SEP 1919
3Fiiatn«no iWata No. B. HHwrtro. B. 9. -1010
•Gifrof"
Mex^c-
ON THE ROAD
TO DEMOCRACY
BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
RUDIMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN THE
REPUBLIC
HYGIENE IN MEXICO
A RESEARCH CONCERNING POPULAR
EDUCATION
Alberto J. fani
awrtarg of Jubttatrg. <E0m«tf r« ani Caboor
National
of iSf xir o
Srpto. bt A0rotttatonamtfntoa Cbrurralra
SirrcrUm bp ©aUrr?a Oarafirua
Jf tlomruo fHata num. B
mixito.— 131B
192.
Copyright by A. J. Pani, 1918.
Bancroft
FOREWORD.
Yielding to the benevolent solicitations of sev-
eral of my friends, I now venture, to publish in
this little volume certain statements which I have
had the necessity of making during the discharge
of my official functions, because they synthesize
and set out in relief some of the most important
characteristics of the present presidential policy,
and, above all, because it is possible that their
publication — similarly to that of my former book
'Hygiene in Mexico' — done at the expense of the
Government and for the benefit of the Mexican
Popular University, may contribute to promote
the work of educating our people, undertaken by
that worthy Institution.
Mexico, D. F. July 1918.
A. J. P.
THE CONSTITUTIONALIST
GOVERNMENT FACE TO FACE
WITH THE SANITARY
AND EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS
OF MEXICO
Address delivered to the Members of
the American Academy of Political
and Social Science and of the Penn-
sylvania Arbitration and Peace So-
ciety, in "Witherspoon Hall," Phila-
delphia, Penn., U. S. A.
Mr. Chairman:
Gentlemen of the Academy and of the Pennsyl-
vania Arbitration and Peace Society:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
During the most acute and violent period of an
armed revolution — a veritable infernal chaos where,
after destroying everything they come across, a
frenzied people seem bent on suicide in a body —
reports of isolated cases however horrible in them-
selves, cause next to no impression in view of the
awfulness of the general catastrophe. According as
the struggle attains some sort of organization by the
grouping together of men round the various nuclei
representing the different antagonistic principles at
work, individuals gradually grow in importance un-
til the nucleus which best interpreted the ambitions
and requirements of the people acquires an absolute
ALBERTO J. PANI
ascendency. Then this group is unreasonably ex-
pected strictly to fulfill all the obligations incum-
bent on a duly constituted Government. The scandal
then produced by the reports of isolated cases of
calamity suffered whether by individuals or on
property, is all the more intense in porportion as the
frequency with which such cases occur, diminishes.
That is precisely what is happening in regard to
the present Government of Mexico. Take any two
dates from the beginning of its organization. Com-
pare dispassionately the relative conditions of na-
tional life, and it will necessarily have to be admitted
that the country is rapidly returning to normal polit-
ical and social conditions. It is also undeniable
that, for instance, the temporary interruption of a
line of communication or the attack on a train or vil-
lage by rebels and outlaws, now causes an exagger-
ated impression perhaps because people have al-
ready forgotten that but a short time ago the greater
part of the railway lines and the cities of the Re-
public were in the hands of those rebels and outlaws,
and that in the very territory controlled by the Con-
stitutionalist Government, trains and towns were
only but too frequently assaulted.
[12]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
But what is altogether inconceivable is that peo-
ple should wish to make the present Government
responsible for the transgressions of its predeceesors.
The Revolution itself is a natural consequence of
those transgressions. Former Governments who knew
not how to avert the Revolution, are responsible for
the evils which it may have brought along with it;
and if the Nation is to be saved, as it shall be, it
will be due solely to those citizens who hitherto have
been and hereafter will be ready to sacrifice them-
selves to so lofty and noble a purpose. It is indeed
only through personal sacrifice that it is possible to
construct a true Fatherland.
The enemies of the new Regime — irreconcilable
as they are through their unwillingness to accept the
share of sacrifice demanded of them by the latter —
are now burning their last cartridges unjustifiably
laying the blame on the Constitutionalist Govern-
ment for many of the calamities which in themselves
were the cause of the Revolution, and which the
Government, prompted by the generous impulse to
which it owes its very life, purposes to remedy. Thus
may be explained many of the protests of the mal-
[13]
ALBERTO J. PANI
contents and — it must necessarily be admitted — the
monstrosity of the fact that those protests are all the
more loud and energetic when money even rather
than life itself is at stake.
The subject that I have chosen for my address to
you to-night refers to one of those calamities — a
disgraceful legacy of the past — which inimical in-
terests are beginning to take advantage of to attack
the Constitutionalist Government. This Govern-
ment is the first of all the Governments that have
ruled the destinies of Mexico, seriously to concern it-
self about the matter and earnestly to strive to rem-
edy the evil. Having been appointed by Mr. Ca-
rranza, who is in charge of the Executive Power of
Mexico, to study the question, I shall merely have
to summarize or copy fragments from the study ( 1 )
I made of it, in order to develop the theme which I
have just announced.
*
* *
"One of the most imperative obligations imposed
by civilization upon the State is the due protection
(1) The whole of the study is contained in my book ''Hygiene in Mexico."
published by 'Ballesca,' Mexico, 1916, and by Q. P. Putman's Sons, New York
and London, 1917. One volume 8vo.
[14]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
of human life — thus making the progressive growth
of Society possible — at the same time popularizing
the precepts of Private and practising those of Pub-
lic Hygiene. To accomplish the former it has the
School, as an excellent means of propaganda, at its
disposal; as regards the latter, which has a more
direct influence on health, it has recourse principal-
ly to special establishments (for medical, disinfect-
ing and prophylactic purposes), Sanitary Engi-
neering Works and laws and regulations the strict
observance of which is entrusted to a suitably or-
ganized technical, administrative and police person-
nel. It may therefore be stated without any fear of
exaggeration, that there is a necessary relation of di-
rect proportion between the sum of civilization ac-
quired by a country and the degree of perfection
attained by its sanitary organization"
The activities of General Diaz7 Government, in
this respect, during the thirty odd years of forced
peace and apparent material well-being, were almost
exclusively devoted to the carrying out of works in-
tended for the gratification of vanity or as means
of speculation; but very seldom were such works
[15]
ALBERTO J. PANI
undertaken with a view to meeting the actual and
most urgent needs of the country. 'Tis true, magnifi-
cent buildings were erected. The National Theater
and the Capitol alone, both left unfinished, were to
have cost sixty million pesos. The execution of works
of public utility when undertaken, was made sub-
servient to the illegitimate ends already pointed out.
Thus for example, city improvement works which
were never finished even in the Capital of the Re-
public, notwithstanding the notorious unhealthy con-
ditions of some of the most important towns, were
always started laying down magnificent and expen-
sive asphalt pavements which it became necessary
to destroy and replace whenever a drain or a water
pipe had to be put in. Finally, the Government edu-
cation work — without which, in a country like ours,
every other endeavour of national aggrandizement
is of very little value — seemed preferently to consist
in the erection of costly School buildings . It is for-
sooth only in view of such things that the reason
may be found why the proportion of individuals
who know how to read and write should not amount
to even 30% of the total population of the Republic.
[16]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
The net results in this respect as shown by the
long administration of General Diaz cannot be more
appalling. Taking the average death-rate corre-
sponding to the nine years comprised between 1904
and 1912 — the heyday of the administration — we
find in the city of Mexico, where the largest sum of
culture and material progress has accumulated, an
annual death-rate of 42.3 deaths per thousand, that
is to say:
I. It is nearly three times the average coefficient
of the death-rate in American cities of similar den-
sity (16.1);
II. Nearly twice and a half times greater than the
average coefficient of the death-rate in comparable
European cities (17.53), and
III. Greater even than the coefficient of the death-
rate in the Asiatic and African cities of Madras and
Cairo 39.51 and 40.15 respectively, notwithstanding
that in the former cholera morbus is endemic.
The annual average death-rate corresponding to
the same period in the city of Mexico, due possi-
bly to avoidable diseases, were the precepts of public
and private hygiene duly to be followed — the which
[17]
ALBERTO J. PANI
constitutes an irrefragable arraignment against the
administration of General Diaz — amounts to more
than 11,500 deaths. Now, as the deaths caused
by the Revolution in six years certainly do not
amount to 70,000, it turns out that the Government
of General Diaz so greatly extolled both by friends
and foes — in the acme of peace and prosperity was
not killing fewer people in the city of Mexico alone,
than did a formidable revolution that set afire the
entire Republic and horrified the whole world.
The fact is that General Diaz' Government was
not acquainted or systematically pretended to be
unacquainted with the formula of integral progress
— which is the only one that really ennobles Human-
ity— and wasted its energies in showy manifestations
of a purely material and fictitious progress, with its
inevitable train of vice and corruption. The pomp
and pageantry with which the centenary of National
Independence was celebrated, — the most shameless
lie with which the world has ever been deceived —
was being displayed precisely on the eve of the out-
break of the popular revolution of 1910, before
whose first onrush the Government crumbled to
pieces like a house of cards.
[18]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
*
*
Let us now turn to the Constitutionalist Govern-
ment. The firm resolve of bettering the social and in-
dividual conditions of the people is written on its
banner, and its sincerity and energy is being proven
not with words only but verily with deeds.
During its sojourn in Veracruz — towards the close
of 1914 and the first six months of 1915 — whilst
the Army was reconquering the territory of the Re-
public, which at the outset was almost entirely in the
hands of the enemy, the Constitutionalist Govern-
ment, notwithstanding having to devote most dili-
gent atention to the prosecution of the most active
campaign ever recorded in the annals of Mexican
History, yet found time for the study and resolu-
tion of all matters connected with the efficient politi-
cal and administrative reorganization of the country.
"Whoever with but a superficial knowledge of
our History calmly reviews the long and complicat-
ed process of formation of our nationality, from
the pre-Cortes period — through the Conquest, the
days of the Viceroys, the wars of Independence, the
[19]
ALBERTO J. PANI
convulsions (solely interrupted by the forced peace
of Porfirio Diaz) of nearly a whole century of au-
tonomous existence — down to our own times, will
necessarily discover in the most salient manifesta-
tions of the life of the national organism, the most
unmistakable symptoms of a serious pathological
condition, originated by two principal causes, to wit :
— the loathsome corruption of the upper and the
unconsciousness and wretchdness of the lower clas-
"The iniquitous means employed by don Porfirio
to impose peace during more than thirty years, not
only nullified every effort that tended to remedy
the evils indicated, but furthermore determined their
greater intensity. Indeed, he generously gratified the
unbridled appetites of his friends ; he ruthlessly and
criminally annihilated those who were not addicted
to him; he fostered the cowardice and lying with
which the atmosphere was saturated, systematically
repressing with an iron hand every manly impulse,
at the same time hampering the free and honest
expression of the truth; he placed the administration
of justice unconditionally at the service of the inte-
[20]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
rests of the rich and always turned a deaf ear to
the complaints of the poor; in one word, he increas-
ed the immorality and corruption of the reduced
and privileged ruling classes and in consequence
the sufferings of the immense, despoiled, ignorant
and starving majority. Thus then, the thirty odd
years of peace only served still further to deepen the
secular chasm of hatred and rancor that separates
the two classes mentioned, and necessarily and fa-
tally to provoke the formidable social upheaval
which initiated in 1910 has frenziedly shaken the
whole Republic to its very foundations."
"It is incontrovertible that the three aspects which
I have presented of the problem — the economic, in-
tellectual and social — coincide with the ends pursued
by education, through the schools as ideally dreamed
of by thinkers, that is, as 'institutions whose object
is to direct and control' the formation of habits in
order to attain the highest social good!' Our schools
unfortunately have not yet acquired the necessary
power appreciably to lessen the horrible ambient
immorality or to counterbalance at least to a cer-
tain degree its inevitable effects of social dissolu-
tion."
[21]
ALBER TO J. PANI
"The real problem of Mexico therefore consists
in physically and morally hygienizing the people
and by every means available striving to better the
precarious conditions of our proletariat"
"That part of the solution of the problem which
therefore corresponds to the official educational ac-
tivities of the Department or the Municipalities,
must be performed according to what has already
been set forth, by establishing and maintaining the
greatest possible number of schools, for which pur-
pose it will be necessary to reduce their cost by
means of a rational simplification of organization
and of school programs, without losing sight of the
fact that its preferential orientations should be
marked by: — the essentially technological character
of the teaching in order to cooperate together with
all the other organs of the Government in the work
of the economic betterment of the masses; and by
the diffusion of the elementary principles of hygiene
as the sole efficient protection of the race."
"And finally, as the medium constitutes a more
powerful educational factor than the schools them-
selves, the country necessarily needs first and fore-
[22]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
most to organize its public administration upon a
basis of absolute morality."
In closing, confining myself to the object of this
address, it will suffice to state that when the Consti-
tutionalist Government controlled but an insigni-
ficant portion of the country, — precisely at the time
when " dollars" were so much needed for the pur-
chase of war material — several hundred professors
were sent to the principal centers of learning in the
United States for the purpose of procuring the best
data available, and on their return suggest the
adequate reforms in school matters that should be
introduced in Mexico.
Subsequently, in spite of the great and innumer-
able difficulties which seemed to obstruct every step
of the Government, it has been made possible con-
siderably to increase the number of schools already
existing before the Revolution, so much so that in
some of the States the number has been even doubl-
ed. Important city improvement works have been
carried out in Mexico, Saltillo, Queretaro, Vera-
cruz, etc., and the dredging of the Panuco River is
about to be started, it having been specified in the
[23]
ALBERTO J. PANI
relative contract that the soil to be dug out shall be
used to fill in the marshy belt that surrounds, Tam-
pico, whereby the chief cause of the unhealthiness of
that city will be made to disappear.
