.
iBilsillilHli
THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT
MEXICO
WHOLE TRUTH
ABOUT MEXICO
PRESIDENT WILSON'S
RESPONSIBILITY
BY
FRANCISCO BULNES
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY
DORA SCOTT
M. BULNES BOOK COMPANY
810 BROADWAY
NEW YORK
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY MARIO M. BULNES
[Printed in the United States of America]
Bancroft Ubrar& UTHOR > s BIOGRAPHY
| 432
Francisco Bulnes, Civil and Mining Engineer, Chemist
and Bacteriologist; Representative and Senator in the Mex-
ican Congress for thirty years; Chairman at various times
of the Senate and the House of Representatives; Member
of the Commission that drew up the first plan of the Bank-
ing Laws; Member of the Commission that drew up the
Mining Code in 1884, and the reform of the same in 1892;
Member of the Public Credit Commission; Author of the
Laws for the regulation of the Public Debt in 1886;
Chairman of the Commission appointed to report upon the
best means to counteract the effects of the depreciation of
silver; Member of the Monetary Commission in 1894;
Professor of Mathematics at the National Preparatory
School; Professor of Hydrography, Calculus and Political
Economy at the National School of Engineers; Member of
the Geographical and Statistical Society; Chairman on
various occasions of the Commissions representing the De-
partments of the Treasury, Fomento and Communication
and Public Works in Congress; Editor-in-Chief of La
Libertad; Editor of El Siglo XX, Mexico Finandero and
La Prensa; Author of Agricultura, Jornales y Miserias, El
Porvenir de las Naciones Latino Americanos; Treatises on
Constitutional Law, Metallurgy and Fermentation, and the
following critical historical works, Las Grandes Mentiras
de Nuestra Historia, El Verdadero Juarez, Juarez y la
Revolution de Reforma, La Guerra de Independencia.
PREFACE
The Mexican revolution has a threefold aspect at present:
that of a great social drama; of a weighty international
problem, and of a terrible socialistic experience for a people,
whose starved, infuriated and overwrought element ob-
tained a complete victory over the representative element in
August, 1914.
Passion is the mainspring of every drama; and every
great, international political problem sets the passion of
patriotism in motion, as well as the passion to secure well-
being in the future at the expense of the present. Socialism
in its practical application is a compelling force, destructive
of traditional civilization, especially when it champions the
cause of the poor in their struggle against the rich.
The "Mexican case" has become the slogan of the two
American political parties now warring for supremacy in
the coming elections; and it may be said to represent the
clash of two great interests, drowned in a torrent of deaf-
ening and sinister language. The object of this book is
to arrive at the truth, guided by one master passion, the
passion for justice. It is capable of inspiring terror, of
animating by hope, of ennobling by patriotism, of enlighten-
ing by faith, of illuminating moral abysses by the power of
its own sovereign force. My task is by no means an easy
one, as it is very difficult to treat a question quite dispas-
sionately, when the heart appeals against the judgment of
the head.
My attitude is not one of enmity toward the Mexican
revolution. Study has taught me what all men who have
vii
viii PREFACE
studied the question scientifically known; that is, that every
genuine revolution is a benefit to humanity in general, as
well as to the people themselves, if they can carry it to
a successful issue. But when the people who revolt lack the
necessary reactionary power to reconstruct their country,
they perish as a nation, or cease to exist as a social body.
I am not an enemy of the revolution, but I do look with
horror upon its progress, because Mexico is my native land
and from the final, supreme test of the revolution may result
the loss of its independence, or the extermination of the
race, ground to dust under the merciless hoofs of anarchy.
To every reader of this book I proffer the assurance of
absolute candor, and the exposition of the truth, in so far as
it is humanly possible to state it.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
PART FIRST
SOME PRESIDENTIAL FACTS CONCERNING
SOCIOLOGICAL CONDITIONS IN MEXICO
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PRESIDENT WILSON'S ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH
LIBERTY IN MEXICO A COSTLY FIASCO . i
II. THE GREAT FIASCO OF THE MEXICAN REVO-
LUTIONISTS AND PRESIDENT WILSON IN
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION . . . -36
PART SECOND
THE TRUTH CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION AND ITS
DEVELOPMENTS UP TO THE TIME OF
PRESIDENT WILSON'S INTERVENTION
I. A BOXER REVOLUTION PROTECTED BY THE
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT . . .103
II. THE MORAL UPHEAVALS OF THE REVOLUTION 132
III. MADERISM 152
iz
x CONTENTS
PART THIRD
THE POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL INDICT-
MENT OF PRESIDENT WILSON IN THE
MEXICAN CASE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES ACCEPTED
BY PRESIDENT WILSON . . . .189
II. PRESIDENT WILSON AND FIRST CHIEF CAR-
RANZA 241
III. THE COLLAPSE OF PRESIDENT WILSON'S MEX-
ICAN POLICY . 281
PART FOUR
MEXICO'S PROBABLE CONDITION IN THE
IMMEDIATE FUTURE
I. THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER . . 307
II. THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM . . -334
III. FINAL CONCLUSIONS: PRESIDENT WILSON'S
LATEST SERIOUS ERRORS . . . .360
IV. ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS . . . 37
PART FIRST
SOME ESSENTIAL FACTS CONCERNING
SOCIOLOGICAL CONDITIONS IN MEXICO
CHAPTER I
PRESIDENT WILSON'S ATTEMPT TO ESTAB-
LISH LIBERTY IN MEXICO A COSTLY
FIASCO
THE PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE OF DECEMBER 7,
THE attentive perusal of President Wilson's message,
read before the assembled Houses of Congress on
December 7, 1915, produces a chilling sense of
disappointment, inasmuch as that notable document contains
nothing bearing upon Mexico which in the slightest degree
meets the anxious expectations of the millions of individuals
who, from motives noble or otherwise, watch from a dis-
tance the development of the terrible and sanguinary drama
now being enacted there. In this drama, the plot of which
he has never understood, President Wilson has essayed to
figure as one of the principal actors.
It does, however, reveal with unmistakable clearness that
President Wilson's dreams of an humanitarian apostolate
have been shaken, not to say dissipated, by the rude shocks
of savage and criminal realities. When an intelligent man,
a man of character, of great civic weight a man who lays
claim to political discernment verging on mathematical pre-
cision, as does Mr. Wilson, is guilty of glaring contradic-
tions when addressing himself to the world for the world
listens when the President of the United States speaks to
the American people it is because the spirit of the exalted
apostle has been crushed by the annihilating force of tragic
events which cannot be denied, disguised, dissimulated or
justified.
President Wilson tells, us that the troubled Republic of
2 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Mexico has, "in the radical but necessary process," been
able to count upon but few sympathizing elements outside
its own boundaries. As a scholarly man, Mr. Wilson can-
not ignore the fact that without exception every revolution
rendered necessary by circumstances is, has been and ever
will be, beneficial for the people who engendered it, and for
humanity in general. If the Mexican revolution was a neces-
sity, there should be no hesitation or vacillation in stating
that its authors have conferred great benefits upon Mexico;
whereas Mr. Wilson has stated, in the aforesaid message,
with strange disregard for exactness, policy and ethics:
"Whether we have benefited Mexico by the course we have
pursued remains to be seen." This course has been a policy
of blind and decided championship of the cause of the Mex-
ican revolutionists. Is there, then, no contradiction in de-
claring that the Mexican revolution has been a necessity,
and in expressing doubt as to whether or not in protecting
this revolution a benefit has or has not been conferred upon
Mexico ?
President Wilson's words do not ring true. The con-
sciousness of the Latin-American nations ought to be stirred
by the self-evident fact that the President of the United
States seems completely to have changed his personality, to
possess to-day an identity which seems to have forgotten that
of yesterday, or shall we say that so great a personage has
lost sight of the fact that his exalted position binds him in
loyalty to words once spoken. "All the governments of
America stand," says President Wilson, "so far as we are
concerned, upon a footing of genuine equality and unques-
tioned independence." It must have been the other Wilson
then who addressed to the independent Mexican Govern-
ment under General Huerta, through his personal repre-
sentative, Mr. Lind, the note in which the President of
the United States, in a form that might fittingly be assumed
toward the Governors of Porto Rico or the Philippines, de-
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 3
mands that the Mexican Government comply immediately
with the following orders:
" First Complete cessation of hostilities; that is, an im-
mediate peace, or at least a truce, in Mexico.
"Second That President Huerta resign in favor of a
President ad interim.
1 'Third The fixing of an early date for the presidential
elections.
''Fourth That General Huerta should not be a candi-
date for the presidency."
In an interview granted to a representative of The Sat-
urday Evening Post, Mr. Wilson made the following state-
ment: "My ideal is an orderly and righteous government in
Mexico ; but my passion is for the submerged eighty-five per
cent of the people of the Republic, who are now struggling
toward liberty." It is difficult to understand how it is pos-
sible to conceive that justice is being shown to a people
struggling toward liberty a people which believes that this
liberty can exist only under an orderly and righteous gov-
ernment emanating from its sovereign will by the assump-
tion on the part of the President of the United States that
he possesses the right to interfere and establish an orderly
and righteous government in Mexico; and if this policy of
the White House is not set forth as based upon this right
or power, it must be looked upon as a barefaced act of ag-
gression against the independence and sovereign rights of
the Mexican people.
In the same interview Mr. Wilson also stated : "Second
No personal aggrandizement by American investors or ad-
venturers or capitalists, or exploitation of that country, will
be permitted. Legitimate business interests that seek to de-
velop rather than exploit will be encouraged." Mr. Wilson
must be confusing Mexico with Porto Rico or the Philip-
pines. Does he not know that the Mexican people possess
the sovereign right even to allow themselves to be robbed by
4 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the North American capitalists, or those of any other nation,
and that they cannot permit the President of the United
States to acquire the power to revise all the legislative acts
of the Mexican Government, and to dissolve with inexorable
imperial veto the laws, decrees and resolutions of this Gov-
ernment, even though the White House affirm that it has
the power to exercise the rights of tutelage over eighty-five
per cent of the Mexican people?
Having noted some of the contradictions that the Presi-
dent of the United States has permitted himself to be guilty
of in regard to the "Mexican Case," it may be well to con-
tinue the analysis until one essential fact is satisfactorily ex-
plained and settled. If the Mexican revolution was a neces-
sity, then it is an imperative duty to fix beyond the shadow
of a doubt for whom the necessity existed. For Mexico?
For the United States? For Europe? For humanity in
general? And if this revolution was not a necessity, upon
whom must the verdict of history and contemporaneous pub-
lic opinion fix the guilt of high treason against humanity,
and against the inalienable obligations that rest upon the
chief executive of a nation?
PRESIDENT WILSON SETS HISTORY ASIDE
In the interview already spoken of, published in The Sat-
urday Evening Post, the writer tells us that the President
"hit the desk with that clenched fist," and said, " 'I chal-
lenge you to cite to me an instance in all the history of the
world where liberty was handed down from above! Lib-
erty always is attained by the forces working below, under-
neath, by the great movement of the people. That, leav-
ened by the sense of wrong and oppression and injustice, by
the ferment of human rights to be attained, brings freedom.' "
I take up the gauntlet. I accept President Wilson's chal-
lenge to give him a single instance in history where liberty
has been "handed down from above."
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 5
The Roman liberties were the work of an assemblage of
patricians emanating from an aristocracy which counted
soldiers, landed proprietors and jurists in its ranks. Almost
everything in the patriotic history of Rome to which we
look up to and admire the creation of its civil laws, its
legislative work, its recognition of the rights of the people
and even of the slaves was "handed down from above."
Who would attribute to the "forces working below" the
glories of Senatorial Rome's golden era? The triumph of
the masses produced three hundred years of Caesarism.
The famous Spanish liberties declared, sustained and elu-
cidated by such far-famed political monuments as the Cortes,
the Fueros, the Justicia de A r agon and the Church recog-
nized as a sovereign power within the State were not the
creations of the half-clothed denizens of the sub-stratum of
humanity, but of the Infantes of Spain, steeped as they were
in the spirit of feudalism ; of the Ricos-homes , crowned with
the dignity of free men; of the prelates who, claiming the
prerogatives granted them by the Church, imposed their
authority upon the kings to curb their despotism. On the
other hand, from the heart of the Spanish people the forces
working below sprang their admiration for militarism,
their veneration for the arquebus and cutlass, and that ideal
of the subjugation and transformation of a people by con-
quest, a conquest that left the weaker vassal, beaten and
crushed, but nevertheless glorying to live subject to her
overbearing lord, the military power. The Spanish populace
applauded the destruction of the ancient liberties implanted
by the grandees, although inevitably and in great measure
they were their own, and reverted with their former blind
and fervid devotion to their king and their God.
It is readily granted by all moderately well-educated
people, and by every Anglo-Saxon acquainted with this his-
tory of his national life, that the origin of the English lib-
erties adopted in more or less modified form by all civ-
6 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ilized nations is to be found in the Magna Charta of King
John, a work that cannot be traced to the "forces working
below," as it was forced upon this monarch by none other
than the English barons. The other two great legislative
monuments which incorporate the liberties of the English
people are the Bill of Rights and the Petition of Rights,
both emanating from the opulent industrial element and the
aristocracy, still wedded to feudal ideas of liberty. It was
not until 1832, when the first important reforms in the
electoral laws were effected, that the English people were
accorded a voice in the affairs of the nation, and by 1832
the ancient and celebrated English liberties had been per-
fected and completed, nothing in their composition having
emanated from "the forces working below," alone endowed,
according to President Wilson, with a veritable liberty-
creating potency.
The great French Revolution, initiated in 1789, is per-
haps the most convincing example of the failure of the masses,
not only to create the ideal liberal state, but adequately to
understand and practice true liberty. Whatever of good
survived the ravages of this great national struggle did not
come from the political forces that brought it into being.
The salient features of this movement were the revoking of
the privileges of the Crown, of the nobility, of the clergy,
of the judiciary, and this revocation was decreed after being
learnedly and brilliantly discussed by the Constituent As-
sembly. The sweeping financial, legislative and adminis-
trative reforms that modified the ancient regime were the
work of the Assembly of 1791. But no sooner had the sover-
eign power passed into the hands of the people, than there
appeared on the horizon the most frightful tyrannical ma-
chine the world has ever known, the National Conven-
tion, that servile instrument of the great crimes and in-
credible follies of the Reign of Terror. What was the out-
come of all this? The terror produced by the will of the
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 7
people permeated all ranks and classes the great, the
middle class, the lowly, the revolutionists, and even the
terrorists. The people themselves ended by flinging aside
their sovereign rights, seeking in Napoleon I and Louis
XVIII agents who would restore to them, at least in part,
their ancient institutions. These they now realized to be a
necessity to their well-being, moulded as they had been by
the traditions of the past which the revolution had sought
to obliterate, forgetful that in the life of a people the past,
the present and the embryonic future are inseparably united.
The great French Revolution, launched in the name of
liberty, and for the attainment of liberty, succeeded in the
end in arousing in the minds of the people a veritable panic
at the mere mention of their sovereign rights, and a sense of
loathing for the very name of liberty itself. The nineteenth
century apostles of liberty did not dare to raise their stand-
ard in France until 1830, and that revolution was not at
once extinguished because the wealthy bourgeoisie stepped
in and snatched the reins from the hands of the socialist
propagandists. This liberal regime was sustained by the
industrial world, supported by that section of the aristocracy
which preferred this kind of liberalism to being the victim
of the sovereign will of the masses. The Revolution of 1848
restored the people to power, but when the attempt was
made to put into practice the most absurd socialist doc-
trines, a reaction set in, upheld by those who, although lov-
ing liberty, preferred the despotism of a Caesar to being
trampled upon by the rabble. From the offscourings of the
Second Empire rose that volcanic eruption known as the
Paris Commune, which threatened to engulf the French
nation. As though to nullify this sinister manifestation of
the rule of the people there came forth the order and liberty
of the conservative republic, in which all Frenchmen united,
wishing to save their nation from the catastrophies to which
it had been exposed by the rule of the people. The French
8 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Republic has developed gradually into a radical-socialist re-
public, bearing in its womb the pulsing monster of doctrinal
socialism and empirical anarchism.
Why is the United States an exception to the rule which
dominates in Latin countries of incompatibility between lib-
erty and democracy?
From the first, while America was still an English colony,
it understood, practised and was gradually trained in the
English ideal, and when it achieved its independence it
came forth a really democratic people, because it possessed
the real and fundamental condition of democracy, an equal
or almost equal social condition among its citizens. Like
conditions prevail in Switzerland, where the proprietary
class is in the majority, and so long as this unusual condi-
tion obtains, liberty and democracy can exist together, be-
cause the soul of democracy is equality. But from the mo-
ment that the proletarian element predominates, liberty has
but a small chance. Moreover, in the Anglo-Saxon race
there is faith in individualism, born of the results achieved
by the common people in England, where the working-man
commands the highest day wage in Europe, and in the
United States, where he commands the highest in the world.
That great Anglo-Saxon faith in liberty, due to the triumph
of its efforts, also owes its origin to the economic elements
which the Anglo-Saxon race has manipulated so as to create
for its common people a situation superior to that of any
other people of the world.
If President Wilson will examine the nature of liberty
as exemplified by its evolution in different countries, he will
find that the truly protective regime has always been built
up by the aristocracy, supported by the doctrine of divine
right, the right of arms and the right of the landowner;
that the liberty which has been the outgrowth of what is
commonly termed the "rights of man," has sprung from the
industrial world, directed by the brains of capital, combined
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 9
with the old aristocratic forces which prefer to yield rather
than to be annihilated; that Socialism is the ideal of the
working-man of to-day, who attributes all his misfortunes
precisely to this kind of liberty, as the creator of stupendous
social inequalities, and who sees in the capitalist only a hugh
crushing machine bent upon pulverizing him into atoms.
Outside of the United States and England the working-man
is not emancipated from the traditions of the past; he is a
socialist or, what amounts to the same, an avowed enemy of
liberty. And even in the United States there now exists a
socialist party whose existence is no longer ignored, and
whose unwonted demonstrations from time to time have
caused the individual American to ask himself what all this
may portend. In anarchy may be found the real offspring
of the "forces working below," the real domain of the des-
perate, the cunning, of those who can live only when steeped
in hate and who, believing that all social reforms proposed
with a view to making the life of the working-man happy
with all his reasonable wants gratified must necessarily
fail, have resolved to do everything in their power to de-
stroy human society.
LIBERTY AND ORGANIC SERVILITY
President Wilson resolved to implant liberty in Mexico:
first, without right, later, without reason, and still later,
without acquainting himself with the nature and characteris-
tics of the people upon whom he wished to bestow that lib-
erty which he himself says "is often a fierce and intractable
thing."
Mexico's economic resources may be summed up as fol-
lows:
Total annual agricultural production, 350,000,000 pesos. 1
This agricultural life of the nation is extensive, carried
1 The value of the Mexican silver peso was approximately fifty
cents gold.
io WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
on by a population scattered over a vast area, without na-
tional unification or equal civilization, of diverse races and
languages; one only in illiteracy, silence, barbaric trend of
thought, hatred of the white race and perhaps suffering, al-
though their misfortunes are by no means equal.
The annual industrial production of Mexico in 1909 was:
Sugar and the manufacture of liquors from
sugar-cane, maguey and grains 30,000,000 pesos
Tobacco 1 5,000,000
Cotton, jute and woolen materials 63,000,000
National railways 80,000,000
Street railways 1 1,000,000
Electric lighting, public and private, and motor
power 34,000,000
Soap and paper 3,000,000
Annual production of silver 75,000,000
Annual production of gold 50,000,000
Annual production of copper 32,000,000
Annual production of iron 12,000,000
Annual production of lead 4,000,000
Annual production of zinc, antimony and tin ... 3,000,000
Annual production of coal 12,000,000
Annual production of petroleum 30,000,000
Total 454,000,000 pesos
The statistical table given above represents an average
during five years of General Porfirio Diaz's dictatorship,
hepce the monetary unit used to compute this annual pro-
duction is not paper currency but the silver peso, valued at
the rating of the monetary standard of 1905, averaging,
therefore, two pesos to the American dollar. Consequently,
computed on this basis and classified under the two head-
ings of agriculture and industries, our production, previous
to the saving revolution of the much-lauded Francisco I.
Madero, was:
Total annual agricultural production $175,000,000.00
Total annual industrial production 227,000,000.00
Apparently the Mexican nation possessed the necessary
elements to establish a regime of liberty emanating not from
the civilizing forces that work from below, which have so
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO u
captivated Mr. Wilson's imagination, butN:o the antagonism
existing between two forces, the aristocratic agrarian and the
industrial, controlled by capitalist sovereignty. Liberty is
born of and nourished by the antagonism created by tyran-
nical social forces which in the political world war upon
each other, or unite to produce advantageous results for the
people, whose sympathies are always with these social forces.
Liberty, then, results from the peaceful impact of tyrannical
forces within the limits of the community they pretend to
govern.
Ostensibly Mexico should enjoy a sound industrial regime,
but the conclusion to be arrived at after carefully consider-
ing the true aspect of the question will unavoidably lead to
the most intense disappointment.
SOCIAL ELEMENTS THAT DO NOT MAKE FOR LIBERTY
Mexico's import trade amounting to $150,000,000 at
the time to which I refer as also her internal trade, were
almost exclusively in the hands of foreigners or foreign en-
terprises, whose stockholders and boards of directors were
in foreign countries. The Mexican Constitution denies po-
litical rights to foreigners and does not permit foreign socie-
ties or companies to ban together for political purposes. The
result of this measure was to nullify almost totally any bene-
fit that might accrue to politics from foreign capital circu-
lating in Mexico. Nevertheless, foreigners could indirectly,
through lawyers protecting their interests and representing
them before the Government and the people, mix in political
affairs for their own benefit and that of the country. There
was, however, no foreigner in Mexico so unsophisticated as
to believe that the Mexican people were fit for liberty, what-
ever might be the stable form of governrrWjt^tQ whfcti they
might incline. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians^-JaparfCs^,
Americans, all those, in fact, possessed of common sense, have
always ridiculed our burlesque democracies and condemned
12 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the crimes for which they are responsible. The foreigner in
Mexico who believes in our liberalism must be either lacking
in sense or devoid of veracity.
The foreign element, even before the revolution of 1910,
and before and during the dictatorship of General Diaz, was
convinced that Mexico's best interests would be served by an
iron hand, backed by an intelligent, upright, tolerant and, in
so far as was possible, honest spirit. Influenced by this con-
viction all foreigners living in Mexico, or having money in-
vested in the country, have always supported every dictator-
ship that in their estimation appeared competent or, under
the circumstances, the least objectionable. One of their in-
direct methods of upholding the dictatorship was not to em-
ploy Mexicans who mixed in politics unless they measured
up to the required standard ; that is, unless they were uncon-
ditional partisans of the dictatorship. This restriction of the
industrial force of the nation, which was gathered together
almost exclusively under foreign management, and which
was the only other serious, positive, beneficent force one
which favored a dictatorship only because of its own inabil-
ity to establish liberty removed from politics an independ-
ent element which, not relying on the dictatorship for its
daily bread, should have been free to fight it and establish a
responsible government.
FURTHER ELEMENTS OPPOSED TO LIBERTY
Elements have existed in Mexico for the formation of
an active, useful, respectable, conservative party. The prime
requisite for this is an aristocratic land-owning class. Mexico
has a landed aristocracy, Catholic in faith, a worshipper of
traditions and a lover of liberty, confined within the limits
of a centralized or federalized conservative republic. This
aristocracy enthusiastically entered the political field under
the protection of the Constitution of 1824, but failed of its
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 13
aim because it lacked the real elements of strength; namely,
great prestige in the eyes of the nation, great wealth, a feudal
soul, or at least the military spirit, with a strong following
in the army, and the effective support of religion.
The most imposing national sanctuary is the Pantheon, in
which repose the ashes of the dead whose immortal deeds
have glorified the centuries. In countries that can lay claim
to a venerable tradition the national glories are the heroic
deeds of its nobility. As long as true patriots are left to
these lands, even when anarchy has invaded them, the tribute
of homage and gratitude will always be laid at their feet,
when calm has restored to patriotism its reflective quality.
Mexico cannot hold up to its white and mestizo l races glo-
rious traditions, lengendary heroes, or inspiring visions of
noble Crusaders and fearless conquerors of new worlds. The
traditions of the Mexican Creole aristocracy are puerile. It
represents the weak type which needed the firm hand of the
conquerors to perpetuate its dominion. The people know
well the significance of the coats of arms of their aristocracy.
With the exception of the descendents of Cortes and his
handful of formidable companions, the rest of the nobility
merits the contempt or indifference of sane-minded people,
and the hatred based on envy of the illiterate. However,
although the pretensions to nobility among Mexicans may
be irritating, in no instance have the culprits, the victims of
foolish vanity or incorrigible petulance, deserved implacable
persecution.
The great wealth of the Mexican landowners is another
well-worn lie which has held undisputed sway among those
who have not an accurate knowledge of the Mexican social
economic problem. In due time it will be shown that the
landowner's wealth was more imaginary than real, that they
were burdened with innumerable difficulties and were more
worthy of pity than of hate.
1 Mestizo a person of mixed Spanish and Indian blood.
i 4 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The aristocracy was not a part of nor did its influence
hold sway in the army. They committed the irreparable
blunder of withdrawing their sons from the service after
the fall of the Emperor Iturbide, except when it was a choice
between begging or seeking a military appointment.
The Catholic clergy has always been faithful to its duty
of upholding the aristocratic class as the most faithful con-
server of ultra-Catholic traditions. In the northern states
it has almost entirely lost its hold upon the masses, but has
held it among the people living south of the 22d parallel to
the frontier of Guatemala, not, however, to a degree to in-
spire heroic uprisings in defense of their faith. Without
effective strength the Mexican conservative element could
not take an active part in the government, because only the
strong are privileged to govern. The middle-class poli-
ticians found a way soon after the Declaration of Independ-
ence to exclude the aristocracy from party struggles. An
original system was invented, simultaneously enacted through-
out Spanish-America. Every revolutionist, in the same
breath that he proclaimed the revolution, declared every em-
ployee of the established government a traitor, even when
he himself had been one in many cases the most favored.
Every traitor was condemned to die, his property having been
previously confiscated for the good of the country, and not
even his children escaped the branding-iron of the "patriot."
With such a system in vogue, and bearing in mind that ulti-
mately every revolutionist triumphed, there came a time
when property owners recoiled from taking part in politics
since it was equivalent to aiding in their own execution.
Only those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain
entered the political field. From that time politics became
the chosen trade of the demagogue, the storehouse of the ill-
fed, the asylum of the deluded, who, notwithstanding some
merit, were dragged into this sewer, the gentlemanly high-
wayman's ofHce being turned into a font of civic virtues.
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 15
After its last political venture- the attempt to raise a throne
in Mexico for the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Aus-
tria the conservative party abandoned politics, advising
their sons to do the same, telling them to bear in mind the
words of England's wicked king, spoken on the eve of the
battle that was to dethrone him :
"And if I die, no soul shall pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they? since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself."
The formation of a conservative party in Mexico was an
impossibility. From 1824 to 1880 the only thing the aristo-
crats dreamed of was the advent of the iron-handed dicta-
tor who would restore peace without liberty, so that liberty
might not cause the dishonor and death of the country.
INTELLECTUAL ELEMENTS CONTRIBUTING TO LIBERTY
Politics is a constantly changing and threatening prob-
lem, and, like all great problems, requires a broad and thor-
ough knowledge to solve it. In every country this can be
accomplished only by its intellectual element. If President
Wilson in his strange project to implant liberty in Mexico
did not and could not count upon the organic forces of lib-
erty such as were the economic interests productive of po-
litical and moral phenomena neither could he count upon the
intellectual element to favor his noble, although illogical
propositions. In Mexico a truly liberal party has never
existed, or even a faction, or do the genuine liberals
enjoy the slightest political prestige. The genuine liberal
in Mexico is the object of the aversion of the masses, of the
persecution of the so-called liberals, who have guided and
who still guide the destinies of the nation, and of the con-
tempt of the noisy rabble that represents the people. Many
noted foreign publicists have remarked this after studying
our politics. In Mexico the so-called liberal is a wild beast
ever seeking to devour his neighbor's liberties and to abuse
1 6 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
his own so-called liberties in order to turn them into unlimit-
ed despotism. The great majority of Mexico's so-called
liberals, moulded generally in the School of Jurisprudence,
venerate the dogma of the "unlimited sovereignty of the
people." Now, liberty is constituted by individual rights,
called also "the rights of man." All government rights are
an insuperable check placed upon the sovereignty of the peo-
ple, and if the people hold the sovereignty individual rights
should still constitute a check on this sovereignty. Before
omnipotence no one has rights; consequently, before unlimit-
ed sovereignty of the people liberty cannot exist. Such
individualism is the Anglo-Saxon doctrine of liberty ac-
cepted, applauded and taught in the United States. How is
it possible that the president of a republic, wherein every
citizen when there is a question of liberty possesses just as
much authority as a university professor, should take seri-
ously the Mexican self-styled liberals who acclaim the un-
limited sovereignty of the people?
There can be no liberty in a country where the power is
concentrated in the hands of those who have invented the
most heinous crime, destructive of liberal principles; that is,
the crime of being "an enemy of the people" a crime that
should be punished with disgrace, confiscation of property,
and even death itself. It is incomprehensible that the Mexi-
can people who, according to their representatives, are the
authors of the famous Constitution of 1857 f r which so
much blood has been shed, so much pain borne and so much
misery spread broadcast can grant to each individual Mexi-
can the right to be its sworn enemy, and, nevertheless, admit
that all its enemies merit the punishment of confiscation, tor-
ture, death and the subsequent persecution of their families.
No one can be a personal enemy of the people, because the
people as a whole have no physical personality. An indi-
vidual may be said to be the people's political enemy when
he is opposed to the popular class having a voice in the gov-
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 17
ernment, or when he, justly or unjustly, censures a popular
government. The Mexican Constitution recognizes the
right of every individual to uphold theocracy, aristocracy,
oligarchy, plutocracy or absolute despotism, which is equiva-
lent to granting to every individual the right of denying the
moral or intellectual aptitude of the people for self-govern-
ment. Likewise, the Mexican people, in conformity with its
institutive sovereign will formally granted by the Consti-
tution gives to every individual the right to censure, justly
or unjustly, the constitutional representative of the people,
through whom it exercises its sovereignty. How is it
possible without characterizing this people as unjust, des-
picable or demented to accept the theory that it recognizes
the right of every individual to declare himself its enemy
within the limits indicated by the laws formulated by it, and
that this public should yet believe itself civilized and just,
when at the voice of a demagogue it tears its supposed enemy
to pieces for having exercised the right granted by the Con-
stitution and sanctioned by the people?
The truth is that the Mexican people has never through
the Constitution of 1857 given any individual the right to be
its enemy. This great liberal legislative instrument was
compiled by a number of honest and patriotic thinkers who
believed, when they were formulating the law, that they were
interpreting the will of the people not the real people, but
an imaginary people. Their dreams, fanned into delirium
by the theories of foreign writers, caused them to mislead
the illiterate Mexican people, incapable of understanding the
meaning of rights much less that of liberties.
There can be no justice among the peoples where this per-
nicious doctrine is held, because it is incompatible with the
popular claim to absolutism. There can be no science, be-
cause in the ethnological classifications of the races they are
divided into superior and inferior, their deformities and de-
generations being noted just as though they belonged to the
1 8 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
zoological species. There can be no literature, because this
reveals the cankers growing on the social body which repre-
sents the people, exhibits them to excite horror, probes them
so as to prognosticate the recovery or death of the people,
and cauterizes them with irons, heated red-hot in the blast
furnace of strict moral law. There can be no art, because
without liberty the artist draws only caricatures of his in-
spirations, or spurious copies of what should always remain
hidden in nature. There can be no history, because false-
hood plays a necessary and stupendous part in the lives of
the peoples who do not admit this theory. Where this
criminal "enemy of the people" doctrine is taught there ex-
ists a people enslaved by adulators and accusers, who inflame
its vanity and treat it practically like a domesticated beast.
The Mexican liberals have never been able to understand
that the establishment of a responsible government is impos-
sible in a country where two political parties do not exist.
These are the only means known up to the present time by
which the establishment of dictatorships and the spread of
anarchy can be prevented. The Mexican liberals, like those
of all Latin-American nations, aim at the formation of only
one political party the liberal, needless to say and the
conservation of the power in its hands to the end of time.
In general, the Mexican mind rebels against accepting as
an undeniable truth that the one-party policy is pure folly,
and that, even if against all laws it were possible to secure
the existence of one party, the monopoly of the supreme
power is the most dire of all monopolies, inasmuch as it
engenders the most insupportable of all tyrannies.
That President Wilson cannot lay claim to the sym-
pathies of a single one of the revolutionists in his attempt
to implant liberty in Mexico is explained by the fact that
what appears to be an unpardonable tyranny to the American
mind, is acclaimed as the most precious form of liberty by
the revolutionists and their followers.
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 19
THE SOCIAL SUBSOIL
In order to study the Mexican popular class in its politi-
cal aspect it should be divided into two classes, rural and
urban, the latter being further subdivided into the work-
ing class which forms an integral part of the industrial
life of the country the independent artisans and the do-
mestics.
The rural class represents eighty-five per cent of the
total population. The majority of this class is composed
of persons whose social condition may be said to rank with
that of domesticated beasts, capable of being turned by the
influence of certain socialistic or anarchistic processes into
roaring, untamed beasts. Don Lorenzo de Zavala, an ultra-
liberal and one of the most brilliant political men that
Mexico has produced, had an unusual opportunity when he
was governor of the state of Mexico to make a scientific
study of the Indian, as the aboriginal race predominates in
that state. I call attention to the fact that Zavala was not
a canon, a feudal aristocrat, a courtier, or a plutocratic
Jew. Zavala was a Jacobin of the most rabid type, held
in check by a knowledge of realities analyzed by his great
mind. Nevertheless, he tells us that the great and noble
ideal of the Indian of 1830 was to exterminate the whites,
confiscate their property, expel the mestizos under pain of
death, reclaim Mexico for the indigenous race, and make
of ft a nation of Indians without a trace of white blood
or European civilization. In a word, the Indian ideal
was to faithfully reproduce the semi-theocratic empire of
Montezuma, with its human sacrifices, its ferocious gods,
its great lords with Asiatic visages, its cruel, implacable
warriors and its inflexible laws, written on tablets of stone,
as though to accentuate that progress, with its train of
evils, would be conquered by brute force. In 1873 Loza-
20 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
da, the Indian chief of the Sierra de Alica, at the head of
18,000 perfectly armed and equipped men, made a des-
perate attempt to restore Indian supremacy, and would have
occupied and devasted the city of Guadalajara except for
the check given him by General Corona in the battle of
the Mojonera. The agrarian question has only been the
froth of the Zapata insurrection. Fundamentally it is a
caste war, destined to restore the Indian to his primitive
religion, to his patria (fatherland) taken from him by
the whites, to his laws violated by the Conquerors, to his
wealth, real or imaginary, of which he was despoiled, and
to realize vengeance's supreme ideal, to be recorded down
the centuries, wiping out the heaped-up injuries of genera-
tions. This is neither a fabrication nor an exaggeration.
The representatives of the Zapatistas at the Aguascalientes
Convention and at that of the City of Mexico during the
administrations of Eulalio Gutierrez, Gonzalez Garza
and Lagos Chazaro, declared clearly and firmly that what
Mexico needed was to revert to the Indians, its real owners,
and that no terms of agreement could ever be reached be-
tween the conquered, turned into victims, and the con-
querors, incapable of forgetting their rights of conquest.
The great majority of the mestizo rural class, who re-
semble the Arabs in their tendencies, are adventurous and
love a nomad life. As a general thing they are cowboys
whose ideal of liberty spells libertinism, and who with
rapidity and ease fall into the ways of brigandage. The
city population, composed of artisans, is absolutely free.
Direct taxes have never been imposed upon it; it does not
understand the meaning of the word national treasury, and
knows no oppression other than a levy for obligatory mili-
tary service. It is precisely this class which believes that
no voice should be raised against the will of the people. It
is anti-liberal, although it thinks itself liberal, the contra-
diction being explained by the nature of its political train-
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 21
ing, which has been always in the hands of the leading
demagogues.
The working-class is socialist from the moment it sets
its foot in the political domain, and its soul revels in that
paradise of social equality outlined by the apostles of free-
dom. The only working-men organized in Mexico accord-
ing to modern labor laws are the workers in the cotton
mills, and they were so active in asserting their rights that
the Madero Administration, terrified at their attitude,
granted them what Mr. Wilson does not dare to grant and
what the working-class has obtained only in New Zealand
a minimum rate of wage set by the State. So great a victory,
obtained without a desperate effort on the part of the Mex-
ican working-class, proves that a great future lies open to
Socialism in Mexico.
Throughout the Mexican popular class, except among
the more civilized artisans and working-men commanding
the highest day wage, the popular bandit crowned with
real or imaginary feats is held in the greatest reverence.
These brigands have taken the place of the ancient Lares,
and the people, deprived of the guidance and influence of
their parish priests, have fallen on their knees before the
influence of the bandit, easily converted into a hero at the
will of the press.
THE MEANS TO RESTORE PEACE
From this cursory glance at the framework of Mexican
sociology, it will be seen that at the time the revolution of
1910 broke out there was an industrial element, backed by
capital, which worked indirectly in politics, and was a de-
cided partisan of the civilized and civilizing iron-bound dic-
tatorship; a Catholic landed aristocracy, with servile souls
and nerveless hands, ready to sell its pride of race, its
religious zeal, its Iberian arrogance and its rights of con-
22 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
querors in exchange for the protection of the mailed fist
which would save it from having to risk its head and its
fortune in the defense of its legitimate rights and ancient
privileges; a cringing liberal crowd, subservient to all the
dictators by its cowardice and corruption ; a majority among
the people, reactionary to the point of reverting to Aztec
barbarity; a socialist working-class and an anti-social artisan
and domestic class.
When President Wilson voluntarily took upon himself
the role of one of the principal actors in the Mexican
tragedy, he did not see what all other men of brains the
world over had seen ; that is, that in Latin- American nations
there are no democratic, aristocratic, theocratic or social-
ist governments all are bureaucratic. The bureaucracy,
as should be the case, bows to the principle of all irrespon-
sible governments "the nation to satiate its gluttony." As
it is not the producing class, which is the representative of
all social, economic interests, and which should be safe-
guarded with every possible moral, scientific and civic pro-
tection, the office of the bureaucracy is that of the devastat-
ing locust, working in its proper domain by means of heavy
taxes. The ideal of all bureaucracies is that the great,
voracious middle class headed by the educated proletariat
should live tranquilly and lavishly at the expense of
national and foreign capital and that of the popular classes,
who were to be fooled with poisoned, sugar-coated pills,
artfully prepared by the demagogues.
The English had already reduced the Latin-American
political parties to two, pithily described as the "ins" and
the "outs"; that is, those who are in on the rake-off
and those who are not. The formula for temporary peace
in countries ruled by bureaucracies amounts to socialism for
the kid-gloved politician. Each one is to receive from the
national treasury what he needs to satisfy his desires, even
though he may do nothing to earn it, or what he does may
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 23
be done badly. General Diaz understood this. In 1880 he
set aside 36,000,000 pesos to satisfy the greed of the Fed-
eral, state and municipal bureaucracies; but this sum was
barely sufficient to half provide for even fifteen per cent of
the middle class, which lived directly or indirectly off the
bureaucracy. The economic development of the country
by means of foreign capital, especially American, enabled
General Diaz to pacify the country by what came to be
known as the great "Pan y Palo" (Bread and Rod) policy.
No sooner was the voice of a malcontent raised against
the Government because he had no share in the rake-off,
than the dictator immediately took note of the "patriotic
regenerator's" complaint, and apportioned to him his share
of the spoils in proportion to his importance, and, conse-
quently, his ability to upset the order of things. General
Diaz, without ever having read the life of Louis XI of
France, believed in that lugubrious monarch's principle of
government to draw all those toward him who were capa-
ble of doing him grave injury or rendering him important
services; or if the means of attraction failed, to kill them,
because, forsooth, the Will of God must be fulfilled, and,
incidentally, that of the king. To that astute policy, then,
the Porfirian policy of "Pan y Palo" may be compared
the policy that all clever dictators have adopted from
Augustus in Rome, down to Guzman Blanco in Venezuela,
Porfirio Diaz in Mexico and Estrada Cabrera in Guate-
mala.
General Diaz succeeded in setting aside 170,000,000
pesos annually to satisfy the voraciousness of the bureau-
cracies, which sum figured in the Federal revenue budget
of the states and municipalities. As the economic develop-
ment of the country had created upward of 8,000 new posi-
tions for the middle class in the commercial and industrial
world, in banks and in connection with the railroads,
seventy per cent of the middle class drew from the budget,
24 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the balance overflowing to the employments offered by com-
merce and industry.
General Diaz believed that by having virtually trans-
formed the State into a socialist orphan asylum for the
middle class he had secured perpetual peace for his country.
He did not take into account the terrible consequences of
the extraordinary system of contracts that was to spring
up. This system consisted of propositions made by foreign
capitalists through a native lawyer, influential in political
circles, to install some important enterprise, of benefit to the
public, at from double to tenfold the amount it ought legiti-
mately to cost, according to expert estimate. The pro-
moter who often did not possess a red cent, but in ex-
change represented an imaginary syndicate hailing from
England, Chicago or Wall Street, ready to invest many
millions in a country that above all needed money to de-
velop its natural resources and the lawyer had their share
in the enormous profits, the remainder being divided be-
tween the company that had actually invested the money
and the public officials who had sold their honor. This
contract system was composed of four elements: a promoter
of foreign extraction, usually English and sometimes a
Knight of Commerce; a company that undertook to buy the
concession, binding itself to respect the terms agreed upon;
the lawyer, and the public officials who were parties to
the extortion.
This system is the universal, public robbing-machine in-
vented expressly to exploit countries whose government is,
so to speak, ornamental. In Latin-America it has met with
more success than Edison's most noted electrical discoveries.
The one thought of the so-called political parties or factions
is graft. Accordingly, they head their programs for the
progress and salvation of their country with projects for
the material betterment of the land, carrying them to the
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 25
point of exhausting the public credit and dragging the last
cent from the unfortunate tax payers; and at the same
time making loud demands for greater educational facilities
(for the schools provided certain perquisites), which if
carried out would be sufficient to transform the humblest
citizen into a learned doctor. The politicians reap the bene-
fits of these projects for material betterment; the people have
to be satisfied with the humble school. If they have nothing
to eat, it matters not; if they are dying of hunger, it is all
the same; the school is the panacea. The bureaucrats de-
cided that the material benefits should be for them and the
elevating dissertations of the pedagogues for the people.
BUREAUCRATIC PERVERSION
The contract system destroyed whatever moral sense the
middle class possessed. The socialist working-men said:
"We do not want the equality of the law, we want the
equality of the dollar." To do them justice the modest sav-
ings of the prosperous middle-class citizen served as a gauge.
The bureaucrats, under the spell of the workings of this
system, completely lost their heads and proclaimed the
equality of all bureaucrats to be the equality of the dollar;
but their standard was the Rockefeller millions.
The Mexican middle-class family is, as a rule, a centre
of civic putrefaction. This grew out of the voraciousness
of the bureaucracies and was afterwards increased by the
appearance of the contract system. When the influence of
the Catholic clergy was weakened in Mexico, the Catholic
families withdrew from the conservative party, giving free
entrance to the lowest bureaucratic element. If the estab-
lished government was conservative, the venerable head
of the family, who was a Government employee, was also
a conservative; his oldest son, usually a lawyer, always
appeared in the role of a moderate; the second son, in that
26 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
of an extreme liberal; the unmarried aunt was a socialist;
the mother of the family was the comadre 1 of the general's
aide-de-camp, who might at any moment raise the standard
of revolt, and the son-in-law, who was the secretary of some
working-man's society, would in any strike have killed two
or three policemen, smashed shop windows and set fire to
liquor and tobacco factories. Every avenue was covered,
so that in any event the bureaucratic employee would never
be ousted from his softly feathered nest. Whatever may
be the fluctuations in politics, the upheavals among the
people, the situation among the ultra-radical faction, the
bureaucratic family, not only in Mexico but in all Latin-
America, has found the means of drawing perpetually on
this apparently inexhaustible source at the cost of carrying
out a degrading program to the letter of the law. When
the so-called liberal party proclaimed its absolute dominion,
having previously destroyed the conservative party, it split
up into individualistic bands fairly vibrating with cupid-
ity. The bureaucratic element then embraced the motto of
the cynical Romans: "With Caesar, if he be strong;
against him, if he be weak;" and the members of the imme-
diate circle of the Caesar devoted themselves to that policy
of adulation that characterized them, which veiled the de-
termination to betray him at the opportune moment. The
women of the middle class were converted into low-grade
politicians by their admission into the Government service.
It has led to their aping the men when by virtue of their
great moral superiority they are a privileged class, and the
result is far from pleasing. In General Diaz's time the
women Government employees, and those aspiring to the
honor, belonged to a club called "Daughters of Carmelita,"
1 Comadre compadre and comadre, called compadres, are the
persons who stand sponsor for a child in baptism and confirma-
tion. In Spanish-speaking countries a very warm personal tie
binds the child's parents to their compadres.
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 27
named after the dictator's wife. When Madero triumphed
they called themselves "Daughters of Dona Sara P. de
Madero." Since then we have had "Daughters of Huerta's
Iron Hand," "Daughters of Villa," "Daughters of Zapata,"
and at the present time, I have no doubt, they appear as
"Daughters of Carranza." Apparently they have experi-
enced no difficulty whatever in effecting this kaleidoscopic
change of parental authority.
THE POISONED STREAM FROM WHICH THE POPULAR
CLASSES HAVE DRUNK
Gustave le Bon, referring to Latin-American republics,
wrote: "In general and fundamentally the political prob-
lem of the Latin-American democracies is the problem of
public thieving." Undeniably the French sociologist is
justified in his statement; but this does not mean that there
are not in Latin-American governments many honest, intel-
ligent, energetic and sincerely patriotic men whose influence
is highly beneficial. As a rule, if they do not succeed in
absolutely banishing corruption, they do prevent this bureau-
cratic brigandage from producing by its unbridled license a
state of social anarchy. Unfortunately, it is a fact that the
ideal of the middle-class family is to be part of this bureau-
cracy, and that the ideal of the bureaucracy is to rob the
nation and individuals whenever possible. The mother is
no longer the religious matron who shed the radiance of
her virtue over the home, and reared men for God, country
and humanity. In these days there are mothers who urge
their husbands, sons, sons-in-law and brothers to steal from
their country. Sons are reared with this idea, and it is carried
to the point of inculcating that this public theft is a legiti-
mate necessity, that it is an art, a sign of distinction. The
result of this schooling in depravity has been that the lower
28 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
classes have had this baneful example before their eyes for
many years, which has destroyed the slender thread of civic
virtue possessed by them at the time of the Declaration of
Independence. It also threatens to destroy all personal
virtue, because it goes without saying that a home which
is a den of thieves cannot be the nursery of virtue and
morality.
Beginning in 1824, the Mexican middle class resolved to
cast out of politics all the conservative elements that had
been the outgrowth of tradition; namely, the army, the
clergy and the landowners. After forty or more years of
this so-called fight for principles which in reality was only
a fight for government posts although politics was divided
into two parties, the liberal and the conservative, the par-
tisans never changed, they simply shifted their allegiance
whenever it appeared profitable. Since 1867 the bureau-
cratic middle class, directed by the educated proletariat, has
been the absolute owner of Mexico, the real oppressor of
the people, the octopus that has sucked the vital juice of
all popular labor, of foreign and national capital, and of the
patience of the victims who carried the weight of this
race of vipers, given unreservedly over to bureaucratic can-
nibalism.
The powerful class in all Latin-American countries is to
be found in the bureaucracy, but unfortunately for these
countries, their bureaucracies are not, and never can be,
governing classes. A government exists only where prop-
erty is respected. Proletarian sovereignty, when it is abso-
lute, when it is not held in check by conservative elements
strong enough to protect property, causes its ruin and ulti-
mate destruction. The proletarian element cannot estab-
lish a government without the aid of the army, which more
or less successfully manages to hold the bureaucratic ele-
ment within bounds by resorting to a dictatorship. On the
other hand, an army in which the proletarian element pre-
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 29
dominates gravitates toward absolute militarism, and is con-
sequently dangerous. In Latin-American nations government
without military support is not understood, even when this
represents absolute militarism. This is the only force that
can keep demagogism within bounds, and once suppressed,
the latter seeing itself cut loose from all restraint, will do
what it has done in Mexico hand over the nation to every
known form of brigandage.
I challenge President Wilson, the oracles that have in-
spired him, the politicians who have supported him, to give
a single historical example of the existence of a government
sustained by the dominion of the educated proletarian or
working-class without that government being absolute and
despotic. It was Montesquieu who first put into words the
truth that had been established by centuries of experience:
"In a country where aptitude for democracy does not exist,
and which does not possess a governing class, only anarchy
or a dictatorship is possible."
Three Latin-American nations, Argentine, Brazil and
Chile, have ceased to be ruled by strict dictatorships. The
method adopted is a species of attenuated dictatorship, to
which an admixture of the plutocratic-bureaucratic oligarchy
has been added. They are generators of oceans of corruption
by means of the contract system, so favorable for the schemes
of public thieves. These nations owe their present state of
freedom, combined with an increasing excess of bureaucratic
cannibalism, to the aristocratic and plutocratic conservative
elements, and to a popular element which defends its rights
to its small property and its daily wages against the voracity
and criminality of the demagogic element. In Mexico, since
the influence of the Catholic clergy has declined in politics
and its landed aristocracy has proved itself worthless, either
as a militant or a peaceful political element, the only remain-
ing conservative forces are the army, and the fact that the
isolation of the illiterate rural classes puts them out of the
30 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
reach of the demagogic apostolate, which in its latest form
is represented by socialism and anarchism.
PRESIDENT WILSON S BLINDNESS
Five months before his overthrow and assassination, Presi-
dent Madero, in his address to the Mexican Congress in
September, 1912, expressed his doubt as to the Mexican
people's fitness for democracy. That worthy but artless
President said : "Because if a government such as mine,
which has honorably kept its. promises ; which has done every-
thing for the good of the Republic that was within the reach
of its understanding; which was installed by the almost
unanimous vote of the Mexicans something that had never
happened before; if such a government cannot endure in
Mexico, Gentlemen, we should say that the Mexican people
are not fit for democracy, that we need a new dictator who,
sabre in hand, shall come to silence ambitions, to suffocate
all the efforts of those who do not understand that liberty
can only flourish under the protection of the law." Inas-
much as this government of Madero's did not endure, the
deduction according to the honest convictions of Madero
himself is that the Mexican people were not ready for a
democracy but fitted only to remain under the tutelage of a
dictatorship.
In another address to Congress, one month later, recom-
mending the introduction of a bill for compulsory military
service, President Madero said : "We agree that the first
requisite for a country's advancement is peace, and it seems
if we judge by Mexico's past history that it is more diffi-
cult to preserve peace when liberty exists than when it does
not. When liberty does not exist no one talks, no one ap-
pears to be ambitious, no one even aspires to have an ambi-
tion, because he knows it will soon be extinguished ; but now
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 31
that we have granted liberty, now that every one aspires to
be governor, now that every one is free to electioneer in his
own behalf, etc., it follows that if he is not supported in the
elections he will take up arms."
Madero was like all revolutionists who attain to power.
When he planned the revolution against General Diaz
he did not believe "that the first requisite for a country's
advancement is peace," but proclaimed that the country's
greatest need w r as liberty, and when he was at the helm of
State and realized what liberty means in the hands of a
people who do not know how to use it, he said : "It is more
difficult to preserve peace when liberty exists than when it
does not." Madero, for lack of knowledge and reflection,
did not understand that peace and liberty go hand in hand
only when the people possess the technical qualifications to
be free, and that it takes a dictatorship to preserve peace
when a people, instead of being sovereign, is easily led to be
the blind and servile instrument of demagogism. Peoples
can have no other form of government than that for which
they are fit, and the Mexican people have clearly demon-
strated their unfitness to be granted the rights of a free
people.
When the fall of Madero and his subsequent assassina-
tion became known in the United States an American news-
paper wrote the following just arraignment: "A people is
not to be feared when its sane element has overthrown a
government which it had only fifteen months before installed
by acclamation; when it has applauded the greatest, the
most infamous, the most cynical treason recorded in history,
and when it has not sufficient virility to oppose forcible con-
scription and the constant outrages of the government, and
to suppress disorder, pillage, sack, rape, and the burning of
villages by Huertistas, revolutionists and bandits." A peo-
ple that allows itself to be slapped and spat upon, to have its
laws torn to shreds, its gods overthrown, its women violated,
32 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
to be robbed of its honor, its means of livelihood, even of
the dry crusts which were once doled out to mendicants, is
not a people capable of self-government, nor even of obtain-
ing from its masterful owners the treatment accorded to
slaves.
One of the revolutionists, an honest, intelligent and per-
fectly sincere man, a real reformer, took up the well-known
phrase of Victor Hugo: "If a man is not a republican at
twenty, it is because he has no heart, and if he is one at
forty, it is because he has no brains." 1
If Victor Hugo had contemplated Latin-America for five
minutes after its independence, he would have said: "If a
man in these countries is not a democrat at twenty, he has
no heart, and the one who at forty believes in the democ-
racy of the people of the country in which he lives, either
lacks sense or shame, or both." From the Straits of Ma-
gellan to the frontier of the United States there is not an
intelligent person who will not agree that the ridicule and
contempt heaped upon Latin-American democracies by for-
eign sociologists are amply justified. The upper classes are
admirably skeptical in these countries, and if they speak of
democracy to the people it is because they need the support
of the sub-popular classes to carry out their great and bare-
faced policy of theft. The sub-popular classes do not know
what democracy means, but they take it up because profes-
sional agitators have played upon their ignorance to the ex-
tent of making them believe that democracy and happiness
are synonymous, and that they can easily be obtained along
the road of vice and crime. Don Lorenzo de Zavala, of
whom I have already spoken, knew well the noble civic aspi-
rations of our large political class, so large that it embraces
almost the entire middle class. Zavala wrote a gospel in
the following lines: "In this country everybody wants re-
ligion, order, guarantees, the aggrandizement of the coun-
1 Madero por uno de sus intimos, p. 144.
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 33
try; in other words, they ask for democracy, sovereignty of
the people, liberty and justice, but what each one in reality
wants is tajada (graft)." Don Lucas Alaman called Mexi-
can politicians a race of vipers. Dr. Mora, a talented and
honest liberal, wrote to the truly noble patrician, Don Val-
entin Gomez Farias: "Take care that not an inch of the
veneer that coats your followers be knocked off, because it
will reveal their rascality." Don Sebastian Lerdo de Te-
jada, President Juarez's talented minister, at the time of the
triumph of the republican cause in 1867, ordered the sus-
pension of further investigation of those suspected of trea-
son to their country and to the liberal party by aiding the
Empire, or receiving money in the guise of alms, because,
if the investigation had been continued, it would have meant
the apprehension of the entire liberal party.
Don Pedro Lamicq, one of Madero's most ardent revo-
lutionary followers, full of faith in his reform program,
has written with great candor: "I am not a demagogue.
I do not even know if I am a democrat. I do not believe,
since Madero's unfortunate experiment, that it is possible
for democracy to flourish in Mexico where the uncivil and
uncivic Creole fatal inheritor of the Spaniard's covetous-
ness and insubordination rules. I ask for a dictator, but
a good dictator, one who will send the politicians to their
homes and the newspaper men to jail ; who will immediately
take up the work of reorganization and reconstruction; who
will bind up the wounds of the people and mete out justice
to them. A dictator with an iron hand who will seek to win
the support of the people, surrounding himself with sane and
inflexible men, Creoles, mestizos and Indians. A dictator
who will lose sight of his personal interests and consecrate
himself to the good of the people. And note well, dear
friend, that I insist on this not only now after Madero's
fiasco, but that I have insisted on it ever since my pen has
been free to expres my thoughts under the protection of
34 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
that liberty which I have been one of the few to know
how to understand and respect." 1
The testimony of science and history; of respected, tal-
ented Mexican revolutionists; of European and American
sociologists; of the American Ambassador to Mexico; of
almost all the Americans in Mexico, who have had
opportunities of studying the Mexican people; of all rep-
resentative publicists, who have justly condemned Latin-
American democracies; of the crimes committed by the great
majority of the triumphant leaders of 1911 ; of the American
and Mexican Catholic clergy; of all the significant events
emanating from the Madero revolution, obliges Mr. Wilson
to follow a course worthy of his prestige as a man of moral
integrity, as a university president and as the head of a
political party in an individualistic democracy. But at the
supreme moment, when everything that ordinarily would
and could have impressed a great-minded man, urged pru-
dence and justice, the President of the United States car-
ried away by academic dreams, saturated with lies collated
and dispensed by his advisers for political reasons, swayed
by the pernicious influence of the sirens who beset him,
trafficking with the misfortunes, the gaping wounds, the
blood, the frenzy and corruption of Latin-American repub-
lics resolved to implant liberty in a country where it is
detested, especially by the liberals; where the only liberty
that is loved is unlimited personal liberty and the destruc-
tion of the liberty of others; that is to say, in a country
where the only species of liberty that is understood is that
of the jackal and the viper, exemplified by the exploits of
the bandits, "every inch men," who have terrorized the
land. The outcome has been the logical consequence of the
policy. President Wilson, by recognizing a de facto gov-
ernment of the ultra-despotic type, after having refused to
recognize the Huerta Government because it was dictatorial,
1 Madero por uno de sus intimos, p. 146.
WILSON'S ATTEMPT A COSTLY FIASCO 35
has practically acknowledged that his effort to implant
liberty in Mexico has been a complete failure. It is even
worse. President Wilson has not recognized a de facto
government but a de facto anarchy, hoping to transform it
into something bearing some resemblance to a government,
in order to save himself from the severe arraignment that
awaits him at the hands of humanity.
CHAPTER II
THE GREAT FIASCO OF THE MEXICAN REVO-
LUTIONISTS AND PRESIDENT WILSON
IN THE AGRARIAN QUESTION
MARVELLOUS LANDS AND GRASPING LANDHOLDERS
SOME excuse and perhaps even some justification may
be made for President Wilson's mistakes as a states-
man and a sociologist in regard to the Mexican po-
litical situation; but he has also failed to grasp a still
greater and mort important question the agrarian situa-
tion. In Mexico this has been incorrectly styled the agrarian
problem, into which the revolution has injected the ques-
tion of hunger hunger for bread, for rights, for justice,
for civilization, a hunger which crushes the social and pri-
vate lives of 12,000,000 human beings, who for the past
four hundred years have been the victims of the insufferable
exploitation of a handful of cruel aristocrats, insatiable in
their greed and implacable intrenched behind their divine
rights in their oppression of the people. Such is the revo-
lutionary thesis. It is clear, then, that if through the favor
shown by President Wilson to the Mexican revolutionists
the miserable eighty-five per cent of this downtrodden popu-
lation were to attain prosperity, President Wilson would not
figure among the apostles of liberty who offer to the people
the "rights of man," when their primary need is bread, meat,
clothing, comfortable, hygienic homes, diversions, idyllic do-
mestic scenes; but he would figure among the teachers and
apostles of humanity very near to Christ Himself.
Don Luis Cabrera has rightly said : "La Revolution es la
Revolution" (A revolution is a revolution), which is only
36
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 37
another way of saying what has been said before : "Pour faire
une omelette il faut casser les oeufs" ; and what has been shat-
tered beyond the power of belief is the unfortunate Mexican
people. But apparently this tremendous work of destruc-
tion, carried on with the aid of crime, war, dementia, the
spirit of vengeance, the appetite for pillage and all the re-
pugnant, antisocial traits of prehistoric savagery, seems to be
of little consequence if in the end the indigenous race be
raised even over the terror-stricken, bleeding and agonizing
remnants of the nation to a height capable of conferring
upon its country an enviable renown, the race itself flourish-
ing in the maternal bosom of the "Republic of Solidarity."
