revolution of Carranza proceeded along
entirely different lines.
From its very origin, it proclaimed itself
"the restorer of the constitutional system,
6 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
which, it declaredjlhad^been Violated with the
overthrow of Madero. This system was estab-
lished by the Constitution of 1857. Even
though in the course of its development, the
revolution of Carranza was obliged to pro-
claim the necessity of political, economic and
social reforms, nevertheless it did not re-
nounce, at least publicly, its originally de-
clared purpose. In addition to the fact that
it assumed the deceiving name of "Constitu-
tionalism," there are numberless documents in
which it pledged itself expressly or by impli-
cation to support the Constitution of 1857,
with the amendments so loudly advocated
appended.
It is unnecessary, in order to prove the
foregoing statements, to quote the official
and confidential messages transmitted by
Carranza agents to the United States Govern-
ment. Suffice it to say that Carranza's
manifesto to the Nation, issued on June llth,
1915, to which I shall refer later on, was the
outcome of pledges made in Washington dur-
ing the course of negotiations relative to the
recognition of the de facto government. Proof
of this fact was furnished by Richard H. Cole,
one of Carranza's confidential emissaries, who
made public the following telegram sent to
Carranza and His Bolslievik Regime 7
him in care of the Mexican Embassy at
Washington by Carranza on the 23rd of May,
1915: "Received your courteous message.
The proclamation will be issued in due time. "
It will suffice also to quote the following
statements published by the American press,
with reference to the Mexican-American con-
ference held in New London on the 12th of
September, 1916: "The Mexican Deputies
expect that the election of the Congress which
will formulate and submit the new Constitution
to the various state legislatures will be simul-
taneous with the local elections." Like all
reports given out by the press at that time,
this report was published after being passed
by these same deputies and therefore, there
can be no doubt as to its authenticity. This
report shows, unquestionably, that in the
opinion of the official representatives of the de
facto Carranza government the approval of
Congress, that is, the Senate and the Chamber
of Deputies, and of the State Legislatures was
necessary in order to sanction any changes
in the constitution.
But I must speak, not exactly of the diplo-
matic pledges made by Carranza, but rather of
those which he gave to the Mexican people.
These were numerous and explicit.
8 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Article 2 of the decree of February 19th,
1913, issued by the Legislature of the State
of Coahuila, as the initial act of the Carrancista
insurrection, authorizes the Executive of said
State "to arm forces in order to co-operate in
sustaining the constitutional system of the
Republic. " This constitutional system of the
Republic was precisely that of the Constitution
of 1857.
The circular issued on the same day by
Carranza in which he "urges co-operation in
the legitimist movement" affirms that "it is
the duty of the general Congress to meet for
the purpose of calling at once a special
election as provided in Article 81 of our
Magna Charta." Our Magna Charta was of
course the Constitution of 1857. And the
same circular adds that "the Government
of the State finds itself obliged to hoist the
flag of legality in order to uphold the
constitutional government which grew out
of the last election." That government to
which Carranza referred could be none
other than the one established in pursuance
with the provisions of the Constitution of
1857.
In the "Plan de Guadalupe" of the 26th of
March, 1913, not one word is said regarding
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 9
the reconstruction of the Nation under a new
constitution. On the contrary, in order to
justify its stipulations, it states that the
"Legislative body and the Judiciary have
recognized and supported General Victoriano
Huerta contrary to the constitutional laws
and precepts." The said constitutional pre-
cepts were those of the Constitution of 1857.
The decree modifying the "Plan de Guada-
lupe" issued on the 12th of December, 1914,
asserted that the "constitutional order of
things" (originating from the Constitution of
1857) "had been interrupted" as a result
of the events which took place on the 19th of
February, 1913; and as the "Constitutional
Governor of Coahuila had solemnly sworn
to uphold and cause to be upheld the general
Constitution," which was none other than
that of 1857, "he was bound to take up arms
in order to re-establish the constitutional
system in the Mexican Republic," that is,
the Constitution of 1857. And, therefore,
"at 'the triumph of the revolution . . .
the First Chief . . . shall issue the
call for election of the Congress of the Union,"
and "shall submit to it the reforms pro-
claimed and put in force during the strife so
that the Congress may ratify, amend, or
10 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
supplement them and may constitutionalize
such amendments as may be necessary before
the constitutional order of things can be
re-established." Such Congress of the Union
could be no other than the Senate and the
Chamber of Deputies established in con-
formity with the Fundamental Code of 1857.
Even more explicit is the manifesto which
Carranza himself issued to the Nation on the
llth of June, 1915, in order to secure recogni-
tion as a de facto government according to his
telegram to Richard H. Cole, quoted above,
since the following unmistakable statements
can be read in said manifesto: "As Governor
of the State of Coahuila and in obedience to
the Constitutional mandates, articles 121 and
128 of our fundamental Code," that of 1857
"I then assumed the representation of our
Republic under the terms in which such right
is vested in me by the same Constitution"
< that of 1857. Not satisfied with simply
mentioning these articles, the First Chief
made the following exact quotation from them :
"Every public official, without any exception,
before assuming his duties, shall take solemn
oath to uphold this Constitution" that of
1857 "and all laws emanating therefrom."
"This Constitution shall not lose its force
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 11
and vigor even though its observance be
interrupted by a rebellion. In case that by
any public disturbance a government con-
trary to the principles which it sanctions is
established, its force shall be restored as soon
as the people regain their liberty."
Carranza, therefore, very definitely support-
ed the revolution against the government of
Huerta upon the precepts of the Constitution of
18$7; he called the people to armed strife
under that flag; he promised to re-establish the
Constitution of 1857, and explicitly acknowledg-
ed, furthermore, that inasmuch as this Consti-
tution could not lose its force and vigor, under
any circumstance the Nation, immediately
upon regaining its liberty, would revert to the
observance of this same Constitution of 1857.
Now then, this Constitution contains the
following provision:
"Article 127. The present Constitution
may be amended. No amendment shall be-
come part of the Constitution, if not agreed
upon by the Congress of the Union, by a vote
of two-thirds of the members present, and
approved by a majority of the Legislatures of
the States."
We see, therefore, that regarded in all three
aspects legal, political and revolutionary the
12 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Assembly of Queretaro was the bastard off-
spring of a coup d'etat, and its work the
Constitution of 1917 also illegitimate, is
inevitably condemned to disappear when "the
people regain their liberty" as stipulated in
Article 128 of the Magna Charta of 1857
quoted by Carranza in his manifesto of the
llth of June, 1915.
CHAPTER II
INASMUCH AS the Constitution of 1857 pro-
vides for its own amendment, and also
specifies the legal proceedings to be followed in
organizing the administration, why, instead of
convoking an illegitimate constituent assem-
bly, did not Carranza immediately call elections
for a Federal Congress and President of the
Republic at the same time, and compel the
military governors of the States to do likewise
so as to restore state authorities as well?
Why did he not wait for the Federal Con-
gress and the State Legislatures to be convened
in order to submit the constitutional amend-
ments which the revolution had proposed?
The answer is simple.
If the laws of the Magna Charta of 1857
had been honestly observed, all social classes
would have participated in the general elec-
tions. It would have been impossible to
withhold the suffrage either from the Villista
faction, which disagreed with the Carrancistas,
or from the agrarian faction, represented by
Zapata and his followers, or from the scattered
14 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
adherents of the old regime, or, in general, from
all the passive or orderly classes capable, on
account of their education, of comprehending
the importance of the moment.
But such participation of all the social
classes in the coming election augured with
absolute certainty the defeat of the ruling
faction and its elimination from power.
As a matter of fact, the Carrancista faction
was composed of a small percentage of the
proletariat. With one or two exceptions,
those in its ranks acting as advisers were un-
successful and embittered professional men,
underpaid primary school teachers, mainly
from the rural districts, untrained students,
and journalists. The officers and heads of
the revolutionary army had been recruited
from the ranks of foremen, muleteers, police-
men, clerks, milkmen, and included also
quite a number of drudges, farm hands, peons,
and jail -birds.
Such was the group of men which had
seized the government by violence, which
had confiscated both individual and public
property, which had so easily enriched itself
with the proceeds of confiscation, levies, and
spoliation concomitant with and following
the military campaign. Having obtained
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 15
victory, they naturally were determined to
enjoy the spoils, for they considered that the
Nation had become their patrimony.
They knew full well that in a free political
contest they would be eliminated, not only
because of their ignorance and their anteced-
ents, but also because they represented a
scanty minority.
One of the foremost members of this group,
Machorro Narvaez, speaking before the Con-
stituent Congress, said: " The present revolu-
tion is not as yet popular in Mexico. The
greater part of the Mexican people are still
against the revolution; the higher class, part
of the middle and the old intellectual element
are against the revolution, as well as the
laboring class of a certain rank; clerks and
office employees who constitute mainly the
middle class are also against the revolution.
We are still in the minority." (Diario de los
Debates, Vol. II, page 71).
The ignorance of this revolutionary caste is
well known to all, and recognized even by the
very mouthpieces of the Carrancista faction.
Bojorquez, another of the members of the
Constituent Congress, made this statement:
"I can say, and many of my fellow congress-
men can say with me, that we do not only lack
16 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
that preparation" in financial affairs "but
also all preparation in constitutional and all
other laws; we decide these momentous
questions after hearing the pros and cons"
sometimes without even hearing them "be-
cause when we vote we are led more by our
revolutionary instinct than by our understand-
ing . . . (Diario de los Debates,
Vol. II, page 367).
And as a sample of the boasted revolutionary
instinct, as well as of the ignorance of the
leaders, let us hear what one of the pillars of
the Carrancista party, General Nafarrete,
also a member of the Constituent Congress,
in discussing the article referring to the
freedom of education says: *"As to the
explanatory part which treats of individual
guarantees, which declares that Mexico is
free because it states that Mexico is released
from the restriction of those rights which the
people declare of its sovereign and free initia-
tive, I believe that it is the representative
share of the Executive of the Union in order
to state its policy, who is the only one that can
occupy that tribune and tell us: *I deem it
necessary, in order to sustain this contro-
(1) I offer a literal translation of a part of General Nafarrete's speech
which is as unintelligible in Spanish as it is in English. Author's Note.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 17
versy, to suppress these guarantees,' and not
come, gentlemen, to invade the office of the
First Magistrate of the Nation so to speak in
a manner particular to the ideas. Ideas are
sacrifices, gentlemen, as we soldiers sacrifice
ourselves. I am willing to justify that the
congressmen are invading the office of the First
Chief, of the First Magistrate of the Nation,
who is the only one who can ask the legislative
power whether the suppression of guarantees
is to be conceded in whole or in part, for we
are in the explanatory session in which we say
that man is free. I ask, sir, that my speech
may be meditated upon, because the honor
of the home is being invaded." (Textual).
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. I, page 470).
Thus spoke and thought not the elect of the
people, but the select of the triumphant
faction !
But if on the one hand this faction, ignorant
and in a minority, could expect nothing from a
free vote of the people, on the other hand it
could rely upon might to keep itself in power.
Inasmuch as the Constitution of 1857 was an
obstruction to this end, it was necessary to
give it a death blow; and inasmuch as the
banner of the Constitution was also an ob-
struction, it was necessary to tear it to pieces.
18 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
As a result, the proletariat in arms assumed
the exclusive right of citizenship, declared it-
self the proprietor of the Nation and the
arbiter of its destiny.
The heads of the military caste joined in
what they called the "Liberal Constitutional-
ist Party," pledged themselves to support the
candidacy of Carranza for the Presidency of
the Republic and that of the members of this
same caste or its followers for the Constituent
Assembly.
The lists of congressmen were drawn up by
the military chiefs and revised and arranged
by their agent, the Secretary of the Depart-
ment of the Interior; the congressmen were
elected at the polls under the armed pressure
of the local military posts and of the military
governors of the States in an atmosphere of
death and oppression. If here and there a
congressman for example those who had
belonged to the "Partido Renovador" of the
26th Legislature, during the administration of
Madero succeeded in entering the Consti-
tuent Congress, it was through the special
efforts of Carranza, and in absolute opposition
to the head of the military caste, General
Alvaro Obregon, who went so far as to request
Congress to reject the credentials of the
"Renovadores."
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 19
"I come to point out to this Assembly"
said Candido Aguilar, son-in-law-to-be of
Carranza "that it is becoming a victim of
ministerial intrigue. I come to tell the truth
even though General Obregon and Mr. Acuna
(Secretary of the Interior) are my friends.
The intrigue against Mr. Palavicini one of
the * Renovadores ' has been hatched by Mr.
Acuna and General Obregon, and though you
are all aware of the intrigue, only few of
you have the moral courage to oppose it;
you always oppose the do wnf alien. That
intrigue, gentlemen, dates from the meetings of
the Liberal Constitutionalist Party . . ." "I
do not come to incite government crises, I
come to speak of personal intrigues, for such
were those of Chapultepec. Once, when I
was in the company of Mr. Acuna and General
Obregon, a man whom I admire, esteem, and
look upon as a pride of the Nation, they said
to me, 'that man, Palavicini, is giving too
much trouble; but he will see, he will not get to
Congress." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I,
pages 154-227).
If the Secretaries of War and of the Interior
so treated their associates, is it possible to
think that they would allow any one not a
member of the military faction of the Carran-
cistas to enter the Constituent Congress?
20 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The decree of the 15th of September, 1916,
has the following provisions: ". . . besides
those disqualified by the said Constitution
(that of 1857) no one shall be elected who
either by taking up arms or by holding govern-
ment positions, has aided the governments
and factions hostile to the constitutionalist
cause." (Art. 40).
The letter of convocation for the elections,
of the 19th of the same month of September,
adds that "those should be considered citizens
of a State" one of the requisites for election
"who had resided in their locality for at
least six months prior to the date of the
elections" (Art. 8, Section III), "and those
who had been qualified citizens or residents of
their respective States during the ten days
of the uprising in the City of Mexico, provided
that they had proved afterwards with actual
deeds their adherence to the constitutionalist
cause." (Art. 8, Section IV).
And the electoral rules of the same date
state that the census to be used shall be "the
list of voters for the last municipal elections."
(Art. 20).
In the lists, a large number of voters not
identified with the Carrancista cause had been
eliminated. Nevertheless, as has been seen,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 21
this was not considered enough, and those who
had supported the governments or factions
hostile to the Carrancista cause were also
excluded.
But not even this elimination satisfied the
military caste, and they finally exacted as a
qualification for electors, a residence of six
months immediately preceding the election.
Such a ruling deprived of the franchise
hundreds of thousands of citizens who, fleeing
from the atrocities of the revolutionary rabble,
had removed from hamlet to town, from town
to city, from city to State Capital, and from
State Capital to the Metropolis.
And in order that the exclusion might be
absolute, all inhabitants who had not proved
with actual deeds their adherence to the
Carrancista cause, or, in other words, to the
dominant proletariat caste, were declared non-
residents.
Thus the Assembly of Queretaro, beside
the fact that it had usurped constitutional
power, did not even originate in the will of
all the social classes expressed at the polls.
The Carrancista mobs, and they alone,
organized under the direction of their generals
and with the name of Liberal Constitution-
alist Party, manufactured the lists of congress-
22 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
men and obtained credentials for these in
fraudulent elections, availing themselves of
the public forces managed by the Secretaries
of War, of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior,
by the military commanders acting as Govern-
ors of the States, and the heads of garrisons
and military posts.
CHAPTER III
THE SEPARATION of Church and State de-
serves special consideration as being one of the
greatest victories for public rights gained by
the Constitution of 1857 and subsequent
amendments.
The Church is a society organized to teach
the flock of the faithful the road to Heaven.
The State is a society established to normal-
ize the inter-relations of men living in the same
community.
The former seeks spiritual, the latter,
temporal perfection. The Church is supreme
in dogma, discipline and worship, so long as
her external manifestations are not opposed
to the public welfare; the State is supreme
in its function of regulator of social conduct,
but cannot go beyond the threshold of the
sacred tribunal of conscience.
Members of different religious communities
and at the same time of one lay community,
can live at peace with their consciences and
with their fellowmen only on condition that
the Church refrains from all interference in
24 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
public matters and the State abstains from all
meddling in matters of faith. If it were
necessary to confirm with historical evidence
this truth, which is now an axiom, it would
suffice to cite the crime of the Inquisition in
order to condemn the Church political, and
to recall the madness of the worship of Reason
in order to anathematize the State pontifical.
From these facts, we draw two conclusions:
Firstly, that all political actions on the
part of the Church not only pervert her
spiritual ends, but also imperil the peace of
nations. No action, no practice of a dog-
matic character should serve as a means for
obtaining control of governments.
Secondly, as to the individual, the inviola-
bility of conscience must be absolute.
With reference to the first point, the Con-
stitution of 1857 has no other explicit stipula-
tion than that all ecclesiastics are deprived
of the privilege of holding certain offices.
Taking advantage of the fact that the Con-
stitution of 1857 did not expressly forbid
religious institutions as such to organize into
political parties, the Catholic Church, immedi-
ately after the revolution of Madero, formed
the "Catholic Party" with a view to taking
part in the elections of 1912. The party was
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 25
supported by the clergy. All from the highest
to the lowest, availed themselves of religious
offices, the confessional, the pulpit, doctrine,
dogma, faith, superstition, and all the in-
struments at hand to gain proselytes. They
worked on the consciences of the people, their
friends, and their servants, using the formid-
able argument of eternal salvation, and when
the ballot-boxes were installed they placed
about them standards bearing significant
legends. On many of them for example, were
inscribed the words: "Here you vote for God. "
The Catholic Church attempted in this
way to convert itself into a temporal power in
rivalry to the State; it endeavored to re-
establish the theocratic regime of the middle
ages. It was thus false to the lofty and
spiritual ends for which it was instituted at
the same time that it substituted religious
sentiment for the patriotic spirit in organizing
the administration.
We, sincere and earnest liberals, lovers of
the State, and solicitous for its progress and
development, cannot but applaud the provis-
ions of the Constitution of Queretaro which
deny to ministers of any religion the right to
hold office, to organize for political ends, to
use the pulpit, the confessional, or any other
26 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
clerical function as an instrument for political
propaganda, whether by word of mouth or in
writing. We also are in complete accord
with the provisions which forbid the similar
use of publications and periodicals of a
religious character and those which forbid any
group or political faction to assume a name
implying adherence to a religious creed, and
finally, that which prohibits any political
meetings to be held in temples of worship.
But in order to be consistent with the same
principle of public right, it is only just to
admit that the Church must be supreme in
questions of faith, that it must enjoy absolute
freedom in the determination of its dogmas,
in the adoption of its doctrines, in the external
forms of its worship, and even in its precepts of
morality, with no other restriction on the last
two, than a prohibition against perturbing or
imperiling public peace or retarding the work
of the masses; it must, in addition, be free to
organize its hierarchy and to appoint its
doctrinal and officiating personnel.
The Constitution of 1857 with its amend-
ments of 1873 places no restriction on liberty
of conscience in these matters, and as to
external forms of worship and discipline,
empowers the federal authorities, to exercise
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime %7
any supervision over them designated by law.
In addition to this, it prohibits monastic
orders.
The first of the foregoing restrictions was
quite justifiable. It was inspired only by
the wish to preserve public order which, owing
to the ignorance and fanaticism of the masses
of our people, was very easily disturbed at
that time, as it is even now, if the external
forms of worship are not properly regulated,
especially when services are held outside the
churches.
The second restriction, the necessity for
which was easily explainable at that time be-
cause of political and economic conditions,
should no longer be in force in all its rigor, at
least in so far as it concerns orders of pious
women consecrated to good works, as for
example, the Sisters of Charity. The State
should limit itself in this matter to denying
civil sanction to monastic vows.
Although ostensibly the Constitution of
Queretaro recognizes liberty of conscience,
as a matter of fact, it violates its most funda-
mental manifestations. I shall treat of these
briefly, leaving for a later chapter the most
important, freedom of education.
The Constitution of Queretaro begins by
28 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
prohibiting foreigners to exercise the functions
of the priesthood. Can anything be more
ridiculous? Such a prohibition is equivalent
to establishing a national religion, and national
religions in the twentieth century are worse
than the Inquisition at the dawn of the nine-
teenth. When religious institutions and their
ministers are not allowed the enjoyment of
political rights while discharging their priestly
duties, what difference does it make whether
it is a native or a foreigner who imparts
doctrines, moral commandments, or the con-
solations of religion?
Carranza himself, shocked by this excess
of tyranny, felt obliged to allow three foreign
priests to hold services in Mexico City. It
is true that he used as an excuse a demand on
the part of congregations for services in
foreign languages in order to justify so flagrant
a transgression of his own constitution, but,
as a matter of fact, one of the priests was a
Spaniard.
Another provision of the Constitution of
Queretaro authorizes each State of the Feder-
ation to determine the number of ministers of
religion that shall practice their profession in
its territory. Granted the separation of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 29
Church and State, is not this another abso-
lutely unjustifiable interference?
If catholics, pro testa nts, and in general,
members of any religious body or sect are
privileged to follow their form of worship,
all limitations of this right trample upon
liberty of conscience, inasmuch as the preach-
ing, doctrine, religious ceremonies and propa-
ganda are essential manifestations of such
freedom.
As a proof of this we can recall the state of
tenseness bordering on rebellion which ob-
tained in Jalisco due to the decree limiting
the number of priests in that State. As
further proof, we can also point to the fact
that this same decree was revoked because of
pressure brought to bear by President Car-
ranza himself at the cost of the sovereignty of
this same State, thus conceding the indisput-
able fact that more than any conception of
state sovereignty, society needs peace of
conscience.
Finally, in the same article 130, the Consti-
tution of Queretaro authorizes the formulation
of laws bearing upon "religious discipline in
the Churches." Are laic and civil laws to
set the standard of religious discipline inside
the churches? They may dictate regulations
30 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
for policing, for morality, and for hygiene, but
vesting the State with the power of regulating
internal religious discipline is tantamount to
denying and repudiating freedom of worship.
This encroachment on religious liberty
resulted from the fact that the Constitution
of 1917 was not drawn up by the Mexican
people nor for the Mexican people. That
Constitution was an agreement of the "armed
citizens" formed by a minority of the sub-
social classes turned into fighters, and their
works are born of the passions, hatreds and
animosities which formed the revolutionary
bond of union of this neo-military caste.
The Secretary of War, Alvaro Obregon,
hierophant of the so-called "Liberal Consti-
tutional Party," boasted not many months
before of having "traversed the Republic
from end to end followed by the maledictions
of the priests, " and proudly exclaimed : " What
greater honor could be mine?" (El Liberal,
Mexico City, May 4th, 1915).
Easily can we imagine what his satellites in
the Assembly of Queretaro felt impelled to
think and to shout.
Congressman Gonzales Torres declares that
all religions "are absolutely corrupt and have
been converted into a woof of tales and
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 31
legends; of absurdities and aberrations."
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. I, page 520).
Congressman Recio states in recording
his vote that "we are obliged to prevent and
correct all that which may contribute to the
immorality and corruption of the Mexican
people, freeing them at the same time from
the claws of the crafty priest who takes
possession of consciences in order to carry
on his iniquitous work of prostitution."
He proposes, as a result, that the ministers of
any sect be forbidden to hear confessions,
and that the practice of their ministerial
profession be limited to Mexican citizens
by birth, imposing upon them the obligation
of marrying according to the civil law if
they have not reached the age of fity. (Diario
de los Debates, Vol. II, pages 741-2, 750-1).
Congressman Alonzo Romero wins loud
applause on ending with this tirade: "There is
no doubt that any woman who goes to confes-
sion is an adulteress and any husband who
permits it is a procurer, and a party to such
immoral practices." (Diario de los Debates,
Vol. II, page 774).
Congressman Gonzalez Galindo affirms the
following: "It has been agreed upon that
religion had an evolutionary progress until it
32 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
reached Christianity, which is supposed to
be the most perfect form; theologians say
that it is the most truthful; I call it a farce;
I call it a string of lies and fables." (Diario
de los Debates, Vol. II, page 753).
What could be expected from the men who
shot at images of saints in Monterey, who
harassed and expelled the priests and nuns of
Zacatecas, who held the bishop of Durango
in a well in order to extort from him a rich
ransom; who violated virgins consecrated to
a religious life, who looted and desecrated the
Josephine College, in Mexico City, and who
sacked and pillaged every church in the
Republic? What could they do in the name
of liberty except to crush and profane the
religious convictions of the ninety-nine per
cent, of the Mexican people, pursuing them
even to the sacred precincts of conscience?
How could these fanatics who upheld the
bloody and concupiscent canons of pre-consti-
tutionalism permit their victims to seek
consolation in that sublime love and grand
renunciation which defied the Master?
CHAPTER IV.
OVER FOUR-FIFTHS of the Mexican people
are illiterate; this indicates the extent of
their lack of culture.
Thirty per cent, of the inhabitants of the
country are of a pure indigenous race, a large
proportion of these do not speak the Spanish
language and all of them live in a state of sub-
civilization. Within the same borders, there-
fore, there is a double nationality; the sub-
civilized and the civilized. The former are
still in the period of subordination; while the
latter have already reached that of co-
ordination. Must we Mexicans of high ideals
leave the subcivilized in their state of sub-
ordination?
If their inferiority were ethnical, if their
race were opposed to progress, there could 'be
no other course than to let them live as they
have lived and utilize their muscular force
for the good of the rest of the community
until the law of natural selection had definite-
ly wiped them out.
But there is no such ethnical inferiority; the
34 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
native race is strong, intelligent, tenacious in
its purpose, and at the same time open to
advice and frugal, although in certain regions
inclined to the use of alcohol. They reveal all
these qualities in a passive way because they
have lived for four hundred years under the
political, social, economic and mental oppres-
sion of the conquering race and its descendants
whether full-blooded or mixed.
But all these faculties, now passive, are
capable of becoming active. The power of
imitation of the native can be transformed into
initiative; his ability to endure suffering and
adversity into a persistent and tenacious de-
sire for useful work ; his docility, resulting from
age-long obedience, can bring about conscious
social discipline. The only thing that has
been wanting to effect this metamorphosis is
education.
There are, nevertheless, many who oppose
this, the sole way to regeneration, with the
argument that it will only awaken appetites
and ambitions in the masses. Those who
predict such dangers are retrogressive. They
wish to preserve their own privileges, and will
heed neither the lessons of history nor the
teachings of social science. Ignorance can
temporarily hold the masses in meek sub-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 35
jection, but at the same time it makes them an
easy prey to agitators and demagogues and is
the underlying cause oT anarchical uprisings.
Let the sad picture of Mexico in the past nine
years, and the gloomy spectacle which Eastern
Europe now presents, in contrast to well-
ordered conditions in the United States, stand
as a proof of this contention.
Not a few oppose the education of the
masses, arguing that it does not go hand in
hand with a moral progress necessary as a
check upon anti-social instincts. Those who
think thus forget that the most ignorant
peoples in the world are not the most moral;
that if, in truth, civilization brings its retinue
of vices, they are only new forms of those which
already existed, and to offset them, it is
accompanied by virtues which serve as a
counterbalance .
On the other hand, when we speak of
education, let it be understood that we mean a
practical education which may guide the
talents of the people towards the work of econ-
omic, civic and moral co-ordination.
It must, therefore, be an economic education
to create in man needs and aspirations at the
same time that it provides the means of
satisfying them by productive labor. It must
36 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
be a civic education to which end the school,
as a community in itself, could use as a daily
object lesson the rights and duties, the
liberties and restrictions, that every commun-
ity prescribes for the individual. It must,
finally, be a moral education, which is easy
to infuse into young minds by the use of
select stories and fables.