In short, in order that the Government that has
sprung from the Constitutionalist Revolution may
carry out its program of public betterment, which
implies the physical and moral hygienizing of Mex-
ico, the only thing it needs is to be given the time
within which it may be humanly possible to do it.
Only by some sort of magic art could it in a mo-
ment transform a set of human beings into a choir
of angels and a piece of the earth into a Paradise.
Philadelphia, Penn.
November the 10th. 1916.
[24]
REVOLUTIONARY DESTRUCTION
AND
GOVERNMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION
Address of welcome to the Mem-
bers of the First National Congress
of Merchants.
Mr. President,
Gentlemen of the Congress:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
My first and foremost duty on this occasion
is to express my deep appreciation to both
the national and the foreign Chambers of
Commerce, of the benevolence with which they
have accepted the idea of convening this First
National Congress of Merchants. My gratitude,
indeed profound, is proportionate to the satisfac-
tion which a true revolutionary feels when pon-
deiing the significance of this Congress, which
means that the commercial community throughout
the whole country have joined the revolution.
[27]
ALBERTO J. PANI
The armed struggle having come almost to an
end and constitutional order — interrupted by the
execrable military uprising of "La Ciudadela" —
having been reestablished, the present Government
can be nothing but the Revolution itself, politically
instituted to give tangible and actual form to its
noble ideals of the regeneration of a people who
during the lapse of well nigh four hundred years,
has not been permitted to lead but an abominable,
crouching life full of misery and privation. If the
Government then is the genuine political incar-
nation of the Revolution, the National Commercial
Community diligently hearkening to the invitation
tendered by the former, adheres to its lofty pur-
poses of popular regeneration and openly declares
itself for the Revolution.
If, on the other hand, the Commercial Commu-
nity succeed in shaping their future conduct to
this profession of faith — as it is to be hoped —
they will deserve well of their country. And it
cannot be otherwise: after the present inaugural
session, which — as I have just pointed out — is
above all, the solemn oath under the law taken
[28]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
by the Commercial Community before the Presi-
dent of the Republic, in the presence of the Honora-
ble Diplomatic and Consular Corps, in order that
the resonance of this act be carried in all its loftiness
beyond our boundaries and spread over the whole
of the civilized world ; once this formal and solemn
promise of cooperation with the Government in its
arduous task of renovation has been made; after
so clamorous a manifestation of patriotism from a
whole community — the one possessing perhaps the
greatest moral influence of all — no one, absolutely
no one, will ever dare to break the word now pledg-
ed.
Where then, in brief, lies the path that the
Commercial Community must follow if they are
to live up to the covenant they have made with the
Government? Simply that which the public weal
shall mark out to them.
It is a well known fact that our social commu-
nity economically is constituted — through causes
that date back to the Conquest and whose influence
[29]
ALBERTO J . PANI
is felt even in our own days — by two sole
groups, the wealthy and the poor; that those
in exalted positions, the strong, although constit-
uting an insignificant minority, have exerted a
decisive influence on the administration for the
purpose of placing at the disposal of their personal
interests not only the superiority of wealth, but
also political power, the sovereignty of the State,
administrative force; that those in humble life, the
weak, although in an overwhelming majority, have
been the despoiled, the starved, the ignorant,
passive members of the political, life, similar to
slaves, to serfs; and as a necessary consequence of
a co-existing, invincible, antagonism between the
two groups, the atmosphere has reeked with hatred,
rancor and mistrust. Under social conditions,
fraught with such defects, it is easy to comprehend
that our sickly national organism should almost
exclusively and only too frequently have been
shaken by bloody struggles of classes, hindering
its progress of evolution, ruthlessly condemning it
to be ever swinging backward and forward — as if
governed by the synchronic movement of a fatal
[30]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
pendulum — between the bane of a dictatorship,
and, a thousand times worse, that of anarchy.
The Pornrian dictatorship, was the longest of
all, and too, was that which most deepened the
abyss separating the two groups already mention-
ed, through the effects produced by the economic
progress attained, and the scandalous degree of
corruption into which the higher classes had sunk-
en. Hence it comes that the successive swinging
of the pendulum of our misfortunes in the opposite
direction, should necessarily have had to mark the
most relentless and bloody intestine war recorded
in Mexican history.
When the vindicative movement of 1910 was
initiated, after a very brief struggle and yielding
principally to the enormous weight of public opin-
ion, the dictatorship consented to compromise in
a minimum degree with popular demands — alone
considering those of a purely political nature — and
to place the Revolution on the road to constitution-
alism, merging it so to speak into the dictatorial
government, or rather the former being absorbed by
the latter. This agreement magnanimously accepted
[31]
ALBERTO J. PANI
by the revolutionary Leader, with the manifest
purpose of averting a calamitous war, now bears
— in the light of the horrifying events that followed
— the aspect of a trap skilfully laid by the
dictatorship. In truth, after a brief interregnum
of relative and but apparent tranquility — in
reality of cryptic activities and disloyalty, of
intrigue and plotting — the monied and clerical
reaction incarnated . in a loathsome lombrosian
specimen, again usurped power and rewarded the
nameless crimes of their hero, grotesquely attempt-
ing to invest him — by the very proceedings whereof
it availed itself to smother the vindictive conflagra-
tion almost at its very birth — with the elevated office
of constitutional president.
Fortunately, however, the bloody triumphs of
usurping violence — which lack the guarantee of du-
ration that justice and right alone impart — have
ever lasted but a short time. Although the reaction
found support in the army and in the Powers of the
Federation and of almost all of the States — an
unquestionable proof of the corrupting influence of
the past dictatorship — the people once again took
[32]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
up arms in defense of their insulted rights. The Plan
of Guadalupe which — with an audacity bordering
on heroism and relying solely on the excellence of
the principles whence it originated and the object it
pursued, without falsehoods, nor chimerical prom-
ises of any kind, nor any of that bombastic and
empty literature contained in the hundreds of "rev-
olutionary proclamations" recorded in our history
— proclaiming in the simplest manner the resolution
to disown the illegality of the usurping regime and
to use violence to destroy it, and entrusting the
supreme command to a popularly elected function-
ary— the then Constitutional Governor of Coahuila
— condensed with admirable sincerity and preci-
sion the most imperative needs of the country at
that solemn and historical moment and succeeded
in unifying the liberating movement. And, the Rev-
olution— having learnt a lesson from very harsh
and very recent experience— spread with an irresist-
ible and sweeping onrush from victory to victory
over the whole Republic, annihilated the Federal
Army and obstreperously overthrew the Govern-
ment of the usurper.
[33] 3
ALBERTO J. PANI
The struggle did not end here. In a community
such as ours, so imperfectly constituted, antagonism
between classes — emphasized by economic pro-
gress, as happened particularly during the latter
part of the Porfirian dictatorship — always brings
about a greater mental inequality and a general low-
ering of the moral standard: what the upper clas-
ses gain in intelligence, in technical and economic
capacities, they lose in political and social virtues;
whilst the lower classes besides remaining at a much
lower level as regards intellectual culture and tech-
nical and economic capacities, at the same time
partially lose their former virtues of discipline,
frugality, &c., without the loss being immediately
of the same or of a more elevated character. Thus
then the lack of consciousness or of morality, or
of both, of a good many in the revolutionary ranks
— important factors in anarchy — presented the
Reaction a propitious field wherein to display its
marvellous skill for corruption, and the division
in the Vindicative Army was wrought, through the
infidelity of the Northern Division, at the very
moment when the people celebrated the total disap-
pearance of the Federal Army.
[34]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
This phase of the struggle — which begins
towards the end of 1914 with the chaos brought
about by the dismemberment of the revolutionary
organism and which might be called despite that
original chaotic condition, one of political purifi-
cation and strengthening of that organism, since
the moral purification was hardly initiated by
the former — is characterized by the efficient
work of administrative and political reorganiza-
tion of the Preconstitutional Government, in har-
mony with the general outlines for the reconstruction
of the country, sketched in the memorable decree of
the 12th, of December 1914, and by a brilliant
campaign carried on against treason, much bloodier
and much more destructive than all the preceding
ones, because in civil war fury is ever proportion-
ate to the degree of affinity between the contend-
ing parties.
The faithless once annihilated and the revolu-
tionary organism politically purified and strength-
ened, it became possible to reestablish constitu-
tional order in the country, not however through
proceedings vainly masked with a false appearance
of legality, such as were employed by the Reaction
[35]
ALBER TO J. PANI
in its attempt to annoint their "Hero" with
a dignity criminally usurped, but through the
unavoidable mandate of the sovereign will of the
people. The people therefore, when ratifying the
confidence they had placed in the Chief of the
Revolution, by conferring upon him the high
office of Constitutional President of the United
Mexican States, has wished to signify beyond any
doubt, that the present Government of the Republic
could not and should not be — as I said before —
anything less than the Revolution itself, politically
instituted to carry into effect the principles of pop-
ular regeneration, which it has proclaimed and that
have cost such torrents of blood and tears.
From the preceding brief summary must be
deduced with all the force of invincible logic, that
if the Revolution has brought or is about to bring
to an end the military campaign against the ene-
mies of order and progress, it should most dili-
gently follow up — in order that the blood and
tears that have been shed may crystalize in actual
benefit to the country — that other no longer milita-
[36]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
ry but now peaceful campaign of reconstruction
of the nation upon bases that through their
stability and resistance shall insure or at least
make possible the unlimited development and
evolution of the Mexican people. This work of
reconstruction — very much more difficult and
slower than the destructive work of arms — consists
then of two parts: — the recovery of the aggregate
amount of material and moral welfare lost —
because war always involves a retrogression to a
lower level of civilization — and the cure, so to
speak, of the serious disease of economic consti-
tution under which our community labours.
In the same way as the Constitutional ex-Go-
vernor of Coahuila and Chief of the Revolution
appealed to the patriotism of the citizens to adhere
to the popular cause and take up arms, and or-
ganized armies and carried on a military campaign
— this being what the salvation of the country
imperatively demanded — this same Chief of the
Revolution — a title which the Mexican people have
substituted for that of Constitutional President
of the United Mexican States — now also appeals.
[37]
ALBER TO J . PANI
to the patriotism of the citizens to adhere to the
popular cause and cooperate with him towards or-
ganizing the pacific armies that are to start the
campaign of reconstruction which, consolidating the
military triumphs, is now to save the country. This
is the reason why — and in accord with the fatal
deduction to be inferred both from the study of
our dissentions and of all struggles between classes
in every country of the world, viz. that democra-
cies have never been able to consolidate their
military triumphs, in peace, by merely setting
against the defeated class their hatred and incom-
petency — that is why, I say, the Government com-
mences by the celebration of the present Congress,
a salutary work of cooperation with the people, in
order satisfactorily to resolve the momentous prob-
lems concerning the different forms of activities
of the life of the nation.
In this respect, the cooperation of the Commer-
cial Community with the Government of the Re-
public does not only signify a harmonious colla-
boration, a convergence of efforts towards one
point — the moralization, the intensification and
[38]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
development of the commercial activities of the
country — interchange of information, &c., but it
also signifies advice, whereby the people may
the better profit by the especialistic competition of
their experts. I said something on another occa-
sion which I wish to repeat now: — "Our susceptibi-
lity as public funtionaries cannot be hurt if we agree
— nor may we do otherwise — that our political and
administrative organization, yet in swaddling
clothes, must necessarily go through a period of
infancy during which the blunders will be the
general rule and the contrary the exception. In
order to succeed, with the aid of a mature expe-
rience, in reversing the order of these terms, we
must trample all selfishness under foot and not
allow bastard passions to introduce discord among
us, and we must consolidate our debilities by ever
more and more strengthening that only bond of
union that brings true citizens together: the love
of country."
"And the least that patriotism may demand of
us now, in our capacity as public functionaries,
is humility, wherewith to accept advice; serenity
[39]
ALBERTO J , PANI
of judgment prudently to select it; and persevering
and unflinching honesty to put it into practice."
But if active and mutual cooperation, unswerv-
ingly patriotic and unselfish on the part both of
the Commercial Community and of the Govern-
ment, is necessary to recover what has been lost
through the war in material welfare and in morals
— in so far as regards the commercial activities of
the country — it is even more necessary if the
exhausted organism of the nation is to be restored
to health and enabled to live a healthy normal life.
A community which is principally composed of a
few privileged ones and of a great mass of prole-
tarians, wherein the former are able rapidly to
accumulate fabulous wealth with immense facility
regardless of personal savings or work, and re-
gardless too of the personal savings or work of their
forefathers, and the latter find themselves in the
material impossibility of rising to the category of
capitalists, is destined to be transformed into a
mass composed of naught but parasites and
beggars, in the end disappearing after a more or
less protracted yet most violent and painful agony.
[40]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
This is, then, a serious pathological condition,
revealed by the almost uninterrupted brutal
struggles between classes, a condition to which
it is imperative to find a remedy. Wherefore
extraordinary joint efforts must be made tending
to the intellectual, moral and economic regenera-
tion of the proletarian, and to the formation and
encouragement of an autonomous MIDDLE
CLASS.
"Everybody is interested- — says the Belgian
" Deputy Cooreman — in the betterment of the
" moral and material condition of the working
" classes and they are right. . . . But the preser-
" vation, the prosperity of the middle class is no
" less just, and public interests demand that its
" existence be not jeopardized. It is important to
" social equilibrium that the differences between
" the wealthy and the working classes be harmo-
" nized by the middle class, characterized by the
" union, in the same hands, of capital and labour.