The revolutionists have defined the agrarian question in
the following terms, accepted by Mr. Wilson:
First That Mexico possesses in great abundance mar-
vellous agricultural lands capable of feeding, even to excess,
an enormous population of one hundred million, according
to some; of two hundred millions, according to others; and
of even more, according to those who more closely approxi-
mate in intelligence the inferior vertebrates.
Second That these marvellous lands are not actively
cultivated, owing to the fact that they are monopolized by a
handful of cruel landowners who hold them undeveloped,
in order to keep up the price of necessary commodities and
enjoy the enormous gains obtained through the monopoly
of the land, which once belonged to the Indians and which
was stolen from them by the Spanish conquerors.
Such is the fundamental basis of the social upheaval which
has submerged Mexico and brought it into such unenviable
prominence before the nations of the world.
Before discussing the important and far-reaching prob-
lems emanating from the revolutionary proposition, it is nec-
essary to examine it calmly and dispassionately, and subject
it to an intelligent analysis.
38 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
THE FIRST LIE
A formidable fact exists in our economic life which de-
stroys the spectacular foundation of the Mexican Revolution.
For more than twenty years past the fiscal statistics, published
monthly and annually by the Mexican Treasury Depart-
ment, show a yearly increase in the importation of corn and
wheat from the United States or the Argentine. These im-
portations are greater when more or less serious failures in
the corn and wheat crops occur in Mexico. If the ignorant
revolutionary publicist presumes to deny this fact, President
Wilson may verify it by examining the export and import
statistics published by the Federal Government of the United
States, where in plain figures may be found the exact amount
of corn and wheat exported annually to Mexico.
This proves that not even in the years when the yield of
corn and wheat has been greatest in Mexico has the output
been sufficient for the needs of its inhabitants, from which
fact it may be deduced that Mexico has had more than
twenty years' experience of the impotency of her lands to
contribute enough for the support of her population.
In order to bolster up the lie of the great richness of
Mexico's corn-raising lands, the revolutionists assert that
this impotence is intentional, brought about by the avaricious-
ness of the landholders, who, wishing to keep up the prices,
cultivate only a limited area, insufficient to meet the na-
tional demands.
Such an accusation is absurd, as will presently be seen.
According to the agricultural statistics published by the De-
partment of Fomento, 1 the annual production of corn varies
in the best seasons from 50,000,000 to 60,000,000 hectolitres,
and if the lands w*hich produce these had the wonderful fer-
tility attributed to them in 1803 by Baron Humboldt (75
1 Department for the mining, agricultural and industrial devel-
opment of the country.
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 39
hectolitres per hectare) it would be necessary to cultivate
only 800,000 hectares to produce 60,000,000 kilograms of
corn; and as in Mexico one man is required for the culti-
vation of every 5 hectares of land, it follows that if the
marvellously fertile lands of 1803 existed at present, the
grasping landholders would employ only 160,000 day la-
borers. By what means have the remaining 1,800,000 lived,
who make up the sum total of our day laborers and who
are accounted for in the agricultural statistics issued by the
Department of Fomento?
Is the official figure of the number of day laborers en-
gaged in the cultivation of corn and wheat given by the
Department incorrect, or are there actually only 160,000?
If two-thirds of these laborers are heads of families, and each
family consists on an average of five persons, and if there
are only 160,000 day laborers engaged in the cultivation of
corn, it follows that Mexico does not possess 12,000,000
poor inhabitants, but merely a laboring population of
4,000,000.
In order that 2,000,000 families may live from the prod-
uct of the land set aside for corn-raising, it is indispensable
that the yield be very small in order to afford an opportun-
ity to employ 2,000,000 men in the maximum production of
60,000,000 hectolitres.
THE REGIME OF MISERY IN MEXICO.
In Mexico there are three distinct divisions of land : the
hot lands; the temperate lands and the cold lands of the
central plateau, and the semi-arid lands of the northern
plateau. The majority of the Mexican population is found
grouped upon the central plateau, for reasons which will
later be explained. Agriculture will not flourish where
water is not available, and nations, which do not command
large capital for the construction of the necessary irrigation
40 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
plants in the arid regions, are driven to depend in their
agricultural work upon the more or less uncertain rainfall.
In Mexico this factor plays an important part, and may
be considered the key to the nation's problem of poverty
and misery.
Going south from 21 north latitude to the boun-
dary line of the temperate and the hot zone, the mean
precipitation varies between o. m 5OO and o. m 75O of mean
total annual precipitation. Upon entering the hot zone
except in the states of Campeche, Yucatan and a sec-
tion of the state of Oaxaca the annual precipitation in-
creases, exceeding a metre in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The mean annual precipitation in the extensive section to
which I refer has never been known to be less than o. m 3OO
in any part of its territory. Consequently, as corn and
wheat require only from o. m 25O and o. m 3OO of precipitation,
coinciding with the time of its cultivation, and as this pre-
cipitation occurs in this section (from the 21 north lati-
tude to the frontier of Guatemala), it would be impossible
to have a single failure in the corn crops, provided, of course,
that the requisite amount of rainfall were not wanting.
From the 21 to 22 north latitude the mean annual pre-
cipitation is from O. m 45o to o. m 55o; but the minimum pre-
cipitation runs as low as o. m 2OO, which means scant crops
or complete failures.
From the 22 to 24 north latitude the mean annual pre-
cipitation is from o. m 25O to o. m 3OO, but the maximum precip-
itation rises as high as o. m 5oo, and the minimum falls as low
as o. m ioo to o. m 050. North of the 24 of north latitude
the maximum precipitation is o. ra 4Oo; the mean from
O. m i5O to o. m 2OO and the minimum o. m ooo. It will be seen
from the foregoing that, taking into consideration only the
total annual precipitation in the southern and central pla-
teaus, extensive agriculture could count infallibly on good
crops, and the change to intensive agriculture could be made
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 41
when the impoverishment of the land warranted it. In the
northern plateau, which is greater in area than the central
and southern plateaus combined, the territory between the
2 ist and the 24th parallels might be considered, if we take
into consideration only the annual precipitation, as accepta-
ble agricultural land; and that between the 24th parallel
and the frontier of the United States, as a very extensive
tract suitable for the development of a rich timber industry
in the Sierra Madre, and for extensive cattle raising on
the plains.
Unfortunately, physical conditions in Mexico are such as
to present grave obstacles to the progress of civilization and
the improvement of the people's condition, along lines pos-
sible in other countries.
. THE HIGH-WATER MARK OF THE REGIME OF MISERY
North of the 22d parallel, owing to the effect which the
huge mountain ranges have had in diverting the rain clouds,
immense salt plains, sparsely covered with vegetation, and
great sandy deserts, devoid of every trace of plant life
lacking even the somber growth that dots the great deserts
have been formed. North of Aguascalientes we have the
arid Valle del Salado, which includes a great part of the
states of San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas, merging into the
Bolson de Mapimi, a still more extensive desert, which em-
braces the greater part of the states of Coahuila, Durango
and Chihuahua. The state of Coahuila contains still another
desert, the Barreal de la Paila, and the melancholy deserts
of Sonora are well known, comprising, as they do, ninety-five
per cent of its extensive territory. Lower California is a
gigantic serpent of leaden-colored mountains, surrounded
by a mournful, grayish desert, furrowed as though some
huge plough had Jbeen forced through its sands.
Lower California covers the same area as England, but
42 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
its agricultural output would not sustain 60,000 souls. The
state of Coahuila has an area of 165,000 square kilometers
and, excepting the "Laguna" region, which is fertilized by
the overflow of the river Nazas, this state does not afford
in arable land even one-half of one per cent of its entire
territory. The state of Chihuahua, whose territory equals
that of one-half of France, possesses only 50,000 hectares of
arable land, and the greater part of this is irrigated. The
state of Durango, with the exception of the Valle del Suchil
and the Valle de las Poanas, is either mountainous, desert or
second- or fourth-rate grazing land. The greater part of
the states of San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas is arid, and not
even three per cent of their entire area consists of arable
lands. The states to which I have referred possess an area
of 984,170 square kilometers, equivalent to one-half the
entire area of Mexico, a half which for the present can be
qualified as entirely unfitted for agricultural purposes. This
does not mean, however, that the inhabitants of these states
ever cease to speak of the remarkable richness of their privi-
leged soil, or that they do not teach in the public and private
schools of these states a choice assortment of lies concerning
the local and national resources. All these states indisputa-
bly possess great potential wealth in their mines, some of
them in their forests and grazing lands; but their claim to
great agricultural resources is an absurdity.
The remaining portion of Mexican territory, between the
22 north latitude and the frontier of Guatemala, is ex-
tremely mountainous. Baron Humboldt estimates that more
than two-thirds of this territory is occupied by mountain
ranges and isolated mountains, and a mere glance at an oro-
graphic map of the Republic of Mexico is all that is needed
to convince one that the learned Prussian's estimate is amply
justified. Calculated from this basis, more than 676,000
square kilometers are mountainous and unfit for the cultiva-
tion of cereal or leguminous products. A mountainous
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 43
country is one in which deep gorges, impassable ravines and
great stretches of sloping lands, washed bare by the rains,
must necessarily abound. It is also necessary to separate the
summer stubble grazing lands from the fertile section we
have been considering in order to arrive at a correct estimate
of the arable lands outside the hot zones which sustain
the great majority of the Mexican people.
In short, deducting from the Mexican territory the sec-
tions occupied by the great mountain chains and their branch
ranges (which are considerable), the gorges, the ravines, the
sloping lands, the immense desert tracts (which have no, or
scarcely no, rainfall), the extensive grazing lands and the
summer stubble pasture lands of the central plateau, there
remain available for the cultivation of cereal or leguminous
products the 10,000,000 hectares of land, designated by the
report of the Department of Fomento, and further confirmed
by data furnished by agricultural corporations and political
and administrative associations.
A country whose entire area consists of 200,000,000
hectares, of which only 10,000,000 can be claimed for the
cultivation of products suitable for human consumption,
cannot be considered an' overwhelmingly rich country,
scarcely even moderately rich. A country which can count
only upon five per cent of its lands to produce the elements
from which its population must directly draw its life, cannot
be considered otherwise than distinctly poor in this respect.
THE DEATH AGONY OF THE MEXICAN PEOPLE
A people situated as is the Mexican people, with only
10,000,000 hectares of lands capable of producing cereal
or leguminous products, will be prosperous or wretched ac-
cording to the efforts expended upon its arable section. In
France the production is under intensive cultivation 45
hectolitres per hectare of corn, and 10,000,000 hectares of
44 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
productive land would under intensive cultivation produce
450,000,000 hectolitres of corn annually, besides at least
one-fourth as much in beans, which can be raised in the same
furrow with corn. Corn, combined with beans, constitutes
for a people depending upon it for their sustenance, an abso-
lutely healthy, hygienic and highly nutritious food. Conse-
quently, the people possessing 10,000,000 hectares of arable
land suitable for the production of cereal and leguminous
products, can maintain a population of 90,000,000 in a region
where propitious conditions exist. The Mexican people, on
the other hand, numbering only 15,000,000 and possessing
10,000,000 hectares of arable land, in great part almost ex-
hausted and, consequently, meagre in its yield, is nothing
more than a people in the last stages of dissolution.
Baron Humboldt, in his Ensayo Politico sobre la Nueva
Espaha, based upon careful and conscientious computation,
assures us that in 1803 the average yield of the arable lands
was 150 grains of corn for every grain sown, which repre-
sents 75 hectolitres of corn harvested per hectare.
In the Bole tin Mensual de la Secretaria de Fomento, for
February, 1812, published by the Mexican Government,
there appears the report of the Cdmara Nacional Agricola
de Leon (state of Guanajuato), rendered to the Depart-
ment of Fomento, in which it is stated that the average pro-
duction of the famous lands of the Bajio has fallen to 8
hectolitres per hectare. I cannot at this moment recall
whether it is in No. 3 or No. 4 of the said bulletin that the
average of these corn lands for the year 1910 is given, show-
ing a fluctuation of from 8 to 10 hectolitres per hectare.
From these figures, which are not those of the Mexican
demagogues, the subsidized newspapers, the mediocre states-
men or the lay apostle devoid of learning, some idea may be
formed of the miserable plight of the Mexican people in 1915.
If the lands set aside for the cultivation of corn in 1803
yielded, on account of their remarkable fertility, 75 hecto-
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 45
litres per hectare, and if these same lands yielded only 8 to
10 hectolitres per hectare in 1910, it is evident that if the
Mexican people continue to depend upon extensive agricul-
ture for their maintenance, their total annihilation by star-
vation is near at hand. This is all the more certain if we
take into consideration that in 1803 the Mexican population
was only 5,000,000, whereas now it is 15,000,000, three
times more, indicating a serious situation for the people if
the decrease in the productiveness of the land continues at
the present alarming rate.
It will not be necessary for this decrease in productive-
ness to reach its lowest limit to accomplish the complete an-
nihilation of the Mexican people. It will suffice for the
production to be reduced to 3 hectolitres per hectare to de-
prive the laborer's family of the means of subsistence; and it
will surely incapacitate the laborer for his work, because of
the lack of proper nourishment, if the production be re-
duced to 2 hectolitres per hectare.
The salvation of the Mexican people is easy in theory. It
will suffice to have them pass from extensive to intensive
agricultural methods, not an easy or practical achievement,
and virtually an impossible one in the limited time that the
alarming decrease in the productiveness of the land makes
imperative.
From the foregoing data it will be seen that the Mexican
agrarian problem cannot be solved by the mere distribution
of lands which in a very short time will be practically worth-
less. The agrarian problem consists in something far more
difficult the creation of lands for the people. The dis-
tribution of the lands for the continuance of extensive agri-
culture would be more harmful for the Mexican people than
if they were retained by the landholders, as I shall presently
show.
4 6 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
THE REAL PROBLEM
"The Sphinx must be answered or Thebes will die!"
Science must be answered or Mexico will die! The ques-
tion may be summed up as follows:
First Can the Mexican rural population pass suddenly
from the present extensive mode of cultivation, notably
crude, to the intensive method, so exactly scientific?
Second Has the Indian or the mestizo the economic,
moral or intellectual qualifications to enable him to trans-
form himself into a scientific farmer?
Third Supposing the foregoing questions are satisfac-
torily answered, has the Mexican laboring class time suf-
ficient in which to make its own the indispensable elements
which will fit it to carry to a successful finish this stupen-
dous transformation?
If the Mexican revolution fails, the avowed purpose of
which, according to its apologists, has been to save the Indian
from hunger and uplift him, the revolutionists will deserve
the execration of the entire civilized world, a fate which
must be shared by Mr. Wilson, the President of the United
States, who has desired to figure as an apostle in a drama
the plot of which he has never understood.
Intensive agriculture by dry farming is only possible where
adequate rainfall conditions prevail. In England, Germany,
France and Austria-Hungary, and in parts of Italy, Spain,
Russia and the United States, the rainfall is sufficiently reg-
ular to permit the undertaking of intensive agriculture. In
England, when fourteen per cent of the normal crop of
even one section is lost, owing to some irregularity in the
rainfall, it is considered a calamity, and the Germans look
upon the loss of ten per cent of their crops as a serious
matter.
The Mexican dry farmer is a luckless gambler, playing
the lottery of alternate rain and drought year after year,
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 47
ending always in bankruptcy. He sows his corn and expects
that the crop will be very good; fifty per cent of the best
yield; twenty-five per cent; five per cent, or nothing! A bad
season, or a disastrous one, is not an unheard-of phenomenon
for the farmer. He may experience successively four, five,
seven or ten bad years, or two series of bad years interrupted
by one or two good ones. There are series of good seasons,
but they are always shorter than the bad ones and do not
occur as frequently as the latter. The Spaniards introduced
the cultivation of all cereals into America, the Indian having
hitherto cultivated only corn; and corn dry farming con-
tinued to prevail in New Spain because the uncertain rain-
fall did not permit the cultivation on a large scale of the
other cereals, especially wheat.
Corn has been imposed on the Mexicans by their climate.
In the fertile regions, where the population has massed,
there are no years of drought, but during these years there
are dry months which too frequently suffice to destroy crops.
The regular rainy season occurs in Mexico during the
months of June, July, August and September, although scant
and irregular rains sometimes occur in March, April, May
and October.
Every one versed in agricultural matters knows the
"ninety-day corn," so called because it takes this length of
time to bring it to maturity. In Mexico it cannot be ma-
tured in this length of time except in the hot zones, because
the soil cannot furnish the required amount of heat. In
the temperate zones it requires one hundred and twenty days
to mature the ninety-day corn, and in the cold zone, which
comprises the most extensive corn-raising area, it requires
the same time to mature this as it does to mature any other
kind that is, six or seven months, and it consequently in-
curs the risk of being overtaken by the farmer's other sworn
foe the frost. Frosts are ruinous to the corn if they occur
from the second fortnight of March onward, or early in
48 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the month of September. They have been known to occur
at any time. The one which caused the great famine of
1794, which carried off hundreds of thousands of souls, took
place in August. It is the exception, however, when a frost
occurs in the four months of the rainy season, and one-
hundred-and-twenty-day crops rarely suffer, whereas the six-
and seven-month crops are frequently lost. The most ex-
tensive tracts of cultivated lands in Mexico are to be found
at a great height above the sea level, and for this reason there
is constant danger of losing crops by unexpected frosts.
The frosts and the irregularity of the rainfall do not per-
mit the intensive cultivation or dry farming of any cereal or
leguminous products in Mexico with any marked degree of
success.
MEXICO ALWAYS A FAMINE-STRICKEN NATION
The irregular rainfall has been the cause of Mexico's
almost chronic state of starvation, even in the days when its
wonderfully fertile lands could have sustained a population
fifty times greater than that which Mexico had after the
Conquest, when the Colonial Government had established
a civilizing tranquillity.
All honest persons who plead for pity for the Mexican
Indian, who applaud the immolation of two or three mil-
lions of Mexico's inhabitants on the altar dedicated to the
uplift of the indigenous race, all foreign and national states-
men who consider it their duty to intervene in "the Mexican
question," are in honor bound to read the following lines,
relative to Mexico, written by Baron Humboldt: "We have
yet to examine the physical causes which almost periodically
check the natural increase of the Mexican population. These
are smallpox, that dread disease called matlazahuatl by the
natives, and above all famine, the effects of which are felt
for a long time afterwards." 1
1 Humboldt, Ensayo politico sobre la Nueva Espana, Vol. I, p. 64.
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 49
Again, quoting the same author: "A third obstacle which
retards the growth of the population of New Spain, and
perhaps the most cruel of all, is famine"*
Baron Humboldt laid stress upon delivering the Indians
from this scourge which constantly menaced them, notwith-
standing their fertile lands, as he continues: "The frugality
of the native Aztec is almost equal to that of the Hindoo,
and the frequent famines might be obviated by the multipli-
cation of articles suitable for cultivation and by directing the
industry toward vegetable products more easily preserved and
transported than corn and starchy products." 2
Humboldt was a blind believer in the alimental properties
of the banana, attributing to it nutritious qualities equal to
those of wheat ; and as the cost of its production in the warm
zones is very much less than that of any of the cereals,
the solution of the famine problem in New Spain, according
to Humboldt, was to be found in having recourse to the
banana as a popular article of food. Unfortunately, chem-
ical analysis, which failed to reveal the presence of proteins,
and the physiological progress of humanity, have rejected it
as the one and only article of food for those who wish to
enjoy health and mental vigor equal to the demands of pres-
ent-day civilization.
Lastly, Humboldt says: "The disproportion existing be-
tween the growth of the population and the increase of the
food supply through cultivation, renews the sad spectacle of
famine whenever, through a great drought, or some other
local cause, the corn crop fails." 3
When an individual or a people accustomed to being nour-
ished only by healthful, palatable and nutritious foods, such
as would in every way meet the requirements of any civilized
nation, see or hear that individuals or peoples eat with relish
reptiles, bugs, slimy deposits from stagnant pools and things
1 Humboldt, Ensayo politico sobre la Neuva Espana, Vol. I, p. 67.
2 Idem, Vol. I, p. 310.
3 Idem, Vol. I, p. 68.
50 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
of a like nature, which as a usual thing cause disgust and
nausea, it must be admitted that this perversion of the nat-
ural appetite can have originated only in the torturing pangs
of an acute hunger. The population that eats with relish
such loathsome stuffs must have been driven to do so fre-
quently from necessity. Only thus could that first inevita-
ble loathing have been overcome and, by perverting the taste,
changed something which must at first have been nauseating
into a palatable article of food. When the possessor of ex-
cellent agricultural lands found disgusting substances palata-
ble as food, it proved that there must have existed some tre-
mendous problem in their development which forced him to
put the life-giving wheat and the revolting vermin on the
same level.
The historian Clavijero says: "The Indians also made use
of a slimy substance which floats on the waters of the lake,
drying it in the sun and preserving it to eat in place of
cheese, which it very much resembles in taste. They called
it tecuitlatl, stone excretion." 1
The insect which the Mexican Indians sell at the present
time for bird food, and which is so loathsome in appearance,
was and still is considered by them a choice delicacy.
"The small insect called axayacatl is still to be found
and is the same that the Indians peddle in the streets as a
bird food.
"Don Pablo de la Llave classified it under the title of
ahuautlea mexicana. They caught these in such large quan-
tities that they had enough for their own consumption, to
feed many birds and to sell in the markets." 2
"They ate anenextl, the larvae of we know not what in-
sect, in the stage of metamorphosis round, four-footed, broad
at the head and dark in color; the michfaili, of which we
know as much as we do of the preceding one; the milpich-
1 Clavijero, Historia Antigua, Vol. I, p. 390.
2 Orozco y Berra, Historia Antigua de Mexico, Vol. I, p. 321.
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 51
tetei, which is similar; the izcahuilli, a red worm which ap-
parently has no head, having a tail at both extremities; the
atopinan, dark-colored, and the oculiztac, black, but which
turned white when toasted.
"They also availed themselves for food of certain loath-
some animals; snakes, even the terrible rattlesnake (crosta-
lus rhombifer), first cutting off the head; scorpions, from
which they removed the poisonous dart; lizards, cuauhquetz-
palin (Cyclura pectinata, Weig; Cyclura acantura, Gray;
iguana rhinolofa, Weig), of which species they ate not only
the meat but also the eggs. They ate a species of ant like
those called azcamoli and the necuazactl, or honey ant, from
which they sucked a sweetish fluid; locusts, chapolin, espe-
cially that called acachapolin; worms which breed in the
maguey, meocuilin, and those that breed in the ears of corn,
etc., etc." 1
By the reading of Baron Humboldt's book (the only stu-
dent who ever wrote realities about Mexico), the states-
man, even though he be mediocre and for him the reading
becomes a duty will reach the conclusion that the Mexi-
can people in 1803 were already a people long used to the
ravages of famine, presenting the truly sad spectacle of a
nation which in three centuries had barely doubled its
meagre population of 2,000,000 existing at the time that
the stable Colonial Government replaced the period of
Conquest. And these conditions existed notwithstanding
its immense territory (New Spain comprised also the states
of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California), which
afforded ample lands for cultivation and for the mainte-
nance of more than 100,000,000 human beings.
As it is mainfestly impossible for a constitutionally
starved people to be a rich people, the oft-reiterated state-
ment of Mexico's great natural agricultural wealth, out-
1 Orozco y Berra, Historia Antigua de Mexico, Vol. Ill, p. 161.
52 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
side the warm zone, has been a lie fabricated by Mexicans,
not by Baron Humboldt.
The joint action of three leading factors, the irregularity
of the rains, the frosts and the impoverishment of the arable
lands by centuries of extensive agriculture, has brought
about an intolerable condition.
By way of illustration, let us take 1,000 hectares of land
as good as some that is to be found in the Valle del Suchil
and that of las Poanas in Durango, which in a good year
are capable of yielding as much as 200 hectolitres of corn
per hectare. The cost of working a hectare of Mexican
land by the extensive method of cultivation is scarcely
20 pesos, including such items as rent, general expenses,
taxes, interest on capital invested, and a good profit for
the planter. This, however, is the cost of cultivation of
one hectare of non-yielding crop, not including, therefore,
the cost of harvesting, transportation, storage and thrashing,
If a planter cultivates 1,000 hectares and has a total loss of
crops for a period of ten years, he has lost 200,000 pesos.
But if in the eleventh he happens to reap an excellent crop,
he gets 200,000 hectolitres of corn, which, sold at 3 pesos
a hectolitre, would bring him 600,000 pesos, balancing
the loss of the poor years and giving him a large profit.
This example proves that the planter may prosper notwith-
standing the irregularity of the rains.
But when the lands are exhausted, as is the case in the
district of Bajio, and the yield in favorable seasons has
fallen as low as 8 hectolitres per hectare, it requires only
one bad year for every two good ones to ruin the planter.
This is precisely what has happened in Mexico. The con-
stant decrease in the productiveness of the arable lands has
created an intolerable situation for the planter and, conse-
quently, also for the Indian. And if the planter, who can
counterbalance these losses by reducing his expenses, by tak-
ing his family to live at the plantation in order to econo-
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 53
mize, by mortgaging his property, by big loans from banks
and money-lenders, finally ends in bankruptcy, how could
the Indian meet the situation as an independent planter,
having none of the resources of the landed proprietor? It
is certain that the great majority of the eighty-five per cent
of the Mexican population that eighty-five per cent which
is President Wilson's "passion" was horribly destitute
prior to the revolution of 1910. The chief cause of its
misery, however, is not to be found in its want of liberty,
its lack of universal suffrage, in the Cientificos, in dictator-
ships, landowners, plutocrats, individuals or corporations,
but in its climate. If, as Baron Humboldt has said and
facts have proven, the Mexican nation was famine-stricken
when it had at its disposal the most fertile lands in the
world, capable of feeding a population fifty times greater
than that which it had in 1600, it is offensive for men of
supposed learning and culture to attribute the misery of
the Mexican people exclusively to a handful of individuals
who have put in an appearance only within the last gen-
eration.
The solution of the Mexican problem and the salvation
of its people is to be found, as I have previously said, in
the substitution of the intensive method of cultivation for
the extensive. But this cannot be accomplished by the sim-
ple recommendations of the peevish professors of the School
of Agriculture in the City of Mexico and the clamors of
the self-appointed sages who are constantly doling out ad-
vice upon subjects that are quite beyond the reach of their
intellectual equipment.
The cost of harrowing and sowing one hectare of land
in Mexico, destined for corn dry farming, does not exceed
12 pesos; and if the crop is lost there is no further expense
to be incurred. A planter who owns 1,000 hectares of
arable land, estimated at about 300 pesos each, would have
a capital of 3,000 pesos, and the loss of his crop would
54 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
mean the loss of 12,000 pesos. But if he undertakes the
intensive method, the cost of cultivation per hectare in
Mexico for a non-yielding crop cannot be less than 80 pesos,
and the loss of the planter who cultivated 1,000 hectares
would be in a single year 80,000 pesos; and in three bad
seasons out of ten, or perhaps out of five, or out of three, he
would be totally ruined. Intensive agriculture, in order to
be a success and to safeguard the interests of the planter,
must be able to depend upon assured crops; and as in
Mexico, on account of the irregularity of the rains and
the frosts, such a guarantee cannot be given, it is impossible,
in the face of scientific evidence and in the interests of
the planter and of the Mexican people themselves, to intro-
duce the intensive method of cultivation, unless the security
of the crops has first been guaranteed by the installation of
adequate irrigation facilities.
Irrigation alone, however, will not enable the Indian to
establish intensive cultivation in Mexico. Other condi-
tions must prevail, which I shall endeavor to make clear
as we progress with this necessarily cursory review of our
interesting but somewhat somber social problem.
THE SECOND LIE
Since the declaration of our independence, no lie has been
more thoroughly exploited by agitators to enlist the sym-
pathies of really high-minded persons, to whom the condi-
tion of the Indian makes a genuine appeal, than that which
attributes the really abject condition of the indigenous race
to the criminal wickedness of the white man, above all to
that of the egotistical planter, "wanton and cruel."
"The Indian" stands for the race, and when examining
the life of the race, and the devious and thorny ways of
its development, the condition of the majority is to be con-
sidered, because only a majority is representative. It is
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 55
unscientific, to say the least, to designate a race as unfor-
tunate because this happens to be the condition of the
minority.
During the Colonial regime the natives were divided
into four groups: the domestic, employed as servants by
the mestizos, Creoles and Spaniards, whose position enabled
them to hire servants; the carriers; the plantation workers
and the village dwellers, the latter divided among villages
formed exclusively of Indians. The first was very small
because, from the time of the Conquest to that of independ-
ence, the population of the cities was fifteen per cent lower
than that of the rural districts; the second was also small,
because the introduction of beasts of burden by the Spaniards
greatly reduced the necessity of employing the natives in
this capacity; and the third was likewise small, owing to
the stringent law enacted against plantation owners. This
law required that when the Indians of a plantation reached
a fixed number, it should automatically become a village, to
which the immediately outlying territory was assigned to
be held in common for the benefit of the inhabitants. The
owner had not the right to reclaim his lands or to demand
indemnity for their expropriation. All chroniclers and his-
torians agree that the majority of the natives were con-
centrated in the villages.
It is not true that the villages were established by the
Conquerors or by the Colonial Government. They were
founded by the Aztecs, the needs of the inhabitants being
considered and the necessary amount of land assigned to
each family, as well as pasturage and timber lands. The
land was apportioned to the heads of families, to be held
by them as sole owners during their lifetime, and in such
proportion as they were able to work alone, or with the
help of their sons when these reached the working age.
The hills and the pasture lands were held in common. The
Conquerors gave proof of their adaptability and beneficence
56 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
by respecting this Aztec organization, which was loved and
revered by the Indians and which met their moral aspira-
tions and economic needs. It is not true, therefore, that
the Spaniards despoiled the poor Indians of their lands, for
the simple reason that they did not possess them in the sense
of personal ownership, to be passed on to his descendents,
and their ancient regulations were scrupulously respected by
the Conquerors. The despoiled were the high-caste Aztecs,
the imperial family and the military and sacerdotal castes,
who were the oppressors of the Indians. Three-fourths of
New Spain was not under the dominion of any government,
but was populated by savage hunting tribes, who, owing to
the absence of cattle, had not even attained to a pastoral
existence. In no land have these roaming, savage tribes
ever laid claim to rights of property, nor, in fact, do they
.understand them; and never has it entered the mind of
sociologist, moralist, theologian, historian or jurist, ancient
or modern, to consider the wild hunting tribes as the pro-
prietors of the lands they occupy in common with the wild
beasts of the forests. This has been the chosen work of the
demagogue.
The aristocracies of the aboriginal races and of the Aztec
imperial regime, which possessed a civilization in a barbaric
age, suffered from the Spaniards only what they had im-
posed upon other nations and tribes by the right of conquest.
It is indefensible to deny the rights of conquest to the Span-
iards and to grant them to the Aztecs, who had in reality
exercised their prerogative of conquest much more freely
and cruelly than the Spaniards. If we begin to question
the rights of conquest and to assert the property rights of
aboriginal races, we shall arrive at a point where we shall
have logically to return the lands to the zoological species
inferior to man, until we end, if we believe in the theory
of evolution, in granting the rights of property to the primi-
tive, microscopic vegetable organisms.
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 57
CIVIL OPPRESSION ALSO A LIE
Inasmuch as the great majority of the aboriginal race in
New Spain lived in villages, it is in these that we must
seek to study their social condition, because, as I have
already said, only the majority in any aggregation can repre-
sent it, in whatever sense one may interpret the representa-
tion.
Under the Aztec regime the Indians of the villages paid
heavy tribute to the sacerdotal and military castes and also
to the Crown. They were bound to military duty and to
service without remuneration in certain civil positions, and
to interminable campaigns in the interests of an aggressive
empire, which lightly provoked and undertook bloody and
exhausting wars. Their legislation, like that of all bar-
barous nations, was severe and abused the right of torture
and the death penalty with unheard-of atrociousness.
It is impossible to doubt, putting aside the depredations
and crime of the Conquerors, and after the abolition of the
"encomiendas" in the seventeenth century, that the social
condition of the aboriginal race was better than that of
any people in the world, except the Anglo-Saxon peoples.
The introduction by the Spaniards of live stock was an
inestimable benefit to the aborigines, the use of horses, mules
and asses relieving the Conquerors of the inevitable necessity
of employing the Indians in the exhausting capacity of beasts
of burden. All tributes heretofore levied were reduced to
a single moderate tax under the head of poll-tax. The
Indians were free from the arduous labors of war, being
exempt from military service. They also enjoyed the privi-
lege of not being under the jurisdiction of the tribunal of
the Inquisition; and in the celebrated code, Legislation de
Indias, many benevolent dispositions appear in favor of the
Indians which greatly reduced their liability to the death
penalty.
58 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
So far as economic conditions were concerned, the Indians
were far above all the rural populations of the world except
the English colonists of North America. The Indian re-
ceived from the authorities representing the village in which
he was a dweller, land equivalent to seven and one-half
hectares, which lie was to cultivate in the capacity of life-
owner. He could pasture his individual herds in communal
lands, and he also had the right to cut whatever timber he
needed from the hills for firewood and building purposes.
He could also obtain permission to exploit these timber
lands, and was permitted to keep the proceeds of any sales
he might make. In return for these privileges the Indian
was expected to make certain contributions to the public
fund, which all historians agree to have been insignificant,
and to furnish a certain quantity of seeds.
Under such a mild, paternal organization, one which
might be readily envied by the rural inhabitants of any part
of the world except the colonists of North America, the
Indian would have lived in a bed of roses if the climate
had been other than it was.
In the abstract, agricultural lands cannot be said to be
either rich or poor or to figure in the economic problem;
climatic conditions will be the key-note of their fertility.
For the intellectual as well as for the ignorant Mexican, it
suffices that land be unusually fertile to be described as
marvellously rich. Now, marvellously rich lands are those
which lend themselves to continual, or almost continual,
cultivation, assuring a large profit for the owner. Agri-
culture, besides fertile land, demands water, heat, light,
favorable winds, electricity and magnetism.
In Mexico all the favorable conditions except water are
to be found; otherwise, even with a regular rainfall, the
Mexican lands could not have reached the degree of exploi-
tation that their fertility made possible. Agriculture draws
its necessary water supply from snow that is absorbed by
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 59
the earth; from streams that intersect the lands; from
showers that gently nourish; from an average rainfall in all
the months of the year; from two rainy seasons in the same
territory; from a single rainy season, covering a given area
of territory, at different times of the year, in different sec-
tions. In Mexico the most unfavorable of all conditions
prevails one rainy season a year, short and irregular, and
embracing the entire Mexican territory.
Few persons understand the moral effect that this un-
favorable condition has had upon the work and the progress
of the nation. The planter, be he proprietor or laborer,
must have land that lends itself to cultivation during the
entire farming year; that is, three hundred days, or at least
three-fourths of the farming year. And when it is a ques-
tion of the alimentation of human beings and of the raising
of products suitable for the manufacture of fabrics for
clothing, it is evident that the tiller of the soil can do so
to advantage only when he can work it for the greater part
of the year.
As Mexico has but one rainy season of four months the
nation had inevitably to fall under the scourge of this re-
stricted food production. An agriculture destined to carry
a nation into the first ranks of civilization must be an agri-
culture capable of producing a variety of food products. As
corn, however, is almost exclusively the food of the greater
part of the Mexican people, it must necessarily follow that
they aim to make the most of the one short, irregular rainy
season for its cultivation. And as this cultivation, what-
ever may be the time it lasts in the temperate and cold
lands, does not afford the owner or the laborer more than
from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty
working days, it follows that the great agricultural popula-
tion of Mexico, which at one time was made up exclusively
of the aboriginal race, can count for its laboring class only
upon one hundred and twenty working days a year at the
60 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
most, and for its proprietor class upon one hundred and
twenty business days. What can this working population
do to support itself, or to progress with its work, during
the two-thirds of the year it is forced to be idle? Plant
other products? How irrigate them? No, as I have
already said, as Mexico has no snow-covered lands, no two-
fold rainy season, no average rainfall during all the year,
not even a long rainy season of seven or eight months, the
population engaged in the corn-raising industry is obliged
to suspend field work for eight months of the year, even
though they may not be consecutive.
Could this agricultural population at any time have dedi-
cated itself to industrial pursuits during the time it could
not work in the fields? No, because Mexico is not, nor has
it ever been, an industrial nation. The only industry that
flourished during the Colonial epoch was the mining in-
dustry, and this, according to Baron Humboldt, afforded
work to only 30,000 men. Could this agricultural popula-
tion have taken up extensive cattle raising? No, because
in the agricultural region, properly so called, the stubble
grazing lands are bad for cattle. The winds in the foot-
hills, coming generally from the north and traversing the
immense hot, dry deserts, gradually lose their humidity, and
when they reach the central plateau, their hygrometric de-
gree, already quite low, makes them act as huge evaporating
machines which draw the moisture from the ground and
scorch the pastures. The cattle of the central plateau are
obliged to graze during eight months of the year in parched
and burnt pastures of an inferior quality under which
they degenerate notably, presenting a miserable, sickly
appearance. On the other hand, the number of workers
employed even in extensive cattle raising is very small in
comparison with the number required for extensive agricul-
ture.
Neither could the agricultural population, idle during
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 61
two-thirds of the year, transform itself into merchants, con-
sidering that it represents eighty-five per cent of the total
population. Not being able to turn to manufacturing, cat-
tle raising, commerce or even fishing for the death-dealing
climate has swept the waters of our shores clean of almost
all piscine life this unfortunate agricultural population has
found itself obliged to resign itself to two calamities:
live for the entire year upon the earnings of one hundred
and twenty days' work, and submit to a life of idleness,
fulfilling the sentence of the well-known Spanish proverb:
"La ociosidad es la madre de todos los vicios" (Idleness is
the mother of all vices) . It is the climate that has made the
Indian lazy, apathetic, lethargic, poor and vicious.
Moreover, nature has not only heavily handicapped
Mexico in the matter of rainfall and wind currents, but it
has imposed still another stupendous handicap. The high
central plateau is surrounded by mountains which keep
it at a varying altitude of from between 2,000 and 2,200
meters above the sea level, excepting in the Bajio region,
which is over 120 kilometers in length. The annual rain-
fall in the central plateau is excellent, as total annual pre-
cipitation, and, as I have already mentioned, meteorological
observations embracing the past fifty years only note one case
of minimum precipitation of 300 millimeters; the maximum
is from 800 to 900 millimeters, and the mean equals those
of the most fertile districts of France. From this volumin-
ous quantity of water, shed upon these immense mountain
ranges that surround the central plateau, mighty rivers
ought to spring, which, flowing through the foot-hills and
toward the north, once they had passed the Bajio, would
fertilize the line of deserts from the Valle del Salado to
the end of the Bolson de Mapimi. But it occurred to
Mother Nature to place still another handicap upon the
Mexicans an abominable geological configuration.
As a general thing, the mountain ranges, instead of shed-
62 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ding the water received by the watersheds which touch the
foot-hills, drink it with avidity, carrying it down to great
depths, and finally ejecting it upon the rugged surface of
the watersheds which unite the foot-hills with the coast. As
these are narrow the result is that from the sides of the
huge mountain chain streams jut forth which might be
utilized for motor power, but which are not available for
navigation or irrigation.
As there are only three rivers in the foot-hills, the Atoyac,
the Panuco and the Rio Lerma called "Rio Grande" after
it leaves the Laguna de Chapala all for the most part
insignificant in the higher lands, it is not possible to obtain
irrigation or motor power, so indispensable in the agricul-
tural problem, at low cost in the foot-hills.
The populations that live upon wheat and corn must
grind the grain in order to convert it into flour or pulp
suitable for culinary purposes. The windmill has been the
saving device of farming populations, but in Mexico, for
reasons well known to the real student of economics, wind-
mills have not given satisfaction; the self-evident proof
being that their use has not spread, although they have
been known since the time of the Spanish Conquest and
were for Mexican agriculturists of great and urgent neces-
sity. This failure to generalize the use of the windmill has
kept the aborigines wedded to the calamitous mistake of
turning the mother of the family into a corn-grinding ma-
chine. The process of reducing to pulp corn that has been
soaked in hot water and softened in lye water, a purely me-
chanical labor which at best ought not to take more than a
quarter of an hour if done by a mill, consumes eight hours
or more, reducing the woman to the level of a beast of
burden and depriving the home of a revenue equal to one-
half a day's wages. The woman grinds corn all the year
and loses in the three hundred days of arduous work the
equivalent of one hundred and fifty days' wages; that is to
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 63
say, she loses more than the Indian makes in the whole year
cultivating corn, which affords only one hundred and twenty
working days. In the event that windmills are not used,
an agricultural people can turn to motor power, not of
falls, but of river currents applied to mills. These can be
built on both banks of a river and along its entire length,
wherever the current is sufficient to produce the power.
But as Mexico lacks rivers as well, it would seem that
nature has denied to this farming nation all of the power-
ful assets that would assure its w T ell-being and advancement.
With the assured rainfall, the winter snows and other
advantages common in England, France and Belgium, and
in the greater part of Germany, Hungary and Poland,
Mexico would have raised the aboriginal race to a consid-
erable height, albeit it is with all due respect to other
opinions an inferior race. China, peopled by an inferior
race, possesses flourishing agriculture, and the condition of
its enormous population is satisfactory. Mexico, with the
rainfall conditions that prevail in France, would have at-
tracted a large percentage of white immigrants, who by
intermarriage would have modified the Mexican race, and
Mexico at the present time would be a nation of 50,000,-
ooo or 60,000,000 inhabitants, rich, educated, happy; its
strength an ample guarantee that the United States would
never attempt to dispute its sovereignty, and that no Ameri-
can President would ever dare, as Mr. Wilson has dared,
in the guise of a socialist apostolate, to amuse himself
with its very existence and civilization. As I have demon-
strated, a country, which on account of its physical condi-
tions can only afford work for the majority of its inhabitants
for one-third of the year, must be a poverty-stricken coun-
try. The total production of the 15,000,000 Mexicans, on
a general average and for a single year, is $20 per inhabit-
ant; the production of a Cuban, not a model of industry,
almost reaches $100 a year; the average German, the type
64 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
of the first-class workman, produces $400 a year. If Luis
Cabrera, the brains of the Mexican revolution, as his friends
have called him, has said: "La Revolution es la Revo-
lution" (A revolution is a revolution), one may rightfully
answer "La Ctencia es la Ciencia" (Science is Science).
This will not be scoffed at by the revolution, and will
deal the Mexican nation its death blow, unless saved by
the apparition of almost supernatural Mexicans.
It is unreasonable to attribute the misery of the indige-
nous race to a determinate social class, which in no sense
ever constituted a government; to a group of educated men,
such as the so-called Cientificos; to a handful of plutocrats,
more or less piratical financiers; to a dictator of genuine
merit, such as General Porfirio Diaz, or to a detestable
dictator, such as General Victoriano Huerta. Mexico's
greatest drawback is to be found in the unfortunate physical
conditions which have created the vices, the weakness and
the dejection of its people. It is regrettable that it should
have occurred to a man of President Wilson's qualifications
to attempt lightly to solve the problem of life or death for
a nation with no more reliable data than stupid newspaper
stores, the theories of wise coxcombs, the diatribes of dema-
gogues, the hypocritical declamations and wild howls of the
bandits and of the incompetent or mercenary American
agents or consuls, paid to deceive the Sage of the White
House and the American people.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE INFERIORITY OF THE
INDIGENOUS RACE
Notwithstanding the drawbacks of the Mexican climate,
the aboriginal race might have advanced, might even have
claimed a first place among the nations of the world, if it
had not been an inferior race. The wonderful Mexican
lands would have yielded incalculable commercial wealth if
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 65
the disadvantages presented by the climate even in the cen-
tral plateau owing to the irregular rainfall, had been over-
come by irrigation. Why did not the aborigines dedicate
themselves after the Conquest to obtaining water for their
marvellous lands? Ignorant and severe critics of the Colon-
ial Government have replied with emphasis: Because the
Roman Catholic clergy obliged the aborigines to devote only
the strictly necessary time to agriculture; that is, the time
necessary to provide themselves with food, making them de-
vote the rest to building churches and convents. This view
has not failed to color the opinions of even intelligent Mexi-
cans and those, in fact, of all Latin-Americans. It is at the
door of the Catholic Church, then, that the misery of the
indigenous race is to be laid. For men of science this opin-
ion is ridiculous and worthless. In the census made by the
Spanish Government in 1793; in the third volume of Dr.
Mora's excellent work, Mexico y sus Revoludones ; and in
the statistical note of the celebrated liberal leader, Don Mig-
uel Lerdo de Tejada, the total cost of all the churches and
convents is estimated at 300,000,000 pesos silver, at a time
when this equaled more than 300,000,000 pesos gold. In
the three centuries covered by the Colonial regime there
were 90,000 working days, and it would have sufficed for
22,2OO Indians, working at a minimum wage of fifteen cents
per day, to have built during that period all the churches
and convents that were to be found in New Spain at the
time of the Declaration of Independence. The Colonial
population of 2,000,000, existing after the Conquest, and
the 3,500,000 indigenous population, existing in 1803, are
included in the Colonial population of 5,000,000 designated
by Baron Humboldt. Therefore, during the three hundred
years of the Colonial regime, there was an average of
550,000 adult Indians who were able to work. Deducting
the number needed by the clergy for the construction of
churches and convents, and even duplicating this number,
66 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
there remained 500,000 men who could have devoted then
selves to agriculture during the three hundred days of tt
farming year: to corn-raising for one hundred and twent
days, and to the construction of irrigation plants during tt
remaining one hundred and eighty days.
The labor of 500,000 Indians for 180 days each year fc
300 years, at twenty-five cents gold per day, represents
working capital of 6,700,000,000 pesos gold. According 1
the calculations of the Department of Fomento, publishe
in 1909, 1,600,000,000 pesos silver, or 800,000,000 pest
gold, devoted to the development of irrigation works, woul
suffice to insure a production sufficient to abundantly feed
population of 25,000,000. It would have sufficed, then,
72,500 Indians had devoted 180 days a year for 300 years 1
irrigation work to have amply assured a prosperous existent
to 25,000,000 Mexicans.
The fifth part of the 500,000 Indian workmen whic
was the average during the Colonial period would ha^
sufficed to construct irrigation works which would ha^
been adequate to meet the needs of a population of 25,000
ooo, and to build churches and convents at the rate of sixl
per cent more than those they built. By sending io,oc
of their companions to work in the mines, shifting the
gangs each week and assuming the responsibility of the
support, their earnings of seventy-five cents gold per d'<
(the sum paid at that time to a pickman) could have bee
accumulated, thus enabling the Indians to eventually colle
enough money to obtain everything necessary to undertal
and successfully carry out some system of irrigation. I s;
everything necessary advisedly, because they could have er
ployed the best Spanish engineers, who would have charge
them far less than that horde of lawyers for the most pa
scoundrels who looked after the interests of the Indians ar
who were the initiators of absurd litigations, artfully pr
longed in order to despoil their unfortunate clients.
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 67
The Indians were well aware that irrigation was the only
possible means to overcome the natural deficiency of the
water supply, as they had helped in the construction of many
of the irrigation works, some of them very important, such
as the famous dam of the Arroyo Zarco, built by the Jesuits
on one of their plantations. It will be seen, then, that the
failure of the aboriginal race to progress in agriculture, at
the same rate that the Chinese, the Dutch and the Swiss
have progressed, is due to the fact that it is an inferior race.
The Church, and also the Spanish and Creole landown-
ers, built great irrigation plants on their properties. All
wheat, with the exception of a very insignificant amount, that
has been cultivated in Mexico from the Colonial period to
the present time, has been raised by means of irrigation.
And the wheat crop equals the fourth part of the corn crop.
The landowners and the friars, notwithstanding their
backwardness, their love of routine, their unscientific meth-
ods, their lack of interest in agriculture and their indiffer-
ence to the public good, managed to irrigate a great portion
of the arable lands. They did not include the corn-raising
lands because the majority of the population, possessors of
equally valuable lands, were engaged in corn-raising and, be-
ing as free to sell their products as the Spaniard and the
Creole, and able to live more abstemiously than the latter,
it was not a paying investment for them to sink great sums
of money in irrigation plants, when their competitors were
willing to dispose of their crops at a much lower figure than
they were able to quote.
It may be urged that the Indians were not properly di-
rected. That is no doubt true. But upon whom was it in-
cumbent to direct them? The Government? This was not
the epoch in which the Spanish Government, much less the
Colonial, busied itself about agricultural studies, about try-
ing to instruct a population which could not read by means
of pamphlets, books or newspapers. But the Colonial Gov-
68 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ernment did do for the aborigines what it was bound to do
in conformity with the political and administrative tenets of
the time, and that was to leave the Indians perfectly free to
administer their affairs through their village authorities. The
English colonists in North America did not receive scien-
tific instruction, direction or subsidies from the local or cen-
tral government; they progressed under their own efforts
and initiative simply because they belonged to a superior
race. The Mexican Indians were not able to do this be-
cause they belong, according to the decrees of natural history,
ethnology, general history and sociology, to an inferior race,
slow to develop and progress along the lines of civilization.
In fine, the Mexican indigenous race owes its abject condi-
tion to itself, and, consequently, its future is dark, inasmuch
as it has blindly plunged into the abyss, tricked by false and
unenlightened leaders.
THE VAMPIRES THAT PREYED ON THE ABORIGINAL RACE
It may be well now to examine how much of truth there
is in the oft-repeated assertion of the rapacious exploitation of
this interesting aboriginal race by the Spanish conquerors
and their Creole descendents. According to the critics, his-
torians, philanthropists, liberators and reformers, political
poets and poets of politics, those responsible for the civil ex-
ploitation of the aborigines have been the following: The
Spanish plutocracy, which, during the Colonial period, en-
joyed a monopoly in Mexico of the sale of merchandise of
Spanish manufacture, and of foreign manufacture adapted
to Spanish tastes; the clergy, regular and secular, in its
most corrupt period, when the great revolution of the
Protestant Reformation was hurled against it; the landhold-
ers and the Creole military leaders, generally dictators. The
burden of the song of the revolutionists has been that all the
misfortunes of the Indians, capable of wringing tears from
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 69
the eyes of a crocodile, can be laid at the door of their tra-
ditional enemies: the plutocratic retail merchants of the
Colonial period; the clergy; the landholder and the army.
In point of fact, almost none of the great Mexican for-
tunes was amassed by agriculture, even though their pos-
sessors were landholders, and few owe their origin to min-
ing. Almost all came from the retail trade of the pluto-
cratic merchants who had the monopoly of the outside com-
merce of New Spain, selling their wares at an advance of
five hundred per cent on the original cost. It cannot be de-
nied that this class was well versed in the art of draining the
pockets of the colonists and transferring their gold to their
own coffers. But the truth is that all the inhabitants of
New Spain, except the natives themselves, were more or less
the victims of the cupidity of the plutocratic retail merchants.
There was only one way of being exploited by those who
enjoyed the monopoly of outside commerce, and that was by
using articles of Spanish or foreign manufacture. The In-
dian's chief articles of consumption were corn, beans, pep-
pers, salt and water, and as a beverage a species of rum
(aguardiente) and pulque, the well-known drink extracted
from the maguey. None of these articles was of either Span-
ish or foreign manufacture, nor were heavy duties imposed
to protect foreign manufacturers. The Indian clothed him-
self in an unbleached cotton fabric (mania), and as Mex-
ico from the time of the Aztecs produced cotton as an in-
digenous product at a very low price lower than in any
other part of the w r orld this was a domestic product. The
Indians were always very skillful in weaving cotton stuffs
at home, and Spain never forbade or restricted this labor.
They wore palm hats made by the Indians; leather sandals
(huaraches) made by the Indians from native hides; used
stone grinding blocks (metates) chiseled by the Indians from
native stone; earthen griddles (comales), made by the In-
dians of the ordinary native clay; slept on straw mats
70 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
(petates) woven by the Indians from the Mexican tule plant.
Their houses or huts were built of sun-baked bricks (adobes) ,
the doors and roofs were of Mexican wood, hewn, sawed and
fashioned by the constructor himself, in which no window
glass, latches, hinges, or any other articles of foreign manu-
facture whatsoever were to be found. And it is well to add
that there were no Colonial taxes, direct or indirect, upon
any of the articles that have been mentioned or for their
manufacture. This supposed exploitation of the Indian by
the Spanish plutocratic retail merchant class, which in reality
was bent upon getting the most out of the work and capital
of the colonists, is humbug.
The accusers of the Spanish and Creoles charge the clergy
with having exploited the Indians in the following manner:
First, by charging them tithes, the first-fruits of their
farms and herds, and parochial perquisites consisting of fees
for baptisms, confirmations, marriages and funerals.
Second, by enkindling the natural fanaticism of the Indians
to induce them to expend their savings and even go in debt
in order to make offerings to the Church of various articles,
especially wax candles, on the patronal feast of the village or
the plantation, in Holy Week, at Christmas and on the
feasts of All Saints and All Souls.
I am not going to discuss the conduct of the Church from
a theological, moral, canonical, humanitarian, or, in gen-
eral, sociological aspect ; but I shall say that if there was any-
thing reprehensible in the conduct of the Church, it was not
especially directed against the Indians, nor were such wrongs
especially invented to exploit them. The Catholic Church
was an institution, as it continues to be, of an universal char-
acter, and just as she treated the Indians has she treated the
black, yellow and white races which have been subject to
her. It is not possible to make a specific charge against the
Church with regard to the Indians, nor to say that they suf-
fered more at her hands than the Catholics of other races or
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 71
other nations. If the Indian allowed himself to be exploited
by the Church he did only what all other rural peoples, what
all men, if we come to that, did in the Ages of Faith. The
Indian was a man and, as such, subject to the powerful re-
ligious sentiment, carried to the point of fanaticism, which
characterized all peoples in that period when the form of
government was markedly theocratic. This question is not
of individual application but essentially general, comprising
all races, religions and clergies. The Aztec sacerdotal body
exacted of the Indians heavier contributions and more ardu-
ous labors, under pain of harsher punishment, than the Catho-
lic clergy ever did.
If the Indian himself did not consider that a wrong was
done him by the Church, it seems hardly necessary to take
up this point. If we grant that the Indian had the capacity
to become a Catholic, and as a Catholic had liberty of con-
science within the Church, no one has a right to censure
him if he sacrificed all he had for the Church he loved, just
as we approve, applaud and extol a man who gives every-
thing, even life itself, for the glory and defense of his coun-
try. To the believer, country cannot come before God, and
it is unethical, idiotic and incongruous to assert that the man
who sacrifices everything to his God is to be censured and the
one who sacrifices everything to his country is to deserve the
undying homage of posterity. No one has ever held that a
legitimate government does wrong in exhorting its subjects
to sacrifice everything for their country, preferring its ex-
altation to their own private interests. The Church, viewed
from the religious standpoint, is the fatherland of the soul,
and has, in the eyes of the faithful, the infallible and eternal
sovereign right of exacting all manner of sacrifices, even the
sacrifices of all one's earthly possessions.
The Colonial Government did not exploit, nor did it per-
mit the bureaucracies to exploit, the Indian villages. For
them the exchequer had neither claws nor hooks, nor confis-
72 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
cations by means of direct or indirect taxes. In fact, the
Colonial exchequer was benign in its treatment of the In-
dian, so benign, indeed, that even after one hundred years
of independence the Indians of the state of Oaxaca, the most
numerous, compact and unmixed race that exists in the coun-
try, still pay the Colonial tribute with pleasure and scrupu-
lous punctuality.
The critics of the Colonial regime point to the landhold-
ers, or rather to the great planters in general, as the in-
satiable exploiters of the natives. Without entering exten-
sively into the question, I shall, however, say that the Indians
subject to the plantation owners while Mexico was still
New Spain constituted a small minority as compared to
the independent Indians who resided in their villages. Con-
sequently, it cannot be said that the plantation owners tyran-
nized over the native race, because the majority of that race
was outside their jurisdiction. The most that can be said of
the planters is that during the Colonial period and during
that of independence, down to 1857, they tyrannized over a
minority of the natives.
THE REAL EXPLOITERS OF THE INDIANS
The implacable despoilers of the Indians were the "gov-
ernors" of the Indian villages, and in this respect condi-
tions have not changed up to the present time. The Colonial
Government, however, was always on the alert, as we shall
presently see. When there had been a series of good crops,
the Indian, in order to establish an individual business, de-
voted himself to raising fowls and hogs, sheep and asses;
bought one or two cows and even some goats ; sold eggs, but-
ter, cheese, lard, dried salt meat, sausage, cracknel and other
products. The Colonial Government, seeing that he was
being literally robbed by the Creoles, mestizos and even by
cunning Indians, ordered that the governor of the village
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 73
should supervise all commercial transactions and approve
only those which in his estimation were honest and legiti-
mate. This, however, only added to the evil. The gov-
ernors leagued with the unscrupulous trader, and became
in the end the most pitiless of the Indian's despoilers. It
should be mentioned that the governor had to be chosen
from among the Indians of the village he governed; there-
fore, it follows that the Indians were wantonly robbed by
their own. In other words, the Indian was the despoiler
of the Indian.
Aware that this infamous state of affairs existed, the
Colonial Government resolved to put a check upon the na-
tive governors by appointing Creole or mestizo lawyers,
called "protectors of the Indians," whose duty was to watch
and restrain the Indian governor. But history repeats itself.
The vigilant lawyer and the astute governor combined forces,
and the unfortunate Indian was literally stripped. It is evi-
dent, then, that the Indian himself, in league with the Creole
and the mestizo, was the greatest exploiter of the majority
of the Indians and, consequently, the most expert despoiler
of the indigenous race. In the year 1871, when the railroad
from the City of Mexico to the port of Vera Cruz was being
built, the English engineers and contractors were surprised
to find that they could not hire native labor in the state of
Oaxaca and in parts of that of Vera Cruz, without going first
to the cacique (chief) of the village, legally known as
Municipal President. This vampire contracted for one hun-
dred, two hundred or more workmen at the rate of seventy-
five cents gold a day. At the end of the week he received
the pay for the men and gave them only one-half, so the
Indian in reality received only thirty-seven and one-half
cents per day. This conduct, worthy of a Turk or a Kaffir,
was known to the Indians, because the construction com-
pany took pains to enlighten them, even spreading broad-
cast printed circulars stating that the company was paying,
74 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
and would pay, to all workmen employed by them seventy-
five cents gold per day. But, notwithstanding the fact that
they knew the contents of this circular, and that they had
the support of this powerful company, as well as that of
the local and Federal press, and the protection of an Indian
President, Benito Juarez, the Indians did not disavow the
authority of their caciques, but supinely allowed themselves
to be mercilessly robbed. A race that submits to such out-
rages, and looks upon them as acts of an authority that is to
be revered and respected, is a race that promises to be as slow
to yield to the advances of civilization as rocks are to the
action of the ocean.
EVERY ONE AGAINST THE INDIAN
The planters have been accused of treating their Indian
servants with haughtiness and disdain. It is true, but what
the accusers conceal is that the bureaucrats, political and
non-political, have ever accorded the same treatment to the
Indian. It is only the demagogues who love, venerate, exalt
and protect them in their harangues, when they think it will
help to secure their votes or obtain universal applause,
bringing them favorably before the public and making
them feared by the Government. Even the most ragged,
unwashed, vicious loafer of the cities assumes an air of su-
periority and the tone of a potentate toward the unfortu-
nate Indian. The best proof that all Mexico looks upon the
Indian as an inferior, is that every one addresses him in the
familiar form of "tu" (which expresses confidence and affec-
tion when addressed to an equal, but condescension when
directed toward an inferior), and that every one orders him
about as though he were a slave. This attitude of imaginary
superiority is not found exclusively among the Mexican Cre-
oles and mestizos, but in every part of Latin-America where
there are domesticated Indians. We do not have to go
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 75
further back than forty years to find the time when a popu-
lation was divided into "gentes de razon" (rational beings)
and Indians; and at the present time the population of mes-
tizos is designated "gentes de razon," in counter distinction
to the Indians.