Reading, writing, arithmetic, and the other
branches of knowledge which form the con-
structive part of education are not ends in
themselves but, rather, means towards reach-
ing the above-named economic, civic and
moral ends.
It is not possible, therefore, to doubt that
the public authorities are under the strictest
obligation to extend education to the masses,
and that in our country this duty is most
pressing because upon it depends the issuing
forth from the state of subconsciousness of
half the Mexican people.
Hence, the civilizing mission of our govern-
ment will not be fulfilled until the number of
schools in each city, town, or village is
sufficient to accommodate all children of school
age. Furthermore, the government, far from
placing obstacles in the way of private
schools, should favor and even financially
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 37
assist them, limiting itself, insofar as elemen-
tary education is concerned, to providing that
plans, programs, text-books, and official
methods of education be adopted which have
as their primary and essential object the
adaptation of man to the practical conditions
of social life.
Instruction imparted in official institutions
should be secular, this being the most natural
consequence of the independence of Church
and State and the most perfect guarantee of
religious liberty. By secular, we understand
that the public school should neither defend
nor attack any religious dogma, but it must
expound facts, state their causes and disclose
their natural laws, even though thereby it con-
tradicts this or that Biblical myth, or denies
dogmas of revealed truth, or destroys legends
of miracles.
But there is a long step between this and
forbidding all religious instruction, or, to
speak frankly, Catholic propaganda, in pri-
vate elementary schools; or carrying intoler-
ance so far as to close all schools directed by
or in charge of religious societies or ministers
of any sect.
Religions, the Catholic among them, are
not injurious to the people. Ignorance is
38 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
injurious, because where it exists, religion
carries to the soul only superstition. Only
that dogma is sterile which is unaccompanied
by the principles of individual and social
ethics.
Can anyone deny that the fear of God is an
immeasurable restraint upon the actions of
the large majority of men and that at present
at least there is no substitute for it? Can
anyone question the stupendous influence
that the gentle word and ineffable abnegation
of Christ have exercised upon the human
conscience? How, then, is it possible to
contend that the Christian decalogue will be
transformed into a corrupting influence merely
because its teachings are united with the
education of the rest of the faculties of the
child?
We, sincere freethinkers, renounce and
condemn such an unreasonable and intolerant
spirit. We want many, very many schools,
we earnestly desire the education of the
masses, physical, mental and moral; but,
above all, the education of the will and of the
character, without which all other qualities
are barren and harmful, and with which even
the roughest and most ignorant man becomes
useful to himself, to his family, to his friends,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 39
to his community, to his state, and to his
country. If we could attain that education
without religious institutions, we should pre-
fer it; but inasmuch as that is impossible, we
welcome any who wish to aid us in this work
whether they call themselves Catholics or
reformists, orthodox or heterodox, whatever
be their sect or creed, so long as their standard
of morality represents the highest type of
individual-social human conduct.
Nor do we, freethinkers, condemn the in-
fusion of religious sentiments into man ; rather
do we long for them in the masses, not on
account of the dogma they may contain, to
which we are indifferent, but on account of
the moral strength they develop. If we could
make a Socrates of each man, we would attain
our ideal; morality for the sake of morality;
good for the sake of goodness.
But, as it is impossible to make philosophers
of all men, or even of a small minority of men,
because of the absence of ethical conceptions,
we welcome religions when they bring to us
sentiments of altruism.
With an intensely broad-minded spirit,
the Constitution of 1857 thus dealt with the
problem of national education. As to the
duty of the State, we quote the following
40 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
paternal precept of its article 32: "Laws shall
be enacted to improve the condition of in-
dustrious Mexicans, by rewarding those who
distinguish themselves in any science or art,
to foster labor, and to found colleges and
manual training schools. "
It did not limit the power of founding those
training schools only to the states, but by
this broad ruling, also empowered the Federal
Government concurrently to carry out that
great essential function for the betterment of
the masses; for the education of the people
is not an obligation of this or that town or
village, of this or that state or territory, but
rather of the nation as a whole.
Since the Constitution of 1857 urged the
Federal Government and at the same time
the states and municipalities to stimulate
labor and to found practical schools of arts and
crafts as well as colleges, evidently the Feder-
ation, the states, and the municipalities were
concurrently empowered to establish rudi-
mentary, elementary and grammar schools in
every corner of the Republic and to work
out in them a plan adequate for civic, economic,
mental and moral education.
For the proper understanding of this subject,
it is' well to state that primary schools in
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 41
Mexico are of three types, namely: "Superior
schools," corresponding to the grammar
schools as known in the United States;
"elementary schools," comprising only the
four or five lower grades of the grammar
schools, and finally, the "rudimentary
schools," with a less extensive curriculum,
intended to be established in rural districts
particularly for the benefit of the Indian
population and to be converted later on into
elementary schools.
As to individual initiative, the Constitution
of 1857 placed absolutely no impediment in
its way. On the contrary, it sanctioned it in
these simple words of Article 3: "Instruction
is free."
The statute which aspires to raise the level
of the masses without any distinction, to
truly regenerate them through education, is a
national monument; the statute that com-
mends such a lofty mission to all the executive
agencies of government municipal, state and
federal is a national monument; the statute
that calls all social classes to collaborate in
this great work without discrimination based
upon political or religious creeds, be it as a
lucrative profession, or for beneficent motives,
is a national monument.
Such a monument is the Constitution of
1857.
CHAPTER V
To THAT armed ochlocracy which lately
usurped the privilege of voicing in a new
Constitution the popular sentiment, was re-
served the honor of placing the most flagrant
obstructions, now by theories, now by hatreds
and excesses, in the way of the civilizing
influence of the school upon the illiterate
masses.
Up to the year 1910 neither the states nor
the municipalities had satisfactorily solved
the problem of universal education.
Based upon the figures afforded us on the
subject by Miguel E. Schultz (Course in
Geography) and accepting, empirically, the
estimate that children between the ages of
6 and 15 represent 25 per cent, of the general
census, we have drawn up the following table:
Divisions
of the
Nation
Dependency
Number
of
Schools
Pupils
Registered
Annual
Cost
Children
of School
Age
Fed. Dist.
Government
Private
473
235
96,736
21,301
$4,082,490
409,080
179,763
Territories
Government
Private
216
46
19,610
4,269
503,250
18,540
58,292
States
Government
Private
Totals
9,221
2,327
616,901
142,096
5,167,090
1,173,670
3,527,746
12,518
900,913
$11,354,120
3,765,801
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 43
From this table we get the following
averages :
Division
of the
Nation
Dependency
Annual
Cost per
School
Annual
Cost per
Pupil
% of Child-
ren With
Education
Registra-
tion per
School
Fed Dist.
Government
Private
$8,631
1,741
$42.20
54
12
205
91
Territoms
Government
Private
2,330
403
25.66
4.34
34
7
91
93
States
Government
Private
560
504
8.38
8.26
17
4
67
61
The conclusions to be drawn from the fore-
going figures are as exact as they are discourag-
ing.
The quantitative efficiency of the official
primary schools of the States, counting only
the schools maintained by the public treasury,
barely equalled 17 per cent of the scholastic
population.
The qualitative efficiency of this small
percentage is not more flattering. An esti-
mated annual average of $560 per school,
each with an average registration of 67 pupils,
plainly indicates that the personnel of these
schools consisted of only one teacher with the
paltry salary of $30 per month, leaving a
balance of $200 per year for rents, and other
minor expenses. Could instruction imparted
in such schools conceivably be anything but
rudimentary?
44 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The cause of such deficiency, quantitative
and qualitative, on the part of the States in
their educative functions had been none other
than lack of resources. There was no reason
for expecting that this penury would dis-
appear, nor that the States would better their
school systems in the near or distant future.
Their institutions of learning were so poor,
that the States could not have raised them to
a capacity of 100 per cent, of the school
population except at a cost of $29,190,666,
an amount greater than the sum of the
revenues of all the States and Territories.
Persuaded of this inability on the part of the
States to fulfill one of their primary social
functions, and absolutely convinced of the
fact that not only the progress, but even the
very stability of Mexican nationality was
dependent upon the school, which alone could
bring about the regeneration of the unlearned
masses, when I assumed the duties of Secretary
of Public Education in the last two months of
the administration of General Diaz, I an-
nounced a new educational policy on the part
of the National Government. I announced
that my Department was determined to
establish an extensive educational scheme, not
limiting itself to the narrow boundaries of the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 45
Federal District and the Territories, but
embracing the whole Republic.
It was not the intention of the Federal
Government to encroach upon the functions
of the various States, for it did not intend to
supplant their schools with the national ones.
Its purpose was simply to establish schools
where there were none, and to erase gradually
from the map of the nation those dark spots of
illiteracy, countless and oppressive.
Willingly would the Federal Government
have opened elementary schools w r ith a com-
plete curriculum under the advice of educa-
tionalists; but such a program was financially
impossible. In order to carry it through,
taking as a basis the average cost of the
schools run by the Government in the Terri-
tories, it would have required an additional
annual disbursement of $73,530,027, which
was impossible at the time in view of the fact
that the sum total of the revenues of the
administration just barely reached 110 million
pesos annually.
Taking facts and possibilities into consider-
ation, therefore, the Department of Education
submitted a plan for the installation of
rudimentary schools with the simplest courses
of study, with the view of enlarging its scope
46 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime.
in quality and in quantity in proportion to
an increase in revenue.
This project, though approved by the Fed-
eral Congress of the Provisional Government
which immediately followed that of General
Diaz, was opposed by the then Governor of
the State of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza.
He cited no reasons for his attitude; he
did not prove, nor could he prove, that the
schools established in his state were sufficient
in number and capacity or so located that
they could impart education to all individuals
of school age. He limited himself to setting
forth the empty conceptualism of State Sover-
eignty.* As if such sovereignty had been
established for the purpose of holding the
people in ignorance, and worse than in ignor-
ance, in a state of subcivilization ! As if the
education of the masses were not a vital
necessity for all communities, towns, villages,
cities, municipalities and States of the Feder-
ation.
The Madero Government, which followed
the Provisional Government, was too absorbed
*The sovereignty of the States is a fact in a Confederation; it is only a
restricted home-autonomy in a federal government originating, as did that
of the United States of America, "e pluribm unum," and it is a legal fiction, an
empty conceptualism in a country where the States did not exist before the
Nation but were created by the provisions of a national Constitution, as was
the case in Mexico.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 47
in politics to worry about carrying out this
program of universal education, or even to
think seriously of placing it on the road to
fulfillment.
The Department of Education which I
headed during the first months of the Hucrta
administration, was the one which revived
the project, this time with greater momentum,
faith and energy. It presented to the Federal
Congress for approval a vast plan for the
installation of five thousand rudimentary
schools throughout the country during the
first year, with a view to following it up with
similar efforts in successive years.
The idea was accepted with enthusiasm by
all those who knew about it; many private
citizens hastened to offer their services free of
charge to the Government in the work of
setting up and supervising these rudimentary
schools; many a property holder spontaneous-
ly offered land for the schools; and many
were the communities of Indians that en-
thusiastically pledged themselves to work
without wages in the construction of the
buildings if they were supplied with the
necessary materials.
So powerful was this popular wave of
opinion, that the Chamber of Deputies,
48 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
regardless of political creeds, including, in
fact, members of the opposition, approved and
even increased a budget of more than six
millions of dollars for the first year.
The project of the Department of Education
divided the country into 36 scholastic zones,
the boundaries of which were set, not accord-
ing to the geographical boundaries of the
various States, but according to the general
census, the illiterate population and the
facilities of communication ; and it subdivided
each zone into districts, each with ten schools
which would be placed in the centers of
greatest mental backwardness.
At the head of each school there was to be
one teacher, and, wherever necessary, this
teacher would be provided with an assistant;
every ten schools were to have a visiting in-
spector who was a graduate teacher and who
would take charge of the work of installing
the schools of his district and supervise them.
At the head of each zone there was to be a
normal professor under whose direction there
would be established a normal school for
teachers of rudimentary branches with a view
to forming gradually the teaching staff of
that institution.
Political events well known to all, prevented
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 49
the fulfillment of this really popular program
for the actual advancement of the masses;
a program which from its very nature could
not but build Mexican nationality on a basis
of homogeneity in civilization.
The so-called Constitutionalist Government,
headed by the former Governor of the State
of Coahuila, did not restrain even for patriotic
reasons its hatred of the past regime; on the
contrary, because of that very hatred, and
prejudiced by his empty conceptualism of
State Sovereignty, the First Chief proposed
to the Assembly of Queretaro that Article 32
of the Magna Charta of 1857 should be struck
out, and this was done. According to this
Article 32, the Federation, the States and
the Municipalities could together arrange a
plan for universal education.
The First Chief went further still: he sub-
mitted to the same Assembly, which approved
it, a scheme to deprive the Federal Govern-
ment of the power to establish primary
schools in the States, and to that end the
Constitution of 1917 dedicated the following
Article 73: "Congress has the power .
XXVII. To establish professional schools of
scientific research, and fine arts, and technical
education, vocational, agricultural and trade
50 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
schools, museums, libraries, observatories, and
other institutions of higher learning, until such
time as these establishments can be supported
by private funds. These powers shall not
pertain exclusively to the Federal Govern-
ment."
This article, which authorized the Federal
Government to establish schools of higher
education, carefully omitting primary schools,
taken in conjunction with Article 124, denied
to it the right to open rudimentary, elementary
or grammar schools.
The Constitution of 1917 consequently
abolished the Department of Education which
is as necessary to an illiterate country as
water to a thirsty man. And it placed once
and for all time an insurmountable obstacle
an article of the Constitution in the way of
any action on the part of the Federal Govern-
ment looking towards the education of that
very people whose welfare and advancement
had served as a pretext for the Carrancista
Revolution.
Nor will it be possible now to distribute over
the country the five thousand rudimentary
schools the erection of which was approved by
a legally elected Congress, nor will it be
possible in the future to develop any national
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 51
program for the regeneration of the people
by means of the school.
If on the one hand the empty nominalism
of State Sovereignty joined with political
hatreds dealt a death blow to the broad
Federal plan of education, on the other hand,
religious intolerance was the cause of closing
more than 2,500 private primary schools
scattered over the Republic, merely because
they were supported or run by religious in-
stitutions or by ministers of a sect.
In fact, opposite the broad article 3 of the
Constitution of 1857 which stated without
reserve that "instruction is free," the Code of
Queretaro inscribed its everlasting ignominy
in the following retrograde injunction: "No
religious corporation, nor any minister of a
religious sect shall be allowed to found or
direct schools of primary education."
As a pretext for such a prohibition, it was
said that religious propaganda deforms the
morality and mentality of childhood. But
the true motives we have already proved
them with authentic quotations were a politi-
cal grudge against the Catholic clergy and the
blind spirit of intolerance which dominated
the Assembly of Queretaro.
We agree that when dogmas, rites, or
52 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
legends take a higher place in religious
doctrines than the canons of morality, re-
ligious propaganda is easily turned into
superstition.
But superstition is not combatted by the
suppression of schools, even though the schools
depend for their support upon religious in-
stitutions. Ignorance is not the best nor the
most powerful shield against fanaticism, nor
is the school the only place where religious
propaganda can be promulgated.
In this connection, let us not forget that
the most liberal men of the period of reform
were educated in seminaries.
How much better and more liberal would it
have been to have recognized the right of
religious institutions and ministers of any
sect to carry on the work of education, though
requiring them to adopt in their primary
institutions official plans, methods, text-books,
and courses of study, and making it obligatory
for students of national history, moral and
civic, to undergo examination by state in-
spectors. By such a ruling, the government
could have availed itself of the powerful educa-
tive force of the Church, with the object of
civilizing the masses and inculcating in them
a civic, moral and sound idea of nationality!
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 53
But how could one expect such wonders
from the Congress of Queretaro, when in his
famous speech of the third of March, 1915,
already quoted, Alvaro Obregon, leader of
that caste of "armed citizens" which formed
the majority in the Congress, boasted that
"the malediction of the priests carries with
it a glorification?"
And the ignorant so-called representatives
of the people in the Congress of Queretaro
said through the mouth of Citizen Bojorquez,
"I am firmly convinced of the fact that the
best and most just men, those who can best
express a sentiment and maintain an ideal,
are those who have least cultivated their
intelligence, and this is not spoken in praise
of ignorance." (Diario de los Debates, Vol.
II, p. 734).
And Congressman Recio, member of one of
the reporting committees, supplementing the
foregoing idea spoke as follows: "I am now
going to appeal to the same element of the
House, because the intellectual element (the
few tolerant representatives), the more in-
tellectual it is considered, the more retrograde
it is in its attitude toward the progress of
the masses." (Diario de los Debates, Vol.
II, pp. 741-2).
54 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
What greater glorification for the "armed
citizens" than the maledictions of the priests!
So long as they are obtained, what matter if
2,500 primary schools are closed!
What a constructive and fertile conceptual-
ism, that of State Sovereignty! So long as
that is realized, what matter if 79 per cent, of
the population is deprived even of the hope
of learning the alphabet?
What an unspeakable gratification to stupid-
ity! To think that the government schools
in the States have been decreasing in number
and that in the Federal District they have
decreased from 473 in 1910 to 360 in
1919!*
The Constitution, which inspired by empty
conceptualisms of State Sovereignty, dictated
by political hatreds, religious intolerance,
and real cretinism, condemns a whole people
to vegetate in the most degrading sub-
civilization, does not voice, cannot voice, the
national aspirations of the people; it expresses
those of a caste; it is not national.
Such is the Constitution of 1917!
*In accordance with information received from the Department of Educa-
tion of the Federal District, "El Excelsior," a newspaper of the Capital,
announces that during the month of September, 1919, of the 360 primary
schools mentioned, 224 were closed.
CHAPTER VI
No ECONOMIC relation between man and
man can last and reach its highest efficiency
in modern communities unless it is based upon
equality, not an equality in fact, which does
not exist in human nature, but an equality
of right, without which the natural law of the
economy of forces cannot operate. All legal
inequality results in a lack of equilibrium;
strife among men instead of co-operation, a
deduction from instead of an addition to or
combination of energies. The slavery of
labor and the abject submission of the laborer
to the magnate when sanctioned by law, are
absurd anachronisms.
The Constitution of 1857 established the
principles of economic equality in its articles
4 and 5. The first decrees that every man is
free to embrace the profession, industry or
labor that best suits him as long as it is useful
and honorable, and enjoy the benefits thereof,
no one having the right to curtail such
freedom except as ordained by law. The
second abolishes all contracts, pacts or agree-
56 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
ments for work which have as an object the
impairment, loss or irrevocable sacrifice of
man's liberty.
However, when the Constitution of 1857
was adopted there had not arisen, at least in
critical states, either capitalism or the conflicts
between capital and labor to which the former
has given rise in modern society.
In the realm of principles, therefore, we
sincerely believe that the Constitution of
Queretaro makes a great step forward in
drawing up certain laws relative to the
condition of the working classes.
We include in this appreciation the re-
strictions on night work of women, young
people and children, the standardizing of the
length of a working day for young people and
the designation of Sunday as a day of rest;
the ruling that the minimum wage, subject
to conditions in each locality, shall be enough
to satisfy the normal needs of a laborer and
provide for his education and legitimate
recreation; the equality of wages for an
equality of work regardless of sex or national-
ity; exemption from seizure or deduction of
the minimum salary ; the payment of wages in
legal money; the construction of comfortable
and sanitarv houses with moderate rents
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 57
for the laborers; the erection of schools,
hospitals and other buildings for general use
in working centers; the prohibition of saloons
for gambling dens in such centers ; the liability
for accidents and occupational diseases; the
provisions for safety in industrial plants; the
right of working men to form unions or syndi-
cates, the power to declare themselves in
peaceful strike; the preference of wages and
salaries over other credits in case of bank-
ruptcy; and the prohibition of certain stipu-
lations in labor contracts relating to the
already-mentioned exemptions; and the time
and place of payment of wages, the forced
patronage of stores owned by employers or
the retention in whole or in part of w r ages in
payment of fines.
All these regulations emancipate labor with
a view to making it a free factor in the pro-
duction of wealth.
There are indeed some precepts that should
not appear in a Constitution, on account of
being too rigid to conform with the variable
conditions of labor at different seasons and in
different regions of the country; as for example,
that limiting the working day to eight hours,
the one relating to women employed during
pregnancy, and also the one making an
58 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
inflexible addition of 100 per cent, of the
wages for overtime work.
But the leading defect of this Constitution
is that it errs on the side of radicalism. That
labor may not be a slave, it makes it a tyrant;
that capital may not enslave, it tyrannizes
over it.
In this respect, the Constitution of Quere-
taro shows clearly that in regulating the
relations of capital and labor, its framers were
led not so much by love for the working-man
as by hatred for the capitalist, and for that
reason we can only classify it as Bolshevik.
According to this new Code, if the manu-
facturer does not live up to his contract, the
laborer is given effective and practical re-
paration; if the laborer is negligent or remiss,
in theory he is responsible, but in practice he
is immune. If a court of arbitration hands
down a decision, the manufacturer must
submit under pain of incurring grave penal-
ties, while the workman remains free from all
obligation.
There are very many cases where a just
cause might exist for dismissing a workman,
but either it cannot be substantiated by
evidence or is found insufficient by a court of
arbitration. In all such cases, the employer
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 59
is obliged to pay three months' wages, and
there will certainly be more than enough lazy
fellows who will dishonestly exploit such a
privilege.
According to the Constitution of Queretaro,
strikes are declared lawful under the elastic
condition that their object be to establish an
equilibrium between the various factors of
production by adjusting the rights of capital
and labor. It would be only just and equit-
able that suspension of work on the part of
producers should be lawful under the same
condition. But such is not the case. It
matters little if the economic balance between
capitalists and laborers has been lost due to an
excess of wages and a corresponding lack of
profit, the enterprise must continue to operate
even though it be at a loss. Suspension of
work is considered lawful only when there is
no equilibrium between the demand and the
supply of products manufactured, and let it
be understood that this sole exception was
admitted to protect the " Comision Reguladora
de Nenequen," a concern officially belonging
to the Government of the State of Yucatan,
at the time the Constitution of Queretaro
was being discussed.
However, the most momentous innovation
60 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
is the article which obliges all enterprises,
agricultural, commercial, industrial or mining,
to give the workman a share in the profits.
This precept will either not be put into
practice or will result in most chaotic arbitrar-
iness and corruption on the part of the men
appointed to carry it through. What basis
will be used to determine the share? What
proportion, in consideration of the length,
nature and quality of the service of the work-
man; what allowance for risks and differences
in estimates will be used as a basis for an
equitable division?
Viewing it from another angle, if this en-
actment that frames a seductive ideal which
should be pursued as a goal of civilization,
were sanctioned in all countries, and if the
economic, social and political conditions of
Mexico could be compared with those of
other nations, then the enterprises would not
run the risk of being ruined on account of
the workman's share in the profits.
Facts are different: Mexico, setting an
example to the world, may have written the
most beautiful page in romantic literature,
but she has made the existence of the working-
man more precarious still; for we must not
forget that capital, whatever its nationality
is Bolshevik Regime 61
may be, migrates towards those regions of
the world where it can obtain the greatest
profits; and without capital, there can be
no factories, no industries, no progressive
acquirement of wealth, under our present
economic methods.
And when in addition to the above, we take
into consideration the fact that in the con-
flicts between the two factors of production,
the deciding vote in the courts of arbitration
is left to a salaried representative of the
government, no one can doubt the sad results
of such a system of inequality; because those
who constitute that government at present
are the armed proletariat, openly hostile to
capital.
In 1915, one of the Cabinet members of
the de facto government longed to return to
small industry methods and so proposed it.
At the end of 1916, another Cabinet member
of the same government, the "cuistre"* of
the revolution, explained that the progressive
tax had been placed upon mining claims in
order to force big enterprises to abandon a
large number of their mines.
*"Cuistre" is the term applied by H. Taine to Maximilian Robespierre.
The author here uses the same term to designate Luis Cabrera, a phrase-
maker who, on many occasions, attempted to justify, by means of sonorous
words, the worst outrages of the Carrancista revolution.
62 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
On the 14th of December, 1918, the Federal
Executive presented to Congress an amend-
ment to Article 27 of the Constitution of
Queretaro to the effect that no suspension of
work or strike should be considered lawful,
without the consent of the Executive; failure to
obtain this consent would result in the
Executive taking over the administration of
private factories or business concerns which
in his judgment might be of public interest.
What confidence, what security can capital-
ists and investors feel in Mexican industry,
when they know they are at the mercy of the
whims or despotism of courts of arbitration
or of the Executive Power, and when they are
well aware that these are both animated by
hatred, covetousness and ill-will towards men
of capital?
The scanty Mexican capital still available
will move even further from industrial enter-
prises ; foreign capital will seek more profitable
fields of action; factories and industries will
gradually languish and eventually disappear.
The workingmen will be left with great
prerogatives, but with no work; with theo-
retical rights and high wages, but without
real salaries; with the vision of wealth, and
the reality of penury. Thus they are living,
thus will they continue to live.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 63
There are two paths to equality. Follow-
ing one we must raise those below; following
the other we must lower those above. The
former is the way of love, progress, construc-
tion; the latter is that of grudge, annihilation,
Bolshevism. The Congressmen of Queretaro
chose the latter, and for that reason their work
is barren and sterile.
CHAPTER VII
As WE have seen in preceding chapters, and
shall have opportunity to emphasize in those
which follow, the letter of the law in many an
article of the Constitution of Queretaro is
Bolshevik.
The spirit which animates such law is more
Bolshevik still, if that were possible. It is
inspired, not by love of justice, but by hatred
of all non-proletariat classes, particularly the
wealthy; and is dominated by a lust for wealth.
The period of plunder and spoliation which,
under the name of " incautacion " (seizure of
property), prevailed prior to the adoption of
the Constitution of Queretaro, clearly shows
that it was not an ardent desire for justice
that really inspired certain laws of that
political code.
Such plunder and robberies were perpetrated
individually by the so-called "armed citizens"
the unsound portion of the proletariat and
the escaped convicts who ironically assumed
the name of Constitutionalists and later
became the nucleus of the Liberal Constitu-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 65
tionalist Party; eventually forming the major-
ity of the so-called Constituent Congress.
The "cuistre" of the revolution, estranged
from his former associates, denounced the
demands of the so-called "armed citizens"
for money, arms, horses, pasture, provisions,
etc., and charged them with having received
funds amounting to round millions without
ever having rendered accounts; impudently
approving, however, the action taken by
Carranza in reserving to himself the preroga-
tive of auditing accounts, instead of submitting
them to Congress, giving as a reason that "in
the history of Mexico the call for a rendering
of military expense accounts has been the
origin of 90 per cent, of the military uprisings.
We do not doubt that the First Chief, if he
is well acquainted with Mexican history, will
approve all accounts" (in other words, that
he will sanction all the systematic robberies)
"with relative liberality in order not to fall
into the historic error of other eras."
(Segunda Meditacion, "El Universal," Mex-
ico, June 6, 1917).