" If harmony is to reign in society it is indispen-
" sable that there be in the social ladder, between
" the top and the bottom rungs, a series of other
[41]
ALBER TO J . PANI
" intermediate ones uniting the two extremes by
" gradations more numerous rather than more
"distant apart."
The revolutionary tendency is not directed to-
wards a utopic socialistic levelling: its social ideal
is to permit every man to obtain from the aggre-
gate sum of wellbeing acquired by the whole
community, a part proportionate to his personal
contribution of labour, intelligence and economy.
Be pleased, Gentlemen, Delegates to this Con-
gress, to contribute with all the might and strength
whereof you may be capable, to the realization of
so lofty an ideal of justice and be ye welcome.
Mexico, D. F.
July the 12th. 1917.
(421
THE UNDERSTANDING
BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT
AND COMMERCE
Toast proposed at the banquet giv-
en by the Board of Directors of the
National Chamber of Commerce of
the City of Mexico to the Delegates
to the Congress.
Gentlemen:
I am requested by the President of the Republic
to convey to each and all of you together with his
most cordial greetings his deep appreciation of
the courteous invitation to this banquet tendered
to him by the National Chamber of Commerce of
Mexico, and to express his regrets at his inability
to be present on this occasion. Having fulfilled
the commission entrusted to me, and as the Pre-
sidential Representation weighs so heavily upon
my shoulders overwhelming me to the extent
of almost rendering me speechless, I shall again
assume my own modest personality and proceed....
on my own account.
I had the good fortune — which I now declare
with immense satisfaction and delight — of having
[45]
ALBER TO J. PANI
had the opportunity of producing two contacts
and thereby two currents; the one of mutual un-
derstanding, the other of affection and sympathy.
The first contact is, so to speak, not material,
yet fruitful in benefits to a whole people: a contact
between abstractions called "Government of the
Republic" and "National Commerce." The mere
contact between these two entities having taken
place amid bursts of enthusiasm — a sure omen
that that gust of fraternity shall sweep away
the secular mutual hatred and rancor of our
classes everlastingly at loggerheads with one
another,~promises well for the resurgence of a rein-
stated, sound, and great country. It matters not
whether the discussions sustained within the Nation-
al Congress of Merchants deviated from the path
of order, sometimes degenerating in disputes; neither
are the momentary despondency of some nor the
overflowing lyricisms of others of any account;
it is of no consequence either that at times may
have been forgotten the parable which I took the
liberty of referring to you on the occasion of
another banquet, and that the Congress should
[46]
0# THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
have been lavish of its generosity proffering advice
in excess of what was asked for. . . .
Apropos of this, as the Congress perhaps for
this reason has found it necessary to extend its
sessions over another week, it might not now be
amiss to open a parenthesis in order to repeat the
parable — as repetition always helps to fortify the
memory or to convince — not however without first
quoting the words of Jesus Christ: "He who hath
ears let him hear," and those others of eloquent
popular wisdom: "To the quick of understanding
little need be said".
"Satan was criticizing God — says the parable
— for having created advice, that impertinent
personage indiscreet and obstinate, which is of no
earthly use and makes the faithful servants of
God the laughing stock of others. Make no con-
fusion and remember — answered the Holy Spirit
— that I created the advice that is asked for and
thou the one that is proffered".
Closing the parenthesis, and with all due
apologies, I shall proceed I was saying, in
short, that neither the disorder occasioned by the
[47]
ALBERTO J. PAN I
passing excess of enthusiasm, nor the mistakes
originating from inexperience, nor the pathological
pessimism which infests the soul and kills ideals,
nor the optimism, pathological too, which only
builds castles in the air, nor the advice which has
not been asked for, even though it come from
Satan, should be a cause for discouragement; in
spite of all this and much more which possibly
might happen, I hold to my indestructible confi-
dence, I feel satisfied, and I congratulate you upon
the work you have accomplished. The reason is
that the contact between the Government and the
Body Commercial has been made and therefrom
shall be produced the spark to indicate the Mexican
people the road leading to the Promised Land.
The second contact is material and was produc-
ed by effusive handshakes between the represen-
tatives of Commerce from all over the Republic,
who had never met before and who were here asem-
bled to celebrate the First National Congress of
Merchants. The current of friendship thus estab-
lished will contribute a great deal more to con-
solidate and harmonize the commercial interests
[48]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
of the country than six months of commercial cor-
respondence.
I likewise congratulate myself upon having
brought you in contact with the President of the
Republic, who has shaken hands with you with
his charasteristic frankness. I firmly believe that
the Government would gain immensely throughout
the whole country, if all the inhabitants were to
become acquainted with him as you have been. I
think that it would gain a great deal abroad too,
if at least they knew over there that Mr. Carranza
had a human figure. This reminds me of a certain
anecdote: —
An American in New York was seeking infor-
mation on Mexico from a foreigner, who like
many others, had suffered from the consequences
of the Revolution. Speaking of the men of the
Revolution the American asked: —
"Who is general Zapata?"
"A bandit chief," answered the foreigner.
"And general Villa?"
"Another bandit chief".
"And general so and so?"
[49]
ALBER TO J . PANI
"Another bandit chief".
"And general this and general that?"
"Other bandit chiefs".
"And general Carranza?"
"Oh! he is the First Chief!"
Yes, Gentlemen, during the struggle he was the
Chief of many patriots and of many bandits too,
because armed revolutions are made with armies
that kill and destroy and not with choirs of arch-
angels. And now, as President of the Republic,
he is the Chief of many functionaries, employees
and servants of the Nation, both honest and pa-
triotic, and he may also be the Chief of certain
bandits, because the work of moralizatiori cannot
be accomplished as by magic in an instant.
But Mr. Carranza professes the theory, con-
stantly corroborated by the history of humanity,
that social institutions can only be durable and
prosperous when supported upon bases of the
strictest morality. That is the reason why the first
subject included in the programme which the Gov-
ernment submitted to the consideration of the
Congress of Merchants, refers to the moralization
[SO]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
of the merchant. That is also why the irresistible
strength of character of Mr. Carranza resisted all
the calamities entailed by the struggle, like a mass
of granit, like an immovable mountain; and his
triumph signifies the political purification of the
revolutionary organism, which is the necessary
preparation and beginning — as I have stated on
another occasion — of the moral purification which
the present Government most zealously pursues.
I therefore drink, Gentlemen, that the sparks
produced by the contacts which I have had the
good fortune to bring about, may kindle a new sun
of fraternity and justice to shine upon and give
warmth and life to the enfeebled people of Mexico.
Chapultepec Restaurant
July the 30th. 1917.
[511
THE MEXICAN POPULAR UNIVERSITY
A toast proposed at the banquet
given by the delegates to the First
National Congress of Merchants.
.<\ .A OT
3i ni i
q oJ v/ollB ton teum I .tnBoilingigni ms^ xBm
^m abfl£rnrnoo vILsbsqa li anu vd
uoy -asob amb smsa sift te dliriv/ sbuJitag
9'j)f! [^iDnunil arit oJ ISIDI I :iuonod
-no3 IfjnoitB/1 .1?.if%T 'jth o; ;•.•;•} j;j»9{3Q sriJ lo 5s
I baiabn^i 9v/:ri gJfijsriDial/ "3i§
As on a former occasion, Gentlemen, to-day also
have I been requested by the President of the
Republic to convey to you his very warm thanks
for your kind invitation together with his deep
regret at his inability to attend this banquet. On
his behalf also I wish to express the interest with
which this high Functionary has followed the
intelligent and patriotic work of the First Nation-
al Congress of Merchants; and his well grounded
hopes that your labours will in a very near future
materialize in positive benefits to the country; and
his earnest wishes for the good health and pros-
perity of each and all of you.
On my own behalf likewise do I beg you to
accept my sincere thanks and congratulations:
and I take the liberty of devoting a few words —
[55]
ALBERTO J. PANI
before parting — to a fact, which though in itself
may seem insignificant, I must not allow to pass
by unnoticed, because it specially commands my
gratitude while at the same time does you great
honour: I refer to the financial assistance which
some of the Delegates to the First National Con-
gress of Merchants have rendered the worthy
Mexican Popular University.
That Institution, as all of you are aware, came
into existence shortly before the Military Uprising
of the "Citadel," nurtured with the warmth of the
healthy and juvenile enthusiasm of the Athenaeum
of Mexico. Its extraordinary vitality — which re-
sisted the demolishing assaults of the most de-
structive and sanguinary Revolution recorded in
our history — is the mechanic resultant of two
forces; that of the sublime ideal of its progenitor
and that of an heroic abnegation, a veritable
apostleship courageously and perseveringly exer-
cised by its Rector arid a small group of men who
succeeded in keeping aglow the sacred fire of the
Professorial Staff enlightening many consciences
clouded by ignorance — in the midst of the dan-
[56]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
gers, hardships and calamities of the general ca-
tastrophe.
My heartfelt love of the Mexican Popular Uni-
versity is due to the following circumstances- —
I was, unworthily withal, a member of the Athe-
naeum and the first Rector of the University. In
this connection I must needs own candidly that I
was but a passive member of the Athenaeum; but
on the other hand, in my capacity as Rector of the
University, I feel proud of having done something
to its benefit, perhaps the only thing, but very
great and very good, namely having resigned the
Rectorship and placed it in the competent and
disinterested hands of Dr. Alfonso Pruneda.
Moreover I am fervently in love with the ideal
of culture pursued by the Institution, which more-
over I regard as revolutionary, — in the proper
sense of the word — because it aims, with its per-
severing and wise teachings at raising the moral
and intellectual standard of the proletariat, without
which, the economic betterment — which the latter
justifiably demands — might in certain cases prove
useless or injurious.
[57]
ALBER TO J. PANI
For all these reasons, Gentlemen, the financial
aid to which I have referred, commands my grat-
itude and does honour to those who tendered it.
I drink then, Gentlemen, to the Delegates to the
First National Congress of Merchants, who, as
benefactors of the Mexican Popular University,
have deserved well of their Country and of Hu-
manity.
San Angel Inn,
August 5th, 1917.
.
•
[58]
THE INDUSTRIAL
DEMOCRATIC POLICY
Address of welcome to the Delegates
of the First National Congress of
Industrials.
Mr. President,
Gentlemen of the Congress,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is barely four months ago that, from this
very platform and under these same vaults and
in circumstances very similar to the present ones,
I had the honour, of addressing in the name of
the Government, the Delegates from the national
and foreign Chambers of Commerce — assembled
solemnly to inaugurate the work of the First Na-
tional Congress of Merchants — and during that
very short lapse of time, we have witnessed
with joyful astonishment the vigorous movement
of cooperative organization developed by the Bo-
dy Commercial throughout the Country, with
a view to regulating not only the relations be-
tween the respective Chambers already or that
[61]
ALBER TO J . PANI
may hereafter be established, for their own
benefit, but also the relations which should bind
these institutions to the Government for the gener-
al benefit of the Nation. It is that the propelling
force of this movement — the only one capable
of opposing the dissolvent and awful effects of
anarchy — has been patriotism further encouraged
by the directors of the movement. It has been
conscious, because it has known how to har-
monize private, or class interests, with those of the
community, and lofty, because it has been able
morally to solve the conflicts of fictitious or
real antagonism between both, and adjust itself —
not with resigned submission but with frank good
will — to the ethical hierarchy of interests which
always places those of the public over those of the
individual. Behold, for example, that group of
altruists, detailed from the Congress of Merchants,
and known by the name of "the committee on corn",
unselfishly collaborating with the Government in
the work of mercy of feeding the hungry, if not
precisely in the archaic charitable form which hu-
miliates and debases, certainly in the modern and
[62]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
more efficacious form of economic competition,
which stimulates activities and invigorates and
victoriously combats criminal speculation, with a
view to lowering the price of corn and placing it
within reach of the destitute.
What better opportunity to recall these things
than the occasion of the opening of the First Na-
tional Congress of Industrials? Indeed it is
through the patriotic work of the merchants, now
continued by the industrials, that one is better
able to obtain a glimpse of the possibility of a
future vigorous resurgence of the Country — in
spite of all the calamities that surround us and
all the obstacles opposing us from within and from
without — filling in the fathomless abysses of blood
and tears which divide our society, by persever-
ingly endeavouring to bring all in touch with one
another and forge the closest bonds of union,
fellowship and love.
In fact, after the long and painful via cru-
cis of its class struggles its wounds still bleeding,
and in a state of almost complete exhaustion,
the Country, precisely when its reconstruction is
[63]
ALBER TO 7. P ANI
about to begin, that is, the restoration of all the
material and moral wellbeing lost in the late
strife, and the cure of its disease of economic
and social constitution, revealed by the duration
and fury of the struggles just mentioned, the
Country, I say, labouring under such difficult
internal conditions, furthermore feels its situation
now extraordinarily aggravated by the inevitable
consequences of the present universal conflagra-
tion.
The broad road which the patriotism of the
merchants has opened to the effective cooperation
of the people with the Government, principally
when the first act of friendly solidarity between
National Industry and the Government is taking
place — since commerce is but one of the manifold
forms of industrial activity and many industrials,
therefore, are likewise merchants — offers an occa-
sion the most propitious for us to make at least a
brief, yet sincere, examination of conscience, with
the purpose and the certainty — since you, gentle-
men, are the worthy continuators of the patriotic
work begun by the merchants— of being able to
[64]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
regulate our conduct both present and future for
the good of the Country, even at the cost of our
own individual welfare. What sacrifice would be
shirked in view of the assurance of saving the
Country from a near and imminent danger and of
endowing it with a greater general prosperity?