The Indians know full well that all Creoles, mestizos,
rich and poor, honorable and dishonorable have trampled
on them in the past, are trampling on them at present,
and propose to do so in the future. That is why the leaders
of the movement to restore the Indian to his proper sphere,
all of them full-blooded Indians, have proclaimed a caste
war to the point of extermination against mestizos and
whites, as did the negroes of Santo Domingo. The terrible
bandit chief of the Sierra de Alica, a full-blooded Indian
and the idol of the Indians of the Nayarit, in his declara-
tion of December, 1873, when he took command of his army
of 18,000 men, reminded them that in order that their race,
the indigenous race, should recover all its dignity, all its
honor, all its lands, all its wealth and fulfill the Indian
ideal, it was indispensable that in the confines of all the vast
Mexican territory there remain not a single living man other
than the Indian. These same ideas have been revived in
1914 and 1915 by the Zapata press, and in the Convention of
Aguascalienr.es and in that of the City of Mexico, by the
full-blooded Indian leaders, who have told their comrades
that those who propose to guide Indians should not have a
drop of foreign blood in their veins. All that herd in
which, of course, there are some notable exceptions of
Creole and mestizo agitators, self-appointed saviours of the
race, would be annihilated by the Indians if they obtained
the ascendency, and they would richly deserve it, as it is to
this venal class that the Indian owes most of his great mis-
fortunes.
76 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
THE REVOLUTIONARY LEGEND OF THE LANDHOLDERS
Various elements have contributed to the growth in the
Mexican public mind of the fable of a luxurious landholding
class, gross oppressors of the rural people, or, more correctly,
of what has lately become the fad the indigenous race.
Among these may be counted, the voraciousness of the
bureaucracy, the ignorance of the newcomers, the chagrin of
the defeated, the visions of patriots and the illusions of
students.
Landholders of this type existed in the early Colonial
period landholders such as the Conde del Valle de Oriza-
ba, who owned seventy-seven plantations in the central pla-
teau, and the Marques de San Miguel de Aguayo, who
owned 1,000,000 hectares in the section which is now com-
prised by the states of Durango and Coahuila. But the
concentration of arable lands into great plantations has al-
most entirely disappeared. The present planter's land is
made up of from second- to fourth-rate grazing ground,
bare mountains and stretches of arid desert. One of the
Mexican planters of this latter type is the famous Don Luis
Terrazas. He undoubtedly possessed 6,000,000 hectares of
land in the state of Chihuahua, but only 4,000 hectares of
this was arable land.
A Mexican planter, as a rule, possesses a minimum of
arable land, a considerable tract of summer stubble grazing
ground, some woodlands, a goodly collection of barren
mountains and a great stretch of unimproved land, utterly
worthless because of its inferior quality. This statement
can be proved by absolutely indisputable facts. Not even ten
per cent of the mountains are timbered, and the balance are
either huge, naked rocks or are covered with a lifeless kind
of growth that depresses rather than raises the spirits of
the enterprising worker.
Those 70,000,000 hectares of worthless lands, comprising
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 77
a territory greater than the whole of France, have owners,
and there are consequently in Mexico landholders whose
assets equal naught. Proprietors of this description cannot
be said to be a hindrance to the indigenous, or any other
race, their only office being apparently to serve as targets
for the shots of the agitators who constantly point them out
as the rapacious plunderers of the marvellous lands belong-
ing to the Mexican people.
Don Jose Lorenzo Cossio, a sincere and self-denying
friend of the indigenous race, and a professed partisan of the
division of land, in his treatise on rural lands in Mexico,
published in 1911, says: "It is true that the people lack land,
but it is false to say that it is due to the great concessions
of the Colonial period.
"To demonstrate this I give, in appendix No. I, a list of
some of the ancient landowners, and it can be stated that
scarcely one of their descendents has at the present time
any interest in them. . . .
"This dismemberment of the land has been due mainly to
partial sales and testamentary successions, but there have
been other causes which have influenced the subdivision on a
greater scale." 1
After enumerating the causes that influenced the subdi-
vision of the lands that were possessed by individuals,
Senor Cossio declares that the monopoly of property was re-
established by the dictatorship of General Diaz. He says:
"But more especially the monopolistic and property- rights-
destroying policy of the Government has made pass into the
hands of the few what was once enjoyed by the many." 2
According to the data presented by Senor Cossio, whose
treatise is entirely favorable to the revolutionary thesis, the
Mexican Government from 1857 to I 96 came into pos-
1 Jose Lorenzo Cossio, Como y por quienes se ha monopolizado
la propiedad rustica de Mexico? pp. 5, 6, 7.
2 Jose Lorenzo Cossio, Folleto, p. 32.
78 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
session of 72,335,907 hectares. Of this 13,764,607 hectares
were adjudicated according to the laws promulgated by Pres-
ident Benito Juarez and former administrations. Senor
Cossio has nothing to say about these as they were adjudi-
cated to more than ten thousand claimants. He reserves
his censure for the alienation by the Porfirio Diaz Govern-
ment of more than 58,000,000 hectares which were distrib-
uted almost gratuitously among twenty-eight of the Presi-
dent's friends. With regard to this Senor Cossio has writ-
ten: "It is for this reason that this law has been the one
that has most profoundly affected the land problem; and it
may be said that in great part it served to prepare the pres-
ent revolt, because it has once more monopolized the na-
tional territory, despoiling the many to enrich the few." 1
Senor Cossio submits the following official data concern-
ing the survey of unclaimed lands made during the dictator-
ship of General Diaz.
States and territories which were surveyed Hectares
Chihuahua 14,612,366
Baja California 11,604,584
Sonora 3,216,394
Durango 789,009
Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, Durango and Tamaulipas 5,214,306
Chihuahua and Durango 1,043,099
Chiapas 328,016
Yucatan 251,878
Tabasco 780,176
Vera Cruz 45>8s6
Sinaloa 45>98i
Puebla 73,^73
Oaxaca 60,701
San Luis Potosi 12,543
Guanajuato 5,i66
Islas del Golfo de Cortes 164,098
Total 38,247,346
1 Jose Lorenzo Cossio, Folleto, p. 34.
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 79
Rhumt
Unclaimed lands surveyed in the northern states occu-
pied by extensive mountain chains, immense deserts
and from second- to fourth-rate summer stubble
grazing ground, and scarcely any arable land 36,689,837
In the warm zone 1,539,800
In the temperate and cold zones I 7>79
Total 38,247,346
The remainder of the lands surveyed up to the 58,000,-
ooo hectares present the same desolate appearance. The
work was suspended in 1891, and the lands surveyed later
were surveyed under concessions, with the results given in
the foregoing table.
Almost all the surveying has been done in the arid zone,
comprising immense deserts, salt plains and gigantic moun-
tains, where an insignificant minimum of workable land
exists. Deducting from these surveyed lands some of the
good territory of the temperate zone of the state of Chiapas,
and those of the Yaquis in the state of Sonora, which occupy
a small area of that state, there are not to be found in the
much-talked-of 58,000,000 hectares of land snatched from
the Mexican people by the covetousness of the mighty, even
15,000 hectares of lands suitable for the cultivation
of cereal and leguminous products. From the year 1840
all the arable lands in the northern states had passed into
the hands of the inhabitants of these states, who held them
by legal titles or by that of prescription. It is true that
General Diaz by his law of unclaimed lands, promulgated in
favor of his friends, constituted great landholdings which
were afterwards transferred by them to foreign enterprises.
But these were composed of those lands which did not pro-
duce food for the people and which could not be constituted
into small holdings; neither could they be distributed among
poor ranchers, because the summer stubble grazing ground
of this section, smaller by far than the absolutely desert
8o WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
land, is under the ban of frequent and tremendous
droughts which kill the cattle. To derive any profit from
these, the investment of great capital would have been nec-
essary in order to install hydraulic plants to overcome en-
tirely, or at least in a measure, the natural deficiencies.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE LANDHOLDERS
In the central plateau, where almost all the lands adapted
to the cultivation and cereal and leguminous products are
to be found, there are no landholders who could, to any great
extent, injure the interests of the poor class, because the
plantation that exceeds 1,000 hectares of arable land is
the exception. The following facts will amply bear this
out.
According to the carefully prepared statistics of the De-
partment of Fomento, forty per cent of the total corn pro-
duction is grown in Guanajuato, Jalisco and Michoacan,
the joint area of which is 173,810 square kilometers, and
deducting from these the mountains, ravines, the precipitous
plains, the great lakes of Chapala, Patzcuaro and Cuitzeo,
there remain 50,000 square kilometers for agriculture and
cattle-raising. These three states, which produce forty per
cent of all the corn available for the maintenance of the
Mexican nation, comprise 1,114 plantations and 9,515
ranches, according to Vol. IX, p. 495, of the General Sta-
tistics of the Mexican Republic.
The area of land suitable for cultivation or cattle raising
represents sixty per cent of the available 50,000 square kilo-
meters of the states we have under consideration; conse-
quently, each of the 1,114 plantations has an average area of
1 8 square kilometers or 1,800 hectares. And it must also be
borne in mind that the summer stubble grazing ground pre-
dominates over the arable land, bearing out what I have
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 81
said that it is an exception in the most fertile states of the
Republic, which enjoy the most favorable rainfall conditions,
to find plantations of more than 1,000 hectares. An aver-
age area of 320 hectares may be approximately assigned to
the 9,515 ranches located in these states. It cannot be said,
then, that the situation in that part of the Republic which
produces forty per cent of the corn consumed by the Mex-
ican people is such as to inspire rage and to call forth an-
athemas against the landholders. What has been said of the
plantations of this section is true of all those to be found
south of the 22d parallel of north latitude.
PRESIDENT WILSON^ DOUBLE SCALES AND MEASURES
President Wilson has thundered against the Mexican
landholders, whose position has inspired his avowed parti-
sanship for the revolutionists, a partisanship, however, which
the President himself has not yet qualified as a hindrance or
a help: "Whether we have benefited Mexico by the course
we have pursued remains to be seen" (Address to Congress,
December 7, 1915).
President Wilson has said through the columns of The
Saturday Evening Post: "It is a curious thing that every
demand for the establishment of order in Mexico takes into
consideration, not order for the benefit of the people of Mex-
ico, the great mass of the population, but order for the bene-
fit of the old-time regime, for the aristocrats, for the vested
interests, for the men who are responsible for this very con-
dition of disorder. No one asks for order because order
will help the masses of the people to get a portion of their
rights and their land; but all demand it so that the great
owners of property, the overlords, the hidalgos, the men
who have exploited that rich country for their own selfish
purposes, shall be able to continue their processes undis-
82 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
turbed by the protests of the people from whom their wealth
and power have been obtained." 1
"They want order the old order; but I say to you that
the old order is dead. It is my part, as I see it, to aid in
composing those differences so far as I may be able, that the
new order, which will have its foundation on human liberty
and human rights shall prevail." 2
If President Wilson is the implacable adversary of the
landholder, why has he not proceeded against the Cuban
landholder, since his voice is heard in Cuba and his counsels
are respected? Why has he not trained the masked and un-
masked batteries of his political policy upon Cuba, instigat-
ing a social revolution in case his admonitions are not
heeded, shielding it with his powerful protection to the end ?
There are still to be found in Cuba many families that
possess good sugar-cane lands to the extent of 50,000, 100,-
ooo and even 200,000 hectares. There is no prospect that
these will be diminished in size by testamentary deeds, which
would subdivide them among numerous descendents, because
powerful stock companies have been formed for the purpose
of developing the sugar-cane industry upon a large scale.
The Chaparra Sugar Company, an American corporation,
possesses more than 80,000 hectares of good sugar lands.
The press of Havana in December, 1915, announced the
formation of an Anglo-American Company with a capital of
$50,000,000, which would hereafter dedicate itself to the
sugar industry in the extensive territory it had acquired.
On Monday, December 27, 1915, El Mundo, an Havana
daily, stated that a Mexican named Rios had been denounced
to the Cuban Department of the Interior as an inciter of
the laboring classes against the capitalist, and further stated
that Senor Hevia, the Secretary of the Interior, had resolved
to take radical measures against the agitator. The follow-
1 The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 186, No. 47, May 23, 1914.
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 83
ing day El Heraldo, another Cuban journal, stated that
Rios had called at its editorial offices saying that he was not
an agitator, but simply a Mexican painter who had come to
Cuba hoping to earn an honest living, which he had not been
able to do in his own country. El Heraldo, although sus-
taining the Cuban Government's policy of not admitting
agitators, called attention to the advisability of resorting to
rigorous measures only when guilt was proved or reasonable
presumption of guilt existed. Doubtless, Mr. William Gon-
zalez, the United States Minister to Cuba, would have con-
gratulated President Menocal upon his intelligent and pa-
triotic resolution to prosecute all agitators, who, it would
seem, according to White House standards, should be per-
mitted to carry out their nefarious trade undisturbed in
Mexico only.
I do not censure the Cuban landholder, or the monopoliz-
ing American or Anglo-Saxon enterprises, and much less
President Menocal, because he did what General Porfirio
Diaz did with unerring judgment when he governed Mexico
sanely. Even when the agitator is a son of the soil and
absolute freedom of the press exists, it is the duty of the
press to uphold the inviolability of law and order. There
is nothing more destructive of this supreme social need than
the sinister gospel of war unto death, in the name of ven-
geance, between the rich and the poor; vengeance for cen-
turies of suffering an irrational revenge, because no one can
prove that all the misfortunes that have come upon humanity
have emanated from the aristocracy, any more than any one
can reasonably deny that without this aristocracy humanity
would have perished.
Neither do I censure President Wilson's conduct with
regard to Cuba. What I wish to do is simply to call atten-
tion to a fact which will later help me to trace and define
the real psychology of the President of the United States.
84 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ANOTHER COLOSSAL LIE
The Mexican people, foreigners, and especially President
Wilson, have been given to understand that the great ma-
jority of the indigenous race was deprived of its collective
ownership of lands, known as municipal lands, in order that
they might be distributed among the inhabitants, thereby
constituting them independent property owners; but that
when this had been accomplished the great landholders, al-
ways greedy for the best lands, and determined to keep the
Indians in a position of servility, took advantage of their
simplicity and, by paying them a mere pittance a grave of-
fence according to the Civil Code literally robbed them
of their share. Nothing can be further from the truth, and
nothing has been more effective in arousing the sympathy
and tricking the imagination of the ignorant.
According to the statistics published by Dr. Mora in 1845,
and confirmed, in 1856, by one of the most distinguished re-
form thinkers, Don Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, there were
at that time in Mexico 2,860 plantations and as many
ranches.
The following data are to be found in Vol. IX, p. 495,
of the General Statistics compiled by the Mexican Govern-
ment:
Mexican Republic
Cities 196
Towns 469
Villages 5> 21 3
Plantations 8,873
Ranches 26,607
Small ranches 2,469
Hamlets 902
Settlements 9 2 4
Small farms 164
Road stations 250
Wayside provision stations 4 1
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 85
The records of the Federal states show that 2,082 villages
are still in existence which preserve their ancient title to the
municipal lands which surround them, this violation of the
law being covered by entering them as "for common dis-
tribution," although they have not been touched for fifty-
eight years. This demonstrates that, counting individual and
collective property owners, there were 42,311 property
owners in Mexico previous to the revolution of 1910. It is
especially to be noted that there were 2,800 ranches in 1856,
and 26,607 in 1910.
From whence was the land represented by this great in-
crease in the number of ranches derived. From the un-
claimed lands? In the statistics only 3,726 ranches are
enumerated in the states where unclaimed lands existed pre-
vious to 1856, and there is an increase of 23,000 to be ac-
counted for. Were they taken from the big plantations?
Some may thus have come into being, but as a general thing
the plantation owners when they needed money mortgaged
their properties, and in order to meet the mortgages pre-
ferred to lose the whole than to subdivide it. On the other
hand, as the majority of the plantation owners carried heavy
mortgages, they could not sell a portion of their territory
without the consent of their creditors, and this could rarely
be obtained. And if the planters ever sold, voluntarily or
by order of their creditors, they always sold at a high figure.
The partisans of the Indians assert that the Indian prop-
erty owners sold their lands at a ridiculously low figure ; but
is it possible that, if lands of equal value were put upon
the market, one at a high figure by the planter and the other
at a low figure by the Indian, any one could be found who
would pay an excessive amount for what he could buy at
a ridiculously low price?
Something still remains to be said on this subject. The
planters have wrestled for centuries with the pretensions of
the Indians, who constantly invaded their territories from
86 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
their neighboring villages. The planter trembled before the
shyster tribe that defended the Indians, and prolonged their
cases interminably by all manner of chicaneries. The plan-
tation that was in litigation with an Indian village depre-
ciated in value and it was almost impossible to mortgage or
sell it at an acceptable figure.
The ranchman is a mestizo of the rough-rider type, gen-
erally very brave and adventurous, revelling in danger, fear-
ing neither Indians, lawyers, nor artifices. When the In-
dians invade his premises, he receives them with a pistol,
follows them with a dagger, destroys, at the head of a guer-
rilla band, half of their villages, hangs the chief, pursues the
Municipal President with the arm of the law, and generally
terrorizes them. It is the ranchman of this type who as a
general thing furnishes the material for those terrible guer-
rilla fighters, and the Indian villages stand in wholesome
dread of the ranchmen of the neighborhood.
Most of the ranches which go to make up the total of
the increase noted have come from land purchased at a
paltry sum from the Indians, not by the planters but by the
ranchmen.
As a natural consequence of the laws of dismemberment
of all property held in common, the Mexican Indian villages
have decreased in size and importance, ranging as small
ranches, hamlets and settlements in the last years of their
existence.
The statistics of the Department of Fomento confirm
these facts. As the villages have deteriorated or disappeared
altogether, the big and little ranches have increased. We
have in fact:
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 87
States and Territories Villages Ranches
Nuevo Leon 4 1,040
Aguascalientes 6 305
Colima 9 X 78
Lower California, Southern District.... 19 396
Sonora 1* 664
Sinaloa 228 1,708
Chihuahua 181 1,785
Coahuila 20 500
Durango 106 780
Tamaulipas 31 1,665
San Luis Potosi 19 1,102
Zacatecas 3 1,241
Jalisco 182 3,712
Tepic 60 654
Guanaj uato 37 2,727
Michoacan 228 3,076
Queretaro 36 308
Vera Cruz 183 762
Tabasco 54 5^8
Campeche 36 148
Chiapas 105 399
Total 1,645 23,678
The following table gives the relative proportion between
the villages and ranches, in the states where the former pre-
dominate :
States and Territories Villages
Oaxaca 937
Mexico 725
Puebla 609
Hidalgo 438
Guerrero 313
Yucatan 154
Tlaxcala 125
Federal District 172
Morelos 107
Total 3,580 3,047
88 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The foregoing tables demonstrate that the decline of the
Indian villages has not given rise to the increase of large
landholdings, as the agitators would have us believe, but that
it has brought about the development of the ranches which
represent the average smaller landholdings.
Considered from this point of view, the startling assertion
that the landholders appropriated for their benefit the lands
which the Indians sold at a paltry sum when the Reform
Revolution made them independent property owners, cannot
be looked upon as anything but a lie.
GROSS MISREPRESENTATION ABOUT THE STATE OF MORELOS
Many lies concerning a despicable landholding class in the
state of Morelos, whose oppressions of the inhabitants have
justified this outburst of passion and vengeance, have been
freely circulated, and it is my purpose, for the benefit of all
honest and intelligent persons, to analyze and destroy them.
The first to be attacked is the assertion that the state of
Morelos is enormously rich. This fabrication is by no means
modern ; it is the perennial fruit of the tree of undying Mexi-
can vanity planted in the Colonial period. The area of the
state of Morelos is 7,080 square kilometers, only one-tenth
of which is suitable for cultivation. Morelos might lay claim
to being enormously rich if ninety per cent of its territory
was arable land and the remaining ten per cent unproduc-
tive. As exactly the contrary is the case, truth seems to
oblige us to say that Morelos is one of the poorest, instead
of one of the richest, states in the Republic. To be exact it
should be said that in the state of Morelos there are certain
tracts, not very extensive, like the Canada of Cuernavaca
and the Valle de Tetecala and that of Amilpas, which pos-
sess rich lands.
President Wilson, his confidential envoy, Mr. Lind, Mr.
Bryan and other distinguished Americans, were deeply
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 89
stirred when they heard that the state of Morelos was prac-
tically owned by thirty-two planters, who richly deserved
ruin and even death because of this great crime. Dividing
the superficial area of the state of Morelos by thirty-two, we
find that every planter would have an average of 22,000
hectares of land. There are more than thirty-two planters
in the Island of Cuba owning 22,000 hectares of land; but
what is a virtue in Cuba, is a crime in Mexico, which calls
for the attention of the President of the United States and
the consecration of his best efforts to the promotion of a
social revolution that is destroying the country. There is
this notable difference between being a planter in Cuba and
being a planter in the state of Morelos. I have read that
in Cuba with 118 square kilometers of land one can pro-
duce, not as the limit, but with considerable ease, 10,000,000
tons of sugar per year, which, estimated in dollars, equals
$1,000,000,000. The state of Morelos can only produce
45,000 tons of sugar, not exceeding in value $5,000,000,
which, divided among the thirty-two imaginary planters
who have caused President Wilson so many sleepless nights,
would amount to $156,000 for each as the gross receipts per
year.
However, the data which have raised Mr. Wilson's al-
truism to a tension of one hundred thousand volts are false.
The number of planters engaged in the cultivation of sugar-
cane is forty-five; and what has been most artfully con-
cealed from the honest friends of the native race is that, be-
sides the plantations, there are ninety-one ranches, owned in
great part by ranchmen; that is, by men of the common
class, and composed of the lands which were given to the
Indians at the time that the law of dismemberment of lands
held in common went into effect, and which were sold by
them at paltry sums. It is true that some of the Morelos
planters bought lands from the Indians who voluntarily
sold them, but it is also true that the majority of these
90 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
lands passed into the hands of the ranchmen. And now, as
they can no longer buy any lands from the Indians because
there are none to be had, the ranchmen have initiated the
revolution to get the land and water away from the planters,
keeping the marrow and giving the bone to the Indian. It
should be noted also, that in the rural districts of Morelos
the Indians are controlled by the ranchmen, among whom
there are many active revolutionary leaders, and the re-
mainder are the avowed partisans of the spoliation of the
planters. The state of Morelos has only 70,000 hectares of
arable land, as has already been said, and of these only
12,000 are devoted to the cultivation of sugar-cane and rice:
8,000 hectares to the former and 4,000 to the latter. All the
rest is devoted to corn dry farming, which, however, is not
done by the planter. The land is leased, the lessees being,
as a rule, ordinary common people or ranchmen.
The terms of lease are such as to make it available to all
persons who understand agriculture, and the most elemen-
tary economic principles. The lands in Morelos are semi-
tropical, and the arable land is as a rule good and not as
exhausted as the cold and temperate lands of the central
plateau. For the lease by the year of a lot comprising 5
hectares for the cultivation of corn by dry farming, which
on an average produces 16 hectoliters per hectare, the
farmer pays, instead of money, five loads, or ten hectoliters,
of corn. In the five years previous to the revolution the
price of a hectoliter of corn in Morelos, still in the hands
of the harvester, was 3.50 pesos silver, so that the annual
lease of 5 hectares was 35 pesos silver, or 7 pesos silver per
hectare.
In the region of the central plateau one hectare of good
land for corn dry farming is estimated at 300 pesos silver;
the price doubling in the Bajio and near the City of Mex-
ico. When the Chapingo plantation, which is situated about
forty kilometers from the City of Mexico, was dismem-
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 91
bered the price set was from 400 to 600 pesos per hectare.
The boundaries of the small state of Morelos join those of
the Federal District, and Cuernavaca, its capital, is sixty-
four kilometers from the City of Mexico. The yield of
corn in the state of Morelos is double that of the Federal
District, and 300 pesos per hectare for land suitable for dry
farming in the state of Morelos is a low estimate. The price
of a lot of 5 hectares, at the rate of 300 pesos per hectare,
is 1,500 pesos silver, and the cost of the lease being 35 pesos
per year, it follows that the lessee pays two and one-third
per cent for land rent, a moderate amount if it is taken into
consideration that the rate of interest on mortgages is six
per cent, and from eight to ten per cent on bank loans.
The stubble grazing lands in Morelos were leased by
the planters previous to the revolution for ridiculously small
amounts.
It is self-evident from the foregoing facts that the labor-
ing class in the state of Morelos is exclusively engaged in
sugar-cane raising on the plantations, and previous to the
revolution the day-wage was the highest paid in the whole
of the Republic for agricultural work.
THE HUNGER PROBLEM IN ITS TRUE ASPECT
Why did the Indians rid themselves of the lands that
were gratuitously divided among them by the laws of dis-
memberment of 1856 and 1857? No one can say that the
Indians were forced to do this through fear of the planters,
or because they obliged them by coersive means to do so,
because they possessed no power, the popular liberal party,
which supported the Reform Revolution which ended in
1867 with the execution of the Archduke Maximilian of
Austria on the Cerro de las Campanas, having declared all
the planters traitors for recognizing the Empire. It insulted
them continually, deprived them of all power, subjected
92 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
them to the orders of liberal governors, drawn from the
ranks of the people, who went out of their way to heap
humiliations upon them, treating them like pariahs. It was
General Porfirio Diaz who established in Mexico the great
conciliatory policy which delivered the wealthy class, and
more especially the landholders, from the regime of perse-
cution which they had suffered under the great majority of
the "liberal heroes," a persecution which Benito Juarez
always reprobated, but was never able to remedy. It was
not until 1885 that General Diaz manifested this concilia-
tory policy in any marked degree, and by then almost all
the Indian property holders had sold their lands for a pitt-
ance, not to the planter, but in the great majority of cases
to the ranchmen.
It has been claimed that this sale by the Indians of their
lands is to be attributed to the fact that they are vicious,
lacking in administrative ability and easily influenced by the
clergy, who by means of tithes and contributions stripped
them of the profits of their crops.
The defender of the Indian, of course, fails to mention
that vampire of the common class which preys upon the In-
dian precisely in the state of Morelos. Here the planter
demands 10 hectoliters of corn a year as the price of lease
for 5 hectares of land; whereas the ranchmen, owners of
small herds raised on lands rented to them by the
planter at an exceedingly low figure, charge the poor In-
dian farmer 12 loads of corn for the use of a yoke of oxen
for only two months of the year. As the price of one load
of corn is 7 pesos, the friend of the Indian fleeces him of
84 pesos. This is paying rather high for one yoke of oxen
for two months. The Indian undoubtedly is vicious, a poor
administrator, but not to the point of parting with his land
the thing he most cherishes and selling it for a paltry
sum, if conditions are such that he can till it to advantage.
The Indians of Xochimilco, Iztacalco and other points, the
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 93
owners of the floating islands in the lakes of the Federal
District known as the chinampas, although they are vicious,
poor administrators and can be said to be still under the in-
fluence of the clergy because they have never ceased to be
devoted Catholics, have nevertheless held for centuries the
monopoly of the vegetable trade of the City of Mexico.
Even the consignments from the surrounding states, ren-
dered necessary by the growth of the city, have not been
able to compete with them.
In the Federal District itself there are numerous Indians
who are owners of lands which were once the beds of lakes.
These lands possess considerable fertility and enjoy the most
favorable rain conditions to be found anywhere in the Re-
public. These Indians have not disposed of their lands
and would repulse with horror any offer to buy them at
any price. In the states of Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato,
Vera Cruz and Tabasco, independent Indian property own-
ers are still to be found. They are devoted to the cultiva-
tion of their land, although without doubt, owing to their
moral and intellectual deficiencies, they do not derive the
profit from them that they otherwise might.
If the Mexican lands held by the inhuman landowners
are so marvellously fertile, and if in addition the planter
exploits the Indian by robbing him of his land and, conse-
quently, of his means of livelihood, the Mexican planter
ought to find himself perpetually in the position of a Croesus,
with the credit of a Jewish plutocrat in the American and
European banking world. Exactly the contrary is true. In
general, the Mexican planter is of the type of dyspeptic
whose digestion has been ruined by worry, and who is bur-
dened with mortgages drawing ten, twelve and even eighteen
per cent. The vision of poverty and a hut, more in keep-
ing with his actual position than the fictitious palace that
fervid imagination has conjured up, hovers over him. The
agitators, instead of making a thorough study of the problem
94 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
until they reached the absolute truth concerning the planters
and the laborers, decided to destroy the prestige of the land-
owners by saying that they were a set of imbeciles who
allow themselves to be robbed to a scandalous degree by
their overseers, and that they were guilty of the crime of
burying national agriculture in the decaying shroud of
routine.
This is a demagogic diatribe, pure and simple, accepted
by people possessed of reason but devoid of intelligence.
The planters of Yucatan were poor as long as they confined
themselves to the cultivation of products unsuitable to the
conditions surrounding them; but once they discovered that
their climate and lands lent themselves admirably to the cul-
tivation of the henequen (sisal-hemp), they bent all their
energies in that direction and have become the richest
planters in the Republic, notwithstanding the fact that in
the peninsula the ordinary regime is observed, overseers and
their retinue, honest or otherwise, holding sway. The plant-
ers of Morelos belonged for a long time to the "poor rich"
fraternity, bearing the stigma of never having gotten out
of the rut, because they were using the methods introduced
by Hernan Cortes in their sugar refineries. The truth is
that without railroads the bringing of machinery from
Vera Cruz to Cuernavaca was too expensive, and the con-
servative spirit of the planter still clung to the Colonial
period. The introduction of railroads into Mexico fired his
progressive spirit to such a degree that, before the revolt of
1910, the cultivation of sugar-cane, as well as the manu-
facture of sugar, had reached the degree of perfection found
in the most progressive sugar plantations of Cuba; and the
planters became really rich, notwithstanding the fact that
they were absentee landlords, leaving their plantations in
the hands of overseers, who managed or mismanaged, as the
case might be.
The Mexican mortgage banks and banks of issue knew
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 95
well that the only plantation owners who were rich and
free, or comparatively free, of the burden of mortgages were
those who possessed adequate irrigation facilities. Dry corn
farming has proved ruinous in the long run to the Mexican
farmer, and will eventually prove ruinous in the short run
as well.
When the Spanish King, Charles IV, decreed the aliena-
tion of the property of the hospitals, asylums, confraterni-
ties, charitable establishments, lay guardianships, houses of
mercy and foundling asylums, existing in New Spain, it was
discovered that the planters in general were completely
ruined, because the total amount of their indebtedness to the
Church, held in mortgages, was more than the total value
of the plantations. In virtue of the exposition of these facts,
made to the King by the Vice-Regal Government, the de-
crees of the royal mandate of the igth of September, 1798,
were never carried into effect. The laws of June, 1856,
and the subsequent Reform Code, which decreed the dis-
memberment of Church property, relieved almost all the
planters of the burden of these ecclesiastical mortgages, leav-
ing their properties free. Fifty years later we find ninety
per cent of the Mexican planters owing more than fifty per
cent of the value of their plantations to the mortgage hold-
ers, and about twenty to twenty-five per cent to the banks
of issue.
Taking into consideration the various undeniable facts I
have presented, which, even in this isolated setting, prove
beyond the possibility of doubt that in Mexico dry farming
is a ruinous rather than a prosperous course, the conclusion
must be deduced in the realm of politics or out of it, with
the aid of bullets or without them, through President Wil-
son's intervention or without it, that agriculture in the
hands of the indigenous race will be as disastrous as it has
been in the hands of the planter, because the causes of this
disastrous failure are climatological phenomena, such as
96 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
irregular rainfall, frosts and a constantly increasing unpro-
ductiveness of the lands, exhausted by years of extensive cul-
tivation.
President Wilson and American thinkers who are inter-
ested in Mexican affairs on account of American capital in-
vested in that country do not seem to know that the much-
talked-of division of lands is by no means an unheard-of
thing, a new discovery, but a fact that was once accom-
plished and which resulted in the most complete and dis-
couraging fiasco.
If almost all the independent Indian property owners sold
their lands for a paltry sum, it was because they could not
stand the repeated disasters that attend dry farming in
Mexico disasters due to absolutely natural causes quite in-
dependent of politics. The planter engaged in dry farm-
ing may reduce his expenses, forego all profits and the inter-
est on his capital; he may live upon borrowed money, piling
up debts at an enormous rate of interest which will finally
reduce him to poverty. The poor Indian, however, notwith-
standing the fact that he may own his land, cannot reduce
his expenses, because the product of the land even in good
years is not enough to enable him and his family to live
otherwise than in the very meagre way in which they actu-
ally live.
INEVITABLE CONCLUSIONS
The problem of feeding the people in Mexico and of neu-
tralizing the terrible ravages of hunger had, up to 1910,
only one rational solution irrigation. It was the only
means of saving and enriching the people, as irrigation
would have considerably increased the extent of the arable
lands. It would have given security to the crops raised in
those sections where the fertility of the land permits of ex-
tensive agriculture, and, above all, reclaimed that great por-
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 97
tion of the arable land which is almost depleted, by permit-
ting the introduction of the intensive method of agriculture.
Unfortunately for Mexico, Senor Limantour, noted for
his undoubtedly upright, well-balanced financial negotia-
tions, failed to recognize Mexico's need in this respect.
The situation had been well known to men of science since
1899, when the national credit reached a height indicating
the possibility of undertaking irrigation of the country on a
large scale. The Department of Fomento, which is respon-
sible for the economic progress of the country, was directed
from 1880 to 1907 by deluded persons honest and other-
wise or by very honorable persons without initiative or a
real understanding of the vital needs of the country.
Don Olegario Molina assumed control of the Depart-
ment of Fomento in 1908, and was thoroughly alive to the
stupendous obligations which his position imposed upon him,
and set about energetically to try to carry them out. He
began by removing certain abuses which laws regarding un-
claimed lands had produced, and by taking up the study of
the national lands which were under the control of his de-
partment, and which were destined for national and foreign
colonization. He understood that the salvation of the nation
depended upon not losing a single drop of available water,
obtained either through precipitation or from rivers, lakes,
ponds or wells to be found on Government lands. He
worked until he obtained constitutional reform which cen-
tralized, under Federal control, all the water rights which
were not held under incontestable titles. He initiated and
by means of previous free discussion obtained the approba-
tion by the Federal Congress of the water laws which would
enable the Government to undertake without delay the irri-
gation of the country. He obtained an appropriation of
600,000 pesos to defray the cost of engaging a commission
of engineers who were to select the sections to which prefer-
ence should be given in the irrigation plan, and to point out
98 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the best means of carrying it out. In 1908 Secretary of
the Treasury, Limantour, founded the financial institution
known as Caja de Prestamos para la Agricultura y Fomento
de la Irrigndon (Loan Fund for Agricultural Work and
the Development of Irrigation), with a Mexican capital of
10,000,000 pesos silver, and obtained, besides, a loan of
50,000,000 pesos silver with Government guarantees. The
firm of Pearson & Son was engaged by the Department of
Fomento to study the conditions in the vicinity of the river
Nazas, which is the source of the fertility of the "Laguna"
district, and which has made possible the cotton growing of
this region. A loan was granted to the Sautena Company
for the irrigation of 40,000 hectares of good land, on condi-
tion, however, that not less than 15,000 hectares, equipped
with good irrigation facilities, were to be turned over to
the Federal Government for the formation of small agricul-
tural land holdings. The Department of Fomento granted
Senor Cuesta Gallardo a concession to drain part of Lake
Chapala, which would make possible the cultivation of a
great area of notably fertile lands. Under the dictatorship
of General Diaz, 3,000,000 pesos in cash was loaned to
Don Lorenzo Gonzalez Trevino, uncle of ex-President
Francisco Madero, to enable him to complete the extensive
irrigation plants he had under construction on his properties
in the state of Coahuila.
I give these facts to prove that in the two years previous
to the revolution, from 1908 to 1910, the dictatorship
authorized the appropriation of the large sum of 90,000,000
pesos silver, or $45,000,000, to further irrigating enter-
prises. This amply proves that the irrigation work contem-
plated by Don Olegario Molina, the Secretary of Fomento,
was serious, well planned, definitely decided and energetic-
ally launched.
This proves that the dictatorship of Diaz, notwithstand-
ing its great deficiencies, had taken up in behalf of the
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 99
nation the work that a scientific study of the Mexican eco-
nomical problem pointed out to be necessary. This prob-
lem is unknown to the revolutionary men of the old regime
who now want to pass for men of the new era, and to the
really new men who look with ambitious eyes to the su-
preme power without first having proved themselves capable
of wielding it.
In 1910 the revolution for "the redemption of the peo-
ple" had not seen the light of day, but the revolution to
rebuild the shattered ambitions of the younger generation
and those of the older generation, anxious to pose as belong-
ing to the former, was then put into operation. This era
of political personalism gave rise to the great social revolu-
tion which is tearing Mexico to shreds, and in which the
President of the United States, Mr. Woodrow Wilson, fig-
ures as one of the leading actors.
What has been the work of this saving, and according to
President Wilson, necessary revolution? In order that no
one may attribute my reply to anger, rancor, partial or abso-
lute blindness, or preconception that savors of the sociolog-
ical clinic, I shall quote directly the three leading personages
who have figured in the Mexican revolution: The First
Chief, Don Venustiano Carranza, the ex-military genius,
Don Francisco Villa, and the President of the United States,
Mr. Woodrow Wilson.
In December, 1915, through the most loyal section of the
Carranza press, the First Chief has been quoted as saying in
an address delivered at Monterey or Laredo: "Have faith
and patience." Faith is usually recommended to those who
do not believe or who doubt; patience to those who suffer.
We are to believe, then, from the impression given by
Senor Carranza himself, that the Mexican people who are
such ardent partisans of the revolution, have suffered even
to the point of demoralization after eighteen months of that
revolution's triumph?
ioo WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The ex-' 'military genius," Don Francisco Villa, in his last
manifesto, addressed to the remainder of his followers and
to the world, says that the great majority of the chiefs of
his army have been nothing more than highwaymen, who
took up arms with no other idea than loot.
President Wilson, in as dignified a document as his Mes-
sage to the Congress of the United States, says that it can-
not yet be determined whether or not his policy has bene-
fited Mexico; that he hopes for the "rebirth" of the nation;
and that the revolution he befriended, in so far as he was
able, has found few sympathizers outside Mexican territory.
In this view no one can concur, because up to the present
time no one has been able to prove that in Mexican territory
and in the hearts of the majority of the Mexican people
there is to be found an overwhelming sympathy for a revo-
lution that has brought them to such a pitiable state of
misery and suffering. If President Wilson expects the "re-
birth" of the Mexican nation, it means that for the present
it is submerged and that the revolution has been the cause
of the submersion.
If the supreme object of the revolution has been to solve
the agrarian problem by the partition of lands, its advo-
cates, whom I have just named, are not proposing anything
new. The dictatorship had this in view, with the marked
difference that the dictatorial Government knew that before
distributing land among the people it was necessary to make
it productive by means of irrigation. The revolution, with
its avowed contempt and hatred for everything that repre-
sents culture, education and science, will fail in its attempt
to save the people from hunger by putting them in posses-
sion of exhausted, unproductive lands. The end will be
death death from inanition, sorrow, desperation and hatred
against those whose duty it was to have considered the ques-
tion scientifically before drawing them into a vortex from
THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 101
which, perhaps, they may never extricate themselves as a
free and independent people.
President Wilson doubtless believed that the Mexican
revolution was necessary because the time had come when,
in his opinion, it was expedient that the land should be
turned over to the Mexican people, to be cultivated by them
on their own account. But as these valuable lands did not
exist, as I have proved, the revolution was not necessary.
Even granting for the sake of argument that the lands
existed, such a revolution was not necessary, because the
planters never questioned the right of the Federal Govern-
ment to enforce the constitutional article which gives it the
right to condemn private property for public utility, the
owner having been previously indemnified. Never has the
conservative press, or any planter as representative or sena-
tor, or in any capacity whatsoever, ever questioned in any
public speech or writing, that the formation of small land-
holding was not of public utility, even if to accomplish this
it were necessary to lay hands on the large holdings, pro-
vided always that it were done according to terms prescribed
by the Federal Constitution, which are those that hold good
in all civilized nations in similar cases. The planters, there-
fore, had given ample proof that they did not intend to im-
pede, much less openly oppose, the progressive step. When
the construction of railroads began to be actively taken up,
the condemnation of certain private tracts was necessary for
the proper development of the lines. This met with no
opposition whatsoever from the landowners, although some
of them made exorbitant indemnity claims. Congress then
passed a carefully considered law, covering the question of
expropriated lands, fixing equitable terms that would be
acceptable to both the railroads and the planters. The law
was accepted without appreciable resistance, and Mexico
constructed twenty thousand kilometers of railroads on
terms acceptable to both planters and railway companies.
102 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
If the landholders of Mexico have never in any way
shown the slightest opposition to the formation of the small
landholdings, why has this revolution been, so to speak, dedi-
cated to them with diabolical hate? Let us grant for the
sake of argument that they had made up their mind to resist
the division of their lands once they had been irrigated,
although the dictatorial Government did not give pecuniary
assistance for the irrigation of private property if the owners
did not promise by public deeds to cede an important part
of the irrigated lands for the formation of small holdings.
Supposing, as I have said, that the planters had decided with-
out giving any outward sign because they certainly never
gave outward sign of any such intention of preventing by
political and even revolutionary means the formation of
small landholdings through legal expropriation of the large
holdings, it is not sensible, just, fitting, or heroic for a peo-
ple wishing to acquire lands which they need, and which
they wish to hold under conditions governing civilized
nations, to rise with a well-defined program of extermina-
tion, breathing an infernal hate, against an absolutely legiti-
mate property-owning class before that class has refused in
a clear and definite manner to satisfy the popular demand.
Until President Wilson gives the American public, the
'Mexican public and the rest of the world a proof, or even
half a proof, that the Mexican landowners were the enemies
of the movement to improve the condition of the people by
the formation of small landholdings, he has no right, based
upon ethics or science, or upon the most elementary notions
of civilization, to state before so eminently, world-wide re-
spected an assemblage as the Congress of the United States
that the tremendous, sanguinary Mexican revolution, fairly
wading in anarchy, was necessary.
PART SECOND
THE TRUTH CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION AND ITS DE-
VELOPMENT UP TO THE TIME OF
PRESIDENT WILSON'S INTER-
VENTION
CHAPTER I
A BOXER REVOLUTION PROTECTED BY THE
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
A CHALLENGE TO LATIN-AMERICA AND THE SOCIOLOGISTS
OF THE WORLD
IN its origin the Mexican revolution had a markedly
Boxer character and was directed principally against
the influence, prestige and interests of the United
States. This is a fact, new to some, perhaps, which I am
going to prove.
No one, not even those who have had only a superficial
understanding of the Mexican revolution, or a single one
of the inhabitants of Mexico capable of holding an opinion
about public affairs, can ignore the fact that the origin of the
revolt that dethroned the dictator, General Porfirio Diaz,
was hatred of the Cientificos, revealed in the universal, pro-
phetic cry, "Mueran los cientificos!" (Death to the Cientif-
icos!) Even today, 1915, for the popular Mexican imagi-
nation dentifico means the sworn enemy of the people, more
criminal than the parricide, the murderer of innocent chil-
dren, or the traitor.
In a few words I shall say who the Cientificos were. No
government can exist, even under a democratic or dictatorial
regime, without a governing aristocracy, always intellectual.
In the eighteen last years of the dictatorship of General
Porfirio Diaz, the Cientificos represented this governing aris-
tocracy, and were attacked like all aristocracies that have
ever formed a part of ultra-personal governments.
I make haste to calm the uneasiness of any of my readers
103
104 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
who may fear a wearisome analysis of the much- talked -of
dictatorship of General Diaz. I have no intention of doing
anything of the kind; my exposition will be synthetical and
short. It will consist simply in the exposition of certain un-
deniable and convincing facts which will destroy the theories
and enthusiasms of those who have approved and applauded
the overthrow of the long-lived Mexican tyrant.
MEMORANDUM CONCERNING THE NATIONAL CREDIT
In February, 1893, Sefior Jose Ives Limantour was ap-
pointed Secretary of the Treasury and Public Credit, and in
October of that same year the Cientificos rose to power,
choosing Sefior Limantour for their leader. At that time
the national treasury was bankrupt and the six per cent
Federal foreign bonds were quoted in London at sixty per
cent of their face value. On January I, 1910, Mexico's
foreign debt, the interest on which had been reduced from
six to five per cent by the refund of 1899, was quoted above
par. Taking advantage of the high credit Mexico then en-
joyed, Sefior Limantour went to Europe in 1910 with the
object of again refunding, which would reduce the interest
on the debt to four per cent. He succeeded in thus con-
verting one-half of it, but it was impossible to complete the
transaction because Madero's so-called redemptory revolu-
tion had burst forth.
I challenge Latin-America to produce a single example of
a Hispanic- American nation that has ever succeeded in hav-
ing its national debt quoted at par with an annual interest
of four per cent. Expecting to be impugned if my data are
not correct, I assert that no Latin-American administration
has ever been able to place its country in the same rank of
credit as that enjoyed by Mexico under the financial regime
of the Cientificos.
A BOXER REVOLUTION 105
FIRST MEMORANDUM ON BUREAUCRATIC CANNIBALISM
In the eighteen years that Senor Limantour was at the
helm of financial affairs in Mexico, he negotiated the fol-
lowing Government loans: In 1893 he negotiated in
Europe a Government loan of 3,000,000 sterling, or $15,-
000,000; refunded in 1899 when an important loan of 20,-
000,000 sterling was affected through the firm of Bleich-
roeder & Company of Berlin. From 1902 onward he
issued five series of five per cent silver bonds, each series re-
deemable at 20,000,000 pesos silver, or a total in gold of
$50,000,000. In 1904 he negotiated with the New York
house of J. Pierpont Morgan a loan of $40,000,000. The
total amount of the loans negotiated by Senor Limantour
during his eighteen years of tenure of office reached $105,-
000,000.
The voraciousness of Latin-American bureaucracies, which
I have called cannibalism, is well known; they swallow
European loans of millions, which are to them what a morsel
of pate de foie gras would be to an insatiable glutton.
I challenge Latin-America to tell me which of the nations
that come under this designation, having the credit that
Mexico had in Europe and the United States, has limited
itself to negotiating Government loans at the rate of $6.25
per inhabitant, in the long period of eighteen years. Pro-
visionally, I take it upon myself to answer, none.
These bureaucracies constitute the real and direful oppres-
sion of the unfortunate Latin-American peoples who, more
than liberty, need honest government, and to be relieved of
the horde of public officials which preys upon them. It
bodes ill for the future of these nations that each of these
bureaucracies is increasing yearly the national expense
budget; that they are responsible for deficits more or less
large; and that to shield themselves they float foreign loans,
io6 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
or take from the taxes what ought to be devoted to the ma-
terial improvement of the country.
In 1894, under the regime of the Cientificos, besides the
outlay for the national debt, and the army and navy, there
remained for the bureaucracy 20,000,000 pesos annually. In
1910, the year the Madero revolution broke out, notwith-
standing the development of the country, the Federal bureau-
cracy received 70,000,000 pesos, so that in seventeen years
there was an increase of 40,000,000 pesos to meet the legiti-
mate expenses of the Government, and for the insatiable bu-
reaucratic cannibalism which existed notwithstanding Sefior
Limantour's constant war against it. This war finally ended
by making him the most unpopular man in Mexico, as he
would have been in all Latin-American countries if he had
been the minister of finance. General Diaz, clever politician
that he was, knew that it was impossible to govern Latin-
Americans without a certain amount of "palm oil," and, not-
withstanding his appreciation of Sefior Limantour's high
ideals, found himself obliged, in order to preserve peace, to
make concessions.
As he was a clever politician General Diaz never denied
a "slice," a "bottle," a "demijohn," or a "wild boar served
with mayonnaise"; but when the hour came to fulfill his
seductive promises he always said that Senor Limantour op-
posed their fulfillment and that, as he could not suddenly
dismiss an official who had rendered such valuable services
to his administration, his friends, his very dear friends, his
ever-faithful friends, ought to grant him a little time in
which to replace him. The result of this astute political
method was that General Diaz's popularity began to wane,
and Senor Limantour's to disappear altogether.
But to return to figures. The increase in the expense
budget of 40,000,000 pesos silver in eighteen years corre-
sponds to an arithmetical progression which in round figures
equals 2,300,000 pesos silver per annum.
A BOXER REVOLUTION 107
In 1911, after seventeen years, the Federal receipts, which
in 1894 amounted to 45,000,000, increased to 112,000,000
pesos. This increase amounted to 67,000,000 pesos, corre-
sponding to an arithmetical progression which equals 4,200,-
ooo pesos per annum.
We have then:
Progressive increase per year in expenses.. 2,300,000 pesos silver
Progressive increase in Federal receipts
per year 4,200,000 pesos silver
This constant increase of the Federal receipts over the
expenditures enabled the dictatorship under General Diaz to
establish a treasury fund which reached a maximum in coin
of 84,000,000 pesos silver.
I challenge Latin-America to tell me in which of the na-
tions that come under this designation is to be found the
remarkable phenomenon of a nation in which the receipts
have considerably exceeded the expenditures.
I reply unhesitatingly that this phenomenon, outside of
Mexico, and in the space of one hundred years, has occurred
once only in the island of Cuba when the administration
of its affairs was in the hands of that true patriot Senor
Tomas Estrada Palma. But this ideal condition in Cuba
lasted only four years, whereas in Mexico, under an admin-
istration of supposed thieves as President Wilson believes
it lasted without interruption for sixteen years.
THIRD MEMORANDUM CONCERNING BUREAUCRATIC
CANNIBALISM
More than three hundred governments have been over-
thrown in the Latin-American countries since they attained
their independence. All of them left empty treasuries, and
the majority left the nation utterly devoid of credit at home
and abroad. The only exception of which I know is the one
already mentioned of the Cuban President who, when he
vacated the presidential chair, left $27,000,000, which un-
io8 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
doubtedly greatly influenced the avalanche of "democratic
principles" that overwhelmed him. In Mexico, when Gen-
eral Diaz resigned, Senor Limantour handed over to the
new Secretary of the Treasury, Senor Ernesto Madero, uncle
of the "Saviour of his Country," 72,000,000 pesos silver in
coin, deposited in the National Treasury, in the National
Bank of Mexico, and in the most powerful banks of New
York, London, Paris and Germany.
I can safely say that, outside the case of Cuba already
mentioned, no overthrown Latin-American Government has
ever left in its national treasury the amount left by the so-
called thieving dictatorship of General Diaz in the Mexican
treasury.
MEMORANDUM ON ONE OF THE MOST SERIOUS ACCUSATIONS
BROUGHT AGAINST THE DIAZ DICTATORSHIP
Senor Jose N. Macias, a revolutionary Maderista writer,
charges the dictatorship with having raised the national debt
as high as 300,000,000 pesos silver, or $150,000,000, thus
laying a heavy burden on the Mexican people for a great
many years.
Apparently Senor Macias does not know his subject. The
total amount of the national debt at the time of General
Diaz's resignation was, not 300,000,000, but 458,000,000
pesos silver.
But the accuser, it would seem, is entirely unaware of the
use to which these 458,000,000 pesos silver were put, and
it will be my pleasure to inform him in a few words, and in
such a manner as will render impossible any impugning of
my statement.
In 1824 the Mexican nation contracted a debt in London
of 32,000,000 pesos silver, and at the same time another was
laid upon it by claims made by foreign governments in the
name of their respective subjects. These debts, once they were
consolidated, were classified as, the English Debt, the Spanish
A BOXER REVOLUTION 109
Debt, the Padre Moran Debt, and the United States Debt,
the latter being represented by the well-known Carvajal
bonds. With the exception of the United States debt the
total of these debts amounted in 1851 to 50,000,000 pesos
gold. When Diaz assumed the reins of government in
1877 he found that his country was dishonored before the
world because of its failure to liquidate these legitimate
claims which it had bound itself in honor to meet. In 1885
the total amount of the Mexican foreign debt, including
unpaid interest, was 100,000,000 pesos, and the Secretary
of the Treasury, Senor Manuel Dublan, through various
transactions, was able in 1888 to consolidate the Mexican
foreign debt into six per cent bonds, representing a nominal
value of 10,500,000 sterling or 52,500,000 Mexican pesos
gold.
The Mexican national debt was enormous, and Senor
Dublan devoted all his energies to it. By means of various
transactions with the creditors he was able to make a very
advantageous settlement for the country, reducing the debt
to 53,000,000 pesos silver, or $26,500,000.
When silver depreciated so low as to be worth in gold
half, or even less than half, its value, the Mexican debt of
.52,500,000 pesos gold existing in 1888 was converted into
a debt of 105,000,000 pesos silver which, added to the 53,-
000,000 pesos silver, amount of the previous debt, equals a
total of 158,000,000 pesos silver, corresponding to the na-
tional debt previous to the dictatorship of General Diaz,
and which had been contracted in great part after 1824.
Consequently, the dictatorship of General Diaz can be held
accountable for the distribution of 300,000,000 pesos silver
only, an amount which at his retirement remained in the
nature of a national debt.
A fact which no one can doubt or deny is that during the
dictatorship of General Diaz twenty thousand kilometers of
railways were constructed in Mexico, subsidized by the Gov-
i io WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ernment to the amount of 170,000,000 pesos silver, or $80,-
000,000, an average of $4,250 per kilometer.
Mexico has a superficial area of 2,000,000 square kilo-
meters, and had a population of 10,000,000 at the time the
railways began to be developed by American capital. The
population in 1910 had increased to 15,000,000, but of this
only 3,000,000 were sufficiently civilized to increase the in-
come of the railroads by their use of them. Before the
exploitation of the petroleum wells, which was taken up on
a large scale in 1908, fuel for railway motive power was
very expensive. I ask all men versed in railway matters to
say whether taking into consideration the unfavorable con-
ditions that existed in Mexico it is a reprehensible or a
praiseworthy act for a Government to construct twenty
thousand kilometers of railway for the benefit of its country,
assigning an average subsidy of $4,250 per kilometer?
The Tehuantepec Railroad, with its magnificent artificial
ports of Puerto Mexico and Salina Cruz, cost 115,000,000
pesos silver. This estimate does not take into account the
capital squandered by mismanagement and dishonesty before
Pearson & Son took the work in hand, and before the advent
of Sefior Limantour and the Cientificos, with the Secretary
of the Treasury at their head. The Tehuantepec Railroad
is not a fairy story, the creation of the ingenious newspaper
man; it is a fact known to the world as a work of merit,
and well worth 115,000,000 pesos silver or $57,500,000.
The construction work at the port of Vera Cruz, which
cost 33,000,000 pesos silver, is also well known to the world.
One of the most important works undertaken by the dictator-
ship was the draining of the Valley of Mexico, an admirable
and most successful work which cost 14,000,000 pesos silver.
The City of Mexico owes everything to the dictatorship of
General Diaz. Floods formerly inundated the city every
year during the rainy season, plagues scourged it, and most
unsanitary conditions prevailed, owing to the scarcity of
A BOXER REVOLUTION in
water for the greater part of the year. Under the dictator-
ship a splendid system of sewers was built; water was
brought from the springs of Xochimilco, and distributed
according to the most scientific modern methods; streets
were well paved and good pavements were laid. All this
cost only 26,000,000 pesos or $13,000,000.
Under the same regime splendid buildings were erected
in the City of Mexico. Among these may be mentioned the
Opera House, not yet completed, which would have com-
peted in magnificence with the Grand Opera of Paris; the
Law Courts building, also in course of construction; the
Post Office building, undoubtedly one of the finest buildings
in the world ; the General Hospital ; the Insane Asylum ; the
Department of Railways building, classic and refined in its
style of architecture ; the monument commemorating the cen-
tennial of Mexico's independence, which has been praised by
many foreign artists. Besides the sums devoted to luxurious
buildings destined for political and administrative purposes,
several million pesos were devoted to the construction of
training-schools for teachers. Adding to these expenditures
the amounts paid as indemnification for property condemned
for these various public edifices, the total amount is 50,-
000,000 pesos.
Besides the construction work at Vera Cruz, some indis-
pensable improvements were made at the port of Manzanillo
on the Pacific, and at that of Tampico on the Atlantic,
amounting in all to 11,000,000 pesos.
Without taking into consideration works of minor impor-
tance which were carried out under the dictatorship, it has
been amply proved that the enormous sum of 419,000,000
pesos silver was distributed in works that were well worth
while, so much so that neither the demagogic press nor revo-
lutionary writers have dared to censure them.
I challenge all Latin-America, continental as well as in-
sular, to point out to me a single case in which one of the
ii2 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
nations composing this group has spent in public works an
amount greater than the total face value of the loans nego-
tiated by the Government. It is to be clearly understood
that I refer to the face value of these loans, as none of them
was acquired at par; consequently, the cost of the work
greatly exceeds the real amount received from the loans.
I assert that there is no Hispanic-American nation that
can produce a case similar to the one I have outlined.
CONTINUATION OF CHALLENGES TO LATIN-AMERICA AND
THE SOCIOLOGISTS OF THE WORLD
By January I, 1910, the revolution, ostensibly based
upon hatred of the Cientificos, had taken form in the minds
of the people. The conspirators, excepting a few anti-
reelectionists, such as Madero, had long been covertly con-
spiring against the dictatorship, continuing to receive salaries
and favors from the hands of the generous Caesar, but un-
willing to attack their patron openly until they saw him
about to fall.
On January i, 1910, the following names appeared on
the list of high officials in the dictatorial Government:
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Senor Ignacio Mariscal;
Secretary of the Interior, Senor Ramon Corral; Secretary
of Justice, Senor Justino Fernandez; Secretary of Public
Instruction, Senor Justo Sierra; Secretary of Fomento,
Senor Olegario Molina; Secretary of Public Works, Senor
Leandro Fernandez; Secretary of War and Navy, General
Manuel Gonzales Cosio; Secretary of the Treasury, Senor
Jose Ives Limantour.
I cannot recollect ever to have seen the name of any one
of these, except that of the Secretary of the Treasury, Jose
Ives Limantour, mentioned as a thief in any of the revolu-
tionary publications, and, as I have already sufficiently proved
what kind of a thief the man was who arranged the na-
A BOXER REVOLUTION 113
tional debt, and who negotiated foreign loans, it is not nec-
essary to make further comment. I challenge the banking
world of New York, London, Germany, Paris and Holland,
accustomed to dealing with Latin-American financiers who
wish to place loans on behalf of their governments, with
offers of a rake-off for either side, to say that Senor Liman-
tour was not one of the most upright perhaps the most
upright of all the Latin- American financiers whom they
have known. All financiers know that in government trans-
actions involving hundreds of millions of dollars it is a com-
paratively easy thing to manipulate them so as to get pos-
session of several for one's self. It is absurd to say that a
man who could with impunity have pocketed ten or twenty
millions, or even more, should demean himself by stooping
to grab two or three million dollars, not by peculation, but
by extortion.
But I make all manner of concessions. I admit that Li-
mantour may have been a scoundrel, exceedingly clever at
the game of advancing his private interests at the expense
of the nation; nevertheless, lucky might the Latin-American
nation have considered herself which had Limantour for
her Secretary of the Treasury.
I challenge all Latin-America and all the sociologists of
the world to tell me if seven out of eight of a government's
secretaries are considered upright even by the opposition,
only one being classified as a thief a thief whose operations
have always benefited his country does such a government
merit to be universally execrated for its dishonesty?
