Mexican pride and Commissioner Cabrera

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THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

MEXICAN PRIDE

AND

COMMISSIONER CABRERA

Dressmaking Class at Girls' Industrial School, Mexico City, D. F.

Published by

LATIN-AMERICAN NEWS ASSOCIATION
1400 Broadway, New York City

Mexican Pride and Commissioner Cabrera

HE letter which the Mexican commissioner, Luis
Cabrera, has not long ago addressed to "The
New York Times," is a precious document for
the history of the international relations be-
tween the United States and Latin-American
countries.

This letter is "representative," as Emerson
might have said, and is greatly so, since it re-
flects not only the soul state of the Mexican people, visible under
the present critical circumstances, but also the latent character-
istics ready to manifest themselves on the slightest pretext, of
all the peoples of Spanish America, which besides having iden-
tical origin with Mexico, the same blood and similar racial fac-
tors, the common ties of legend, religion and language, also
have the same thought and the same heart.

Following is the letter of Licenciado Cabrera, as published
in the above mentioned daily :

"To the Editor of The New York Times :

I am referring to your editorial regarding Mexico in yes-
terday's issue. The attitude which I am supposed to have as-
sumed is a mere conjecture. I refrain from the personal justi-
fication, as it would compel me to disclose the nature of our
discussion with the Joint Commission.

The purpose of this letter is to express my regret that your
newspaper, one of the first in the world, should stoop to defame
a diplomatic commission which is striving to reach an agree-
ment for the good of Mexico, as well as of the United States,
by insinuating that the Mexican delegation or the Mexican
government expects to be bribed in order to yield.

The ^Mexican delegates have merely asked that Mexico's
sovereignty be respectec}f We have not requested money, nor

are we expecting bribes, personally nor as members of the com-
mission, nor as a Government, however plausible and tactful
the subornation.

The New York Times seems to believe that all life's trib-
ulations can be salved with money. We trust that such is not the
opinion of the American people. Mexicans do not believe that
all that pertains to a man's honor or to the dignity of a nation
can be settled by such means.

Respectfully yours,

LUIS CABRERA."

In accordance with the strictest diplomatic canons, and at
a solemn moment, the Mexican Commissioner Cabrera has
known how to interpret the sentiment of the country he repre-
sents, and within the protocol has been compelled to enlighten
the ignorance of the wise men who with their backs turned to
the most rudimentary knowledge, have, notwithstanding, the
pretension to set order in the world, and to solve the problems
of the whole universe through the columns of certain American
dailies.

In truth, whenever Mexico, at the present time, and Latin-
America at other times, has tried to revindicate their most es-
sential rights, their most legitimate prerogatives, all that which,
above the material part, is in the moral order the spirit of the
race itself, the majority of the American dailies have answered
to the noble endeavor of the Latin soul with sarcastic and hos-
tile comments.

We shall not discuss at the present time how far journalism
is the plenipotentiary of public opinion ; but it reflects the lat-
ter, at least in part ; it is one of the latter's more evident mani-
festations and this is sufficient to induce us to combat, in the
name of the highest interests of the race, and apropos of the
masterful note of Commissioner Cabrera, these abberations of a
not only popular, but rudely self-sufficient criterion.

"The Spanish pride has once more prevented the United
States from solving the Mexican problem. . . . '

We take this sentence without selecting it from any of so
many papers which have obstinately repeated it; that "Spanish
pride" which is a star, a brilliant laurel, a nimbus on the fore-
head of the race, is, in the American opinion, the nucleus of
shadow for the Latin problem.

That "Spanish pride" which brings a rictus of sarcasm to
the sinister masks of Phoenicians, bourgeois and Jews, of all
that crowd which the Christ chased from the temple with a

whip ; that "pride" which at the present time, according to the
press, prevents the United States from solving the Mexican
problem; that sentiment, embarrassing and obstructive, has,
notwithstanding, other high, noble, sacred, venerable names ;
and despite the Hearst penny-a-liners, imperiously demands the
respect of all mankind.

This "pride" is called "personal dignity" in the individual ;
"civism" in the citizen; "courage" in the warrior; "purity" in the
priest; "integrity" in the magistrate; "inspiration" in the poet. . .

This "pride" is called "modesty" in the virgin ; "fidelity" in
the wife ; "sentiment of home" in the mother and in the family. . .

This "pride," messieurs the penny-a-liners, who wish to
evade the ineluctable spiritual laws, has such biological scope,
is so much a condition in any existence, that even when descend-
ing the zoological scale, while it may be called ignorance in you
(it is over your heads), is called "bravery" in the lion, and
"strength" in the steely claw of the eagle!

Perhaps it is called "sheen" in the wingl^of butterflies, and
"color" in the feathers of the peacock !

Its character is so universal, that still descending to the
merely organic plane, it is called "sap" in the tree, and "per-
fume" in. the flower; and more still, it is such a condition of our
existence, that it burrows under the earth and is called "mol-
ecular affinity" in the minerals ; and, ascending the cycles, scal-
ing heaven, incorporating its divine essence in the sideral re-
gions, perhaps in its supreme flight it becomes "light" in stars !