As an everlasting reproach to mankind, the
cruelty of man towards his fellow beings is one of
the characteristics which most distinguishes him
from all other superior animals. While the latter,
indeed, give such beautiful proofs of solidarity
between the individual members of each species,
man — whose worst enemy has ever been man
himself — in view of the insuperable difficul-
ties of adaptation, in relation to his primitive ru-
dimentary equipment, found not the least embar-
rassment in resorting to murder and anthropophagy.
Whether humanity had its origin — according to
the Bible — in a sin committed through love in
[65]
ALBERTO J. PANI
Paradise, or whether intelligence, in its natural
evolutive process, passing on to a superior state —
viz; that of man in his primitive state with regard
to that of the animal — has carried with it the germ
of wickedness, the fact is that egoism and rapacity,
combined in a purely utilitarian criterion, have
been the most powerful motives of the conduct of
mankind. Hence it is that industrial progress —
particularly agricultural progress — while allowing
the activities of the vanquished to be turned to
the best account for the benefit of the conquerors,
should have contrived that the latter domesticate
the former — as was done with beasts of burden —
and that their total extermination and anthropoph-
agy should have been substituted by slavery. The
first flashes of liberty — which has the virtue
of rendering labour more productive — made their
appearance with servitude. The gradual smoothen-
ing of uses and customs and right — the functions
of which, as we all know, "consist in adapting man
to the social medium in which he lives, fixing his
conditions of co-existence," — are derived from the
same source. The iniquitous parasitic relations
[66]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
between the oppressing minority and the oppressed
majorities begot, through the stubborn resistance
of the social classes, the democratic ideal which
embodies the holy aspirations of human dignity.
But the lines in which humanity has most ad-
vanced, naturally, are those marked by material
interests. Thus it is that in the moral order, al-
though there be an immeasurable distance between
primitive systematic anthropophagy and the pre-
sent philanthropy of some, modern civilization,
from the sermon of the mountain, that is, during
the lapse of almost two thousand years, has striven
to impregnate the spirit of man with Christianism,
and the most civilized nations of the world are
now engaged in a war without precedent, wherein,
in order to exterminate one another, they make
use of all the material and technical resources of
a portentous industrial progress, without having
pity even on women or passengers on trasatlantic
steamers — absolutely foreign to the conflict — and
it is even said that human corpses are made use
of for industrial purposes.
In the political order, the history of every nation
has undertaken to write, in letters of blood and
[67]
ALBERTO J. PANI
fire, the bare-faced apothegm: power was made to
be abused. Indeed, government which — according to
Spencer — "was born of aggrression and for aggres-
sion" initiated by the despotic military rule
— which is the worst and most odious of all
known forms of government — by means of bru-
tal struggles which have torn to pieces the
entrails of humanity, has passed through the theo-
c r a t i c and aristocratic regimens — with the
plausible purpose of making an ever increasing
portion of the people participants of public power
and thereby reducing the number of the despoiled
— until it has attained an apparently democractic
form. I say apparently democratic, because per-
haps Switzerland alone excepted — where property
is relatively well distributed, a third part of
the total number of inhabitants being indus-
trials, the latter in some places amounting to
even 75%, and where the irritating spectacle
may not be witnessed of "a certain class of idle
rich who muddle the minds of, and with their
arrogant display of wealth humiliate, those who
work and suffer" — the countries who most boast
[68]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
of having best realized their political evolution,
have not got beyond a kind of plutocracy, more or
less corrupted by professional politicians, leeches
that suck the blood of the Treasury and corrode
social institutions.
In brief, industrial progress, wherein egoism
has played so important a part and which has
been the result of the struggle between man and
nature with a view to better and more amply to
satisfy the primary necessities of life and many
additional ones originated by the former — given
the infinite extensibility of human necessities —
and of the instinctive tendency to economize efforts
directed to that purpose — since effort implies
labour — has contributed successive modifications
to the social organization, in the manners and
customs, and in right, according as it has made
man on earth more adaptable and thus brought
about world evolution.
If therefore the perfecting of humanity in every
order of its material and spiritual activities is a
condition of the evolution of industry; if the for-
midable war wherein are implicated the most
[6Q1
ALBERTO J . PANI
civilized countries of the world — where nations
are bent on annihilating other nations, sweeping
away the lives of men and destroying wealth
accumulated by years of labour of many genera-
tions— merely reveals an imperfect adaptation of
those countries on earth; if our chronic intestine
struggles — where brothers strive to annihilate their
brothers, sweeping away lives and destroying wealth
accumulated by years of labour of their own ances-
tors— are symptomatic of an even more imperfect
adaptation; what other consideration could
better enhance the exceptionally extraordinary im-
portance of the celebration of a Congress of In-
dustrials at this supreme moment of national life?
Thus then, the satisfactory solution to the in-
ternal and external difficulties which hinder the
restoration of the Country, its invigoration and its
ultimate free and evolutive development, whatever
be its attitude towards the European conflict and
whatever also be the result of that conflict, will
considerably depend on its industrial activity.
Allow me to repeat it, Gentlemen, the salvation
of the Country is almost in your own hands ....
[70]
THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
On its part the present Government of the Re-
public as the legitimate offspring of a revolution
which holds, among its most lofty aspirations to
deserve the glory of being the last to stain
with blood and devastate the mother Country —
so that future generations may recognize its
sanctity and canonize it amid blessings — born of
an armed aggression, for this is the fatal
destiny of countries barely initiated in the diffi-
culties of political evolution, but conscious of the
duty which its primogeniture imposes upon it, far
from intending to abuse power and to commit ag-
gressions, called up' ^ tn? merchants yesterday, it
calls upon the nub1 • •• • * to-day, and tomorrow
and the day after it will call upon all the other
active classes of the community, that they may
participate in the functions of the public admi-
nistration, the proper discharge of which bears so
greatly upon its prosperity.
No one will dare to deny that such democratic
tendencies carried, if it were possible, to the
[71]
ALBER TO J . P AN I
complete blending of the Government with the so-
cial mass, would necessarily produce the perfect
coordination of all national interests.
*
* «
In order that the task of the Government to
democratize society may reach its full development
and turn the Country into a Paradise, or at least,
not sadly to lose the fruits of the attempts that are
being made in this direction, it is urgent —
pressingly and immediately urgent — to proceed to
correct our defective economic constitution,
which is barely but the existence only of rich and
poor, with its opposite extremes of parasitic opu-
lence and mendicant poverty. It is therefore nec-
essary to bring these troublesome extremes to-
gether by moralizing the upper classes, building a
bridge of an autonomous middle class and better-
ing the material conditions of the lower classes.
The inappellable sentence of the Redeemer of
mankind, that it is easier for a camel to pass
[72]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of heaven, relieves me from
having to engage your benevolent and already tired
attention in regard to the first point.
As a repetition is never out of place when an
evil should be pointed out for the purpose of
remedying it — and the evil in question is so griev-
ous that it may be regarded as the determining
cause of the greatest national misfortunes — I take
the liberty of transcribing the following words of
the Belgian deputy Cooreman, notwithstanding
having quoted them on another occasion:
" It is important to social equilibrium
"that 'the differences between the wealthy and the
" working classes be harmonized by the mid-
" die class, characterized by the union, in one
"and in the same hands, of capital and labour.
" If harmony is to reign in society it is indispen-
" sable that between the top and the bottom rungs
" of the social ladder, there be a series of other
" intermediate ones connecting the two extremes
" by gradations more numerous rather than more
"distant apart."
[73]
ALBERTO J. PANI
The distribution of real estate among the greatest
possible number of people and the promotion of
small industries, as preponderant, and almost de-
cisive, factors in the formation of an autonomous
middle class, would therefore very powerfully con-
tribute to correct the effects to which our economic
constitution is subject and in future to prevent the
consuetudinary sufferings of the Country.
The most natural and therefore the best means
of solving the third point — concerning the better-
ment of the material conditions of the proletariat
— consists in provoking a great demand of labour,
that is, in determining, by efficient efforts, the
maximum development, compatible with our own
conditions, of small and large industries.
Although the limitation "compatible with our con-
ditions", made in the preceding statement, makes
the solution of the problem possible, in view of the
magnitude and number of difficulties which it pre-
sents— somewhat lessened, 'tis true, by the fabulous
potential productivity of our soil, capable of feeding
and enriching a population many times greater than
that now contained in the Republic — it is necessary
[74]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
to lay down this problem rationally and patrioti-
cally in order that our activities be not lamentably
consumed by absurd empiricisms or bastard polit-
ical expediencies.
Nature — being blind and therefore perhaps not
susceptible of falling into wicked temptations —
never deviates from the lines of least resistance, that
is, from the lines which mark the directions wherein
the expense of energy is minimum in relation to the
yield; such is generally its process, immutable,
active, determined and limited to the particular
case in question in the industrial history of all the
countries of the world. Everybody knows — no
matter how ignorant — that every scientific discov-
ery, every improvement in the implements in the
system of work, in transportation, etc. has pointed
out new lines of least resistance to human effort,
which — notwithstanding the transitory disturban-
ces consequent on all reforms or change of direction
and the energetic protests of created interests — have
always satisfied, by a more abundant and cheaper
production, a greater number of necessities and in-
creased general well-being. Now as these industrial
[75]
ALBER TO J . PANI
improvements are prompted by the inducement to
economize efforts — not so much to diminish the
labour involved, as it originally happened, as to
resist the ruinous economic effects of the concur-
rence of other similar efforts — it must necessarily
be deduced that the supression of the free economic
concurrence would bring about the disasters con-
sequent on the paralization of industrial progress.
From the foregoing, simple but irrefutable ar-
gumentation— because shunning the petulant au-
dacity of pretending to create, I have modestly and
sincerely merely traced my argument on Nature
and History — the two following general conclu-
sions may be drawn, constituting, so to speak,
the moulds wherein the relative policy of the Gov-
ernment should be cast, in order to revive and
invigorate the national organism, viz:
First: to promote, by every lawful means availa-
ble, the exploitation of the natural resources of our
soil, the manufacturing industries which are deriv-
ed from such exploitation and, preferently among
them all, those which respond to the primary ne-
cessities of human life, would be equivalent to
[76]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
localizing the lines of least resistance in the general
exploitation of the Country and to directing all its
productive activities along the same channel to-
wards a greater national prosperity; and,
Second: partially or totally to eliminate the In-
terior or exterior economic concurrence, in order
to promote, by means of privileges, certain nation-
al industries, or by means of tariffs, those exotic
Industries which only can prosper within the Incu-
bator of official protection, would be equivalent
to halting the material progress of the Country,
and with the high prices consequent on every
monopoly and the injustice of favouring a few at
the expense of all the rest, general uneasiness
would become considerably intensified.
We may therefore say, in brief, that the secur-
ing, extracting and transforming the natural prod-
ucts of our soil and free national and International
economic concurrence are the two principal terms
of the formula of our industrial policy.
[77]
ALBER TO J . P ANI
But .... — it may be objected — once peace has
been restored in Europe, if those countries which
are most intimately connected with ours from a
commercial point of view, should persist in their
traditional protectionist policy, would not the dia-
metrically opposed tendency of the preceding
formula produce a contrary effect? No, a thousand
times, no.
Those countries will then find themselves in the
necessity — as we are now — of speedily and effi-
caciously repairing the tremendous aggregate of
forces whereof the war has ruthlessly deprived
their industrial progress, and for them that ne-
cessity will be the greater and more imperative, be-
cause after all, our Country was already poor —
notwithstanding its marvellous potentiality — and
even if during the recent intestine troubles it had
consumed all it possessed, its total loss of material
values would barely represent an infinitesimal
fraction of what any of those other countries has
suffered. Moreover, as the present armed war
[78]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
will indefectibly be followed by a commercial war
and the only possibility of a real expansion of
commerce will be furnished by a cheap and abun-
dant production, that is, industrial activity follow-
ing the lines of least resistance and subject to free
economic concurrence, there are more than abun-
dant reasons for presuming that the powerful
intellectual movement in favour of free trade car-
ried on by the above named countries before the
war, will, on the advent of peace, crystalize into
tangible and definite facts, and that humanity
will be redeemed by the material and moral ben-
efits of a rational greographic distribution of
labour over the whole world.
But should this not happen, should the coun-
tries who were formerly protectionists, through
one of those inexplicable political compromises,
maintain their former attitude of open rebellion
against the inexorable laws of nature, on their
account rather than ours, should we regret the
evils that such a mistake might cause. It is not
amiss here to recall the case of England:
In 1844, John Lewis Ricardo defined the free
trade policy thus: "To free commerce from every
[79]
ALBERTO J. PANI
" hampering restriction, without any heed to the
" customs duties which foreign governments may
" deem it expedient to lay on English goods." Two
years after the corn laws were repealed; in 1851
the tariff was expurgated of 1,100 customs items
and, since 1862, only tobacco, tea, coffee, cocoa,
alcohol, wine and sugar, are dutiable articles, the
duty being small and not considered protective but
fiscal, owing to these commodities not being produc-
ed in England.
What was the result of such a policy? The
English, trading principally with protectionist
countries — since in the old Continent Belgium and
the Netherlands alone, and in the new, none
followed their example — were able to obtain the
maximum of benefit from scientific discove-
ries as applied to industry and from improve-
ments on transportation; and, notwithstanding
that wages reached their topmost price in Europe
— it must be noticed that then took place the mir-
acle of the parity of nominal and actual wages —
foreign custom houses were incapable of checking
the sweeping onrush of the English commercial
torrent.
[80]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
Granted — it may be said — but England is an
old Country and industrially very much advanced.
Would the same thing happen with Mexico?
The authority of Yves Guyot in this matter ban-
ishes all doubt:
"Protection in the case of new nations would be
equivalent to laying a burden on the shoulders of
a child so as to permit him to struggle with an
adult."