The dictatorship has been accused of putting a band of
thieves at the head of the state governments.
ii4 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
LIST OF THE GOVERNORS OF THE STATES
Aguascalientes Alejandro Vazquez del Mercado Civil
Carapeche
Coahuila Jesus del Valle Civil
Colima Alamillo Civil
Chiapas R. Rabasa Civil
Chihuahua Jose M. Sanchez Civil
Durango Esteban Fernandez Civil
Guanajauto Joaquin Obregon Gonzalez Civil
Guerrero Damian Flores Civil
Hidalgo Pedro L. Rodriguez Civil
Jalisco Miguel Ahumada Serai-Military
Mexico Fernando Gonzalez Military
Michoacan Aristeo Mercado Civil
Morelos Pablo Escandon Serai-Military
Nuevo Leon General Mier Military
Oaxaca Emilio Pimentel Civil
Puebla Mucio Martinez Military
Queretaro Francisco G. Cosio Civil
San Luis Potosi Jose Maria Espinosa y Cuevas Civil
Sinaloa Diego Redo Civil
Sonora F. Cubillas Civil
Tabasco Policarpo Valenzuela Civil
Tamaulipas Juan Castello Civil
Tlaxcala Prospero Cahuantzi Military
Vera Cruz Teodoro A. Dehesa Civil
Yucatan Munoz Aristegui Civil
Zacatecas Ortiz de Zarate Civil
Outside of Mexico this list will not have much signifi-
cance, except in the relative value of the civil and military
elements that compose it. A glance will convince one that
General Diaz governed through the civil rather than the
military branch, as there are three military governors and
two semi-military as against twenty-two civilians.
As regards probity, there were eighteen governors who
fulfilled their charge honorably, and nine who were
scoundrels.
Caius Licinius Verres, the famous Sicilian pretor, repro-
bated by Cicero, said that if one were a pro-consul or a
A BOXER REVOLUTION 115
pretor it was necessary to steal three fortunes from the na-
tion: one to pay the sponsors who had obtained the lucra-
tive position; another to bribe the judges when the dis-
pleasure of a censor or a tribune brought one into the law
courts; and a third to be devoted to the family. In Latin-
America there exist even more ramifications than in the
Rome of Cicero, because the pro-consul or pretor finds him-
self obliged regularly to appropriate six fortunes: three for
the purposes Verres has assigned, the fourth to support the
illegitimate family, the fifth to carry on a scandalous pros-
titution, and the sixth for any unforeseen case. I am forced
to repeat the words of Le Bon, which I have quoted before:
"In Latin-America the political problem, fundamentally and
in general, is a problem of public thieving." I should, how-
ever, say that the nine dishonest governors were not the cause
of disturbance. In order to keep their posts they were
obliged to maintain a good administration, paying all their
employees and creditors punctually. At the first indication
of disorder General Diaz dismissed them.
If Mexico was a country of rotten politicians, I challenge
Latin-America and all the sociologists of the world to say
whether it is not a prodigy, worthy of being registered in
letters of light, that two-thirds of the pro-consuls of the
arrogant Caesar were honest and only one- third rascals?
The accusation of injustice has been brought against the
courts of the Diaz dictatorship. The accusation is merited.
However, the tribunals depending on the will of the Caesar
injured only the rich the class hated by the revolutionists
with their unjust sentences. The revolutionists, there-
fore, should have rejoiced that the dictatorship laid a heavy
hand on those whom they never ceased to proclaim the
oppressors of the people. The middle class, the real owner
of the country and the director of its destinies at that time,
was outside the range of the evils brought about by the
workings of coerced tribunals, because being the political
n6 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
class par excellence the judges, the secretaries, the President
himself, feared them. The bureaucrats, as a rule, were
plebeians who spent more than they earned, and who con-
sequently made it a business to pile up debts, the unfortu-
nate creditors generally losing their suits if the cases came
to law, as the debtors controlled the press and possessed the
power to intimidate and cow them.
The popular class, both rural and urban, was absolutely
proletarian, and only the middle-class merchants and the
property-owning class, representing a small minority, had
cause to complain against the autocratic methods of the
courts.
I challenge all Latin- America to tell me if in the great
majority of the Hispanic- American nations the courts are
not venal even where no dictatorship exists, and similar, or
even worse, than the Porfirian courts, in the countries ruled
by dictators.
THE REAL CRIME OF THE DIAZ DICTATORSHIP
Universal life is preserved by the renewal of the ele-
ments of each organism at different periods. Individual life
is the constant, although not simultaneous, renewal of the
organic tissues. Without renewal there is decay, and decay
leads to the grave. General Diaz's ideal was the petrifica-
tion of the State. He had permitted himself to be led into
the irreparable error of fearing any change in the personnel
of his immediate political entourage, and in that of the civil
branches as well. The consequence was that society, seeing
that a death's-head had taken the place of the living man,
was shaken out of its usual tranquil mode of life, and began
making mental excursions into the revolutionary dream-
realm, paving the way for the creation of the reality.
In 1910 General Diaz was eighty years old. Of the
eight Cabinet members, two were past eighty and the
youngest was fifty-five. Of twenty state governors, two
A BOXER REVOLUTION 117
were past eighty, six past seventy, seventeen past sixty and
the youngest was forty-six. The Senate was an asylum for
gouty decrepits, and the House of Representatives, which
ought to have vibrated with youthful vigor and activity, was
composed of a host of veterans, relieved by a group of
patriarchs. One of the newspapers called the Government
offices the "Pyramids of Egypt, joined to the Pyramids of
Teotihuacan," because of the number of mummies they con-
tained. Such an administration could not be called pro-
gressive, not even conservative; it was a home for the aged,
with a standing account at the druggists. The younger gen-
eration was justified in wanting to expel the hordes of fos-
sils which had fastened upon the public posts as the trilobites
of old upon the rocks.
Two causes may be assigned for the total degeneration of
a dictator: too great age and too long tenure of office. The
latter, as is well known, corrupts and hardens, all the more
actively the nearer it approaches absolutism. General Diaz
had exercised the supreme power uninterruptedly for twenty-
five years; General Reyes had been the undisputed and des-
potic ruler of Nuevo Leon for twenty-three years, and Senor
Limantour had been the absolute dictator of the economic
and financial policy of the country for eighteen years. Fol-
lowing the inexorable laws of sociology, all three had out-
lived their usefulness in the political world, and could not be
anything but a drawback to their country, however worthy
they might be personally.
Strength is not proof against that insidious form of moral
poison which gradually enervates the mind of the man who
believes himself to be infallible. The most characteristic
trait of such a man is the loss of proportion, of sentiment, of
sensation, and even of reality itself. He ends by trying to
govern an imaginary world with beings of flesh and bone.
"The Emperor (Napoleon I) is all system, all illusion,
as it is impossible not to be when one is all imagination.
n8 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Whosoever has wished to follow his evolution will have
noted that he ended by seeing an imaginary England, an
imaginary finance, an imaginary nobility and above all an
imaginary France, and in these latter days an imaginary
Congress (referring to the International Congress convoked
by the opposing powers)." *
General Diaz ended by living in an imaginary world, in-
cluding the view of his own personality and that of Madero,
as we shall see.
A sociological principle of a dictatorial regime is that
when the dictator, who above all must be practical, is not
intellectual he hates the intellectuals who serve him, even
when they do it with the greatest care, loyalty and to the
advantage of his dictatorship.
A practical, theoretical dictator who knows his business
will permit neither friend nor foe, neither person nor cor-
poration, to express an opinion about his government unless
it be to praise and extol it. General Diaz, in the dis-
tressing period of his mental decadence due to age and to
the incessant weight of affairs of State not only permitted
his enemies to attack his administration with violence and
venom, but he authorized, even incited, his friends, pref-
erably the most discriminating, to pick flaws in his work,
to point out the failures, lapses, even infamies that stood out
like putrefying ulcers, so long as they were laid at the door
of the Cientificos, who were his subordinates, and for whose
actions he was responsible, whatever the form of govern-
ment might be. General Diaz's supreme delight a delight
that surpassed all human and divine delights was to hear
the Cientificos calumniated, and to realize that, as public
opinion gradually accepted the dictum of his friends, which
transformed Senor Limantour and his colleagues into mon-
sters, it thundered back replies charged with hate that shook
the nerves of even the most complacent.
Prat, p. 94.
A BOXER REVOLUTION 119
General Diaz was obsessed with the idea that he was a
necessity, that the nation trembled at the thought of losing
such a man. It was necessary, therefore, to inculcate in the
minds of the Mexican people that except through General
Diaz, president in perpetuity, there could be no salvation
for the country, because all things outside of him were vile,
despicable and fatal to the public good.
This obsession, as a rule, characterizes all dictators. But
when they are sound of mind they order the campaign of
defamation against their former friends only a few hours
before they kick them into the street to be jeered at by the
furious rabble, which applauds the justice of their Caesar.
But when such a campaign is carried on for eight long years
against the most distinguished men of his administration,
without kicking them out on the contrary, decreeing,
as General Diaz had decreed with regard to the
Cientificos, that they should succeed to the supreme power,
then the dictator sounds the last note of the gamut, and the
people, however low and servile they may be, will rise up
to execrate and dethrone him. When a dictator has taken
the absurd step of authorizing and applauding a course
which brands his subordinates as malefactors responsible for
the vice, misery and degradation which have led the people
to the brink of an inevitable grave, he must be demented to
believe that they can be made to believe at the same time
what the fawning sycopants of the despot would have them
believe ; that is, that his work is a marvel, that he has pro-
cured the happiness of the Mexican people and raised the
nation to the height of the most civilized nations of the
world. In a strange poem written by a Pole, the poet asks
himself this fearful question: "What would happen if God
were to lose His mind?" In 1908 intelligent Mexicans
asked themselves: "What will happen to poor Mexico now
that its omnipotent head has lost his mind?" And the
120 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
answer was the victory of another lunatic, Francisco I.
Madero.
It was General Diaz himself who brought about that
only one trend of thought and speech should prevail
that of blackening the Cientificos. This he obtained through
the columns of the legitimate press, the false opposition
press, the Government press, the Masonic lodges, the pulpits
of the Mexican Protestant ministers, the normal schools, the
poor schools, city and rural, the speeches in club houses, the
seditious harangues in the public squares, and the discourses
in the House of Representatives. The result was that the
public, accepting all these facts at their face value, came to
the following unanswerable conclusion: If the Cientificos
are a set of unscrupulous thieves, why does General Diaz
retain them in the most important posts? Either General
Diaz is the real leader of these abominable scoundrels who
are drawing their country into the quagmire, selling it piece-
meal to foreigners, especially Americans, or General Diaz
is a doting old Creton, the slave of the Cientificos who use
him as a tool for national pillage. Be the case as it may,
it is high time the Mexican people take the supreme power
from General Diaz.
It was not the much-lauded Madero who prepared the
revolution against General Diaz, but General Diaz him-
self, with his absurd policy of allowing the officers of his
administration to be grossly calumniated for a period of
eight years. Francisco I. Madero did not prepare any-
thing. He simply stepped in audaciously to reap the fruits
of' a crop he had not even planted. He found it cut and
stacked by none other than General Diaz himself.
The Cientificos, then, represented an insatiable band of
public thieves. They were not armed thieves; neither did
they deal in peculations, falsifications or counterfeiting.
Their enemies exposed their methods. According to these
they consisted in protecting dishonest foreign enterprises,
A BOXER REVOLUTION 121
the avowed purpose of which was to plunder the Mexican
people; these mighty enterprises being dominated by the
arrogant American magnates and trusts. It is clear that if
the Cientificos were thieves who stole from the Mexican
people as the agents of foreigners above all Americans and
American companies the hatred of the Cientificos naturally
included the American colony in Mexico and the United
States Government, and prepared the way for the moral,
and later, the material rupture with the United States.
CHARGES AGAINST THE DIAZ ADMINISTRATION
I am going to give a list of the charges which the real
revolutionists, led by General Bernardo Reyes, prepared for
the consideration of the Mexican people.
I should like, however, to say that I do not hold myself
responsible for the accuracy of these charges. For the pres-
ent, I neither approve nor contest; I limit myself to saying
that some are false; others simply absurd; others grossly
exaggerated; others demonstrate a wrong interpretation
from lack of proper understanding; some are true.
Charges against the Diaz Administration:
First Having sold half of Lower California for a mere
pittance to Mr. Louis Huller, of German extraction and
a naturalized American citizen, who passed it on to an
American colonizing enterprise. El Nacional, a newspaper
with a wide circulation, started the campaign, causing great
alarm. It held that Lower California would follow the
fate of Texas from the moment that the same methods of
turpitude and treason were employed against the Mexican
people.
Second The Government was accused of having given
its consent to changes effected in the Mining Code, includ-
ing the clause which assigns to the owner of the land the
122 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
coal deposits that may be found upon it, for no other rea-
son than that of enriching the grantees of unclaimed lands
in the state of Coahuila, who had acquired the Sabina
lands for an insignificant sum with a view to selling them
to the American multi-millionaire, Huntington.
Third Having sold, for next to nothing, 3,000,000 hec-
tares of excellent lands in the state of Chihuahua to two
favorites of the Mexican Government, that they might
resell to Mr. Hearst, the celebrated millionaire, who con-
stantly conspired against the integrity of Mexican territory
so as to bring about armed intervention.
Fourth Granting concessions to foreign companies to
exploit the oil lands, among which companies the American
predominated. Granting them also exemption from export
duties on the crude or refined product, thereby depriving
the Mexican people of the only means at their command
to derive anything from the exploitation of their great
national wealth.
Fifth Notwithstanding the fact that the most scandal-
ous of all the oil concessions was that granted by the dicta-
torship to Lord Cowdray (consequently in favor of English
capital), it was well received by the patriots, until the press
began agitating the matter, saying that Lord Cowdray was
intimately associated with ex-President Taft's Administra-
tion, as his brother, Henry W. Taft, and George W. Wick-
ersham, Attorney General in the Taft Cabinet, were direc-
tors in the company organized and presided over by Lord
Cowdray.
Sixth Having permitted the Guggenheims to monopolize
almost completely the important metallurgic industry upon
which the progress of mining in the country depended. The
Guggenheims controlled the smelting plants of Monterey,
San Luis Potosi, Aguascalientes and Velardena in Durango,
and were trying to get a foothold in Pachuca & Real Del
Monte, thereby forcing the retirement of all the companies
A BOXER REVOLUTION 123
that had sunk a great amount of capital in smelters and
mining ventures.
Seventh The granting to Colonel Greene, an American
citizen, of enormous concessions in the copper lands of the
state of Sonora, upon which he had established the famous
Cananea plant, where the four thousand employees were
treated like slaves, and with such inhumanity that there
was an uprising among them, with the result that armed
men from the United States passed into Mexican territory
to protect the American oppressors. The national press
stigmatized Governor Izabel of Sonora as a traitor to his
country for not having ejected the insolent intruders by
force of arms.
Eighth Having permitted the United States Ambas-
sador, Mr. Thompson, to enter the business field in Mexico,
something that would not have been tolerated in any other
country, and having granted him personal concessions by
means of which he organized The United States Banking
Company and The Pan-American Railroad.
Ninth The permission given by General Diaz to the
United States Ambassador, Mr. Powell Clayton, to appear
every afternoon at the National Palace with a list of recom-
mendations for private American affairs, in order that they
might be approved immediately by the administrative and
judicial authorities in favor of the interested parties, even
when the requests constituted an infamous injustice to the
rights of the Mexican people.
Tenth The arrangement by the law office of the noted
Cientifico, Senor Joaquin Casasus, of the scandalous con-
cessions in the rubber lands granted to the American multi-
millionaires, John Rockefeller and Nelson Aldrich, which
caused the ruin of a great number of poor towns in the
state of Durango.
Eleventh The verbal arrangement between Senor Li-
mantour, the leader of the Cientificos, and Mr. Mallet-
124 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Prevost, lawyer of the Tlahualilo Company, of an agree-
ment which ruined the river-bank-dwellers, both great and
small, of the Nazas River in the cotton region of the
"Laguna," who were for the most part Mexicans; and,
moreover, the grant of several millions indemnity to the
Tlahualilo Company for damages caused by it to the river-
bank-dwellers of the Nazas through a colonization contract,
which had lapsed under the provision of the law because
of non-fulfillment, and which was null, besides, because it
was unconstitutional, as Senor Limantour had acted without
the necessary faculties, because it did not come within the
province of the Treasury Department to settle matters of
this nature. The American Ambassador, Mr. Henry Lane
Wilson, was the chief protector of the Tlahualilo enter-
prise to exploit Mexico, and went so far as to make the
absurd statement that when there was even a single Ameri-
can stockholder in a stock company, organized with stocks
to the bearer, incorporated under Mexican laws, even if his
share were only one cent, it gave the United States Govern-
ment the right to make a claim against the Mexican Gov-
ernment under the title of rights of aliens.
Even after the Secretary of Fomento, Senor Olegario
Molina, disavowed the Limantour-Mallet-Prevost agree-
ment, the inhabitants of the "Laguna" region, when they
became aware that the Cientificos protected the enterprises
that were working their ruin in order to please the United
States Ambassador, assumed a revolutionary attitude, breath-
ing hate against the Cientificos and all foreigners who sought
to steal their water and lands a hatred that later vented it-
self in the assassination of three hundred Chinamen and sev-
eral Spaniards in Torreon, with the expulsion of the latter
and the confiscation of their property.
Twelfth Having sold for an almost nominal sum, 50,-
000,000 hectares of marvellously fertile lands to twenty-
eight favorites, who made poor bargains with the foreign
A BOXER REVOLUTION 125
companies to whom they sold them, mostly Americans, as
it was the latter's ambition to buy up the country by bits
and finally realize the boasted pacific conquest.
Thirteenth Having despoiled the Yaquis, brave and in-
domitable as the Araucanians, of their magnificent lands
to hand them over to thieving bureaucrats, who wanted them
merely to sell to American investors.
The spoliation of the Yaquis brought upon Mexico a
bloody struggle of twenty years, which has served at the
same time as a school of depravity for the Federal judges,
the majority of whom dragged it out indefinitely in order to
benefit pecuniarily by the frauds.
Fourteenth Having despoiled various towns in the state
of Mexico of their magnificent wooded hills in order to favor
an American and Senor Jose Sanchez Ramos, a Spaniard,
proprietors of the paper factories of San Rafael and Anexas.
Further favor was shown these two favorites of the dictator
by allowing them to fix the rate of tariff at both the mari-
time and frontier custom houses so as totally to exclude
paper for newspapers, and, in great part, all other paper
from the national market.
Fifteenth Having conceived the gigantic operation that
gave the Mexican Government control of the great railroad
system, with no purpose in view other than that of permit-
ting the banking house of Scherer-Limantour, in combina-
tion with American railroad magnates, to buy secretly and
at a low figure the stocks of the Mexican Central, the
National, the International, the Pan-American and other
railroads, to sell them later at a great advance to the Mex-
ican Government, thus consummating a piratical financial
stroke against Mexico and the holders of Mexican railroad
stocks.
Sixteenth Consenting, after the Mexican Government
had obtained control of the American branches and fused
all into one great company called Lineas Nacionales, to the
126 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
appointment by Senor Limantour of an American, Mr.
Brown, to the important post of General Manager, and to
the assignment of all the important posts, especially those
drawing large salaries, to Americans. The revolutionary
press proclaimed as one of the great principles of popular
restitution the "Mexicanization" of the railroads, which
meant expulsion of all non-Mexican officials and employees.
Seventeenth The unceasing efforts of Senor Limantour,
finally crowned with success, to place the oldest Mexican
mining company, the Compania de Minos de Pachuca y
Real del Monte, in the hands of an American company
organized in Boston, and to having followed the same course
with the Santa Gertrudis concern. Although both com-
panies were obliged to keep the native working-men, they
could dismiss all the Mexican employees, especially the
high-salaried ones.
A storm of indignation broke loose in the Mexican mining
world against the Cientificos for having consented, for the
sake of brokerage fees and enormous gratuities, to drain the
nation of its capital by making it over to outsiders.
Eighteenth The grant by Senor Limantour of a mo-
noply to the house of Mosler, Bowen & Cook to supply all
office furniture to Government offices, as well as to Govern-
ment schools, and to supply permanently all desk requisites
for Government offices.
Nineteenth The abandonment by Senor Limantour of
his patriotic resolution not to place any of the foreign loans
with New York banks, as he had given these banks a share
in the conversion of the loans of 1899, and had placed the
entire loan of 1904, amounting to $40,000,000, with the
New York house of J. Pierpont Morgan.
Twentieth The complete prostitution of the judicial sys-
tem, which dictated that in case a foreigner was in litigation
with a Mexican the case had to be decided in favor of the
foreigner, whether he were right or wrong, without making
A BOXER REVOLUTION 127
the Mexican pay the costs; but if the foreigner were an
American, his Mexican opponent was obliged to pay the
costs of the suit.
Twenty-first Having been guilty of the servile and trai-
torous act of lending Magdalena Bay to the United States.
Twenty-second Having shown great vacillation about
fortifying the ports on the Tehuantepec Railroad.
Twenty-third Having rejected, in order not to displease
the United States, the honorable propositions of eminently
respectable Japanese houses to establish Japanese colonies in
various parts of the country, particularly on the Pacific
Coast and in Lower California.
Twenty-fourth Having neglected with culpable weak-
ness to pursue the Chamizal question to the end, which
would have put the Mexican people in the possession of the
territory upon which the city of El Paso is built, stolen
from them by the Yankees.
Twenty-fifth Having passed an immigration law in
1908 against the Japanese and Chinese, dictated by the
United States State Department, whose chief object was to
prevent the Chinese from getting into the United States
across the extensive Mexican frontier.
Twenty-sixth Having followed so degrading a policy
toward the United States that any American, however insig-
nificant or knavish he might be, felt privileged to repeat
with haughtiness Saint Paul's famous words when sentence
was passed upon him, "Civis romanus sum."
La Voz del Pueblo, a clandestine newspaper which never-
theless circulated freely in the City of Mexico with the per-
mission of the chief of police, General Felix Diaz, the dicta-
tor's nephew, said that the Mexican nation was not the
creation of General Porfirio Diaz and the Cientificos, but
simply the mistress of the United States.
When it became known in Mexico in 1910, that a Mex-
ican named Ramirez (I think that was the victim's name)
ia8 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
had been lynched in Texas, the revolutionary party organ-
ized a mass meeting, and from Ramirez they passed to Diaz
and the Cientificos, execrating them for the cowardly, trai-
torous policy by which they had robbed their country to
benefit the United States. In the riots that followed, the
agitators incited the people to set fire to the editorial office
of El Impartial, the Government organ, and if the staff had
not made a resolute effort to defend itself, obliging the
police to perform their duty, the fire would undoubtedly
have consumed the building and all the occupants would
have perished. This riot was carried out with the consent
of General Felix Diaz who, goaded by his ambition, had
betrayed his uncle and benefactor.
Dr. Lara Pardo, one of Mexico's most distinguished
writers, at present in New York, in his notable book, De
Porfirio Diaz a Francisco I. Madero, has written: "Mex-
ico, says a popular adage, is the foreigner's mother and the
Mexican's stepmother." This phrase, which not only became
a byword in Mexico but was quoted by foreign writers,
sums up in a few words the financial, administrative, interior
and exterior policy of General Diaz. And nothing can bet-
ter explain why, while from the outside decorations rained
in upon Diaz, as well as his sons, nephews, relatives and
lackeys, and he was extolled as the greatest man Latin-
America had ever produced, in his own country, and by his
own people, outside the enchanted circle that the adulation
of his favorites had created around him, he was cursed, and
the people waited with impatience the day when death should
snatch from him the supreme power, or some man, it mat-
tered not who, should rise up and dash him from those
heights where he seemed to be lost in the clouds. . . .
Only the meanest kind of a Colonial government has as
its only end the illimitable, reckless, headlong, disorganized
exploitation of the national resources to further foreign
interests at the expense, or perhaps total destruction of
A BOXER REVOLUTION 129
national progress. To this unfortunate class belonged the
government of General Diaz. This political masterpiece
never achieved anything but the facilitation of the inordinate
exploitation of the national resources for the benefit of for-
eigners, and the bridling or total extermination of national
advancement. The bureaucrats who supported the admin-
istration alone derived any benefit from it." *
Senor Rogelio Fernandez Giiell, a serious-minded man
and a dispassionate writer, late director of the National
Library of the City of Mexico and a partisan of Maderism,
says: "The foreign element, which had profited so greatly
during the dictatorship of Diaz, looked askance at Madero's
reform tendencies. Mexico during the last years of the
Porfirian Government had been transformed into an enor-
mous market to which people of all nationalities flocked to
make their fortunes, until it became a land of adventurers,
without country, religion, or family, whose god was gold and
who, like the gipsies, pitched their tents on the spot which
Mercury designated as propitious. Briefly, the Paseo de
la Reforma and the beautiful "colonias" (the new residential
suburbs) were filled with palaces where these self-made
magnates lived in oriental sumptuousness. The monopoliza-
tion of mines and lands was so wanton that it was no longer
possible to find a piece of land as big as the palm of one's
hand that did not belong to some American, German or
Spanish capitalist. Everything was auctioned or sold, and
the sons of the soil begged at the doors of the palaces of
the foreign Croesuses." 2
Senor Jose N. Macias, an unqualified Carrancista, in an
interview in 1915 with Senor Fernandez Cabrera, the editor
of El Heraldo de Cuba and a distinguished writer, said:
"It cannot be denied (the prosperity of Mexico under the
1 Lara Pardo, De Porfirio Diaz a Francisco I. Madero, p. n.
2 R. Fernandez Giiell, Episodios de la Revolution Mexicana,
p. 186.
130 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
dictatorship of Diaz), but it was a delusive greatness, the
greatness of foreign capitalists who oppressed the country
in order to multiply their resources with almost biblical
prodigality. . . ." 1
Senor Roberto V. Pesqueira, Senor Carranza's confidential
agent at Washington, said in an interview with Senor Fer-
nandez Cabrera: "Everyone is aware that the republic
of Mexico has been the field of exploitation for conscience-
less traders, who by means of money prostituted the Gov-
ernment to their own vile ends, obtaining concessions and
sinecures displeasing and irritating to the popular mind and
feeling. These foreign pirates found ready collaborators
in the moneyed and conservative classes, which preferred
the preservation and increase of their millions to the prog-
ress and honor of the country and the name of the race." 2
I have given the long list of charges against the adminis-
tration of General Diaz, collated by General Reyes who
shielded himself behind the flattery with which he attempted
to blind the dictator and by his followers. The latter
tried for eight years by every possible means to arouse the
popular class with the idea of intimidating General Diaz
and compelling him to name General Reyes as his successor.
As nothing excites the popular mind as much as the appeal
to patriotism, and as from the viewpoint of Mexican history
the United States appears as the implacable enemy of the
Mexican people, every agitator unfurls the anti-foreign ban-
ner because the popular class, whether barbarous or semi-
barbarous, is organically anti-foreign. In Mexico the suc-
cess of any agitator is assured if he turns the torrent of his
eloquence against the United States as Mexico's natural
enemy, and against the Spaniards, because of their cruelty
toward the native race and their aversion for the "liberties"
of the Mexican people in which they do not believe.
1 M. Fernandez Cabrera, Mi viaje a Mexico, pp. an, 212.
2 Idem, p. 254.
A BOXER REVOLUTION 131
Neither for that matter do any other strangers, or any of
the reasonable and prudent people of the country.
It is not easy to understand how a Mexican revolution
animated by the Boxer spirit, particularly strong against the
United States, could have enlisted the sympathies of the
American people and the decided protection of its Govern-
ment. How is this phenomenon to be explained? Further
on I shall give my impressions upon this point.
CHAPTER II
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS OF THE
REVOLUTION
THE QUARTET OF DEGENERATES
MADERO'S easy triumph over General Diaz is ex-
plained by the action of a quartet of degenerates.
Degenerate is used here in the sense of degenera-
tion ; the transformation of an upright man into a scoundrel,
or the conversion of an extraordinarily gifted man into an
imbecile, or the occurrence of both simultaneously.
Senor Limantour was the autocratic chief of the Cien-
tifico group, or, more properly speaking, of five persons of
this group, because the rest, possessing enlightened skep-
ticism, took as much account of the policy of the Cientificos
as they did of the idle gossip of the court of Alfonso XIII.
Senor Limantour proved his moral degeneracy by his pa-
triotic doctrine of the rigid enforcement of court coercion
in order to protect the interests of foreign companies and
prevent the depreciation in European markets of the stocks
of any foreign company doing business in Mexico.
He also proved his degeneracy by believing that a man
of Senor Corral's type, detested by the people and the
army, and without other support than the intellectual power
132
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 133
of four persons, who, however, were resolved not to com-
promise themselves too deeply, or to risk their skin or their
millions, could serve as the motive power to accomplish a
social and political prodigy unknown to history (carry the
election in the face of well-known unpopularity), and de-
clared to be impossible by experts and practical theorists.
If even six cells had remained intact in Sefior Limantour's
brain, it would have occurred to him to retire permanently
in 1910, taking his friends with him.
General Reyes, transformed into a "military genius" by
the press, was the pretender to the throne ever present in
dictatorial Latin-American countries who confides in the
power that lies behind the sabre. He proved his ab-
solute degeneracy by this extraordinary fact. After plan-
ning the political ruin of General Diaz for eight years, with
perversity as well as cleverness, when the hour of assured
triumph arrived, ushered in by the revolutionary events
which took place on July 26, 1909, at Guadalajara, cour-
age forsook the mighty warrior and he sought clemency at
the hands of General Diaz, who had feared him for eight
years. These two men, Diaz and Reyes, had stood in mor-
tal dread of each other for a long time, and had calmly
let the country fall into the hands of the Maderistas, not
through fear of Madero, but through fear of each other.
Senor Ramon Corral proved his complete degeneracy by
his incapacity to see that the hatred borne him by the peo-
ple and the army made his rise to power an impossibility,
especially as General Diaz through egotism did not try to
pave the way in civil circles. The majority in the Senate,
in the House, among the state governors, almost all the mem-
bers of the Supreme Court and all politicians, were his
enemies. This being the state of things it would have be-
hooved Don Ramon Corral, multi-millionaire, to take up
his permanent residence on the Island of Corfu and devote
himself to the consoling study of the Greek classics.
134 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
General Diaz, of course, led this group of degenerates.
The principal acts marking his degeneration, and greatly
contributing to the ruin of Mexico, were:
First Having given an impetus, for the sake of villify-
ing the Cientificos, to that war unto death waged by the
lowest political elements in the country against his admin-
istration undoubtedly the least corrupt and most brilliant,
from a financial point of view, in all Latin-America and
earning for it the condemnation of the people, who char-
acterized it as a cesspool dangerous to the national health.
Second Having resolved, after carrying his campaign of
vilification against the Cientificos to a successful issue, that
Don Ramon Corral the most detested politician in the en-
tire Republic should succeed as their representative to the
dictatorship, with all its machinery of oppression, degrada-
tion and injustice.
Third Having failed, after outraging public opinion
without regard to class or color because the candidacy of
Sefior Corral was looked upon with horror by all, from
the highest aristocrat to the meanest "pelado" to organize
a great national army that would have been able to drown
in blood the uprising that was everywhere foreshadowed.
Instead of following the course prompted by reason (when
popularity wanes power must be held at the point of the
bayonet), he persisted in maintaining an armed force one-
fourth the size of that which would have been required in
times of peace to keep down any popular uprising of the
guerrilla type. The size of the armed force, including both
Federal and state troops, needed to preserve peace, even
when the Government could count upon public support, was
well known in Mexico.
Fourth Having refused, even after the revolution had
burst forth, to take the proper means to defend himself, and
to spend as much money as was necessary to raise in four
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 135
months a force of thirty or forty thousand Rurales, 1 a feat
that could easily have been accomplished, and reenforced
these with thirty or forty thousand Federal troops. It may
be added that General Diaz had two and one-half years,
from the middle of 1908 to the close of 1910, in which to
prepare for the revolution that threatened him if he car-
ried out his resolution of imposing Sefior Corral upon the
unwilling people. He, moreover, had 74,000,000 pesos sil-
ver reserve fund in the Treasury, and sufficient credit in
Europe and the United States to have acquired two hun-
dred, three hundred, or more millions, with which to have
bought politicians, to have done away with revolutionists
and to have dominated the situation in true despotic style.
Mexicans, as well as foreigners, have never been able to
explain this whim of General Diaz's to make Senor
Corral Vice-President. It was not a whim; it was sheer
folly, and all real folly of a pathological nature can be ex-
plained on the basis that he who commits it is insane, the
degeneration being a more or less serious state of mental
derangement. General Diaz sought to make Senor Corral
Vice-President simply because he was the most detested
man in the country, owing to the fact that the press
applauded and sustained by General Diaz had not left
him a shred of reputation. Owing to the unbounded
egotism that takes possession of the mind of a dictator in
the last stages of degeneration, General Diaz thought it
absolutely necessary that he should continue in power not-
withstanding the unpopularity which overwhelmed him, and
which was tearing down the barricades of adulation that
were thrown up by his partisans to shield him. Every
Caesar who has reached the pinnacle of tyranny is pursued
by the shadow of his own greatness and the spectre of the
popular hatred. General Diaz thought that if he appointed
1 Rurales mounted police who kept order in the country
districts.
136 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
to the vice-presidency an honorable, intelligent, likable man
and many such were to be found in Mexico the public,
which had believed in him as the only man capable of domi-
nating the situation, would say: " 'The man who has made
a nation' is no longer necessary; he is eighty years old; he
is worn out; he ought to resign and retire to private life."
General Diaz selected Ramon Corral so that the na-
tion might exclaim: "Diaz a thousand times rather than
Corral." This is mental derangement pure and simple.
The unfortunate Mexican public found itself in 1908 in
the hands of four such degenerates. Degeneration of this
sort can be easily explained. Autocratic political power
corrupts and hardens. Sefior Limantour had been the finan-
cial autocrat for eighteen years; General Reyes had domi-
nated the states of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila for twenty-
three years; Senor Corral had been the autocrat of the
state of Sonora, exercising his power through the firm of
Torres, Corral, Izabel & Company, for twenty-six years,
and General Diaz had been the autocrat of the nation for
thirty years. The sociological aspect of these men was that
of extinct moral and deranged mental forces. Mexico was
lost!
The blame, however, is not to be laid on them alone.
There was another degenerate, the middle class, which had
been the undisputed owner of the land since 1867; the ab-
solute political arbiter of the power and destinies of the
Caesars, and the supreme controller of the army, which was
always at its beck and call, as our national history proves.
Why did this class, which detested the dictatorship, which
manifested contempt for it, which felt itself humiliated by
it, tolerate the Diaz dictatorship for thirty-three years?
With this exception, in all Latin-America in the space of
one hundred years, the longest dictatorial regime on rec-
ord is that of Sefior Jose Manuel Rosas in the Argentine,
which lasted twenty-three years.
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 137
The cause of this deplorable and cursed phenomenon was
that all the bureaucratic vices had infiltrated to the middle-
class stratum and completely corrupted it. The hour had
come when a pigmy with the point of its diminutive boot
could overthrow the colossus, apparently of bronze, which
rested majestically on its crumbling pedestal. It was the
hour prepared by fate for Francisco I. Madero.
THE IMPLACABLE AGENTS OF DESTRUCTION
Once the die had been cast by the triumphant election
of Senor Corral, effected by means of stuffed ballot boxes,
the public realized that it could still wait a while. Corral
could not assume the power during General Diaz's life-
time, and even though the dictator was eighty years old he
might easily live three, four or even the six years of the
allotted presidential term.
But this delay did not suit General Reyes. He and Gen-
eral Diaz disagreed, and he was relieved of the portfolio of
War and sent back as governor to Nuevo Leon. General
Diaz then made Limantour promise never to leave him be-
cause now more than ever he needed the support of all his
loyal friends. General Reyes, who had retired to Nuevo
Leon fuming with rage, was not one to forget a wrong; he
also knew how to wreak revenge, not in the measure of the
offense given, but in the measure of the hate to be satisfied.
Another proof of General Diaz's degeneracy was that he
did not do in 1902 what he did in 1909 send Reyes out
of the country, obliging him to remain abroad under sur-
veillance, threatened with the fate of the Emperor Iturbide
if he set foot on Mexican soil.
General Reyes, knowing the wholesome fear General Diaz
had for public opinion with its power to overthrow dicta-
tors once it reaches the fusion point, planned what was prac-
1 38 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
tically an assault on the prestige of the dictator in the pub-
lic mind. To set this in motion he cleverly organized upon
a military footing a dangerous corps of agitators.
Students may be transformed into excellent agitators and
very dangerous ones, because they enjoy a certain amount
of immunity. It is very seldom that a government would be
willing, except under extreme provocation, to stand a group
of students before a firing squad, or to have them done
away with secretly. General Reyes' son, Rodolfo Reyes,
sought and easily obtained the Chair of Constitutional Law
at the national School of Jurisprudence, with a view to con-
verting it into a hot-bed of Reyism. From the moment the
scheme was launched the younger Reyes devoted himself to
the task of corrupting the youths of the nation who were
subject to corruption, offering them public posts and en-
thusing them with this attractive program: "The country
for the young; they are the only force that can save it,
because they are noble and virtuous!"
The youth of Latin-America is at once noisy and stupid.
In society, in conformity with the laws of nature, there ex-
ists a minority for the young people, a minority for the
aged people and a majority for adults. In the state the
same ought to hold good: a minority for youths and old
men and a majority for adults. Youth, along with its other
deficiencies, is possessed of the absurd belief that the world
ought to be governed by college students or professional
men still in the infantile state of their intellectual devel-
opment. This explains why the youth of all Latin-Amer-
ica will at the polls declare a man of twenty-five acceptable
for office; declares him senile at thirty and a mummy at
forty. The proper governing age, according to them, is be-
tween fourteen and twenty-five. It is needless to say that
the success attained by Rodolfo Reyes in his attempt to
enlist their enthusiastic support for his father's prospective
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 139
presidential campaign was immense, and therein the youth
showed their degeneracy.
In Mexico Free Masonry has never been the respectable
corporation that it is in other nations. Since 1824 the in-
centive to join its ranks has been to obtain Government
posts. All the high public officials became Masons in
order to court popularity, and were obliged to give the
preference to Masons in the assignment of Government po-
sitions. They also sought under cover of their association
to transgress laws, especially in the line of peculations,
without incurring the corresponding penalty. The Masonic
program was: "The country to satiate the gluttony of the
Masons!"
Descending from this level, already quite low, Masonry
went still lower until it reached the point of having its
dignitaries act as private detectives for General Diaz, do-
ing all the dirty work that is part of a Caesarian system.
Nothing disparaged Masonry in Mexico more than this.
In 1885 a point was reached when it was considered an in-
sult for a decent person to be pointed out as a Mason. Gen-
eral Reyes determined to make the most of Masonry to
attract the lower classes urban and rural the radical, the
patriotic, and the ultra-patriotic, all believers in democracy
and easily led because their powers of credulity are inex-
haustible.
Representative Mexican society manifests toward foreign
Protestant ministers all the consideration they deserve; but
its contempt for the Mexican Protestant ministers is su-
preme. And it is not because they are not Catholics; rep-
resentative Mexican society has opened its doors to liberals
who are not Catholics. When an educated person forsakes
Catholicism in Mexico, he drifts into deism, rationalism,
positivism, atheism, or indifferentism. Consequently, when a
Mexican of the middle class becomes a Protestant minister,
society looks upon him as a hungry beggar unable to earn
140 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
his living in a more fitting way than by exploiting relig-
ion; or as a knave who, before being dragged into jail as
a pickpocket or a swindler, tries this as a last resort to keep
his social standing. In representative Mexican society, which
comprises a great part of the three principal social classes,
the wife of a Mexican Protestant minister is looked upon as
a sacrilegious concubine, and is not received anywhere. The
Mexican Protestant ministers, feeling themselves despised
by society, reply with hatred and vow revenge. The prin-
cipal form of vengeance is, first and foremost, to attack per-
sonal property rights, or in other words, to attack the rich,
or those who on account of their high salaries and honora-
ria can be considered rich, and, in general, all those who
are not to be found in the lowest stratum of society. The
Reyistas with their usual cunning won the Mexican
Protestant ministers, offering them the friendship and pro-
tection of General Reyes.
The dictatorship established a Normal School to train
teachers for the primary, grammar and high school grades.
The Normal School students were obliged to study sev-
eral years and obtained as a recompense miserable salaries as
school teachers, and the relentless disdain of society, good
and bad. It refused to give the school teacher, trained in
the Normal School, the same social rank granted to a law-
yer, doctor, engineer, clergyman or broker of good stand-
ing. The general public, and in this is comprised the best
society, including the intellectuals, see in the schoolmaster
the comic and inoffensive dominie of the Spanish one-act
farce. And when a schoolmaster is introduced as a grad-
uate of the Normal School, that is, as a man who has stud-
ied several years to obtain an honorable title, the following
remark is usually heard: "This poor man must be exceed-
ingly stupid to have burned the midnight oil studying so
many years to obtain a salary little more, or even less, than
that of a street-car conductor."
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 141
The Normal School teachers naturally resented this atti-
tude and declared themselves the enemies of society; that is,
radical reformers of the rotten social system, which, accord-
ing to them, can only be remedied by socialism or anarchism.
General Diaz's motto, "No politics, all government,"
robbed serious political newspaper articles of their impor-
tance, because all being of necessity partisans of the Gov-
ernment and busy paying court to their master, no one
deigned to read them, and the newspapers confined them-
selves merely to news items. The most influential persons,
therefore, in the newspaper world were the reporters.
Among these were to be found many estimable and hon-
orable persons, but the majority bore the reputation of be-
longing to one of the most corrupt of all the fraternities.
The reporter, of course, knew the public sentiment and felt
the scorn manifested toward him on account of his generally
dishonest and shameful conduct. This being the case, he
also took his place in the ranks of the declared enemies of
society, enlisting under the red banner of socialism and
anarchism; two culminating points where a declared enemy
of the ancient order of things can accomplish only ruin and
destruction.
The defenders of the criminal class before popular juries
constituted another fraternity to be feared. These criminal
advocates turned the courts into schools of oratory in order
to increase their prestige in the eyes of the dictatorship and
in those of the opposing attorneys. The Latin advocate has
two favorite pleas: First, momentary insanity or a heredity
taint. The culprit's father or some of his ancestors were
dipsomaniacs, lunatics, maniacs, epileptics, and hysterical
tendencies manifested themselves in the female line; there-
fore, according to modern ethical doctrines, responsibility
did not exist. Second, the theories of Jean Jacques Rousseau :
all men are born pure, virtuous, upright; it is society which
142 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
oppresses them, robs them, reduces them to extremest misery
and finally kills them through neglect and disregard for their
suffering. Consequently, it is not the accused who is the as-
sassin; it is society, and it is society which ought to be sent
to the gallows. The accused ought to be acquitted at once,
and the Government would be benefited by granting him
an annuity and assigning him a retreat to which he could
retire to study undisturbed the problems for social reform.
The lower bureaucracy always detested the higher; and
in a dictatorship such as that of General Diaz, where the
veterans had converted the Government offices into asylums,
hospitals and even luxurious sanatoria, the hatred of the
lower bureaucracies for the higher had assumed unheard-of
proportions. The lower bureaucracy was not socialistic, but
it wanted a new order of things through the intervention of
any national liberator, it mattered not who, so long as the
lower bureaucracy was actually relieved of the host of de-
crepits that weighed it down.
Feminism has penetrated into Mexico as an auxiliary dis-
turbing force. It is well known that in Latin countries it
is only the unattractive women, despairing widows, and
indigent spinsters, when they are susceptible to hysterical
emotions, who consecrate themselves to the social cause. A
woman, well or only moderately well educated, gifted with
great or medium talents, poor, unattractive, old, or
merely soured, is a great social peril if her energies are not
diverted into religious and charitable channels. These re-
forming women are the generators of a hatred against society
more dangerous than that fulminated by a Barcelona anar-
chist. In Mexico there are beautiful, handsome, delicate
and admirable women, but they are in the minority. In gen-
eral, as is the case everywhere, the unattractive and indigent
predominate, and as the dictatorship did much toward edu-
cating them, it armed an implacable and stupendous host of
adversaries.
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 143
The different battalions of this terrible army of agitators
operated, according to the statutes of their institution, in the
following manner:
The proletarian student body, an imposing fraternity in
Latin-America, instead of aspiring to march in the foreranks
of the army of scientific progress, believes that it ought to be
the vanguard of the most advanced ideas, be they what they
may, true or false. Consequently, the student body chooses
to affiliate itself with socialists and anarchists. It believes
that it is its duty to espouse the cause of patriotism, and as
patriotism in Latin-America means a rabid anti-foreign senti-
ment, it is obliged to assume a Boxer attitude. It holds that
it is the duty of youth to sacrifice itself for its ideals, and fol-
lowing this precept it is always to be found at the head of
riots and in all popular anti-social demonstrations.
The Masons according to the Mexican rite are bound
to propagate anti-militarism, anti-Catholicism, anti-despotism
and anti-anarchism.
The Mexican Protestant ministers, fulfilling their duties
according to the general trend of ideas, must work against
Catholicism and for the spiritual and temporal good of the
people; and they have discovered that the temporal good of
the people, composed almost entirely of proletarians, can only
be obtained by the extermination of the landowners.
The teachers, trained in the Normal Schools, are preachers
of the doctrine:' "Society can be regenerated only through
the school." This means that they are the regenerators and
that the reins of government should be handed over to them
so that the measures outlined by the proletarian school for
the solution of the Mexican "social question" the enrich-
ment of the poor from the purse of the rich may be carried
out.
The defenders of the poor in the criminal courts are
bound, with the "social question" in view, to defend them
144 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
even more strenuously, and the defense always calls for the
spoliation of the rich in favor of the poor.
The lower bureaucracy always had a grievance because
of the deplorable state of the public service, owing to the
lack of change both among the old and the middle-aged em-
ployees who had fastened themselves like leeches upon the
best Government posts. If the "social question," as it is
presented by the press, could be solved by collective social-
ism, the Government posts would undoubtedly grow in im-
portance by increasing the number of employees, because
then even domestic positions would have to be held by Gov-
ernment employees.
The journalistic class represented by the reporters can-
not have ideals, because they occupy the position of chefs,
obliged to prepare the dishes craved by the palate of the
master of the day.
Mexican feminists are intelligent and, therefore, do not
want the ballot; They know that it is a farce in the hands
of the men, and that it would only be made a thousand times
worse if women participated. Mexican feminism is inter-
ested in the "social question" because it has outlined a more
serious program, the monopolization of all the Government
offices, basing their ambition on the fact that men are being
needed in Mexico to work the rich mines, till the marvellous
warm lands, run the splendid factories of our nascent in-
dustries, speed the locomotives of our railroads, man the
merchant marine to be established and the navy to be
built, and, above all, develop the indispensable aviation
corps which is the ever-open, far-seeing eye of the army.
Mexican feminism is interested in the social question be-
cause it has far-reaching reforms to propose, not yet given
to the world; the time is not yet ripe.
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 145
PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE NOBILITY OF THE PEOPLE'S
IDEALS
Needless to say, the professed ideals of the group of agi-
tators are lies; the cloak that conceals their real ideals.
The first great lie is their claim to patriotism. Mexican
history has proved that in our political class there have been
individuals who have shone for their exalted patriotism, and
have been admired for their bravery and their disregard for
personal safety and their disinterestedness as to personal
gain. But the patriotism of the majority has been what the
author of Notes on the War Between Mexico and the
United States has called it vociferous clamor. The po-
litical class in general did not display anything but coward-
ice, egotism, prostituted patriotism and excellent dispositions
to betray its country once a week, or once a day, if necessary
in the war against the United States in April, 1914, any
more than in the war against the Spanish expedition of Bar-
radas in 1828; in the Texan war against the American
settlers in 1836; in the war against the French in 1838; in
the war against the Americans in 1847, and in the war
against the French in 1862 and the years that followed.
Foppa, the Argentenian journalist, perceiving this canker
growing on our social body, says: "And the Yankee . . .
the Yankee they loathe. Generals are still alive who remem-
ber 1847; but, notwithstanding this loathing, they do not
hesitate to seek constantly the support, the munitions, the
funds, the friendship and the protection of the Yankees. . . .
They are revolutionists, they say ; they are Mexicans, say I."
The anti-foreign spirit has mortally wounded the hearts
of our agitators without ennobling their patriotism.
When General Forey entered the capital in June, 1862,
the bureaucratic class flocked around him seeking positions
with the same enthusiasm they had manifested toward Santa
146 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Ana, Miramon and Juarez. When Maximilian established
himself as Emperor of Mexico, Juarez was forsaken and
remained almost alone at El Paso. In Mexico only a few
heroic men upheld him. The aristocratic class has shown
patriotism only when it has been a question of fighting
Americans. It was the aristocrats who brought the French
to Mexico, and at the present time they must acknowledge,
whether they relish it or not, that the only thing they
crave is a sabre, national or foreign, which will guarantee
the security of life and property.
Patriotism, sincere and energetic, tenacious and admirable,
exists in the majority of the common popular class, the
lower urban class, and in a very restricted section of the
political class. With regard to the Indians it is difficult to
say, because they received the Archduke Maximilian with
extraordinary enthusiasm and with the mystic attitude they
might have assumed toward a promised Messiah.
The truth is that the main ideal of the agitators, and of all
who hated the Cientificos, was vengeance. The army sought
to take vengeance on all civilians, because they wanted to
throw off the unsupportable yoke of militarism which they
had borne for one hundred years. It wished to take ven-
geance on the Cientificos, because Limantour did not let it
steal promiscuously, something they had been accustomed to
do since the birth of the Mexican nation. It wanted, more-
over, to take vengeance on the Cientificos, because they op-
posed the extension of militarism, which was eager to realize
the maxim: "The government of the people, by the army and
for the army."
The planters wanted to take vengeance on the Cientificos,
because, with the promulgation of the banking laws of 1908,
their virtual robbing of the banks ceased.
Illegitimate commerce, which was extensive, wanted to
take vengeance on the Cientificos, because Limentour had re-
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 147
lentlessly persecuted smuggling and had raised the morale
of the administration to a standard that reduced this form of
fraud against the state to a tolerable minimum. Legitimate
commerce wanted to take vengeance on the Cientificos be-
cause they controlled the banks, and undertook unfair and
ill-advised operations.
The working-men wanted to take vengeance on the Cien-
tificos, because Limantour had energetically opposed the
Government's placing itself before the world in the light of
favoring the anti-economic measure of fixing a minimum
wage, which threatened to be the ruin of capital.
The cotton weavers wanted to take vengeance on the Cien-
tificos, because they opposed the raising of the protective rate
of tariff to a degree where protection would be extortion.
The Masons wanted to take vengeance on the Cientificos,
because not one of them would ever join the society. They
violently resented that the secret societies should pretend to
govern, and they opposed the defrauding of the national
treasury by granting lucrative positions and business oppor-
tunities to the Masonic chiefs.
The Mexican Protestant ministers wanted to take ven-
geance on the Cientificos, because Limantour not on ac-
count of their Protestantism, but because they bore the
reputation of being rascals had never given them places in
the public administrative offices, which they attempted to
secure in every imaginable way, so as to be able to steal in
whatever manner they could devise.
The school teachers wanted to take vengeance on the Cien-
tificos, because Limantour opposed the increase of their sal-
aries, and the appropriation of five or six million pesos an-
nually for rural schools.
The newspaper men wanted to take vengeance on the
Cientificos, because Limantour would never employ them,
even when they frequently offered their services for a set
price, and because he refused to subsidize newspapers.
148 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The feminist element wanted to take vengeance on Li-
mantour, because he had closed the door of the Treasury
Department to women.
These were the main points, and they worked with sav-
age energy to create the present appalling political and social
upheaval. The following facts were patent: All Mex-
icans believed Mexico to be the richest country in the world ;
the middle class had suffered inordinately from hunger, from
the time of the Declaration of Independence up to the Diaz
administration; the public revenues had quintupled; the
public receipts each year exceeded the disbursements; the
reserve fund in the Treasury amounted to 84,00x3,000 pesos ;
Mexican credit ranked high in European and American
markets. If during the eighty years of Mexico's national
life the middle class, striving to live entirely off the govern-
ment and enrich itself thereby, had not been able to steal,
when it became an established fact that there was much to
steal, the lust for personal gain by means of defrauding the
bureaucracy rose to fever heat.
On the other hand, to a Latin-American of the middle
class the greatest offense that can be offered him greater
than taking his wife from him, violating his daughter, or
disfiguring his face with sulphuric acid is to have one of
his friends amass a fortune. This is not to be endured. The
heart of the one to whom this affront has been offered is
consumed by a white-heat envy, molten lead coursing
through his veins instead of blood.
If the wealth has been acquired by means of defrauding
the public, which in our decadent social system does not
constitute a stigma, then envy is capable of transforming the
injured one from a lamb into a lion, from a weakling into
an athlete, from an arrant coward into a legendary hero,
from a self-seeking egotist into a sublime patriot, so long as
it gives him an opportunity to take vengeance on his former
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 149
friend, and at the same time to defraud his country for his
own benefit, even to the point of surpassing the rapacity of
the first offender.
The members of the bureaucratic middle class were in-
telligent enough to be able to judge to what point the Cien-
tificos were culpable, and to gauge the exact measure of
Profirian corruption ; but, as they were the victims of that de-
testable vice of envy, which blinds reason and corrupts the
heart, they accepted as mathematically proved facts the asser-
tions of the agitators to the effect that the Cientificos formed
a political party, and that every member of that party was
receiving not less than 1,000,000 pesos per month or per
year, as the case might be, for his share of the work of the
association. The effect of this belief was deplorable. In all
the homes of bureaucrats, mothers, aunts, wives, sons and
daughters, servants and friends advised the head of the house
to "do business" with the Government; if he were an em-
ployee, even more so. "Doing business" with the govern-
ment meant, of course, stealing. It was advised to take
everything on contract, from laying fifty thousand kilometers
of railroad to removing the trash from public offices, all to
be manipulated so as to redound to the personal benefit of
the contractor. If it was not possible to obtain contracts,
the judges ought to sell sentences; the court secretaries, the
papers bearing on the case; the clerks, the public trust; the
chiefs of departments, the office furnishings, the hospital sup-
plies, the prison food, the arms and ammunition of arsenals;
they should rob the troops of their pay; impose fines upon
all; sell justice under every form; sell police vigilance, whole-
sale and retail; steal even the inkstands, pencils, paper, type-
writers and typewriter ribbons in a word, everything that
could be taken ought to be taken, however low and un-
ethical the means employed to accomplish it might be.
It was even noised about the streets, in the cafes, in the
theatres, in church sacristies, in public and private gather-
150 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ings, at the funeral obsequies of friends. "Steal or you will
be condemned ; steal or you will be an unworthy father, un-
worthy son, unworthy husband, unworthy citizen, unworthy
friend, unworthy man and even an unworthy beast," was
the universal cry. The passion for stealing was so ingrained
that it became the life and soul, the warm, coursing blood,
the master passion of the nation. The revolution, without
the revolutionists or the bureaucratic class itself so bare-
facedly revolutionary being aware of it, had already found
its immortal principles: "Vengeance and pillage."
Vengeance was vowed, above all, against the Cientificos,
because as a whole they were, first and foremost, men of
superior calibre. The fool tolerates, admires or loves the su-
perior man; the mediocre intelligence detests him more than
the insolent aristocrat, more than the egotistical, prostituted
man of wealth, more than its own misery, more than all its
mortal enemies put together. The hatred of the mediocre
intellectual class for the superior men knew no bounds. It
was characterized by a bestial ferocity which can only be
qualified as that which springs from a mediocre ambition
that has been thwarted. Needless to say the "social ques-
tion" was the "personal question" so far as the agitators
were concerned. The proletarian "I," vicious and insig-
nificant, would rapidly be converted into the multi-million-
aire "I," transformed by adulation into a respectable per-
sonage. Such was the problem that the educated, intelligent
contingent had to solve at the cost of the civilization and
life of the Mexican people.
Unfortunately for Mexico, and, perhaps, for the United
States, out of the 1,600,000,000 beings who inhabit the
globe, there was one, President Wilson, capable of believing
in the "most noble ideals of the Mexican people," which in
reality were nothing more than the infamous ideals of a
band of kid-gloved, frock-coated thieves.
President Wilson was touched by these "most noble ideals,"
THE MORAL UPHEAVALS 151
and, forgetting that he had been placed in his exalted posi-
tion to procure, within the limits of his legitimate field of
action, the welfare and prosperity of the people of the United
States, turned away from his duty to put himself at the head
of the Mexican revolution in company of persons who can
in no wise add to his prestige.
CHAPTER III
MADERISM
THE MORE THAN SHAMEFUL FALL OF THE COLOSSUS
IT may be urged that in all civilized countries there exist
agitators of the anti-social type as capable of harm and
as much to be feared as those who operate in Mexico.
It is true, but the Mexican people are not yet civilized, espe-
cially from the middle class downward. Civilized nations
possess sufficient popular, traditional, intellectual and moral
conservative elements to allow them to grant liberties to the
classes that aspire to reform the social order. Even so,
nations as civilized as France have found themselves in dan-
ger of being submerged. Dictatorships are necessary in
countries where, as is the case in Mexico, there is no other
traditional, conservative element but the Church, with still a
considerable remnant of influence; the army, which once
corrupted has no influence for good, and the immobility of
the rural masses because of their illiteracy, which prevents
agitators from putting themselves into contact with them.
Mexico's misfortune was that it should have occurred to
General Diaz during the years of his degeneracy to con-
trive to destroy all the powerful repressive and governing
elements that a dictatorship should possess, and to hand
over his person, his government and society to the infernal
power of agitators to whom more liberties were allowed
than in the most civilized free countries.
The famous Creelman conference took place in 1907,
152
MADERISM 153
and after that in fact, because of it General Diaz gave
permission for everything to be freely and indiscriminately
attacked: Social order, natural order, divine order, every-
thing which up to then had been respectable and respected,
except his person, which was no longer respected, and which
could lay no claim to being respected. Everything could be
proclaimed and upheld: Jacobinism, scoundrelism, social-
ism, anarchism, criminalism, bestialism, so long as "reelec-
tionism" were admitted and tolerated. General Diaz never
took into account that the three years' preparatory campaign
against the peace and civilization of Mexico, 1908 to 1910,
had pulverized the foundations of the dictatorship.
Opposite General Diaz stood that other abnormal degen-
erate, General Reyes, the leader of a crusade aimed at the
very heart of his country. As a society or as a nation it
was doomed to perish, since it was at the mercy of such a
mad, insane policy. Reyes did not consider that he was
undermining the foundations of the building he wished to
inhabit ; neither did his son, the leader of the agitation, stop
to consider that it was his father's grave he was digging,
either as a man or as a politician, but in any event the grave
of the Mexican people.
The army could have saved the situation had it not also
utterly degenerated. This was proved by its failure to over-
throw General Diaz in 1902, as was its manifest duty. In
Latin-America the army has a double salutary office: First,
to end quickly by means of force anarchistic tendencies that
are destroying the country. Second, to put an end to dicta-
torships which, once degenerated, ought to be inexorably de-
stroyed in order to prevent two evils: those proceeding from
a decadent dictatorship, and the inevitable social anarchy
that would result if the army did not at the proper moment
overthrow the dictator, thus making room for another who
would assume the power. He would always be better than
the overthrown dictator, because nothing can be more harm-
154 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ful to a nation than to be at the mercy of a man in the last
stages of cerebral derangement.
General Reyes proved his degeneracy in July, 1909.
After the people of Guadalajara, including all classes of
society, had risen against the dictatorship, the nation
acclaimed him as its savior; the younger element of the
army bowed to him; the conservatives accepted him as the
"man of iron," and even the partisans of democracy upheld
him, as the phrase of the demagogue Camilo Arriaga attests:
"Any one but Diaz, even Reyes." Nevertheless, the much-
lauded governor of Nuevo Leon failed to put himself at the
head of the movement which was backed by all society, their
support originating in great part in the eight years' Reyista
campaign against General Diaz. At this crucial moment
Reyes abandoned his post, bowed to the orders of the dic-
tator, submitted to being sent into exile, and to the be-
trayal of his friends. The revolution, which already had
the moral and physical support of the nation, was left with-
out a leader, cast out into the open, to be marshalled into
order and led into action by the first one who happened to
come along. It mattered not who this might be, provided
he possessed what the army lacked, courage and audacity.
It was Francisco Madero who casually passed by and pos-
sessed himself of the revolution, or more properly speaking,
the revolution possessed itself of him, for never at the time,
or afterwards, did Madero comprehend the revolution.