"Under a normal government," continues
the same exponent of Carrancista ethics,
"it is not conceivable that a government
official could appropriate government property
66 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
for personal use; but, during the Constitution-
alist Revolution" (and we must add also
during the so-called Constitutionalist Govern-
ment) "it had, unfortunately, happened with
great frequency." Under pretext of "incau-
tacion" (official seizure), a large quantity of
private property has been appropriated, po-
session having been taken presumably for
the nation, but instead of handing it over
directly to the proper authorities, those who
seized such property have kept it for their own
private use, or have disposed of it in order to
secure funds. It is needless to cite proofs of
this charge, inasmuch as unfortunately nearly
all seizures of enemy property, with a few
honorable exceptions, have been made with the
deliberate intention of turning to private use
the property attached. This applies to the
seizure of a horse or saddle, the commandeer-
ing of seeds and pasture, which were never
used for the benefit of the troops, and even
the occupation of houses, lands, farms and
haciendas, which, having been attached, were
worked and exploited directly by the men
who attached them, ostensibly for the purpose
of securing funds for the Government, but
as a matter of fact, in many instances the
products of these lands never reached the National
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 67
Treasury." (Tercera Meditacion, "El Uni-
versal," Mexico, June 7, 1917).
No wonder that this man, who was at the
time of the above mentioned outrages, and is
at present the Secretary of the Treasury of the
Carrancista Government, recently stated in
an interview that he had no faith in human
justice. What could be expected of a man so
incapable of appreciating that sublime virtue?
And the then First Chief, in his official
report of April 15, 1917, to the Congress of
the Union, was forced to acknowledge in
the following terms the cupidity of his chiefs
and co-workers: "A source of revenue, more
nominal than actual, consisted in the seizure
of enemy property" (all were considered
enemies who had property worth seizing)
"and this seizure of property was in the
beginning a movement of an entirely
spontaneous character" (yes, spontaneous,
as is the act of a burglar) "on the part of the
military forces occupying enemy territory,
and who, upon gaining this territory, seized
the property of all those who were considered
enemies, in order to prevent them from
utilizing their resources against the revolution
as well as to secure funds. . . . The First
Chieftaincy considered that, either for military
68 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
purposes, or as a source of revenue, or again
as a means of enforcing liabilities, the seizure
of enemy property should be permitted, subject,
however, to whatever steps the Government
might later take concerning it."
Thus, by admission of the Chief of the
Constitutionalist Revolution and his Secretary
of the Treasury, we learn that the robbery
and plunder of private property was a spon-
taneous movement; that a group of the pro-
letariat, unscrupulous and without ideals,
armed themselves under the Constitutionalist
banner, not for the purpose of obtaining
justice for their brother laborers, but in order
to enrich themselves.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that
in these seizures of property robberies or
usurpations no one took the trouble to
ascertain whether the original ownership of
the property was legitimate or illegitimate,
whether it had been acquired unlawfully, or
was the result of strenuous and persevering
labor and sacrifices; the only thing desired
was to despoil those who owned anything
whatsoever in order to enrich those who had
risen in arms for that purpose.
"It pleases me," said Alvaro Obregon,
addressing 300 merchants, manufacturers, land-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 69
owners, and professional men, called to a
meeting in the city of Mexico on the third of
March, 1915, "to see that you all have made
a common cause; it does not matter, with one
rod I can render justice to all ... The
division which I proudly command has tra-
versed the Republic from end to end followed
by the maledictions of the priests and the
imprecations of the bourgeosie! What
greater glory could be mine?"
This spirit, of avarice in some, of envy in
others, was what inspired the deputies of
Queretaro.
Anyone, therefore, who presuppose that
equanimity and justice inspired the mandates
of this Constitution will never be able to
understand it.
The third paragraph of Article 27 says:
"The Nation shall have at all times the right
to impose on private property such limitations
as the public interest may demand, as well as
the right to regulate the development of
natural resources, which are susceptible of
appropriation, in order to conserve them and
equitably to distribute the public wealth.
For this purpose necessary measures shall be
taken to divide large landed estates ; to develop
small landed holdings ; to establish new centers
70 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
of rural population with such lands and waters
as may be indispensable to them; to en-
courage agriculture and to prevent the destruc-
tion of natural resources, and to protect
property from damage detrimental to society. "
In any other Constitution, or any other
place, this law would not be reprehensible;
it would merely denote that which is implied
in every civilized country by eminent domain
of the State over the land; the undeniable
right of the State to exercise high police
duty over the natural resources that exist as
force or matter in the soil and the sub-soil.
The letter of the article is clear and precise;
it speaks solely of the principles governing
landed property and natural resources which
may be found suitable for appropriation in
the land.
But the Bolshevik spirit made the law speak
where it was silent. The circular of Septem-
ber 6th, 1917, issued by the Executive of the
Union, declared that any private industries
which suspended their work should be taken
over by the Government, for "no one has the
right to lessen the production of social wealth,
particularly when that wealth is insufficient to
meet the needs." and "when the suspension of
work affects the rights of society, crippling
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 71
wealth or engendering trouble for the public
administration, the temporary or permanent
suspension of the enterprise violates the
spirit and letter ( !) of Article 27 of the Consti-
tution, which gives to the Government the
right to take over the immediate control of it
for the good of the masses. "
And the Federal Congress in its decree of
November 27th, 1917, approved the doctrine
of the Executive, authorizing him to take
over industrial concerns, and operate them in
case of temporary or permanent suspension of
work when such suspension is not permitted
by the Constitution.
The Executive, however, was not sure as
to the constitutionality of his doctrine, and on
the 14th of December, 1918, proposed the
following addition to the amended Article 27
quoted above: "Private business concerns or
plants belonging to individuals or corporations
and of public interest cannot be closed on
account of strike, lockout or any other analog-
ous reason without previously obtaining the
authorization of the Executive who shall be
empowered to administer them if, in his
opinion the strike or lockout may be detri-
mental to the interests of society or the needs of
public works. The obstacles having been
72 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
cleared away, the Government shall then
return to the owners or their legitimate
representatives, the concerns which have
been taken over, and will deliver, at the same
time, the net profits obtained during the
government management. Those concerns
or plants shall be deemed of public interest
which provide means of communication, such
as railroads, telegraphs, telephones, cables,
radiographs, radiotelephones and street rail-
ways; also pharmacies, burial, light, water
and city sewerage service, mining industries,
including those that treat as well as those that
extract the raw material; the petroleum and com-
bustible mineral industries; agricultural enter-
prises; textile factories operated by electricity,
water, steam or any other power; and all other
concerns of equal or greater importance, in the
opinion of the Executive."
We would have nothing to say against this
project if it merely authorized the Executive,
in case of strike or lockout, to operate those
concerns which are for public utility, provided
that, on doing so, he would insure a return
equal at least to the average return previously
made by said concerns in a period of normal
operation.
All enterprises furnishing a public service,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 73
such as cemeteries, water; light and power
plants, and city drainage systems, telegraphs,
telephones, street-cars, railroads and regular
transportation by land or water; docks and
other harbor improvements, although organ-
ized for individual gain, have, under general
conditions, as their principal object a public
utility. Such enterprises, therefore, are not at
liberty to render or refuse at their will these
services; inasmuch as they have contracted
the obligation of furnishing them and for that
reason the State allows them the specific use
of public or common property such as the
surface or subsoil of streets and public roads,
of river and maritime zones which belong
exclusively to the State; and furthermore,
the State invests them with the power of
expropriation solely on account of the public
service which they pledge themselves to perform
. In these enterprises, called "quasi-public"
in legal technical terms, the individual is
substituted for the State in the discharge of
certain functions essential to the people, and for
that very reason, if he, the individual, does not
meet the obligations which he has assumed,
the State has the right, according to the needs
of the case, to put an end to the substitution
either temporarily or permanently.
74 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
But there is a big difference between an
enterprise of public utility, such as those above-
mentioned, and a private business, the progress
and continuation of which may be considered
of public interest.
As a matter of principle and of fact, any
private enterprise is of interest to the commun-
ity ; because, whatever its nature or the sphere
of its operations may be, even though it is
undertaken merely for the private profit
of the owner, its existence is possible only
if it is of service to the community, whether
extracting the products of the soil or subsoil;
cultivating it, utilizing its energies; turning
matter or force to human use, or transporting
goods from the place of production to the place
of consumption.
In the same way that the aggregate of
private wealth constitutes public wealth,
the aggregate of private interests constitutes
public interest.
But community interest does not exact,
nor can it exact, the socialization of all private
property, nor the socialization of all industries.
On the contrary, community interest, so
long as it does not deal directly with the
enterprises which by their nature are public
utilities, demands liberty of action, economic
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 75
liberty, individual initiative, which not only
includes the right to start those enterprises
when considered convenient, the right to fix
the scale of operation, and increase or diminish
it in proportion to the emergencies of supply
and demand, and in proportion to the cost or
production and the market value of the pro-
duct, but it also includes the right to close
these concerns, when to carry them on does
not pay or for any other reason is detrimental
to the promoter.
As far as private enterprises are concerned,
public interest is best served by free competi-
tion. The intervention of the State has not
been proved justifiable either theoretically
or practically.
Theoretically, if the incentive of individual
interest is destroyed, initiative disappears,
industries tend to become stationary, and
where there is no progress, inevitably there is
retrogression.
Practically, all attempts on a large or on a
small scale which have been made for the
socialization of economic activity have been
an utter failure, not only because of the lack of
individual initiative which we have referred
to, but also on account of the often proved
innate unfitness of governments to act as
agents of production.
76 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The unwholesome influence of politics and
party obligations, the waste of public funds,
the automatism and routine of government
machinery, not to mention the opportunities
for corruption and fraud, are many more
causes which have brought disaster to private
enterprises in the hands of governments.
We do not wish to cite the unflattering
results recorded in the United States by the
transference to government control during the
war of railroads, cable and telegraph lines.
It would be enough for us to mention what
has happened in Mexico in relation to the
national railroads, the Mexican Railroad, and
the electric street-railways, the control of
which was taken over by the administration.
But for our purpose, we shall confine our-
selves to quoting the following figures taken
from "El Universal," a government news-
paper of the City of Mexico, dated March 15,
1919, relative to the administration, during
the preceding four months, of private properties
which had been illegally seized by the Federal
Government :
Income $992,374.11
Cost of management 675,261 . 63
Net profit $317,112.48
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 77
The cost of management nothing more nor
less than the cost of management of the
seized property consumed 68 per cent, of the
income producing power of that property.
Can any argument more eloquent be offered
against the socialization of private enterprises?
For this very reason, our unshaken convic-
tion is that properly to look after social
interests, the power of the government to
interfere in the management of private enter-
prises should be limited to those which are in
the nature of public utilities.
Moreover, as private concerns seek profit at
the same time, both justice and public interest
demand that in case of a forced resumption of
work, the government guarantee the average
profits obtained during a reasonable period of
normal work.
Since the State, instead of attending directly
to public service, authorizes a private concern
to do so for commercial ends, it is pledged not
to frustrate the expectations which gave rise
to such enterprise, just as that enterprise is
pledged not to defraud the public of the
service for which it was authorized : such is the
equation between individual and social inter-
est; between the right of the individual and
the right of society.
78 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
On the other hand, justice is not at vari-
ance with the legitimate claims of the people.
Public authority has an interest in promoting
and developing this class of enterprises for
the benefit of the community. The primary
requisite for initiation and development in all
private economic activity is safety. If in-
dividuals do not feel secure, they will either
fail to contribute their brains and their
money to the performance of public services
or they will enter into them with the deliberate
intention of immediately obtaining dispro-
portionate gains to cover possible future
losses. In either case, the result is detri-
mental to the very public which should be
served.
In its context, the amendment to Article
27 proposed by the Executive to the Congress
of the Union, not only ignores the laws of
social-economic science but it is a serious
menace to the spirit of enterprise in all lines of
production.
As a matter of fact, it authorizes the taking
over of business enterprises, when the Execu-
tive, a single man, responsible to no one by the
very terms of the Constitution, holds the opinion
that the interests of society may be interfered
with. Let it be noted that the law does not
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 79
even require that the said interests be actually
impaired, but that the simple possibility is
enough.
This most dangerous power of the Govern-
ment extends to mining, agricultural, metallur-
gical and textile enterprises; and what is
even more dangerous, the Executive reserves
the right to discriminate and determine what
other enterprises are of an analogous character.
Shoe and hat factories, wheat and corn mills,
and, in general, those industries whose pro-
ducts are of most general need, can fall at
any moment into the administrative vortex.
Moreover, as the State does not offer any
guaranties whatsoever relative to the profits of
these enterprises while under its control,
there is provided no possible check to arbitrar-
iness and plunder, nor any limit to uncertainty
and insecurity.
The proposed amendment goes even further :
after enslaving capital and the spirit of enter-
prise, it enslaves labor, for it denies to laborers
the right to go on strike. Thus capital and
labor are equalized not so much in the be-
stowal of rights as in the denial of them.
In a previous chapter I have stated why I
consider it a progressive step in the realm of
principles to have a constitutional clause
80 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
recognizing the right of the working classes to
go on strike. Only on that condition is man
truly free; without such a right he is a servant
or slave, and the freedom of labor is a requisite
not only for the prosperity of the proletariat,
but also for the general progress of society.
The explanation accompanying the presi-
dential draft of the constitutional amendment
stated, however, that the idea which the
Executive adopted is progressive; that is,
"that the Chief Executive, in his capacity
of regulator of social problems, was the only
power representing the State that could
decide whether or not there should be a
suspension of work, and whether labor or
capital were at fault. "
We cannot but call retrograde such an idea.
As old as the ages, it has served in all countries
as a support of economic despotism: upon it
have been based successively . social and
individual slavery, serfdom, guilds, monopor
lies, sumptuary laws, price-fixing, restrictions
affecting international commerce, and all
other restraints which humanity has constantly
been striving to remove.
From time to time, however, during periods
of retrogression, that same "progressive idea"
to which Carranza alludes has appeared under
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 81
different names. Now it is called Bolshevism,
and is the fruit of the Carrancista tree.
Since this faction found it necessary to
flatter the unarmed proletariat so as to be
able to destroy, rob and plunder the other
social classes, it assumed a pose in favor of
the sacred rights of the working man, and
for that reason in the Constitution of Quere-
taro it sanctioned strikes.
But as soon as this Constitution had been
approved, and the Carrancista faction had
become enriched with the product of its
rapine during the period of revolution, all it
wished for the future was the opportunity to
utilize its power to further enrich itself.
It would give no thought to the welfare of
the working classes, nor would it listen to
their clamors. Just as formerly it wore the
mask of proletarianism to grasp power, now
it wears the mask of social interest that it
may vest the Government, which is nothing
but that same neo-military Carrancista caste,
with the most despotic authority over people
and property.
Consequently, it does not recognize the
right of capital to manage its own enterprises
even though they are not public utilities; and it
likewise will not allow the workingman the
82 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
right to choose with freedom the nature and
conditions of his labor.
The most conservative organ of the adminis-
tration in the City of Mexico, "El Universal,"
supplies us with the strongest proof of our
assertion.
In its issue of May 8th, 1919, it furnished
us with the news that the Permanent Com-
mitee of the Federal Congress had been
obliged to start an investigation as to the
fate of several workingmen who had disappeared,
because suspicions of a serious crime rested
upon the Executive Power. The unarmed
proletariat is just beginning to fall under the
murderous blow of Cain!
The same newspaper, in a recent editorial
relative to the coming presidential elections,
forswearing the anti-military policy which
has characterized it since its origin, does not
hesitate to declare that the next president of
the Republic cannot be a civilian because, if
he were, political stability would be in
danger; in other words, the military caste
claims as its very own, the national govern-
ment, and through it all the resources of the
nation.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 83
Bolshevism is the absolutism of the one-
time proletariat-in-arms over the rest of
society. The Carrancistas now aim to perfect
the Bolshevism of the Constitution of Quere-
taro!
CHAPTER VIII
SINCE WRITING the preceding chapter,
events have happened to prove that just as
Bolshevik as those who drew up the Constitu-
tion of 1917 are those charged with enforcing
it. They must interpret it so as to favor only
those in power, sacrificing not only the
middle and wealthy classes, but that part of
the proletariat which is not in arms.
The most active participants in the Carran-
cista revolution, in addition to the criminals
and renegades, were the proletarians, or to
be more exact, the disorderly part of them.
The recruits of the revolutionary mobs were
peons and day laborers, the majority of the
latter being railroad workers. The theorists
of those mobs were ruined intellectualists, a
large number of them school teachers. A
number of laborers and not a few school
teachers occupied seats in the so-called Con-
stituent Congress of Queretaro.
I have already stated in part what these
proletariat classes conceived and formulated.
Under pretense of uplifting the workingman,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 85
they established in the constitutional system,
the retroactivity of laws; insecurity for capital,
and spoliation of lands. Such is, in fact,
the synthesis of a good portion of Articles
123, 27, 28 and other articles of the Con-
stitution of Queretaro, which I have already
partially considered and propose to continue
analyzing.
The proletarians, elevated to the rank of
"armed citizens," were as fruitful in laws
tending to destroy social harmony, as they
were barren of constructive enactments.
The great material basis for the economic
betterment of the proletariat, particularly
for the proletariat of brawn, would have been
the encouragement of capital which by this
time had been driven away and ruined by
the revolution, that it might return to the
country and be invested in working, improving
and irrigating lands, a condition indispensable
to the ultimate division and distribution of
these lands, for developing industries already
established and for starting new ones.
The great psychological basis for the uplift
of the proletariat would have been a program
of universal national education, so that the
light of truth might be carried to every section
of the country, character strengthened, and
86 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
new desires engendered in the humble classes
along with the legitimate ambition to satisfy
them with the wages of labor.
Nor was anything inserted in the Constitu-
tion of 1917 to serve as a magnet and channel
for the influx of capital, and whatever was
done relative to national education was de-
structive, since there was denied to the
Federal Government the power to establish
primary schools outside of the Federal District
and Territories, and at the same time the
closure of a large number of private schools
was forced at one blow.
The result has been that the proletariat,
instead of improving, has deteriorated; and
instead of earning higher wages, merely
exists under the oppressive burden of the
increased cost of living.
The Government, that government born
of the armed portion of the proletariat,
instead of increasing the wages of the working-
man and the teacher, has been the first to
diminish them so considerably as to bring
them to the verge of starvation.
The railroads taken over by the adminis-
tration were the first to reduce wages 25 per
cent.
The National Government and the various
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 87
States of the Republic, with one lone excep-
tion, have diminished the number of schools,
the number of teachers and the latters'
salaries, and still further, they have frequently
suspended the payment of these salaries,
thus condemning the educators of youth to
dishonor or death by starvation.
"In these latter days/' say the teachers of
primary schools in their manifesto of May
12th, 1919, "popular education in the Federal
District is in a lamentable state of deteriora-
tion. One sees the closing of schools and an
endless reduction of personnel; teachers have
been subject for a long time to reductions of
salary, besides being owed large sums; their
salaries are paid with an exasperating irregu-
larity and they faint from hunger in the very
classrooms; they are denied the materials
necessary for teaching; they are compelled
to work in buildings which become more
worthless and unhygienic every day, and they
are made the object of marked disdain in all
society. The education which they have
imparted, therefore, has been deficient, nig-
gardly, paltry and not at all adequate to the
great needs and lofty aspirations of this
people. Moreover, this factor of regeneration
has become a despised burden in the eyes of
88 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
the authorities . . . And, therefore, con-
vinced after a long and bitter experience, that
popular education has been converted into a
painful social sore; taking into consideration
that society makes us every moment more
and more responsible because it notes the
failure of education, a failure which the
teachers are not responsible for, the school
teachers cannot but tear to pieces the veil
which hides a false situation; they cannot,
nor do they wish to, become accomplices in
so serious a state of affairs.
"Fellow-citizens: be it known that edu-
cation is not taken care of: that education is
not paid for; that the measures taken by the
authorities are carrying the people straight
to illiteracy, for which we are not responsible.
"And rather than countenance these meas-
ures, rather than view the magnitude of this
failure with indifference, and thus become
accomplices in this failure, they prefer to
suspend their labors until the legislation of
the country, and particularly that of the
Federal District, may satisfactorily protect
the rights of the Mexican people."
And the school teachers gave up their
posts and the schools remained closed. Not
a vestige of sympathy for the victims from
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 89
the interpreters of the Bolshevik Constitution
of 1917!
The Secretary of the Treasury, a former
school teacher and now a rich grandee a very
natural metamorphosis for one who extolled
anarchy and its transgressions with the cyni-
cal slogan "revolution is revolution" does
not concede to his former colleagues the right
to refuse to work without remuneration; he
does not believe social interests to be hurt by
the closing of schools of primary education.
"The main question," he says, "is whether
government employees can enjoy what may
be called the right to go on strike, that is, the
right to work or not, according to their
judgment," for "a strike is a suspension of
work with the object of bringing pressure to
bear upon employers or capitalists by means
of the damage that may be done to their
interests by such suspension;" "the damage
caused is not even to society in general, but
chiefly to the children of the middle and lower
classes who are the ones that attend the
schools" and "the suspension of work tends
to harm not the governing class, but the
children of the poor and middle classes."
(Interview given to "El Universal," Mexico,
May 15th, 1919).
90 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The Secretary of the Interior, "the proper
official to whose vigilance is entrusted the
upholding of the Constitution," classifies
as "vicious in origin and arbitrary in action
the strike called by the teachers, " because "to
admit the right of the teachers, servants of
the nation, to go on strike, would from the
Government standpoint be equivalent to
such an absurdity as recognizing a strike of the
State against the State," and "these ideas
which are strictly logical and of obvious
democratic discipline . . . are exactly in
accordance with the categorical precepts of
the various laws which govern us. In fact,
the Supreme Code names as the exclusive
prerogative of the Chief Executive, the right
to appoint employees and to remove them
freely, whether they are cabinet members or
persons in the most humble positions; and
the penal law punishes in very concrete
terms the disobedience or carelessness of
the employee who deserts his post, inasmuch
as it is obviously impossible to leave to the
whim or the convenience of the individual
the discretional discharge of duties exacted
by social progress." (Manifesto of the Exe-
cutive, May, 1919).
Oh false one-time champions of the prole-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 91
tariat; ingenuous priests of the Constitution
of Queretaro, it is not love for the destitute
classes who live by the fruits of their toil, nor
a regard for social welfare which has impelled
and continues to impel your actions, but
covetousness, and grudges against successful
men!
Obviously, it would be contrary to order
and discipline in the public administration as
well as prejudicial or dangerous to the nation,
to recognize the right of government employees
to go on strike as a coercive means for obtain-
ing an increase in salary; because the appro-
priations for public expenditure are not, nor
should they be, determined by the will or
action of a certain social class, as for instance
the employees, but rather they are, and should
be, the expression of the national will mani-
fested by means of the duly established
legislative branch of the Administration.
Public employees, barring only those very
exceptional cases where service is obligatory
by Constitutional precept, are free to accept
or refuse work as they are also free to resign
it; inasmuch as "no one can be compelled to
render personal services without his full
consent." If the remuneration is not satis-
factory, the remedy, as far as individual
92 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
interest is concerned, is to refuse the position
or to resign it, and as far as the collective in-
terests of good public service is concerned, the
correction should be sought in political plat-
forms, in election work, and in the use of the
vote to elect to the legislative bodies men who
are willing to vote in favor of just and equit-
able remunerations.
But the case which prompted the state-
ments of the Secretaries of the Treasury
and the Interior was not a strike of teachers
called for the purpose of obtaining salaries
higher than those set by law; it was especially
and fundamentally called for the purpose of
securing for those teachers a guaranty that
their labors would be remunerated as pre-
scribed by law, inasmuch as the Municipal
Governments of the Federal District had
shown that they were unable to pay such
compensations, putting off the payment of
the teachers' salaries until the month of
September, 1918; and the Federal Govern-
ment, after assuming those payments for
some months, had finally resolved in April of
that year to suspend them and let the school
teachers die of starvation.
Under the terms of the Constitution of 1857,
reiterated also by that of Queretaro, "no one
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 93
can be compelled to render services without just
compensation, "except in specific cases in which
that of the school teachers was not included.
Therefore, in spite of being employees
of the government, they had the right to dis-
continue their services, since they were not
remunerated and sad experience gave them no
guaranties that they would be remunerated
in the future. Even the letter of the law,
in the Bolshevik Constitution of 1917, sup-
ported them in their stand.
But the letter of the law is worthless when
it is not animated by the spirit, and in the
spirit of the Constitution of 1917, there is no
true love for the poor but useful classes. In
the soul of the government emanating from
that Constitution, there is also no sympathy
towards them; there is envy and there are
grudges against other classes; there are ambi-
tions of a faction which yesterday was with-
out caste and today is feudal.
About two weeks ago the school teachers of
Los Angeles gathered together and decided
in view of the present high cost of living,
to ask for a raise in salary, with the under-
standing that if it were not granted they
would not renew their contracts for the next
scholastic year.
94 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
This action of the teachers awakened
nothing but sympathy among all the social
classes and in every rank of community;
and the Board of Education had to pass
favorably upon the request.
Such is the course taken by governments
when guided by considerations of equity and
national interest; they submit to the dictates
of public opinion.
In Mexico, the decision of the teachers to
discontinue their services because their salaries
were not paid, far from being favorably
received by public officials, is classified as
rebellion and as vicious behavior. At the
same time that the Secretary of the Treasury
denies to teachers the right to feed themselves
and to live, a right which can be denied to no
human being, the Secretary of the Interior
feels no scruples against condemning the
teachers to perish from starvation, because
"the Federal Government was obliged to
adopt the resolution recommended by the
Secretary of the Treasury as a result of the
increase in the salaries of the army." And
the teachers not only fail to receive salaries,
but are even threatened with criminal prosecu-
tion for leaving their posts.
From the Federal budget of 203,000,000
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 95
pesos* for the year 1919, deducting 25 per
cent, discount made by the Government in
salaries, we can calculate an actual expenditure
of not more than 190,000,000 pesos, of which
the amount of 134,000,000 pesos was devoted
to the support of the army, to the support of a
caste armed, voracious, insatiable and oppres-
sive. And on the other hand, there cannot
be spared annually 3,500,000 pesos for the
maintenance of all the government schools
in the Federal District.
*The Mexican peso is equivalent to about 50c. in U. S. mooey.
CHAPTER IX
IT is a well-known fact that communal
property has been the first legal form of land
occupation when people have abandoned
nomadic life to establish themselves in settle-
ments. It is also well known that family
property marks the second stage of this
social institution. And, finally, no one is
ignorant of the fact that in a higher state of
evolution, family property has become in-
dividual property, and thus the latter is
sanctioned by all modern peoples.
This transformation of landed property
has not been a casual phenomenon. It is the
inevitable result of the law of the economy of
forces which governs super-human organisms
as w^ell as man and sub-human organisms.
Collective property stifles individual in-
itiative, individual interest, individual in-
telligence; in one word, all of the motive
forces which contribute to improved pro-
duction. For example, in recent times we
can cite those corporations endowed with
entailed properties which strangle wealth
by mortmain.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 97
Individual property offers to the owner,
the benefits which may result from his
activity, intelligence and economy, and for
that reason is the form most appropriate for
stimulating the constant improvement of
the land, its economic exploitation, and the
increase of its produce. The result is not
only beneficial to the proprietor but to the
community as well.
The constituents of 1857, firm believers in
individual property, recognized it, providing
in article 27 that "private property cannot
be expropriated without the consent of the
individual.
Individual property is, nevertheless, a social
institution; it is recognized not only be-
cause it is beneficial to individuals, but also
because it is convenient and advantageous to
society. Consequently, if society needs spe-
cifically certain property of public utility,
it ought to have the right to take possession
of it; otherwise, the interest of the individual
would be above the interest of the community,
and the right of the individual would sur-
mount the right of the community.
The fundamental task is to find the equation
which will limit to strict necessity the right
of society to take possession of private
98 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
property without impairing the right of the
individual more than is strictly necessary.
The Constitution of 1857 admirably solved
this problem, subjecting expropriation to three
conditions: the need of the property for
public utility, the indemnification of the
owner, and the payment in advance of said
indemnity.