"What of budding industries? These must,
above all, provide themselves with tools and im-
plements; would you have them pay dearer for
them? Would you dare tax raw material?"
"New countries suffer much more by protection
than old ones as illustrated by an example given
by J. Novicow, in 1894: "Belgium possessed 115
" kilometers of railroads for every 10,000 square
" kilometers of territory, while Russia only had
"6. In Belgium no new ones need be constructed.
"Russia needs 200,000 kilometers of. new lines.
" At the rate of 100,000 francs per kilometer there
" results a total of twenty thousand million
" francs. The benefit to Russia now, owing to its
[81]
ALBER TO J . PANI
" Government, represents 20 per cent, or be it four
" thousand million francs. Wherefore, with free
" trade, Russia would be able to build 200,000
" kilometers for the amount required to build
" 160,000 kilometers; a difference equal to its to-
" tal present railroad system."
"For the same reason, with duties on iron and
steel, the United States have overcharged their
tools and implements by thousands of millions, to
the benefit of the siderurgical trusts, and at
the expense of the entire nation. ..."
Whence it is, that the only means of taking
budding or protected industries in new countries
out of their swaddling clothes, is free trade.
*
* *
The exposition of the democratic industrial
policy would be incomplete should I not devote at
least a few words to the thorny subject of the ever-
lasting conflicts between capital and labour.
The form in which these conflicts present them-
selves and are solved — frequently aggravated by
[82]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
the immoderate egoism of the classes interested —
is the thermometer that best reveals the prevailing
regimen of a people, at a given epoch; the despo-
liation of the workmen by their employers — with
the aid of the authorities — in oligarchies, to the
extent of converting human beings into mere im-
plements of labour, the replacing whereof costs
nothing; or the despoliation of the employer by
the workmen — also with the aid of the authorities
— in disorganized or demagogic democracies, to
the extent of rendering the progress of industrial
work an impossibility.
In a well organized democracy neither of these
two things can or should happen. If the industrial
production or service which answers the impera-
tive necessities of the community, requires, as an
indispensable condition, the conjunction of the
factors called capital and labour, it is ob-
vious that the supreme obligation of the State
to afford protection and guarantees — it being the
representative and guardian of the common inter-
ests of the people — should tend constantly to
maintain all the productive or working force of
[83]
ALBER TO J . PANI
that duality, that is, to prevent that the latter be
disturbed, unbalanced or destroyed by official
favour bestowed alone on one of its two constituent
factors.
Whence we may deduce that neither the em-
ployer nor the working mass — it being inten-
ded to signify by the latter expresion either
the entire body of workmen or that portion
thereof that may perceptibly be influencial in the
public production or service in question — has the
right of paralising or reducing this production or
service unjustifiably and to the appreciable injury
of the community, and that therefore in the rela-
tive cases of paralization or reduction of indus-
trial activity, the State has the imperative duty of
intervening, in a manner the best fitted, in order
to prevent or to repair the damages caused to pub-
lic interests.
I cannot resist the very just temptation, which
at this moment assails me, of pointing out two
spots that shine forth brightly in the midst of the
shadows projected by our natural atmosphere of
disorganization. The one concerns the cotton mill
[84]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
owners who maintain their industrial establishments
in activity, notwithstanding the losses they must
surely have suffered by the decree that abolished
the old duties on importation of cloths.
The other refers to a group of railroad men
who — assembled in a recent convention — thus
answered in a manner both simple and patriotic
the slanderous accusation of intending to "walk
out" for the purpose of obtaining an increase of
salary: "We are convinced of the prevailing eco-
" nomic situation of the Country and we are not
" the ones uselessly to aggravate it with any claims."
The Government, through me, warmly congrat-
ulates both the former and the latter, and trusts
that all the industrials and all the workmen
throughout the Country will follow such edifying
examples.
Gentlemen of the Congress:
I have taken the liberty — on welcoming you on
behalf of the Government — to embody into a whole
the relative ideas emitted by the President of the
[85]
ALBERTO J . PANI
Republic in his conversations, his toasts and his
speeches, that they may be recorded in the minutes
of the First Meeting of the Congress of Industrials
— as the expression of the Carranza doctrine on
the industrial democratic policy — convinced that
your love of Country and of humanity will find
means of building solidly, on the firm foundation
of this doctrine, the majestic edifice of national re-
constructjpn.
Mexico, D. F., November 17th. 1917.
1 86]
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PATH
Statements made at the banquet giv-
en by the Secretary of Industry and
Commerce to the Delegates to the
First National Congress of Indus-
trials.
This is not a toast nor anything like it. In front
of each seat a card has been placed clearly stating
that "there will be no toasts" and I am cer-
tainly very far from intending to violate this
injunction. I merely wish to monopolize
the talking ior a few moments — since the Code of
Friendship sanctions this kind of monopoly
— in order to make a few statements in connection
with certain incidents that occurred at the First
General Meeting of the Congress of Industrials,
and if I stand up and raise my voice — interrupt-
ing after-dinner talk — it is only with the object
that my words may be heard by all.
The discussions at that meeting hinged almost
exclusively on the two following points:
[89]
ALBER TO J . P ANI
First: The necessity of knowing whether the
Delegates would enjoy the necessary guarantees
for the free utterance of their ideas, with the object
of (second) proceeding to the immediate study of
certain amendments to the Federal Political Con-
stitution, to serve as a basis and starting point for
the subsequent work of the Congress.
As the delegates that initiated those discussions
took it upon themselves at the same time to attack
the Constitution, the Authors thereof and, as far
as I understand, also the Government, and riot-
withstanding, they have afforded us the pleasure
of now sitting at table with us, I need make no
effort to try and prove that the Congress of In-
dustriales — as happened with that of the Mer-
chants— enjoys every guarantee under the law.
In order to pass upon the relevancy or irrele-
vancy of the second point, it will suffice to bear in
mind that the Government, in view of the trans-
cendental and pressing problems connected with
the distressing conditions under which the country
and none the less industry, are labouring, and
given on the other hand the unquestionable re-
[90]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
lations of causality which bind both together,
invited the industrials earnestly to cooperate
in the study of these problems, that is, of the
coordination of activities, the direction of all for-
ces towards one same point in order that they
may all be added together — and not substracted
from each other — and may thus produce the re-
sultant of greatest national well-being. The fact
of the industrials having so willingly accepted
this invitation, signifies, therefore, their readi-
ness to add their forces to those of the Government,
practically directing the work of the Congress
towards ends possibly realizable either imme-
diately or in the near future and in perfect har-
mony with the present political conditions of the
country.
But concerning the relative effects of cooperation
with the Government, what are those political
conditions that mark, so to speak, the limits of
feasibility of the resolutions of the Congress of
Industrials? We all know that the Constitution
of 1917 has been written with the blood shed by
the Mexican people in the recent struggle avenge-
[91]
ALBER TO J. PANI
ful of their rights — trampled under foot by infa-
mous treachery — and that the present Govern-
ment of the Republic — which is only the political
incarnation of that avenging struggle — can see in
this Constitution but the expression of the will of
the people. If it is mistaken, misrepresented or
incomplete, the Constitution itself under article
136, modestly opens the way to any amendments
or additions wherewith the people may desire to
improve it, but for that event it provides that such
amendments or additions be passed by the Con-
gress of the Union with the vote of two thirds of
the Deputies present and be approved by the ma-
jority of the State Legislatures.
In view of the foregoing, to pretend that the
recommendations or votes that the Congress
of Industrials might submit to the consideration
of the Government as the result of their work,
should affect Constitutional amendments' and
governmental measures derived from the latter —
at a time when legal order throughout the Re-
public has not even yet been reestablished —
be equivalent to the Delegates to the Con-
[92]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
gress refusing their lights and activities to relieve
the pressing necessities of the Country and of In-
dustry, thereby sadly defrauding the hopes of the
Government and of their constituents.
But I have the firm conviction that such will
not be the case. I am not discouraged by the
mistaken direction of the preliminary discussions,
as neither was I by the disorder and mistrust
with which the Congress of Merchants started on
their work. The success of the First National
Congress of Industrials, wholly guaranteed by the
good sense and the love of country and of huma-
nity of all of its members — will place me in a
position to render favourable reports to the Presi-
dent of the Republic on the delicate commission
entrusted to me to initiate and develop the policy
of democratizing society, totally new in our long
history of disturbances, commotions and assaults.
San Angel Inn, D. F.,
November 26th, 1917.
[93]
OUR DEMOCRATIC INITIATION
Toast proposed by Bng. Alberto J.
Pani, Secretary of Industry and Com-
merce, at the banquet given by the
Delegates to the President of the Re
public and the said Secretary of In-
dustry and Commerce.
Gentlemen :
At the last banquet — which it was my privilege
to offer you — conformably to the maxim that
"might was made to be abused" I forbade toasts
notwithstanding which I myself proposed one. At
to day's banquet as power is not vested in me but
in your worthy selves, in order to reply to Mr. Hen-
kel I must needs first beg leave to do so.
This being granted, as is evidenced by your
flatteringly loud applause I take the liberty of pro-
ceeding.
The President of the Republic when conferring
upon me the distinguished honor of representing
him on this occasion, specially requested me to
ALBER TO J . PANI
convey to you his cordial greetings and sincere
appreciation of your courtesy in offering him this
banquet. I shall transmit to him with all fidelity,
my memory permitting, the timely remarks on the
industrial problem of Mexico made by Mr. Henkel
in his capacity as President of the First National
Congress of Industrials, and I know that the Pre-
sident will value them in all their worth.
For my part, my gratitude has been profoundly
increased towards both each one of you and the
host of national and foreign industrials whom you
represent, because the mere celebration of the
Congress and the enthusiastic zeal wherewith its
work is being developed are unquestionable evi-
dence of the healthy and vigorous growth of our
incipient democracy.
Although I am not nor ever have been a politi-
cian, but have always felt repugnance rather
than sympathy for that craft, I have allowed
myself to be involved in the turbulent waves of
politics, without yet knowing for certain whether
I should attribute it to a conscious obedience of
the voice of patriotism — the conditions of the
[98]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
Country being so distressing as to impose this
obligation upon every citizen — or to the uncon-
scious and blind obedience to the mandates of the
strange destiny of my life. This doubt assails me
when I recall the immense number of circunstances
impossible to have foreseen which have constantly
turned my steps away from the path which my fancy
or my purpose had already marked out. Indeed,
following perhaps a natural inclination inherited
from my grandparents — bqth of whom were
physicians — I started on my professional studies
with a truly juvenile enthusiasm, in the National
School of Medicine; and I know not why or
wherefore I graduated as an Engineer and after
that. ... I have had to practise on a great many
occasions, as a Lawyer, Professor, or Architect....
I was precisely making some daring architectural
stunts, when the revolution of 1910 — transformed
into Government by the first popular elections
freely carried out in this Country — landed me
unexpectedly in the Subsecretaryship of Public
Instruction and Fine Arts. Thus from surprise on
surprise, and most assuredly from blunder on
[99]
ALBER TO J. PANI
to blunder, because I have always trodden paths
unknown to me, I have laboriously waded
through the General Management of Public
Works, the General Treasury of the Nation, the
General Management of the Railroads, and a very
delicate and important diplomatic mission, until I
was laden with and now carry on my shoulders
the heavy burden — not because of the aggregate
of activities required for its discharge, but rath-
er of the nature of the latter and the responsibil-
ities therein involved — the heavy burden I say,
of the Department of Industry and Commerce,
probably because I ought to be classed among
those of the revolutionaries of this last epoch, who
least have devoted themselves to the pursuit of
commercial and industrial c(g) rafts.
If therefore I were to take the teachings of the
past as a basis logically to deduce what my
situation ought to be to-morrow, I would hav,e to
conclude that Fate has in store for me precisely
that for which I am least qualified; and prudence
then should counsel me to reinforce my cloudy
knowledge of the Bible and to begin to turn my
[100]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
eyes in the direction of the Cathedral befittingly
to take possession of it in a near future invested
with the elevated and venerable dignity of Arch-
bishop of Mexico. . . .
Fate, with its cruel mockery, constantly thwart-
ing my bents and inclinations and driving me on
to the thorny fields of politics, where personally
I have only been able to reap unjustifiable
enmities and untold bitterness — has done me on
the other hand the benefit of leaving me one sole
religious worship — tkpt of truth — which
does not admit of euphemisms of speech nor
hypocricy of conduct — and of habituating me wil-
lingly to consult the best informed according as I
have met insuperable difficulties. This is the prin-
cipal reason for the gratitude I feel towards a Con-
gress who openly express — whatever be the ultimate
result of their work — the firm resolve of one of
the most socially and economically influencial
classes in the life of the Nation, to help in the study
of the numerous and complex problems which are
to be dilucidated in the Department under my
charge.
[101]
ALBER TO J. PANI
There is yet still more. Without being a profes-
sional politician — as, I have just stated — I am a
sincere democrat and know full well that in order
to constitute a real democracy, neither the exercise
of popular suffrage, because an unconscions or crim-
inal demagogy may lead the people away from
their own interests — as in effect has happened on
numberless occasions — nor a liberal, wise and just
Constitution, which the skill or the strength of a rul-
er may violate with impunity, are sufficient. It is
furthermore necessary that the parasitic relations
between the victors and the vanquished in the politi-
cal struggles should not last; that the number of
the despoiled be reduced to the utmost possible min-
imum or rather that there be no despoiled ones
at all, that is, that the entire people efficiently
take part in public affairs. And if the Congress
of Industrials is only able to appreciate and make
the proper use of the irresistible force of the bounty,
talent and character of the present President of
the Republic they will render the realization of this
lofty ideal possible.