The revolution began in Chihuahua and was organized
by Senor Abraham Gonzalez, who in my presence concurred
in what was generally known in Mexico that he initiated
the revolution, not out of hatred for Diaz, but through
hatred of the Terrazas family, represented by the govern-
ment of Don Enrique Creel. Dr. Campa, in his work on
the revolution in Chihuahua, has proved what every resi-
dent of Chihuahua says, that Pascual Orozco threw himself
into the revolution because of hatred of Governor Creel,
MADERISM 155
who was the protector of the Chavez family. It was one
of the principal families of the town of Santa Isabel, and
was hated by Orozco. The brilliant Chihuahua leader,
Salido, took up arms because of hatred of the Terrazas
family, who were the protectors of Zea, the mayor of
Cuidad Guerrero, whom Salido cordially hated. Jose M.
Maytorena organized the revolution in Sonora because of
personal hatred of Don Ramon Corral. In Sinaloa the revo-
lution headed by Juan Banderas was inspired by hatred of
the Redo family. In the "Laguna" region in the states of
Durango and Caohuila, the leaders who fomented the revo-
lution did so out of hatred of the Carzagalanista circle,
which had obtained control there. In Morelos, Zapata had
taken up arms because of personal hatred of the mayor of
Yautepec, who had forcibly obliged him to serve in the
Federal army. With the exception of Madero, we find
nothing patriotic, nothing civilized, nothing elevated in the
motives that actuated the revolutionary leaders of 1910, who
were not bandits. Everything was hatred because of injured
interests or wounded self love, or offenses of a personal
nature.
I have pointed out that notwithstanding the fact that
General Diaz possessed formidable means by which he could
have smothered the revolution so openly flaunted in his face
in 1908, he offered but feeble resistance to Madero, leading
to his own fall and to what has proved to be the destruction
of civilization in Mexico.
WHO TRIUMPHED IN THE MADERO REVOLUTION OF
After the convention of Ciudad Juarez, which put the
power indirectly into the hands of Madero, the Maderista
press announced that the people had triumphed. This was
not a fact. A people can only be said to triumph when
it is capable of self-government; otherwise the one who tri-
156 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
umphs is its tacit or actual representative. In Latin-America
this, without exception, is the disloyal leader, the tyrant who
calmly says: "Step down, that I may step up." The only
benefit derived by a servile people from a revolution is a
change of despots, never a new form of government.
In 1911 the material victory had been won by the leaders
of the popular or sub-popular class, some of them reputable
persons, others bandits. Among these may be mentioned
Pascual Orozco, Villa, Urbina, Rodriguez, Amado Macias,
Triana, Banderas, Iturbe, Calles, Alvarado, Cabral, Candido
Navarro, the Zapatas, Salgado, Figueroa, Zamudio, and
many others of lesser importance. A Venezuelan President,
speaking of our burlesque democracies, said that in dicta-
torial Latin-America the only serious feature about them is
that by right of might they belong to the strong.
In Mexico, so far as the revolution is concerned, this bit-
ter truth has been realized. The winner of the victory is
the master of the situation, and Mexico had fallen from the
feeble, tremulous grasp of General Diaz under the hoofs of
the horses of ranchmen, cowboys and bandits in the north, and
in the south into the clutches of a barbarous or semi-savage
horde. Fortunately for the Mexican public the revolutionary
press, with its illimitable power of suggestion over the minds
of a credulous people, aiming to obliterate General Diaz's
formidable personality, managed to pass Madero off as the
saving hero, transforming him into a veritable idol in the
eyes of the people. This crusade of fanaticism was carried
to such a point that it was impossible to create among the
masses, rural or urban, an enthusiasm for any deserving
revolutionary leader equal to that felt for the defied figure
of Madero. He was the only jEon of the gnostics of Mex-
ican democracy. The work of the press was bound to be
ephemeral. Every revolutionary press that has forged an
idol is fated to be the one to demolish it, and the counter-
feited portrait of Madero as a Herculean reformer was
MADERISM 157
destined to be shortly annihilated by the same press that
had created him the superior of all other Mexican public
men.
The triumph of Madero revealed the nation's misleading
position. The Federal army, although it fought with brav-
ery and discipline in 1910 and 1911, was routed and hu-
miliated. Notwithstanding its reduced numbers, it might
have conquered Madero and put an end to the revolution in
Chihuahua. Its failure to do so proves its inefficiency, and
in this light its failure must be attributed to its advanced
state of degeneration.
The second fact is more significant and more deplorable.
In our famous War of Reform, bloody and destructive in
the extreme, the liberal leaders were almost all professional
men of the middle class. Their only contribution to the
existing national army was raw recruits and mobs. They
suffered terrible defeats with fortitude, and carried on the
struggle heroically until they were able to organize armies
and to dominate reactionaries, justly acquiring fame for
their bravery, intrepidity, constancy and resistance in an
utterly exhausting campaign of three years, fought in the
midst of want and misery. Their names deserve to be men-
tioned: Generalisimo Santos Degollado; Generales Ignacio
de la Llave, Pedro Ogazon, Miguel Blanco, Esteban Coro-
nado, Juan Zuazua, Maunel Doblado and Generalisimo J.
Gonzalez Ortega, who by a series of brilliant victories won
the cause for the liberal party. To the names of these pa-
triots, all of whom were lawyers, should be added those
of Manuel Gutierrez Zamora, a merchant, and Santiago
Vidaurri, a Government bureaucrat. Such were the great
fighters of our immortal three years' war.
In the Madero revolution we do not find a single lawyer
converted into a hero by military feats, or as the leader of
any important or unimportant detachment. One or two
young attorneys were to be found attached to the person of
158 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Madero, carefully hugging the rear, and the only profes-
sionals engaged in the struggle, Hay, Gonzalez Garza and
Fuentes D., never held important commands. The lawyer,
Jose Maytorena, and the engineer, Manuel Sonilla, watched
the bull-fight from behind the fence in the capacity of civil-
ians. From a sociological point of view this proves that the
middle class, with a few exceptions, was lost to shame or
bravery or to both and, consequently, was no longer en-
titled to the right to govern. The governing class should
possess strength enough to be the fighting class, or to trans-
form itself into it should occasion demand. A people is
truly sovereign only when it knows how to discharge mili-
tary duties, taking up arms for the defense of its legitimate
rights according to ethical principles, which are nothing more
than the principles of true militarism. The Madero revolu-
tion revealed the deplorable fact that the middle class had
lost control of the country, and that it must henceforth
belong to those who possessed the greatest military strength.
If Mexico fell into the hands of two hundred thousand
bandits, it was not because of the decrees of moral law, the
law of civilization or constitutional law, but of the natural
law, which, all theories of jurists to the contrary notwith-
standing, gives dominion to the strong over the weak. Since
the triumph of the Madero revolution the educated middle-
class man, honest or dishonest, is destined to live as a
courtier, a bawd, a lackey, or as the private secretary of the
leading bandit chief of the popular or sub-popular class, who
cannot feel anything but well-merited contempt for them.
No one noticed the change wrought by the Madero revo-
lution. The real revolutionists who had spent eight years
in working out their plans and preparing their campaign,
and those who had recently joined the ranks, expected that
Madero would endorse their great principles, "vengeance
and pillage" vengeance against the Cientificos, even to
picking their bones with the greedy rapacity of vultures.
MADERISM 159
MADERO THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONIST
When Madero triumphed, the student body expected that
the Government would be handed over to them in virtue
of their prerogative as the enlightened youth of the nation.
'Madero, however, resolved to govern with the help of use-
ful, patriotic persons, whether young, middle-aged or old.
The Mexican Masons approached Madero, but he drew
away with repugnance. He was a spiritist, although his
family was sincerely Catholic. Among the male members
of the family were to be found liberals of the advanced
type, who professed the most profound contempt for the
Masonic fraternity, whose history in Mexico has been de-
grading and shameful.
Neither did the Mexican Protestant ministers meet with
a warm reception. Madero advised them, since the law of
the land forbade clergymen of any denomination whatsoever
to enter the political field, to devote themselves to their
spiritual functions; and told them that, if in order to seek
political offices they should cast aside their clerical garb and
office, they would declare themselves unprincipled rascals
whose only object could be exploitation for personal benefit.
The criminal lawyers noted from the first that Madero
received them coldly, and in a toast "The Apostle," as
Madero was called, was heard to say that these very advo-
cates were society's most dangerous enemies. For the femin-
ists, seekers of Government employment, Madero had no use.
He never hesitated to proclaim his dislike for intriguing po-
litical women. In an absolute and final manner Madero an-
nounced that he would not subsidize newspapers to eulogize
him, neither would he buy up newspapers. The Nueva Era
was established with private capital. The state bureau-
cracies, which at the last moment betrayed the dictator in
order to pounce upon the Federal posts, were slighted by
160 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Madero, who expressed his determination to keep in office
all the honest and capable employees of his predecessor's
administration. The members of the lower bureaucracy,
which had aspired to cast out the higher, were advised to
maintain an attitude of circumspection and respect toward
their superiors under pain of dismissal.
Great was the disappointment everywhere with regard
to the vengeance every one had expected to wreak on the
Cientificos. It appeared that Senor Limantour, before being
made Secretary of the Treasury, had been attorney for the
Madero family when "the Apostle's" grandfather, Senor
Evaristo Madero, a highly gifted man who amassed a great
fortune, had been its head. The Maderos thought very,
highly of Senor Limantour, understood the worth of his
financial policy and moralistic campaign, and Senor Ernesto
QVIadero, who succeeded Limantour in the Treasury Depart-
ment, determined to preserve the personnel of the department
and the financial and administrative methods of his prede-
cessor. The Maderos had always looked with disfavor upon
the calumnies that had been circulated by the enemies of
the Cientificos without, however, losing sight of the fact
that there were two or three who had a good deal to answer
for. The new Secretary of the Treasury judged rightly
that it was not possible to govern without the decided sup-
port of the national and foreign capitalist, especially in a
country that urgently needed foreign capital to develop it.
The demand of the genuine revolutionist was that Madero
should govern with the help of the mob and the kid-gloved
rascals. But all the working elements of the revolution
soon felt that in Maderism, as it had unfolded itself, it
would be impossible for them to prosper or even live.
Madero was noble, generous, civilized, worthy to hold the
place he occupied because he repulsed with horror all rancor,
all recourse to vengeance or rascality as helps to government.
It is not true that the Cientificos started the revolt against
MADERISM 161
Madero with the purpose of overthrowing him. On the con-
trary, they were always grateful to him and never conspired
against his government. I speak of the true Cientificos,
who dissolved in 1911, each one at liberty to do what he
might think best. The element that overthrew Madero
was the military, led by General Reyes and General Felix
Diaz, both of whom hated the Cientificos. In the event of
their triumph the Cientificos could have expected nothing
but the most incessant and implacable vengeance, ending in
their annihilation. It is stupidity or absolute want of good
faith to believe that the Cientificos could have supported the
insurrection against Madero in order to raise Reyes to
power.
From the first days of his great victories and before
assuming the presidency, Madero had tranquilized society,
alarmed by the triumph of the rabble, assuring them that
they had nothing to fear, as he was determined to respect
all the personal guarantees granted by the Federal Consti-
tution of 1857, tne reestablishment of which he had pro-
claimed. The socialists, anarchists and reformers, who based
their projects upon modifications or utter destruction of the
social regime, which rests upon the inviolability of private
property, were white with rage against Madero and de-
nounced him as a traitor to the principles of the revolution.
Public stealing, the other revolutionary ideal, was not
countenanced by Madero. The truth must be told. Ma-
dero was an upright President a:cd did what he could, within
the limited range of his political and administrative knowl-
edge, to abolish public stealing.
Fifteen days after his triumph Madero was already dis-
liked or hated in all revolutionary circles, proving that the
actual ideals of the revolutionists were contrary to the prin-
ciples they professed: honesty, kindness and justice.
1 62 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
THE ONLY ROAD OPEN TO MADERO
Before assuming the reins of government in October, 1911,
Senor Madero asked my opinion of his administrative pro-
gram. I shall transcribe faithfully my reply, vouching for
the absolute truthfulness of my words.
"Senor Madero, you are not, nor can you ever be, the
spirit of the revolution because, judging by your noble con-
duct and your civilized principles, you are in reality the
spirit of the counter-revolution. The political problem is as
follows: You cannot possibly govern with the revolutionary
element, composed of rough but honest ranchmen, profes-
sional bandits and demagogic agitators, leaders of the re-
stricted civil revolutionary circle. You cannot fall back
upon a dictatorship, because it takes time above all to es-
tablish one; neither would the people who have supported
you so nobly because they loathed the dictatorship of Gen-
eral Diaz, ever permit you to fasten upon them what they
have striven with all their strength to cast off. In Latin-
America a dictatorship cannot be openly and brazenly estab-
lished. All dictators have attained their object by means
of patience, dissimulation, perfidy, political assassination and
corruption means you are incapable of adopting, for which
I congratulate you. But even if you possessed the qualities
of a born dictator, you would lack time, for remember that
it took General Diaz eight years, and not a month, to es-
tablish his dictatorship, the first years of his government
bearing no semblance to a dictatorship.
"I do not believe that you can establish a democratic gov-
ernment, because the chief element is lacking, a democratic
public; but I do believe that you could essay the establish-
ment of a government along parliamentary lines, such as
that of Chile, Argentine or Brazil. This attempt is impos-
sible without taking the Catholics into account to form a
Catholic party, deficient, but still a party.
MADERISM 163
"It is absurd for Mexican liberals, so enamored of the
parliamentary form, to talk of launching it with only one
political party. This talk of one political party is an ab-
surdity. Every political party that aims at destroying its
opponent in order to be supreme, degenerates, becomes cor-
rupt, divides into personal factions and presents a truly
repellant aspect, as the liberal party has done and is doing.
Without a party opposed to the liberal party, to act as a
balance, all attempts to float a parliamentary form of gov-
ernment are crass stupidity.
"The Catholics have also been revolutionists because they
did not want the dictatorship of General Diaz and gave
you their moral support. This is proved by the fact that
the newspaper that most virulently attacked the dictator
was the Catholic newspaper, El Pah. The revolutionary
ideal of vengeance and pillage was not theirs; neither did
they wish to reestablish the Inquisition and the reactionary
government of Ferdinand VII. They are educated and
intelligent; they accept the Constitution and the separation
of Church and State, because in the present rotten condition
of politics, it would be highly undesirable for the Catholic
clergy, who have for so many years been patriotic and
virtuous, to submit to having the Government appoint bu-
reaucratic bishops, impregnated with the bureaucratic spirit,
capable of dragging the Church into that filthy mire. The
Catholic clergy has no end in view but that of introducing
religious instruction into the schools, and would be satisfied
even if this instruction were not to be made obligatory,
simply left to the will of the parents, provided at their ex-
pense or that of the religious lay associations. You are well
aware that I do not belong to the Catholic party; but it
seems to me intolerable that merely in order to support the
principle of the lay school we should be obliged to submit
to the folly of trying to establish a parliamentary form of
government with an exclusive faction, misnamed the liberal,
1 64 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
which would lead to anarchy, and ultimately to a dictator-
ship. The alternative that is offered to all reasonable Mexi-
cans is the ignominious yoke of a dictatorship, or the intro-
duction of free religious instruction in the public schools.
It is more worthy, more humane, more patriotic to favor the
acceptance of religious teaching in the public schools, not
offered by the Government, but won by the Catholics in
free parliamentary debate.
"The first thing you should do is radically to reform the
Constitution, in order to eliminate the revolutionary pre-
cept that turns the House of Representatives into a ferocious,
anarchistic convention, possessing the right to accept any ac-
cusation whatsoever against the President of the Republic,
passing sentence upon him in half an hour and depriving
him of office by a simple majority of votes. Amend the
Constitution in this respect, copying that of the United
States, which has been adopted with modifications by Chile,
Argentine and Brazil, laying down the rule that the House
of Representatives can only by a two-thirds majority de-
clare that there is cause for impeaching the President, and
that the body to try him shall be the Senate, which cannot
declare him guilty except by a two-thirds majority vote of
those who are present.
"Once the Constitution has been reformed so that the
Chief Executive is not in reality the slave of an anarchistic
convention, assure absolute freedom in the elections, if the
Catholic clergy in a strictly legal manner; that is, working
as individuals and not as a corporation, will undertake to
organize, discipline and direct a Catholic party, and work
for a program that will have your approbation and that of
all sane, intelligent and liberal persons.
"Your electoral policy should be confined merely to keep-
ing the equilibrium in the Lower House between the Catho-
lic party and that which might be formed from the coalition
of the more serious elements among the liberals and the
MADERISM 165
demagogues. The second amendment of the Constitution
should be that the senators and the judges of the Supreme
Federal Court, instead of being elected by popular vote,
should be named by the Senate, with the approval of the
Executive as well as that of the judges of the Court. As
you can count at present upon a majority in the Senate, you
can create the new one with an honorable, intelligent, pa-
triotic personnel, one that carries weight in the eyes of the
public. Having these things in your favor, you can launch
your parliamentary scheme, which, however, may end in
disaster, as the Jacobin bureaucratic faction will naturally
resent the granting of Government positions and sinecures
by Catholic cabinet members, although it may be within
their legitimate province, and they will attempt to destroy
the system that has taken from them the monopoly of Gov-
ernment positions. On the other hand, the army is the
traditional enemy of civilian presidents and the friend of mili-
tarism; but at the same time it must be taken into con-
sideration that even though the Indian soldiers are Catholics
they will fight for or against Catholicism with equal re-
pugnance or enthusiasm. Moreover, the officers are nearly
all anti-Catholic and members of the middle class, which
aspires to hold despotic sway over the country. You see,
therefore, that there are three roads open to you: The first,
the absurd one of trying to organize a dictatorship with only
your family to support you; the second, accepting as pos-
sible the formation of a government with ranchmen, cow-
boys, bandits and demagogues to assist you; the third, the
establishment of a parliamentary government, which lays
claim to probabilities of success, or at least of preserving
the semblance of government that would be indispensable
for the ultimate declaration of a dictatorship if that should
become necessary."
Seiior Madero took up my ideas with enthusiasm and of-
fered to carry them out. Three days later I entered the
1 66 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
House of Representatives just as they were about to take
up the discussion of a projected law to prevent the Catho-
lics from organizing the Catholic party. I addressed the
House, taking as my theme the necessity of the existence
of the Catholic party for the establishment in Mexico of a
responsible government. I talked at some length, my words
producing an effect, as the dropping of the projected law
proved. The Catholic party was formed, and undoubtedly
worked for the good of the country.
THE BANEFUL INFLUENCE OF GUSTAVO MADERO
One month after my speech in the House of Representa-
tives Senor Gustavo Madero, who was dining at my house,
said in presence of Senor Melgarejo that he was convinced
that General Diaz was amply justified when he said, as he
was leaving the country in June, 1911: "The new men
will soon be convinced that the only way to rule the Mexi-
can people is the way I have ruled them." I said to Senor
Gustavo Madero that in all probability General Diaz was
right, but that even if he were right, he had governed the
country by means of a dictatorship that it had taken eight
years, with the loyal support of General Manuel Gonzalez,
to establish. I further said that I did not pretend to say
that eight years was the set time for the establishment of a
dictatorship in Latin-America, but that I did know that it
could not be done in eight months, or in sixteen, or in twen-
ty-four, and that he was attempting to create his brother a
dictator before he was a president, and that, what was even
worse, he was employing the repugnant, irritating methods
that had driven the people to give their support to any meas-
ure that would insure the overthrow of the dictator. Senor
Madero, then basking in the sunshine of prosperity and
adulation, called me a pessimist, and followed the road he
had mapped out until, loathed by all, he fell into the hands
of assassins on the fateful night of February 18, 1913.
MADERISM 167
I believe that ft was the influence of Senor Gustavo Ma-
dero that was the chief cause of the political and personal
ruin of his brother. President Madero was always hon-
est in the matter of the management of public funds and
of not permitting Government frauds; but he was undoubt-
edly disloyal, not against the revolution, but against his own
ideals, which had been held out as the panacea for all Mex-
ico's troubles.
Senor Madero permitted the Catholic party to be or-
ganized, and no sooner was it organized than he tried, un-
der the cloak of its prestige, to force the candidacy of Senor
Jose Maria Pino Suarez for the vice-presidency. The Catho-
lic party declined to be coerced and put forward as its can-
didate the ex-president, Senor Francisco L. de la Barra,
who had earned the good will and applause of all during
his term of president ad interim. Senor Gustavo Madero,
ill advised and aiming to punish the Catholic party, stirred
up a popular demonstration hostile to de la Barra, to the
Catholics, to the rich, to the aristocracy in a word, a
demagogic demonstration of the vilest nature.
The Catholic party entered the elections of 1912 in ab-
solutely good faith, as it had done the elections for state
governors. In these it had demonstrated its power. It
carried the elections in the states of Jalisco, Mexico, Quere-
taro and Zacatecas, and would have won except for the
introduction of official pressure, which violated the free-
dom of the vote, in the states of Guanajuato, Michoacan
and Puebla. In the state of Oaxaca, except for the pres-
tige of the name of Juarez, which descended to his son, the
Catholic party would have won in the elections for gov-
ernor. It was amply proved that the Catholic party pos-
sessed the force to elect its candidates in the richest and
most densely populated states of the Republic. In the Fed-
eral elections of 1912, except for enormous official pressure,
the Catholics would have obtained the majority in the
1 68 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
House of Representatives, and at least one-third representa-
tion in the Senate.
The course followed by Senor Gustavo Madero, as well
as by his brother Francisco, was indeed despicable. Of the
one hundred seats in the House of Representatives fairly
won by the Catholics, the censoring board, having recourse
to the most barefaced frauds, nullified more than forty of
the electoral college votes. The Catholics then held sixty
places when they appeared before the electoral college of the
Lower House, and here, in the most shameful, dirty, illegal
and despotic manner, the majority of their votes were dis-
credited and thrown out, leaving them only twenty-three.
The same tactics were followed with the Independents, with
the ultimate result that the Catholic and Independent rep-
resentation, combined, was reduced to forty-two out of a
total of two hundred and thirty-three.
Senor Gustavo Madero, counting always upon the sup-
port of his brother, intervened in the elections of San Luis
Potosi and Aguascalientes to place in office personal friends
who had been rejected by the people of both states. He also
intervened in the elections of Vera Cruz, the gross viola-
tion of electoral freedom causing a veritable scandal. To
prevent the triumph of the Catholic candidate in Puebla, it
was necessary for the Madero faction to join hands with
the discredited party headed by General Mucio Matinez,
one of the pro-consuls of the overthrown dictatorship. In
Yucatan every low trick was resorted to to defeat Senor
Delio Moreno Canton in order to install Senor Jose M.
Pino Suarez's brother-in-law as Governor. In the states
of Chiapas, Sinaloa, Oaxaca, Mexico, Jalisco, Tlaxcala and
Tamaulipas election frauds also took place equal to those
practised in the palmy days of the Porfirian dictatorship.
In 1893 the Cientificos obtained the vote of the House of
Representatives for an amendment of the Constitution which
MADERISM 169
would guarantee the independence of the judiciary. The
bill was sent to the Senate, where it was held up by Gen-
eral Diaz. He did not reject it, because he did not want
to offend the Cientificos. When Madero was made presi-
dent the senators, who under the old regime belonged to
the Cientificos, once more introduced the measure of con-
stitutional amendment with regard to the independence of
the judiciary, and it was ignominiously rejected by presi-
dential decree.
This clearly proves that the hidden project of the Ma-
deristas had been to keep the judiciary under their thumb,
just as had been done by the Diaz dictatorship.
It is true that Sefior Madero granted complete freedom
to the press, but it is also true that he attempted to throttle
it to the point of asphyxiation. The undeniable proof of
this is the fact that the Department of the Interior intro-
duced a bill in the House of Representatives, aiming to cur-
tail the privileges of the press, signed by Senor Jesus Flores
Magon, the Secretary of the Interior. When Sefior Flores
Magon resigned the portfolio of the Interior, he explained
his anti-liberal conduct to the public by saying that he had
been compelled to sign the much-censured measure in order
to save the press and the persons connected with it from a
campaign against them proposed by Sefior Jose M. Pino
Suarez, the Secretary of Public Instruction, which would
have been more harmful to them.
It is undeniable that Gustavo Madero was guilty of the
unpardonable fault of not wanting to give public account of
the 700,000 pesos he received from the Federal Treasury
to defray the expenses incurred by the revolution. It is also
undeniable that he undertook the promotion of numerous
business undertakings submitted to him by persons who did
not stand well in the public estimation.
The most censurable feature of Gustavo Madero's ad-
ministration, however, was the organization of the "Porra,"
170 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
an association of demagogues enlisted for the purpose of ter-
rorizing society and the enemies of the Government, replac-
ing the fear of bayonets with the terror of mobs. Ruffians
were hired at seventy-five cents per head to simulate a
grievance, collect a crowd and march through the streets,
and, in the name of the aggrieved populace, they not only
damaged property but endangered life. It would have been
censurable enough and entirely unwarranted by the situa-
tion, in view of his social station, his excellent training, his
good sentiments and his position as the President's brother,
had Gustavo Madero actually transformed himself into the
Mexican Marat; but it is simply astounding that he should
have been willing to appear in the role of a sham Marat.
This gained for him only the intense hatred of the people,
and explains why his foul murder was looked upon with
indifference, if not actual approval, by the public.
It is also undeniable that the Madero Government proved
itself impotent to restore peace. From the revolt of Zapata
in August, 1911, to the fall of Madero in 1913, there was
not a single day of peace, life and property being in constant
danger.
By railing at the army, during the revolution and after its
triumph, and accusing it of treason, cowardice and vileness
for not having turned against Diaz and relieved the nation
of the burden of his dictatorship, President Madero had
incurred its ill-will and hatred.
Neither President Madero nor his honest followers had
any right to censure the defection of Huerta, because the
doctrine of "the Apostle" was that every military man
was obliged to judge the Government's conduct, and, if he
found it unpatriotic, to transfer his allegiance unhesitatingly
in order to save the country. Huerta could have said to
Madero: "I have acted toward you as you wanted me to act
toward General Diaz."
MADERISM 171
THE TRUE INWARDNESS OF MADERISM
I have exposed the principal errors and faults of the ad-
ministration of President Madero. Were they serious
enough to have justified an uprising?
On April 2, 1911, I introduced a measure in the House
of Representatives for non-reelection of President and Vice-
President, and in the expository section I said that I did not
believe in the Mexican people's fitness for democracy, neither,
on the other hand, did I believe in their absolute lack of
capacity to progress in a political sense. I explained that
the liberal Latin-American politicians, on account of their
Jacobin theories and tendencies, were guilty of the incon-
ceivable stupidity of believing that a people that had lived
for thirty years under the yoke of an harmonious dictator-
ship such as that of General Diaz (because if it had not been
harmonious it could not have endured for thirty years) could
perform a virtual acrobatic feat and pass from a despotic
system of government to the correct parliamentary form
existing- in England, or to the federal democracy of the
United States. As I was a believer in evolution, I thought
Mexico ought to aim, as it was evolving from a rigid dic-
tatorship, at establishing a form of government similar to
that of Chile, Argentine or Brazil, so-called democracies,
in which real political parties do not exist, where the elec-
tions are repulsively fraudulent, owing to the bribery of
electors, and where scandalously corrupt bureaucracies dom-
inate. In these nations two practical principles are upheld,
non-reelection and freedom of the press. The Mexicans
ought to make a trial of liberty, combined with corrupt
democracy, upheld by freedom of the press and non-reelection.
If success crowned the effort, they should adopt a govern-
ment similar to that of these nations, accepting as unavoid-
able its inherent abuses. If the trial ended in failure, there
was no alternative but to go back to the dictatorship, under
172 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the condition that if the dictator did not keep up with the
advance of civilization, he should be overthrown, and this
policy continued until the right man was found.
I have repeated my words, spoken publicly before the
House of Representatives, in order to establish what in my
mind is the criterion by which the Madero administration is
to be judged. Dupuy has said: "A revolution to be legiti-
mate must establish something better than what it over-
throws."
I have said that in 1910 of the twenty-seven governors
the great majority were useless, or almost useless, old men.
The list of governors under the Madero administration, as
it appeared on January I, 1913, was composed of seven gov-
ernors who were between fifty and sixty years of age; one
was sixty-two, nineteen were between thirty and fifty.
There was not one under thirty. Twenty-two were entirely
new men; five belonged to the old regime, but were men
noted for their fitness and uprightness. With regard to age
and personnel the revolution, then, effected a wholesome
change. Of the twenty-seven governors appointed by Ma-
dero, nineteen had irreproachable reputations ; eight were out
and out scoundrels. In 1910, under General Diaz, eighteen
were upright and nine were rascals. Of the eight unworthy
governors of the Madero regime, six were imposed by pres-
sure brought to bear by Gustavo Madero, and two were
elected by free vote. Therefore, in this electoral test, essayed
in the name of liberty, notwithstanding the fact that the
avowed principles of the initiators of the revolution, not of
Madero's following, were "vengeance and pillage," and not-
withstanding the deficiencies of the electoral system due to
the incapacity of the people, the lack of real political parties
and the want of practice, out of twenty-one governors not
imposed by the Government, nineteen who were independ-
ent of Gustavo Madero's coercion were successfully elected.
The secretaries of the various departments under Madero
MADERISM 173
were all men of talent. The honesty of six was unjustly
impugned, and two were attacked without proof of their
guilt being established by their enemies. In the time of Gen-
eral Diaz, of the eight departmental secretaries, four were
accused of dishonesty, proof, however, not being brought
forward to substantiate the allegation.
The Supreme Federal Court in the time of General Diaz
was servile in its docility to the decrees of higher authority
even when it was a question of an unjust sentence. Not-
withstanding the fact that Madero rejected the Senate's
measure to free the judiciary from the control of the Chief
Executive, there is no record of President Madero, his
brother Gustavo, or any official or person of high rank hav-
ing made use of this prerogative in regard to affairs of a
private or personal nature. In political affairs President
Madero ineffectually brought pressure to bear on the Su-
preme Federal Court in the case of General Felix Diaz, who
had been captured at Vera Cruz, court-martialed and sen-
tenced to death. From 4 i882 to 1911, when it recovered its
independence and honor in so far as it was able, the Supreme
Federal Court was the instrument for all the vile, dirty work
of the Chief Executive.
This tribunal took special pains to despatch quickly and
correctly, and according to the rules of favoritism, all the
business of the dictatorship it had on hand at the time of
General Diaz's downfall. It should be noted that from the
fall of General Diaz to that of Madero there was justice in
Mexico. This alone would be sufficient reason for applaud-
ing a revolution, especially as the watchword of its progeni-
tors had been "vengeance and pillage."
The Catholic party, as I have said, was deprived of its
electoral votes, outraged by hostile demonstrations on the
part of the people, and the broken promises of the President,
given before and after his triumph. In General Diaz's time
the Catholics were forbidden to organize political parties
174 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
and also to found political newspapers for the furtherance of
their cause. They were admitted into the two Houses of
Congress, the Judiciary, the Diplomatic and Administrative
service as the unconditional subjects of the dictatorship,
bound strictly by the Porfirian precept, "No politics, all
Government," which was only another way of saying, "No
personal rights, all obedience." This is a variant of the
motto of Charles III of Spain, held up to the colonists of the
Indies, "Obey and be silent." Notwithstanding the disloy-
alty of "the Apostle" toward the Catholics, thanks to the
freedom they enjoyed under his rule, they managed to or-
ganize their party, although in a somewhat deficient man-
ner. Twenty-three of their number obtained seats in the
House of Representatives. Some of these were good orators
who made their voices reach to the utmost confines of the
Republic, righting for the triumph of their principles, their
heads held high in the consciousness of their restored rights.
Their situation was vastly superior to that which for thirty-
three years they had endured under the dictatorship of Gen-
eral Diaz.
It is true that President Madero introduced a bill into the
lower house directed against the freedom of the press. But
when he was confronted by the violent attitude of the press
and of public opinion, he withdrew the unpopular measure.
After submitting for thirty-three years to the yoke of a
Government-censured press, the public wanted to reap the
benefits of a free press, however unworthy of freedom it
might be.
The Lower House after the elections of 1912 bore more
semblance to a ward club than to a respectable legislative
body. Good speeches, however, were heard, crude polemics
introduced, wrongs openly discussed ; all of these being signs
of life grateful to the ear after the oppressive silence of
thirty years. This body, although the Government held an
overwhelming majority, was not subservient, neither did it
MADERISM 175
present the appearance of a pack of donkeys peacefully doz-
ing after a comfortable meal. Gustavo Madero's porra
(mob) parliament, except for a few worn-out and discarded
specimens of the dictatorial regime, resembled a drove of
spirited ponies, noble despite their viciousness. Notwith-
standing its crudeness, this attempt at free parliamentary ex-
pression was a step forward as compared with the degrada-
tion imposed by the Porfirian methods.
MADERISM MIGHT HAVE PACIFIED THE COUNTRY
Undoubtedly the government of President Madero was
very far from representing a democracy; but on the other
hand it was just as far from representing the dictatorship
of General Diaz, either in its flourishing or decadent stage.
Of the leading principles of the governments of the South
American Republics, non-reelection and the freedom of the
press, the latter appeared already to have been realized, and
the former in all probability soon would be. In political
circles it was feared that Gustavo Madero, supported
by his family and official influence, would succeed his
brother in the presidency. Even if such had been the
case it would always have been a step forward, because no
two men, even if they are brothers, would give the same or
even a similar form of government. This was exemplified in
the time of the dictatorship by the government of the broth-
ers Diez Gutierrez in the state of San Luis Potosi, and that
of the three Cravioto brothers in the state of Hidalgo. It
was also more than probable that no member of the Madero
family would have succeeded Gustavo Madero.
From the preceding facts, stated with absolute impartial-
ity, it will be seen that the Madero Government fulfilled the
Dupuy condition; it gave something better than that which
it overthrew. The dreadful feature of this regime was the
want of peace, so essential as the fundamental basis of gov-
i;6 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ernment and society. Without peace the brink of the abyss
is soon reached, and the mere fact that a Government is im-
potent to restore peace is enough to justify a revolution.
Why was President Madero unable to pacify the coun-
try and prevent the revolutionary movements of Zapata,
Orozco, Vazquez Gomez, Felix Diaz and Reyes? All these
disturbances could in my estimation have been avoided if
the Madero administration had been able to count upon pol-
iticians of high calibre. Zapata issued his Plan de Ayala
on November 25, 1911, and, as I remarked in my article
in El PaiSj this plan is worthy of study and approbation,
with the exception of one absurd clause: "The claimant is
to be put in possession of the disputed property, rural or
urban, from the moment he makes his claim, unless the dis-
possessed has proved his claim to it before a revolutionary
tribunal."
The Plan de Ayala required that the planters, having re-
ceived indemnity, should hand over one-third of their arable
land to the villages or to the poor. The planters of Morelos
developed only one-fifth of the arable land in the cultivation
of sugar-cane and rice, and could, therefore, without hurting
their own interest in the slightest, meet the requirements of
the Plan de Ayala, always provided, of course, that the
absurd clause referring to disputed titles was omitted. In
Part First I have stated that the distribution of land in gen-
eral is not feasible, because the greatest portion of it is in
the temperate and cold zones, and cannot be advantageously
cultivated without the installation of irrigation plants. It
is precisely in Morelos that the land might be advanta-
geously distributed for the following reason: The climate
is semi-tropical, and the land not completely exhausted, as
it is still capable of producing from 16 to 20 hectoliters of
corn per hectare. It is not exposed to frosts because of i<$
situation, and the rainfall is less irregular and more abunda it
than in other sections. The state of Morelos is one of the
MADERISM 177
few states in the Republic in which the distribution of land
might be undertaken at once with great possibilities of a suc-
cessful issue.
Zapata demanded that the Federal forces should not put
foot in the state of Morelos, and that the elections should be
entirely free. It is evident that the acceptance of the first
condition was humiliating for the Government and the Mex-
ican nation ; but political situations sometimes present humil-
iating circumstances that must be met with courage and pa-
triotism. In La Prensa, in the capacity of editor, I upheld
Zapata's demands and insisted upon the necessity of some-
times bowing to the inevitable, citing several examples. For
instance, the conduct of the notably patriotic governor of
Jalisco, Sefior Pedro Ogazon, who signed a compact with the
bandit Manuel Lozada, chief of the Sierra de Alica, and
owner of the territory of Tepic, recognizing the absolute
sovereignty of Lozada in the confines of Tepic. Also
Juarez's conduct in recognizing the absolute sovereignty of
General Santiago Vidaurri, governor of Nuevo Leon and
Coahuila; of General Servando Canales, governor of Ta-
maulipas; and that of Generals Terrazas, Pesqueira, Vega,
Alvarez and Mendez, the respective chiefs of the states of
Chihuahua, Sonora, Sinaloa, Guerrero and Sierra de Puebla.
In 1869, after the struggle in the state of Tamaulipas, as
bloody and savage as that of Zapata, in which the Federal
forces fought those led by Braulio Vargas and other bandit
chiefs in revolt against the legitimate governor of the state,
Jose de la Garza, the President obliged Garza to satisfy the
demands of the bandits by resigning.
I may be quite mistaken, but it is my conviction that if
Zapata's demands, with the exception of the one absurd
clause already noted, had been granted at the time, Zapata
would have submitted ; or perhaps it would be more exact
to say that the Government would have submitted. But
at any rate it would have been an honorable submission, be-
178 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
cause a deed of justice or of intelligent patriotic policy cannot
be anything but an honor to the one who executes it.
The first revolt of Reyes could have been prevented by
not permitting him to return in 1911. This, however, was
not a serious mistake, because when General Reyes raised
the standard of revolt in December, 1911, he found that he
stood alone, or, more properly speaking, disillusioned, for he
saw the country no longer wanted him and that he was as
unpopular, if not more so, than the Cientificos.
As Orozco was the "military genius" of the Madero rev-
olution, following historic precedents he had to rebel against
Madero and demand the presidency. Madero, who in the
days of his popularity was irresistible and could have anni-
hilated any rival, should have settled the Orozco problem
definitely. Instead of giving him only 50,000 pesos when he
asked for 100,000, the amount that was given without any
justification to Jose M. Maytorena, "the Apostle" should
have given the "military genius" 500,000 pesos, on condition
that he take himself off to Europe for two years for the pur-
pose of educating himself in order to receive the post of Di-
vision General or Grand Marshal of the Mexican army.
This might not have pleased the Federal chiefs, but this dis-
pleasure could not have occasioned any serious trouble, as
was proved when Huerta irregularly raised Orozco, Cara-
veo, Cheche Campos, Campa and others to the rank of gen-
erals.
With regard to General Reyes and Felix Diaz, their in-
ordinate ambition, their indomitable spirit of intrigue, their
endless conspiracies, their decision to take the presidency by
storm were well known. Reyes and Felix Diaz never would
have overthrown Benito Juarez or Porfirio Diaz in their
heyday, because they would have found it very difficult to
carry out the first revolt; and a second would have been
impossible, because dead men cannot revolt. Madero cap-
tured Reyes and Diaz knowing, as he publicly acknowledged,
MADERISM 179
that they were conspiring against him. Nevertheless he
scorned them. The ruler who scorns not only danger, but
the greatest danger that threatens in countries where the
stable government is constantly endangered by the military
power, is not fit to rule.
REGICIDE AND ANARCHY ADDED TO THE REVOLUTIONARY
PROGRAM
Senor Ernesto Fernandez Arteaga told me that many
years ago when Madero was still quite young and with no
thought of becoming a revolutionist, while visiting the house
of his father, Senor Ramon Fernandez, a highly educated
and intelligent man, he proposed to Dr. Fernandez's sons
that they consult the spirits by means of the famous plan-
chette. One of the questions asked evoked the answer that
Francisco Madero would one day be the President of the
Mexican Republic. Madero was greatly flattered by this
prognostication and took it quite seriously, much to the
amusement of Dr. Fernandez, who advised him to regard
with well-merited contempt all spiritistic revelations. Ma-
dero replied that under no circumstances would he disregard
the supreme decisions of the high science of spiritism. From
the day of the casting of this horoscope, so fateful for his
country, Madero many times reminded his friend, Senor
Fernandez Arteaga, of the spiritistic prophecy that he
(Madero) would one day be the president of Mexico.
Madero, then, was of the illumined, with the aggravating
circumstance that he was also of the predestined. His am-
bition, therefore, was fired by the belief in the sacredness, the
supernaturalness, the inevitableness of his cause. Under
these circumstances he could not be a statesman or, what
amounts to the same, a man who as circumstances unfold
themselves can adapt himself to them, showing mercy or
cruelty, pliability or inflexibility. The predestined one is
guided unerringly, by the hand of God or the hand of Fate,
and omnipotence cannot fail. The predestined one feels strong
i8o WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
enough to despise all manner of obstacles that may cross his
pathway, to look upon everything human, great or small, as
infinitesimal, unworthy of care or thought. Obeying the
laws of this condition of mind, Madero was bound to de-
spise or to be indifferent to all the Mexican intellectuals,
and to be resolved to govern only with the aid of the in-
telligence of the supernatural beings who guided him. I
have proved that the Madero Government, except for its
inability to preserve peace, was superior to that of Diaz, and
should have been aided in restoring peace, not overthrown.
The Madero Government was demolished by the efforts of
the intellectuals, who sought to place it before the nation
as the worst Government Mexico had had since the Dec-
laration of Independence. This destruction of Madero's
prestige in the eyes of the nation was the great and memora-
ble revenge of the intellectuals for the "illumined Apostle's"
contempt for them.
Senor Fernandez Giiell, ex-director of the Mexican Na-
tional Library in the City of Mexico, a frantic partisan of
Madero, and the author of an apologetic book dedicated to
"the admired martyr," says: "At the time of the up-
rising in Vera Cruz, the Federal Government relied entirely
upon the loyalty of the army.
"All the glory of the revolutionary leader had vanished
like a cloud. Surrounded by Cientificos, far from the masses,
the Apostle appeared before the public on official occasions
only, and the people of Mexico watched him with profound
indifference as he rode down the Avenida de San Francisco
on February 5th in an open carriage, between two files of
soldiers, followed by the Diplomatic Corps, a squadron of
the Presidential Guard, the Chapultepec Cadets and a divi-
sion of artillery.
"Salvos no longer greeted him; neither did gratitude or
enthusiasm rain down flowers on his noble brow." 1
1 R. Fernandez Giiell, Eptsodios de la Revolution Mexicana,
p. 185.
MADERISM iS
Senor Fernandez Giiell states what every one in Mexico
knew to be a fact, that by October, 1912, less than a year
after he had assumed the presidency, Madero was completely
disparaged in the eyes of all classes of society, from the
highest to the lowest.
Senor Jose N. Macias, an ex-representative of the Diaz
regime, an gex-Maderista, and now a fervent admirer of
Carranza, by whom he has been named director of the
School of Jurisprudence in the City of Mexico, says, re-
ferring to the fall of Madero: "A president elected for five
years, overthrown in fifteen months, has no one to blame but
himself. The cause is this, and history, if it is unbiased, will
proclaim it: he did not know how to uphold himself." 1
THE ATTITUDE OF THE INTELLECTUALS WAS MALEVOLENT
The intellectuals cannot be blamed for having opposed
President Madero's Government, because it is not possible
to have a responsible, representative government without op-
position. A government without opposition is a despotic
government. Moral law cites many principles for the guid-
ance of patriotic government opposition, but these have not
found acceptance among the politicians of any nation. Poli-
tics is the most engrossing of all occupations, the one that
becomes a veritable passion, that exalts, that blinds, one that,
in the opinion of medical experts, is capable of turning men
into wild beasts. On the other hand, in countries where the
government practically never changes except through revo-
lutions, opposition, the object of which is change, would
prove ridiculous, inoffensive and ineffectual, if its principal
aim were not the overthrow of the government by the only
means known to history a revolution.
1 Fernandez Cabrera, Mi Viaje a Mexico, p. 218.
1 82 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The theorem of May is well known : "The power of the
press can be balanced only by the power of the press."
In other words, the opposition press should work against the
government press. This is only possible in countries where
two distinct political parties exist, and where the opinions
of the newspapers representing both sides carry equal weight
with the people. In Latin-America, and especially in coun-
tries ruled by dictators, the people, as a whole, condemn the
existence of a government press. They hate and despise it,
and reject its opinions as productive of revolutionary sen-
timents.
No Mexican Government can defend itself against an op-
position press except by silencing it; not by radical means,
but by corruption or by buying up all newspapers. These
do not appear as Government organs, but independent
or opposing, cultivating the species of opposition set forth
in moral law books. This difficult problem, in countries
where government intervention is a drawback rather than
a help, can be solved only by silencing the journalists,
or making them subservient by means of bribes. In Spain
this fund appears in the secret expense account under the
heading, "Reptile Fund." In Mexico, from the time of the
Declaration of Independence, all the governments, conserv-
ative, liberal and dictatorial, including that of Juarez, pro-
vided for their own protection, and to insure peace for the
country, a substantial "reptile fund." General Diaz used
to say: "Give a dog a bone and he will neither bite nor
bark."
Cases of journalists and newspaper owners in Latin-
America who cannot be bought could be cited, but they are
the exception. Generally speaking, they belong to the seri-
ous, non-seditious class, because they are supported by com-
mercial advertisements and plutocratic interests which are
intelligently conservative and opposed to revolutions.
The Madero Government was signalized by incom-
MADERISM 183
petency; but freedom of the press as it now exists would
have been in itself sufficient to compass its ruin, even if it
had been the most perfect government in the history of the
political world.
The intellectuals should not be blamed for opposing
the Madero Government, because the opposition had in
view the conquest of the supreme power. It is true that this
policy is condemned by moral law and public ethics, but it
is the inexorable law of politics everywhere. All opposi-
tion has for its object the conquest of the supreme power,
making use of the means demanded by the situation. Ac-
cording to a rigorous moral standard, then, the methods of
all politicians are unethical, excepting in a few rare instances,
which in Latin-America are the exception and not the rule.
The great fault to be found with the intellectuals who
accomplished the downfall of Madero is that their work
was destructive, not constructive.
In the Senate the leading intellectuals of the opposi-
tion were Senores Manuel Calero, Gumersindo Enriquez,
Francisco Leon de la Barr, J. Flores Magon and Guillermo
Obregon. Three gave open expression to their views; two
had recourse to clever political evasions. These five men did
not belong to any political party, faction or coterie, neither
were they united among themselves. They represented an
alliance of individual forces formed for the sole purpose of
overthrowing Madero, but having a horror of acting as a
useful political organ.
In the House of Representatives, which possesses the ad-
vantage of exercising the same influence over the public
mind as a great national theatre, the floor was held by the
famous quartet, Senores Querido Moheno, Jose M. Lozano,
Francisco Olaguibel and Nemasio Garcia Naranjo. They
were veteran politicians and veritable powers by reason of
their oratorical force. Being fine tacticians, they never lost
an opportunity of surprising their weaker antagonists, who,
1 84 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
with the exception of Cabrera, laid themselves open to ridi-
cule eVery time they attempted to speak or introduce a bill,
their humiliation being the humiliation of the Government
they represented. When free speech is allowed in the House,
the Chief Executive, if he does not govern with alternating
political parties, should endeavor to be represented by the
best politicians and the best orators. This can be easily ac-
complished by selecting for the Cabinet those who have dis-
tinguished themselves as orators or politicians; and when,
through enmity or personal dislike, objection is made to their
participation, the Government should work in the elections
to seat in the Lower House men who are able to represent it
brilliantly and capably. If this cannot be done, in Latin-
America recourse can be had to the usual practice of dis-
crediting the electoral votes of candidates antagonistic to the
Government. Gustavo Madero made a veritable holocaust
of the votes of more than fifty undesirable candidates, and
approved those of Lozano, Olaguibel and Garcia Naranjo.
The attitude of the Catholic party in the Lower House
in 1912 and 1913 was censurable. They attempted to assume
an independent attitude, something that may be done by
individuals, but not by political parties, because the very
reason of their being is to represent and fight for party prin-
ciples. Where there are political parties, independent mem-
bers always exist who by their very anxiety to preserve their
independence cut themselves off from all parties. A political
party's duty in the time of battle is to preserve a militant,
resolute and loyal attitude.
The Catholic party in 1912 and 1913 did not do its duty.
On behalf of religion, it was its duty to oppose the anti-
religious revolution in the north; on behalf of society, it
was its duty to be conservative, especially as the Zapatistas
in the south and the revolutionists in the north were attack-
ing the rights of property ; and on behalf of the Government,
it was its duty to uphold it, because, not being able to lay
MADERISM 185
claim to the power of governing in the case of Madero's
overthrow, it was its duty to prevent anarchy. Its place
was at the side of Madero, but instead of meeting its obli-
gation, it followed a vacillating policy that contributed
greatly to the downfall of the Government.
The quartet in the House of Representatives marched
united, though unconsciously, toward an abyss. This quad-
rilateral group did not go hand in hand with the pentagonal
group in the Senate or with the angle formed by the League
for Social Defense, founded by Sefiores Jorge Vera Estanol
and Alberto Garcia Granados.
Close observation confirmed the suspicion that a certain
undefined political affinity existed between members of a
group that might be called the ex-secretarial party, com-
posed of ex-Secretaries Calero, Flores Magon, Garcia Grana-
dos, Vera Estanol and ex-President de la Barra. This
pentagonal group of ex-secretaries, as well as the quadri-
lateral group of the Lower House, tore down without
building up. They lost, instead of gaining popularity, be-
cause society with its conservative instinct saw that if the
incompetency of Madero was leading the country they knew
not where, the cleverness of these men was leading it to
anarchy. They did not take the trouble to organize a party,
or even a faction, or to raise up the "man of iron" who
would dominate the situation. Their program was to tear
down tear down first and last, until not a shred of prestige,
authority or force should be left to the state.
This work of demolition on the part of the intellectual
parliamentarians was inspired by contempt. The work of
demolition inspired by hate was done by the press not by
the representative press but the yellow press, represented by
El Pals, El Mariana, El Herald o. La Tribuna and a host
of unimportant comic papers of the coarser type. Some
stooped so low as to represent the President's wife as a dog,
always close to her husband's side.
1 86 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Senor Fernandez Giiell, a confirmed Maderista, wrote,
referring to the tactics pursued by Sanchez Santos, the edi-
tor of El Pats, against Gustavo Madero, whom he nicknamed
"Ojo parado" (Dead eye), because of a physical defect:
"Sanchez Santos persecuted him with implacable rage, even
beyond the grave. He is responsible for his tragic end, be-
cause the cruel and bloody epithets which he directed against
him, and which awakened the fury of his murderers, quivered
like poisoned arrows in the inanimate body of the unhappy
Gustavo." i
He also said: "Senor Madero holds as a governmental
principle that the 'press can only be fought with the press,'
but the mendacious audacity of the editors of Multicolor
reached such a point that the President, taking into consid-
eration that they were foreigners, resolved to have recourse
to the Thirty-third Article of the Mexican Constitution and
expel them from the country." 2
Those who read these newspapers, whose flaming words
were intended to electrify the masses and arouse their basest
passions, whose route of circulation was marked by a fiery
trail, whose incendiary opinions were everywhere discussed,
will be my witnesses that the doctrine preached by this
anarchistic press was regicide.
It mattered little to such a press that Zapata was a ban-
dit, he must be eulogized, his crimes must be ennobled, his
exploits made to dazzle and his personality deified in the
eyes of the masses. The same course was followed with
Inez Salazar, Campa, Pablo Lavin and also with Cheche
Campos, who was acclaimed as one of the greatest reform-
ers the world had ever seen because he laid waste the entire
state of Durango, boasting that he had applied the torch
1 R. Fernandez Giiell, Episodios de la Re<voluci6n Mexicana,
p. 170.
2 Idem, p. 144
MADERISM 187
with his own hand to seventy-four plantations. All these
monsters were declared to be good, capable of governing,
the true democrats for whom the country had been sighing,
the enlightened guides who were to conduct the people along
the road of duty and constitutionalism. Madero alone was
evil. He was a reptile which, according to the advice of
El Heraldo, ought to be stepped upon. He should be over-
thrown, said La Tribuna; cast out at once, said El Mariana.
It was a savage campaign in the interests of regicide.
The revolution had added two more great principles to
its code, and any honest, intelligent man could read on
its unfurled banner: "Vengeance, pillage, regicide, anarchy!"
It was known in Mexico that the Morelos campaign was
a school of disloyalty, cowardice, pillage, disorganization and
brigandage for the army. It was even believed that, as in
times past, it would desert at the voice of a leader, al-
though it had proved when Felix Diaz revolted at Vera
Cruz that it would not accept him for its leader. It
had also proved that General Reyes no longer appealed to
it, that he did not inspire it with enthusiasm or respect, and
that it would not at his command desert its chief. It
was believed that this loyalty was accidental; that it was
due to the lack of a leader, whom the press was either un-
willing or unable to supply in its efforts to overthrow Ma-
dero. Realizing their unpopularity, Reyes, Diaz and Mon-
dragon understood that it would be impossible for them to
launch a revolution outside the capital. Reyes and Diaz
felt that they would be scorned by the public and the army,
as had already been the case, and Mondragon knew that he
was unpopular in both civil and military circles. There was
only one means by which these leaders more unpopular
than the unpopular Madero himself could overthrow him,
and that was recourse to a coup de main. This does not
require popularity but only iniquity, and perhaps cowardice,
to effect. The coup de main of an unpopular leader against
1 88 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
an unpopular ruler necessitates the assassination of the latter.
Otherwise he will attempt to reestablish himself, supported
by the people, who are horrified at the triumph of the un-
scrupulous aspirant. The murder of Madero and Pino
Suarez was the first of the perfectly logical necessities that
confronted the ambitious generals, resolved to triumph at
any cost. On the other hand, as this regicide seemed to be
demanded as a social measure by the degenerates, voiced in
sinister tones by all Madero's enemies in the press, it fell
to the lot of the politically depraved leaders to create an
opinion in favor of a government of regicides, forgetting,
as history has proved, that regicide is punished with death,
even though society benefits by the crime.
The last touch of perfidy was added to the coup of Feb-
ruary 9, 1913, by the complicity in the plot of the stu-
dents of the preparatory military school. Never in Mex-
ico's worst days, in her darkest hours of iniquity, had it come
to pass that children and youths had been led along the
murky ways of treason and taught to soak their supposedly
innocent hands in blood the blood which flowed in the most
detestable regicide in the history of Latin-America. When
unformed youths lend themselves to the most horrible of all
social crimes through cupidity, ambition or any other mo-
tive, the symptoms of a corroding social moral leprosy are
evident. The day of reckoning cannot be far off.
The anarchic state of Madero's Government, the im-
potence of the Mexican intelligence to measure accurately
the unspeakable condition of the country, the inability of
the national corpse to feel any patriotic sentiments, the utter
oblivion to all the duties of civilization, betokened the arrival
of the hour. The death-knell had sounded, and it was time
for the "man of iron" to arise, to spill blood much blood,
the blood of miscreants, not that of innocent people, not that
of Madero. Madero was not evil; his only defect was his
mania, and even that was harmless.
PART THIRD
THE POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL INDICT-
MENT OF PRESIDENT WILSON IN THE
MEXICAN CASE
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES AC-
CEPTED BY PRESIDENT WILSON
THE FAILURE OF THE "dVIS ROMANUS SUM" CLAIM
A FEW days after General Huerta rose to power on
the stepping-stones of infamous deed and slain men,
and overrode the aspirations of the conservative
classes, of property interests, and of sublime sentiments,
and the hopes of law and order expressed by natives and
foreigners in Mexico, Mr. Wilson, with the prestige that
his office and the greatness of his country conferred on him,
stepped out as the arbiter of the affairs of the Mexican
Government and those of other Latin nations in the New
World.
The wave of indignation that surged over the American
people, as well as other civilized and even barbarous nations,
at the news of the assassination of the President and Vice-
President of Mexico enveloped Mr. Wilson as he took
his seat in the presidential chair. The horror manifested
throughout the world at the stupendous crime of Mexican
militarism proves that nations are bound together by invisi-
ble currents of morality and good fellowship as well as by
the steel cables with which science has bound them together
in reality, and that this union is drawing mankind closer
and closer together. Mr. Wilson, interpreting the senti-
ments of one hundred millions of his compatriots, not as a
statesman but as a plain American citizen, carried into the
189
190 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
international political arena a current of false sentiment.
According to the law that governs the mutual friendship
and interests of sovereign nations enjoying freedom and in-
dependence, personality is represented by the State, and this
cannot be a murderer or a thief, or even appear in the role
of a delinquent. To Mr. Wilson, under the rules pre-
scribed by international law, Huerta did not exist; Mexico
alone existed, and only the Mexicans were competent to
pass judgment upon the official or private conduct of their
Executive as the basis for political action. As the President
of the United States, Mr. Wilson had the right to judge
and condemn Huerta's crime privately, never to act upon it
in his official capacity, unless Huerta's action bore directly
or indirectly on the interests of the America people.
Mr. Wilson's denunciations of Huerta, high-minded but
indiscreet, revealed also the astounding basis of his new
policy toward the Latin-American nations. He stepped
forth as the declared enemy of the "almighty dollar policy"
which had caused so much hatred and ill-will against the
United States Government in all Latin-American countries.
The press of these countries acclaimed him. Here, at last,
was the just man, not the mercenary man of the cursed
"almighty dollar policy." He was the twentieth-century
reincarnation of Benjamin Franklin, perfuming with his
benevolence and virtue the foreign policy of the United
States, everywhere considered pestiferous in so far as
its relations with weak Latin-American nations were con-
cerned. Mr. Woodrow Wilson must be gifted with rare
imagination, because he instantly linked Huerta's detestable
crimes with the Hebraic crimes perpetrated in the campaign
of the almighty dollar. This dollar-campaign could not pos-
sibly be carried on without the aid of the corrupt Latin-
American rulers; and the alliance of the moneyed Creole
and mestizo elements and the moneyed Anglo-Saxon inter-
ests was indispensable. Mr. Wilson, looking through cast-
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 191
iron lenses, was gifted with clear vision with regard to the
Mexican situation. Huerta was simply the bloody and
ferocious agent of the landowners, who had kept eighty-five
per cent of the Mexican people in misery, and of the per-
verted Creoles, in infamous alliance with the magnates of
Wall Street, sustaining their plutocratic state through the
sweat of the brow of a wretched people. The Huerta case
was nothing more than the horrible, unethical case of the
almighty dollar.
Mr. Wilson's proclamation of his future policy was ap-
plauded far and wide. The Frankfort Gazette on April
6, 1914, said, referring to Mr. Wilson: "This idealist's
place is in the political world, and we might well consider
ourselves fortunate if we had at the head of the German
Government an idealist of such strong will and progressive
tendencies as Mr. Wilson."
Without entering into a discussion of the aspirations for
Germany here expressed by The Frankfort Gazette, I am
sure that the idealist it wished to have at the head of the
German Government would be a German idealist, thor-
oughly acquainted with every department of German life,
from whom none of its secrets would be withheld. I can-
not believe that The Frankfort Gazette wished to put a
French, Spanish, Russian, Brazilian or Japanese idealist at
the head of the German Government. The Mexicans, even
admitting the possibility of an idealistic government, cannot
wish that this idealist should be an estimable President of
the United States.
Mr. Hamilton Fyfe in his interesting book has written a
great truth. "Both President Wilson and Mr. Bryan have
replied to repeated representations from Americans in Mex-
ico that their policy does not cover the protection of Ameri-
can business interests. In August they went so far as to
advise all Americans in disturbed areas to leave the country.
That advice was endorsed by the mass of American people,
192 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
who said: 'They went there of their own accord. They
took a risk and they must put up with the consequences/ a
vivid illustration of the weakness of national spirit in the
United States." 1
Such a startling declaration puts an end to all interna-
tional law, to the binding force of treaties, to the Consti-
tution of the United States, and even to civilization's en-
nobling influence.