Public utility is the only valid reason for
setting aside private utility; it is the only
valid reason for converting private property
into social property.
The legislative body, proceeding from an
election, which represents all social classes
and interests, and which has charge of defining
these, is the body authorized to determine
the public utilities. According to the Consti-
tution of 1857, therefore, it belongs to the
law, that is, to the legislative power, to deter-
mine the necessary requisites for expropriation
among which is included the cause of public
utility. The intervention of the legislative
power in a really democratic organization
removes the fear that expropriation may
only serve as a pretext for a single man or
a small group of men to despoil private
citizens whether impelled by covetousness or
unsound personal passions.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 99
Naturally, from the moment when the
democratic principles of a Constitution begin
to degenerate, and by the granting of extra-
ordinary powers the fundamental prerogative
of law-making passes from the Legislative
body to the Executive, the essential guarantee
to private property disappears and in its
place appears the first danger.
The second requisite is relative to the
indemnity. In case of expropriation, society
has an interest in taking possession of a
specific property in order to convert it, also
specifically, into an object of public utility.
If there were any other way of obtaining the
same service, there would be no necessity for
expropriation. But, although the State has
the right to take possession specifically of
property, and to deprive the owner of its use
and disposition because social interest demands
it, this same social interest demands that the
proprietor be indemnified. Only on that
condition can man feel that his property is
his own and have an inducement for improv-
ing its condition and productivity. From
these facts, we deduce that indemnity must
be real, effective and correspond to the
commercial value of the property expropriated.
If less is paid, the proprietor is not only dis-
100 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
possessed of his property, but he is also
unjustly despoiled of a part of his patrimony.
The man whose property is expropriated,
is not fully indemnified merely by having
its value put to his credit, but it should be
paid for in cash, before he is deprived of its
possession. In that way there will never be
plunder. Moreover, as long as society is
obliged to pay the owner the real value of the
property prior to its occupation, the power of
expropriation will always be limited by the
financial resources of the State, and this
restraint will prevent abuse; but from the
moment public authority is authorized to
expropriate without previously paying the
indemnity, there is no possible limit either
to the determination of public utilities or to
the consequent expropriations; in exchange
for real property of great cash value, the
State w r ill contract obligations or will issue
bonds which will depreciate the more the
greater they are in amount. And the same
thing will happen with expropriation that
happens with inflated issues of paper money
which, at bottom, are nothing more than
plunder.
The Constitution of 1857 prescribed the
aforementioned restraints against the abuse of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 101
expropriation for it required the intervention
of the legislators in the determination of the
public utility; it indemnified the owner with
the payment in cash of the real value of the
property expropriated, and, finally, it exacted
that the payment of the said indemnity should
be in advance. Subsidiary laws demanded
the appraisement by experts to determine
the value in case of disagreement in the price,
and went so far as to refuse to authorize even
temporary occupation, unless the approximate
value of the property had been previously
deposited.
The Constitution of Queretaro contains no
effective limitation to the right of expro-
priation other than to state that it is the duty
of the legislative power to determine the cases
where the occupation of private property is of
public utility; but a very elastic law for the
determination of those cases will suffice.
Of this, we already have concrete examples
in various States of the Republic where
the Executive power, whether Federal or
local, exerts the most stupendous discretionary
power over private property.
In fact, as concerns indemnity, the para-
graph immediately following part VII of
Article 27 of the Constitution of Queretaro
102 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
states that "the price that shall be fixed as
indemnity for property expropriated shall be
based on the amount recorded as its fiscal
value in the assessor's office, whether this
value has been declared by the proprietor
or simply accepted tacitly by his having
paid the taxes on this basis. This amount
shall be increased 10 per cent."
If there existed in the Mexican Republic a
fiscal appraisement scientifically and system-
atically verified; if this fiscal appraisement
showed with real exactness the value of each
and every piece of real property, taking into
account its location, its use, the composition
of its soil, and other particulars, the rational
and equitable basis for the expropriation of
landed property would be the assessor's
appraisement. But there is no fiscal census
in the Mexican Republic; taxation there
has been based traditionally upon the declara-
tion made by the owner, especially in the case
of agricultural lands; those declarations have
never given the genuine value of the property
simply because the proprietor who declared
truthfully would have been sacrified to the
rest. The men who drew up the Constitution
of 1917 could not be ignorant of these facts
if they knew anything at all, but in spite of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 103
this, they fixed as a basis for indemnification
in case of expropriation, the value declared for
taxes or accepted for that purpose; that is,
25 per cent or at most 30 per cent of the real
value, commercial or for exchange. The
Assembly of Queretaro proclaimed, therefore,
as one of the constitutional canons of the
nation the systematic plunder of individuals
under the semblance of expropriation.
Just as dangerous, and perhaps more so, is
the unlimited power with which the State
has been vested in the matter of expropriation,
by the simple fact that the indemnity need
not, according to the second paragraph of
Article 27, be paid in advance. The State
can expropriate today and pay in twenty years.
Is this expropriation or spoliation?
It would be inexpedient, absurd, and even
preposterous to re-establish communal owner-
ship of land, as there is no doubt it would
mean a return to the stagnation which
characterized the mortmain; but it at least
could be argued that by depriving individuals
of their property, rightly or wrongly, the
community could use it for the benefit of all.
The system adopted by the new constitu-
tion is worse, far worse, than the long-since
extinct communal system. On the one hand
104 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
it recognizes the existence of private property,
thereby failing to place all property, rightly
or wrongly, at the service of the community;
and on the other hand, all lands are virtually
considered liable to seizure by the community.
In this way, their value is reduced, the oppor-
tunities for their division and subdivision are
removed, the investment of capital for their
improvement, which is an indispensable con-
dition by which they can be parcelled out, is
prevented, and agriculture remains stationary.
When the fondest hope in case of expropria-
tion consists in receiving in worthless paper
money nominally 25 per cent or 30 per cent
of the real value of the property, it is humanly
impossible to expect the owner to stake work or
money on the land.
Therefore, the system of landed property
under the Constitution of Queretaro is not
properly individualistic, since it offers no real
guarantee to the individual owner; neither is
it communal, since it does not place property
at the direct service of the community.
It is simply and solely a system of establish-
ed spoliation, for it upholds, under the guise
of a constitutional system, the program of
seizure of property and robberies which the
"armed citizens" carried through during the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 105
period of revolution. And the "armed citi-
zens" who are today called public officials-
have admirably interpreted the spirit of their
constitution.
Alvaro Obregon, who knows his colleagues
well and intimately, says that the leaders of
the Revolution, "very especially those of
the highest ranks," have diverged from the
road of high principles "to follow that which
leads to wealth and power, taking advantage
of the prestige gained by combined effort,
to acquire fortunes and commit excesses,"
and "many of the men of high rank, both
military and civil, have completely deadened
the aims of the revolutionary movement"
(I would say, had literally followed the
purposes of the Carrancista movement) "de-
voting all their activities to acquiring
fortunes. "*
*See alto the following statements taken from an interview given to "The
Time*," of Los Angeles, by P. Elias Calles, on April 26, 1920:
"Daring my short stay as a member of the Carrancista Cabinet I had the
best opportunity to persuade myself of the immorality of government pro-
ceedings and how a corrupt coterie labors with such an unscrupulous man,
headed by his chief of staff. Gen. Juan Barragan.
"Right there in the chief of staff's office, everything is a matter of specula-
tion. They sell government positions and concessions of all kinds and robberies
of the public funds are authorized; they speculate with the bonds of officers
and chiefs of the army and even with the pensions of widows and orphans of
soldiers of the revolution which are subject to a charge of a commission by the
authorized Barragan."
CHAPTER X
AT THE end of the year 1916, the civil
elements of the Carrancista faction, few and
of little importance, had clustered around
the only two centers of material force, the
political, which was personified in Carranza,
and the military, which at that time was
controlled by ten or twelve generals of the
powerful caste of "armed citizens."
Those who placed themselves under the
protection of Carranza declared themselves
opposed to militarism; but their real intention
was to have Carranza gain the Presidency
of the Republic, first having strengthened
and increased the prerogatives of the Presi-
dent, because upon the political strength of
their protector depended the success of their
personal ambitions.
Such were the civil constituents that helped
Carranza frame the Constitution, and, there-
fore, it is not to be wondered at that in it
appear only one or two insignificant inno-
vations for social and economic order. The
main object of Carranza and his personal
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 107
friends was to organize constitutional tyranny
so as to assure the greatest amount of political
power. I shall discuss later on that part of
the Constitution of Queretaro which increases
the co-legislative prerogatives of the President
of the Republic, which invests him with
judicial powers, and which finally makes
him immune even in the most serious cases of
violation of the Constitution.
As to the armed caste and their civilian
followers, little did they care about political
power so long as they controlled the military
force as if it were their private property.
After having dedicated themselves during the
revolutionary campaign to the work of plun-
der, devastation and seizure of property,
what they sought was to organize those
transgressions under constitutional law.
This explains why the so-called Liberal
Constitutionalist Party, which was nothing
more than the staff of the caste of "armed
citizens" initiated and supported in the
Congress of Queretaro the most radical meas-
ures against economic liberty, particularly
against property, for their object in socializing
property and labor was to place all the
resources of the country under the control
of their caste.
108 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
If the motives of these two groups of the
Congress of Queretaro had been altruistic,
neither the extremes of absolutism proposed
in the political system by the First Chief nor
the extremes of plunder and arbitrariness
formulated in the economic social system by
the neo-military caste would have been reach-
ed. One group would have served as a check
on the other. But the Congress was, for
the greater part, composed of men who had
lost caste, and the temperament of its members
is summed up in the following words of
Congressman Manjarrez: "I think the Com-
mittee should accept the motion of Mr.
Lizardi with all the more reason because the
radical spirit of the Assembly, which applauds
the suggestions of the Committee, knows how
to add to radicalism, but not how to subtract
from it. Those things which are to be added
are accepted, but not those to be subtracted."
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 796).
Thus it happened that the personal pro-
tegees of Carranza who formed a part of the
Congress of Queretaro allowed the most
illegal measures against economic liberty and
property to be passed, so long as they ob-
tained political changes in favor of the
Executive, and the armed Soviets did not
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 109
object to these political changes so long as
they assured success to their measure for
spoliation.
Congressman Rouaix, in union with others,
presented in the session of January 25th, 1917,
an amendment to Article 27, part X, which
declared in favor of the direct control by
the nation of petroleum, solid, liquid and
gaseous hydrocarbons, and other products
of the soil or sub-soil. 'The right of owner-
ship thus conceived," says the amendment,
"is notably progressive and allows the Nation
to retain under its dominion everything neces-
sary for social development, such as mines,
petroleum deposits, etc., granting to individu-
als on that property nothing but the beneficial
interests authorized by the respective laws.
The first part of the text which w r e present
for Article 27 gives a clear idea of what we
propose and parts X and XI express very
precisely the nature of the rights reserved."
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, Ap., p. XXX).
Little urging did the reporting Committee
need to adopt this veiled transgression, for
in the session of the 29th of January it pre-
sented a new draft of Article 27 substantially
incorporating into it the ideas of the above-
mentioned amendment. As to the socializa-
110 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
tion of the petroleum, hydrocarbons, combusti-
ble minerals, and other substances of the soil
and sub-soil, the Committee did not believe
it necessary to incorporate the radical reform
proposed, limiting itself to stating the follow-
ing: "It is a principle admitted without
contradiction that the eminent domain of
Mexican lands belongs primarily to the Nation.
That what constitutes and has constituted
private property is the right which the Nation
has ceded to individuals, the granting of
which cannot include the right to the product of
the sub-soil," (Why? it is not said) "nor
to the waters as routes of communication.
In practice, great difficulties are encountered
in trying to specify the natural resources
which are eliminated from private property:
the Committee considers acceptable on this
point the ideas expounded by Congressman
Rouaix". (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II,
p. 772).
In consequence, the Committee proposed
the following measures as part of Article 27:
"The direct domain over all minerals or
substances which form deposits in veins,
strata, lumps, or beds, the nature of which is
distinct from the component parts of the soil,
belongs to the Nation. Such are: minerals
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 111
from which are extracted metals and metalloids
utilized in industry; deposits of precious
stones, rock-salt, and the salt-pans formed
directly by sea-water; products derived from
the decomposition of rocks when their ex-
traction involves subterranean works, phos-
phates fit for utilization as fertilizers; com-
bustible solid minerals; petroleum, and all
the carbonates of hydrogen solid, liquid, or
gaseous.
"In the cases referred to in the two pre-
ceding paragraphs, the domain of the Nation
is inalienable and imprescriptible and con-
cessions can be made by the Federal Govern-
ment only to individuals or to civil or commer-
cial companies formed in accordance with the
laws of Mexico on condition that regular works
for the exploitation of the referred -to ele-
ments be established and the requisites pro-
vided by law be complied with."
From a legal standpoint, the question which
related to the products derived from the
decomposition of rocks, phosphates, com-
bustible minerals, solid, liquid or gaseous,
including coal, petroleum, and hydrocarbon-
ates, was simple. Not only the eminent
domain, but also the civil, of all the national
lands had belonged originally to the Crown
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
of Spain, and from it had passed, by virtue
of the independence of New Spain, to the
Mexican Nation. Therefore, when the direct
ownership of the soil or the sub-soil of said
lands was transferred to private individuals
by grace, sale or special concession from the
Crown or from the independent government
of Mexico, or, by general provision of the law,
that soil or subsoil was converted into private
property 9 the Government could no longer
claim civil domain, direct or indirect, over it,
excepting only that domain which is known
as sovereignty.
To refuse to recognize private property
which by an act of the Crown or the national
government had passed from civil ownership
by the State was nothing more than unquali-
fied spoliation.
Now then, such was the case with coal,
petroleum, carbonates of hydrogen and other
substances of the soil and sub-soil. The
Nation, owner of these riches, had renounced
them and converted them into private property
by an act of its sovereign will.
The law of the 22nd of November, 1884,
declared in its Article 10 that salts, petroleum,
gaseous springs, and springs of thermal or
medicinal waters, were the property of the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 113
owner of the surface. From that time, there-
fore, the State ceased to be the owner of those
substances and only under claim of expropria-
tion and with the corresponding indemnity,
could it have regained them from their new
owners.
The law of June 4th, 1892, definitely de-
clared, in its 4th article, that the owner of
the surface could exploit freely, without
necessity of concession, combustibles, oils,
and mineral waters.
Finally, the law of November 25th, 1909,
stated in its Article 2:
"The following are the exclusive property
of the owner of the soil:
"I. Seams or deposits of combustible min-
erals in all their forms and varieties.
"II. Seams or deposits of bituminous
substances.
"III. Seams or deposits of salts which
come to the surface.
"IV. Superficial and subterranean waters
subject only to what may be regulated by
public rights and the special laws relating to
water without detriment to the provision of
Article 9.
"V. Rocks and other materials in the
soil such as slate, porphyry, basalts, and
calcium carbonate, earth, sand, and clay.
114 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
"VI. Marsh and alluvial iron, alluvial
tin, and ochres."
Trusting to these legal precepts, extensive
enterprises for the exploration of the carbonif-
erous and petroleum zones of the country had
been launched prior to 1917; immense sums
of money had been invested in those enter-
prises, in the drilling of wells, the construction
of buildings, the installation of machinery,
pumping stations, oil ducts, wharves, and
other accessories, the investments being esti-
mated at something more than two hundred
millions of dollars; the greater part of which
was American, English, French and Dutch
capital. In some instances, the surface of
the land had been acquired in ownership;
in other instances, contracts for the leasing or
exploitation of the sub-soil had been closed,
and the owners of the surface had been
receiving incomes of varying amounts from
rentals or royalties.
The proposed draft of Article 27 meant,
consequently, not only an illegal spoliation of
the individual owners of the lands, and for
the same reason of the combustible wealth of
the sub -soil according to the laws previously
passed, but also a spoliation of the exploitation
rights acquired by the concerns operating.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 115
The draft was, in addition, of an eminently
retroactive nature unless its application were
to be restricted exclusively to those lands,
such as waste and national lands, the control
of which had not as yet been transmitted to
individuals by the State, or public property or
property of common use over which the State
had not ceased to exercise direct ownership.
And the proposed amendment was not only
despoiling and retroactive, but it was also
absolutely anti-economic, because the country,
impoverished by the revolution, needed the
inflow of foreign capital, whereas the threat of
socialization could have no other effect than
to drive away new investments.
Finally, the amendment was most dangerous
to the stability of national sovereignty be-
cause, as affecting foreign interests and rights
in an in justifiable way, it must surely bring
remonstrances from the respective govern-
ments.
Nothing, however, deterred the so-called
Constituents of Queretaro. Paragraph 4 of
the proposed new Article 27, in which was
sanctioned the socialization of petroleum,
coal, hydrocarbons, and other substances of
the soil or sub-soil, was not even lightly
discussed. Upon being re&d once, the rules
116 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
permitting debate were suspended and it was
unanimously approved. (Diario de los De-
bates, Vol. II, pp. 786, 819). Furthermore,
during the sessions of the 29th and 30th at
which Article 27 was voted upon, not a few
of the Congressmen fell asleep. "The Chair-
man," said the Secretary of the Congress,
"begs the Congressmen to keep awake, for from
the very moment that they voted to continue
the permanent session, they assumed the
responsiblity of voting upon this law; as some
of the Congressmen are asleep 9 no one knows
how they can consciously give their votes."
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 807).
Only over paragraph 6 of Article 27 relative
to the conditions by which the State should
agree upon the concession for utilizing the
riches of the sub-soil and the other riches
socialized under paragraphs four and five
was there some discussion. But that debate
was not because any one opposed the plunder,
but because Congressman Ibarra claimed
that the amount of royalty which the govern-
ment was to ask from the grantees as compen-
sation for the right of exploitation should be
determined immediately. If this amount was
not determined upon finally, it was because
Congressman Rouaix, the instigator of the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 117
project and Chairman of the Reporting Com-
mittee, declared this to be matter for sub-
sidiary legislation.
" . . . I believe, " said Rouaix, "that it is
more expedient for the Nation to fix directly
what may seem most profitable. At present,
mines pay a certain per cent for exportation,
and the Nation is authorized to charge up
to one and one-half per cent; I do not think
it would be convenient to fix right now the
sum that should be paid to the Nation, but
believe rather that the case should be studied
thoroughly; then, with completeness of data,
it could be determined what sum should be
paid and whether taxes should be on the profits
or only on the property." (Diario de los
Debates, Vol. II, pp. 786-7).
'The Committee," adds its Chairman,
Congressman Colunga, "does not deem it
necessary to make a constitutional precept
of the addition proposed by Congressman
Ibarra, because it considers it entirely a
subsidiary question. Moreover, the matter
deserves discussion and cannot be lightly
passed upon; besides, the mining law must be
drawn up by the Congress of the Union; it is
in that law that Congressman Ibarra's idea
can preferably be incorporated without the
118 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
necessity of making it a constitutional pre-
cept."
In other words, the essential question,
that concerning the exploitation of the owners
of petroleum and coal and the retroactivity
of the provision by which those owners were
despoiled, could be lightly passed upon without
meriting discussion in the Assembly of Quere-
taro.
The sentiment, essentially Bolshevik and
Jingoish, which prevailed in that Assembly,
is perfectly summed up in the following words
of Deputy Jara: "I believe that the Com-
mittee is now in the right, it has played its
part, it has attempted to defend the father-
land, and, finally, it has tried to secure the
Mexican property -holder against the plunder
to which he has been a victim in former years.
The petroleum regions are very much coveted ;
many measures, many evil practices, many
influences, are brought to bear so that owner-
ship of these lands may be acquired; we have
observed that a good part of the cantons of
Tuxpam and Minatitlan have passed with
extraordinary rapidity into the hands of
foreigners, the natives receiving a ridiculously
low amount. This property has passed into
the hands of the foreigners under atrocious
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 119
and fatal conditions, to such an extent that
any foreigner who has a small property for
which he has paid a few dollars feels that,
when his sovereign will is not done, he has
the right to obtain foreign force to secure
recognition for his rights of ownership ac-
quired by a truly ridiculous amount of
money. (Applause)." (Diario de los De-
bates, Vol. II, p. 789). And further on the
same Jara adds: "Now is the time to take
radical measures to correct these evils, now
is the time for us to dictate solid and wise
bases for action in the future, and to assure
a bright prospect for the country, we should
not be deterred by scruples, but, rather, we
should go forward. If we are to have inter-
national difficulties because some chapters of
the Constitution are distasteful to foreigners,
we shall not escape these difficulties by
omitting some chapters, nor will the difficul-
ties be increased if we add another chapter;
rest assured that if through perfidy or through
eagerness for expansion, they wish to oppose
the carrying out of this proposition, with our
Constitution or without it, this country will
come to war; therefore, let us not be deterred;
let us as Mexicans perform our duty, and on
signing our Constitution, let us fix our eyes
120 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
only on our own tri-colored flag and not have
before us that of the Stars and Stripes.
(Applause)." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II,
p.791).
Much to our sorrow, we know the result of
this Constitutional amendment; instead of
asserting the dignity and sovereignty of
Mexico, it has brought the country to the
brink of international conflicts; instead of
assuring its prosperity, it has diminished, in
fact, almost annihilated, its power for drawing
foreign capital.
Weighed down by economic penury, harass-
ed by the diplomatic protests of the American,
English, and French Governments in their
notes of April 2nd, June 29th, April 30th, and
May 13th, 1918, respectively, the Carrancista
Government has done nothing but commit
errors in the petroleum matter.
It issued its decree on the 19th of February,
1918, modified it on the 18th of the following
May, changed it again on the 8th of July,
and the 8th of August of the same year; issued
the decrees of July 31st and August 12th and,
finally, in December of last year submitted
to Congress for approval a proposed by-law
to Article 27 without satisfying the foreign
governments whose attitude is that the right
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
of ownership of the sub -soil which legally
belongs to the owners of the surface, be
respected, and that the legitimacy and irre-
vocability of the contracts for lease and ex-
ploitation closed by those same owners, be
likewise recognized.
And the Carrancista Government has had
to bear a suspension of relations with France
and England, the slight to Ambassador Pani,
who was made to wait four months in the
antechambers of the Quai d'Orsay, the ex-
clusion of Mexico from the League of Nations,
and the mendicant mission of Candido Aguilar,
son-in-law of Carranza and confidential envoy
to the Department of State in Washington,
who went to the American Capital to learn
under what terms the proposed Petroleum
Law would be acceptable to it.
Such have been the deplorable results and
we do not as yet know what extremes they
will yet reach of the Bolshevik and Jingoish
spirit of the so-called Constituents of Quere-
taro, well synthesized in the fourth and
sixth paragraphs of the famous Article 27
of the Constitution of 1917.
CHAPTER XI
WE MUST now turn to the analysis of the
provisions contained in Sections I and IV of
Article 27 which introduce certain legal in-
capabilities for the acquisition of landed
property.
These sections read as follows:
"I. Only Mexicans by birth or naturaliza-
tion and Mexican companies have the right
to acquire ownership in lands, waters and their
appurtenances, or to obtain concessions to
develop mines, waters or mineral fuels in
the Republic of Mexico. The Nation may
grant the same right to foreigners, provided
they agree before the Department of Foreign
Affairs to be considered Mexicans in respect
to such property, and accordingly not to in-
voke the protections of their Governments in
respect to the same, under penalty, in case of
breach, of forfeiture to the Nation of property
so acquired. Within a zone of 100 kilometers
from the sea-coast, no foreigner shall under
any conditions acquire direct ownership of
lands and waters.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 123
"IV. Commercial stock companies shall
not acquire, hold or administer rural proper-
ties. Companies of this nature which may be
organized to develop any manufacturing,
mining, petroleum or other industries, may
acquire, hold, or administer lands only in an
area absolutely necessary for their establish-
ments or adequate to serve the purposes in-
dicated, which the Executive of the Union or
of the respective State in each case shall
determine. "
Nobody can deny to a Nation the right to
restrict either by its constitution or by its
subsidiary laws, the foreigner's legal capacity
to acquire landed property. International
tradition and doctrine as well recognize such
right.
It is also indisputable that the Nation has
the right of determining by either its consti-
tutional or its subsidiary laws under what
conditions corporations of any kind may be
formed and to what extent their capacity to
acquire or hold real or personal property shall
be limited or denied for the welfare of the
community.
The important thing is to know whether
these restrictions redound to the social welfare
or whether they place obstacles in its way.
124 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The restrictions against the acquisition of
real estate by foreigners can be upheld on
the ground of economic order. Such, for
example, is the attitude in the State of
California towards the Japanese, whose com-
mercial competition is considered detrimental.
Again, the restrictions may be founded
upon reasons having to do with the foreign
policy, whether of reprisal or with a view to
preventing in certain regions the formation
of foreign colonies which might easily give
rise to international complications. For that
reason one of our fundamental policies for the
preservation of public order has been to pro-
hibit foreigners in general from acquiring
property in the frontier zones.
Section I, Article 27 which relates to the
direct domain over lands and waters within a
zone of 100 kms. along the line of the frontier,
reproduces the prohibition already established
by subsidiary legislation. However, in the
new Constitution the prohibition is absolute,
while our previous laws authorized the Ex-
ecutive Power to concede permits in excep-
tional cases.
The section we have been considering
furthermore prohibits all foreigners to acquire
lands or waters situated within a zone fifty
miles from the sea-coast.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 125
As the Mexican coasts have a length of
8,330 kms., the prohibited zone covers 441,500
square kilometers, or 22% of the total area
of the Republic, which, added to the frontier
zone of 100 kilometers also prohibited, em-
braces 40% of the total area.
Over this enormous surface lie rich lands
fit for agriculture and cattle-raising. It con-
tains also great latent industrial potentialities,
for beneath it are rich beds of mineral ore,
coal and combustible liquid.
The development of all these riches is of
the greatest importance to the country and
whatever tends to thwart it retards the pro-
gress and detrimentally affects the welfare
of its inhabitants.
Could it possibly be argued that our exten-
sive frontier zone and our still more extensive
sea-coast zone, deprived of the benefits of
foreign capital are already being exploited or
are on the road to complete development?
Or could anyone assert that national capital
has already acquired the spirit of enterprise,
or that it is sufficient in amount to supplant
foreign capital or make the investment of such
unnecessary?
The framers of Section I of Article 27 did
not ask themselves these questions nor did
126 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
they believe them pertinent. Had they sought
facts, they would have learned that a great
portion, or rather the greater portion of the
frontier and sea-coast zones is wholly or
largely undeveloped through lack of money;
they would have ascertained that Mexican
capital which only yesterday began to quicken
with a new impulse of commercial and in-
dustrial life, today is absolutely idle as a result
of the revolution, and, finally, they would
have realized that all Mexican capital com-
bined is but a drop in the bucket when com-
pared with the immense amount of money
which our latent resources require for their
development.
Section IV, above quoted, of the same
Article 27, aggravates still further a situation
which in itself is baneful enough.
Referring to the provisions of the Constitu-
tion which prohibit all civil and commercial
enterprises from acquiring ownership of rural
property, the First Chief says in explana-
tion: "The need of this change is self-
evident, for no one is unaware that the
clergy, incapable of acquiring landed property,
has mocked the prohibition contained in the
law by hiding behind stock companies; and
as these companies have undertaken the busi-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 127
ness of acquiring extensive lands in the Mexi-
can Republic, it has become necessary to place
a quick and effective check upon this evil,
otherwise it would not take long for our land
to be, openly or under cover, in the hands of
foreigners." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I.,
p. 265.)