I therefore drink, Gentlemen, to all the Indus-
trials of the Republic and to all of the Delegates
[102]
•
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
whom they have patriotically sent us to increase
our small fund of democracy with the First Na-
tional Congress of Industrials.
Restaurant of Chapultepec, D. F.,
December 9th. 1917.
[103]
AN INTERESTING RESEARCH
CONCERNING
POPULAR EDUCATION
Mexico, July the loth, 1918.
Mr. Carlos C. Valadez,
General Manager of "The Free Municipium"
City.
Dear Sir:
In reply to the open letter addressed to me and
published by you in the 4th. number of the weekly
"The Free Municipium" — the organ of all the
Municipia of the Republic — in the first place
I wish most sincerely to express to you my
deep appreciation of the unmerited praise of which
I am the object in your mentioned letter, as also
of your kind invitation — which I hold as a great
honour — to cooperate in the laudable efforts of
your weekly "to endeavour to carry out the de-
mocratic task of establishing to its full scope,
the Rudimentary Instruction of the illiterate." And
with the noble purpose of carrying this into execu-
[107]
ALBERTO J. PANI
tion, you suggest — in the impossibility of the
Federation to issue laws, concerning teaching,
that shall be binding on the whole Republic — that
the Republic petition the First Magistrate of the
Nation to "institute a Supreme Council of rudi-
mentary instruction to synthesize the problem and
suggest to the HH. Municipal Councils a resolution
thereof, thus obtaining by the free will of the towns
expressed in a municipal plebiscite — already open-
ed by the mentioned weekly — the establishment,
embodiment, systematization and support of rudi-
mentary instruction in Mexico."
As you request my opinion on the subject and
that I should collaborate with you towards its
realization, I readily accept your invitation with
all the enthusiasm which the fulfilment of the
duties of good citicenship affords, confining myself
however to the modest sphere of my capac-
ity— which most assuredly precludes the candi-
dacy to the Presidency of the aforementioned
Council, with Which you most courteously are
pleased to honour me — and I proceed to answer
the four questibris included in your request:
[108]
ON THE ROAD tO DEMOCRACY
of yOur questions read as follows:
"Do you think possible the establishment of a
" Rudimentary Institution — uniform in its methods
" and outlines — all over the Republic ?"
"One of the most arduous details of the problem
" being the support of the Rudimentary Schools,
" do you not think that by resorting to the system
" of farm schools the desired success would be
"insured?"
A categorical reply to these questions really
demands the prior solution of the problem involved
from its two most important standpoints: viz. the
pedagogical and the economic.
When I was Subsecretary of Public Instruction
in 1912, I took the liberty of making a rough
sketch of the solution to this problem, deduced
precisely from the principal difficulties encoun-
tered in the application of the Decree on Rudi-
mentary Instruction — viz. those derived from the
technical defects of the Decree itself and the in-
sufficiency of the budget — with a view of calling
the attention of the public to the matter, and of
rousing an interest in its study so as to procure
their cooperation. Besides the authorized opinions
[109]
ALBERTO J. PANI
published in the press at the time, I have received
some eighty opinions more, sent to me spontaneously
and gratuitously, by actual specialists on the sub-
ject, or by mere amateurs, both national and foreign.
I am at present engaged in extracting from and
collecting those opinions — many of which throw a
good deal of light on the real solution of the problem
— and, together with my original study and the
report and final conclusions to be formulated by a
Pedagogical Committee of acknowledged compet-
ency, I shall in a near future publish a book by the
express order of the President of the Republic.
I therefore take the liberty of postponing my
answer to the two questions referred to in your
letter, in order to send you a much more satisfac-
tory reply, as coming from persons far more
competent than myself — together with the first copy
of the book I have just mentioned.
Another of your questions is:
"Do you approve of the Municipal Plebiscite
" that we have opened to investigate whether the
" National Town Councils will voluntarily accept
[110]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
" the suggestions in reference to the "supreme
"council" which we propose?"
Without hesitation I say "yes", because it is
a wholly democratic proceeding, and hence the
form of policy is irreproachable.
Your last question reads:
"Will you support before the Supreme Head of
" the Nation the suggestion of the "Free Munici-
" plum" that there be instituted — solely in a
" capacity as a Technical Advisory Body — a
" supreme national council of rudimentary instruc-
" tion", whose functions shall be to study the
" manner of establishing a benefaction such as
" proposed throughout the whole of the country, in
" order to insure the reign of Democracy in Mex-
" ico."
No support is needed for the President of the Re-
public to uphold and promote, with all of the
power wherewith he is invested, the patriotic
tendency of directing towards one same end for
its greater efficacy, so important a share of the
Nation's efforts for the redemption of the people.
Renewing my profound thanks and the promise
ALBEkTO J. PANI
of my modest collaboration together with my very
warm congratulations oh the work that the 'TREE
kUNICIPlUM" is carrying out,
I beg to remain.
Faithfully yours,
A. J. PANI.
[112]
OUR IDEAL OF
UNIVERSAL SOLIDARITY
Address delivered by Eng. Alberto
J. Pani, Secretary of Industry, Com-
merce and L/abour, on the occasion of
the Inauguration of the Commercial
Museum of Mexico, which took place
at 11 a. m. on Tuesday the 25th of
June, 1918, at the Museum Building,
No. 80 Avenida Juarez, City of Mexico
Mr. President,
Gentlemen:
Commerce while providing Industry with raw
material, Industry returning it transformed to
supply the ever increasing and more intense wants
of Humanity, the latter in brief PREFERENTLY
devoting its energies to the manifold and hetero-
geneous activities connected with PRODUC-
TION, DISTRIBUTION AND CONSUMP-
TION— necessary not only to its growth but also
to its material and psychical betterment — has
presented the most admirable spectacle of its
efforts of adaptation on earth and without doubt
constituted the most valuable conquest of contem-
porary civilization.
The majority of men — among whom are the
most advanced peoples of the world — at the pres-
[115]
ALBERTO J. PANI
ent moment, madly concentrating all their energies
in the destructive activities of war, set forth their
ancestral defects of inadaptability and undoubtedly
also produce a lamentable phenomenon of regres-
sive evolution or retrogression of civilization.
Fortunately, the former is a conquest which, due
to its magnitude and nature, should not and
cannot be lost; and the latter is merely an accident
in the hazardous road of human life which,
sooner or later, will have to be saved even if it
be at the cost of many and most bloody sacrifices.
It is to be hoped, on the other hand, that when that
longed for moment of reconciliation arrives, in
order to be able promptly to recover the enormous
amount of wealth and morality consumed by the
acute fever of war, and as far as possible to guard
against subsequent relapses, Humanity having
learned a lesson from the sufferings already un^
dergone — the greater perhaps the more fruitful—
without forgetting the real causes of the tremendous
armed conflict and profiting by the industrial
progress which it has provoked, will direct all its
efforts towards the holy ideal of universal solidarity
[116]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
and justice, in order to continue without further
obstacles the redeeming work of civilization under
the shadow of permanent peace.
Is this hope perchance a mere Utopia? Such in-
4eed seems to be the vehement desire of turning
this valley of tears in which we live into
a universal field of happiness. But in reality it
marks and has always marked the point whereto
converge all the tendencies and conquests of civil-
ization, ever indicating sucessive amplifications
of human solidarity, from the family or tribe
in primitive society, to the religious sect or
the ruling social class, in countries of incipient
political organization — still shaken by frequent
intestine struggles — or in others better and more
permanently organized. Religions themselves —
although they may have taken the wise precaution of
only binding themselves to settle ftheir accounts
beyond the grave — have succeeded in flourishing
and dominating only as long as they have been able
to act the part of the civilizer as active factors of
expansion of solidarity, and once having failed in
this respect, the harmonious co-existence of a great
[117]
ALBERTO J. PANI
variety of religious and political creeds is possible
in modern countries, because liberal principles —
which are one of loftiest expressions of patriotism
— command respect in regard to all those different
ways of thinking and feeling, making liberty and
love of country the strongest bonds of national
union.
"A society — says Gustavo Le Bon — is not sol-
" idly constituted and the idea of fatherland which
' " leads to the defense thereof cannot exist but
" when a national soul has been formed. Until this
" soul has been formed, a people are an accumu-
" lation of barbarians capable of only momentary
" cohesion without any permanent ties. When the
" national soul becomes disintegrated, the people
" return to barbarism. Rome perished when she
" lost her soul. The invaders, who inherit ated her
" ruins but not her greatness, spent many centuries
" in the acquisition of that national soul in order
" to escape from barbarism."
It is a well known fact, moreover, that the moral
standard of a nation is rather the measure of its
civilization and strength than the extent and
[118]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
wealth of the territory which it possesses or the
number of individuals whereof it is composed;
and as, on the other hand, "what is essential in a
" nation or an individual — according to Renan —
" is to have an ideal in view" no ideal is compa-
rable to the individual and collective perfecting of
self.
Present times, in truth, indicate the low moral
level to which Humanity has fallen; certain
countries oscillating between revolutionary anar-
chy with its sanguinary cohorts of violence and
transgressions and despotic internal or external
oppression with its hateful accompaniment of
spoliation, privileges and injustices, while others —
principally the more civilized because they have
acquired certain better balanced forms of political
and social organization — are being consumed by
the flames of a formidable international confla-
gration. If then the former should at least acquire
the minimum of morality necessary to make life
merely possible in society — the rudimentary mo-
rality which demands obedience to the law and
respect to authority — the average moral standard
[119]
ALBERTO J. PANI
of mankind would rise considerably and conse-
quently fratricidal struggles being rooted out,
material well-being would increase. If after that
it were possible to go beyond the reduced limits of
elemental morality as contained in the codes, every
country rising to the standard of the principles
which demand personal sacrifice on behalf of the
interests of the community, the consolidation of
the ambitions of the people strongly integrating
the national soul, would insure its aggrandizement.
If lastly Humanity should then exert itself and
climb the next step of moral evolution — also eradic-
ating the possibility of international wars — it
would rapidly advance towards the already men-
tioned ideal of universal solidarity and justice —
eternal, because the perspectives of betterment are
unending and positive, because thereto fatally
rushes the progress of civilization — causing all
the individuals of which each human aggregate
is composed all the constituent human aggregates
of each nation, and all the nations of the world,
to march ever closely solidarized to the glorious
conquest of an ever better material and moral life,
[120]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
by producing the greatest possible universal wel-
fare and justly distributing that same welfare.
*
* *
The foregoing preamble, which has taken up a
great portion of the space that I intended devoting
to this discourse and that to some may seem foreign
to the object for which we are now assembled — viz.
to celebrate the opening of the commercial Mu-
seum of Mexico — is nevertheless pertinent, be-
cause it will serve once more to demonstrate1
— p articularly on the occasion of the inau-
guration of this Museum — that the President of
the Republic, notwithstanding the almost insuper-
able resistence offered by our present disorgani-
zation and that caused by the European war, is
firmly directing national politics along the lines
traced out by History and by Nature, with the pa-
triotic end of hastening as far as possible the
evolution of the Country, because the dilemma of
the future of every country — until the necessary
adaptations be realized for the whole world to
[121]
ALBERTO J. PANI
reach a higher condition of civilization — is the
following: either worthily to form part in the tri-
umphal march of Humanity or shamefully to be
swept away by it.
Our people indeed — aside from their strange
ethnical peculiarities — present the curious phenom-
enon of leading a life full of sorrow, misery and
want, in an immensely vast territory which contains
enough natural resources to enrich a number
of inhabitants many times greater, and of tyrannical
oppression under the sway of liberal laws which
it has stamped with its own blood ; misery and want
and oppression, in short, in the midst of abundance
and the deceitful appearance of liberty, have
always been the poles round which all its misfortunes
liave revolved. And, the reason is that in order
to promote the interests of a corruptive leading
class, it has only been possible heretofore acciden-
tally and with the lyricism of a defective popular
religious or lay instruction to combat the funda-
mental causes of so singular an anomaly, which
originate from the process itself of formation of
Mexican nationality. It proves in fact useless —
[122]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
according to Zoydes — "to expect moral education
" when the economic atmosphere does not permit
" it. Those who preach that it is necessary to
" educate the masses in order to improve their
" economic conditions, only state one small part of
" the truth. The diffusion of instruction is benefi-
" cial only in the sense that it tends to make men
" dissatisfied with a life of poverty, and the dim-
" inution of certain vices the better adapts them
" to rebel against their destiny. And in this way
" public schools become the means of hastening
" revolutions."
This is why the political history of Mexico
barely contains anything but accounts of the tragic
revolutionary outbursts of popular dreams of liber-
ty and economic betterment, which have only been
quelled by temporary dictatorships in the end leav-
ing the people as oppressed and miserable as they
were before.
« *
Our first efforts, therefore, in order to be able
to form a national soul revealing civilization and
ALBERTO J. PANI
strength, should be directed to the healing of the
everlasting ailments of the Motherland through
the economic redemption of the proletariat. The
very great urgency wherewith indeed the necessity
was made manifest of promoting, developing
and intensifying the industrial and commercial
activities of the country — functions which were
formerly entrusted to organs of very secondary or
least importance, dependent on the Departments of
Advancement, Colonization and Industry, and of
Finance — determined through an almost biological
process, the recent amendments relative to the worn
out organization of the Federal Executive Power,
rationally restricting the vast sphere of action of
those Departments, namely, assigning to the former
as its principal functions under the denomination
of Department of Agriculture and Advancement ,
what concerns the agrarian problem — in order to
change the regimen of servitude in the farms and
bring about auto-colonization and a sound immi-
gratory current to extend and intensify agricultural
production — and to the latter what properly belongs
to it in accord with its designation, and finally
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
establishing the new Department of Industry, Com-
merce and Labour.