Until the advent of Mr. Wilson the claim to protection
of the American citizen in Mexico, as in all Latin-America,
and we might even say all over the world, was the "Civis
romanus sum" of the twentieth century. It was known that
the United States Government was intractable, as the English
Government had always been, especially under the ministry
of Lord Palmerston, when it came to making the slightest
concession with regard to the rights of its citizens in foreign
countries. It mattered not if that citizen were a working-
man or a beggar, the Stars and Stripes protected the sons
of Washington with equal impartiality.
Since the promulgation of Mr. Wilson's incomprehensible
policy a marked indifference has been noted in Latin-Ameri-
can countries with regard to the fulfillment of obligations
in this regard, which were known by heart by people and
Government alike. In Mexico, especially at the present
time, there is no difference between the status of an American
citizen and that of a Chinaman, whom the rabble drags
around by the cue, utterly indifferent as to what the Em-
peror Yuan-Shi-Kai may think or say. There can be no
doubt that Mr. Wilson, because of his leaning to the ideal
of universal democracy, has decided to do away with the
"Civis romanus sum" attitude of the American citizen, and
has been applauded by the fifty or more million Latin-
Americans who for one hundred years have felt humiliated
by this irritating international privilege.
1 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, pp. 132, 133.
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 193
PORFIRIO DIAZ'S DOCTRINE REGARDING MEN OF AFFAIRS
At first sight Mr. Wilson's doctrine of non-support of
American claims against Latin-American countries emanat-
ing from business sources, appears just and an act of repara-
tion to countries that have been so arrantly offended by
the "almighty dollar policy." Closely examined, this doc-
trine is seen to be highly prejudicial to all the nations it aims
to protect, above all to Mexico.
Mexico is unquestionably a rich country, but this wealth
cannot be developed without the assistance of immense for-
eign capital. It is one thing to graze large herds in the
fertile plains of Argentine and Uruguay; to sow wheat in
the rich Pampa soil; to build railroads on smooth plains; to
carry on commerce with the greatest navigable rivers of the
world at one's command; but it is quite another thing to
work mines at a depth of from 800 to 1,000 meters; to drive
petroleum wells of more or less the same depth; to build
railroads in a mountainous country; to carry on commerce
without rivers; to be obliged, in order to cultivate virgin
lands, to undertake the installation of very costly irrigation
plants; and to be furthermore obliged, in order to feed a
starving population, to invest untold millions to restore to
exhausted lands the marvellous fertility they formerly pos-
sessed. Mexico, without the help of an extensive foreign
capital, has before her only certain extinction by anarchy.
This would have happened in 1880, if American capital
had not flowed into the country and saved the nation from
the fate that awaited it.
This point established, it is necessary to consider care-
fully the following: In the memorable debate which took
place in December, 1893, for the Constitutional amend-
ment which should place the judiciary on an independ-
ent footing, Senor Justo Sierra and I were the strongest
speakers in favor of the measure. It passed the House, but
194 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
General Diaz prevented our salutary reform project from
being discussed in the Senate. As the dictator had solemnly
promised that he would leave Congress perfectly free in
this matter, and would abide by its decision whatever it
might be, his final action greatly incensed us. Knowing
this, he called a meeting which Senores Rosendo Pineda,
Joaquin Casasus, Justo Sierra and I attended. General
Diaz said: "I owe you an explanation. I am convinced
that I have been able to govern successfully, to preserve
peace and to secure some progress for Mexico, because I
have availed myself of the help of foreign capital. Its rep-
resentatives have many enemies in the country, and their
worst enemies are to be found in our courts, because they
are venal, or because they have a misconceived notion of
patriotism. Innumerable judges have come to tell me that,
owing to their intense patriotism, they find it impossible to
pass sentence in favor of foreigners or of foreign companies,
when these are contending against Mexican interests. I have
received complaints from the United States Ambassador of
the demands made upon foreign companies by judges, clerks,
lawyers, pettifoggers, newspaper men, state governors and
their favorites; all this mass of depraved traffickers bent on
getting money out of every concern they know to be rich
enough to make worth while, a sentence rendered in their
favor.
"After trying for eight years by every possible means at
my command to put an end to this deplorable state of affairs,
I have come to the conclusion that the only way that lies
open to me is the one I have adopted. Whenever an im-
portant lawsuit comes up in the courts in which the interests
of a foreign company are concerned, I put it into the
hands of honorable and distinguished lawyers, perhaps the
most competent and intelligent in Mexico, such as Senores
Ignacio Luis Vallarta, Luis Mendez, Emilio Velazco,
Emilio Pardo, Manuel Inda and Rafael Donde. These
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 195
gentlemen, without forming a special commission, in groups
of two or three or more, if necessary review the judicial
proceedings of the lower court while the appeal in the higher
court is still pending. If the judges of the Courts of First
Instance, which I have left perfectly free, and the Court of
Appeal, which I have also left free to pass sentence, give
an unjust verdict according to the opinion of my consulting
lawyers, I empower my friends in the Supreme Court to
use my name in order that justice may be done, if they see
that the Supreme Court is going to give an unjust verdict.
"I am convinced that if foreign capitalists do not find in
Mexico assured guarantees that they will he protected
against the machinations of a certain element, they will flee,
and with them the peace and well-being of the country."
We accepted General Diaz's explanation, convinced that,
in the event that Mexico in the natural evolution of its
political life should enter into the broader highways of a
free government, the first thing capitalists would do would
be to withdraw from the country, if they were not sure of
being energetically upheld by their home governments, ac-
cording to the usages of international law and the stipula-
tions of treaties.
Neither the foreign working-man, nor the foreign colo-
nists, the foreign professional man, nor the foreign capital-
ist has absolute confidence even to-day in Latin-American
courts. In Latin-American countries which are under the
law of dictatorships, they trust only dictators of the stamp
of General Diaz, not on that account, however, ceasing to
avail themselves of the protection of international law and
treaty rights. Under the ordinary dictators, or the dema-
gogues who take their place when anarchy reigns, the courts
inspire terror instead of confidence, as the instigators of
nefarious practices rather than of justice.
Patriotism is differently interpreted. My interpretation
is that since it is clear that without the support of foreign
1 96 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
capital Mexico would have been ruined even if there had
been no revolution, patriotism demands that foreign capital
should have support under international law and treaty
rights. Mr. Wilson's doctrine of denying support to all
claims emanating from business interests makes this impos-
sible. Every Latin-American nation which desires and
needs to develop its national resources quickly by means of
foreign capital ought to have a government which encour-
ages clean business. It ought to be ready to open its doors
and give all manner of guarantees, compatible with its
dignity, and with its own rights clearly established, to every
business man who offers to place his capital at the disposi-
tion of the country upon a legitimate business footing. If
Mr. Wilson's doctrine consisted in refusing to support
American claims in illegitimate business transactions, his
policy would be laudable as well as scientific. But to pro-
claim that his administration will not support any claim
emanating from business interests is equivalent to saying:
"I forbid all American capitalists to invest money in Mex-
ico under pain of denying them the protection of interna-
tional law and treaty rights."
I believe I have demonstrated that the Wilson doctrine is
as prejudicial to Mexico as to the United States.
PRESIDENT WILSON FANS THE BOXER SENTIMENT
This Wilson doctrine was enthusiastically taken up by
the revolutionary press and writers, who redoubled the fury
of their bugle call, summoning all to take up arms in the
Boxer revolution. The nefarious revolutionary gospel of
the day was: "So true is it that the Yankee capitalists are
nothing more than a crafty set of thieves preying upon the
Mexican people, that even Mr. Wilson, their President, has
announced that they need not count upon the support of
their Government for anything. And being the great Wil-
son, the immortal Wilson, the epic Wilson, all justice and
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 197
truth, inflamed with liberty and charity, he could not have
denied a rightful claim to the Yankee capitalists; conse-
quently, his determination not to support them is equivalent
to denouncing them before the world as financial pirates
and corruptors of Latin-American governments, worthy of
punishment instead of protection. People raise a statue
to Wilson, and crown it with flowers at least four times a
year at the change of the seasons !" x
I censure the "almighty dollar policy" as an honest man,
but not as a Mexican, because in Mexico there has been no
such policy. Its existence has been invented by demagogic
agitators and pretentious and small-minded students.
Foreign capital, as a whole, invested in Mexico, accord-
ing to the figures of the Mexican official statistics, is as
follows :
Railways constructed with foreign capital 600,000,000 pesos
Foreign capital invested in mines 587,000,000 "
Metallurgic works and cyanidation plants 70,000,000 "
Development of petroleum 200,000,000 "
Necaxa works, electric lighting and electric
motor power 100,000,000 "
Invested in banks 76,000,000 "
Textile industries 35,000,000 "
Electric companies furnishing lighting and
motor power throughout the Republic 32,000,000 "
Loaned to the Caja de Prestamos for the pro-
motion of agricultural and irrigation works 50,000,000 "
Federal public debt 485,000,000 "
State public debt 7,000,000 "
Invested in foreign commerce 476,000,000 "
Total 2,691,000,000 pesos
I am not taking into account the foreign capital invested
in extensive cattle-raising in Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango
and Coahuila; in the rubber industry in these same states
1 Argumento de Proclam* revolucionrio, Durango, Agosto de
W3-
ig8 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
and in those of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi ; in the timber
lands of Chihuahua; in the sugar-cane plantations in Vera
Cruz, the territory of Tepic and the Isthmus of Tehuan-
tepec; or, lastly, the coffee plantations and the rubber tree
nurseries in the states of Chiapas, Vera Cruz and Oaxaca.
I ask, Has this or any part of it contributed to the ruin
of Mexico? Have the 600,000,000 pesos invested in rail-
roads been employed to rob the Mexican people? It has
been said that Mexico has given an average of $4,250 gold
per kilometer for railroad construction in a depopulated
country where only twenty per cent of the people require
transportation. Mr. Wilson knows that the Mexican Gov-
ernment, in order to avert the failure of the great railway
lines, gave in exchange for the control of these the guarantee
of an annual four per cent dividend on a smaller capital than
that actually invested. Is this what is called robbing the
Mexican people, and does it warrant Mr. Wilson in de-
nouncing the foreign stockholders to the world as a set of
knaves ?
In the mining world the foreign capital is estimated at
587,000,000 pesos, which, plus the capital invested in the
metallurgic works, equals 657,000,000 pesos. Those ac-
quainted with mining affairs know that in mining, taken as
a whole, the net profit is not more than fifteen per cent on
the gross product. Taking this figure as a basis, a net profit
of 26,000,000 pesos is obtained, which on a capital of 657,-
000,000 pesos, leaves an annual profit of barely four per
cent on the capital invested. In 1877, before the investment
of foreign capital on a large scale in Mexican mines, only
22,000 workmen were employed in the mining industry;
114,000 men were employed at a good daily wage in 1910.
This is the so-called ruin that foreign capital has produced
in Mexico. The Necaxa concession was not injurious to
the country, because the only favor conceded was exemption
from the ruinous taxes that might have been imposed. The
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 199
Necaxa motor power is utilized by various electric light and
electric power plants, especially at El Oro, a mining town
where 15,000 men were employed.
The foreign capital invested in Government bonds can-
not have robbed the nation, because the bonds were bought
almost at par, notwithstanding the fact that the annual in-
terest is only from four to five per cent. The extensive for-
eign capital invested in trade operates upon exactly the same
basis as the national capital, without special privileges or con-
cessions; therefore, it is ridiculous, if they are on an equal
footing, to say that in this respect the Mexican people are
being robbed. It is only when we come to the petroleum
concessions that a wrong can be said to have been done to
the Mexican people. In these concessions exemption from
export duty was granted, and, as by its very nature almost
all of it is exported, and as its production does not require
a large force, the people derived very little benefit from the
exploitation of this portion of their national wealth. But
this concession was unconstitutional and could have been
revoked from the moment that the Government that granted
it was overthrown. All difficulties could have been com-
promised, and a new contract drawn up by which the petro-
leum companies would have been obliged to pay an equitable
tax.
I do not think it necessary to continue the analysis of these
specific charges. Those I have particularly noted will suffice
for Mr. Wilson's consideration and that of the American
public. It seems sufficient to me to close the review of the
legitimate business enterprises operating in Mexico at the
time the revolution broke out by inviting the revolutionary
writers to show in what way the enterprises I have men-
tioned have been guilty of defrauding the Mexican people.
I, moreover, defy the whole world to show me where, out-
side the cases I have mentioned, they can point out real or
probable cases of injustice toward the Mexican people.
200 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
It is undeniable that during the administration of Gen-
eral Diaz there were shady business transactions of greater
or lesser gravity; but they were not allied with foreign en-
terprises, nor were they disadvantageous to the country. The
dirty business transactions may be narrowed down to seven
Spaniards who took to Mexico no other capital than their
determination to build up fortunes by any and all possible
means. These men were friends of President Manuel Gon-
zalez and of President Porfirio Diaz. I know of only three
Americans who have amassed great fortunes in Mexico. One
possessed no capital at all; the other two had small amounts
to invest. I do not mention their names because it is not my
intention in writing this book to cause any one trouble out
of proportion to his responsibilities. I am writing to defend
my country by stating facts, not to laud my friends, or to
take revenge on my enemies or molest neutrals.
It is not, however, to be taken for granted that because
seven Spaniards were favorites of the dictator and managed
to amass fortunes illegitimately, that the Spanish colony in
Mexico, numbering about forty thousand, almost all hon-
orable, useful, hard-working and estimable for many reasons,
should be hated, persecuted, declared criminal and deserv-
ing of extermination; any more than the useful, hard-work-
ing American colony, the promoters of civilization, numbering
about forty thousand, should be execrated. The Span-
iards were the creators of fortunes for the Mexican families;
without them Mexico would certainly have been a nation of
bureaucrats, of unfortunate employees of private or foreign
concerns, of working-men, day-laborers, beggars and pick-
pockets.
For the successful working out of the "almighty dollar
policy," the concurrence of the American financier of the
piratical type and the corrupt Mexican public official is
needed. President Wilson apparently does not know that
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 201
Senor Limantour, who for eighteen years was the absolute
dictator of Mexico's financial policy, was the avowed enemy
of American monopolies, and consistently opposed to per-
mitting American capital, however beneficial its effects, from
getting the upper hand in the country, because gold is always
a power, and can sway in the political field.
The American writer, Mr. Edward I. Bell, who has
studied Mexican affairs at first-hand, says: "The Pearson
concession was a move approved by Limantour to prevent
Standard Oil domination. . . . The Waters-Pierce Oil
Company, then a subsidiary of the Standard Oil, had held a
monopoly of the trade of Mexico and at the time of the con-
cession was engaged in bringing in oil from the United States
and selling twenty-liter cans of good illuminating grade at
$3.59 Mexican money, a price equivalent to thirty-five Amer-
ican cents a gallon.
"If there was one thing that Limantour objected to more
than monopoly in general, it was American monop-
oly. . . . Ml
When the Mexican Government undertook to drain the
City of Mexico and Vera Cruz, it turned down many Amer-
ican bids and awarded the contracts to a French company,
and to the house of Pearson & Son, of London. Many
other American propositions for all kinds of public improve-
ments were submitted, and resulted in the award to the
Pearson company of contracts valued at 170,000,000 pesos.
The drainage contracts, before the work passed into the
hands of the Pearson company, had Jpeen in charge of an
English company, Read & Campbell. The installing of a
water plant to supply the City of Mexico with water, and
also the erection of all the public buildings that beautify the
city, costing in the neighborhood of 50,000,000 pesos, were
carried out under the direction of the Government, only
Mexican, French and Italian engineers, architects and work-
1 Edward I. Bell, The Political Shame of Mexico^ p. 126.
202 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
men being employed. Limantour had no grudge against
Americans, as is clear from the fact that he approved all the
concessions requested by Ambassador Thompson ; that of the
Mexican Southern Pacific Railroad, solicited by Mr. Harri-
man, and the monopoly of office and school supplies granted
to Mosler, Bowen & Cook.
Limantour sought to keep the balance between European
and American capital. He was absolutely incorruptible, and
his designs in this respect, undoubtedly founded upon pa-
triotic motives, are to be applauded.
What has been said will suffice to show that foreign enter-
prises in Mexico, more than one-half of which represented
American interests, have operated almost without exception
honestly, legitimately and thoroughly, and that they have
not only conferred benefits upon the Mexican people, but
that they saved them from extinction in 1877. At this time
the Government and all intelligent leaders, seeing them-
selves without the support of foreign capital, had lost faith
in the future of Mexico.
Mr. Wilson's policy of sustaining the false accusations
made against foreign capital in Mexico unquestionably served
to stimulate the Boxer sentiment. This has been the right
arm of the revolution, as Sefior Carranza has confessed in
his interview with Senor Aldo Baroni, published in the
Diario de la Marina of Havana.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE A WAR DOCTRINE
As the "Mexican case" is closely bound up in the Monroe
Doctrine, and as this is complex and confused as are all
doctrines that are extraordinarily elastic I feel obliged to
explain it as I understand it in order to make my argument
absolutely clear.
The basis of the Monroe Doctrine is the immutable pro-
hibition of the acquirement by any foreign pow r er of territory
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 203
on the American continents or in American waters. To for-
bid any nation to acquire territory in America is equivalent
to forbidding that nation to make war upon any of the
American nations. The rights of war are: Total or partial
possession of the conquered territory; temporary occupation
of the conquered territory, which may extend over a long
period of time-; occupation of the territory as a guarantee for
the payment of indemnity or the fulfillment of obligations
stipulated in the treaty of peace; occupation of the territory
in order to collect the war indemnity, or to press the meeting
of public debt obligations, when the debtor is tardy, or for
any other reason declines to meet this or other claims. In
times of peace a power has the right to occupy territory in
a foreign country in order to protect the lives or interests of
its subjects, threatened with annihilation. Some interna-
tional law writers have held that a power has the right to
punish the crimes committed by rebellious subjects of a for-
eign nation against its subjects, if the Government of this
nation is impotent to suppress disorder and punish its own
rebellious subjects. In order that this punishment may be
administered, the temporary occupation of a part of the of-
fending nation's territory is unavoidable.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the Monroe Doc-
trine restricts the sovereignty of all foreign nations; and
later it will be seen that it restricts the sovereignty of all
American nations, except the United States.
Why have the European nations accepted this manifest
restriction of their sovereignty? Because all the nations that
have accepted the Monroe Doctrine, in order to preserve
their dignity without having to go to war with the United
States, have tacitly recognized a protectorate exercised by
the United States Government over all the Latin-American
nations. But the foreign Powers cannot abjure their rights
to sovereignty in this respect without the protector assuming
the responsibility before these Powers for the offenses com-
204 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
mitted by the nations over which the protectorate is exer-
cised. The Monroe Doctrine obliges the United States to
answer for the conduct of these nations to the point of giving
absolute satisfaction to the European Powers which recog-
nize the Monroe Doctrine, or of incurring the risk of having
them declare war against the United States when the satis-
faction is not considered adequate. This proves that the
Monroe Doctrine is a probable war doctrine even with the
nations that tacitly or expressly recognize it. The Monroe
Doctrine was the gauntlet thrown down to Spain and the
nations composing the Holy Alliance, Prussia, Austria and
Russia, which they could not take up because they were not
naval powers at the time they were challenged. Moreover,
the Monroe Doctrine was supported by England, the first
naval power of the world, which assured the tranquil ex-
istence of the doctrine so long as England and the United
States were at peace. It may be said that the Monroe Doc-
trine has been sustained for more than eighty years by an
alliance between these two nations. Nevertheless, in the
Venezuelan case, when the United States took a firm stand
against England, the alliance was on the point of being
broken, but the difficulty was surmounted.
The European Powers have tacitly or expressly recognized
the protectorate imposed by the United States over Latin-
American nations because they could not go to war with
England and the United States to recover their rights as
military powers, either to undertake conquests or to declare
war according to international law and the treaties emanat-
ing from it. It is clear that should the European Powers,
either through necessity or ambition, make up their minds
to go to war, they will not feel obliged to respect the pro-
hibition imposed by the United States, but will override the
Monroe Doctrine just as soon as they find themselves in a
position to do so. The Monroe Doctrine, then, may prove
a war doctrine with the European Powers or Japan at a
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 205
time it is not yet possible to fix. Germany has publicly de-
clared that she does not recognize, nor will she ever rec-
ognize, the Monroe Doctrine; and it is practically certain
that if the European war had not taken up her attention,
she would, because of her great interest in Brazil and her
designs in Nicaragua, have declared war against the United
States if she could have secured the neutrality of England.
If Germany crushes the power of England in the present
war, she will, with a reconstructed navy, attack the United
States, not only for the purpose of destroying the Monroe
Doctrine, but for the purpose of breaking a rival power.
Rome would not have stood the rival power of Carthage in
the twentieth century any more than she stood it two thou-
sand and seventy- two years ago. The cause of the Allies is
the cause of the United States, and explains the unprece-
dented interest and support given on supposedly neutral
ground to Germany's enemies.
Even if the Allies triumph, the Monroe Doctrine will
still be in peril. England has submitted as gracefully as pos-
sible to the attitude of the United States because she wished
to keep Canada. But England, once triumphant, will come
to recognize that the war with Germany has transformed
her into what she never dreamed of being a great military
power in the world, capable of raising four million men,
officered and well trained, with an enormous train of artil-
lery, all this backed by a flourishing home industry capable
of keeping such a colossal force thoroughly equipped.
It might be that triumphant France and Italy would at-
tempt to put an end to the Monroe Doctrine; and in that
case an alliance for the purpose of getting possession of Nic-
aragua, or obtaining concessions with regard to the Canal,
whether or not the Nicaraguian Government were willing,
could bring the Monroe Doctrine into conflict. I consider
it very doubtful whether the triumphant European Powers
will consent to the United States possessing absolute control
206 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
of the waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific. These
considerations prove that, now more than ever, the Monroe
Doctrine is a war doctrine.
Wilson's doctrine is diametrically opposed to the Monroe
Doctrine, in virtue of which the United States assumes be-
fore Europe and Japan, if the latter recognizes the doctrine,
responsibility for the actions of the Latin-American nations,
even when this responsibility is grave and might lead to war.
The United States, therefore, in assuming this responsibility,
accepts unconditionally the rights of the European Powers
to exact from the Latin-American nations the fulfillment of
the precepts laid down by international law and treaty stip-
ulations. As in both these laws the rights of all nations to
support the claims of their respective subjects, whether they
emanate from business interests or not, are expressly stated,
it is inconceivable that Europe will submit to the Wilson doc-
trine of non-protection by the American Government of
claims emanating from business interests.
The conflict between these doctrines might lead to three
things: War between Europe and the United States; the un-
conditional surrender of the Monroe Doctrine; the incredi-
bly humiliating action on the part of the American President
of giving protection to foreign claims from whatever source
they might spring, even to taking up arms in their defense,
after denying the same protection to American citizens under
similar circumstances. I cannot believe that the American
people would go to war with Mexico, or any other Latin-
American nation, to protect the interests of European sub-
jects, when, rather than go to war, they have permitted their
own countrymen to remain unprotected. \
After the lapse of a year, Mr. Wilson understood that
his "debutante" political doctrine was untenable, as, in lay-
ing down his program to The Saturday Evening Post rep-
resentative, he said: "Second No personal aggrandizement
by American investors or adventurers or capitalists, or ex-
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 207
ploitation of that country, will be permitted. Legitimate
business interests that seek to develop rather than exploit
will be encouraged."
This declaration deserves to be applauded, but the Wilson
doctrine as first promulgated caused considerable damage to
both American and Mexican business interests.
THE PROBLEM
Should President Wilson have recognized the Huerta
Government in March, 1913?
Let us examine the situation as it appeared in the eyes of
the world. On one side w r as General Huerta, usurper, trai-
tor, assassin and the representative of the ancient and anti-
patriotic privileged classes, composed of debauched Creoles,
greedy landowners, holding back land indispensable for the
maintenance of the people, and dishonest plutocrats, all ene-
mies of the people, opposed to its moral and material 4i^t-
terment. On the other side was Senor Venustiano Car-
ranza, a Constitutionalist, a great and radical reformer,
loyal, just and a distributor of lands to the people.
Guided by appearances, it was not possible to vacillate.
Every support should be given to Carranza; every means
used to defeat Huerta.
Let us see what the actual situation was.
THE FIRST LIE: THE USURPATION OF HUERTA
I have said that in all countries called free, except Eng-
land, two political constitutions hold sway, the written and
the unwritten. The first is the work of politicians; the sec-
ond is the outgrowth of social usage. In Latin-America the
political constitutions have been the result of the more or less
208 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
unreal visions that incessantly dangle before the imagina-
tion of patriots and the creators of theoretic democracies.
Theories cannot be applied to nations; they are eminently
practical, not theoretical. Life is a fact, not a theory.
In countries where dictatorships are the rule, the political
constitution is simply ornamental, and, consequently, the
president emanating from such a constitution is simply a
constitutional president of the ornamental type (a real presi-
dent such as Madero, but unfit to govern), or a dictator of
the proportions of General Porfirio Diaz,. As has been said,
the unwritten constitution of a people emanates from its
racial traits, its history, its economic organism, its territory,
its education, its real needs, sufferings and aspirations, and
the influence of foreign nations in short, from social usage.
In Mexico the law prescribed by social usage was the change
of government by violence and treason, without recourse to
assassination. Therefore Madero was the real usurper who
had violated the inexorable law which was a law notwith-
standing its atrociousness by appearing as the constitutional
president in a country where no one was interested in living
up to the written constitution, and where he gave new and
flagrant examples of its violation. The simple fact that a
president has been legally elected is not enough to make him
respected. He must combine legality of conduct, and this
President Madero did not do. It is not true that the coup
of February 9, 1913, destroyed a democracy. A demo-
cratic government is a government founded on public opin-
ion, and when such a government loses its support, it has
virtually been overthrown. The Nueva Era, the semi-offi-
cial organ of the Madero administration, said editorially in
December, 1912: "It really requires great moral courage to
confess one's self a Maderista."
It may be well to repeat here the sentence previously
quoted from the writings of Senor Fernandez Giiell, who up
to the present day has remained one of Madero's firm ad-
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 209
herents: "At the time of the uprising at Vera Cruz (Oc-
tober 10, 1912) the Federal Government rested solely on
the loyalty of the army." l
This clearly indicates that from October 10, 1912, Ma-
dero was a despot, intrenched behind a row of bayonets.
Why was this despotism tolerated? Because the democ-
racy did not exist. If it had existed, the loyal faction in
the House of Representatives would have risen to perform
its manifest duty. But as we already know, the majority in
the House was unconditionally at the disposal of Gustavo
Madero, the President's brother. How was it possible, un-
less he assumed the role of Cain, that President Madero
could be indicted and found guilty? Clearly it was purely
a family affair, and the only way to overthrow the despot
was to overthrow the whole family. In Latin-American
countries, and in all countries ruled by dictators, it is the
duty of the army to overthrow the despot.
As has already been mentioned, in countries ruled by dic-
tatorships, from the days of ancient Rome down to the lat-
est upheaval in Haiti, which overthrew the President, the
army acts as a salutary power. It exterminates anarchy,
when this begins to degenerate from political into social
anarchy ; and overthrows dictators, when their beneficent or
tolerable rule degenerates into a harmful and morally ener-
vating despotism. It must not be overlooked that all tyranny
is progressive. The Caesar begins by signing with horror
the first death sentence against a bandit, and ends by wish-
ing that the human race had only one head so that he might
decapitate it at a blow. The right to rebel is the inherent
right of all democratic and servile peoples. If rebellion be
the means of saving the country from death, servile peoples
have as much right to have recourse to it as do those ruled
by democracies. Real democracy is a modern institution,
1 R. Fernandez Guell, Episodios de la Revolution Mexicana,
p. 185.
210 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
and humanity would not now exist if the peoples had not
thrown off the tyrannical yoke by means of militarism, orien-
tal seraglio conspiracies or regicide. The latter method is
repugnant to all right-minded persons, and is certainly the
most unethical of all, as militarism is the least offensive.
Undoubtedly militarism is unethical and open to the con-
demnation of all ultra-idealists ; but considering society in the
light of an organism, we may draw an analogy from pa-
thology, which gives us so many examples of diseases that act
one upon the other to produce beneficial effects upon the pa-
tient. A consuming fever is sometimes nature's device for
throwing off an infection, just as the cough that accom-
panies certain diseases is always a salutary symptom, if not
the actual means of effecting an absolute cure. In Latin-
American nations, which are passing through the critical
stage of their dictatorial life, militarism is the salutary func-
tion that restores them to partial or complete health.
From what has been said it will be seen that Madero, in
February, 1913, was an usurper, loudly condemned by pub-
lic opinion. As there was no democratic system through
w T hich the President could be called to account, the people
in their servile capacity were quite within their rights in
appealing to a revolution. As they were servile, as is proved
by their incapacity to grasp democracy, they had the right
to use the means within their power to induce the defection
of the army and compel it to fulfil its obligations not con-
stitutional, but sociological of overthrowing the President
of the Republic. And, finally, it is to be deduced from the
preceding that Huerta was the real President of Mexico,
the sociological President, imposed by the law of social
usage, the real constitutional President emanating from the
unwritten Constitution, representative of the needs of the
people. From this it is also to be deduced that President
Wilson as a moralist may rank with Telemachus, impreg-
nated with the doctrine of Fenelon ; but as a sociologist, and
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 211
as President of the United States, he has belittled himself
by his policy of non-recognition of Latin-American Govern-
ments founded upon treason and violence, driving the United
States to the absurd political measure of having to sever diplo-
matic relations with most of the Latin-American and all ot
the oriental nations. Very recently, February 28, 1916,
the news was flashed across the water that the heir-apparent
of Turkey, young Yussouf Izzadin, in my opinion quite as
estimable as Madero, had been assassinated by order of the
chief of the Turkish Government, and no one is so far aware
that Mr. Wilson has severed diplomatic relations with Tur-
key. Similarly, when the President of Peru was removed by
violence from the presidential chair, Mr. Wilson, at that
time already President of the United States, experienced no
difficulty in recognizing the usurper. Notwithstanding the
fact that the entire world is aw r are of the handiwork of the
Chinese political juggler, Yuan-Shi-Kai, accused of not one
but several secret murders, Mr. Wilson holds out his hand
to him, after having effusively pressed Pancho Villa's
still red with the blood of Benton through his representa-
tive, General Hugh L. Scott, Chief of Staff. The sig-
nificance of this spectacle was further enhanced by the aston-
ishment of the world upon seeing a full-fledged general of
the United States Army treating with Villa, as power to
power, placing the notorious Mexican brigand on the same
footing as General Joffre or Marshals Hindenburg or Mac-
kensen. This cannot have been a matter of pride to the
American people, its Navy or its Army. Mr. Wilson owes
it to Carranza that he did not recognize Villa.
THE SECOND LIE I THE WICKEDNESS OF THE
CREOLE CLASS
Through constant hammering President Wilson has been
brought to believe that a conspiracy exists among the Cre-
oles to get the mastery of the people, and once more to
212 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
establish the Colonial system; and that to accomplish this
end they have turned the army against the mestizo repre-
sentatives of liberty, science and justice and of everything
that was great in Mexico.
Let us examine the truth of this assertion.
The colonel of the Nineteenth Battalion, who turned trai-
tor to Madero and took possession of the plaza of Vera
Cruz on October 10, 1912, to hand it over to General
Felix Diaz, was Diaz Ordaz, a mestizo, as was also Felix
Diaz. The three generals, Reyes, Diaz and Mondragon,
who carried out the coup against Madero, were all mestizos.
The instigators of Madero's murder were Generals Diaz and
Mondragon, already mentioned, General Huerta, an In-
dian, General Blanquet, a mestizo, according to some, a
zambo (mixture of Indian and negro), according to others,
and Celso Acosta, General Felix Diaz's "guiding star," a
mestizo. The actual assassins were Cardenas and Pimienta,
both mestizos. The secretaries responsible for having coun-
selled or approved the murder, or for not having resigned
as soon as it occurred, were Rodolfo Reyes, Secretary of Jus-
tice, a mestizo; General Mondragon, Secretary of War, al-
ready mentioned ; Alberto Garcia Granados, Secretary of
the Interior, a mestizo, according to some, a quadroon or
octaroon, according to others; David de la Fuente, Secretary
of Public Works, a mestizo; Manuel Garza Aldape, Secre-
tary of Agriculture, a mestizo; Jorge Vera Estanol, Secre-
tary of Public Instruction, a mestizo. Out of nine Cabinet
Ministers, only three were Creoles: Senor Toribio Esquivel
Obregon, Secretary of the Treasury; Senor Francisco Leon
de la Barra, Secretary of Foreign Relations, and Senor Al-
berto Robles Gil, Secretary of Fomento.
General Huerta's intimate friend, who led the troops that
captured Madero in the National Palace on October 18,
1913, and who killed Senor Marcos Hernandez, Madero's
cousin, was Enrique Cepeda, a full-blooded Indian, accord-
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 213
ing to some, a zambo, according to others. Cepeda was also
guilty of the murder of Hernandez, a colonel of Rurales, in
the Belen prison. Those pointed out as instigators of the
gruesome policy of "disappearance" were Colonel Quiroz, a
mestizo ; General Blanquet, already mentioned ; Dr. Urrutia,
Secretary of the Interior, a mestizo; Senor Manuel Garza
Aldape, already mentioned; and the Under-Secretary of the
Interior, also a mestizo. General Camarena, accused of the
murder of Senior Abraham Gonzalez, Governor of Chihua-
hua, was a mestizo. I do not know the origin of the ob-
jectionable Cecilio Ocon. In view of the preceding, can the
Creoles be held responsible for the different murders that
occurred at the time of Huerta, and for the overthrow of
Madero and the destruction of "Democracy"?
It is clearly demonstrated, then, that the overthrow of
Madero, his murder and the policy of political assassinations
that followed, was not the work of Creoles but of Indians,
zambos and mestizos.
THE THIRD LIE I THE CONSPIRACY OF THE CIENTIFICOS
I think it advisable at this point to recall the fact that in
1912 the Cientificos no longer existed as a group, faction or
party. I have said that the Cientificos represented a group
of intellectuals, never exceeding fifteen in number, organized
with the idea of reforming the dictatorship, making it as
liberal and just as possible, and unquestionably expecting to
be named the successors of the dictatorial power. In the
beginning the Cientificos held meetings in which political
and economic questions were discussed and resolutions voted
upon and carried by a majority. After 1899 these meet-
ings were discontinued, and the politically active Cientificos
were reduced to a group of officials represented by Senores
Jose Limantour, Roberto Nunez, Pablo Macedo, Joaquin
Casasus and Rosendo Pineda. As has already been said, these
five men, gifted with great talent and learning, were guilty
2i 4 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
of political blunders that not even five Australian bushmen
would have committed had they been directing the policy of
the British Empire. In the face of a policy so disparaging
to the prestige of the Cientificos, the dictatorship and the
Mexican people, the other Cientificos withdrew from the
group, not announcing their withdrawal publicly in order to
avoid bringing upon themselves the undesirable soubriquet
of political mountebanks, more especially as conditions could
not be bettered. Outside the restricted group mentioned,
General Reyes was the only other aspirant to the power.
He was almost assured of triumph as he had a following
among the older element in the army, the support of the
younger and that of all agitators, who with equal facility
manufacture heroes and destroy reputations.
Senor Moheno, in his interesting book, Adonde vamos a
dar? (Where Are We Going to End?), published in 1906,
said, referring to the exclusiveness of this small political
group, that they followed the "this car full" policy; and I,
modifying the phrase, said that a car was far too spacious
a vehicle for Senor Limantour's policy that it should be
named the policy of the "landau complet" Among the
Cientificos who did not belong to this "landau complet"
group, and who were excluded as any ordinary individual
might have been, were to be found several professional men,
possessors of extremely modest incomes; the remainder
representing the majority were poor men who lived upon
their meagre salaries, which were quite out of proportion to
the services they rendered the dictatorship by their brains and
education.
The Cientificos, who were outside the political group,
knew that if the latter triumphed they would remain in the
obscure posts to which they had been relegated, and that if
General Reyes triumphed, they would get what had been so
loudly promised them by the Reyista press persecution, con-
fiscation of their property, death itself.
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 215
When Madero triumphed in 1911, he was well disposed
toward all, and the non-political Cientificos, relieved of their
burden, breathed freely. They rejoiced at his triumph,
toasted the Madero cause in private, and felt relieved to see
their country delivered from the hands of Reyes and the
Cientificos who had expected to fall heir to the dictatorship.
In 1912, of the five Cientificos who composed the politi-
cal group in which Senor Ramon Corral, as Vice-President
of the Republic, had been included only three remained,
Senor Ramon Corral and Senor Roberto Nunez having died
in Paris. Of these, Senores Pineda, Macedo and Casasus
remained in the City of Mexico. Senor Pineda was poor
and devoted all his time to his profession. Senores Macedo
and Casasus, both enormously rich, had retired permanently
to private life. They were surfeited and disillusioned. The
inevitable disaster that threatened the country was plainly
visible to them and weighed them down. It must not, how-
ever, be inferred from this that, so far as business relations
were concerned, they were not on excellent terms with the
Madero family, especially with Senor Ernesto Madero, the
Secretary of the Treasury, who transacted business not of a
political nature through their firms.
It may be said that the combination formed by Senores
Moheno, Olaguibel, Lozano and Garcia Narnajo was a
Cientifico combination. It could not have been. In the first
place, when Madero triumphed, the Cientificos had dis-
banded ; and in the second, Senor Moheno never was a
Cientifico. Senores Olaguibel and Garcia Narnajo were ad-
herents of Senor Corral's, having been won over by Senor
Pineda in 1909. Senor Limantour had determined not to
support Corral, even if he won, because he had decided to
retire to private life as soon as General Diaz would permit
him to do so. I appeal to the members of the Madero fam-
ily to vouch for the exactness of this statement. The Cien-
tificos cannot be held responsible for the actions of some of
216 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
their number after they had disbanded, and Senores Ola-
guibel, Lozano and Garcia Narnajo did not even constitute
a majority of the ex-Cientifico group, but a reduced minor-
ity, which can never be a representative force without the
consent and authority of the majority.
I have gone into this rather extensively, because in sev-
eral books, among them that of Mr. Edward I. Bell, it has
been stated that the revolt at Vera Cruz, headed by Felix
Diaz, was financed by the Cientificos. The great majority
of the Cientificos were poor and had no money to devote to
this purpose, and it is absurd to suppose that the wealthy
Cientificos, who were enjoying the favor of Madero, their
lives and property amply protected, would have furnished
money to put those in power who for eight years had re-
viled, calumniated, disparaged, persecuted and held them up
to the hatred and contempt of the people.
The Cientificos disappeared with General Diaz; but for
political ends they have not been permitted to die. Later on,
in its proper place, I shall say more regarding this.
THE FOURTH LIE I MADERO's OVERTHROW BY THE
REACTIONISTS
The first book published against Madero which caused
a sensation was Madero sin mascara (Madero Unmasked).
Its author, Senor Aguilar, was antagonistic to the dictator-
ship and to the Cientificos. He was a partisan of Madero,
at his side from the beginning of his revolt to the defeat at
Casas Grandes on March 6, 1911. The second book dis-
paraging to Madero w^as written by , Senor Toribio Esquivel
Obregon. He was an avowed enemy of the dictatorship
and of the Cientificos, a frankly open anti-reelectionist, so
powerful in his party that he was chosen speaker in the
Anti-reelection Convention of 1910, against the candidacy
of Senor Francisco Vazquez Gomez for vice-president.
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 217
The third publication against Madero was a pamphlet writ-
ten by Senor Jorge Vera Estanol. Vera Estanol had been
appointed Secretary of Public Instruction by General Diaz
at the time when, working in accord with Senor Limantour,
his chief of staff, who was responsible for their conduct, he
decided to throw the Cientificos overboard. The fourth
book, ruinous to the popularity of Madero, was written by
Senor Roque Estrada. He was Madero's ex-private secre-
tary, his companion in prison at San Luis Potosi, who fled
with him and remained his constant companion and helper
in all his revolutionary schemes hatched in the United
States, until the moment that Madero put foot on Mexican
soil February 14, 1911. Senor Estrada is at present Senor
Venustiano Carranza's Secretary of Justice.
What did Madero most harm were the articles written
by Dr. Francisco Vazquez Gomez, published in the City
of Mexico press. Vazquez Gomez, who had been a candi-
date for the vice-presidency in 1910, named by the Anti-
reelection Convention, was Madero's private agent in Wash-
ington from February, 1911, to the triumph of the revolu-
tion, and was forced upon President de la Barra by Madero
as Secretary of Public Instruction. His brother, Emilio
Vazquez Gomez, was the author of Zapata's Plan de Ayala.
Dr. Vazquez Gomez made revelations which pulled Madero
off his pedestal in the eyes of the people. Some of these
revelations cast serious doubts upon the probity of the
Madero family, and even upon that of "the Apostle" him-
self. These papers, more than anything else, irreparably
damaged his popularity.
In the House of Representatives those responsible for the
overthrow of Madero were Senor Querido Moheno, who
never was a Cientifico ; Senores Lozano, Olaguibel and
Garcia Narnajo, who were, properly speaking, followers of
Pineda, a partisan of Corral's; Senores Trejo and Lerdo de
Tejada, opponents of the dictatorship and of the Cientificos
218 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
during General Diaz's time; Senores Aquiles Elorduy and
Armando Ostos, who were always enemies of the dictator-
ship and of the Cientificos; Senor Juan Sarabia, a rabid
agitator and an avowed enemy of the dictatorship and of
the Cientificos, who had been persecuted, incarcerated in
the San Juan de Ulua fortress, without charges being pre-
ferred against him, and came very near being executed; and
Senor Pedro Galicia Rodriguez, one of the most popular
political leaders with the lower classes in the City of Mex-
ico, having tremendous influence in the labor unions, an old
enemy of the dictatorship and of the Cientificos, and a man
of avowed socialistic principles, uncompromisingly and incor-
ruptibly carried out.
In the Senate the war for Madero's political extermina-
tion was carried on by Senor Manuel Calero, a friend of
General Diaz's and an enemy of the Cientificos; Senor Fran-
cisco Leon de la Barra, ex-partisan of the dictatorship and
ex-President of the Republic, appointed by the revolutionists
with the approval of Senor Limantour, a former friend of
Madero and a neutral in regard to the Cientificos; Senor
Gumesindo Enriquez, ex-partisan of Presidents Gonzalez
and Diaz, and vigorous enemy of the Cientificos; Senor J.
Flores Magon, ex-Secretary of the Interior, former enemy
of the dictatorship and of the Cientificos, and an ardent
partisan of the revolution; and, lastly, Senor Guillermo
Obregon, a strong adherent of Dehesa, and consequently
one of the most intense enemies of the Cientificos.
In the states the propaganda against Madero was carried
on in the same way. In the state of Morelos Senor Otilio
Montano, a normal school teacher, a Zapatista general and
one of Emiliano Zapata's counsellors, was as bitter an op-
ponent of Madero as he had been of the dictatorship and
of the Cientificos. Senor Palafox, one of President Eulalio
Gutierrez's secretaries, imposed by Zapata, was also one of
the leaders of the anti-Madero campaign in Morelos. In
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 219
the state of Chihuahua, Sefior Silvestre Terrazas, who
had been relentlessly opposed to the dictatorship and the
Cientificos, and was a supporter of the Vazquez faction, was
Madero's implacable assailant. Senor Braulio Hernandez
also operated in this state. He adopted the motto "Lands
and Justice," hoping to incite the populace in Chihuahua
to revolt against Madero. He was Governor Abraham
Gonzalez's ex-secretary and had been appointed by Madero.
He had upheld Governor Gonzalez throughout all the
period of the revolution in Chihuahua. In Yucatan the edi-
tors of La Revista de Merida, Senores Carlos T. Menendez
and Delio Morena Canton, carried on the anti-Madero cam-
paign. They had always been avowed enemies of the Cien-
tificos, and were, moreover, anti-reelectionists. Senor
Moreno Canton was the anti-reelectionist candidate for
governor of the state of Yucatan.
In the City of Mexico the newspaper campaign was scan-
dalous. El Pais, El Mariana, La Tribuna, El Heraldo, El
Diario, and El Multicolor led the way. El Pais was un-
doubtedly the worst, as it had Trinidad Sanchez Santos, the
leading newspaper agitator of this hemisphere, and without
doubt of the entire world, for its editor-in-chief. Sanchez
Santos annihilated a political party, a faction, an individual
with a word, usually of ridicule or infamy. Senor Rogelio
Fernandez Giiell, at that time a Maderista, now a Car-
ranzista, truthfully said: "It was Sanchez Santos who
carried the already lifeless body of Gustavo Madero to the
scaffold"; and I add: It was Sanchez Santos who riddled
the lifeless body of Francisco Madero with bullets. Sanchez
Santos was always antagonistic to the Cientificos, and dur-
ing the last years of General Diaz's dictatorship was its
sworn enemy. Except for El Pals the revolution of Novem-
ber, 1910, in Chihuahua would have been ended in ten or
twelve days by the surrender of the rebels. The insurgents
in the state of Chihuahua did not believe that without other
220 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
support they could stand out against the dictatorship, which
in the eyes of the nation possessed formidable means of put-
ting down the revolution, and was capable of dominating
an uprising all over the country. Madero prepared his revo-
lution as a schoolboy might prepare a baseball contest with
a rival team. He ordered that at six p. m. on November
20, 1910, the inhabitants in every part of the Republic
should rise up in arms against the dictatorship. That they
were not armed or trained or properly officered, or in any
way protected from being immediately exterminated as
rebels and traitors, if General Diaz had not been in his
dotage, did not seem to enter into his calculations.
Madero had prepared for almost all his followers the
tragedy that overtook the forces of Aquiles Serdan at
Puebla. The Chihuahua insurgents had been led to believe
that the uprising would be simultaneous all over the coun-
try. Great was their surprise, therefore, to find ten days
after they took up arms that, with the exception of Serdan,
who had met his death, they alone were in revolt against a
Government possessed apparently of inexhaustible resources
with which to crush them. Senor Abraham Gonzalez him-
self told me that the demoralization had been complete, and
would have led to immediate surrender if a copy of El Pais
had not been received just at that time, announcing impor-
tant uprisings all over the country, and saying that still
other revolutionists were preparing to take the field in less
than a month. All this, of course, was pure fabrication as
later events proved. But the fact remains that Sanchez
Santos saved the revolution in Chihuahua, because the
leaders, waiting for the promised uprisings, saw the impo-
tence of the Caesar to oppose them, and time proved to them
that they could gain ground, not by force of arms, but
simply by letting the Government continue its stupid and
listless policy.
There is no doubt, preposterous as ft may seem, that
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 221
Sanchez Santos saved the revolution and afterwards upheld
it, even dissipating the panic of the plutocratic partisans of
the Government who advised him to make overtures of
peace at the time when only Chihuahua was in revolt. With
the same force that Sanchez Santos saved, upheld and helped
to spread the revolution, he ignobly attacked Madero and
all his administration, to the point of making it odious and
contemptuous. This is a fact to which the whole Mexican
nation can bear witness. Sanchez Santos was always as
only he knew how to be the cruel, implacable and irresist-
ible enemy of the Cientificos.
El Heraldo's weapon was cynicism. It held the Govern-
ment up to the gaze of the public as something that deserved
just as much consideration as a mouse that one chases out
of its hole with a broom. This newspaper was directed by
Senor Ricardo Contreras, a native of Guatemala and an irre-
concilable enemy of Senor Manuel Estrada Cabrera, Presi-
dent of Guatemala. La Tribuna was disputatious and sedi-
tious to a degree, and exaggerated Madero's errors to the
point of converting them into crimes. Its diatribes influenced
the masses, who recoiled with horror, flinging maledictions at
the "lunatic of Parras," who had dragged his country into a
veritable hell. El Mariana was edited by J. Rabago, the
most venomous of the journalists who was universally feared
for the keenness of his satire. Senor Olaguibel, a representa-
tive in the House, was leagued with him in the campaign.
Rabago had been an uncompromising Porfirista. El Diario
del Hogar published incendiary articles written by the fero-
cious socialists, Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama and Camilo
Arriaga, both confirmed enemies of the dictatorship and of
the Cientificos. Senor Barrios, another socialist who had
fought in the Madero revolution, spoke so vehemently
against the President and threatened to resort to such sedi-
tious measures that it was necessary to arrest and imprison
him. Lastly, a Spaniard named Mario Victoria, who di-
222 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
rected and edited El Multicolor, a paper devoted to vile
caricatures, utterly destructive of the respect a civilized peo-
ple ought to have for its Chief Executive, even though he
may be worthy of censure and punishment.
Summing up, then, almost all those responsible for the
demolition of the Madero Government were revolutionists
of anti-Porfirian origin. Among those who were not de-
clared enemies of the Cientificos were to be found only
Senores Lozano, Olaguibel and Garcia Naranjo. Is it cred-
ible, I ask, that this campaign to destroy Madero's moral
and civic prestige a campaign which had resorted to cal-
umny and outrage to reduce him to nothingness, which
Senor Fernandez Giiell said had left him with only the sup-
port of the army could have been directed by the Cien-
tificos, the Porfiristas, the clericals, and all that wicked crowd
of landowners, which seems to inhabit and to have taken up
permanent abode in President Wilson's mind? The Mex-
ican revolution was prepared by General Reyes, inspired by
an insatiable greed for revenge ; it was launched by Madero,
without realization of its consequences, and like all revolu-
tions it fulfilled its high mission by engulfing him.
THE FIFTH LIE: THE CONSPIRACY OF THE LANDOWNERS
President Wilson said in the columns of The Saturday
Evening Post: "They want order the old order; but I
say to you that the old order is dead. It is my part, as I
see it, to aid in composing those differences so far as I may
be able, that the new order, which will have its foundation
in human liberty and human rights, shall prevail."
I am obliged by the exigencies of the situation to repeat
what I have already said to the honorable President of the
United States. I admit that the Mexican landowners ask
for the restoration of their former rights and properties.
May I ask why Mr. Wilson does not measure them with the
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 223
same yard-stick or weigh them in the same scales that he
measures and weighs the Cuban landowners? Why is it
that what is good for Cuba is prejudicial for Mexico?
Why are there two standards of justice, one applied to Cuba,
the other to Mexico? Why does not President Wilson de-
clare that "the old order is dead" forever in Cuba? Why,
to conclude, has a nation of fifteen million inhabitants been
handed over, in supposed defense of this agrarian right, to a
horde of savage bandits who have reduced it to an incon-
ceivable state of misery and desolation, when in Cuba the
most insignificant agitation on this score is severely pun-
ished? In the southern part of the United States tremen-
dous tracts of land are owned by powerful trusts. Wherein
lies the difference, when it comes to monopolies, between the
American magnate and the Mexican Creole? In conclusion,
I should like to call to President Wilson's attention the fact
that the President of the United States has not been recog-
nized by even a fraction of the Mexican people as endowed
with the right to assume the role of protector of the Mex-
ican nation.
In Part First I have established by means of irrefutable
proofs that the Mexican landowners at the present time
cannot prove a great obstacle to the progress of the Mex-
ican people. In order to convince all Mexicans, as well as
foreigners, who have interested themselves in the welfare of
the Mexican people, whom they believe to have been ham-
pered by the unjust usurpation of their land, I am going
to settle, once and for all, this question of the recovery for
the people of lands unjustly taken from them, by citing
incontestable facts.
Since 1867 the liberal faction has held complete suprem-
acy over the conservative faction, which relied in its struggle
on its traditional supporters, the clergy, the army and the
landowners. But from the day that the supremacy of the
liberals was verified to the present time (March I, 1916),
224 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
no one outside their own group has been a supporter of
the landowner's cause in Mexico. I invite the revolu-
tionists to present to Mr. Wilson and the American people
any document whatsoever which defends the principle of
landownership. In these forty-nine years no newspaper-
man, parliamentary orator, university professor, priest, pulpit
orator, soap-box orator, mercenary politician or writer in
Mexico, has ever written or spoken a single word in favor
of the principle of landownership.
This principle was not supported by the dictatorship. I
have a rooted objection to stating facts that cannot be
substantiated, and I shall, therefore, fully verify this state-
ment. In 1886, when the great depreciation in the value of
silver caused universal alarm among the people, who be-
lieved that the decline of silver meant the ruin of the coun-
try, the House of Representatives appointed a commission to
make a detailed study of the situation. I was appointed
chairman of the committee, and the law of 1886 was the
outcome of its deliberations. In the preamble the commis-
sioners stated that the remedy proposed was' far from being
considered radical; that it was simply offered as a palliative.
The real remedy lay in abandoning mining and taking up
agriculture; and in order to assure the success of this experi-
ment it was necessary to establish small landholdings. To
accomplish this it was advised to proceed at once with the
distribution of the land. The Secretary of Fomento, Gen-
eral Carlos Pacheco, ordered that a further study of the
question be made by the persons most competent to render
a decision in the matter. Their unanimous verdict was that
the salvation of the nation lay in agriculture through the
medium of small landholdings, and that the Mexicans would
have to resign themselves to give up mining, since the good
of the country demanded it.
Why were these recommendations not carried into effect?
Because there was no money with which to indemnify the
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 225
rightful owners of the lands, and it had never been proposed
to take the land forcibly from them. Mexico was really in
a state of bankruptcy until 1894. But from that time until
1899 it was in a position to take up the agrarian question.
I have previously stated, with absolute candor, that Senor
Limantour made the fatal mistake of not taking up the ques-
tion of irrigation until 1908; and I have also stated that
from that date the dictatorship had under consideration sev-
eral irrigation projects, knowing that without irrigation
nothing but failure would result from the distribution of the
land, as I have demonstrated in Part First.
But suppose the landowners had resolved to oppose this
partition. How could they have done so? By means of
buying up politicians and newspapers? Ninety per cent of
the landowners had their properties mortgaged at about fifty
per cent more than they were worth, besides twenty-five per
cent in bank loans. The proof that they made no attempt
to defend themselves by buying up newspapers and writers is
to be found in the fact that in forty-nine years not even the
most stupid or mercenary writer has ever come forward in
defense of their cause.
The landowners cannot count upon the support of the
clergy, because they are as much opposed to the policy as
the most sincere revolutionist himself. They cannot count
upon the army, because the chief officers and enlisted men are
all enemies of the system. They cannot count upon the rev-
olutionary leaders, because not one of them is a landowner.
They cannot count upon the educated element, because it has
always fought the system. They cannot even count upon
themselves, because more than half of the so-called wealthy
landowners have desired to get rid of the lands that have
impoverished instead of enriching them. The cause of a
handful of men, without revolutionary inclinations, timid
and spiritless, who can count upon no support whatever in a
nation of 15,000,000 inhabitants, where every one, in fact, is
226 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
their enemy, can hardly be said to be a cause at all. It is,
consequently, very far from the truth to say that it is this
hatred for the landowner alone that has caused a six years'
civil war, which has destroyed and will continue to destroy
the country.
THE SIXTH LIE: THE CONSPIRACY OF THE CLERGY
According to the Mexican Constitution complete separa-
tion of Church and State exists in Mexico. The Constitu-
tion does not recognize the Church as a moral entity. The
Government is atheistic; it ignores the existence of religion,
and looks upon the clergymen of all denominations as Mex-
ican citizens if they fulfil the conditions required of every
citizen by the Constitution. Clergymen of all denominations
are forbidden to run for office, but are not debarred from
holding Government administrative positions by appoint-
ment. Outside this prohibition the clergymen of all denom-
inations enjoy all the civil and political rights granted to all
citizens by the laws of the land.
Political rights are active and passive, and as the clergy-
men of all denominations may lay claim to both, it follows
that every Catholic priest, whether regular or secular, canon
or bishop, may take part in politics in general, and in the
elections as an individual, there being no difference between
him and any other citizen. The only disqualification is the
one I have already mentioned of not being permitted to fan
for office.
In view of this it is illegal, absurd and irrational, not
to say perverse, to blame the Catholic clergy when in their
capacity of private individuals they exercise the rights
granted them by the Constitution. I shall not enter here
into a discussion as to whether or not these rights exert a
good or a bad influence, as it is outside the scope of this
book. But as they are granted by law, so long as they are
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 227
not rescinded, they exist and are to be respected. The best
proof of the insincerity of the accusers of the Catholic clergy,
who intentionally confuse personal with corporation rights,
is the fact that many Mexican Protestant ministers have ex-
ercised political rights and have violated the Constitution by
running for office, and even succeeded in having themselves
elected representatives, senators and governors. Scnor Nico-
las Islas y Bustamente, a lawyer, was a Protestant bishop,
and advanced his candidacy for the Senate without having
renounced his ministerial office. It was only when he was
elected that he renounced the episcopacy to take his seat in
the Senate. There have been Mexican Protestant ministers
who have renounced their ministerial calling to run for the
House of Representatives, and after the expiration of their
first term, having collected their salary, have gone back to
the ministry when they failed to be reelected to the House.
As no proof has ever been established that the Mexican
Catholic clergy has, as a body or corporation, ever mixed in
politics, all charges brought against it, whether true or false,
are absolutely null. The revolutionists in their efforts to
prove that the Catholic clergy has conspired against the
Constitution, commit the incredible blunder of citing as a
proof the exercise of the right to mix in political affairs as
private individuals that every clergyman has the privilege
of availing himself of under the decrees of the Constitution.
THE SEVENTH LIE I THE GREAT POPULAR ASPIRATIONS
The revolutionists impressed upon Mr. Wilson the neces-
sity of putting an end to the Huerta Government, as the
usurper was the greatest obstacle to the fulfillment of the
people's aspirations the possession of the land monopolized
by the landowners.
In Part First I have proved that the northern states,
Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, Coahuila and the
northern part of Tamaulipas, do not possess lands suitable
228 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
for agriculture, that their greatest source of wealth lies first
in their mines, and secondly in their forests and grazing
lands. I have proved that the amount of arable land is in-
significant; that the day wage in the north was high, and
that the poorer class gave little or no thought to the distri-
bution of lands. I shall proceed to confirm these statements.
The leading Mexican Socialists, Senores Ricardo and
Enrique Flores Magon, who are well known in the United
States, took Chihuahua for their principal field of action.
Other socialist advocates of the distribution of lands,
among them the socialist poet, Praxedis Guerrero, worked
energetically for the cause in Chihuahua. Before Madero
launched his revolution, guerrilla bands calling themselves
Magonistas, had been in revolt, but had not succeeded in ac-
complishing much in the three months they had been active.
It is evident that if the masses in Chihuahua had been enthu-
siastic for the distribution of lands, they would have joined
the Magonistas in 1910, and not the Maderistas, because the
latter, neither in Chihuahua nor out of it, had ever held out
the distribution of lands as an inducement. They were not
upholders of socialist tenets and their first object was to
get rid of the Magonista revolutionary bands.
Senor Braulio Hernandez, an ex-schoolmaster and ex-sec-
retary of the Abraham Gonzalez administration in Chihua-
hua, took as his motto "Lands and Justice," in an attempt to
recruit adherents for the Vazquez Gomez campaign, which
in 1913 was in the last stages of dissolution. Seeing that
no one paid any attention to him, he offered to give lands
gratuitously, without the beneficiaries being held in any way
responsible. Still no one was enthusiastic, and he offered to
exempt all the owners of small landholdings from Federal,
state and municipal taxes. And even so the Vazquez
Gomez cause was not sustained!
Every one knows that at the present time Senor Venusti-
ano Carranza is taken up with the Oaxaca campaign. The
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 229
state of Oaxaca has a population of 1,200,000 inhabitants,
almost all of them full-blooded Indians, organized in vil-
lages having municipal rights, who neither possess nor desire
to possess lands individually Seeing in the revolution noth-
ing but a program of systematic pillage and looting, they
have taken up arms to defend their property. The repre-
sentatives from Oaxaca wearied of reiterating in the House
that their state was not Maderista, that it never had been,
and never would be, in sympathy with the revolution.