Thus it was that with the sole purpose of
preventing religious institutions and foreigners
from evading the constitutional restrictions,
the First Chief proposed that there should
be denied to every kind of corporation or
company the right to acquire rural lands,
although such denial could not but put an end
to all agricultural progress.
It was fortunate that the Assembly of
Queretaro confined this prohibitive clause to
stock companies, and that in spite of identity
of purpose, it did not make it include urban
property, factories, foundries and industrial
plants of various kinds.
In the last years of peace and tranquility,
the formation of stock companies brought
about powerful help in the way of irrigating,
improving and cultivating lands. Along the
whole length of the frontiers and coasts and
in the interior of the Republic, there are
scattered important enterprises which were
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
organized as stock companies and which are
responsible for the launching of prosperous
agricultural undertakings where formerly there
were only deserts or untilled lands.
As proof of this assertion, we can point to
the cotton fields of Lower California and the
basin of the Nazas ; the sugar-cane plantations
on the slopes of Sinaloa and along the Gulf
of Mexico; the coffee plantations in the tropi-
cal regions of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas ;
the great saw -mills turning out wood of com-
mon use in all parts of the country and those
milling rarer woods in the isthmian region and
the State of Tabasco, and many other enter-
prises of similar character.
All these are prohibited in the future!
Bolshevik logic, Jingoish logic, permits of
no debate. Rather than allow the Catholic
Church, which recognizes as its head a foreign
Pope, and rather than allow men of enter-
prise from foreign countries to acquire any
right whatsoever in Mexican land, four-tenths
of the native soil must remain barren and
fifteen million Mexicans must continue to go
hungry and naked.
CHAPTER XII
As WE have pointed out in the preceding
chapter, Section IV of Article 27 of the
Constitution of 1917, is one of the most for-
midable existing obstacles to the agricultural
development of Mexico, particularly in the
coast and frontier zones.
However, the baneful effects of that section
go still further, for they extend to all enter-
prises organized for manufacturing, mining,
the extraction of petroleum and similar in-
dustries.
The First Chief orginally drew up this sec-
tion in the following terms: "Civil and com-
mercial companies may possess, within or
without the limits of any town, urban prop-
erties, factories, industrial enterprises, plants
for the exploitation of minerals, petroleum or
any other substances of the subsoil, as well as
railroads and pipe-lines; but they cannot
acquire or operate rural properties in a larger
area than that strictly necessary for the
purposes above mentioned, which area shall
be fixed by the Executive in each instance."
130 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The text finally approved by the Assembly
of Queretaro reads as follows: "IV. Com-
mercial stock companies shall not acquire,
hold or administer rural properties. Com-
panies of this nature which may be organized
to develop any manufacturing, mining, petro-
leum or other industry, excepting only agri-
cultural industries, may acquire, hold or ad-
minister lands only in an area absolutely
necessary for their establishments or adequate
to serve the purposes indicated which the
Executive of the Union or of the respective
State in each case shall determine.
The approved clause, therefore, confines
only to commercial stock companies the in-
ability to acquire rural lands while the pro-
posed clause included all kinds of companies,
civil as well as commercial. But, although
from this point of view the approved restric-
tion is less of an obstruction than that pro-
posed to the Assembly by the First Chief, on
the other hand it allows greater opportuni-
ties for abuse, since it confers not only upon
the Executive of the Nation, but also upon
the Executives of the States the power to
limit the area of the lands permitted to
be acquired for undertakings not of an agri-
cultural nature.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 131
A mining enterprise, a foundry, any in-
dustrial plant whatsoever, needs vast areas of
land, determined in accordance with the
nature or importance of the business, for the
installation of machinery, the building of
side-tracks, the erection of warehouses, office
buildings, dwellings for the laborers, and other
requisites.
And in the case of many mining enterprises,
plants for working and refining the ores must
also be erected when transportation for such
purpose is impracticable.
For other enterprises, the amount of land
required is even less easily to be determined.
For the extraction of petroleum, for instance,
the construction of tanks erected at points
determined by experts is necessary and rights -
of-way for the laying of pipe-lines from the
wells to the storage tanks, and thence to
the places of shipment, are first requirements.
The area allowed any of the industrial
plants mentioned affects primarily the success
or failure of the enterprise because the plant
must be a harmonious unit, and the incapa-
city of any one part must necessarily reduce
the working efficiency of the other parts.
It will avail nothing for a mining concern
to uncover abundant ore deposits, if it can-
132 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
not hold enough land for a refining plant,
when the quality of the ore is poor and can-
not stand the cost of transportation. This
means that if the enterprise does not possess
enough water on its own land for working
the metals, it is obliged to get it somewhere
else, even though to do so it must acquire
the water-bearing lands and construct aque-
ducts over one or several properties.
It would be useless for a petroleum com-
pany to sink oil wells of great promise if it
has not the land necessary for storing the
product and removing it from the place where
it flows to the railroads or steamers which
must carry it to the markets.
Nevertheless, the constitutional restriction
which we have been considering, places all
these enterprises at the mercy of the arbitrary
judgment of the Executive, whether of the
Nation or of the States.
In other words, it will not be the organizers
or managers who will be the judges of the land
area necessary for the success of the business,
but irresponsible public officials in whom class
prejudices, political animosities, or a desire
to defraud, will give rise to grave errors and
injustices.
Let the President of the Republic, or the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 133
Governor of a State, availing himself of the
power which the Constitutional law gives him,
limit to less than a required amount the land
to be allowed an industrial plant, and failure
will inevitably follow.
Furthermore, on starting a business, not
only the present is to be taken into account-
such short-sightedness would be unthinkable
in men of enterprise but also, and much
more seriously, the future with all the pros-
pects of development which it holds.
If the Executive, Federal or local, has a
restricted vision, he will concede to this class
of enterprise only the area of land essential
for their actual needs, and will thus condemn
the business to remain stationary, when it is
to the interest, not alone of the capitalists,
but of the country as a whole, to encourage
constant progress and the increase of produc-
tive labor.
Not a few industrial plants in the Mexican
Republic are installed in isolated places,
having no access to public highways or rail-
roads, and consequently are forced to supply,
of themselves, the daily wants of their people.
We have numerous enough examples of in-
dustrial enterprises which have found them-
selves obliged to undertake farming work in
134 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
the center of uncultivated lands so as to
provide their employees with vegetables, milk
and other perishable foods. The production
of these articles of prime necessity cannot be
left to contingencies dependent upon the
individual efforts of the occasional farmer who
may settle there. Such production is in-
dispensable to the existence of the community
built up by an industry, and this industry
must commercially depend only upon itself
if it does not want to run the risk of having
its work abandoned for lack of articles needed
for the sustenance of its employees.
In the case of these isolated industries, as
in those previously mentioned, the result often
is that the enterprises are implacably sacri-
ficed to an oppressive bureaucracy.
Experience has likewise shown that some
industries need certain agricultural products,
the cultivation of which is just beginning or
is not known in the country; such is the case
with hops and malt barley, essential to the
manufacture of beer. If they are not to
exist precariously, it is necessary for the in-
dustries to encourage and even to undertake
on their own account those branches of agri-
culture upon which they are dependent.
The constitutional law which we have been
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 135
considering, definitely stands in the way of
such a solution of the problem.
The objections to this law could be multi-
pled, but all can be resolved into one con-
clusion ; the immediate success, and more than
that, the future development, of industrial
enterprises of any character, is made de-
pendent upon the arbitrary judgment of
one irresponsible public official, inasmuch as
the President of the Republic and the Gov-
ernors of the States not the managers of
the industry are empowered by the Con-
stitution to measure and judge the technical
needs of those enterprises.
It is unthinkable that the productive capac-
ity of a country should be limited by the
errors, prejudices or passions of this or that pub-
lic official, and it is likewise unthinkable that
the development of its potentialities should
depend upon the will of a tyrant-in-chief and
twenty-eight sub-tyrants even though we
suppose them incorruptible.
But we must not forget what these men are
and have been; what lusts launched them into
the revolution; what numerous evidences of
voracity they have shown during their tenure
of office; nor must we forget that if, in every
public administration, there exist corruptible
136 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
elements, these are innumerable and un-
bridled where, as in Mexico, there is not the
restraint of public opinion. A precept, there-
fore, which places in their hands the success
or failure of immense capital invested in in-
dustries cannot but be, as it has been, an
irresistible instrument of abuse, extortion
and betrayal.
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE analysis of Article 27 of the Carran-
cista Constitution, it remains for us to con-
sider the problem of the distribution of land.
There can be no doubt of the existence of
this problem nor of the fact that its solution is
urgent, if there is a desire to increase the
possibilities of agricultural productivity and
stably improve the condition of the rural
masses. But in order to solve it properly, it
is necessary to examine its very roots with the
impartiality of a scientific study, and not
attend merely to the surface. Solely in that
way will the cause of the evil be removed, and
more serious evils avoided than those which
are to be corrected.
The unequal distribution of lands in the
Republic of Mexico originates in the form in
which these lands were reduced to private
property during the colonial period.
Taking as a basis the famous bull of Pope
Alexander VI, which gave to the Crown of
Spain as civil property, and at the same time
gave it political dominion over the territory
138 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
west of the Pontifical Meridian, the system
adopted by the mother country embraced five
general kinds of grants, to-wit:
1. It recognized the right of established
native towns (pueblos de indios), to the lands
of which they were in communal possession
at the time of the conquest, and it favored the
conquest or submission of wild Indians by
the creation of new towns endowed with
patrimonial lands. These endowments con-
sisted generally in the "fundo legal" (town-
site) destined to serve as the seat of the manor
house with its church and public square; in
those lands, "de repartimiento," which were
distributed among the families of natives for
their use, and in "ejidos" which were lands
for the common use of inhabitants. Occa-
sionally, also, it comprised, under the name of
"parcialidades," certain lands allotted to
Indians, the products of which were to be
used for specific communal expenses. The
natives were forbidden to dispose of the lands
which had been assigned to their heads of
family.
2. It conceded to this or that 'conqueror
the ownership of extensive lands as a reward
of his achievements. Thus, for example, the
"Marquisado del Valle" entailed to the de-
Carranza andJIisJBolshevik Regime 139
scendants of Hernan Cortez, extended over
several thousand square leagues, from the
high plains of the Central Table Lands to the
shores of the Pacific.
3. It gave to the Spaniards, under the
name " encomiendas, " certain kinds of fiefs
granted for life and comprising extensive
lands; also it conferred upon them the right
of exploiting said lands in consideration of
their agreement to give instruction in the
Catholic religion and doctrines to the native
rural population. These fiefs made the in-
habitants (encomendados) veritable slaves of
the soil; the greater part of the fiefs became
hereditary patrimonies and inertia, aided by
traditional conservatism, served to perpetuate
the servitude of the native peons.
4. It rewarded soldiers cavalrymen and
infantrymen-- with relatively small grants
of land under the name of "caballeria" or
"peonia," to be cultivated by the grantees in
compensation for their services.
5. Finally, it transferred lands to indi-
viduals by means of a legal instrument of
conveyance. These transfers which are the
origin of the greater part of Mexican rural
property, embraced immense territorial areas
owing to the small consideration for which
they were made.
140 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The sales, grants, allotments and, in
general, all transfers of land made during the
colonial period always had the very serious
defect of describing the property in vague and
obscure terms, many times indicating only
the location and area. This fault was not
corrected when possession was granted owing
to the ambiguity of measurements, boundaries
and points of record.
The balance of the lands not transferred,
remained civil property of the Crown of Spain,
and for that reason, as the mother country was
continually in need of resources for its con-
stant wars, there was introduced the abusive
system of revision ("composition") of titles for
the purpose of adjusting the amount of land
held by the owners to the dimensions fixed by
the said titles and settling the surplus through
the payment of certain sums of money.
Such is the origin, open to censure from all
points of view, of the system of alienation,
revision, measurement and survey of land,
which rendered property uncertain, all titles
defective, and what is even more serious, all
possession contestable, giving cause or pre-
text for frequent spoliation.
From that time, with the exception of
landed property awarded to towns, territorial
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 141
property in what is today known as the Mexi-
can Republic was marked by "latif undia, "
that is, by lands of considerable area not
available for cultivation except to a mini-
mum degree by its proprietors, a condition
which was accentuated in the course of years,
thanks to unlimited entailment carried through
by the Church in spite of all the restrictions
of the "Leyes de Indias" (Statutes for the
colonies).
It is well to quote, in confirmation of what
precedes, the following data taken from that
very excellent treatise of Jose L. Cossio,
entitled "How and by whom Rural Property
in Mexico has been Monopolized."
According to these data, the entails (vin-
culaciones) created during the colonial govern-
ment embraced immense areas of land. There
is no need to mention the estates of Ibarra, of
the Marshals of Castilla, of Flores Valdez,
of the Marquises of Salvatierra, of Urrutia
de Vergara, of La Llave, of Higuera, of the
Counts of Santiago de Calimaya, of the Mar-
quis of Peduguera, of the Counts of Casa Rul,
and others of less importance. Suffice it
to say that the estate of the Marquis del
Valle extended over the Valleys of Mexico,
Toluca, Cuernavaca, and Oaxaca, embracing
142 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
also part of Vera Cruz and some of the state
of Guerrero; that of the Count of el Valle de
Orizaba covered seventy-six haciendas in the
states of Vera Cruz, Hidalgo and Puebla; that
of the Count of Regla twenty -four haciendas
in addition to eleven unentailed ones situated
in various states; that of the Count of Sierra
Gorda covered enormous areas in the State
of Tamaulipas; that of the Marquis of San
Miguel Aguayo more than two hundred and
ninety-nine square leagues in the district of
La Laguna alone and that of the Marquis of
Guadalupe more than two hundred. (*)
The number of haciendas scattered over the
whole country, which fell under the decree of
confiscation of Jesuit property issued by
King Charles III of Spain amounted to one
hundred and twenty-eight.
Baron Humboldt calculated in 1808, that
four-fifths of the land belonged to the clergy;
Doctor Mora estimated their holdings in
1833 at $179,000,000; Lucas Alaman con-
sidered that the said property represented not
less than one-half of the value of the whole
land and Miguel Lerdo de Tejada appraised
it between $230,000,000 and $300,000,000, a
*One square league is approximately equivalent to seven square miles.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 143
valuation which coincided with that of Lucas
Alaman.
It is true that these enormous areas of land
were subdivided by virtue of the disentail-
ment laws passed at the beginning of the
19th century by the Spanish Congress and
ratified by the independent government of
Mexico, as also by the disentailment and
nationalization laws enacted during the
period of the Reform; but even though the mort-
main was ended, there still remained intact the
immense haciendas formerly affected by it, for
neither the disentailment nor the nationaliza-
tion was accompanied by the subdivision of
rural property except in the case of the lands
of the "pueblos."
The evil, however, did not stop there, but
rather -was brought to an acute crisis by the
erroneous policy relative to contracts of
survey and colonization which President Diaz
developed during his administration.
From 1881 to 1889, the surveyed lands
reached 32,240,373 hectares (*) of which
12,693,610 hectares were awared to the sur-
veying companies in payment for surveying
expenses, and 14,813,980 hectares were sold
or promised -- the majority of them to the
*Eacb hectare is equivalent to approximately two and one-half acres.
144 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
surveyors themselves. It is worthy of note
that the number of individuals and companies
benefited by these contracts according to the
"Boletin de Estadistica" of 1889 was only $9.
Under similar conditions 12,382,292 hectares
were surveyed from 1889 to 1892 and from
1904 to 1906 titles to the number of 260 and
covering 2,648,540 hectares were issued to
surveying companies and 1,331 titles to na-
tional lands embracing an area of 4,445,665
hectares were executed.
The deals of the surveying companies
transacted during the years 1881 to 1889,
entailed, consequently, into the hands of
twenty-nine individuals or companies 14%
of the total surface of the Republic and
during the five subsequent years a few other
companies monopolized 6% more of the total
area. In other words, altogether one-fifth of
the whole land area was monopolized by
not more than fifty proprietors.
On the other hand, the division of "ejidos"
(common lands of the native towns) made
during the years from 1877 to 1906 embraced
only 19,983 titles and a total of 583,287
hectares. Assuming that the "ejidos" of
each town included approximately 1750 hect-
ares, it would reach a total of 330 towns,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 145
when the number in the Republic was 5,213.
And from 1898 to 1906, 357 titles covering
an area of 57,421 hectares were granted to
poor laborers.
Truthfully speaking, all the surveyed area
consisted of unimproved lands, many of them
deserts, others absolutely unfit for agriculture,
and a few, very few as a matter of fact, with
good irrigation. The system of survey and
colonization which brought about this im-
mense monopoly of land was, nevertheless,
a serious error, because on the one hand, under
the protection of the respective concessions
there did not fail to be encroachments upon
the small landowners whose titles and measure-
ments were defective, and on the other hand,
those areas of land undoubtedly lacked the
individual attention of the majority of the
Mexican people, no care having been taken
to see that the grantees developed effective
works of irrigation and improvement nor
much less that they put into operation that
fountain of wealth.
Such, then, is the origin of the great
"latifundia" existing in the Republic and of
the very limited importance of the small and
medium rural property.
But the persistence of those "latifundia"
146 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
through the economic progress of the Nation,
must be imputed to two coincident causes,
namely: lack of capital, and lack of personnel
adequate for the agricultural exploitation of
smaller tracts.
Mexican land, on the average, is not ex-
actly rich, in spite of the belief to the contrary
which has prevailed for a long time. From
the work of the notable Mexican economist,
Carlos Diaz Dufoo, entitled "Mexico and
Foreign Capital," we quote the following-
facts :
"Owing to its variegated configuration,
Mexico presents a heterogeneous pluvial sys-
tem. According to Mr. Beltran y Puga,
Engineer, there are five zones:
"The first embraces lands in which pre-
cipitation is less than 250 mm. It is a large
land zone in the deserts of Sonora, Chihuahua,
and Baja California, extending southward to
24 latitude, in the Central Table Land. Its
area is 296,000 square mms. *(15% of the
area of the Republic).
"In the second zone, the pluvial precipita-
tion varies between 250 mm. and 500 mm.
It comprises part of the States of Sonora,
Chihuahua, Durango, Aguascalientes and San
*One square k. m. is equivalent to approximately 250 acres.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 147
Luis Potosi. It embraces 340,000 square
kms. (17% of the National land.) It is not
a zone suitable for agriculture either; it can
be compared in its pluvial system to La
Mancha (Spain), a region which none will
presume to call desirable for agriculture.
"In the third zone, the precipitation is
between 500 mm. and 1 meter. This zone
embraces the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico,
and from the Pacific Ocean, the highest part
of the Central Table Land to the east of
Oaxaca and to the western part of the penin-
sula of Yucatan. Its area is 848,000 square
kms. (42% of the area of the Republic).
Its pluvial system, very superior to the other
two, presents conditions favorable to agricul-
ture although not on that account does it
surpass some districts of Europe, as the west-
ern part of England, the Mediterranean coast
of France, etc., and even these cannot be said
to have the best supply.
"The fourth zone has pluvial precipitations
of between 1 and 2 meters and embraces the
southern coasts of the Gulf of Mexico and of
the Pacific Ocean, and the eastern part of
Yucatan. Its area is 424,000 square kms.
(20% of the area of the country) and may be
compared, as to rains, with the North of Spain,
148 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
the eastern coast of Australia, some districts
of Chile, the west coast of Norway, and the
plains which extend over the foothills of the
Alps. Unfortunately this precipitation is not
invariable and there are years in which it
diminishes considerably.
"The fifth, finally embraces small portions
of the coasts of Vera Cruz and Tabasco on
the Gulf of Mexico, and the coasts of the
State of Chiapas on the Pacific covering an
area of 43,000 square kms. In this zone the
rain-falls are torrential.
"The French writer, Raul Bigot, engineer
of arts and crafts of the College of Paris, who
has visited our country, in his "Notes Econo-
miques sur le Mexique" asserts that over a
surface of 198,720,000 hectares, the country
presented at the end of 1903, 39.6% of its
land area utilized in the following form:
Cultivated hectares, not under irrigation 10,605,887
Cultivated hectares, irrigated 1,550,980
Cultivated hectares 12,156,867
Hectares of pastures 48,762,849
Hectares of forests 17,786,715
Total 78,706,431
"The 12,156,867 cultivated hectares re-
present a little over 6% of the land area."
Of the extensive zones subject to contracts
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 149
of colonization only insignificant lots can be
used for cultivation. All efforts made, whether
by the government or by private enterprises,
failed for reasons not worthy of mention here.
In virtue of the law of 1894, the said zones
almost as a whole were relieved of the condi-
tion relative to colonization, the Federal
Government extending the title of ownership
pure and simple pending additional payments,
generally made by the grantees. It can be
said with relation to these zones that the
greater part, if not all, were transferred in a
"bona fide" manner to a third party. Only
a small area of these lands has been cultivated
owing in some localities to a scantiness of
population, in others to aridity of soil, and
in not a few to both circumstances combined.
The greater area has been devoted to cattle-
raising, but the rest, which is quite consider-
able, still remains uncultivated.
Of the zones awarded to the surveying com-
panies in payment of surveying expenses, all
were held in fee simple and their exploita-
tion carried out under conditions similar to
those affecting the lands alloted for coloniza-
tion.
Rural properties acquired as stated in this
chapter, whether of the colonial era, or in the
150 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
independent period, occasionally were sub-
divided by means of hereditary transfer.
But, frequently, such transfer amounted to
keeping the property technically undivided
in shares although actually distributing it in
specific parcels of land to the successive
generations, and this practice resulted in an
insufficiency of titles and documents difficult
to validate. Such was the occasion for the
spoliation committed by surveying companies
and by claimants of waste lands since the
laws on the matter did not provide an effectual
manner of establishing ownership without the
existence of a proper instrument of convey-
ance.
The balance of the landed estates were
conserved in the form of large haciendas
worked to a small degree as agricultural en-
terprises, and much more so for cattle raising,
but barren in their greater surface owing to
that same lack of irrigation already spoken of,
and also, in not a few instances, owing to the
want of easy access to the markets of con-
sumption."
Generally short of ready money, and devoid
of the spirit of enterprise, it was only the
exception among those great landowners who
attempted to improve his lands with works of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 151
irrigation, and country roads or with the
application of fertilizers and modern methods
of cultivation.
Consequently, the average productivity of
Mexican lands according to statistical data
is and has been positively poor.
In more populated regions and with ele-
ments of irrigation of which the basin of
the Nazas, the Bajio, and a large part of
Jalisco can serve as an example -- the medium
sized and also the small property could be
created. In most instances, however, large
estates were parcelled into lots by their
owners and granted to farmers for exploita-
tion under lease contracts or on a crop-sharing
basis (aparceria) .
With the above exceptions, the farming
work was done by means of peons who are, as
a whole, of mixed race or natives, true serfs
of the soil, condemned, through lack of educa-
tion, to live precariously from hand to mouth,
ignorant, devoid of a spirit of economy and
foresight, slaves to routine and lax in work.
During the last years of the Diaz admin-
istration, contracts of irrigation were closed
with several enterprises, the principal condi-
tion of which was the division of lands and
sales in small lots. The carrying out of those
152 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
contracts just barely began, for the majority
of the enterprises were surprised at the very
beginning of their labors by the revolution.
Finally, as to native property, it was re-
spected, sanctioned, and improved by the
laws of the Indies and confirmed by native
legislation. Thus it subsisted until the period
of Reform when the disentailment of public
land of the Indian towns (pueblos) and its
subdivision and allotment to the heads of
families was ordered. It has already been
stated that on executing these laws barely
19,883 deeds were issued with a total area of
582,237 hectares, insignificant in comparison
with the nine million hectares which should
legally correspond to the native communities
existing at the beginning of this century.
Of the native grantees of parcels of said
communities, not a few hastened to sell what
had been apportioned to them; others, if we
believe general opinion, were despoiled of
their property by the Indian Chiefs of the
locality.
It also seems certain that of the balance of
common lands which were not divided and
allotted to the residents, a good portion was
subject to usurpations, or rather, to successive
encroachments by the surrounding large
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 158
owners, giving cause for cruel antagonism be-
tween "pueblos" and owners of estates and
the fixed conviction of the native race that it
had been infamously despoiled.
In this connection, however, it is timely to
make it clear that in answer to the petitions
for restitution presented by the people to the
various agrarian commissions according to
the official report submitted to the Federal
Congress by the government of Carranza,
only 21,284 hectares have been granted by way
of restitution, so that it has been necessary to
concede endowments, equivalent to 86,746
hectares.
This study of the private agricultural
property, as far as concerns its owners, con-
dition, possibilities, form of cultivation, and
men available to work it, discloses two
aspects in the land problem, namely: that of
the redistribution of land and that of restitu-
tion.
The first, which is the more important, may
be summed up as follows:
There exist immense areas in the form of
"latifundia" which were created by laws duly
enacted and grants from legitimate authori-
ties. Those properties establish undeniable
rights of ownership on account of their legal
154 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
origin, also by prescription, and, if we desire
further reasons, were sustained, in the ma-
jority of cases, by principles of equity in
favor of bona fide third acquirers.
A minimum part of such latifundia is
irrigated and together with all other private
properties under irrigation makes only eight-
tenths per cent of the total area of the country.
On the other hand, the lands farmed without
irrigation works scarcely reach altogether
much more than five per cent of said total
area.
As far as the lands of the "pueblos" are
concerned, their area, approximately equi-
valent altogether to four and one-half per
cent of the total surface of Mexico, is almost
entirely devoid of irrigation works and is
unsuitable for agriculture.
The relatively small number of tenants
and "aparceros" (crop-sharing farmers) who
have already acquired the habits and aptitudes
indispensable to free farm hands could well
and conveniently be changed into the per-
sonnel for parcelled lands.
It would also be well to add to this per-
sonnel that of the natives who have kept on
living in their old towns and communities
devoting themselves to labor in the fields;
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 155
but it should be under the express condition
of not abandoning them at first to their own
efforts and resources, for, even though there
exists in them the embryo of an autonomous
farmer, nevertheless a great effort of educa-
tion and helpfulness is necessary to make
them get out of the rut, familiarize themselves
with modern methods, implements, and fer-
tilizers which are necessary to intensive
agriculture, create in them habits of economy,
and, finally, finance them in their first efforts.
Under this aspect of the problem, its solu-
tion is not simply to be found in laws which
may declare of public utility the division and
distribution of lands. Those laws are not
new; many have been enacted since Mexico
became independent, for the development of
its agricultural wealth has been the constant
concern if its public men.
In confirmation of this assertion, we can
cite the decree of January 4th, 1823, upon
foreign colonization; that of July 4th of the
same year upon the distribution of lands to
the members of the standing army; that of the
30th of the same month ordering the distribu-
tion of San Lorenzo among the residents of
Chachapalcingo; those of the 19th of July,
6th of August and the 18th of September of
156 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
the following year upon the assignment of
national lands to the defenders of the country;
the most important and general one was that
of the 14th of October, 1823, upon the division
of lands in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and
others too numerous to mention.
What is more needed than laws, is a plan,
clear and thoughtfully conceived, for the
gradual acquisition by purchase or expro-
priation, on a cash basis, of lands adaptable
to subdivision; a policy of well thought-out
contracts of irrigation with the same object;
the improvement of lands for works of this
nature and construction of roads; practical
and regional propaganda for the spread of
modern agricultural knowledge and the erec-
tion of adequate official and extra-official
institutions for providing the capital necessary
for permanent works as well as for supplies
to laborers and the equipment suitable for the
lands when they are divided.