* * *

In such manner is that "pride" a peremptory condition of
life itself!

In the case of Mexico, it is called "sentiment of independ-
ence and national suzerainty," the first and only object — as Com-
missioner Cabrera declares — of the Mexican representatives at
the debates in Atlantic City.

In the letter which we quote, we find these two assertions :

"The New York Times seems to believe that all life's
tribulations can be salved with money."

» "Mexicans do not believe that all that pertains to a
man's honor or to the dignity of a nation can be settled by
such means."

Thesis, antithesis ; anverse, reverse ; two poles. . . .

Onjihe one side, blind faith without metaphor, absolutely
in the dark, substituting sight, which can dwdl on horizons, by
touch which gropes; exchanging the pupil for the hesitating an-

tennae or for the viscous tentacle. On the other side, faith in
the destiny of the Mother-country, and a mystic, fanatical love
of liberty. Who are right ; the somber, materialistic atheists, or
the enlightened mystics?

When in doubt, said the philosopher, let us be on God's side !

Let us be on the side of the Ideal, although you, messieurs
the penny-a-liners, the jingoes, the "yellow" editors, call it
"pride." We prefer to keep the "ideal," the fire of which we
have the right to exhibit, as you exhibit the glitter of your
gold, that "condensed force" in your vaults. You should re-
spect our ideal which is our only but supreme force, and not
try to analyze it nor to rectify it by means of your parsimonious
criticism, because the Ideal does not react under nitric acid, as
your vile gold does. . . .

You, who obey matter only and its appetites, remember
that Compte forbade to investigate the composition of celestial
bodies. And the Ideal, messieurs the yellow journalists, (which
is the color of envy and of sulphur) is something more, is much
more than any star. . . .

We are with the Ideal, and with Science, and with modern
thought. To believe that everything can be purchased and sold,
to profess that life consists only of three physiological acts (the
three gerunds of the Carthusian), and that its object is a com-
mercial exchange, might have been explicable when the ma-
terialistic tyranny of the philosophic schools in Manchester —
several years ago — overburdened the mind when Spencer had
cut the wings of human spirit.

But now those wings have grown again, as the palms after
they have been cut down ; now, when the blossoming of all mod-
ern philosophies, when the purest springs of human thought
salute the mystic renaissancevof spiritualism as a new spring-
time, as a radiant sun ; and we, the Latin-Americans, are on the
side of the Ideal, high up, and have the most scientific concep-
tion of the life down here. . . .

That "Mexican pride," that delicate sentiment of the Moth-
er-country's dignity which Commissioner Cabrera so emphati-
cally asserts, has been revealed for a long time past as vital and
as constant as the palpitation of a heart.

When one of the plutocrats of Wall Street, actuated by a
philanthropy which is merely a form of remorse, offered two
million dollars to improve the sanitary conditions of Mexico,
Venustiano Carranza, the First Chief, answered with these
phrases, which still re-echo with the Spartan sonority of her6ic
times :

"We can treat our own wounds."

And he added:

"We prefer to suffer in our bodies than in our spirits.
We cannot accept your help."

Stunning sentences which Mexico will no doubt some day
chisel on the granite of a monument. Sentences which have
their genesis in the stoic interrogation of the tortured Cuauh-
temoc: "Am I perchance on a bed of roses!" Sentences in one
word, which by their talismanic virtue, inspired Commissioner
Cabrera to write the intense and significant letter on which we

comment.

* * * *

Let all the Edison phonographs multiply Shylock's voice
claiming that everything is purchasable ! The Mexican mother-
country, with her heart pierced by knives as a Mater Dolorosa,
or as the panoply of a hero, will find strength to say : "Perhaps,
but I do not sell my honor."

And she will raise her pride, her Mexican pride, as the im-
mortal Gascongnian hero raised his immaculate "Panache."

But in this case, the "panache" is egregious, luminous, eter-
nal, as the snowy top of a volcano !

JOSE JUAN TABLADA.

Does Mexico Interest You?

Then you should read the following pamphlets:

What the Catholic Church Has Done for Mexico, by Doctor,

Paganel I SO 1 n

The Agrarian Law of Yucatan (

The Labor Law of Yucatan '

International Labor Forum "I x

Intervene in Mexico, Not to Make, but to End War, urges I nir.

Mr. Hearst, with reply by Holland f

The President's Mexican Policy, by F. K. Lane '

The Religious Question in Mexico \

A Reconstructive Policy in Mexico. > 0.10

Manifest Destiny /

What of Mexico \

Speech of General Alvarado > 0.10

Many Mexican Problems /

Charges Against the Diaz Administration \

Carranza > 0.10

Stupenduous Issues ;

Minister of the Catholic Cult )

Star of Hope for Mexico > 0.10

Land Question in Mexico )

Open Letter to the Editor of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago, 111. )

How We Robbed Mexico in 1848, by Robert H. Howe > 0.10

What the Mexican Conference Really Means ;

The Economic Future of Mexico

We also mail any of these pamphlets upon receipt of 5c each.

Address all communications to

LATIN-AMERICAN NEWS ASSOCIATION
1400 Broadway, New York City