Notwithstanding that this last named Depart-
ment finds itself hampered by numerous difficul-
ties for the efficient discharge of its functions in
relation to industry and commerce, since, although
it is one of the most important wheels of the
complicated administrative mechanism in the work
of national reconstruction, it has neccessarily to
come into gear with all the other wheels of that
mechanism and most especially into those of pa-
cification, the reorganization of the transportation
service and the equitable fixing and distribution
of taxes and the reestablishment of public credit,
a gearing that necessarily causes obstructions in
the march of the said Department; notwithstand-
ing the resistence originated by the precarious
economic conditions of the Country and the iso-
lation into which we are being driven by the world
war; notwithstanding the difficulties occasioned
by the national lack of experience of certain local
authorities as is revealed, for instance, in the mis-
taken application of clause 123 of the Constitu-
ALBERTO J. PANI
tion — the regulation of which shall have to be
studied most conscienciously — or in the repeated
violations of the Federal contract by the revival of
interstate duties a thing that is opposed to the liber-
ty of commerce; notwithstanding all this — I say—
and much more, the Department of Industry,
Commerce and Labour is zealously directing its
efforts — complying to the best of its ability with
the relative orders of the First Magistrate of the
Country — towards the ends already indicated of
popular redemption and of possible future co-
operation of the Mexican Nation in the realization
of the lofty destinies of humanity.
It would not be amiss, Gentlemen, here to in-
troduce a brief parenthesis in order to recall a very
significant fact in this connection. It was only
after three years of a war without precedent in the
history of Humanity — kindled by the clash of
certain conflicting economic interests — that faint
glimmerings of peace began to loom, not in the
fields invaded by the exterminating fire of battle
— which now has become even more widespread —
but in the tranquil sky of lofty ideas and noble
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
purposes, with the concurrence of the economic
aspirations already expressed, in memorable speech-
es of the President of the United States of
North America, of the Imperial Chanceller of
Germany and of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
of Austria. The following are the utterances of the
high American dignatary to which the already
mentioned functionaries of the Central Empires
have manifested their assent:
"Removal of all economic barriers and establish-
" ment of equality of trade conditions among
" nations consenting to peace and associating
" themselves for its maintenance."
Now, this proposition absolutely coincides with
the relative part of the Carranza doctrine of in-
dustrial democratic policy, which I took the li-
berty to formulate on a solemn occasion two months
before.
The Department of which I am speaking — as I
have alredy stated — has sought the promotion devel-
opment and intensification of the commercial and
[127]
ALBERTO J. PANI
industrial activities of the Country using every
means within its power: whether striving to
organize itself in the most efficient and economic
way compatible with circumstances and the tech-
nical elements and material at its disposal; or
zealously defending the constitutional vindication
of a national right, (1) — inalienable and impre-
scriptible but nevertheless trampled under foot by
former Governments — which will powerfully hast-
en the advent of the prosperity of the Nation; or
endeavouring to coordinate one with another and
with the Government relative interests, scattered
throughout the Country in order to give them
greater individual potency and adjust them to the
good of the community; or coming in direct contact
with those interests — whether already or about to
be organized — in order democratically to blend
them with the social mass and thus without any
appreciable expense, enormously to increase its
working personnel, spread it over the whole Re-
public and extend the limited horizon of official
(1) The direct domain by the nation of petroleum and other
camphogens of the subsoil.
[128]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
criterion. As incontrovertible proofs of these en-
deavours, on the one h^nd we have the establish-
ment of new Chambers of Commerce, and Indus-
trial, Mining or Petroleum Chambers, in different
cities of the Country, together with their respective
confederations, and on the other hand, the recent
congresses of Merchants and Industrials who have
studied many of the most important questions
incumbent on the Department to resolve, as a re-
sult of which, crystafized in concrete recommenda-
tions or "votes/ ' some have already sprung to
actual life and are already deeply rooted in our
customs and institutions, while others with the
study which served them as a basis may be utilized
as sure channels of debates, at times tumultuous,
of the Congress of the Union.
And one of the fittest embodiments of this pol-
icy of coordination for the promotion of national
commerce and industry and the first firm steps on
the road to the economic redemption of the Mexi-
can people, is precisely the COMMERCIAL MU-
SEUM.
Indeed, in the broadest sense of the word, mod-
[129]
ALBERTO J. PANI
ern merchants are the requisite and necessary
mediators between the producers — who operate in
certain well denned places — and the great anony-
mous mass of consumers scattered over all the
inhabitable surface of the earth, having an ex-
traordinary diversity of languages, customs, re-
sources, needs and tendings ; each merchant goaded
on by the competition of others and by the very
legitimate ambition of indefinitely extending his
sphere of action, sets in play every means of
propaganda at his disposal — show-windows, ma-
nifold forms of advertisements, catalogues, com-
mercial travellers, etc., all of which facilitates
sales and purchases, increases consumption, mul-
tiplies and diversifies production and adds to the
general well-being. But as this propaganda is
made by isolated individual acts — and it is obvious
that private and collective interests do not always
coincide — in some cases the result proves a vio-
lation of the precepts of morals or of law and its
effects therefore are negative in the mechanical
composition of public welfare. Wherefrom may
be deduced the imperious necessity of coordinat-
[130]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
ing and controlling those individual acts, while
on the other hand it is indisputable that no other
institution would more aptly meet that necessity
than a good commercial museum, or in other
words: the living representation of all the possi-
bilities of consumption of each country, through
the systematic concentration of the most effica-
cious means of an honest commercial propaganda,
at every moment of its economic life, in order to
attain the greatest possible well-being of the com-
munity.
No other than this for Mexico — with respect
to its own territory and with respect also to all the
countries of the world with which it may commer-
cially be related — is the important function entrus-
ted to our incipient commercial museum.
Within a few moments, Gentlemen, when the
President of the Republic shall have solemnly
declared the commercial museum opened, you
will be able to go over the different rooms and
ALBERTO J. PANI
contemplate series of show-windows containing
samples of raw material, technologies and man-
ufactured products, grouped together in different
departments according to the following classifica-
tion:
The ground floor — devoted to raw material and
the relative technologies — contains in the centre
room those of mineral, on the East side those of
vegetable and on the West side those of animal
origin.
The upper floor of the building — devoted to
manufactured products — includes in each of its
three rooms respectively, articles devoted to food,
clothing and shelter.
You will notice a label attached to each sample
whereon are shown all the technical and mercantile
data necessary thoroughly to become acquainted
with the article exhibited and to facilitate the rel-
ative transactions of purchase and sale; you will
no doubt be surprised to verify on many of these
labels the Mexican nationality oi products which
before you imagined came from abroad; you will
observe that out of the sixty odd technologies, fcxhib-
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
ited, some serve to show the successive transfor-
mations that a raw material should undergo in or-
der to produce a certain article, as for instance
matches, rubber, ramie or cotton; and others are
intended to point out all the products which it is
possible to obtain from a certain raw material,
as from bone, salt or corn. You will see the great
educative influence that these exhibitions may
exert not only in the mass of the public but also in
the school population as a most valuable auxiliary
to technological instruction. . . . But why continue
the tiresome enumeration of everything that will
strike the eye of the visitor by simply going over
the Museum?
I shall, therefore, in closing, confine myself to
telling you something which may not be seen and
which therefore you would not become acquainted
with if your visit were but cursory or you did not
take the trouble to inquire.
This present exhibition has been formed with
samples of national production sent by over 300
merchants and industrials at their own expense.
Born in a humble cradle it will grow little by little
ALBERTO J. PANI
according as the resources of the Treasury may
permit. But as under no circumstances would it
be possible to exhibit all the products of our soil
and our factories and all those of foreign origin
susceptible of consumption in our Country, now
and always — be the limits of the locality of the Mu-
seum whatever they be — endeavours will be made
to facilitate meeting all the demands of national
consumption, exhibiting as many samples truly
representative of the industrial activities as may
fit within the available locality, and giving con-
crete, clear and detailed reports of all the rest. For
this purpose the formation of a Commercial and
industrial Directory of the Mexican Republic is
well under weigh — with all the relative data — and
the Museum already counts on the magnificent
American and European Commercial Directories
together with a small Library — which is daily
being added to — of over 500 catalogues of the
machinery necessary for the extraction and indus-
trial transformation of our natural resources and
of foreign manufactured products of necessary or
possible consumption in this Country.
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
As on the other hand the Commercial Museum
— which to-day opens its doors to the public — is
installed in the City of Mexico and the intention
of the Government is to create an institution that
may answer both to the demands of the consump-
tion of the whole Country and to its ambitions of
industrial aggrandizement, this Museum — not be-
ing accessible to the whole population of Mexico
and the possible foreign consumers of exploitable
national wealth — will have to be mobilized with
regard to the former at least, towards the most im-
portant centres of the Republic, and with regard
to the latter abroad in such directions as our own
production may be susceptible of consumption.
The ramifications of the Commercial Museum of
Mexico within the Country will prove a further
benefit accruing from the co-operation of the
Chambers of Commerce and of Industry with the
Government — of which such eloquent proofs have
already been given— opening Branches of the said
Museum in the buildings of those Chambers. The
mobilization of the Museum towards foreign coun-
tries has already been initiated by the establish-
ALBER TO J . P ANI
ment of small Museums attached to our Consulates
in various cities of the United States of the North,
Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru and Chile
in America; of Spain, France, Sweden and Den-
mark, in Europe; and of Japan, in Asia.
Mention should also here be made of the Indus-
trial Experimental Laboratory, the machinery for
which has already arrived from the United States
and which will be installed in a near future in a
place adjoining the Museum, with the object of
being able to verify the quality of the products
exhibited or of those which the public may submit
for analysis and of studying the different forms
of the industrial use of many and most abundant
natural products which at present are most sadly
wasted. I need not dwell upon the importance of the
role which ,the Laboratory will represent princi-
pally in the development of small industries and
thereby in the material redemption of the prole-
tariat.
Lastly as the institution which has just been
born would not be able to attain the ends for which
it was created, without at every moment revealing
[136]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
the possibilities of consumption and productive
capacity of the whole nation, it will be necessary
to be constantly renewing its exhibits, veritable
rhythms of the systole and diastole of the Central
Museum and the simultaneous or immediate beat-
ings of its divers ramifications as a living mani-
festation of the real economic vigor of the Mexi-
can people.
Such are in brief, Gentlemen, the principal
paths indicated for the development of the new
institution of the Commercial Museum of Mexico,
through the labour and tendencies of the present
policy of the President: the economic and moral
regeneration of the Country by the perfect coor-
dination of all the interests, all the hopes, and
all the ideas of its children, with a view to en-
dowing it with a national soul capable of palpi-
tating in future in unison with the souls of all the
other countries of the world likewise redeemed and
bound together by a strong bond of universal
solidarity.
Mexico, D. F., June the 25th. 1918.
A. J. PANI.
[137]
AN OPTIMISTIC CONCLUSION
Marginal Notes on the last Presi-
dential Message.
If we ascend to the sublime summit of Science —
inaccessible to the influence of passion, selfishness
and prejudice — we shall, without the slightest
effort, at once set out in relief perceive the differ-
ence wherewith the progress of evolution has
been effected in the various parts of the world,
the progress being principally indicated by the
various degrees of solidarity among men; it will
then suffice, in view of this materialization of the
progress of humanity in our days, to make a very
small effort to be enabled to classify the world
— as if it were a geographic conformation —
in open plains of BARBARISM, wherein the in-
dividual holds supreme sway over an enslaved
community, and heights of CIVILIZATION, all
the more elevated in proportion as the sway of the
community over the free individual is greater.
ALBERTO J . PAN I
Intensifying the effort a little, we shall likewise
be able to distinguish in the civilized portion of
the world, two large groups of countries, the one
of unstable political and social organization and
consequently still subject to bloody internal con-
vulsions, and the other of countries stably organiz-
ed, but still exposed to armed international con-
flicts, groups respectively corresponding to two
large categories of civilization, INFERIOR and
SUPERIOR. We shall observe— from that insu-
perable height — that wars simply come to be vio-
lent shocks that serve to adapt nations to conditions
that alter their mode of existence or mere
passing disequilibriums of the forces that sup-
port the structure of their internal or collective
organization. We shall find that notwithstanding
that these phenomena constitute violent means of
elimination of the UNADAPTED be they so-
cial classes or nations — they invariably for the
moment originate lamentable regressions to bar-
barism or to less advanced conditions of civili-
zation. We shall furthermore perceive that, in
addition to this circumstance, whilst the war ex-
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
penses in human life and material and moral
wealth — fabulously increased by our contempora-
ry industrial progress — are distributed among all
or almost all, the laurels of victory, and the booty
are allotted to a very few fortunate ones, whence
we must admit that modern wars in the long run
are injurious not only to all of the vanquished but
also to the great majority of the victors .... The
promising gleams of peace that radiate from this
sorrowful teaching, will shine forth even brighter
as a supreme consolation in the midst of the shad-
ows of every misery, bitterness and calamity
which apparently are malevously spread on all
sides, if we follow through the strong evolutive
chain of barbarism and the inferior and superior
civilizations, the inexorable process of the indefi-
nite perfection of humanity, which is the trust-
worthy herald of the acme of a future civilization
that may necessarily bring about, by the inevitable
force of the laws of nature, the longed for solidari-
ty of the universe.