The basis of this program must be the
recognition of rights acquired, pending real
indemnity and not simply promises of pay-
ment in case of expropriation; because
there is no indemnity, property ownership
ceases to be a respectable and respected right.
Under such conditions, on the one hand its
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 157
value depreciates, and on the other the capital
necessary to work it will be driven away to
seek less precarious and more profitable in-
vestments.
The second aspect of the problem, that of
recovery against unjust spoliation of lands is
rather ethical-social than agrarian. All these
restitutions added together would not con-
tribute to the agricultural industry a sub-
stantial proportion of lands suitable for culti-
vation and they would leave the problem
unsolved, for we have seen that the lands
technically belonging to the "pueblos" would
reach four and a half per cent of the national
territory.
There is no doubt, however, that it is im-
perative to give satisfaction to this claim of
justice; but it is necessary to do it without
undermining the two bases which support the
right of ownership; the res adjudicata and the
prescription. It is necessary to do it without
converting the despoilers into despoilees.
The institution called upon to give each
one what belongs to him is the judicial branch
of the administration; to it, therefore, should
be referred the power of acting upon all ques-
tions relative to restitution; and if the actual
laws of procedure are slow, cumbersome, and
158 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
costly, if in them technicality predominates
over equity, it is necessary to modify them in
such a way that the tribunals, in full knowl-
edge of the transaction, may decide easily
and justly whether it is a case of restitution
without compensation to the expropriated
party, or one of expropriation in order to
make settlement upon the claimant pueblos.
Such is the form in which the Congress of
Queretaro should have considered the two
fundamental problems relating to private
ownership of land; that of equitable redis-
tribution of this wealth and that of restitution.
The Congress of Queretaro was not a
body of men level-headed and capable of
discriminating between the just and the un-
just, the proper and the improper. We have
already stated and shown that the majority
of members of that body were moved by class
hatred, by a spirit of rapine, and by the most
radical conceptions of social change.
Therefore, the land problem in its double
aspect received solutions in which iniquity
rivalled stupidity.
The now famous Article 27 contained the
following provision:
"All proceedings, findings, decisions and all
operations of demarcation, concession, com-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 159
position, judgment, compromise, alienation,
or auction which may have deprived properties
held in common by co-owners, hamlets situated
on private property, settlements, congrega-
tions, tribes and other settlement organiza-
tions still existing since the law of June 25,
1856, of the whole or a part of their lands,
woods and waters, are declared null and void;
all findings, resolutions and operations which
may subsequently take place and produce
the same effects shall likewise be null and void.
Consequently all lands, forests and waters
of which the above-mentioned settlements
may have been deprived shall be restored to
them according to the decree of January 6,
1915, which shall remain in force as a con-
stitutional law. In case the adjudication of
lands, by way of restitution, be not legal in
the terms of the said decree, which adjudica-
tion may have been requested by any of the
above entities, those lands shall nevertheless be
given to them by way of grant, and they shall
in no event fail to receive such as they may
need. Only such lands, title to which may
have been acquired in the divisions made by
virtue of the said law of June 25, 1856, or
such as may be held in undisputed owner-
ship for more than ten years are excepted
160 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
from the provision of nullity, provided their
area does not exceed fifty hectares. Any
excess over this area shall be returned to the
commune and the owner shall be indemnified.
All laws of restitution enacted by virtue of
this provision shall be immediately carried
into effect by the administrative authorities.
Only members of the commune shall have the
right to the lands destined to be divided, and
the rights to these lands shall be inalienable
so long as they remain undivided; the same
provision shall govern the right of ownership
after the division has been made.
"The exercise of the rights pertaining to
the Nation by virtue of this article shall
follow judicial process; but as a part of this
process and by order of the proper tribunals,
which order shall be issued within the maxi-
mum period of one month, the administra-
tive authorities shall proceed without delay
to the occupation, administration, auction,
or sale of the lands and waters in question,
together with all their appurtenances, and
in no case may the acts of the said authorities
be set aside until final sentence is handed
down. "
All guarantees of stability for vested rights
consecrated by the world's institutions are
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 161
disavowed by this precept; all acts of the
public authorities consummated since June
25, 1856, that is, for half a century, are
annulled. The good faith of the acquirer is
not respected nor the saving principle of the
positive prescription, except for surfaces not
exceeding fifty hectares, nor the undeniable
canon of res adjudicata. When, in case
of expropriations, indemnity is authorized
to the owner, no guaranty is given that
this indemnity will be in advance and in
cash, and, finally special authority to make
preliminary examination of all these actions
is conferred upon administrative commissions
instead of being granted to tribunals.
We already know what the results of this
precept have been; agrarian commissions have
been formed in each one of the states charged
with examining the proceedings for restitu-
tion and endowment, and those commissions
have sold their judgments to the highest
bidder, constituting a rich and inexhaustible
fountain of levies and bribes.
"Excelsior," a newspaper of the City of
Mexico known for its conservatism and moder-
ation, in its issue of August 18, 1919, states
in the following terms that the reformation
of the personnel of the agrarian commission
was being undertaken:
162 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
"In view of precise and conclusive reports
which have been supplied us by some persons
who have been on local agrarian commissions,
established in the various states of the Re-
public, we can say that the commissions have
been responsible for the conflicts which have
arisen between them, the people, and the
proprietors.
"As a matter of fact, owing to the work of
reformation carried out by the President of
the National Agrarian Commission, at present
there are at the head of the local commissions,
decent and undoubtedly honorable people
competent to execute the resolutions adopted
relative to restitution and settlement of public
lands.
"But, formerly, the personnel which formed
several of the local agrarian commissions was
so useless and corrupt that complaints and
protests were received daily by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and at length by the
President of the Republic until it was finally
decided to take radical and energetic measures.
"The evil was general and for that reason
we cannot even fix charges against one
particular agrarian commission. Many com-
missioners, without the least scruple, exacted
money from people for a favorable decision
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 163
whether they were Indians soliciting public
lands or land owners who opposed some land
division.
"A long time ago we received reports of the
corruption which prevailed in the local agra-
rian commissions, but as we did not at once
acquire proofs to substantiate those charges
so as to secure the exposure of the offenders,
much to our regret we had to wait until we
were in possession of precise data.
"The conflicts which arose between the
agrarian commissions, the "pueblos" and the
land owners were usually as follows: the com-
missions would refuse to hand down their
decisions providing for the restitution or
endowment of lands in favor of a soliciting
pueblo even though it might be in the right,
unless a sum of money large enough to be
distributed among the members of the com-
mission were given.
'The corresponding petition would be con-
sidered and when a decision was about to be
given, one or two of the members of the
agrarian commission would appear before the
owner of the lands to be divided and to
other residents of the claimant pueblos.
They would then, in spite of protests from
the opponents, give the decision to the side
paying the largest sum of money.
164 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
"Other corrupt acts were committed, but
not like that already mentioned which angered
everybody who was aware of it.
"We can mention the former local com-
missions of the States of Jalisco, Puebla,
Tlaxcala, and others where there was greater
corruption, to such an extent that the National
Commission with the approval of the Presi-
dent of the Republic and the Secretary of
Agriculture found it necessary to send in-
spectors to make a revision of the acts of
restitution and endowment of lands with
instructions to revoke any resolutions which
lacked legality.
"The appointment of inspectors gave very
good results according to reports received by
us. Due to it, not a few resolutions were
revoked on account of illegality and, in gen-
eral, all the members of the local commissions
against whom charges were brought and
proved, were relieved of their duties.
"We are informed that the National Agra-
rian Commission which has charge of the
solution of the important agrarian problem
was on the point of failing radically at the
time that it was decided to take moralizing
and energetic measures which, apparently,
have given very good results."
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 165
The above quoted Article 27 further pro-
vides in its last paragraph as follows:
"All contracts and concessions made by
former governments from and after the year
1876 which shall have resulted in the monopoly
of lands, waters and natural resources of the
Nation by a single individual or corporation,
are declared subject to revision, and the
Executive is authorized to declare those null
and void which seriously prejudice the public
interest. "
This provision is even more outrageous
than the preceding, because it sanctions the
power of the Executive of the Union that is,
of one official who according to the same con-
stitution is irresponsible to declare null the
transference of property made by legally
constituted governments since the year 1876,
and, this, without any consideration of the
fact that those transferences have been made
in strict accordance with the law; in other
words, to render them null, it is enough that
in the judgment of the President of the
Republic they carry a monopoly of land
detrimental to public interest.
Exercising this stupendous power, the Fed-
eral Executive has already confiscated millions
of hectares without the slightest argument
of justice or equity.
166 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Where spoliation is an institutional system,
there are properly no rights and no law;
there is anarchy, and anarchy never is, nor
can it be, the foundation for tranquility and
prosperity of a country.
Finally, other sections of the quoted article
27 of the Federal Constitution relative to
the subdivision of lands, authorize the State
Legislature to determine the maximum area
which each individual or company may possess,
and to fix the terms under which expropriation
must be conducted; and on the understanding
that its value is not payable in cash, but
rather in a minimum term of 20 years, with
a maximum annual interest of 5 per cent., and
in bonds of a special issue called agrarian.
It would have been natural to have pro-
tected from these threatened expropriations
those landowners who had shown a pro-
gressive and enterprising spirit by starting
improvements of importance on their lands;
it would also have been prudent to have
exempted from expropriation those lands
which in the future might be irrigated by
their owners. By these means, security would
have been given to former investments and
an incentive for future ones.
Instead, all landowners are threatened with
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 167
being deprived of their property by means of
low compensation payable in depreciated
agrarian bonds.
The basis for indemnity, in fact, is the
assessed value, and this, as we have already
seen, is equivalent to barely 25 or 30 per cent,
of its real value.
As to the agrarian bonds which may be
issued, what value can they have when the
Federal Government is in bankruptcy and the
bankruptcy of the States is even more over-
whelming? The administration ends annual-
ly with a deficit in spite of the fact that it
leaves undischarged several important civil
services and does not pay one single cent of
interest on the recognized national debt.
And the States are in need of constant loans
from the Federal Government in order to
pay but half of their most pressing expenses.
According to official data of the Department
of the Treasury, the following are the amounts
owed to the Federal Government by the
various states for loans which, in general,
date from the 1st of May, 1917, to the 31st
of December, 1918, and which represent on
an average 20 per cent, of the total annual
revenue of the said states;
168 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Chihuahua $118,774.83
Coahuila 110,947.88
Colima 67,152.05
Durango 29,983 .21
Guanajuato 39,748.20
Guerrero 95,171 . 60
Jalisco 410,631 .96
Mexico 92,994.25
Michoacan 534,963 . 12
Oaxaca 149,020.70
Puebla 126,458.50
Queretaro 124,674.21
San Luis Potosi 553,874 . 38
Sinaloa 146,140.38
Sonora 224,096.02
Tlaxcala 51,168.20
Zacatecas 143,366.06
Various State Legislatures have already
begun to carry out their laws of apportion-
ment, and, as was to be feared, the expropri-
ations are being directed against those very
enterprises which have already made a con-
siderable investment in works of irrigation
and improvement.
With such a menace, who will dare in the
future to undertake new enterprises, to con-
tribute new capital, to convert waste and
barren lands into real and positive founts of
production and wealth?
Rural property has already suffered serious
exactions, and continues to be threatened on
all sides by mortal dangers.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 169
Mexican landowners, if they are utilitarians
or fainthearted, give in to convenience or
terror and barter their rights at the price of
bribes; if they are manly of spirit, they prefer
to fight rather than become the accomplices
of corruption; and all seize the opportunity
of selling their possessions even for ridiculous
amounts.
Those who feel least insecure are foreigners
who have the diplomatic protection of their
governments. After each offense, there
follows an international remonstrance, a bitter
dispute, a protest and the cloud of threatened
intervention comes nearer and becomes blacker
each day.
In the same proportion that cautious
foreigners refrain from investing more capital,
speculators are on the hunt for cheap estates;
the business, to them, is a game of poker in
which they have the winning hand; they buy
and buy lands at insignificant prices and in
amounts that cannot but cause alarm.
In that way, the industry of agriculture is
dragged on the ground, serious and enter-
prising capital flees, corruption and poverty
in the administration corrode the innermost
recesses of society, our land is passing into
the hands of foreign stock gamblers, the
170 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
national conscience finds no peace, the inter-
national situation darkens, and order and
progress are longed for futilely.
In the agrarian problem, as in almost all
others, the constitution of Queretaro, instead
of being constructive, just, and useful, is
contrary to law, dissolvent and destructive.
As we have already said, it is not a national
work, it is abortive, Bolshevik.
CHAPTER XIV
WHATEVER TENDS to throttle the economic
liberty is an impediment in the way of, if
not an absolute hindrance to, material pro-
gress. For that reason the Constitution of
1857 condemned explicitly all monopolies
and prohibitions which, professing to protect
industry, had in former years contributed to
the misery of the masses while benefiting
a small privileged minority.
But there is no doubt that apart from the
evils of monopolies protected by the coaction
of the State, the increasing development of
modern capitalism gives rise to similar ills,
such as combinations and syndicates, which
artificially limit the production or the supply
of articles of prime necessity, or lessen the
facilities disposable for their transportation
with the deliberate object of obtaining ex-
cessive profits.
Industrial and commercial liberty is a
desirable institution inasmuch as, leading to
open competition, it directs capital and labor
towards the most remunerative enterprises
172 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
and thus there is maintained an equilibrium
in the production and distribution of wealth,
and the discovery and exploitation of unknown
energies of nature is favored.
But when free competition is destroyed in
the name of such liberty; when rather than
enlarge the output of material commodities
it is used to increase artificially their cost for
the benefit of a few; when it is turned into an
instrument of wicked slavery and becomes a
cause of impoverishment, it ceases to be a
social institution and becomes actually anti-
social.
To the list of prohibitions contained in our
old Fundamental Code, the new one very
justly adds in its Article 28 the following:
"any accumulation or cornering by one or
more persons of necessaries for the purpose
of bringing about a rise in prices; any act
or measure which shall stifle or endeavor to
stifle free competition in any production,
industry, trade or public service; any agree-
ment or combination of any kind entered into
by producers, manufacturers, merchants, com-
mon carriers or other public or quasi-public
service, to stifle competition and to compel
the consumer to pay exorbitant prices; and
in general whatever constitutes an unfair and
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 173
exclusive advantage in favor of one or more
specified person or persons to the detriment
of the public in general or of any special
class of society."
This change, as it stands, is highly com-
mendable, provided that the danger of official
abuse of power is averted by wise laws.
But the new Constitution, leaping in this
matter, as in others, to the opposite extreme,
abolishes the provision for certain tax ex-
emptions formerly made and intended as a
stimulus to industry.
It cannot be denied that under the pretext
of encouraging the development of the natural
resources and industries of the country, the
system of franchises under the old regime
gave ample and frequent opportunities for
favoritism. But the fact is that the few
isolated evils were less, infinitely less, than the
benefits derived by the country from the
adoption of that system.
Is it necessary for us to review the well
known economic progress of Mexico during
the administration of General Diaz?
The nation, seeking to emerge from its
state of economic isolation and atrophy,
found no other road open save that of en-
couraging the investment of foreign capital.
174 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
With that end in view, it granted franchises,
exempted taxes, and even subsidized certain
enterprises. In that way, and only in that
way, was it able to secure railroads and erect
foundries, open immense mining zones, employ
modern metallurgy for working low rate
ores, develop and exploit the carboniferous
beds on the frontier and the extensive deposits
of petroleum along the Gulf of Mexico,
promote commercial and agricultural credit,
lay the foundations for future Mexican in-
dustry, and in general, convert into tangible
riches the latent potentialities of the country.
The system of franchises was on the whole
beneficial whatever may have been the abuses
to which it gave rise in many instances.
Therefore, inasmuch as the resources of the
country were not fully developed by the end
of 1916, and in addition the revolutions had
impoverished the nation anew and to the
utmost degree, the only rational policy would
have been to regulate the system of enfran-
chisement in such a way that the granting
a franchise should always be in accordance
with the law, applicable without discrimina-
tion, to everybody, other things being equal,
and a limited, though reasonable, period for
its initiation granted to each industry.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 175
The dangers of abuse having thus been
eliminated, the system of lawful franchise
would have continued to lend the most
powerful assistance to the gigantic work of
reconstruction. That its abolition was not
inspired by a clear perception of facts, and
farsightedness; that it was accomplished only
as the result of a blind doctrinarianism or a
preconceived desire to destroy everything
that existed, is proved by the numberless
concessions carrying exemptions from taxes
that were granted by the government founded
upon the Constitution of Queretaro. (See
"Diario Oficial de los Estados Unidos Mexi-
canos.")
The new constitution does not stop at
prohibiting tax exemptions in the future. It
also has furnished grounds for the repudiation
of exemptions granted by the former govern-
ments, notwithstanding that by readopting
the provisions of the Constitution of 1857 it
confirms the principle of non-retroactivity,
which is the basis for the stability of private
rights; and in spite of the fact that those
franchises were granted by legitimate acts of
the federal or state legislatures. In their
eagerness to destroy any and every fount and
source of the economic development of the
176 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Nation, in their determination to attack
capital in every possible form, the Federal as
well as the State Governments have availed
themselves of Article 28 of the new Constitution
to repudiate with impunity exemptions legally
granted by previous administrations.
In line with the same principles, the Consti-
tution of 1917 destroys at one blow the
charters of the existing banks of issue with
the excuse that they wished to establish the
so-called "Banco Unico de Emision," a
single bank of issue under the control of the
Government.
After deep investigations and difficult ne-
gotiations with the "Banco Nacional de
Mexico," a corporation which at the time
enjoyed an exclusive franchise for issuing
bank-notes, the administration of General
Diaz adopted a system providing for a
plurality of banks of issue, and by the banking
law of May 19th, 1897, it authorized the
establishment in all States of banks of issue
upon conditions which guaranteed their firm-
ness and stability. Corporations alone were
qualified to do a banking business. Their
authorized capital, at least one-half of which
must be paid up, was required to be not less
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 177
than one million pesos.* The value of their
notes in circulation could not exceed twice
the amount of their metallic reserves, which
consisted of the gold and silver stock on hand.
The banks were subject to the supervision
of the federal government and also to certain
restrictions which applied to the nature and
extent of their operations. And finally, they
were granted certain special judicial facilities
to enforce the collection of their loans.
Under the terms of this law, which granted
certain exemptions, at the same time making
favorable tax rates for the first bank to be
established in every State, twenty banks
were opened in different parts of the Republic,
in addition to the banks known as "Banco
Nacional de Mexico," "Banco de Londres,"
"Banco Minero" and perhaps one or two
others.
Those operating in commercial, manufactur-
ing or agricultural centers of importance,
undoubtedly lent valuable aid to the progress
of those regions and consequently they pros-
pered. Such were, among others, the banks
of Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Jalisco, Puebla, Monte-
rey, Durango, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Chihua-
*The minimum authorized capital of the banks, as fixed by the law of
1897, was lower than one million petot, to which sum it was raised by the law
of June 19th. 1908. One peto is equivalent to fifty cents of American money
178 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
hua; others made little progress, while there
were one or two which were forced to close
their doors or merge with some other bank.
After the monetary reform of 1905 which
created the gold standard and at the same time
fixed the value of the silver peso, limited its
coinage and continued it as legal tender, it
was deemed necessary to limit the circulation
of fiduciary money. Therefore, after the
enactment of the law of May 13th, 1905,
which forbade for four years the opening of
new banks, the term was extended to the
year 1922, by the provisions of a new law
dated June 19th, 1908.
Towards the end of 1913 and the beginning
of 1914, the Huerta government ordered the
banks to take over a considerable portion of
the foreign loan which European bankers
had not subscribed to. And in order to
enable the banks to use their gold and silver
reserves for this purpose, it decreed that in
the future, bank notes would be accepted as
legal tender and the issues could reach three
times the value of their metallic reserves,
plus the notes of other banks which they
might have in their possession.
For some of the banks, that measure was
life-saving, as the general crisis in which the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 179
country was involved had affected them and
they were not in condition to redeem their
notes on presentation. Others would not
have been able to take over the loan forced
upon them except with the aid of the new
franchise. There were on y a few that pre-
served the old proportion between their re-
serves and the value of their notes in circula-
tion.
The Carrancista faction saw in such a
situation the opportunity to seize the bank
funds, privately by bribes backed up by
threats, and officially by the seizure of them.
On the 4th of January, 1914, before the
Carrancista mobs had gained control of the
Mexican Republic, and before they had
established even the semblance of a govern-
ment, the First Chief issued his decree
number 15 excluding from the legal reserves
of the banks the certificates of the " Comision
Monetaria," which were redeemable at sight,
since, in conformity with the laws of December
22nd, 1905, and May 18th, 1912, they were
secured by deposits of gold bullion, foreign
gold coins, or silver pesos. The decree also
excluded from the legal reserves the notes of
other banks of issue.
The decree of September 29th, 1915, issued
180 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
by the same First Chief, fixed a term of forty-
five days in which the aforementioned banking
concerns were to readjust the circulation of
their notes so that the amount covered by
them would not exceed twice that of their
metallic reserves.
Finally, by its circular of October 26th, 1915,
the Department of Finance created a com-
mission styled "Comision Reguladora e In-
spectora de Instituciones de Credito," charged
with the investigation of each bank's condition
and commissioned to report as to the advisa-
bility of allowing them to continue under their
present charter. A man who had confessed
to, and received sentence for, the embezzle-
ment of funds of the Banco Nacional, was
appointed as one of the members of the above
commission, and the plundering of banks
began.
As in most cases, the reports rendered by
the commission were adverse to the banks,
prominent Carrancistas and high officials of
the administration were waited upon by
representatives of the banks, pleaded with,
and offered large sums of money. The out-
come was that several of the banks were able
to ward off their threatened closure.
The "Boletin Financiero, " a commercial
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 181
publication of the City of Mexico, in its
volume covering the months from April, 1915,
to December, 1915, publishes the reports of
Superintendent Manero, which recommend
the forfeiture of the charters of the banks of
Coahuila, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Queretaro, Ta-
maulipas, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Guana-
juato, Morelos and Durango, and the Banco
Oriental de Puebla. The same paper states
that the banking commission above mentioned
has already declared the forfeiture of the
charters of the banks of Guerrero, Hidalgo,
Queretaro, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, the
Mexican Bank of the Peninsula, the Banco
Oriental de Puebla. In the same volume,
the Boletin Financiero publishes the reports
of superintendent Manero recommending the
continuance of the charters of the following
banks: Banco Nacional de Mexico, Banco de
Londres y Mexico, Banco de Zacatecas, and
Banco del Estado de Mexico. It does not
state which charters were definitely declared
forfeited by the Department of Finance, but
according to circulars number 71 and number
72, of September 20th, 1916, published in the
third volume of the same bulletin, the Banco
Nacional de Mexico, the Banco de Londres y
Mexico, and all the State banks except those of
182 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Coahuila and Durango were still in operation
on that date, which undoubtedly was due
to the fact that no declarations of forfeiture
had been enforced. According to reports of
the superintendent of banks, the declarations
of forfeiture recommended by him were based
strictly on the provisions of the decrees of
September 29th, 1915. The fact that the
charters were still in force at the time of the
issuance of the circular, indicates that the
decree was not issued with the sincere purpose
of having it enforced, but rather with the in-
tention of making it an instrument of extor-
tion and creating an opening for bribery.
The gold vein thus opened up was too
valuable not to be exploited. After the lapse
of one year, the First Chief issued a new
decree which stated that within the term of
three months, all banks must reduce the
amount covered by their outstanding notes
to a sum not exceeding the value of their
metallic reserve, under penalty of a forfeiture
of their charters and seizure of their assets by
special Commissions known as "consejos de
Incautacion, " in case of failure to comply
with the terms of the decree.
The truth of the matter is that the Carran-
cistas claimed that this action was taken be-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 183
cause the exemptions granted to the banks of
issue created hateful monopolies and exclusive
privileges. Such an argument was nothing
but shameless sophistry.
The banks established in Mexico with the
exception of the Banco Nacional and the
Banco de Londres, which were conducted
according to prior contracts had been created
by virtue of the banking law, passed in 1897,
in conformity with a general basis outlined
for that purpose by the Federal Congress.
In proof of the assertion that they were not a
monopoly, witness the fact that twenty-two
banks of issue operated independently; nor
did their charters give them exclusive privil-
eges, since according to the law, any persons
who could fulfill the required conditions of
solvency and security would be able to obtain
the respective charter. Moreover, the First
Chief's decree of September 29th, 1915, and
others previous to it, had recognized the
legality of the banking law of 1897. Strictly
speaking, they could have held as objection-
able the laws of 1905 and 1908 above mention-
ed, which had limited to the already existing
banks the franchise as banks of issue and
the object of which was to maintain the
equilibrium of the monetary system adopted
184 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
in 1905; they could also have objected to the
regulations of the banking law which allowed
the banks special judicial facilities to enforce
the collection of their loans, notwithstanding
the fact that these facilities had in view the
strengthening of the financial status of the
banks.
All the decrees of the First Chief were
therefore arbitrary. They altered pre-exist-
ing laws and thereby impaired vested rights;
and furthermore, if the purpose of the First
Chief was to abolish privileges which he
qualified as exclusive, he should have limited
himself to withdrawing from the institutions
of credit the special judicial facilities granted
them, and to decreeing that in the future new
charters would continue to be granted, on
equal terms, to all who could comply with
the requirements of the law of 1897.
Without considering the legality of his
action, in support of which no possible argu-
ment could be deduced, the last decree of
the First Chief was absurd from the economic
point of view. Owing to the unlimited issu-
ance of government fiat money, the silver
pesos and gold pieces had disappeared and
there was in circulation nothing but paper
money, which had become very much de-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 185
predated by that time, and bank notes, which
on the average were quoted at something
between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of their
face value in National gold. Taking those
notes off the market, leaving only the paper
money, of necessity rendered the monetary
crisis more serious. It placed an insurmount-
able obstacle in the way of the resumption of
the more or less paralyzed industries of the
country, thereby bringing the poorer classes
to want, since the cost of articles of prime
necessity had risen with gigantic strides.
However, the de facto government troubled
itself about everything except what might en-
courage the work of reconstruction, or, at
least, favor conservation of resources. The
chief ambition was to get the metallic re-
serves of the banks in order to meet the needs
of the administration, but more particularly
so that the insatiable voracity of the military
chiefs and political leeches might be satisfied.
Some of the banks were not able, and others
probably did not wish to redeem their out-
standing notes, as ordered by the First Chief
in violation of the terms of their franchises.
Therefore, the time allowed them having
expired, before they had recalled their surplus
notes in circulation, the de facto government
186 Carranza and{His Bolshevik Regime
proceeded to seize the funds of the banks,
resorting to all kinds of violent measures.
In the Presidential message read to Congress
September 15th, 1917, which treated of the
"pre-constitutional" period, the following is
stated :
"The Constitutionalist government, com-
pelled by circumstances, has found it necessary
to take from all the banks approximately
twenty millions for the affairs of the govern-
ment."
And in the Presidential message of Sep-
tember 1st, 1918, also presented to Congress,
we read as follows: "As is generally known,
the pre-constitutional government first, and
later the constitutional, took" (that is just
the word, took, and took by force), "as a
loan from the banks of issue their metallic
stock on hand having an approximate value
of $54,000,000."
Unofficial data makes the amount larger
than that quoted by the First Chief. Except-
ing those which transferred their funds to
the United States before the plunder began,
all the banks are at present drained of gold
and silver; and we must remember that the
amount of this stock in their vaults on March
31st, 1915, according to balances published
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 187
in the Boletin Financiero of September llth,
1915, reached the sum of $85,596,183.01.