The state of Vera Cruz has a population of 1,400,000 in-
habitants and, after Yucatan, is the most flourishing state
in the Republic. In this state, in Cordoba, Coatepec and
Huatusco, there are more individual Indian landowners than
in any other state. These lands are rich and excellent coffee
is raised upon them. This state produces as good tobacco
as that grown in Cuba, also vanilla, sugar, rubber, and high-
grade cattle. The richest petroleum fields in Mexico are
also situated there. It is the leading manufacturing center
and, after the City of Mexico, the most important commer-
cial center. A flourishing state such as this, where want is
unknown, where the day wage is high, where money is easily
earned, is not a revolutionary center, especially when it sees
that in practice all the revolution accomplishes is to ruin
everything it touches. If Vera Cruz has in great measure
escaped the pillage and destruction that has elsewhere pre-
vailed, it is due to the fact that the Carranzista leader, Senor
Candido Aguilar, is not a barbarian but a man of civilized
instincts. He was born in Cordoba and loves his native
place as well as all the state, and has been assiduous in pro-
tecting it from the ravages of the revolution. Woe betide
Vera Cruz if Aguilar is taken from her !
The states of Yucatan, Chiapas, Jalisco, Guanajuato, part
of the states of San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas, all of Quere-
taro, almost all of Michoacan, all of Guerrero, the greater
part of Hidalgo and the sierra of Puebla, did not join the
230 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Madero revolution because of expectation of grants of land.
Neither before nor afterwards was any such inducement
offered.
The indifference of the majority of the rural classes to the
agrarian question may be explained in the following man-
ner. The villages where the land is held in common under
municipal government, still quite numerous, have always
fought against breaking up this system and subdividing the
land into individual holdings. Those who do not live under
this regime have from practical experience learned a fact
that Mr. Wilson, and all Americans who for any reason
whatsoever are interested in the Mexican question, ought to
know. It is this. If the rainfall in Mexico were regular, and
the crops therefore assured, it would be more profitable for the
Indian and mestizo farmers to own their own land than to
work that of another on a co-partnership basis. But, taking
into consideration the direful consequences of the irregular
rainfall, as I have explained them in Part First, it is better to
work on the co-partnership basis than to be an individual
landowner. The reason is not difficult to find. If the co-part-
ner's crops fail or are very poor, the planter the cruel land-
owner of whom we have heard so much looks out for him
and his family that they may not starve to death. Whatever
is advanced to him is charged to his account an account
he will never pay, and one which will never be exacted of
him. Let us take a co-partner in the state of Guanajuato as
an example. He receives, let us say, five hectares of arable
land from the planter, the seed, the plough, the yoke of
oxen and whatever else he may need. If the crop is har-
vested, half goes to the planter and half to the co-partner;
the feed of the oxen during the time he has had them, the
value of the seed, at cost price and one-half of the cost of
harvesting, transportation and husking, being discounted
from the co-partner's share. As the farmers know that in
the cold and temperate zones it is far more profitable to be
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 231
a co-partner than a proprietor, they naturally do not mani-
fest great enthusiasm for the much-discussed distribution of
lands. In the state of Morelos it is different, because, as I
have already explained, it is in the hot zone and it is more
profitable to be a proprietor there than a co-partner. I have
also explained that in Morelos the lands set apart for the
cultivation of rice and sugar-cane were about one-fifth of the
total arable land, and that the rest was leased by the planters
to the ranchmen, usually belonging to the lower class, who
employed the Indians to work for them. The struggle in
Morelos in reality consists in obliging the planters to sell or
lease the lands to the Indian day-laborers, and not to the
ranchmen.
Outside the states of Morelos, Mexico, the southern part
of Puebla, Tlaxcala and a very restricted portion of Hidalgo,
San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas, the popular rural classes have
not the least desire for the distribution of the land. If, to-
gether with this, we take into consideration that no one in
Mexico, from 1867 to the present day, has ever opposed the
distribution of the land if done under the terms of the
Constitution and the lawful rights of the owners protected
it would appear that the revolution has been superfluous, to
say the least. The planters decline to be robbed, and in this
they are supported by all Mexicans who are not bandits.
The situation would be identical in the United States if there
were question of subdividing lands that had been taken from
their rightful owners at the point of the bayonet. All this
clearly demonstrates that a revolution was not necessary to
solve the question of the distribution of the Mexican lands.
It did not call for a drop of blood; for the sacrifice of even
the most insignificant life; nor for even the slightest incon-
venience to any one. Much less did it require that the Pres-
ident of the United States should compromise his fair name,
that of his Government and the peace and tranquillity of the
American people.
232 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
THE EIGHTH LIE: HUERTA^S OPPOSITION TO PROGRESS AND
REFORM
General Huerta's enemies sought and succeeded in pre-
senting him to the world as the avowed enemy of the re-
demption of the Mexican people by the distribution of land.
This is the most cynical lie of which the political revolu-
tionists the purveyors of lies worthy of the illiterate lower
classes have been guilty. In March, 1913, one month
after General Huerta had assumed the power, Senor Toribio
Esquivel Obregon, his Secretary of the Treasury, introduced
a bill in the House of Representatives, asking in the Pres-
ident's name for an appropriation of several million pesos to
be used to buy lands for the purpose of distributing them
among the poor farmers. The record of the bill may be
found in the Diario Oficial de los Estados Unidos Mexi-
canos, in the Diario de los Debates de la Cdmara de Diputa-
dos, in the files of the House of Representatives, in the ar-
chives of the Treasury Department, in the files of the state
Legislatures, and in all the leading newspapers of the day
published in the City of Mexico. It is impossible to deny that
in 1913 General Huerta initiated what Senor Carranza is
at present thinking of doing buying lands from the planters
to be divided among the poor farmers or villagers, with the
idea of dowering them with municipal rights. Mr. Wilson
and the American people ought to be convinced, in view of
the fact I have just stated, how deceived they have been by
the barefaced assertion of the revolutionary politicians that
two parties are struggling in Mexico; one desiring to redeem
the people by giving them land; the other wishing to starve
them to death by keeping them subject to the landowners.
Later, when speaking of these revolutionists as reformers, I
shall return to the subject once more.
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 233
THE INJUSTICE OF PRESIDENT WILSON TOWARD THE
FEDERAL ARMY
The defection of the Federal army which overthrew Ma-
dero has caused President Wilson great and deep-seated con-
sternation. From the moral point of view nothing could be
more reprehensible than this defection of the Federal forces;
from the sociological point of view nothing was more logical.
In politics everything is allowable that comes under the juris-
diction of human law, which is as inflexible as the law gov-
erning the planetary system. It is not necessary to be as
learned a man as Mr. Wilson to understand that an army
made up almost entirely of socialists cannot be forced to be
loyal to aristocrats and plutocrats who, according to social-
ist doctrines, have robbed the people. It would be just as
impossible to expect the nobles who fought in the battle of
Agincourt to be loyal to the Barcelona anarchists, the Rus-
sian nihilists or the French liberators. The army is an arm
belonging to the social class of which its personnel is com-
posed. If the army is composed exclusively of Catholics, it
is absolute folly to believe that this army could ever cham-
pion Protestantism or Mohammedanism. It is necessary, in
order to have a strictly national army, that it be composed
of representatives of all social classes, and in such proportion
that class interest shall never come in conflict with national,
government or other class interests.
Mr. Wilson does not know what the Mexican army is,
or what it has been, since the War of Independence down to
1910. The Indian race, with insignificant exceptions, forms
the largest contingent of the national forces. Since the War
of Independence it has been evident that the Indians, who
had risen under the leadership of Cura Hidalgo, being con-
vinced that the only thought of the Creoles was to exploit
them instead of the Spaniards, showed great indifference to-
234 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ward a cause that did not interest them, and fought as brave-
ly in the ranks of the loyalists as in that of the insurgents.
It was quite a usual thing for the victorious leader to trans-
fer to his ranks the prisoners he had just captured from his
vanquished foe, and it has been known that Indians who in
the morning had fought against the Spaniards, were to be
found in the afternoon fighting in the Spanish ranks against
their own brothers. The same phenomenon was observed
during the Reform War between Catholics and non-Cath-
olics. In this the Indians, notwithstanding the fact that
they were Catholics, won the anti-Catholic cause, fighting
in its ranks. In the War of Intervention against the French,
the Indians fought indifferently either in the Mexican or in
the French ranks a fact that is explained by the absolute
passivity of the Indian, which renders him such a fit subject
for military discipline. The Indian can never be the
soldier of the present day, an autonomous soldier; he, how-
ever, is the most perfect example of the automatic soldier.
This explanation should serve to convince the people that
previous to 1910 the soul that vivified the Mexican army
was its officered body, and as all its members belonged to
the middle class, the army had to be loyal to the middle class
only, its natural owner.
In 1910 seventy per cent of the middle class was bureau-
cratic ; consequently, the master of the army was the bureau-
cracy that General Diaz had founded and that was, there-
fore, Porfirista.
Senor Francisco Madero triumphed, and notwithstanding
the fact that he was not acceptable to the army because he
was a civilian, and because he had villified it so outrageously,
the army apparently decided to support him loyally. But
this loyalty was feigned. The army's real loyalty was for
its master, the bureaucratic class, and as Madero, following
counsels of his uncle, Ernesto Madero, and his cousin, Rafael
Hernandez, declared that he would respect the rights of the
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 235
bureaucrats, leaving them in their various public posts, the
bureaucrats ordered the army to support Madero.
Zapata raised the standard of revolt in the south. He was
the idol of the Indians of Morelos and the leader of masses
who hated the whites and the mestizos, and who clamored
for the destruction of the Porfirian bureaucratic system that
Madero had protected. Naturally, the middle class, forced
to defend its prerogatives, appealed to its own, and once
more we find the Mexican army loyally defending Madero
against Zapata's hordes.
Orozco raised the standard of revolt in the north. He
was the representative of the popular and sub-popular classes,
bent upon overthrowing not only Madero but the entire
Porfirian bureaucratic system that is, snatching the su-
preme power which it had wielded since 1867, from the
hands of the middle class. Once more, as was quite natural,
the army supported Madero.
But Senor Luis Cabrera, the leader of the Maderista ma-
jority in the House of Representatives, had sounded his well-
known warning: "La Revolucion es la Revolucion," which,
interpreted by him, meant that all the host of public em-
ployees in Federal and state departments, dating from the
dictatorship, should be turned out. The bureaucracy pricked
up its ears. It saw that Senor Pino Suarez, the Vice-Presi-
dent and the sub-chief of the Porra, the group of agitators
that had been organized by Gustavo Madero, of which I
have already spoken, held the same views as Senor Cabrera,
and that, notwithstanding the protection of President Ma-
dero, the employees of the Department of Public Instruction,
which was under the direction of Senor Pino Suarez, were
being dismissed. The bureaucracy knew that until Septem-
ber, 1912, when the majority was carried by the Maderistas,
its protectors had been Ernesto Madero, Rafael Hernandez
and the House of Representatives. This majority declared
itself a "reform majority," by which they meant a reform of
236 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the public service, which, according to them, ought to pass
to the sub-popular leaders and the state bureaucrats. The
majority, headed by Senores Pino Suarez and Cabrera and
the Secretaries of the Treasury and the Interior, both par-
tisans of the conservative policy, declared war to the knife.
Suddenly the official press took up the cudgels for Gustavo
Madero, who was made to appear the enemy instead of the
originator of the Porra. The bureaucracy saw that they had
arrayed against them the invincible force of the radical mob
element. It was then that the powerful bureaucratic class,
representing seventy per cent of the middle class, turned to
the army, its natural protector, and carefully prepared it for
the attack upon Madero and the Porra. A man of Mr. Wil-
son's learning should not attempt in politics to measure with
the strict rule of Christian morality. Never in the history
of the world has it been known that a social political body,
finding itself threatened with extinction, has not, in order to
save itself, appealed to every means within its reach, ethical
or unethical. Mr. Wilson will find ample proof of this in
Germany's submarine policy, surely far more unethical than
the defection of an army to save one class of society, threat-
ened with extermination by another class, incapable of mercy.
Before finishing with this subject I shall recall to Mr. Wil-
son's mind, and to that of all Americans, that the famous
American War of Secession opened with the treason of the
South, and the defection of that portion of the Federal army
which sympathized with them. For the North this defection
was a detestable act of treason; for the South it was a sub-
lime act of patriotism, an act of loyalty to the Southern
cause. This act has been glorified in the South; statues
have been erected to the men who in 1861 were branded as
traitors; streets, public squares and popular buildings have
been named for them to immortalize their memory.
The defection of the Mexican Federal army in February,
1913, was not a mere act of disloyalty, but the fulfillment
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 237
of an inexorable duty. Military discipline stood face to face
with a century-old discipline which stood for the supremacy
of the educated over the illiterate. The Mexican middle
class, notwithstanding its deficiencies, its weaknesses and its
vices, has rights because of its merits to represent Mexican
civilization. The defection of a great part of the American
Federal army to the Southern cause was an act of loyalty to
the class to which it belonged, although this class upheld the
principle of slavery.
Senores Pino Suarez and Cabrera, on account of their
Marat tendencies, were Madero's worst enemies and more
than any one else responsible for the fall of their chief. Pino
Suarez paid with his life for his political errors. Cabrera
has been more fortunate; he is making his country pay for
them.
THE REAL HUERTA
Similar social conditions must necessarily produce similar
forms of government. I am going to draw an analogy be-
tween the social conditions that produced Napoleon and
those that produce our Spanish-American dictators of the
Huerta type, basing it upon Taine's study of Napoleon I :
"Morals and manners there (Corsica) adapted themselves to
each other through an unfailing connection. The moral law,
indeed, is such because similar customs prevailed in all coun-
tries and at all times where the police is powerless, where
justice cannot be obtained, where public interests are in the
hands of whoever can lay hold of them, where private war-
fare is pitiless and not repressed, where every man goes
armed, where every sort of weapon is fair, and where dis-
simulation, fraud, and trickery, as well as gun or poniard,
are allowed, which was the case in Corsica in the eighteenth
century, as in Italy in the fifteenth century 'In this coun-
try,' report the French Commissioners, 'the people have no
238 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
idea of principle in the abstract,' nor of social interest or
justice. 'Justice does not exist; one hundred and thirty as-
sassinations have occurred in two years. The institution of
juries has deprived the country of all means of punishing
crime; never do the strongest proofs, the clearest evidences,
lead a jury composed of men of the same party, or of the
same family as the accused, to convict him; and if the ac-
cused is of the opposite party, the juries likewise acquit him,
so as not to incur the risk of revenge, 'slow perhaps but al-
ways sure.' 'Public spirit is unknown.' There is no social
body, except 'any number of small parties inimical to each
other. . . . All the leaders have the same end in view, that
of getting money no matter by what means, and their first
care is to surround themselves with creatures entirely de-
voted to them and to whom they give all the offices. The
elections are held under arms, and all with violence. The
victorious party uses its authority to avenge itself of that
which is beaten, and multiplies vexations and outrages. The
leaders form aristocratic leagues with each other and mu-
tually tolerate abuses. They impose no assessment or col-
lection (of taxes) to curry favor with the electors through
party spirit and relationships. Customs-duties serve simply
to compensate friends and relatives. . . .' "
"Accordingly, at the outbreak of the Revolution, on revisit-
ing Corsica, he (Napoleon) takes life at once as he finds it
there, a combat with any sort of weapon, and, on this small
arena, he acts unscrupulously, going farther than anybody.
If he respects justice and law, it is only in words, and even
here ironically; in his eyes, law is a term of the code, justice
a book term, while might makes right.
"A second blow of the coining-press gives another im-
pression of the same stamp on this character, already so de-
cided, while French anarchy forces maxims into the mind of
the young man, already traced in the child's mind by Cor-
sican anarchy; the lessons of things provided by a society go-
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF LIES 239
ing to pieces are the same as those of a society which is not
yet formed. His sharp eyes at a very early period see
through the flourish of theory and the parade of phrases;
they detect the real foundation of the Revolution, namely,
the sovereignty of unbridled passion and the conquest of the
majority by the minority; conquering and conquered, a
choice must be made between these two extreme conditions;
there is no middle course. After the Qth of Thermidor, the
last veils are torn away, and the instinct of license and dom-
ination, the ambitions of individuals, fully display them-
selves; there is no concern for public interests or for the
rights of the people; it is clear that the rulers form a band,
that France is their prey, and that they intend to hold on to
it for and against everybody, by every possible means, in-
cluding bayonets. Under this civil regime, a clean sweep of
the broom at the center makes it necessary to be on the side
of numbers. . . ."
". . . All this is understood between the general and his
army from the first, and after one year's experience, the
understanding is perfect. One moral is derived from their
common acts, vague in the army, precise in the general ; what
the army only half sees, he sees clearly; if he urges his com-
rades on, it is because they follow their own inclination. He
simply has the start of them, and quicker makes up his mind
that the world is a great banquet, free to the first-comer, but
at which, to be well served, one must have long arms, be the
first to get helped, and let the rest take what is left." 1
Huerta was not specifically perverse, he was simply un-
moral. The specifically perverse person is like the dipso-
maniac; the latter cannot live without alcohol; the former
has not conception of life but that of doing harm to his fel-
low beings.
An unmoral man does not take into account whether his
iTaine, The Modern Regime (Holt, New York, 1890), Vol. I,
p. 49, sqq.
240 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
actions are good or bad; his conduct is directed by the pas-
sion that dominates him. If this exacts fifty years of sub-
lime acts of virtue, he performs them and dies leaving a rep-
utation for great sanctity. If it exacts fifty years of crimes,
he commits them without emotion or preoccupation. The
majority of dictators are unmoral, and as, according to
^Eschylus, the gods preside over justice even though they love
it, a dictator who is not perverse is willing to give his coun-
try every benefit and advantage so long as it does not clash
with his ambition. This explains why ftuerta was willing
to grant all manner of benefits to the Mexican people. He
knew that public opinion is a great power in upholding a
government, and he also knew that the wealthy classes were
practically useless, so far as their support was concerned,
when they were not inclined to give their money or their
blood.
CHAPTER II
PRESIDENT WILSON AND FIRST CHIEF
CARRANZA
CONSTITUTIONALISM IN ITS REALITY
WHEN Constitutionalism first made its appearance
was it in reality Constitutionalism?
The State of Sonora was the first to refuse
allegiance to the Government which sprang from the coup
of February 18, 1913. The real reason for this attitude is
fully explained and well attested by Mr. Edward I. Bell,
an American writer, who says :
"General Huerta, on February i8th, telegraphed to the
Governor of Sonora that he held Madero prisoner. Two
days later he telegraphed again, announcing his elevation
to the provisional presidency and demanding instant ac-
ceptance of the new order. To refuse meant war with the
consequent loss to many important American interests in
that State, and with this in mind Louis Hostetter, United
States Consul at Hermosillo, the Capital of Sonora, used
his strong personal influence to induce the State Govern-
ment to yield to Huerta's demand. He succeeded in this,
when the assassination of Madero and Pino Suarez aroused
resentment and overthrew the agreement.
"At this stage Mr. Hostetter received a telegram from
Ambassador Wilson, directing him to do everything in his
power to induce Sonora to accept Huerta as President, and
telling the Consul that the majority of the Mexican States
had already done so. Hostetter at once applied himself
with increased vigor, and made such progress with the au-
241
242 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
thorities that they requested a list from the Ambassador of
the States which he positively knew had accepted Huerta,
promising that if this list showed an actual majority, Sonora
would not hold out against the new ruling. The Consul
telegraphed this request with its assurances in the full be-
lief that he had accomplished that which the Ambassador
had requested him to do; that the list would be immediately
forthcoming and that all would be well.
"Receiving no reply, Consul Hostetter telegraphed again,
urging the necessity for detailed information. Still there
was no answer, whereupon the officials of Sonora declared
themselves unwilling to wait for a trap to be sprung which
would find them unprepared. The State Congress or Legis-
lature than framed a resolution refusing allegiance to Huerta
and also voted a leave of absence to Governor Maytorena,
who was believed to be too complacent toward the attempt
of Huerta to reduce the State to a dependency of an abso-
lute military dictatorship. Governor Maytorena departed
for California, and Rafael Pesqueira was made acting Gov-
ernor in his stead.
"But Consul Hostetter did not give up his efforts to pre-
serve the peace of the State. For several days he labored
with the officials, and finally the Legislature passed a reso-
lution which the Consul telegraphed to the Ambassador. It
provided that if Huerta would guarantee to Sonora State
rights, withdraw the few Federal troops then stationed there,
and permit the State to elect its own officials, a commission
would be sent to Mexico City to arrange details. The Leg-
islature was strongly influenced toward caution in these ne-
gotiations by the fate which had overtaken Governor Gon-
zalez of Chihuahua, whose acceptance of Huerta had not
been forwarded so promptly as was desired." 1
Mr. Bell's account proves that Sonera's failure to recog-
nize Huerta was not due to his usurpation of the national
1 Edward I. Bell, The Political Shame of Mexico, pp. 332, 333.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 243
supremacy, for which the ruling powers did not give a rap,
as they had consented to recognize the usurper if he promised
to respect the sovereignty of Sonora. What interested them
was to preserve their power in the State of Sonora, and to
proclaim local constitutionalism and the inviolability of State
democracy.
On February 18, 1913, Senor Venustiano Carranza, then
governor of Coahuila, received the following telegram from
Huerta: "Authorized by the Senate, I have assumed the
Executive Power, the President and his Cabinet being held
prisoners."
Senor Carranza protested against Huerta's illegal action,
and with the consent of the Legislature issued a manifesto
declaring that he would offer armed resistance, urging all the
governors to follow his example.
It is probable that Carranza was influenced to agree to
the conference with General Blazquez, who came to Sal-
tillo from Monterey to see him, by the fact that all the gov-
ernors, with the exception of the provisional governor of
Sonora, had submitted unconditionally to Huerta. General
Huerta commissioned Senor Rafael Ramos Arizpe, an inti-
mate friend of Senor Carranza, to use his influence to ob-
tain his friend's submission. Senor Ramos Arizpe accepted
the commission, and made known through the columns of
El Impartial that Senor Carranza had expressed his willing-
ness to discuss the question of his submission to General
Huerta with Senor Ramos Arizpe and Senor Eliseo Ar-
redondo, who would come at once to the capital from Sal-
tillo for this purpose. In due time he arrived and the
negotiations were under w r ay when the news was received of
the proclamation of the Plan de Guadalupe by the governor
of Coahuila and the State troops. This unexpected turn on
Carranza's part was attributed to the fact that he had heard
of the assassination of Abraham Gonzalez, governor of Chi-
huahua, notwithstanding the fact that he had submitted to
244 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Huerta. The policy of assassination that was then being
followed was a serious drawback to the pacification of the
country.
It seems indispensable for the development of my plan that
I portray Don Venustiano Carranza as he appears to me.
Physical characteristics: He produces a favorable impres-
sion, resembling in appearance a Spanish diplomat at the Al-
gesiras Conference; weight, probably 80 kilos; military
weight, o; political weight, unknown; moral weight, aver-
age, although threatened with ruin by symptoms of a well-
developed ambition ; voice, mellow and unruffled ; character,
quiet, serene, tenacious, coldly calculating, rancorous, al-
though balanced to a certain extent by prudence; cautious,
although liable to eruptions; sensibility to adulation, 99. 35
centigrade; deficient in knowledge of the social forces actu-
ally at war, and above all in knowledge of human nature.
Career: An ardent admirer of General Bernardo Reyes,
for twenty-three years the tyrant of Nuevo Leon and Coa-
huila, and a man obsessed by militarism. General Reyes
obtained the official election of Senor Carranza as senator
from his State to the Federal Senate, where he remained a
great many years without manifesting any policy other than
that of inflexible, unconditional adherence to the dictator.
During his long senatorial career Senor Carranza simply
vegetated; in other words, he was a nonentity, whose politi-
cal progress was as noiseless as that of a rubber-tired ve-
hicle. In 1908 he was accepted as assistant governor of
Coahuila at the recommendation of General Reyes, who
vouched with his head for Senor Carranza's absolute loyalty.
The rupture between the dictator and General Reyes in
1909 destroyed the combination and Senor Cardenas replaced
Senor Carranza as governor of Coahuila. When the Ma-
dero revolution broke out, Senor Carranza appeared at the
opportune moment to reap his generous share in the spoils
of war. In this revolution Senor Carranza was not a com-
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 245
batant, a diplomat or an adviser, but simply one of those
fortunate individuals who are carried forward on the crest
of the wave at the moment when a revolution is dispensing
favors with a lavish hand. When Madero triumphed,
Senor Carranza replaced the Porfirian governor, Senor Valle.
He carefully laid the foundation for his campaign without
being troubled by rival candidates, withdrawing during the
elections in feigned deference to the principle of non-reelec-
tion. Huerta's coup found him installed as the governor of
Coahuila without having received the praise or the censure
of the independent press.
Hamilton Fyfe in his interesting book has written with
independence and a critical spirit what he observed in Mex-
ico during the Carranza revolution. He says: "All the
foreign colony here and many Mexicans are convinced that
Carranza was preparing to rebel against Madero. He had
supported the Maderista movement, but is said to have been
dissatisfied and restless after its success." 1
"They allege that for months Carranza had been draw-
ing large sums of money from the National Treasury for the
purpose of paying troops. It might be that he foresaw the
anti-Madero outbreak and was preparing to support his
chief. That view obtains no credence in Saltillo. The be-
lief there is, among the people who knew and watched him,
that he would have declared war against Madero, just as
General Orozco, another Maderista leader, had done." 2
An American newpaper announced that Senor Carranza,
together with the leader, Cuajardo, had already planned the
revolt against Madero, but was forestalled by Huerta.
This is not certain. Time alone will determine the ver-
dict that history is to hand down to posterity. In any case,
in March, 1913, Don Venustiano Carranza, as a revolu-
tionary leader, was an undetermined quantity.
1 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, p. 77.
2 Idem, pp. 77, 78.
246 WHOLE *TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Senor Jose N. Macias, one of the apologists for the con-
ditions that Carranza's policies have brought about, has said,
referring to the Plan de Guadalupe with which Carranza
inaugurated his revolutionary career: "As is quite evident,
these articles contain nothing of a political nature; this has
occasioned very bitter censure. . . ." *
Theoretically, and in a country where dictatorships are
unknown, the Plan de Guadalupe would be a strictly po-
litical document. Nevertheless, Macias is right. In Mex-
ico the proclamation of the reestablishment of the Constitu-
tion has no political bearing. No one will be stirred thereby ;
no one will be moved in his frenzy to pull his hair out by
the roots, nay, not even to sacrifice a single hair. The Mex-
ican people have lost faith in promises to make them happy
and prosperous by the enforcement of the Constitution. It
is like promising them forty days and forty nights of contin-
ual showers of diamonds and gold. Documents of this kind
are looked upon as ridiculous, their executors losing in the
eyes of the people their claim to recognition as reputable
leaders.
Before the Madero revolution there were many believers
in democracy to be found in the popular classes, but since
the Madero fiasco no propositions to establish democracy
have had a market value in the country. They have all been
exported to Washington in the hope of finding a market for
them there. The Plan de Guadalupe amounted to less than
nothing. The Mexican people looked upon it with absolute
disdain.
A RACE UTTERLY UNSUITED TO DEMOCRACY
The Plan de Guadalupe should have been shelved, care-
fully labelled "The Fiasco." Mr. Wilson, however, im-
prudently took it upon himself to keep it alive. Senor Pedro
1 M. Fernandez Cabrera, Mi viaje a Mexico, p. 235.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 247
Lamicq, a Maderista partisan, has said : "Even at the risk of
ruffling the feelings of the extreme patriots, this sad truth
must be confessed : The United States will demolish or over-
throw, should it be proposed to it, any government that may
be established in Mexico." l
From this morbid belief, which has existed among the ma-
jority in Mexico for many years, an untenable revolutionary
policy has evolved. Since 1910 the revolutionists have pro-
claimed that, inasmuch as the United States Government
was hostile to General Diaz, the dictator, actuated by pa-
triotic motives, and to prevent being deposed by the White
House, should have resigned in favor of Madero. Accord-
ing to this preposterous doctrine every Mexican president is
obliged to put the Mexican Government, its society and its
civilization into the hands of the first revolutionist, maniac
or bandit, who may present himself, if it pleases the Presi-
dent of the United States to say: "This Government does
not suit me." He does not even have to raise his voice. It
will suffice for him to permit contrary to all the laws of
neutrality two or three scheming politicians or highway-
men to hold revolutionary conclaves in San Antonio or El
Paso, demonstrating to the Mexican people that the Presi-
dent of the United States is with them because he does not
fulfill his positive obligation of denying them right to plot
revolutions in neutral territory. The present revolution in
particular has served to prescribe, according to revolutionary
concepts, the most glorious way of betraying the fatherland.
President Wilson was aware of this preposterous doctrine,
which handed Mexican sovereignty over to him to do with
it as he saw fit; and the idealist Wilson took advantage of
the opportunity to essay laboratory experiments of his senti-
mental theories upon 15,000,000 human beings. Accord-
ing to the experimenter, they ought to embrace a superior
form of government like that of the United States, be-
1 Pedro Lamicq, Madero Intimo, p. 43.
248 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
cause, forsooth, he is convinced, as he says in the columns of
The Saturday Evening Post, that all the people are fit for a
democratic form of government if only they are properly
guided, even if this guide be the chief of a foreign nation.
President Wilson has caused me some sleepless nights. I
have been unable to fathom how a man of his erudition,
whose field is sociology and not fiction, has failed to be im-
pressed by the fact that not one of the sixteen Latin-Ameri-
can nations has been able in the course of one hundred years
to establish a democratic form of government, notwithstand-
ing that they have had as guides men eminent for their
talent, their virtue, their learning, their civism, their activ-
ity, and a zeal for their country's welfare which has carried
them to the sublimest heights of patriotism and self-abnega-
tion. These men devoted themselves to trying to transform
their countrymen into democrats, without obtaining anything
beyond what the laws of social usage dictate in accordance
with the inexorable laws of evolution. President Wilson
should know that in Mexico the height of skepticism has been
reached with regard to liberty and democracy. This truth
has been learned after traversing a long and tortuous road,
strewn with blood, crimes, infamies, heroic deeds, hallucina-
tions, inconceivable depths of depravity, crushed ideals and
suicidal tendencies, born of desperation. Those of us who
know what Mexico really is have not learned it by sojourn-
ing in Minnesota or New Jersey, or in the Boston library.
We have learned it from grim realities, pushing us along,
shaking us by the collar as though we were miserable pig-
mies, mercilessly treading us under foot, until the tremen-
dous lesson of sociological truth has been forced upon us.
Has Mr. Wilson never heard what Bolivar said? "In
America there is no faith. Treaties are paper; Constitu-
tions, books; elections, combats; liberty, anarchy, and life a
torment."
It may be said that Bolivar spoke these words a century
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 249
ago, that undoubtedly we have progressed greatly since then.
Senor Fulgencio Palavicini, at present Secretary of Public
Instruction in Senor Carranza's Cabinet, in a letter of con-
gratulation written to Senor Fernandez Cabrera, the poet
whose lays have glorified the Carrancista cause, says: "Let
your bugle vibrate with the music of Tyrtaean screeds; let
your pen unceasingly reassert that the period of gestation has
been dark, difficult and painful, but that r la patria is formed,
that Mexico is about to be born." x
This letter was written about the middle of 1915. Ac-
cording to Don Venustiano's secretary Mexico, engendered
by the revolution, was about to be born then. If Mexico
was about to be born in 1915, it means that in 1913 it was
in the foetal state and that the Plan de Guadalupe was pro-
claimed to recover the political rights of an unborn entity!
And for this arrant folly the Mexican nation has been deso-
lated, President Wilson giving his support to the destruction.
Senor Palavicini, whose statements have annihilated the
revolutionary thesis, says to Senor Fernandez Cabrera : "Our
problem, the great Mexican national problem, is to civilize
two-thirds of the native population, which is not a part of
the real common life of the nation, which is separated from
the national conscience, and which is exclusively represented
by the active, intelligent direction of one-third of the popu-
lation." 2
While President Wilson in his much-applauded Indianap-
olis address was informing the American people and the
Latin-American nations that the Mexican people had been
redeemed, that they were masters of their own destinies, and
that he expected that the liberty they had won would be well
used for the benefit of the eighty-five per cent formerly op-
pressed, but since the fall of Huerta, free and sovereign ; the
irrepressible Palavicini was placing the President of the
1 M. Fernandez Cabrera, Mi viaje a Mexico, p. 280.
2 Idem, p. 282.
250 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
United States in rather an embarrassing situation by declar-
ing that two-thirds of the Mexican people were not a part
of the common life of the nation, that they were separated
from the national conscience, and that two-thirds were ex-
clusively represented by the one-third cultured portion of the
nation. A startling contrast ! It does not enhance President
Wilson's reputation for scholarship. But the reformer Pala-
vicini does not escape Senor Fernandez Cabrera. He takes
him by the ear and holds him up to the gaze of the Mexican
people, when Senor Palavicini, referring to the native popula-
tion, calls them "an unredeemable herd of pariahs." 1
This semi-official assertion puts the finishing touch upon
Mr. Wilson as the idealistic improviser of democracies. This
assertion of Carranza's Secretary of Public Instruction com-
pletely discredits the Indianapolis discourse in so far as the
supposed redemption of the unfortunate eighty-five per cent
is concerned. Mr. Hamilton Fyfe sides with the secretary,
after having reached his conclusions concerning the Mexican
social and political situation from personal observation. Mr.
Fyfe says: "It is true that the Constitutionalist leaders say
that they are defending the Republican idea, the democratic,
as opposed to the despotic form of government. But they
have no real faith in democracy. The United States officer
in command of the frontier detachment at Laredo was vis-
ited by a deputation of insurrectos from across the border.
He listened to them politely, then he said: 'But if, as you
say, you have an overwhelming majority of the people with
you, why do not you take part in the Presidential election,
return your candidate, and have him recognized by the
United States?' They looked at one another doubtfully.
'Ah, Senor,' they answered, 'we never thought of that.' " 2
That American officer understood the Mexican problem
much better than the White House, with all its corps of
1 M. Fernandez Cabrera, Mi viaje a Mexico, p. 171.
2 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, p. 64.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 251
specialists devoted to the solution of great political problems.
Mr. Fyfe adds: "The truth is that they realize, even the
most radical among them, that Mexico cannot govern her-
self as the United Kingdom and the United States do for
a very long time to come." * And the English writer con-
cludes by saying: "Yet this young Captain, when we dis-
cussed possible candidates whom the Constitutionalists might
put forward for the Presidency, clenched his fist and bring-
ing it down upon his knee said, 'We must have an energetic
man. That is what Mexico needs!' An energetic man!
And that eloquent gesture with the clenched fist! Democ-
racy was all right in theory, but he knew as well as anybody
else that in practice it would not work." :
The distinguished Cuban, Senor Marquez Sterling, sent
Senor M. Fernandez Cabrera to Mexico to study conditions
there, and as a result of this study Senor Fernandez Cabrera
has described Don Venustiano Carranza as the representa-
tive of the "redemptory rebellion," of "brilliant patriotism,"
and of the "crystalline purity of the national ideals." The
same writer has characterized Senor Carranza as the "man
of the hour."
There can be no doubt that the conclusions drawn by this
writer upon the Mexican revolution are very favorable to
Senor Carranza, but they do not redound to the author's
reputation. In point of fact, Senor Fernandez Cabrera
found, when he made a practical study of the Indian who
was driving him from Ometusco to Apam, that this repre-
sentative of the indigenous race had "a pointed, dolicho-
cephalic head, low receding forehead, obtuse facial angle of
38 degrees, obtained only by stretching the compass, opaque,
yellow skin, weak shrunken shoulders, small ears, restlessly
active like those of a hare, and an absence of gestures. Ergo,
of an inferior race." 3
1 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, p. 64.
2 Idem, pp. 64, 65.
8 M. Fernandez Cabrera, Mi viaje a Mexico, p. 51.
252 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
After the physical examination, the observer passes on to
the moral, and concludes with these words:
"Woeful condition denoting a miserable state of igno-
rance, amorphous and deprived of all power of action an
absolute state of human irrationability." x
It is possible that Don Venustiano Carranza represents
the ideals of this inferior race very inferior, since it bor-
ders on irrationality as the successor of the venerable Fray
Bartolome de las Casas. One thing is certain, unless Senor
Carranza is able to transform himself into the Emperor
Cuauhtemoc, it will be impossible for him to represent the
political ideals of the Indians. In either case the Consti-
tutionalism represented by Senor Carranza proves to be an
idle fiction. We do not find in history, or in any of the
logical deductions that may be drawn from it, that an in-
ferior race can live under the regime of a superior govern-
ment.
Another writer who visited Mexico in 1913 tells us,
speaking of the Mexican popular urban class: "The
'pelao' 2 is lazy, a drunkard and unmoral. In the haunts
where he sleeps, in the pulque taverns where he lives, in
the streets he traverses, the pulsing sway of the mob is felt
as nowhere else, the sway of that ignorant herd that kills
or dies with equal equanimity, that is as easily led into
bondage as to heroic deeds. The air is ladened with misery
and pain, intensified because no complaint or protest is to be
heard. All evince the resignation of dumb beasts, relieved
by the maudlin gaiety that accompanies the reunions around
the card table, the highest spiritual manifestation in the life
of the Mexican popular classes.
"The Indian, as a type, seems less contemptible perhaps
because there is less pretence to civilization than the
1 M. Fernandez Cabrera, Mi viaje a Mexico, pp. 170, 171.
2 Pelado called "pelao" by the lower classes, is a low-bred
member of the common people.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 253
'pelao,' who is a genuine cross between the Indian and the
European." I
The same writer tersely sums up the position of the In-
dian when he says: "In a country where crime is sanctioned
as a political means, where individual personal rights have
been and are unknown, in a country where half a million
men possess the right of life and death over thirteen million,
I do not say men because the unfortunate Mexican Indians
are not in reality men. . . ." 2
The Argentenian journalist has found in the midst of all
these human elements upon which the revolutionists are
striving to build the highest form of government a democ-
racy, the moral note that characterized the Mexican mind
in June, 1913: "Everybody wants to take vengeance on
everybody else." He might have added, referring to the
politicians, everybody wants to rob everybody else.
Hamilton Fyfe, who personally studied the Mexican In-
dians in their political life, says: "Most of the present
voters are Indians, incapable of voting intelligently. If they
vote at all, they vote as their employers direct; or they say
naively that they would like to vote for the candidate who
will win; or they stupidly ask the polling officials (all active
politicians) to tell them what to do." 3
Mr. Fyfe unerringly points out President Wilson's mis-
taken views: "But the discrepancy between their profes-
sions and their avowed policy shows how far the mentality
of Mexico is distant from that of Europe and the United
States, and how impossible it is to apply to it, as President
Wilson persists in doing, the same tests and the same stand-
ards which obtain in countries where the idea of self-govern-
ment is a plan of mature growth." 4
1 Tito L. Foppa, La Tragedia Mexlcana, p. 52.
2 Idem, p. 134.
3 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, pp. 18, 142.
4 Idem, pp. 18, 142.
254 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
I think it opportune to repeat here the quotation from
Victor Hugo which I gave in Part First, applying it to
Latin- America : "If a man is not a democrat at twenty, he
has no heart, and the one who is a democrat at forty, either
lacks sense or shame, or both." The Plan de Guadalupe,
proclaimed in March, 1913, could not be anything in the
eyes of the people, whether they were serious or frivolous,
virtuous or depraved, but braggadocio, or a simple courtesy
or delicate attention, so to speak, shown to the public. In
Spanish countries a polite formula is used by gentlemen
when addressing ladies: "Beso a usted los pies, Senora"
(Madam, I kiss your feet) ; but neither does he actually kiss
her feet, or is there any one who believes that he intends
to do so.
To proclaim the reestablishment of the Constitution in
dictatorial Latin-American nations is equivalent to proclaim-
ing the "Step down that I may step up" principle, saying
with a polite bow to the public, "I kiss your feet," or what
amounts to the same, "Long live the decorative Consti-
tution!"
It was an Argentenian thinker, if I remember correctly,
who said: "It is impossible to have liberty in Spanish-
America, so long as we have liberators."
PRESIDENT WILSON'S FIRST THRUST
In view of the preposterous revolutionary doctrine spoken
of in the preceding section, President Wilson's refusal to
recognize General Huerta as President of Mexico was
equivalent to declaring war unto death against the Mexican
Government, and was an insolent act of aggression against
the sovereignty of Mexico. As I have already said, and as
all Latin-Americans (and one may say the whole world)
know, when the United States Government shows hostility
in any form toward a Latin-American government, because
this may have refused to comply with its demands, this hos-
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 255
tility means the eventual overthrow of that government.
This may be accomplished directly by intervention on the
part of the United States Government, or indirectly by pro-
tecting a counter-revolution against the government that
has defied it.
President Wilson's first sentiments of hostility toward
President Huerta were aroused by the impression wrought
by foul deeds upon a noble nature. The murders perpe-
trated by the representatives of Mexican militarism had
awakened a note of sympathy in the hearts of honest people
the world over, and the odium and contempt of the civilized
world was heaped upon Huerta in lieu of the place on the
scaffold to which it would have condemned him. Mr. Ham-
ilton Fyfe points to Senora Madero, the President's wife,
as the supreme influence that moulded President Wilson's
views. He says: "It is said that President Wilson was
strongly influenced in this direction by the appeal which
Senora Madero made to him. At all events the quarrel now
began, in effect, a trial of strength between the two men." x
If, as Mr. Fyfe and other writers have asserted, it is true
that Senora Madero asked President Wilson for justice
against her husband's murderers, or for non-recognition of
Huerta, knowing that non-recognition was equivalent to a
declaration of war against Mexico, it would have been bet-
ter to have left justice in the hands of the Almighty than
to buy it at the price of Mexico's destruction. The ruin of
Madero's assassin had inevitably to be the ruin of the
fatherland and the sacrifice of the innocent. If the non-
recognition of Huerta was due to the pressure brought to
bear by the Madero family, then history will have to attest
that if Madero in life brought many misfortunes upon his
country and spilt much blood in its name, his death has
brought upon it many more misfortunes.
President Wilson's idealistic, political policy followed
1 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, p. 132.
256 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
upon his emotional resolution not to recognize President
Huerta. His arguments were diametrically opposed to all
the facts I have given to prove that Mexico is not fitted for
a democratic form of government. Without a doubt Presi-
dent Wilson thought that Madero had been freely elected
president of Mexico. Consequently, it was amply proved
that in Mexico it was possible to have governments estab-
lished by popular vote, and he, therefore, commanded and
decreed that Huerta should retire and allow the Mexican
people absolute freedom in the election of a president, as had
been the case when Madero was elected.
It is possible for a president to be freely elected in Mex-
ico; but a real statesman would not attempt to establish any
given form of government upon a possibility. It is possible
to win a lottery prize of $100,000; but only a lunatic would
arrange the life of every individual upon the possibility of
his winning such a prize. The history of Mexico demon-
strates that any citizen may be freely elected by the people
if it pleases the president in power to permit it. But if this
functionary, in order to retain the power or to transmit it
to a favorite, denies the right of free election, then the only
possible alternative is a revolution. The election of Madero
was no exception to the rule. He was freely elected when
the Madero family was the one actually wielding the power.
De la Barra had assumed the presidency with the under-
standing that the Madero family, which possessed all the
elements of power, should be the actual governing factor.
Every one in Mexico was aware of this. To establish a
real democracy it is necessary for the people to be in a posi-
tion to vote freely, whether or not the president wishes it.
It is not necessary to go deeply into this. Mr. Wilson
proved by recognizing the President of Peru, who later than
Huerta assumed the power at the point of the bayonet, that
his idealistic views were subject to eclipses when it was not
a question of Huerta.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 257
Events, have proved that it was never President Wilson's
intention- to -resort to armed intervention to overthrow
*-*
Huerta. His program was to protect the revolutionists in
so rfar as it wa,s possible,; if only, they would overthrow
Huer^a. Huerta's position in February, 1913, was; formid-!
able. He had at his command 60,060 soldiers, and possessed
the facilities to increase the force to 200,000 or more. He
had at his disposal- all the Federal revenues which at that
time were at a 'maximum. He had' the support of all the
states except part of Sonora and an insignificant section of
the s.tate of Cokhuila. He could count upon the nation's
credit to the extent of raising 200,000,000, or 300,000,000
pesos by a single loan. :, If this failed there remained the op-
portunity, as yet unabused, of issuing paper money in suf-
ficient quantity to support his army of 200,000 men for at
least two years. He had in his favor the indifference of the
Indians, except the Zapatistas, and the adherfence of the
aristocratic and middle classes, the clergy, the business men,
almost all the intellectuals, and the urban and rural lower
class. Since the Madero fiasco the latter wanted peace,
well-paid work and prosperity. He had the support of the
Diplomatic Corps (including the American Ambassador),,
which had recommended him to their respective Govern-^
ments .as the only man capable of bringing peace to , the
country. In this opinion all the foreign colonies concurred.
Carranza, on the other hand, after his declaration of war
against Huerta in February, 1913, counted only upon the
support of a restricted section of the isolated state of Sonora,
which had an armed force of only 2,000 state troops, with
no artillery to back them, and three hundred Rurales of the
Coahuila state forces. The latter had degenerated into rov-
ing bands, somewhat demoralized, although they were not
very hotly pursued. Carranza lacked money, arms, ammuni-
tion, credit, the support of men of influence, political ability
and the qualities of leadership. Without the backing of
258 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
President Wilson his end would have been that of a refugee
in the United States, or a corpse dangling to the nearest
tree or lamp-post.
Carranza could triumph only by means of a long, cruel,
bloody civil war, anti-social and utterly destructive of prop-
erty, more terrible in its character and extent than the
United States War of Secession.
If President Wilson's horror of Huerta sprang from a
noble motive, it cannot be said that his method of punishing
a murderer by dragging 15,000,000 human beings into an
exceptionally horrible war was equally noble. It amounts
to murdering a nation to take revenge on one evil-doer.
It is curious that President Wilson should have felt so
much repugnance and contempt for the Mexican conserva-
tive classes, which approved Huerta's coup, although not
his murders. WTio form these conservative classes? All
those who do not want to fall under the despotic rule of
even the city rabble, much less that of the rural populace,
whose unbridled license reaches a point of inconceivable
bestiality. Madero having failed, the power had to fall
into the hands of the rural popular class, which had obtained
it in 1910; and every one, even if he were not a planter, an
aristocrat, a reactionary, a cleric, a military man or a Cien-
tifico, but simply a civilized being, had the natural and pa-
triotic right to range himself, even at the cost of displeasing
the President of the United States, against the social catas-
trophe that threatened Mexico. This catastrophe did not
mean simply the collapse of a wretched murderer, a rotten
bureaucracy, an ignoble past, a government, ancient laws,
and legitimate social interests, but the collapse of Mexican
civilization itself, dating from the days of the Toltecs down
to those of Porfirio Diaz.
Such was the prospect held out to Mexican society in
1911 after the taking of Sombrerete by Moya, Torreon by
Adame Macias, Cuautla by Zapata, the Fabrica de Cova-
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 259
donga by Zamudio, and the perpetration of other excesses
throughout the Republic. The fact remains that all revolu-
tions launched with undisciplined troops, in the name of
the people, or under any other pretext, have been accom-
panied by these savage excesses. What terrorized Mexican
society, however, was the fact that this savagery had been
converted into a doctrine of retributive justice, which pro-
posed to make the extermination of the higher classes the
starting point of the new era of happiness for the popular
classes.
It is not necessary to enter here into a discussion as to
whether or not the popular classes had reason to meditate a
vengeance that would be epoch-making even in the annals
of the most celebrated reigns of terror. But what I shall
sustain, and I think justly, is that neither Mr. Wilson nor
any other person can deny the right of defense against
extermination to one or various social classes. The right
of defense has not emanated from the temple of the gods,
from imposing capitols, from councils illuminated from on
high, from universities or law courts, or from the sovereign
will of the people. The right of defense springs from the
organic world, that is to say, from everything that has life.
This right to existence is sacred to all beings, from the
smallest insect that flies in the air to the wild beasts that
inhabit the forests; from the tiniest plant cell to the mighty
tree, which challenges time and commands the veneration of
generations.
To deny the right of defense to any class of society is
absurd. The Mexican conservative classes were quite right
in sanctioning Huerta's triumph, notwithstanding the mur-
ders that attended it, if they believed that Huerta was ca-
pable of saving the country. The world has approved the
cowardly assassination of Holofernes by Judith, because by
this means she saved her country. History has set the seal
of its approval upon the reign of the Emperor Augustus,
260 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
who put an end to the anarchy that was devastating Rome,
notwithstanding the fact that in order to reach the supreme
power he committed more crimes than Huerta. Christian-
ity has glorified the Emperor Constantine, who was far more
criminal than Huerta ever -thought of being. France re-
spects the memory of Louis- XI as the founder of the great
French 1 nation, notwithstanding the-' 'fact that as an assassin
he could have given lessons to Huerta. England reveres
the memory of Cromwell as one of the foundation stones
of her greatness, despite his cruelty. The world has
accepted Napoleon's despotic rule, which put an end to
Jacobin 'anarchy, as a force beneficial to humanity, although
he deerged tile death of the Due d'Erighien. The Mexican
people* at- one time recognized that they were greatly in-
debted to 'General Diaz, an& that it was their duty to sup-
port him,'' despite the fact that he had decreed 'the horrible
assassinations of June 25, 1879, at Vera Cruz, by means of
the famous telegram directed to General Mier y Teran:
"Strike while the iron is hot." ,..,'"'
I do not think the assassination of Madero and Pino Sua-
rez was a necessity, but even granting that it was a wanton
act- of- cruelty, if society, threatened' with extermination by
trie; populace, believed that the only man capable of saving
it was^General ' Huerta, it had the right to rely upon the
sword 'i of r ?this terrible soldier, just as a shipwrecked man,
lashecl about by the waves, would not hesitate to grasp the
first arm that was stretched out to rescue him even if it
were that of the most criminal man in the world. It is the
work of anarchy to convert even miscreants into heroes, if
they succeed in dominating it.
Once Mr. Wilson had decided to destroy Huerta, having
first brought the tremendous moral power of the United
States to bear upon the situation, he took his "moral ho-
witzer," loaded it with the corresponding moral projectile
non-recognition of Huerta and sat down to await with the
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 261
utmost unconcern the wave of fear that would sweep over
the Mexican Government and the Mexican people, bringing
about the downfall of Huerta, and removing the cause of
displeasure to the honorable President of the United States.
THE PLAN OF IMPLACABLE REVENGE
The Plan of Guadalupe, which may aptly be styled "The
Fiasco," because it utterly failed of its purpose, was pro-
claimed by Senor Carranza on March 19, 1913. The state
of Sonora did not follow Carranza at this time. On the
2Oth of the preceding month, it had on its own initiative,
and assuming all risks, refused allegiance to Huerta. Senor
Carranza carried a portion of the Coahuila state troops
with him and some of his employees, and managed to raise
about three hundred men. They were soon defeated, reduc-
ing the Carrancista force to one hundred fugitives, who
would have surrendered except for the omnipotent Mr.
Wilson's menacing attitude.
The reply to Senor Carranza's appeal to the state govern-
ors was the meek attitude of these practical politicians who,
with two or three exceptions, were determined to submit to
Huerta's despotism, however oppressive it might be. It took
the Federal Congress only eleven minutes to transform itself
from a loyal Maderista to a still more loyal Huertista body.
In the House of Representatives, which was supposed to be
the genuine representative of the people, infamy touched its
lowest depths when not a single representative of the Ma-
derista majority questioned the Executive regarding the crime
committed at dawn of that same day, when their brother
deputy, Senor Gustavo Madero, the President's brother and
the leader of the majority, had been infamously assassinated
by the triumphant representatives of militarism. The plan
to establish militarism was agreed upon at the American Em-
bassy, the conference being presided over and influenced by
262 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Mr. Henry Lane Wilson. With the exception of five, the
cowardly majority came forward to sanction Madero's fall
and to endeavor with inimitable ignominy to whitewash
Huerta, putting a semblance of legality upon his title of Con-
stitutional President ad interim of the Mexican Republic.
After the sensational murders of Madero, Pino Suarez and
Abraham Gonzalez, which filled the civilized and even the
semi-civilized world with horror, this majority the cream
of the new men the nation so much needed put itself un-
conditionally at Huerta's disposal. These men came and
went in Huerta's ante-chambers, asked for orders and re-
ceived commands, and were not above receiving gratuities,
thereby adding to their depravity. It was owing to them
that the tyrant was able to have laws passed conveying his
sovereign will, and to get support for the interminable
intrigues that were suggested to him, which have placed him
in the foreranks of the worst Roman Caesars, Italian con-
dottieres and Latin-American liberators. But no sooner did
Villa take Torreon in September, 1913, and the revolution
in the north began to take on the appearance of an inevitable
triumph, than this sordid majority thought the time had come
to betray Huerta, as it had betrayed Madero, in order to
curry favor with the offended leaders Villa and Carranza
and by a second treason wipe out the first.
This despicable ex-Maderista majority then assumed an
independent attitude, that is, anti-Huertista. This did not
meet with the tyrant's approval, and he ordered the dissolu-
tion of the obnoxious body. This had suddenly been trans-
formed into a righteously and patriotically indignant as-
semblage, demanding satisfaction for the assassination of
Senator Belisario Dominquez, after not having dared to raise
its voice in protest against a succession of assassinations: Ma-
dero, his brother Gustavo, Pino Suarez, Abraham Gonzalez,
the representatives Pastolin, Serafiio Rendon, Federico
Gurrion, and the journalist Solon Argiiello, and many other
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 263
persons who were deserving only of consideration and
respect for asserting their political rights.
The situation for Carranza was serious from the mo-
ment that the political parties, as well as the factions, had
their leading men in the Cabinet and the two houses of Con-
gress. It is safe to say that with the treason of the Fed-
eral Congress, the Judiciary, the Supreme Court and the
governors of twenty-three states, all the Maderista follow-
ing had gone over to Huerta, and that when Carranza pro-
claimed the reestablishment of the Constitution he did it
without other support than that of a few insignificant, irregu-
lar military men, and without other civil head than his own,
and that of the prudent although inexperienced Senor Eliseo
Arredondo.
The failure of President Wilson's moral projectile to make
even a dent in the moral armor plate of Mexican sovereignty
served to emphasize the significance of the failure of Con-
stitutionalism, labelling it as a ridiculous political measure,
disparaging to the moral supremacy of the United States in
the eyes of the Mexican public.
Desperation inspired Senor Carranza to appeal to a
remedy as stupid as it was unworthy of a politician, and es-
pecially of a Mexican. He revived the law of January 20,
1862, which had been publicly repudiated in New York in
1864 by its author, Senor Manuel Doblado. He then said
that it was a dishonor to him and that he had compiled it
in a state of mind bordering on mental derangement, brought
on by the increasing number of treasons and desertions in
the Mexican army as the French advanced upon Puebla.
To form some idea of the cruelty and injustice of this law
it is only necessary to consider that, notwithstanding the
fact that it was promulgated to punish the black crime of
treason, its author confessed that he had exceeded his pro-
gram, not in justice, because he himself never thought the
law just, but in terror, which he thought necessary to instill
264 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
into the minds of the people at a time when Mexico seemed
to be crumbling to pieces through panic and treason.
Where was the political acumen of the Carrancista party
in April, 1913, when it decided to revive a law which was
morally discountenanced, and which had been condemned
without appeal and without exception in the nation's his-
tory? There has never been a liberal, patriotic Mexican
historian who has not condemned this law even when ap-
plied to traitors. Where, then, was the political acumen of
these men who decided to apply, in a civil constitutionalist
war, penal precepts applicable only to traitors!
When the Catholic League, presided over by the Due de
Guise, decreed the massacre of the Huguenots on the mem-
orable Eve of Saint Bartholomew, the assassins followed
the moral and logical law of the times the heretic must die
by fire and the sword. Guise and Torquemada, following
the political tenets of their age, are respectable in compari-
son with Carranza who, in the twentieth century, unfurls
the banner of Constitutionalism under the protection of a
law that would drag every Mexican citizen who does not
agree with him to the block.
The Constitutionalism proclaimed by the Plan de Guada-
lupe was the establishment of democracy, that is, the sov-
ereignty of the people. If the people are sovereign, how is
it possible for a citizen to say to them: "Either you will
follow me or I shall kill you, confiscating all your property
to swell my own possessions." The people have the inherent
right to rebel and, consequently, an equal right not to do
so. A democratic republic cannot harbor a citizen, even
though he be named Venustiano Carranza, endowed with
the right to compel a people to rebel. Not only did Senor
Carranza not have the right to threaten the people, whom
he professed to look upon as sovereign, but he did not have
the right to threaten the most humble citizen of the Repub-
lic. Even the people do not possess this right. The right
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 265
'not to rebel, even if the Government violates the Constitu-
tion a million times, is a sacred, > personal right.
Senor Carranza and his limited circle never could under-
stand that a Huertista could < be a legitimate Constitution-
alist. In point o'i fact, according to the Constitution pro-
claimed by Carranza and his picayune followers, the House
of Representatives enjoys the privilege of legal infallibility,
there being: no '.appeal from the 'designation by this body of
any special person as President of the Republic, and it was
this very body that had declared Huerta the Constitutional
President of the Republic ad mterlm.
It is true that the action of the House of Representatives
in this respect was detestable, worthy of contempt and exe-
cration. But for the Constitution there are no corrupt
legislatures; legally their actions are clean and sound, what-
ever they may be. The House of Representatives, like all
constitutional power, is absolutely irresponsible before the
law, whatever may be the laws, decrees or agreements it may
formulate. The representatives are responsible before the
House for official offenses, but they are absolutely irrespon-
sible according to the Constitution for whatever they may
say on the floor of the House, and for their votes, whatever
their import may be.
If a legislature prostitutes its sacred rights and legislates
according to its perverted instincts, the people have the right
to rebel against it, or, as I have said, not to rebel if they
see fit. In any case the Mexican citizen is not obliged to
rebel even if the entire populace has risen in rebellion.
Senor Carranza's assumed right to oblige all Mexicans to
follow him is nothing short of absurd in the eyes of hon-
est, intelligent persons. Even supposing that Huerta had
not represented a de jure government, no one can deny that
in March, 1913, he represented a de facto government,
inasmuch as he ruled a nation of 15,000,000 inhabitants, with
the exception of perhaps 400,000. Every individual is obliged
266 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
to recognize a de facto government. If he does not care to
fulfill this obligation he is at liberty to rebel, running the
risk of being punished according to the laws of this
government. If de facto governments had not the right
to punish infringements of their laws, there never would
have been any Latin-American governments, because they
are nothing but de facto governments from the moment
that they originate from military coups or official elections.
Mr. Fyfe is a good observer and perceives with unerring
eye how scandalously the Mexicans abuse the term treason:
"Each side calls the other side 'traitors,' and the only course
to take with a 'traitor' that is, a man who differs from
your views is to shoot him." *
In an interview between Mr. Fyfe and Senor Carranza
the following conversation took place :
* 'We Constitutionalists refuse to recognize any president
who may be returned at the fraudulent election. We shall
execute anybody who does recognize him.'
" 'I beg your pardon,' I said. 'Would you kindly repeat
your last statement? I thought I must have misunder-
stood it.'
' 'We shall,' the General said calmly and as if he were
making a perfectly natural remark, 'execute any one who
recognizes a president unconstitutionally elected and directly
or indirectly guilty of participation in the murder of Ma-
dero.' " 2
Fyfe adds: "Some two months after my visit, General
Carranza was interviewed by a Major Archer-Shee, a Brit-
ish Member of Parliament, and being told that this remark
of his had had a bad effect, he denied having made it. I
bear him no malice for this. I expected that he would deny
it, if ever he were told how strangely it sounded in English
and American ears." 3
1 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, p. 18.
2 Idem, p. 17.
3 Idem, p. 17.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 267
How advantageous it would have been if Senor Carranza
had looked upon Mexican society with the same respect he
looked upon the English Parliamentary member, Major
Archer-Shee, so that he might have repealed a law, the in-
voking of which was a discredit to him, and will forever
remain a stain upon the civilization of Mexico.
Senor Fernandez Giiell generously contributes to our
sociology a sample of our abominable mental political atti-
tude. Senor Carranza's decree reviving the horrible law of
January 20, 1862, proves that the First Chief of the Con-
stitutionalist army has been liberty's worst enemy in Mexico.