Let us now descend from the lofty heights of the
Sinai of Science, but before closing this book —
[143]
ALBER TO J. PANI
in whose pages throbs many an ardent longing of
the Mexican people for their betterment — let us
observe the gigantic efforts that are being made to
turn those holy longings for peace that thrill the
hearts of the people, into a reality, that is, to save it
from the world conflagration, to cure it of all the
chronic evils of internal disorganization, to embody
it into civilization and render it capable of contribut-
ing with the products of its rich soil — efficiently
exploited under the shadow of social order and
the protection of liberal and just laws — to repair
the enormous losses suffered by Humanity in its
devasting struggle, and let us listen with fervent
reverence to how that people, stained, yet on its
way to redemption, solemnly declares to the world —
through the authorized voice of its First Manda-
tary and in view of the scandalous failure of the
worn out practices and the old principles of In-
ternational Law — and sanctions with extraordi-
nary acts of serene energy, vigorously engendered,
notwithstanding its innate debility, by the expe-
rience of its own sufferings:
That all countries are equal and should mu-
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
tually and scrupulously respect each other's In-
stitutions, Laws and Severeignty;
That no country should intervene in any form
or through any cause whatever in the internal
affairs of another;
That no individual should pretend a better
position than that held by the citizens of the coun-
try wherein he settles, nor should he use his con-
dition as a foreigner as a right to protection and
privileges; and finally,
That legislations should be uniform as far as
possible, without establishing distinctions by rea-
son of nationality, save regarding the exercise of
Sovereignty.
"From this body of principles" — the recent Pre-
sidential message to the Hon. Congress of the
Union continues with candid eloquence — "the pres-
" ent notion of diplomacy becomes deeply modified.
" The latter must not serve to protect private inte-
" rests nor to place at their service the strength and
" majesty of ^nations. Nor either must it serve to
" exert pressure on Governments of weak countries,
" with a view to obtaining amendments to laws
ALBER TO J . P ANI
" that do not suit the subjects of powerful countries,
* Diplomacy must watch over the general interests
" of civilization and the establishment of universal
" confraternity."
And .... drinking from this fountain of satis-
faction for our Country and of hope for Humanity,
but keeping aloof from the influence of passion,
selfishness or prejudice, let us briefly synthesize the
optimistic philosophy with which our soul is filled,
in this final postulate;
"The vast system of live human forces, in per-
petual operation of infinite and complicated com-
positions between each other and with the other
forces of the cosmic medium, is inevitably directed
notwithstanding the disconcerting phenomena of
regressive evolution which perturb and retard as-
cendant evolution — to the perfect adaptation of
man on earth, which is the scientific formula of
human happiness.39
Science, in truth, on changing the Earthly Para-
dise from its starting point to that of the destiny
of humankind, created the greatest incentive to pro-
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
gress, by fanning the flame of hope and rendering
for ever inextinguishable that sole real worship
of all men and of all times.
Mexico, D. F. Sept. 2, 1918.
[147]
THE NEW CONTROL DEPARTMENT
AND
ADMINISTRATIVE MORALIZATION
Statements given out to the Press.
At the initiative of the Executive of the Nation
— approved by the Hon. Congress of the Union —
in the Organic Law governing the State Depart-
ments, was included a new autonomous, adminis-
trative dependency, under the strange name of
" Depart amento de Contraloria" , "Control Depart-
ment". As this undoubtedly constitutes one of
the most important steps taken by any of the Gov-
ernments that have existed in Mexico since the date
of the consummation of National Independence,
conducive to the "efficiency, economy and mo-
rality of the public administration", and moreover,
as the relative Laws and Regulations — even though
they be published in all the newspapers of the
country — may undergo the same fate as that of
lengthy official documents — for the perusal of
which people generally seem to have cobwebs over
ALBERTO J . PANI
their eyes — I shall take the liberty, in the following
lines, of making a synopsis of and a brief commen-
tary upon the abovementioned law, thus inviting
the public to fix their attention at least on some
of the most transcendental points.
*
* *
However strange at first sight may appear the
word "Contraloria" it is nevertheless purely Castil-
ian and its connotation correctly defines the De-
partment by it designated.
In fact, in the Dictionary of the Spanish Acade-
my, the word "contralor" is found and given the
following explanation: (From the French 'con-
troleur'). m. "An honorary office in the Royal
" Household, according to the etiquette of Bur-
" gundy, equivalent to what, according to that of
" Castile, w ecall seer. He audited the accounts,
" expenses, orders, charges for jewelry and furni-
" ture, and exercised other important functions. —
'"In the Artillery Corps and the Army Hospitals
*" the one who audits the cash and effects accounts".
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
Also, in Dictionaries like Fernandez de Cuesta's,
Elias Zerolos, Miguel de Toro y Gomez', and other
Spanish and American Authors, &c., we find the
word '"contraloria", with the following meanings:
"The Office of Controller.— The Office of the Con-
troller".
Our words "Contralor" and "Contraloria" may
therefore respectively correspond to the English
words "Controller" and " Control or Controller-
ship".
* *
We all know that the Public Treasury accounts
in Mexico have always been a "mess very difficult
to disentangle " and on the very rare occasions when
it has been possible to "wind the thread on the spool
in neat order" — and then the accounts have had
the appearance of a ficticious rather than real order--
it has been impossible to bring the relative criminal
action against the violators of the law, for lack of
administrative efficiency or morality, that is, be-
cause that criminal action, when its applicability
was discovered, had already prescribed, or because
[153]
ALBERTO J. PANI
it miscarried through the corruption of the judicial
authorities or their undue submission to the Exec-
utive, with a view to disgraceful political compro-
mises. And it is only natural that such should have
been the case, given our atmosphere of endemic
preversion and bearing in mind that the gross defects
of the official methods of procedure and accounting
— old fashioned, routinary and unnecessarily labo-
rious— in the Mexican finances have been piled on
to the evils originated by a fundamental error of
organization: the handling of public funds, the
administration of public national property and the
relative accounting and auditing have been concen-
trated in the General Treasury of the Federation,
which is a dependency on the Finance Department.
Who could estimate the enormous aggregate of
political power — since the "the master is the one who
pays" — that such conditions were capable of
presenting the person in charge of the Finance De-
partment, a dependency the censor of all the other
organs of the Executive, without itself in turn
being censored by any of the others?
Although under the law of May 22, 1910, the
[154]
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
separation of the functions of accountancy from
those which belong to the Treasury proper, was
determined, and the Accounting and Auditing Bu-
reau established, the latter however remained within
the gearing of the Finance Department itself, thus
leaving the Minister of Finance — with the money
in his right hand and the vouchers for expenses in
his left — in the possibility of exercising charity
according to Christian fashion towards the Bureau,
without the latter being aware of it.
The Controllership or Controlling or Control
Department, therefore, now depending directly on
the Head of the Executive, is the one that has come
to cut at the root of the evil, amputating the left
hand of the omnipotent political personage, the
lord and master of the national finances; and it is
to the present Government of the Republic — par-
taking therein by their valuable cooperation the
Charges of the Finance Department — to whom be-
longs the glory of this most necessary and useful
piece of social surgery.
[155]
ALBERTO J. PANI
*
* *
In order to synthesize the principal functions of
"efficiency" of the "Control Department", it would
suffice to state that it "unifies, uniforms and simpli-
fies the official accounts" in such a way that the
Head of the Executive may possess:
I. — Monthly complete, detailed and accurate in-
formation, during the course of the fiscal year, and
before the 20th. of each month, regarding the
state of the Public Finances in the preceding
month; and,
II. — Yearly complete, detailed and accurate in-
formation, before the last day of March of each
year, on the financial conditions of tthe Republic
at the end of the preceding fiscal year.
But as, funthermore, it will be its duty to study
the organization and procedure of the Departments
of State, Offices and other dependencies of the
Government, with a view to formulating and rec-
ommending measures which may tend to reduce
expenses in the said offices, the effects of the "effi-
ciency" of the Department in question will not be
[156]
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
limited to its own individual operation but will be
beneficially extended to all the other organs of the
Federal Executive.
The "moralizing" effects of the "Control De-
partment"— in addition to those accruing by its
severance from the Treasury and its emancipation
from the Finance Department — may be evidenced
by merely recalling that among its powers are in-
cluded :
1st. — To demand such criminal and civil respon-
sibilities as Government functionaries and employes
may incur — whatever be their category — in the
handling of funds and property of the Nation,
defining and localizing the said responsibilities in
order that the relative criminal action be not post-
poned or evaded.
2nd. — To decide on the validity of the bond or
security which every Government functionary, em-
ploye or agent shall provide, who handles funds or
property of the Nation and to realize such bonds
or securities whenever the circumstances of the case
shall so warrant it; and,
[157]
ALBERTO J. PANI
3rd. — To prevent the celebration of contracts cr
obligations involving expenses not included in he
relative items of the Budget in force or in the avail-
able balances of the said items.
I now beg to close, my object having merely been
to make a brief and condensed extract of the Laws
and Regulations of the Control Department, which
comprise sixty two permanent and six transient
articles, from the strict application of which the
"Motherland with good foundation expects all the
benefits to be derived — without precedent in our
history — from public funds being handled with
absolute submission to the precepts of the laws of
science and morality."
Mexico, D. F. January 18th. 1918.
A. J. Paul.
[158]
OUR IDEA OF THE FATHERLAND
A toast proposed at the banquet
held to commemorate the organiza-
tion of the Chambers of Commerce
and the Industrial Chambers of the
Republic.
Altogether lacking the necessary intellectual
ability beffiittingly to reply to the torrent of elo-
quence and graciousness with which Lie. Mestre has
regaled us, I must needs confine myself to the ex-
pression of my bounden yet none the less effusive
and sincere gratitude
I wish, however, to take advantage of the happy
coincidence that the most prominent representatives
of the beneficial foreign influence in the econom-
ic development of our Fatherland should be gath-
ered together here, to say a few words that will
serve to mark the viewpoint from which may more
clearly be perceived the most important aspect of
the Confederations of the Chambers of Commerce
and the Industrial Chambers of the country.
Human evolution, after all, is but the resultant
of the eternal struggle between Truth and False-
[161]
ALBERTO J. PANI
hood, the generators respectively of light and
darkness, of progress and retrogression, of happiness
and woe, of life and death
In the individual order, indeed, transgressions
of the laws of Nature or of the rules of Society,
constitute errors that originate much suffering and
many tears, in the course of the slow and cruel
process of elimination of the unadapted.
In the social order, the erroneous principles that
maintain an obstructive policy that mummifies gov-
ernments before the irresistible advance of nations,
the people provoke sanguinary commotions that
sow ruin and desolation on all sides.
In the international order, they are lies that have
brutally torn the entrails of Humanity; as much
the mediaeval crusades in behalf of the faith as
the modern crusades in behalf of civilization. Do
you really not regard as rank irony to carry the
hallowed names of religion and civilization on the
sharp point of a bayonet to subdue and ruthlessly
exploit a free people? Has not, forsooth, the worst
national government always been less bad for the
native population than the best foreign domination?
ON THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
The forgetfulness or ignorance of this axiom
has together with a false notion of what Fatherland
means, maintained the absurd right of conquest
and mastery by brute force. The acutest form of
patriotism certainly is that which now reproduces
the relative sentiment of the ancient Roman citi-
zens— according to which Rome was the fatherland
par excellence and the laying of its yoke on the
world was a favour not less than an honour bestow-
ed upon the latter — and it constitutes one of the
most barefaced lies of contemporary civilization,
which through imperialism has perpetrated the
bloodiest sacrifices of the human race.
The true conception of the Fatherland — if it is
to be an efficient factor in the progress of Humani-
ty— not only proceeds, mystically from the memo-
ries of the past, but also and above all, mate-
rially and ethically, from the present enjoyment of
wellbeing and from a sense of duty which we all
possess of bequeathing that sum of wellbeing, yet
increased, to future generations. The free embodi-
ment, therefore, of the efforts of a foreigner in the
national activities, links that foreigner with the past
[163]
ALBERTO J. PANI
because the field wherein his efforts are unfolded,
is the product of many more preceding efforts ;
with the present by inevitable relations of coexis-
tence; and with the future by his children who are
the beauteous continuation in time and space of
his own self.
The cardinal feature of the notion of the Father-
land— deduced from the Carranza doctrine in In-
ternational politics — is therefore the equality bet-
ween foreigners and nationals in the work common
to both, of general prosperity. The slight restrictions
laid on the former, as contained under our laws,
are laid principally on account of the different
notions which other countries profess of the Fath-
erland: many of those restrictions would therefore
cease to be, with the sole disappearance of imperial-
ism.
Now, as the Confederations of the Chambers of
Commerce and the Industrial Chambers of the Re-
public tend to embody in one single effort all the
joint efforts of their members both national and
foreign, in order in an harmonious cooperation with
the Government to receive the legacy of the past,
OAT THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
bequething it yet improved, to those who are
to follow us; in closing, I cannot but invite all the
Mexicans here present to raise their glasses and
drink to the health of the foreign merchants and in-
dustrials— who, without claiming unjust privileged
conditions, have come efficiently to contribute to
the aggradizement of Mexico — greeting them with
these simple words: Our fatherland, brothers, is
your fatherland too ! ! !
Chapultepec Restaurant, September 29, 1918.
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
PAGES
Foreword 7
The Constitutionalist Government face to face with the sani-
tary and educational Problems of Mexico 9
Revolutionary destruction and Governmental reconstruction. 25
The understanding between the Government and Commerce. 43
The Mexican Popular University 53
The industrial democratic policy 59
The Constitutional Path 87
Our democratic initiation 95
An interesting research concerning popular education 105
Our ideal of universal solidarity .... 113
An optimistic conclusion 139
The new Control Department and Administrative Moraliza-
tion 149
Our idea of the Fatherland. . 159
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