In September of 1916, the Secretary of the
Treasury, Luis Cabrera, told the American
Commissioners in the conferences of New
London that the measures taken were "the
result of a policy which the Carranza Govern-
ment felt had been carried on by certain of the
Mexican banks to depreciate the government
currency, that these banks were in fact the
money trust of Mexico, and that the Govern-
ment was anxious to make these banks more
loyal to the purposes for which they were
instituted" . . . "These banks", he added,
"were the chief agencies used for the depre-
ciation of the paper currency, and this was
hostile to the welfare of the country. The
Government of Mexico is just contemplating,
when these banks close permanently, the
establishment of a national banking system
similar to that in the United States, the
foundation for which already exists in the
newly established monetary commission."
(Official bulletin published in the Boston
Transcript, September 20th, 1916).
The voracity and spirit of destruction of
the Carrancista caste called for the demolition
of the banks even though there might not be
188 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
anything to substitute for them immediately.
However, so as to give apparent justification
to their plan, they announced their intention
of creating the "Banco Unico de Emision"
(a single bank of issue).
When the draft of the new Constitution
prepared by the First Chief was discussed
in Queretaro, the Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury proposed that in Article 28 there
should be included a clause eliminating once
and for all the possibility of the continuance
of the existing banks of issue. By this
measure the seizures already made were
sanctioned; and the plunder of the bank
vaults carried on by the pre-constitutional
government was included in the category
what mockery! of constitutional rights.
The minutes of the Assembly of Queretaro
reveal how that ignorant and passionate body
regarded the problems raised by so far-
reaching a question.
The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
regards the theory of a single bank of issue
as dogma: "a fact that is not under discussion
anywhere," he says, "is, that there should be
but one bank of issue because it is a principle
adopted many years ago by the science of
political economy. In all the more pro-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 189
gressive countries, the principle that there
should be but one bank authorized to issue
bank notes has been gaining more and more
ground from day to day." (Diario de los
Debates, Vol. II, p. 368).
From the same so-called dogma, the Assist-
ant Secretary also deduces that "that monop-
oly should be in the hands of the government
from the moment that it is empowered to
coin and issue the money of the country."
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 368).
Naturally, since it is a "dogma," it admits
of no discussion. In vain does Congressman
Lizardi twice bring to the attention of the
Assembly the fact that it has absolutely no
preparation for solving the question, that it
does not have in its possession the necessary
statistical data. (Diario de los Debates,
Vol. II, pp. 365, 395).
Congressman Necio, member of the Com-
mission, considers it obvious that the new
bank "is going to be formed with money
belonging to the Federal Government."
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 362).
Congressman Zavala declares that "statistics
relative to economic questions have a very
insignificant and doubtful value." (Diario
de los Debates, Vol II, p. 392). The Assist-
190 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
ant Secretary of the Treasury from his lofty
pedestal says, "the intellectual level of this
Constituent Congress, if not superior, is
not, I think, inferior to that of the Congress
which will follow; nor do I think it would be
expedient to postpone indefinitely the solution
of this problem just because the Chamber is
not in condition to solve economic questions,
for that would be absurd . . . The Con-
stituent Congress would commit a grave error
if it left that question without solution for
the next Congress, because undoubtedly the
existing banks of issue will attempt to defend
their interests at all hazards and to that end
will exert vigorous efforts in the next Con-
gress." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p.
368).
To dogma is added passion. On this
occasion it is the turn of Congressman
Mugica, President of the Reporting Com-
mittee, to pour the acrimonious vitriol. " My
ideas," he exclaims, "are entirely radical;
I do not know whether they are good or bad;
my ideas were these: that the government,
taking advantage of the law in force, should
compel the banks to declare themselves in
liquidation, for the reason that it was public
and notorious that the strongest banks of the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 191
nation were bankrupt owing to the illegal
issues which they had been obliged to make
by the government of Huerta ; that these banks
being in a state of liquidation, bankruptcy
would follow necessarily and inevitably; that,
hi my opinion, the government in order to
guarantee private interests ought in that
case to assume the outstanding credits of
the banks, taking over their assets which were
national property mortgaged in their favor,
and in this way face the situation. The
banks should have disappeared at the very
moment in which we took the Capital of
the Republic . . . Not one of the Congress-
men will doubt that as soon as the banks'
condition had been strengthened by closing
them, as soon as they had redeemed much
of the paper issued, they were in condition
to wage war against the Constituent Govern-
ment and they did wage it ... I see, there-
fore, in the creation of this bank controlled
by the government, a very immediate result:
the death of the rest of the banks, which are
the sworn enemies of the Mexican people;
because we have seen all banks operating in
the Republic, not alone when they were
fighting the Revolution, but also when they
favored the landowners, enter into disastrous
192 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
operations and cause the ruin of citizens in a
few months . . . And are we going to let
them stand? No, gentlemen, let us establish
at once in the constitution, the Bank of the
State, which will benefit the Nation, and which
above all, will prevent deals from being hatch-
ed by the government officials which might
be beneficial to the bankers and detrimental
to the Nation. (Applause.) " (Diario de los
Debates, Vol. II, pp. 372, 373).
Upon such arguments rested the provisions
of Article 28 of the Constitution of Queretaro
upon authorizing "the issuing of notes by a
single bank, to be controlled by the Federal
Government. "
And the organization of the "Banco Unico"
as provided for in the Carrancista constitution,
was outlined in the draft submitted more
than two years ago by the Executive of the
Federal Congress and which later on had to be
withdrawn.
The truth of the matter is that such a bank
does not exist because the Government has
not the money to establish it; because the
Government has not the credit necessary to
make its stock marketable; because the
Government, which has issued and repudiated
more than a billion pesos in paper money,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 193
will feel no scruples against once more up-
holding such questionable ethics, once the
"Banco TJnico de Emision" shall have been
launched.
If a constructive spirit had prompted the
conception of this idea, the best use would
have been made of the money, assets and
credits of the existing banks so as to re-
organize the banking system in the Mexican
Republic under a well thought-out plan in
accordance with the teachings of the science
of political economy, free from all passion and
rapacity; those institutions would not have
been destroyed before their successors had
been created.
But, in this as in almost all other matters,
the military caste in control of the Mexican
Government has been inspired only by hatred
and rapacity and eagerness for destruction.
It is now more than three years since the
country has had paper circulation; for three
years it has existed with only metallic circu-
lation; the former alone represented hi bank-
notes $227,555,799 . 75 up to the 31st of March,
1915, and the latter, undoubtedly for the
same period, was not less than 80 per cent of
that figure.
Now, however, all the transactions'^ this
194 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
extensive country with fifteen million in-
habitants can be carried on only with coined
money, the stock of which hardly reaches a
hundred millions of pesos; money is not to be
had for the initiation of new enterprises, nor
even to further the continuance or mainten-
ance of those already existing; the rate of
interest rises to two, three, and even six per
cent, per month on good collateral securities;
personal credit has ceased to exist and anaemia
affects to a super-acute degree the social body.
CHAPTER XV
DEMOCRACY is not in itself an end; its
objective is not that all men should participate
in public matters; it proclaims the co-operation
of the greatest number, as the most effective
means of procuring the common welfare with
the maximum of intensity and inclusiveness.
Now, then, any one not able to understand
party platforms although the&e may be the
very simplest and most elementary in their
conception; any one not able to form a judg-
ment upon the fitness of the men who would
carry out those platforms, neither has he any
interest in public matters nor would his
participation in them contribute anything to
the social welfare.
In the realm of democracy, if the object of
the institutions is taken into consideration,
it is necessary for man to be capable of judging
even though his judgment does not reach
remote causes in order that he may deserve
to collaborate in the management of the
political affairs of his country.
Public opinion keeps up the vigor of demo-
196 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
cratic proceedings because it expresses itself
periodically by means of the elections, showing
the presence or lack of confidence in the men to
whom it has delegated the exercise of sover-
eignty; but more, very much more, than by
this intermittent action, public opinion repre-
sents the soul of democracy by its constant
and uninterrupted vigilance over the conduct
of the officials, now enlightening them, now
approving public management, now censuring
it according as it satisfies the aims, aspirations
and needs of the nation or fails to do so.
When public opinion does not express itself
in the elections, but more than that when it
fails to make its voice heard at all times with
relation to every important act of the adminis-
tration, the interchange of ideas between
the people and their representatives insensibly
diminishes; the ties of dependence and re-
sponsibility relax by degrees, and, if the
silence is prolonged, the government comes
to feel independent, irresponsible, infallible,
omnipotent.
Democracy then becomes a chimera; auto-
cracy, clad in false garments, is the reality;
the government is the master, not the servant;
it makes the elections, instead of the elections
making it.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 197
The formula of the political equation for
obtaining a representative government, the
only stable and at the same time progressive
one, is very simple : suffrage must be co-extensive
with judgment, in the same way that action is
co-relative with the force which moves it.
Suffrage restricted to the portion of the
population able to read and write, regardless
of social class or race would, therefore, have
been the true solution for the problems of
the incipient Mexican democracy.
The electoral machine placed in the hands
best prepared to utilize it fitly in the work of
social welfare; the civic weapon handed to an
active citizen for supporting within the govern-
ment its convictions; the creation of an open
mesocracy conscious of its strength, jealous
of its political rights, assiduous in the exercise
of these; grouping the aims directing national
policy into organized parties with leaders who
should be their representatives and not their
bosses; strife within the institutions so as to
carry through those aims in place of armed
strife against the institutions themselves;
the influence of the parties, gradually ex-
pansive, over the unlearned classes, aimed
always at increasing the forces in action;
and, consequently, the interest of the political
198 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
parties to push national education forward; in
one word, potential democracy, restricted in
number, though entirely open to indefinite
growth, to the incorporation of new collabora-
tors; such would have been the development
of the Mexican nation, if, in the matter of
suffrage, the institutions had responded to
reality.
But our constituents of 1857 embroidered
Utopian dreams. From man as a social unit
they passed to man as a political unit, from
the undeniable right of living within the in-
stitutions they deduced in favor of the individ-
ual the privilege of governing himself; from
equality as a condition for individual progress,
they rushed even to considering that progress
realized; and, imitating the example of other
countries of a superior homogeneous culture,
of an aptitude already well experimented with
in their own government, they proclaimed
universal suffrage, and, what is worse, compli-
cated it with the indirect ballot.
The result of this error has been transcen-
dental; its effects were seen from the very
moment that, the period of French inter-
vention having terminated and the Empire of
Maximilian having fallen, the republican
system again operated in principle throughout
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 199
the country.
The masses did not rush to the polls, the
educated minority went to them; but the
government, with all the civil and military
personnel at its service, assisted by the local
authorities, using the resources and the organi-
zation of the administrative machine and
taking the greatest possible advantage of the
waste of strength involved by the indirect
ballot, dominated in the ballot boxes, at the
polls, and in the electoral colleges, and the
independent party would infallibly lose the
elections. Dictatorship or revolution were
the only alternatives. Such has been our
history.
Parallel with a rational conception of
suffrage, freedom of speech and of the press
is indispensable. The constituents of 1857
considered that liberty well guaranteed by
means of trial by jury against any offenses
of the press; but the policy of the Diaz
faction suppressed it during the administration
of General Gonzalez, and since then the press
stopped being the free organ of public opinion,
and as a result, this opinion was no longer
able to give strength or support to honest and
fit officials nor could it be a check to incompet-
ency or corruptness.
200 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Is it possible to cite in favor of the Constitu-
tion of Queretaro adequate reforms relative
to this matter?
In the Mexican nation there are funda-
mentally two classes incapable of forming
judgments upon public affairs, because they
are lacking in knowledge as well as in interest:
those who have not yet learned the Spanish
language and those who are illiterate.
Neither the one nor the other lives our
civilized life; neither the one nor the other
understands its workings, the intimate and
intricate individual social relations, and the
rights and duties of a citizen, of the public
power, and its agents. If a pure democracy
were possible in modern commonwealths in-
stead of a representative one, would the
adherents of universal suffrage consent to
having this enormous mass of ignorant people
dictate the constitution, draw up the laws,
manage the public treasury, outline the course
of our agricultural, industrial and commercial
development and formulate the canons of
our public and private morals?
Any one who proposed so glaring an absurd-
ity would be thought stupid and senseless.
Now the electoral prerogative is nothing
but a substitute for the direct exercise of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 201
sovereignty. In the sphere of principles,
it is identical; as a matter of fact, although at
first thought the elections seem to simplify
the process, they do not, for voters must of
necessity consider party platforms.
To leave to the individual and uninfluenced
judgment of the masses that selection, is not
feasible. In the great democracies composed
of civilized men, such a system is not in
practice, but rather the vote is organized by
means of parties.
But the existence of parties implies pro-
grams of government and well-defined policies,
so that through the election of representatives
we again face the same question relating to
the direct exercise of sovereignty.
Political parties, when they work with
intelligent masses, seek to appeal to reason.
When they work with unintelligent masses,
they do not seek to convince. It is to their
interest to incite passions; demagogy then
takes the field.
In view of the fact that at the time the
Carrancista faction announced its intention
to reform the Constitution of 1857 it gave as
a reason the necessity of making its precepts
practical and feasible, it should have required
as a first condition for the exercise of citizen-
202 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
ship a knowledge of the national language
and the ability to read and write.
Carranza well knew that without such a
restriction, the germs of demagogy or those
of dictatorship, nourished by clericalism, would
have continued to be cultivated in Mexico
under the cloak of democracy; but in this
instance, as in all similar instances, during
his revolutionary period, it was not patriotic
fervor which guided Carranza; it was not the
sincere and firm determination to solve once
and for all the eternal problems originating
in the antithesis between nominalism and
realism of institutions, but, rather, to attract
to himself the roused populace and insure his
next election even though it were by ignoble
tricks and misrepresentations.
Carranza acknowledged that "suffrage, be-
ing a function essentially collective, inasmuch
as it is the indispensable condition for the
exercise of sovereignty, should be granted to
all the members of the body social who may
understand the interest and the value of that
most lofty function.
"We would, therefore, be justified in con-
cluding that the electoral privilege should be
granted only to those individuals who may
have full consciousness of its lofty end. This
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 203
would, naturally, exclude all those who by
their ignorance, their carelessness, or in-
difference, are incapable of discharging this
duty worthily, co-operating in a spontaneous
and efficient manner with the government of
the people, by the people." (Exposition of
Motives, joined to the project of the Consti-
tution).
But the same First Chief declared that "as
it is the ignorant classes who have suffered
most because cruel despotism and insatiable
exploitation in all their violence have weighed
upon them particularly, it would be, I shall
not say a simple inconsequence, but an un-
pardonable fraud, to take away from them
today what they have gained previously.
"The government under my charge, there-
fore, considers that it would be impolitic and
inopportune at this moment after a great
popular revolution, to restrict the suffrage,
exacting for it the one condition which can
rationally be required, that is, that all citizens
have a sufficient elementary education to
recognize the importance of the right to vote
and discharge it under conditions fruitful to
society. " (Ibidem) .
And the Reporting Committee in the
Assembly of Queretaro, not wishing to fall
204 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
behind, asserted that "The defense of the
principle of the restriction of suffrage is very
wisely made in the report of the First Chief.
The moral qualities of the ethnical groups
dominating the country by their numbers,
justifies the theory of restricted suffrage;
but political reasons prevent this doctrine
from being put into practice at the present
time." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II,
p. 559).
In this way did the Assembly of Queretaro
with opportunist politics allow universal suf-
frage to stand and with it the seed of autocracy
alternating with demagogy.
However, it is but just to state in its favor,
that the Constitution of Queretaro, besides
endorsing the system of direct suffrage sanc-
tioned since 1912, declares that this prerog-
ative shall be taken away from any remiss or
negligent citizen who does not fulfill his civic
duties such as reporting to the census office,
registering at the polls, enrolling in the
National Guard, casting his ballot, discharg-
ing his electoral duties and serving on juries.
This innovation, uncensurable in its motives,
may be of transcendental good in the future;
for if there should be enacted statutes to
provide that the suspension of the suffrage
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 205
prerogative must continue automatically after
the first year referred to by the constitution,
so long as the citizen continues at fault or
does not seek restoration of his political
prerogatives, the end would be that all those
who lacked the will or knowledge to reap the
benefit of so valuable a prerogative would be
eliminated.
Concerning what refers to liberty of the
press, the debates in the Assembly of Quere-
taro showed only a spirit of caste.
When the Reporting Committee proposed
its draft of Article 7 the re-establishment
of trial by jury for offenses by the press, the
radicals opposed it according to the words of
Congressman Calderon, because trial by jury
was a "privilege in favor not of the liberal
newspaper man, but rather of the enemies of
the Revolution. The liberal journalist can
always count in his favor on the influence of
his political party, on the power of the liberal
press, and on the writ of "amparo" in order
to be successful in any process.
"The useless special jurisdiction of which I
speak, is sought only by the reactionaries to
assure the impunity of press offenses. The
jury, in an environment loyal (hostile?) to
constitutionalism, as is the general environ-
206 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
ment, is incapable of rendering justice; if it
did, it would be stoned to death by the excit-
able multitude influenced by the opposition
press, as has already happened. The per-
verse journalists, who would form a legion for
the aid of this same jury in order to be
acquitted, would take advantage of the enor-
mous moral pressure which can weight down
the jury." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I,
pp. 582-3).
The Assembly finally defeated that part of
Article 7 by the overwhelming majority of
101 votes.
When trial by jury again came up for
discussion with the draft of Section VI,
Article 20, Marchoro Narvaez summarized
the same oppressive standard in the following
words: "The present revolution is not yet
popular in Mexico. The majority of the
people are still against the revolution; the
higher classes, the middle classes to a great
extent, and the old intellectual class, are
against the revolution; the working classes
of a certain kind, private employees, those who
make up the principal part of the middle
class are against the revolution ; we are still in
the minority. ... . . .Now, six
months after the establishment of the consti-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 207
tutionalist regime, there will be many re-
actionary newspapers, enemies of the consti-
tutionalist cause. ... ... And
then we shall have no way of repressing them,
why? Because the jury will come from
those same classes, from those same readers,
enemies, reactionaries. From there the jury
will be drawn." "... And if any
newspaper men come to ask for guaran-
tees, I shall tell them, 'wait, journalists, wait,
you are not now in the hands of enemies, no
one will judge you, no one will censure you.
If at some time your efforts are needed to
save liberty, do not then come to ask for
guarantees; come to offer yourselves as vic-
tims, just as the soldier who goes to campaign
does not ask to be given a cuirass and to be
protected behind a wall; so you, do not ask
for the jury, because now it would be a guaranty
only for your very enemies." (Ibidem, Vol.
II, pp. 71, 72).
If the Assembly finally approved the estab-
lishment of the jury system by the scant
majority of eighty -four to seventy votes, it
was merely because it found no other way of
assuring liberty of the press to their political
colleagues while at the same time denying it
to the opponents of the Carrancista revolution.
08 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
After what we have quoted in preceding
lines, it will seem strange to no one that the
exercise of the vote as well as the freedom of
the press should have been and continue to
be a privilege of the Carrancista caste to the
exclusion of all other social classes.
In the elections for the Presidency, the
Federal Congress, Governorships and State
Legislatures, no candidates except those of
Carrancista affiliations have been allowed to
figure nor have any independent political
parties been permitted to organize.
There has been rivalry at the polls, but it
has always been among members of the same
caste. Frequently, this rivalry has moved the
crowds to riot and brought about the simultan-
eous installation of two legislatures and two
governors for a single state, as in the case of
Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Tabasco, and San Luis
Potosi. Or again it resulted in impudent
mockery of the will of the majority as happen-
ed in Nuevo Leon, or in the armed rebellion
of one of the contestants, as in Tamaulipas.
In the City of Mexico, independent news-
papers have appeared; but with one or two
exceptions, they have had to protect them-
selves with a staff of ex-revolutionary men,
and not even this has been of any avail, for
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 209
their editors have been victims of outrage.
Some newspaper men have been imprisoned
by order of the Department of the Interior or
the military authorities without form or
semblance of a trial.
In the states, independent writers have not
enjoyed, nor do they now enjoy, any guaran-
tees. Their liberty and persons are at the
mercy of the Governors and of the Military
Commanders and heads of garrisons.
Thus, therefore, the Federal Government
and that of the States is a government by a
caste and not by the people; public opinion
exerts no influence whatsoever upon the
administration, which, concerned only with
the enrichment of its own members, pays
absolutely no attention to the interests of
the nation.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SO-CALLED Congress of Queretaro was
just as obstinate in not providing for institu-
tions which should openly give to the country
a government by public opinion, the only
dowry of progressive stability, as it was lax
in sanctioning a constitutional dictatorship,
now granting judicial attributes to the execu-
tive, now increasing his legislative and co-
legislative powers, or taking liberty of action
from the Federal Congress.
In other chapters I have pointed out the
series of dangerous prerogatives which Article
27 confers upon the President of the Republic
and, in certain cases, upon the Governors of
the states in matters which directly affect
private property.
Not less contrary to law is the provision
of Article 21 which refers to the imposition of
fines.
The Constitution of 1857 limited the power
of the administration to impose disciplinary
fines to the amount of five hundred pesos,
according to the terms established by law.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The Constitution of 1917 fixes a maximum
fine equivalent to one week's wages in favor
of the journeyman or day -laborer; for all
others, there is no limit whatever, and, what
is worse, the amount of the fine is entirely
at the discretion of the administrative author-
ity, for it does not require that the maximum
amount be fixed by law.
The Constitution of 1857 condemned the
confiscation of property which, historically,
has always been the instrument of personal
vengeance or covetous plunder since the time
of Marius and Sulla. The Constitution of
1917 explicitly declares that the application
of the entire property of one person in payment
of fines is not confiscation.
An explanation of these amendments hav-
ing been requested by a member of the
Congress of Queretaro, the Reporting Com-
mittee replied: "To fix a limit to those penal-
ties, both pecuniary and corporal, is assuredly
to bring about a result contrary to that sought
by the Committee and which, undoubtedly,
is not the one desired by this honorable
Committee; because if the pecuniary penalty
is limited, then we shall find that the ad-
ministrative authorities will continue to im-
pose upon the rich the same fine as upon the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
poor, upon all that social class which is
divided only into two parts, the poor and the
rich, because the middle class is but the poor
class characterized by its learning and for
that reason is not truly poor nor is it as
ignorant as the moneyed class thinks it."
(Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 111).
But the foregoing is nothing compared to
the changes which the Constitution of Quere-
taro introduced with a view to making a
veritable constitutional dictator of the Presi-
dent of the Republic.
It authorized but one annual session of
the Federal Congress (Art. 65), while in the
former constitution there was provision for
two; it provided that in case of disagree-
ment between the two houses upon the pre-
mature adjournment of its sessions, it would
rest with the executive to settle the dispute
(Art. 66); it deprived, not only both houses
of Congress but also the permanent committee,
of the prerogative conferred upon it by the
Constitution of 1857 to call special session,
vesting the President of the Republic ex-
clusively with this prerogative, and it forbade
the congress in such extra sessions to consider
any matters but those specified in the Presi-
dential letter of convocation.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 213
It amplified the co-legislative prerogatives
of the executive requiring that in order to
pass a law over his vote, a two-thirds majority
vote of the members of each house would be
necessary. (Art. 72, paragraph c).
It demanded a two-thirds vote of the senate
to declare high federal officials guilty of
official offenses. (Art. 110).
It repealed the provisions of the old Consti-
tution which made the President of the
Republic liable to impeachment for grave
violations of the Constitution, as well as for
encroachments upon electoral liberty, and
thus granted him immunity from such offenses.
(Art. 108).
The Assembly of Queretaro went even
further: it conferred upon the then First Chief
the power to enact laws governing the next
elections for president and federal congress
with the deliberate purpose and result of
excluding from voting or being elected all
those who had not given proof of their
Carrancista affiliation. (Art. 9 transitory).
And, finally, in transitory Article 15, it
authorized the President of the Republic to
enact a law defining liability for political
crimes committed previously, thus including
the acts which gave origin to the government
214 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
of Huerta, those supporting that government
and the successive secessions experienced
by the Carrancista faction from its beginning
up to the date of the new Constitution. A
baneful law, not only because it vested the
above mentioned arbitrary power exclusively
in one man, but because of its hideous retro-
activity begotten in rancor!
Attempting to somewhat justify such con-
centration of power in the hands of the
executive, the First Chief in his "Exposicion
de Motives" said: "Nor has the other
fundamental principle established by the
Constitution of 1857 relative to a division of
the exercise of public power been carried out
and consequently it has been valueless. Such
a division, generally speaking, has been merely
written in the law; it has never been made
effective, for as a matter of fact all powers
have been exercised by one person alone,
to such a degree that by a series of constantly
repeated acts contempt has been shown for the
supreme law, for, without the least scruple,
there has been given to the Chief Executive the
power of legislating upon all matters. And
thus the functions of the legislative branch
of the administration were confined in the
past merely to delegating power to the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 215
Executive and approving all acts performed
by him in virtue of said power, there having
been no record leading to the belief that the
Congress would disavow or even take excep-
tion to any act of the Executive. (Diario de
los Debates, Vol. I, p. 261).
The report of the Committee accepted the
theories advanced by the First Chief in the
following terms:
"The second committee had left in abey-
ance the presentation of the report upon
Article 49 because the said article made a
reference to the 29th, which should first be
approved in order that the said article 49
might be considered in its entirety. As
Article 29 has already been approved, the
Committee will now proceed to report upon
the referred-to Article 49.
"This article treats of the division of
power, following the theory that the exercise
of sovereignty is performed by the people
through three powers which are equal among
themselves as organs of the same sovereignty
that of the people.
"This theory of the three powers is essential
in our political system: it is the pivot upon
which rest all our institutions from merely the
216 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
constitutional point of view.
"The same reasons, well known to all,
which for centuries have been given for the
division of the said powers, imply the most
absolute prohibition of the concentration of two
of them in a single person. The process of
deliberation, discussion, and representation of
the various interests of a country in the prepara-
tion of its laws, presupposes a group of repre-
sentatives to exercise the legislative power,
and necessarily prohibits such power from
being vested in one individual.
"The last two rules have one exception,
which applies to cases considered in Article
29, an article which gives to the Executive
the power of issuing a decree for the establish-
ment of a special penalty or else for the estab-
lishment of tribunals, also special, and to
proceed according to the demands of the
abnormal situations referred to in the said
article; in this case also, that of the Article
29, the special tribunals referred to may also
be formed for the very prompt and speedy
application of the law by authorities auxiliary
to the Executive power. And hi all these
cases, by force of circumstances, two powers
are united in the personnel of one power,
though subject to the strict terms of Article
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 217
29, to the supervision of the Permanent
Committee and lasting for a limited time.
But the mere possibility that such a necessity
may arise, is enough to merit the exception to
the general principle formerly established.
"In view of the foregoing, the committee
proposes to the honorable Assembly the
approval of Article 49 in the following terms:
"Article 49. The supreme power of the
federation is divided for its exercise into the
Legislative, Executive and Judicial.
"Two or more of those powers shall not be
concentrated in one person alone nor in one
body, nor shall the Legislative power be
intrusted to one individual except in the case
of extraordinary powers given to the Executive
of the Union in accordance with the provisions
of Article 29."
The debate took the same course as is
shown by the following quotations:
"Congressman Fajardo: I believe, fellow
congressmen, that the Congress, that is,
the members of the Congress, do not bring to
it the power of delegating its mandate, or, in
other words, of being able to hand over its
functions to the Executive Power, whatever
may be the circumstances which may present
themselves.
218 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
"They may allow the Executive certain
liberties, they may give him extraordinary
powers, but it cannot be permitted, consti-
tutionally speaking, that the Executive be
enabled to assume the two powers, and it is
a well known fact that there is a division
between the powers ; that is, that there is one
power that legislates and one which executes.
"If we could conceive the Legislative
power and the Executive in a single person,
it would be the same as sanctioning in the
constitution a dictatorship, and that has not
been in the mind of any one of us; at any
rate, I believe it and for that reason I have
taken the floor, just to say in a clear way that
I am not in favor of Article 49 and that I
shall vote against it, because it states that
the Legislative power may be vested in the
Executive; I do not favor it even in the extra-
ordinary cases mentioned in Article 29.
Congressman Machorro Narvaez (member
of the Commission): . . . "Article 49
is nothing but the logical result of Article
29."
"Now let us see whether in the case of
Article 29, already approved, any circum-
stance can present itself as an argument for
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 219
uniting in one person two powers. Article 29
says that the president with the approval of
the Congress of the Union, or during its
recesses, with the approval of the Permanent
Committees, may suspend throughout the
country or in a given place, the guaranties
which might be obstacles in the way of
meeting a situation quickly and easily, etc.,
and it might happen that the general preven-
tions to which the quoted article refers might
consist in legislative measures. In order that
it might not be argued in such a case that the
rulings made by the president were null
because he was not authorized to make them
since they did not belong to him on account of
being attributes of the Legislative power, the
exception is made that in that case he may
also dictate general measures of a legislative
nature." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II,
pp. 343, 344 and following).
Judging from such explicit utterances, and
though possibly at the cost of other preroga-
tives, of the Federal Congress, it at least
seemed that the basic principle of the division
of powers was victorious and the corrupt
practice of delegating legislative powers to
the president appeared abolished since no
other exception was made save in the case of
220 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
a suspension of guarantees because of serious
national peril threatening from within or
without.
Nothing could be more deceiving! A week
after the houses of Congress had been elected,
Carranza obtained from them the decree of
May 8th, 1917, which delegated to him ample
powers for legislating in the department of
finance, with the aggravating circumstance
that no basis was fixed nor was a time limit
placed for their exercise.
For two years has Carranza been issuing
decrees relative to import and export, stamp
tax, direct and indirect contributions, and, in
general, upon all kinds of taxes.
Not satisfied with this, he has invaded the
field of civil and mercantile legislation, not
included in the extraordinary powers, dictating
the laws of moratorium and those relative to
the liquidation of banks of issue and commer-
cial banks.
And in the way of usurpations, he has not
hesitated to legislate concerning the owner-
ship of petroleum and similar products, de-
termining the manner of acquiring, exploiting
or forfeiting them, in spite of the fact that said
products should, in accordance with Article
27 of the same Constitution of Queretaro,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
have been the object of special organic laws.
Many of these decrees have had an ephem-
ereal life; some have been enforced before
becoming known throughout the republic by
publication in the official papers; others have
been revoked before they went into effect,
and not a few have had as their object the
favoring of some personage or other of the
administration, or have served as an instru-
ment of coaction for the benefit of the favorites
of Carranza who would obtain shameful
gratuities as a price for final repeal.
The use of these extraordinary powers
has been so infamous, expensive, and immoral,
that, finally, the Chamber of Deputies, now
estranged from Carranza through the
approaching presidential elections, proposed
last October that those powers be abrogated.
The Department of the Interior then turned
to the cabinet minority and during various
consecutive sessions succeeded in getting the
said majority, in open violation of the express
regulations of Congress, to absent itself from
the sessions with a view to breaking the
quorum each time the said law was to be
voted upon.
The official declaration of the Secretary
of the Interior says thus:
222 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
"To break a quorum when the minority
knows beforehand that its arguments will be
ignored, is a legitimate resort, because the
resolutions of the Assemblies should not
indicate the exclusive preponderance of
number as number, but as the rational sum of
convictions derived from study, "(sic).
"The democratic conception of majorities,
far from depending upon blind domination,
is founded upon the predominance of the
minds which have discerned the pro and con of
a question, and subject only to this logical and
rational standard the minority is bound to
submit to the resolution of the majority. Other-
wise, the progress of civilization would be
checked and fall into the primitive state
where sheer force rules. If the matter under
discussion is a simple defense within the same
judgment, the minority exercises its right,
its action becomes patriotic, highly moral
and life-saving when it discusses such a
theme as extraordinary powers in finance,
vital to the country." ("El Universal,"
Mexico, Oct. 16, 1919).
General Pablo Gonzalez Carranza's right-
hand-man whose duties are exclusively those
of a leader in command of forces, when
interviewed, declared to the reporter of "Ex-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 223
celsior" (a conservative newspaper of Mexico
City) that in case the conflict between the
minority and the majority should assume
dangerous proportions, "he would order the
doors of the Chamber of Deputies to be
closed." (Edition of the 22nd of Oct, 1919).
It is true that the speaker, frightened by his
own words retracted them the following day,
but his letter of rectification, signed by him
and published in the metropolitan papers of
the 24th of October, accuses him instead of
absolving him.
Carranza has not yet made use of the
power given to him by the Constitution of
Queretaro to fix the responsibilities of, and
the penalties to be imposed on, supporters of
former administrations or factions hostile
to the Carrancistas, but this negligence has
been through calculation and not through
benevolence or magnanimity.
Under the pretext that the said law has
not yet been formulated, the government
holds in exile thousands of individuals, whose
only crime is that of not agreeing with
Carrancista ideas, and before permitting the
return of this or that person, it exacts from
him the solemn promise that he will not interfere
in politics.
224 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Under the same pretext, the government
continues in the illegal possession of the
property of the exiles, although no law nor
any judicial authority whatsoever has sanc-
tioned the occupation.
Bolshevik, therefore, is the Carrancista
constitution, Bolshevik is the Carrancista
government, because they are the constitution
and government of a caste the armed caste
of the lowest social order without any nation-
al constructive inspiration, dominated by an
appetite and a thirst for riches for its own
members and by a hatred or contempt for
all others.
CHAPTER XVI
THINKING AMERICANS frequently have ask-
ed how it is possible that the constitution and
the Bolshevik government which have oppres-
sed the Mexican people during the last few
years could be imposed upon fifteen million in-
habitants by a handful of adventurers.
It is not an extraordinary occurrence in the
United States for two bandits, revolvers in
hand, to hold up a train, rob the express,
oblige several hundred passengers to throw up
their hands, and strip them of their money
and valuables without meeting any resistance
from the victims. Such, on a large scale, is
the case of Mexico.
But, comes the reply, in train hold-ups the
passengers are taken by surprise, they either
have no arms or no opportunity to use them,
and when the choice comes between life and
property they prefer to give up the latter.
In Mexico, on the contrary, it may be said
that the people have now for five long years
submitted to oppression and have had suffici-
ent time to recover from the surprise and arm
themselves.
226 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Time, yes; but not opportunity. During
that long term of five years, outside of the
United States, there has been no country from
which a supply of arms and munitions could
be obtained. The proclamations of the
American Government purported to maintain
the neutrality of the country. However,
they have resulted in arming to the teeth the
Carrancista caste and leaving the rest of the
Mexican people helpless.
The erroneous conception which the head
of the American Government has had of
the Mexican problems, and the still more
erroneous idea that the said problems could
be solved by means of intervention, have
contributed to this strange and inexplicable
state of affairs.
General discontent and a spirit of revolt
throughout the country at the beginning of
1913 gave warning that the Madero regime,
lacking prestige, unfaithful to its principles,
and undermined by anarchy within was about
to fall, because the governing class had
opened a gulf between itself and the governed.
Neither the revolt of Tacubaya nor the
treachery of Huerta to the Madero govern-
ment was the direct cause of this collapse;
they merely hastened it.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The American Government was well in-
formed of the above facts through the letters
and telegrams of its ambassador, Henry Lane
Wilson, which were published in part during
the months of August and September, 1916.
In his correspondence the ambassador made it
plain that political and economic conditions
in Mexico were day by day changing from bad
to worse, for which reason American battle-
ships were sent to ports on the Gulf of Mexico,
notably Vera Cruz. He further reported that
during the ten days of strife in the city of
Mexico resulting from the Revolt of Tacubaya,
the Diplomatic Corps had met and decided
that, for the sake of peace, the resignation of
President Madero should be requested, his
government being hopeless; that the Spanish
Minister had been appointed to approach
Madero and endeavor to convince him of
the desirability of his resignation and that
of the Vice-President; that when Huerta put
both officials in prison, he, the American
Ambassador, had invited Huerta and Felix
Diaz, chief of the rebels, to meet with him in
the Embassy building, for the purpose of
agreeing upon a plan for the organization of a
provisional government to take charge of the
situation, and in a short time issue a call for
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
presidential elections with a view to return-
ing to a normal elective government, as other-
wise the American Government would con-
sider itself compelled to take drastic measures.
Mr. Wilson also stated that Huerta and Diaz
had agreed that the former, with the sanction
of the Federal Congress and in the manner pro-
vided by the Constitution, would assume the
provisional presidency, would undertake the
immediate pacification of the country, and
would issue a call for presidential elections.
As there was no confidence that Huerta would
keep his word, a group of independent men,
none of whom were followers of Huerta, nor
even sympathizers of his, was appointed to
form his cabinet.
The American Ambassador gave his promise
that if the provisional government were
organized in the agreed form, it would obtain
the recognition of the United States.
President Madero and Vice-President Suarez
presented their resignations which, in ac-
cordance with the provisions of the Constitu-
tion, were accepted almost unanimously,
there being only five votes against it,
and it is worthy of note that the majority
of the members of the said body were
Maderistas.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
The Secretary of Foreign Relations, also
following the form fixed by the Constitution,
assumed the duties of First Magistrate, ap-
pointed Huerta as Secretary of the Interior
and then presented his own resignation. This
resignation having been likewise accepted by
Congress, Huerta took his oath as Provisional
President before the said Assembly and with
its sanction.
Intellectual people, as well as the genuine
concensus of opinion, looked with favor upon
the new order of things, for the nation was
surfeited with anarchy and unrest and felt
confident that with the cabinet chosen, the
government would be able to restore tranquil-
ity, it being understood that a call for new
elections would be issued.
The Supreme Court of Justice recognized
the constitutionality of the new government;
all the states of the republic, with the excep-
tion of Sonora and Coahuila, the governors of
which rose in arms, proclaimed their loyalty
to it.
As far as Sonora is concerned, however, it
is well to quote the following significant words
pronounced at the Carrancista convention in
Mexico on the 5th of October, 1914, by Alvaro
230 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Obregon, the most widely known of the Sonora
rebels : " Our revolutionary banner says ' con-
sti-tu-tion-al-ism ' and our actions affirm the
contrary, ' an-ti-con-sti-tu-tion-al-ism. ' If, be-
cause we are constitutionalists, we were to
abide by the constitution, we should have
recognized Huerta, inasmuch as Congress recog-
nized him and we were ordered to do so. " ("El
Liberal," Mexico, Oct. 6, 1914.)
As to the action of the State of Coahuila,
its then Governor, Venustiano Carranza, ad-
dressed himself officially to the Secretary of
the Interior of the Huerta Government mani-
festing his desire to submit to it. In a tele-
gram sent on the 25th of February, 1913, he
says the following: "In order to co-operate
in the re-establishment of peace in the Re-
public and relieve the delicate situation due
to existing relations between the Federal
Government and that of this state, which
might bring about a conflict, I take the liberty
of proposing a conference by telegraph on the
day and hour that you may assign. "
So general was this state of mind, that Luis
Cabrera, radical Maderista, and today Secre-
tary of Finance to Carranza, addressed a
letter from New York on the 5th of March,
1913, to "El Impartial" of Mexico for publi-
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 231
tion, in which he says: "I believe that the
personalistic elements of the Maderista fac-
tion should cease in their resistance, for it is
a useless effort since the deaths of Francisco
I. Madero and Jose Maria Pino Suarez. The
'renovadores,'* who were never personal-
istic, ought, with greater reason, to accept
the deeds accomplished without trying to
improve upon them, taking the present situa-
tion as the point of departure for their future
labors within the paths of constitutionalism
procuring the prompt re-establishment of
liberties, but abstaining from action until
acquainted with the political programs of the
new men concerning the administration of
justice, municipal autonomy, military re-
cruiting, agrarian reforms, and all other new
ideals."
It is not, therefore, out of the way to assert
that had the American Government recognized
Huerta as provisional president, with the
understanding that the election of a per-
manent president would take place in a very
short time, the revolution would have died
in its infancy. Then, under the combined
pressure and action of all the live forces of the
country, Huerta would have had to call elec-
*Tne Maderista group in Congress.
232 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
tions, and law and order would have been re-
established in a short period.
But, upon entering the White House, the
new American president Woodrow Wilson,
adopted a radical policy opposed to that
warranted by circumstances; he usurped the
right to intervene in the domestic affairs of
Mexico, and resolved to try out his political
ideals there.
His ideals if we are to accept literally
all that he has said and to ignore the devia-
tions shown in respect to Peru, Santo Domin-
go, Haiti and even Mexico were summed
up in his hope of seeing the sovereignty of the
people realized in all the nations of the world
because a "just government rests always
upon the consent of the governed and upon
the public conscience and approval." (Cir-
cular telegram of March 12, 1913, addressed
by the Department of State in Washington
to all the Latin- American nations). By
"people" he understood not exactly "those
above," but rather the "lower layer," for he
claimed that not one instance could be cited
"in all the history of the world where liberty
was handed down from above" and "liberty
always is attained by the forces working be-
low, underneath, by the great movement of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 233
the people." (Interview given by President
Wilson to the "Saturday Evening Post" on
the 23rd of May, 1914). He firmly believed
"that when a government proves unsuitable
to the life of the people under it, they have a
right to alter or abolish it in any way that they
please." (Speech of President Wilson de-
livered in Columbus, Ohio, on the llth of
December, 1915); and the United States,
"the champions of free government and na-
tional sovereignty in both continents of this
hemisphere" (speech of President Wilson de-
livered at the Waldorf Hotel, New York, on
the 26th of January, 1915) "can have no
sympathy with those who seek to seize the
power of the government to advance their own
personal interests or ambitions." (Circular
telegram above cited).
And speaking more concretely of the causes
and origin of the Mexican problem, Wilson
himself adds: "The economic development
of Mexico has so far been accomplished by
such 'concessions' and by the exploitation of
the fertile lands of the republic by a very small
number of owners who have accumulated
under one title hundreds of thousands of
acres . . . and reduced the population to a
sort of peonage. " (Interview with President
234 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
Wilson published in The Ladies Home Journal,
October, 1916). He further said: "No one
asks for order, because order will help the
masses of the people to get a portion of their
rights and of their land; but all demand it so
that the great owners of property, the over-
lords, the hidalgos, the men who have ex-
ploited that rich country for their own selfish
interests, shall be able to continue their
processes undisturbed." . . . (Aforementioned,
interview of May 23, 1914); "eighty-five per
cent of the Mexican people have never been
allowed to have any genuine participation in
their own government or to esercise any sub-
stantial rights with regard to the very land
they live upon. All the rights that men most
desire have been exercised by the other fifteen
per cent.;" (Address of President Wilson de-
livered at Independence Hall, July 4, 1914);
those who demand order "want . . . the old
order; but . . . the old order is dead." Presi-
dent Wilson in his own words declared his
task to be "to aid in composing those differ-
ences so far as I may be able, that the new
order, which will have its foundation on human
liberty and human rights, shall prevail" and
"those in de facto control of the government
(Huerta) must be relieved of that control before
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 235
Mexico can realize her manifest destiny."
(Above-mentioned interview in the Saturday
Evening Post); "and then, when the end
comes, we shall hope to see constitutional
order restored hi distressed Mexico by the
concert and energy of such of her leaders (the
Carrancistas) as prefer the liberty of their
people to their own ambitions." (Presidential
Message to the United States Congress,
December 2, 1913).
In the result of such a social experiment
President Wilson has nothing to be proud of.
He intended to have the political power of
Mexico vested in the will of the governed and
to banish forever governments depending
upon force; but the Carrancista faction has
neither admitted suffrage beyond its own
ranks, nor has it stood except for the 100,000
"hoplites" that devour four-fifths of all the
federal revenue.
President Wilson wishes to suppress the
oligarchy of the former governing classes and
transfer public affairs to the eighty per cent,
of laborers and illiterates; but under his
patronage the basest of ochlocracies, some-
thing less than one per cent, of the whole
nation, has taken possession of the govern-
ment to the systematic exclusion of all other
236 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
social classes, educated or illiterate, rich or
poor.
President Wilson determined to try out
south of the Bravo a Utopian democracy and
establish it among sub-civilized multitudes;
but, instead, he has seen enthroned the
absolutism of one man in whose irresponsible
hands the neo-constitution places the property
of the governed, and to whom the members
of his caste, against the canons of that neo-
constitution, have delivered the legislative
power and with it the power, not recognized
in any democracy, of creating and readjust-
ing taxes without the consent of the com-
munity; an autocracy which, limitless in its
capacity for evil doing, has been impotent in
preventing it in the twenty-eight satrapies
of the States, cut by the same pattern.
President Wilson intended to establish the
reign of equality, of justice, and of liberty,
vesting the government in the hands of the
armed citizens; but he succeeded only in
creating two castes: that of the upstart rulers
murderers, abductors and thieves from the
penitentiary and that of the pariahs; the
latter, exposed to all kinds of attacks and
humiliations, the former vested with all rights
and prerogatives. For each act of oppression,
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 237
each plunder, each injustice in the past,
Wilson, indifferent, has watched a thousand
outrages, a thousand spoliations, a thousand
iniquities, taking place under the rule of his
protege.
President Wilson dreamt of bringing about
the happiness of the destitute classes, and of
creating a new Mexico, but he has succeeded
only in allowing Carranzaism to submerge
them in misery, abjection and ignorance, and
carry on without respite or rest the destruc-
tion of every particle of culture and progress
which the country had achieved.
But the most unbiased commentary which
could possibly be made on the Mexican policy
of Woodrow Wilson, President, is the criti-
cism written by W r oodrow Wilson, historian,
relative to the period which followed the
emancipation of the slaves at the end of the
Civil War in the United States.
For the sake of impartiality, the length of
the quotation will be pardoned.
The Historian Wilson speaks as follows:
"Negroes constituted the majority of their
electorates; but political power gave them no
advantage of their own. Adventurers swarmed
out of the North to cozen, beguile, and use
them. These men, mere 'carpet baggers' for
238 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
the most part, who brought nothing with
them, and had nothing to bring, but a change
of clothing and their wits, became the new
masters of the blacks. They gained the
confidence of the negroes, obtained for them-
selves the more lucrative offices, and lived
upon the public treasury, public contracts,
and their easy control of affairs. For the
negroes there was nothing but occasional
allotments of abandoned or forfeited land,
the pay of petty offices, a per diem allowance
as members of the conventions and the state
legislatures which their new masters made
business for, or the wages of servants in the
various offices of the administration. Their
ignorance and credulity made them easy
dupes. A petty favor, a slender stipend, a
trifling perquisite, a bit of poor land, a piece of
money satisfied or silenced them. It was
enough, for the rest, to play upon their
passions: they were easily taught to hate the
men who had once held them in slavery, and
to follow blindly the political party which
had brought on the war of their emancipa-
tion.
"There were soon lands enough and to
spare out of which to make small gifts to
them without sacrifice of gain on the part of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 239
their new masters . . . Enormous debts
were piled up to satisfy the adventurers.
"Where the new rulers acted with less as-
surance and immunity or with smaller re-
sources at hand, debts grew more slowly, but
the methods of spoliation were everywhere
much the same; and with the rise of debts
went always the disappearance of all assets
wherewith to pay them. Treasuries were
swept clean.
"The real figures of the ruin wrought no
men could get at. It was not to be expressed
in state taxes or state debts. The increase
in the expenditure and indebtedness of counties
and towns, of school districts and cities, re-
presented an aggregate greater even than that
of the ruinous sums which had drained the
treasuries and mortgaged the resources of the
governments of the States; and men saw with
their own eyes what was going on at their own
doors. What was afoot at the capitals of
their states they only read of in the news-
papers or heard retailed in the gossip of the
street, but the affairs of their own villages
and country-sides they saw corrupted, mis-
managed, made base use of under their very
eyes. There the negroes themselves were the
office holders, men who could not so much as
240 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
write their names and who knew none of the
uses of authority except insolence. It was
there that the policy of the congressional
leaders wrought its perfect work of fear,
demoralization, disgust, and social revolution.
"No one who thought justly or tolerantly
could think that this veritable overthrow of
civilization in the South had been foreseen
or desired by the men who had followed Mr.
Stevens, and Mr. Waden and Mr. Morton
in their policy of rule or ruin. That handful
of leaders it was, however, hard to acquit of
the charge of knowing and intending the
ruinous consequences of what they had planned.
They would take counsel of moderation
neither from northern men nor from southern.
They were proof against both fact and reason
in their determination to 'put the White
South under the heel of the black South.'
They did not know the region with which they
were dealing. Northern men who did know
it tried to inform them of its character and of
the danger and folly of what they were under-
taking; but they refused to be informed, did
not care to know, were in any case fixed upon
the accomplishment of a single object. Their
colleagues, their followers, kept, many of
them, a cooler mind, a more prudent way of
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 241
thought, but could not withstand them.
They, too, were ignorant of the South. They
saw but a little way into the future, had no
means of calculating what the effects of these
drastic measures would be upon the life and
action of the South, and lacked even the
knowledge of mere human nature which might
have served them instead of an acquaintance
with the actual men they were dealing with.
They had not foreseen that to give the suffrage
to the negroes and withhold it from the more
capable white men would bestow political
power, not upon the negroes, but upon the
white adventurers, as much the enemies of
one race as of the other.
"In that day of passion, indeed, they had
not stopped to speculate what the effects
would be. Their object had been to give the
negro political power in order that he might
defend his own rights, as voters everywhere
else might defend theirs. " (A History of the
American People, by Woodrow Wilson, Vol.
V, pp. 49, 50).
Is not the parallel overwhelming?
In the American nation at the time of the
abolition of slavery, urgently demanded by
civilization and humanity, the men of the
north, congressional leaders, ignorant of the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
slave region, proof against fact and reason,
refusing information and advice from their
own colleagues and from the white men of the
South, had granted suffrage to the negroes
on no other basis than their theories concern-
ing self-government. In the Mexican nation,
Wilson, the man of the north, the democratic
leader, ignorant of the idiosyncracies of his
neighbor on the south, proof against fact and
reason, deaf to the reports and the advice of
his fellow-countrymen and the governing
classes of Mexico, had wished to carry the
social and economic emancipation of the
lowest proletariat, in itself a noble and
humanitarian ambition, to the Utopian ex-
treme of vesting this eighty per cent of the
national population exclusively with the pre-
rogative of political power.
In the South, conscienceless adventurers
swarmed to cozen and beguile the negroes.
They obtained for themselves the more lucra-
tive offices, emptied the public treasuries,
contracted enormous debts, lived upon public
contracts, and caused the ruin of the South;
and, in order to satisfy and silence the freed-
men, they gave them insignificant allotments
of land, petty offices in the administration,
now and then a paltry favor, and even played
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 243
upon their passions, implanting in them a
hatred for their former masters. In Mexico,
adventurers also swarmed, men without prop-
erty, without patrimony, enemies to decent
dress, and to the short brimmed hat, many of
them shirtless and shoeless, criminals from
penitentiaries in great numbers took possession
of the seats of authority, rifled public, private
and religious exchequers, abducted and
murdered systematically, destroyed railroads,
factories, and plants, and in place of provid-
ing bread and work for the eighty per cent of
liberated slaves, they harangued the masses
and fanned their rancour to white heat.
In the American nation, the leaders of
Congress by giving suffrage to the negroes
and withholding it from the white men,
bestowed the public power, not upon those
negroes, but upon the adventurers, as much
the enemies of one race as of the other.
President Wilson's Mexican policy aimed
at wresting political power from the class
then exercising it in order to bestow it,
theoretically, upon the eighty per cent of the
population which composed the proletariat,
a semi-civilized group incapable of governing
even their own villages. The result of that
policy was, naturally enough, that the newly-
244 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
delegated power immediately fell into the
hands of unscrupulous adventurers, the lead-
ers of the "armed citizens," who were enemies
alike of the former political leaders and the
unfortunate people whom it had become their
privilege to exploit.
The situation was aggravated by the fact
that President Wilson, by recognizing the de
facto government of Carranza, had opened
the way for the band of adventurers who
composed that government to lay in a supply
of arms and other munitions of war while
ninety-nine per cent of the Mexican people
were shackeled and rendered defenseless.
President Wilson was admittedly actuated
by the best of intentions but it is difficult to
believe that he could not have foreseen, at
least to some degree, the disastrous results
to Mexican civilization which the pursuit of
such a policy must inevitably have brought
about. The errors which he committed are
not, as we have seen, to be charged to a lack
of magnanimity. His chief mistake, and it is
a magnitudinous one, has consisted in the
'belief that a better solution of the problems
of a people can be worked out by a foreign
government than by the people themselves,
Any attempts whatsoever at intervention.
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 245
whether they carry out the ideas of President
Wilson or are at variance with them, must
inevitably bring new and probably greater
calamities.
Any future diplomatic intervention, such
as have been all previous ones, with one or two
accompanying martial demonstrations, will
fail through lack of an understanding of the
ideals, sentiments, customs, traditions, history,
culture, and racial characteristics of the
Mexican people and will only succeed in
bringing about a loss of prestige by the United
States and rendering unpopular the political
party which sanctions it.
If armed intervention should at some time
come about, to the foregoing evils will be
added others of a most serious nature, for
national sentiment, stronger than that of any
faction, will be aroused, all Latin -America will
protest, and it is not to be doubted that the
laboring classes of the United States, tradi-
tionally discontented, would raise the old
cry of capitalistic greed.
Bolshevism in Mexico was a minor force
in 1917 --as the Bolshevik Congressman
Marchoro Narvaez admitted in the Assembly
of Queretaro. Intellectuals, capitalists, heads
of industries, employees, the middle class in
246 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime
general, and a large portion of the laboring
classes, were opposed to the faction in power
according to the admissions of the same
Marchoro Narvaez. At present, the Bolshe-
vik group is even smaller, for it has been
deserted by the very few honest leaders it
formerly relied upon, and, above all, by the
laboring classes of the cities and of the country
to whom the sad experience of two and a half
years of misery and humiliations has demon-
strated that the Carrancista revolution did not
sponsor, nor can it sponsor, anything what-
soever of a magnanimous or constructive
nature.
We can see, therefore, that many and of
great influence are the national elements that
seek to uproot Carrancista Bolshevism. They
include equally the governing and the gov-
erned classes, the only exceptions being the
military chiefs and demagogues who occupy
prominent places in the federal and state
governments and in the army, and who seek
only to satisfy their insatiable appetites for
riches.
If the caste which today has possession of
power in Mexico were to lose the moral and
material support of the United States, the
Mexican nation would no longer face the
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 247
obstacle which has stood in the way of the
achievement of its aspirations and, unaided,
it could restore the constitution of 1857,
accomplish the reforms which the general
concensus of opinion considers mandatory as
affecting labor, lands, the educational system,
the courts and the laws which govern suffrage
and could establish a respected, stable and
progressive government capable of fulfilling
its national and international obligations.
The above conclusions, then, suggest the
policy which considerations of expediency,
justice and humanity would seem to render it
advisable for the United States to follow in its
relations with Mexico. It can be summed up
in one compound word: non-intervention.
Los Angeles. November 12, 1919.