Nevertheless, Senor Fernandez Giiell calls Senor Carranza
"the old and robust oak of liberty." When an ex-director
of the National Library of the City of Mexico confuses ter-
ror with liberty, it means that the Mexican nation is lost in
the hands of reformers who do not pretend to restore lib-
erty, but to introduce the barbarities that characterized the
most atrocious period of the Roman Empire. Senor Fer-
nandez Giiell is much more felicitous when he announces to
the world that Senor Carranza shed "una lagrima de bronce"
(a molten tear) upon Madero's grave. It is fitting that a
man who revived a law of terror should be converted, when
he melts into tears, into a munition factory.
THE FALSE APOSTLE
The most plausible exposition I have come across of Senor
Carranza's dominant reform idea is to be found in Mr.
Fyfe's book. Speaking to the correspondent of The London
Times, Mr. Fyfe said, referring to the revolution: "It has
its roots in social causes. The land, which was formerly
divided among the mass of the people, has been seized by a
few. The owners of it compel those who are working for
them to buy the necessities of life from them alone. They
lay a burden of debt upon the poor people, and as they owe
268 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO tl
them money they cannot get away. If they try to go away,
they can be brought back. They can be put in prison." 1-
This explanation, however, is untenable.
Senor Carranza did not emerge from a Mexican Bastile
where he had been incarcerated for forty years on account
of his reform ideas. Senor Carranza was for many years a
senator in the Federal Congress under the Diaz dictator-
ship, and could have introduced a reform bill embracing the
land, question, the company stores and the abuses practised
by landowners and proprietors against debtors, especially as
the Constitution forbids any manner of punishment for debt.
Senor Carranza's bill might or might not have been taken
up for consideration by the; dictatorship. In all probability
it .would have been well received; /considering what I have
already said about the ; recommendations Senor Carlos
Paeheco had made, through the , Department of Fomento, to
the President, advising the, formation of small landholdings.
I have also called attention to the fact that the law of 1886
advised the division of the land to raise the standard of agri-
culture, and thus "institute, a .radical means to combat the
effects of the depreciation of silver. In my book, El por-
venir de las naciones latino-americanas ante la politico de
los Estados Unidos (The Future of the American Nations
in View of the Policy of the United States), published in
1899, I proved that Mexico would never attain permanent
prosperity without the establishment of small landholdings,
and that to accomplish this the Government should proceed
at once to construct large irrigation plants. After the pub-
lication of my book, the Department of Fomento published
treatises on the subject, insisting that irrigation was necessary
to make possible -the distribution of the land without bring-
ing about a disaster- the death of the people by starvation;
During the dictatorship, Senor Carranza, the reformer, was
either not a reformer or an absolutely inactive one.
1 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, p. 16.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 269
Senor Carranza took possession of the government of the
state of Coahuila in June, 1911, and kept it until March
19, 1913. According to the Constitution, the states have
the right to introduce constitutional reform bills into the
Federal Congress. Why did not Senor Carranza during the
period of his governorship introduce bills through the state
legislature to be laid before the Federal Congress, outlining
the reforms needed to save the country? Why did not the
senators and representatives from Coahuila, if they really
professed reform principles, avail themselves of the privilege
granted them by the Constitution of introducing into Con-
gress any bill they might see fit to bring about reforms?
Why did the Carrancista press in the state of Coahuila
never take up these questions of reform when it was per-
fectly free to do so? Why did not the journalist, Senor
Ignacio Herrerias, to whom Don Venustiano Carranza paid
two hundred pesos monthly to eulogize him in the City of
(Mexico newspapers, ever open the reform campaign in the
columns of La Prensa, where I had installed him as editor-
in-chief ?
Emiliano Zapata issued the Plan de Ayala on November
25, 1911. This embodied the distribution of lands and the
waging of war against the landowning system, with the hope
of arousing popular feeling, not only in Morelos but all
over the country. He has upheld his plan for more than
four years by fire and blood, resisting the blandishments of
three administrations. Why did not Don Venustiano Car-
ranza, the governor of Coahuila, who professed the same
reform principles, join forces with him and oblige Madero
to grant the saving reforms demanded by the popular class?
It is shocking that the great reformer, Don Venustiano
Carranza, a state governor, one of the most prominent mem-
bers of the Maderista faction, who possessed the right and
influence to make himself heard, and who was bound to speak
from the moment that Zapata issued his proclamation at
270 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the time when his influence would have been decisive, with-
out shedding a drop of blood, without sacrificing a dollar,
without the slightest resistance from the landowner should
have remained as indifferent to the agrarian question as
though the subject under discussion were some regulation
concerning the seal fisheries in Greenland. But no sooner
was he deprived of his governorship by Huerta's triumph,
than he set to work to organize a tremendous civil war in
order to establish reforms he might have obtained during
Madero's administration if he had been a real and disinter-
ested reformer.
The question has a still graver aspect. I have spoken of
the bill presented to Congress in President Huerta's name
in March, 1913, by Sefior Toribio Esquivel Obregon, ask-
ing it to authorize the appropriation of several million pesos
to buy lands from the planters, to be divided at the Govern-
ment's expense among the poor. From the moment of the
introduction of this bill it was Senor Carranza's place, if
patriotism alone influenced him, to have notified Huerta
that he would remain under arms until the law he had in-
troduced in favor of the poor had been approved. But as
Senor Carranza was as much interested in reforms as he was
in the whereabouts of the inhabitants of the planet Jupiter,
he enkindled instead the most atrocious civil war that Amer-
ica has ever known. The real principle involved was the
"Step down, that I may step up" principle, of which I have
already spoken. President Wilson did not seem able to see
that the agrarian question could not possibly be the funda-
mental cause of the war, as both Huerta and Carranza had
included the distribution of the lands as part of their pro-
grams, but that the real motive was Huerta's desire to con-
tinue as dictator, and Carranza's to attain the dictatorship.
In Mexico, even among people of the most ordinary intelli-
gence, it is well known that the social question has never been
the true political motive underlying the revolution. It has
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 271
been used as a cloak for the ambition of two men who have
deluged Mexico with blood: Huerta, at the head of soldiery;
Carranza, at the head of the demagogues.
THE TRUE ANTI-SOCIAL FORCES OF THE REVOLUTION
Senor Carranza's law of terror failed completely. Seeing
himself without the support of any of the men of prestige,
the First Chief had recourse to the most influential man out-
side the former Madero faction, Dr. Francisco Vasquez Go-
mez. Dr. Vasquez Gomez replied in a letter published in
the United States on June 6, 1913, that he could not sup-
port the Plan de Guadalupe because he was a man of fixed
principles and not inclined to support personal causes, as the
one he had proclaimed under the misnomer of Plan de Gua-
dalupe unquestionably was.
The revolution was composed of three elements: The de-
termination of the state of Sonora, or rather of the men who
had lately obtained the headway there, to preserve its sov-
ereignty and independence at any cost; the Villa faction,
which represented the Madero family and which sought,
with President Wilson's support, to restore it to power ; and
Senor Don Venustiano Carranza, loyal and incorruptible
partisan of the interests and ambitions of Senor Don Car-
ranza Venustiano.
The proceedings of these three factions, all of them an-
tagonistic to the only one having real principles that of
Zapata were ignoble, anti-social and consequently un-
patriotic. Demagogism, with its deformed and poisoned
mentality, charged itself with the mission of interpreting the
real principles of the revolution.
It is well known that the ruling passion of barbarous
peoples is hate. When these peoples fight for religion, they
are dominated by hatred of the heretic. When they fight
272 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
for liberty, they are impelled by hatred of those who govern
them. When they fight for their country, they are urged by
hatred of the alien. When they fight for the welfare of the
disinherited, they are really impelled by hatred of the rich.
When they fight for socialism, they are violently incited by
the social, economic, intellectual, physical and moral in-
equalities they see about them. Hatred is the propelling
force of the barbarian soul. The revolutionists of 1913, be-
ing the product of the demagogic schools, knew well what
course to pursue, and they proceeded to spread their propa-
ganda of hatred among the people.
As we already know, the Cientificos no longer existed in
1913. Of the rich men who formed the political group
upon whom responsibility might fall political, never crim-
inal, however only four remained. All were past fifty
years of age, rich, enjoying a high social position, of pacific
tendencies and surrounded by an impregnable wall of skep-
ticism, capable of withstanding the fire of human or super-
human batteries of ambition. The demagogues had devoted
eight years to a campaign of vilification against these men,
creating against them in the minds of the people a hatred
verging on the infernal. The opportunity was not to be lost.
Before these fires of hate became extinct it was necessary to
impress upon the minds of the people, upon that of President
Wilson, the American people and the whole world, that this
formidable Cientifico party existed in Mexico, bent upon ex-
ploiting the unfortunate Mexican people already in the
lowest state of misery by exploitation to the point of com-
plete extermination.
It will be remembered that the agitators, wishing to cast
as much odium as possible upon General Diaz's administra-
tion, had stirred up the Boxer feeling among the people. But
as Mr. Wilson, the protector of the revolution, was the
President of the Americans it was better, as Orestes Pereira
explained at Durango in July, 1913, to leave the gringos (a
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 273
name given to Americans) alone for the time being and turn
their attention to the destruction of the English, the Chinese,
and above all the Spaniards, commonly known as gachupines.
The creation of this fictitious party had its advantages, as
all that was necessary was to class every one as rich Cien-
tificos or as sympathizers of the Cientificos to be able to rob
them unmolested, making President Wilson, the American
people and the Spanish-American Republics, believe that
they, the representatives of the revolution, were punishing a
band of iniquitous politicians who justly deserved it. These
men had robbed the virtuous Mexican people of all their
wealth, and justice demanded that all their ill-gotten goods
should be taken from them and restored to the people. There
can be no doubt that this artful manoeuvre on the part of a
set of ruffians produced a tremendous effect in the United
States, and caused a particular smile of self-satisfaction to
light up Mr. Wilson's puritanical countenance.
Notwithstanding religious dogmas, altruistic doctrines, the
enchanting, romantic spirit of charity, and the cross currents
of many interests, it is undeniable that up to the present day
the white race is a privileged race. I do not know, nor do I
seek to know, when or how the prestige of the Caucasian
race will be destroyed. It will not be an easy task, as it is
artistic, and more or less heir to classic Hellenistic aspira-
tions. The world is not yet sufficiently virtuous or ascetic
to give the same place in the social scale to the black, com-
pelled as yet to be satisfied simply with equal civil rights, as
to the fair white representative of Athenian graces.
Beauty is the creator of rights, perhaps immutable, the
creator of that state of depression felt by colored races,
which gives rise to a sentiment of the most refined odium.
This bursts into flame whenever it meets with sufficient re-
sistence to ignite it, and is a powerful lever in fomenting and
developing revolutions in countries inhabited by the privi-
leged white race and by a race, humbled because of its color.
274 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The Mexican revolutionists made the most of this great
force, holding up to the natives the iniquity of the whites,
who had exploited them for four hundred years.
When the Mexican Constitutent Congress discussed the
Federal electoral law in 1856, Senor Ignacio Ramirez, an
implacable reformer and a talented, high-minded politician,
impugned the indirect electoral system, basing his objection
upon the fact that there is no real vote of the people except
when the election is direct, and that all really free countries
had recognized this fact in their electoral laws. The com-
mission which sustained the opposite opinion frankly replied
that the indirect election was necessary, because if the direct
vote were granted to the people, it would be the parish
priests, the chapters, the bishops, and the guardians and
priors of convents who would name the representatives, sen-
ators, magistrates, aldermen and the president of the Repub-
lic, and that the granting of the direct vote to the illiterate,
fanatically Catholic people, would be signing the death war-
rant of the glorious democratic revolution proclaimed at
Ayutla. Senor Ramirez replied that democracies cannot be
farces; that all governments based upon the opposition's
plan were either corrupt or tyrannical, or both; that if the
Mexican people were not fitted for democracy, a Constitu-
tion adapted to their capabilities should be drafted ; and that
if the direct vote were not granted to the people nothing but
a fraud would result from the indirect vote, leaving the
people condemned to the rule of political charlatans, because
any one guilty of such a fraud could not be anything but a
knave.
The delegates decided in favor of the indirect vote, ex-
cusing themselves by saying that it was better to educate the
people in democratic principles from the start, and that in
no wise could this be better accomplished than by the in-
direct electoral vote.
Senor Ramirez's prophecy was verified. When the Ma-
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 275
dero revolution triumphed, all honest persons who believed
in good faith that the Mexican people were now ready for
democracy, resolved that the direct vote should triumph.
The demagogic corporation, knowing that the masses, cut
loose from the influence of the clergy, can be molded to
their views as happens everywhere when the voter is un-
worthy of the vote energetically supported the reform
of the electoral law, aiming at having the elections of
1912 carried out in conformity with the strict rules of
the direct popular vote. The result was a surprise to
honest liberals and to the demagogic herd. They believed
that after forty-nine years of an anti-Catholic policy, an
atheistic press, and obligatory lay schools, the popular masses
had been almost totally emancipated from the tutelage of the
clergy. The elections of 1912 proved that the clergy pos-
sessed the power to organize a real, disciplined political
party, and to carry the Federal and local elections in almost
all the states. If the Catholics did not have a complete tri-
umph in the elections of 1912, it was owing to pressure
brought to bear by the Maderista Government, and the
frauds practised by the Porra against the Catholics. The
situation was clear to all.
In order to make democracy with the free vote possible
in Mexico, it is necessary for the Catholics to be a perma-
nent political factor because they are in the majority and
are strong enough to organize legislative bodies, and to pre-
vent any other powerful, well-disciplined political body from
obtaining a complete triumph in the parliamentary field.
What the Mexican Catholics lack is the power to rise up
in arms and assert their rights when the liberal minority
nullifies their honestly won triumphs by means of frauds and
violence. This lack of assertive power is due to the fact
that the Indians and mestizos of the rural districts, who
vote with the Catholic party, do not go to the polls pistol
in hand as their opponents are ready to do. Owing to that
276 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
stony passivity, of which I have already spoken, they will
vote for or against Catholicism, just as they will fight for
or against it, if superior authority brings pressure to bear
upon them.
The politicians know that they cannot be the controlling
power in a real, or even in a corrupt democracy, so long as
the majority of the Mexicans are Catholics, and this explains
their anxiety to destroy Catholicity among the popular
classes by any and every possible means. As the lay schools
did not accomplish this, the revolutionists have had recourse
to another species of anti-Catholic education of the masses
carried on by desecrating churches, breaking images, outrag-
ing nuns, expelling and assassinating priests, closing churches,
and even by prohibiting private worship. From this also
springs the cry for more lay schools. To the reformer "re-
generation of the people by the school" means getting con-
trol of the conscience of the popular class by driving Catho-
licity out.
This accounts for the hatred of the political revolutionists
for Catholicism, and their care to encourage the bandits of
the north to commit all kinds of outrages against the clergy
and the Catholics in that section.
Having organized this campaign of hate, not against
Huerta because he was an old man and by that time utterly
devoid of social prestige but against other menacing forces,
the agitators proceeded to stir the populace through another
channel.
If the Plan de Guadalupe had made the distribution of
lands its watchword, it would have been coldly received in
the north, where something more enticing had to be held out.
Any vague, undefined, mysterious promise is a great mo-
tive force among illiterate, practically uncivilized peoples,
composed in great majority of inferior races, and the Mex-
ican people were virtually hypnotized with high-sounding
promises. "This revolution is being fought for the poor."
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 277
"Once the revolution triumphs the poor will never know suf-
fering again." "The reforms which the revolution is secretly
planning will lead the poor to unlimited prosperity." "The
revolution must necessarily be the source of unbounded ben-
efits for the poor." "The world will be amazed to see the
reforms that the Mexican revolution will institute exclu-
sively in favor of the poor." "The poor the world over will
envy the poor in Mexico, when the revolution is crowned
with triumph." This string of absurdities produced magic
effects in the mind of the populace. They hailed with joy
the destruction of their country, of the restricted liberties
which up to then they had enjoyed, of their meagre posses-
sions, of their work, of the virtue of their wives and daught-
ers, and of all the traditions that tempered the sordiness of
their lives and cast a halo of tenderness over their homes,
notwithstanding their poverty and misery.
THE CRIMINAL BAND OF PRIVATE SECRETARIES
The revolution never formulated its program by means of
a logical, well-drawn-up document, characterized by serious
political purpose. Senor Carranza has not been the "mili-
tary genius" of the revolution, its thinker or its reformer;
neither has he been the instigator of the revolutionary propa-
ganda I mentioned. He has not grasped it even now,
and never will. Senor Carranza has never seen any of the
powerful machines, expelling the foul gases of hatred and
cupidity, designed by the revolutionists. Never has he put
foot in this "garage" to ride forth into chaos at the rate of
one hundred miles an hour in one of these high-powered
machines. For Senor Carranza, as for Mr. Wilson and Mr.
Bryan and Messrs. Bayard Hale, Lind and House, all the
outrages committed by the revolutionists are trifles, pecca-
dillos, excusable excesses; even criminal actions are urgent
278 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
and indispensable, and the inevitable consequences of war.
These gentlemen do not seem to see that in previous Mex-
ican revolutions, as in all other revolutions, the outrages
have been the work of the lower elements, condemned by the
higher as excesses worthy of punishment ; whereas the fright-
ful thing about the present revolution is that these crimes
have been raised to the standard of a dogma. Unlawful trans-
gressions have become a principle ; the violation of women, a
right; the martyrdom of the innocent, a punishment; the
spoliation of the peaceful proprietor, the vindication of the
people ; the massacre of the foreigners, undue excitement, pro-
vided, always, they are not Americans; and the enrichment
of the chiefs by public and private theft, is nothing, and
should not be considered as anything but the reward of their
eminent services in having given freedom to the people.
The real revolutionary program is anonymous. It has
been composed by the rabble, not the low, street rabble, but
the proletarian, educated rabble, vicious, cowardly, envious,
dishonest, and debauched. This rabble is composed of
shyster lawyers, penniless students, with outstanding debts
at all the saloons and cheap eating-houses; unkempt petti-
foggers, with a summons out against them for swindling and
forgery; mediocre, provincial journalists; discredited Mexican
Masons, looking for bread and loot; Mexican Protestant
ministers, well versed in the Bible of vice; school teachers,
the product of the Normal School, glutted with envy and
rancor; in short, of all that invidious, lettered horde which
General Porfirio Diaz, instead of smothering or scattering,
protected, strengthened and raised up to the point of becom-
ing a menace to him, and which he allowed General Reyes
to snatch from him at the end to help further the ambitions
of the ever-active governor of Nuevo Leon.
I desire to state that I am referring only to those who
acted in the capacity of private secretaries to leading bandits,
because among the private secretaries of the rude, honest guer-
PRESIDENT WILSON AND CARRANZA 279
rilleros (leaders of guerrilla bands) or of insignificant ban-
dits, there have been and still are private secretaries who can
lay claim to some merit, and who have prevented, so far as
was possible, unjust persecutions, flagrant abuses and the
submersion of civilization.
The "private secretary" becomes the bandit's monitor. He
introduces him to the gay life of the city, the latest cocktail,
orgies a la mode, and intrigues with the demi-mondaines of
the stage. He initiates him into the mysteries of the social
question; of political spoliation; of the landowning system;
of confiscation of the Cientificos' property, for his own bene-
fit, not that of the people; of assassination, premediated or
unpremediated, personally or through an agent; of the re-
ligious question; of the pornographic question; of the neces-
sity of regenerating the people by means of the school; of
assassination, in the name of liberty, of all those who are par-
tisans of the Cientificos. He fosters his ambition to the
point of making him aspire to a governorship or to the presi-
dency itself. He explains to him how theft may be success-
fully carried on by means of force, forgery, falsified inven-
tories, violence and kidnapping. He steals from him when
he is asleep or intoxicated, and transforms himself into his
treasurer, his administrator, his counsellor, his tutor, and
into any species of thing that gives him an opportunity to ex-
ploit his uncouth master with veritable Hebraic cupidity.
The private secretary is the evil genius of the bandit. He
is cowardly, vicious and criminal, and infects with his very
presence. The bandit may be brave, generous, a diamond in
the rough, a rude creature with a great heart, the potential-
ities of a patriot, the germ of a real reformer, a savage sus-
ceptible of mental development. The private secretary de-
stroys every particle of natural goodness there may be in him,
as his dismal role is to extinguish the real light of liberty, to
throw the mantle of chaos over his country, burrowing into
her heart like an invisible worm. By dint of catering to his
280 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
basest passions the private secretary becomes the bandit's
absolute master.
I have said that in countries where the supreme power has
been won by force, the peace that follows is a degradation.
When those who triumph are the bandits of the popular and
sub-popular classes, the masters of their victories are the pri-
vate secretaries, and, consequently, they are the true masters
of the situation masters of Sefior Don Venustiano Car-
ranza, masters of President Wilson's will, of Mr. Bryan's
conscience and of the impressions of the American public
with regard to Mexico's savage drama.
CHAPTER III
THE COLLAPSE OF PRESIDENT WILSON'S
MEXICAN POLICY
THE GREAT PLAN TO REDEEM THE EIGHTY-FIVE PER CENT
IN virtue of the august Monroe Doctrine the United
States Government figures in the role of the all-pow-
erful proxy oi the European Governments, with
faculties to act in questions relating to Latin-American na-
tions, questions that might even involve the respective nations
in war. Never has a loyal proxy been known to protect
those who have threatened the lives and interests of his con-
stituents; nevertheless, Mr. Wilson has protected the Mexi-
can bandits, who have openly and shamelessly attacked
foreigners, especially Spaniards. Never has a civilized man
been known to countenance religious persecution in the twen-
tieth century, and, as the Chief Executive of one of the most
powerful nations of the world, to consent to outrages that
wound the sensibilities of 300,000,000 Catholics, especially
as 15,000,000 of these are citizens of the country over which
he rules, and are deserving of more than ordinary consid-
eration, and of not being affronted by seeing their official
head giving aid to a set of bandits who have been guilty of
the most revolting persecution of the Catholic Church in
Mexico. Never has the president of a nation of 85,000,000
whites, privileged to make felt their superiority over 12,000,-
ooo blacks, been known to encourage a caste war which
281
282 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
has for its object the extermination of the white race in
another country. Never has the president of an individualis-
tic democracy, which upholds the doctrine of the inviolabil-
ity of private property, been known to encourage, in a nation
bordering upon its own territory, the development of anti-
social doctrines and actions which may result in serious
damage to his own country. Never has a reputable govern-
ment been known to avail itself of means altogether un-
worthy of its position to prevent a government like that of
Mexico from negotiating and placing loans in Europe, when
a state of war did not exist between the two nations, espe-
cially as representative Mexican society hoped by means of
these loans to enable the government to establish peace and
guarantee the security to which they were entitled. Never
has a politician of the most pronounced puritanical type,
after having pledged his honor before the world to respect
a nation's sovereignty, been known to send a note such as
that which President Wilson sent to the Huerta Govern-
ment, commanding the President to suspend hostilities at
once, to renounce the presidency, to arrange immediately for
an election, and under no condition to enter the political
field as a candidate. Never has a government, after
having reached the point of applying moral force to a weaker
nation to intimidate it, been known to decide, when the
weaker nation rejected with dignity the affront to its sov-
ereignty, to lower itself by offering, because it is an uncon-
ditional pacifist, to obtain pecuniary aid for the outraged
government if it will only yield and avoid a declaration of
war. Mr. Fyfe says, with an ironical smile that ought to
wound the amour propre of the President of the United
States: "The general feeling in Mexico City, especially after
the President's Message to Congress, in which he blandly
ignores the United States, was, if I may adopt a metaphor
from 'poker,' that Washington's 'bluff had been called,' and
that it had nothing in its hand. So far as can be seen at
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 283
present, then, Mr. Wilson's desire 'to triumph as the friend
of Mexico' has done good to nobody, excepting the revo-
lutionists, whom it has encouraged. To fight for a prin-
ciple is magnificent, but it is not politics." 1
When General Huerta rejected President Wilson's per-
emptory orders, a great wave of applause swept over Mex-
ico, Latin-America, Europe and Japan, giving Huerta a
prestige as a ruler that he holds to this day. No one ex-
pected that the pigmy, harassed by internal enemies, by the
contempt of public opinion, by the gloomy looks of the ter-
rorized community, beaten down by everything that unset-
tles, weakens and crushes, would say to the omnipotent
President of the United States: "I shall not obey. I shall
abide by international law, and for the present I rely upon
the moral power of justice." As his policy was what it was,
peace at any price, cost what it might, President Wilson had
received a disconcerting check. Huerta was original, ex-
traordinary, a species without zoological classification. It
was his undoing that he did not, defying President Wilson,
resolve to fight, even with the certainty of assured defeat.
Huerta was not frightened by the American army. He al-
ways said to his ministers: "The Americans have no army
and never will have one. They make a commercial busi-
ness of war, and as they look with horror upon commercial
transactions that are not paying investments, no great en-
thusiasm can be aroused for a war against Mexico. At the
most, Wilson will send one hundred thousand recruits
against me, whom I shall tear to pieces with fifty thousand
men, without having to raise the half -million men at my dis-
posal." His ministers were never able to convince Huerta
that the Americans could vanquish him.
In the first diplomatic encounter between President Wil-
son and President Huerta, the latter unquestionably won the
victory, the American Government losing considerable moral
1 Hamilton Fyfe, The Real Mexico, p. 137.
284 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
prestige in the eyes of the Mexicans, the Latin-Americans
and the whole world. President Wilson had had recourse,
as Hamilton Fyfe says, to a political game of poker, and
the failure of his first "bluff" did not dismay him. He tried
a second, exceedingly prejudicial to the interests of the
flourishing American colony which was peacefully pursuing
its legitimate business in Mexico, enjoying the good-will of
all. President Wilson, in order to make Huerta believe
that he had made up his mind to impose his will by force
of arms, issued a peremptory order to all Americans to leave
Mexico at once, although at that time they could count upon
the determined and efficacious protection of Huerta, who still
controlled the greater part of the country. The Mexicans
took for granted that President Wilson was going to declare
war against them at once and looked upon all Americans as
their enemies, the popular classes being especially inflamed
against them. As Mr. Wilson had no intention whatever
of going to war with Mexico, it was a mistake, not to call
it by a stronger name, to sacrifice the prosperity of the
American colony and its cordial relations with the Mexicans
in a second "bluff" to make Huerta lay down his hand.
Who is to indemnify the Americans for the injury done to
their property and business, and for the loss of positions or
work as employees? No American Government can exact
reparation of Mexico for damages brought upon its citizens
by their own President. This being the case, the irreparable
losses suffered by the American colony must weigh upon the
conscience of the honorable President of the United States.
Consequent upon the revolutionists' determination to make
the wholesale pillage of the nation and the confiscation of
immovable property of all kinds the practical, fundamental
principle of the revolution, designating any one who had any-
thing to steal a Cientifico, the country was divided politically
into Cientificos and bandits, although this had never been
Senor Carranza's intention. He had often declared that he
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 285
was resolved that his revolution should have a moral effect
first and an economic one afterwards, a high principle that
has been realized by the free play of all kinds of crime. It
looks as though the morality of this revolution will be evi-
dent when the last revolutionist and perhaps also the last
Mexican shall have ceased to exist.
This program of pillage and loot was carried forward with
zeal and enthusiasm. The revolutionary chiefs stole for their
personal benefit plantations, houses, mines, railroads, cattle,
shops of all kinds, jewelry, furniture, art objects, relics from
museums and libraries, the paraphernalia of laboratories
in a word, everything that had a commercial value. But as
there was no market in Mexico for valuables of any kind,
chiefly because the purchaser of any articles of value was
liable in his turn to be the victim of the very pirate from
whom he had bought them, a foreign market had to be
found for all these ill-gotten goods. This was not easy to
find, as all civilized governments adhere to a moral code
that does not permit the establishment within their bound-
aries of great markets for the loot of the world. He who
knowingly buys stolen goods is a party to the theft. The
world, therefore, has looked with amazement and disap-
proval upon Mr. Wilson's extraordinary policy of protec-
tion for the Mexican thieves and their American accomplices
who have bought the loot collected in Mexico. No one ever
dreamed that the time would come when the world would
see a President of the United States making possible by his
incomprehensible policy the general spoliation of a nation
in favor of the lowest, vilest element of its population. Mr.
Wilson, feeling that the responsibility for himself and his
administration was too great, finally took steps to put a
stop to the disgraceful trafficking that had overlapped the
border into the United States, and that offended the views
of all right-minded Americans. Mr. Wilson, however, did
not institute measures to put a stop to the conversion of
286 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
American territory into a trading ground for thieves until
Huerta had already fallen.
We come at last to the unwarranted invasion of Mexico
by the American forces when7~aHeran engagement, Vera
Cruz was occupied. This invasion, the result of an inop-
portune ultimatum, was a real political crime. It had no
other object than that of protecting Villa's attack in the
north by obliging Huerta to divert his forces to the east, and
of preventing the German boat Ipiranga from unloading at
Vera Cruz the arms and ammunition she was bringing over
to Huerta. Huerta understood the move, was naturally
irritated by it, and resolved to unite all his forces on the fron-
tier, abandon the struggle with Villa and invade the United
States, no matter what the consequences might be. Huerta's
idea was to let American bayonets put the Mexican bandits
in power, and, devoting himself to guerrilla warfare, oblige
Mr. Wilson to put aside his masquerading and go to the
bottom of things. When Mr. Wilson saw that events were
not developing according to the formulas prescribed by
Princeton University, that a cruel and implacable war be-
tween Mexico and the United States seemed inevitable, and
that his alliance with the Mexican bandits would be of no
value to him, as, first and last, they would fight against him
for their country, he had recourse to the mediation comedy
suggested by the diplomatists of the leading South Ameri-
can Republics: Argentine, Chile and Brazil. Mexico was
not slow to understand the import of this move, and felt a
sense of contempt for the Latin-American nations which
were giving their support to the farce invented by Mr.
Bryan. The world took note of the fact that it required
two months to settle the insignificant Mexican question,
when it had taken only three days to arrange the treaty of
peace between Russia and Japan. But it was necessary to
mark time in order to give the revolutionists an opportunity
to annihilate Huerta.
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 287
How can so many mistakes committed by a talented and
intelligent man be explained? From the first, by the un-
pardonable weakness of allowing himself to be carried away
by the impulse of horror against Huerta as a perfidious
assassin when there were duties of State superior, not to
personal rights, but to exquisite sentimental impressions.
Mr. Wilson saw through the eyes of the demagogues. He
was obsessed by the array of lies they had woven into a
revolutionary thesis, and saw alongside the United States
a Mexico unlike what it actually was. In his eyes it was
very like or identical with New Spain with its landowning
encomenderos, its grasping merchants, its powerful clerical
body, its despotic rulers, and with a population, depending
upon agriculture for its living, as miserable as that of Russia
in the middle of the eighteenth century. Mr. Wilson at
once formulated a decidedly rococo political program to be
applied to Mexico. It included the following propositions:
First To overthrow Huerta.
Second To maintain inviolable the unwritten principle
of international law that no Mexican government could
exist that did not have the approbation of the President of
the United States.
Third To establish a definitive Constitutional govern-
ment.
Fourth To see that this government should be of the
free, individualistic, democratic type.
Fifth To put the downtrodden eighty-five per cent in
possession of the marvellously fertile arable lands, of the
wonderful natural pasture lands, where herds of the highest
grade cattle could be raised, and of the virgin forests, rich
in precious woods, suitable for cabinet-work, building and
fuel. The country possessed all these riches in abundance
and they were locked in the iron coffers of the cruel, tyranni-
cal landowners, or, more correctly, in those of the Cien-
tificos.
288 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The "insigne doctor apostol Mr. Wilson," as the revolu-
tionists call President Wilson, equals in determination
the German General Staff, and, consequently, acted in true
German fashion, calculating what it would cost to Mexico,
of course to redeem it according to the Wilson system.
The "apostolic" calculation was:
Lives sacrificed by firearms or the dagger 300,000
Lives sacrificed through small-pox and typhus,
first count 200,000
Lives sacrificed through other diseases of an
unusual nature 100,000
Lives sacrificed by starvation. As many as may be necessary
Women outraged 100,000 per day
Americans assassinated 160
Americans killed at Vera Cruz 17
Massacre of all foreigners not Americans
As many as may be necessary
Expulsion of foreigners of all classes As many as possible
Destruction of Mexican property 1,000,000,000 pesos
Probable amount of foreign claims 1,000,000,000 "
For the reconstruction and equipping of rail-
roads 150,000,000 "
Probable railway debt from destruction of
roadbeds and rolling stock 150,000,000 "
Minimum issue of paper money by the revolu-
tionists 500,000,000 "
Minimum issue of paper money by the banks.. 150,000,000 "
Gold and silver coin taken out of the country. . 160,000,000 "
Increase of the public debt 240,000,000 tl
Moral suffering of the population from two
years of the keenest terror. . .As much as they can possibly bear
Probable continuation of anarchy in March,
1916 Open account
It cannot be denied that the estimate of the cost of re-
deeming the eighty-five per cent is rather high, and perhaps
it would have been better, in the interests of morality,
justice, humanity, and the credit of the United States Govern-
ment, not to have redeemed them at this particular time,
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 289
but to have waited for more opportune circumstances to
have indicated the proper moment. However, if there were
no other way of redeeming a nation of 15,000,000 inhabit-
ants than at the tremendous cost Mr. Wilson accepts so
calmly, just as the German General Staff accepts calmly
the tearing to pieces of eight or ten million Germans by
artillery fire, it is necessary to be resigned to the great sacri-
fices, because, however great they may be, they are always
of less consequence than the prodigiously magnificent results
to be attained. To transform a people suffering from the
effects of seven hundred years of slavery, illiteracy, physi-
cal, moral and intellectual misery in two years or less, fol-
lowing a plan noted for its disregard of all scientific laws,
is nothing short of performing the greatest of miracles.
THE MEXICAN PEOPLE THE VICTIMS OF AN ASIATIC WAR
On August 14, 1914, Senor Venustiano Carranza made
his triumphant entry into the City of Mexico, "cast in the
mould of immortality," as his admirer, Senor Fernandez
Giiell has expressed it, quite a fitting state in which to shed
that celebrated "molten tear" upon Madero's grave.
That day must be a memorable one for President Wilson,
because it indicated that the season for reaping the harvest
of his idealistic sowing was at hand.
When Senor Francisco Madero made his triumphal entry
into the City of Mexico on June 17, 1911, whatever the
principles shielded by his victorious banner might be, there
can be no doubt that it was a national triumph, as the fol-
lowing table will prove:
29 o WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
LIST OF PROVISIONAL GOVERNORS APPOINTED AFTER THE TRIUMPH
OF THE MADERO REVOLUTION
Aguascalientes
Campeche
Coahuila
Colima
Chiapas
Chihuahua
Durango
Guanajuato
Guerrero
Hidalgo
Jalisco
Mexico
Michoacan
Morelos
Nuevo Leon
Oaxaca
Puebla
Queretaro
San Luis Potosi
Sinaloa
Sonora
Tabasco
Tamaulipas
Vera Cruz
Yucatan
Zacatecas
Alberto Fuentes
Urbano Espinosa
Venustiano Carranza
Miguel Garcia Topete
Reynaldo Gordillo Leon
Abraham Gonzalez
Luis Alfonso Trejo
Juan B. Castelazo
Francisco Figueroa
Jesus Silva
David Gutierrez Allende
Rafael Hidalgo
Miguel Silva
Juan N. Carrion
Leobardo Chapa
Heliodoro Diaz Quintas
Rafael P. Canete
Jose Antonio Septien
Rafael Cepeda
Celso paxiola Rojo
Carlos E. Randall
Manuel Mestro Ghigliaza
Espiridion Lara
Leon Aillaud
Jose M. Pino Suarez
Guadalupe Gonzalez
Native of Campeche
Native of Coahuila
Native of Colima
Native of Chiapas
Native of Chihuahua
Native of Durango
Native of Guanajuato
Native of Guerrero
Native of Hidalgo
Native of Jalisco
Native of Mexico
Native of Michoacan
Native of Morelos
Native of Nuevo Leon
Native of Oaxaca
Native of Puebla
Native of Queretaro
Native of Coahuila
Native of Sinaloa
Native of Sonora
Native of Tabasco
Native of Tamaulipas
Native of Vera Cruz
Native of Yucatan
Native of Zacatecas
From the foregoing table it will be seen that whatever
else the Madero triumph signified, it represented a brilliant
national triumph. Each state was represented by one of its
own sons, fulfilling an aspiration that had long been felt.
In Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosi alone do we find
outsiders, and here Madero broke his promise. A nation is
a civil organism, and as all the provisional governors were
civilians, another great national aspiration had been realized.
All classes unanimously rejected the military tyranny, think-
ing themselves fit for a democratic form of government.
Let us see what the Carrancista revolution, misnamed
Constitutional, offers at its triumph on August I, 1913.
I am going to lay particular stress upon the conquest of the
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 291
Mexicans of the central states, because those of the south
have not even yet been conquered by the northerners.
GOVERNORS OF THE CONQUERED NORTHERN STATES IN SEPTEMBER, 1914
Native of Chihuahua
Native of Sonora
Native of Durango
Native of Sinaloa
Native of Coahuila
Chihuahua General Avila
Sonora General Jose Maytorena
Duranpo General Arrieta
Sinaloa General Iturbe
Coahuila Lawyer Jesus Acuna
Nuevo Leon General Antonio Villarreal Native of Nuevo Leon
Tamaulipas General Luis Caballero Native of Tamaulipas
In the foregoing list it will be noted that with one ex-
ception all the governors are military men and the sons of
the respective states they govern. The exception is Senor
Acuna, and it may be remarked in passing that his name
appears in this list as Senor Venustiano Carranza's personal
representative, Senor Carranza proposing to be the Chief
Executive of the nation, as well as the governor of his own
state.
Let us see how the central and southern states are repre-
sented.
GOVERNORS OF THE CONQUERED CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN STATES
Aguascalientes
Guanajuato
Jalisco
Mexico
Michoacan
Oaxaca
Puebla
San Luis Potosi
Tlaxcala
Vera Cruz
Zacatecas
Chiapas
Campeche
Tabasco
Yucatan
Morelos
Guerrero
SEPTEMBER, 1914
General X
General Garza
General Dieguez
General Murgia
General G. Sanchez
General Davila
General F. Coss
General E. Gutierrez
General X
General C. Aguilar
General P. Natera
Under control of J. Carranza
Under control of J. Carranza
Under control of J. Carranza
Under control of J. Carranza
Southern State
Southern State
Northerner
Northerner
Northerner
Northerner
Northerner
Northerner
Northerner
Native of Zacatecas
Northerner
Native of Vera Cruz
Native of Zacatecas
Northerner
Northerner
Northerner
Northerner
Zapatista
Zapatista
292 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
It will be noted in the foregoing list that Morelos and
Guerrero, both southern states, had not been conquered by
the northerners. Senor Candido Aguilar and Senor Panfilo
Natera were created military governors of their respective
states, because both had been allies of the northern revolution.
There can be no doubt, then, that Carranza's triumph was
in no sense of the word a national, democratic triumph, but
simply the triumph of the northerners who had suddenly
flung themselves against the men of the central states who
were unable to resist them, notwithstanding the fact that they
counted for support upon a population of 12,000,000. The
Zapatistas can lay claim to this glory; they have valiantly
resisted the attacks of the northerners.
The conquest of the southerners by the northerners
smacked of the classic barbarity that characterized the con-
quests of three thousand years ago, although upon a much
lower scale. In those memorable days of primitive simplicity,
the rude and hungry pastoral people bore down upon the rich
husbandman class, unable to defend themselves because of
their effeminacy and voluptuousness. The conqueror set fire
to the temples of his conquered foe, dethroned his idols and
stole the sacred vessels; the soldiery violated the priestesses;
the great chiefs, after decapitating the high priests and the
cowardly aristocrats, took possession of all the movable and
immovable property of the conquered, reducing them to the
most abject state of slavery. Only the chiefs of higher rank,
who were to form the new aristocracy, shared in the division
of the booty. The greater portion of the conquered slaves
were sold or kept to satiate the rapacity of their conquerors.
It is safe to say that the Mexican revolution up to Octo-
ber, 1915, was not socialistic, anarchistic, constitutionalistic,
or anything that has ever been seen in modern times; but a
conquest which placed a yoke of barbaric Asiatic slavery
upon the great majority of the Mexican people. It was
somewhat modified by the influence of the times and by its
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 293
proximity to the United States, which necessarily made the
northerners more or less circumspect in following too closely
the historic and prehistoric methods they aimed at. The
program was formulated by the demagogues for their per-
sonal benefit; the revolution has given it a historic setting.
THE FIRST IMPORTANT POLITICAL PROBLEM
Conquest affects the conquered territory in three ways:
First, the establishment of a colonial government; second,
that of a protectorate; third, the possession of the territory
by the conquerors, who form a governing aristocracy. The
last was the form taken by the Norman Conquest, and was
the one accepted in Mexico by the northern conquerors in
1914 in idea only however, because in form it has had all
the repulsive features of a prehistoric conquest.
When President Wilson announced to the world in his
Indianapolis speech, with all the pageantry of his carefully
chosen words, with the pride of a statesman and the emotion
of an illumined apostle, that the Mexican people had con-
quered liberty, facts, those intractable witnesses which can-
not always be silenced, and which cannot possibly be hidden
when they are the outcome of the acts of a community, an-
nounced on their side to the world that the so-called conquest
of liberty, which President Wilson proclaimed so loudly,
was nothing more than the galling conquest of the great
majority of the Mexican people by the northerners. Almost
all of these men, judged by twentieth-century standards,
were infamous bandits; heroes, only, if judged by the moral
standards of three thousand years ago. A truly edifying
picture does President Wilson's humanitarian work in Mex-
ico present!
Mr. Wilson's program included liberty. These twentieth-
century conquerors could have accepted a liberal regime even
though they were Mexican northern bandits, but they chose
294 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
instead a keen-edged military regime, one that did not even
resemble that of Sesostris or Shalmaneser. They must have
patterned their government upon that existing some cen-
turies before even Assyrian civilization, as they announced
that civilians would have no political rights whatever.
Everything was to be vested in the military: the right to
govern; the right to discuss public questions; the right to
be recompensed for having stolen with a high hand; the
right to be considered a Mexican citizen ; the right to be con-
sidered a man. Nothing, absolutely nothing, of civil rights.
In the time of Shalmaneser the conquered were obliged to
accept the religion of the conquerors; but as the Constitu-
tionalists had no religion, the conquered, in order to quiet
their conscience and still the yearnings of religious senti-
ment, were to devote themselves to the worship of the First
Chief, of Villa and even of Obregon. Catholicism was pro-
hibited because it was an anti-Constitutionalist religion or,
more properly speaking, that of the Cientificos.
There were to be no civil magistrates, judges, aldermen,
mayors, select men, or policemen. No press was to be
tolerated except that which devoted itself exclusively to
swinging censers before the altars of the saving heroes of the
poor. No sealed letters could be exchanged; no telegram
or written communication could pass uncensored. No one
could under pain of death be an enemy of the revolution,
by enemy being understood any one who did not fall down
and worship at the shrine of these fearful bandits. Follow-
ing the new revolutionary tenets, the military man should
be legislator, judge, alderman, mayor, priest, policeman,
school teacher, notable patriot, supreme hero, robber-in-chief
and idol to be worshiped. As theft was the sole vivifying
principle of the revolution, it was not permitted to steal
even from a pickpocket, because stealing was the special
privilege of the "saviors of the poor"; and it behooved all
to do away with the little they had in order that, being abso-
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 295
lutely poor, they might share in the benefits of the redeemed.
And the landholdings, the great landholdings, what of
them? The greatest among them passed into the hands of
the Constitutionalist chiefs, to be enjoyed with the rights of
absolute ownership. What had constituted the great offense
against the poor had become the great plum of the conquest !
All the personal property of the wealthy was appropriated
by the Constitutionalists. Handsome residences, automo-
biles, jewelry, furniture, money, clothes, everything pos-
sessed by the aristocrats, and even those who were not aristo-
crats, was taken by the revolutionists. The Constitutionalist
revolution was a renovating revolution, and the renovation
was admirable. The rural peon was transformed into a
bandit; the bandit into a general; the general into a multi-
millionaire; the multi-millionaire into an aristocrat of the
type of a prehistoric tribe, poorly accommodated to
modern times. Eight days after the Constitutionalist army
entered the City of Mexico the new aristocracy had been
formed, such distinguished titles as that of Prince of Con-
stitutionalism, Duke of the Stolen Automobile, Marquis of
the Agrarian Question, Count of the Indigenous Race,
Baron of Free Assassination, Knight of the Idiotic Press,
shining prominently among them. Such was the equality,
liberty, fraternity, democracy, virtue, distribution of lands
offered to the poor, to Mr. Wilson, to the American peo-
ple and to the Latin-American republics.
Europe was never taken in, and, as Mr. Wilson knows,
was never in sympathy with a revolution that was not lib-
eral or socialistic, or even anarchistic, but simply unvarnished
brigandage. Mr. Wilson was under the impression that
what he was upholding was a revolution backed by moral
principles, which was destined to correct the corruption of
the Porfirian regime. What he actually upheld was what
Mr. Fuller, his distinguished special envoy, sent to Mexico
in September, 1914, reported to him: "No Government
296 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
exists there, not even militarism, nor is any effort being
made to do anything to improve the condition of the poor.
All traces of civilization having vanished; what exists is a
defenseless and humiliated society at the mercy of two hun-
dred thousand bandits." Mr. Fuller's report, and those
submitted to President Wilson by the Diplomatic Corps
in Washington and the Brazilian Minister in Mexico, ad-
dressed to Mr. Bryan, all in the same tenor, obliged Presi-
dent Wilson to decline to recognize as a government this
anarchical imbroglio, the grandiose result of an idealistic
theory of redemption.
In August, 1914, President Wilson's triumph was com-
plete. Huerta had fallen ; the decent landowners had fallen,
to be replaced by bandits; the Cientificos, who existed only
in President Wilson's imagination and in the perverse will
of those who were making game of their name, had fallen;
Catholicism had fallen, as well as courts, law, justice,
national prosperity, respect for the foreigner and for the
moral power of the United States. Zapata had proclaimed
the restoration of the ancient Aztec regime and radical
socialism, and was the only patriotic bandit, as he had never
asked Mr. Wilson's protection in exchange for slices of
national sovereignty. Villa had appeared as the Mahdi of
the Soudan, with his insane program of unlimited plunder
and assassination, of arbitrariness and despotism, a beast or
a maniac, spreading fire and destruction in his pathway.
Carranza had appeared as the reactionist against Porfirism.
Everything was for himself, exclusively for himself. The
revolution, the bandits, the budding statesmen, the Porra,
the intellectual offscourings, the public degradation, the
political corruption, the oppressed people everything be-
longed to him, and was to be immediately put into action
to inaugurate another thirty years' dictatorship, modelled
after the most approved pattern of 1910, with an open road
to ignominy along the triumphal highway of theft. The
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 297
revolution is to be understood only in its relation to theft,
and when there is no longer anything to steal the revolution
will die, leaving no provision in its will for a moribund peo-
ple, bereft, in the process of redemption, of every vestige of
civilization.
A period of humiliation has been ushered in for President
Wilson since the complete triumph of this Constitutionalism,
characterized by unbridled license. His humiliation con-
sists in the justly wounded pride of the United States, theo-
retically the worshipper of his omnipotence, which was
based solely upon the powerful arsenals of his moral force.
This moral force Mr. Wilson has squandered in the
"bluffs," so absolutely indispensable in his game of political
poker. The apostolic President believed that in procuring
victory for the Mexican liberators, the White House would
have their assistance in carrying out its experiments, enabling
it to turn Mexico into a great laboratory for the working
out of all sane and insane idealistic theories. But to his
great surprise their one object seemed to be to relieve every
one of the weight of all movable and immovable property,
of all moral and intellectual advantages. The Princeton
professor was convinced before long that his proteges were
nothing more than rebellious subjects; and the President of
the United States, understanding his responsibilities before
the world, and especially before the upright and well mean-
ing portion of the American people, in appearing as the
accomplice of bandits given over to the task of transforming
a once thriving nation into a material and moral dung-
heap, urgently recommended that the northerners should
proclaim at once a general and far-reaching amnesty. The
reply was that, instead of Constitutionalism, a regime of pre-
historic government had been inaugurated without other
laws than the will of the chief of each band, the country
having been divided into bands, nominally under the juris-
diction of different supreme authorities. Mr. Wilson then
298 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
abandoned his humanitarian projects and assumed a luke-
warm neutrality before the appalling spectacle of the an-
archy reigning in Mexico. Following the cruel advice of
various newspapers, he resolved to leave the Mexicans to
fight it out among themselves with arms furnished by the
United States until the incorrigibles either saved them-
selves or were exterminated, consigned to the grave with
opprobrium and destined to oblivion as a pernicious race
worthy of its doom. Without a doubt it was good advice.
Let nature take its course. Let anarchy, the representative
of all the vital and morbid forces of the organism, have full
play. But Mr. Wilson was as implacable as a German sub-
marine in the presence of an unarmed ocean liner. In this
he was influenced by his hatred of the imaginary Cientificos ;
of the imaginary cruel landowners; of the imaginary enemies
of the eighty-five per cent; of the Mexican cultured classes,
who refused to submit to his idealistic theories; of the pa-
triots, who resented his interference in Mexican politics; of
the imaginary foreigners, who robbed the poor during the
Diaz dictatorship; of all the middle classes, who refused to
conform to the revolution; of all the capitalists, who did
not favor the program of being robbed of all their posses-
sions; of everything in Mexico that had a conservative
aspect, that represented the prestige of the past or a senti-
ment of tenderness or veneration for an ideal not exactly
in keeping with that set down by the President of the
United States for the Mexican people.
He rejected the happy idea that the state of anarchy exist-
ing in Mexico should be settled by giving full reign to all
the social forces: sinister, elevating, civilizing, infernal, re-
pulsive or sublime.
He rejected the scientific principle that anarchy itself
should work against anarchy and, that failing, have recourse
to armed intervention. The Mexican people would have
asked for it as suppliants, because the unnatural impulse to
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 199
suicide can never take hold of a whole nation. They never
would have asked for it directly, however; they would have
allowed their silent resignation or agonizing gasp to speak
for them.
President Wilson tenaciously opposed the Mexicans avail-
ing themselves of the last resource held out to them to fight
as a national unit for their deliverance, before being driven
to accept the protectorate of the United States. This, how-
ever, would not have been imposed without a heroic struggle
to defend their national honor, and to leave to them the
consciousness of having done their duty before being over-
taken by disaster. He refused to grant what the Mexican
people had a right to demand their regeneration through
exclusively national elements, united for a supreme, final
effort. This failing, anarchy could swallow them up, or
their nation could cease to exist, but they would be spared
the contempt of the world and that of their conquerors.
Huerta appeared in El Paso for the final stand, ready to
return to his country in arms and ammunition the wealth
he had stolen, offering his life, which justice would perhaps
have accepted. At that moment President Wilson, tramp-
ling all laws under foot, had him arrested, cast into prison
and held there until death claimed him for its own. Pascual
Orozco and other leaders were hounded by American
rangers when they were nothing more than inoffensive politi-
cal refugees, fleeing from courts which were wont to judge
trumped-up charges by codes of strict justice. It is evident
that even if Huerta had penetrated into Mexican territory
with revolutionary intentions, he could not possibly have re-
covered the supreme power. Nevertheless, his revolution
would have served a useful purpose, because it would have
drawn the persecuted popular class to its ranks, as well as
the younger element of the Federal army and the better
class civilians, who had every right to cross the frontier to
reconquer their country, snatched from them by the bandits,
300 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
led by Villa, Carranza, Zapata and the Convention, pro-
tected by the President of the United States.
The state of Oaxaca has 1,300,000 inhabitants, almost all
of them full-blooded Indians. They are industrious, honest,
brave, attached to their traditions, having no interest in the
distribution of lands because their property is held in com-
mon, and their ancestors for generations back have tilled the
same soil. These Indians have never been revolutionists.
They love liberty and Catholicism and their native state,
have always obeyed the laws, and are an estimable national
group which has always been remarkable for its patriotism.
In 1910 Oaxaca was not Porfirista, and it has never been
Felicista. It is true Felix Diaz has a following in Oaxaca,
but it is very insignificent. They set their face energetically
and valiantly against the revolution's program of pillage;
they resolved not to allow themselves to be trampled upon,
their property destroyed, their religion besmirched, them-
selves placed in bondage. This community deserved to be
commended by President Wilson as really worthy of protec-
tion. Nevertheless, what does the grandee of the White
House do but prevent them from buying arms and ammuni-
tion with their own money in the United States the only
market open to them not to start an insurrection, be it re-
membered, but to defend their lives and property against the
Carrancista hordes that were descending on them, bent upon
spreading devastation broadcast here as they had done else-
where. President Wilson does not wish the conflict between
the bandits to become complicated ; he wishes, evidently, that
the duel between Villa and Carranza shall have only one
result the triumph of brigandage against society.
In the states of Vera Cruz, Michoacan and Guanajuato
there have been counter-revolutionary movements, organized
by the landowners, ranchmen, small property owners, those
who farmed on the co-partnership basis, and Catholics of all
classes and conditions who still have the spirit to defend their
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 301
faith. If the Catholics of the United States had been as in-
famously treated as the Mexican Catholics have been, they
would have taken up arms and fought with their bishops and
priests at their head, making themselves respected by their
enemies and winning universal applause. When the Mexi-
can Catholics have attempted to make use of a right no civ-
ilized man can deny them, President Wilson has given
orders that these "rebels" be not permitted to buy arms and
ammunition in the United States.
The principle of self-preservation exists and always will
exist in the popular masses, as it exists in the animal and
vegetable kingdoms, notwithstanding all the real and unreal
forces that may be brought to bear against it. When this
giant stirs, it shakes off the shackles and a reaction favorable
to a normal life asserts itself, sweeping all reforms clean of
everything but what in the light of truth and justice can be
considered real progress.
Of all the social classes the popular class is the most con-
servative, although to the eyes of incautious politicians it
may appear extremely sensitive to progressive suggestions.
Ignorance and sentiment tend to make men live in the past.
Habits of mind and heart formed generation by generation
cannot be lightly cast off, and that new mode of life chiselled
out of the purely progressive material is an unfortunate fic-
tion of politicians, who attempt to make a credulous public
accept at their face value the absurdities they call social re-
forms. In man all development is gradual. His existence
embraces the past, or perhaps it would be more correct to
say that the past embraces him, and all new theories advanced
by men, even if they be reformers, are almost all unreal
dreams and visions. Industrial progress goes by leaps and
bounds, from oil lamps to incandescent lights in sixty years.
Each step in moral progress takes at least a century and
measures at the most one centimeter. The secret of politics
lies in knowing how to wait. The masses easily take the bit
302 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
between their teeth and bolt from the control of their former
masters, but always turn to them to be saved when they feel
the ground giving way under their feet and a yawning abyss
opening to receive them.
For some months past the majority of the Mexican pop-
ular classes has evinced excellent dispositions to cease the
conflict and return, like bruised lambs, to the sheep-fold.
They want to reenkindle their hearth fires, to give repose
to their weary spirits, to resume the habits of life handed
down by their ancestors, to gather anew round the altars of
their patron saints and their miraculous Virgins, to listen to
the paternal voice of their spiritual fathers, and to feel the
soothing influence of human sensations evoked by consoling
voices which will sooth their sufferings, awaken sacred mem-
ories, and revive the faith and hope that criminal ambition
has all but killed. This healthful and reconstructive social
reaction reconstructive because reaction is never complete
if it does not add something to the sum of progress has not
been possible in Mexico because Mr. Wilson, always im-
placable, has vowed upon the altar of his animosity that the
Mexican ex-governing classes must perish, or be satisfied to
live in slavery under the tyrannical yoke of the northern con-
querors. Only the bandits may have arms and ammunition !
In return for all this paternal solicitude, what did the
Mexican revolutionists do during the struggle between Za-
pata and Villa against Carranza? Humiliate Mr. Wilson,
slight him, crush his moral power, ridicule his magisterial
attitude, insult the American flag, assassinate Americans,
outrage American women, martyr their children, fire their
properties, spit upon the people's rights and treat all for-
eigners in Mexico as though they were devoid of rights. The
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 303
press in the United States began to see through the mist and
to scrutinize the Mexican liberators in the light of fuller
knowledge. It found that they were nothing but bandits
having a semi-military organization, corrupted to the very
core by a set of educated but unscientific knaves, with a sur-
plus of unprincipled schemes.
Uncomfortable days were in store for Mr. Wilson. Dr.
William Bayard Hale, President Wilson's ex-confidential
agent in Mexico, published an article authorized by the
White House in The World's Work, in which some startling
declarations were made. He says: "The American forces
will be withdrawn (from Vera Cruz) just as soon as con-
stitutional order has been restored." In order to keep this
promise President Wilson handed Vera Cruz over in No-
vember, 1914, to Don Venustiano Carranza. He was a fugi-
tive from justice, who had taken refuge at Vera Cruz and
who, in order to get possession of the town, had threatened
an attack by the Constitutionalist forces under General
Aguilar. The latter, in order to give weight to the First
Chief's pretensions, issued orders to open fire on the Amer-
ican outposts. In view of this attitude on the part of Senor
Carranza, President Wilson decreed the immediate with-
drawal of the American forces, which was carried out at the
point of Constitutionalist rifles, General Funston taking in
his knapsack everything he ought to have except the salute
to the American flag, which was what had ostensibly brought
him to Vera Cruz.
It occurred to Senor Carranza in one of his virulent at-
tacks of hate to imitate a monstrous Roman Caesar in his
vengeance against the City of Mexico, which had manifested
its abhorrence for Constitutionalism. The First Chief is
not capable of understanding how perfectly natural it was
for the capital of Mexico, the center of its civilization, to
look with horror upon the filthy, unkempt hordes, steeped in
all kinds of crime, which swooped down upon it. As Senor
304 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Carranza does not possess the creative faculty it is not pos-
sible for him ever to possess the real governing power.
To carry out his atrocious scheme of vengeance against the
City of Mexico, Senor Carranza determined to starve its
half-million inhabitants, by robbing them of all their provi-
sions, and shipping them to Vera Cruz. The capital was be-
ing besieged by the Zapatistas, and in order to prevent the
evacuation of the city by its inhabitants the First Chief for-
bade the running of trains for the accommodation of the
people. There were twelve thousand foreigners in Mexico
at that time, including women and children, two thousand of
whom were Americans. It would have been a serious situa-
tion for Mr. Wilson, the omnipotent representative of the
European Powers in virtue of the Monroe Doctrine, to have
presented to the world the corpses of twelve thousand of
their subjects committed to his care, murdered or starved to
death.
The Brazilian Minister, charged with looking out for
the interests of the United States Government in the City
of Mexico, worked courageously, heroically, with self-abne-
gation and intelligence, as he had to deal with a mob that
showed as much international respect for the United States
and its President as it did for a disarmed group of the
much-hated landowners. The Socialist Pinzon, haranguing
the crowds that shouted at the doors of the Jockey Club, con-
verted into the Temple of the Industrial Workers of the
World, the afternoon that the altars of the church of Santa
Brigida were desecrated, said : "Boys, you all know now of
how much use the 'gringo Wilson' can be to us, because he
is nothing more than a Cientifico." And the excited mob
yelled with delirious excitement: "Death to the Cientifico
Wilson."
It can easily be understood why during those dreadful
days the cable announced each morning: "Anxiety in Wash-
ington"; "Insomnia in Washington"; "Panic in Washing-
THE COLLAPSE OF WILSON'S POLICY 305
ton"; "Profound Unrest in Washington." And in Europe,
notwithstanding the war, disquiet also manifested itself when
it was seen that comfortable slumber robes were being made
out of the cloth of the imposing Monroe Doctrine, by Za-
pata, Villa, Carranza, Gutierrez and the rest, all proteges of
the White House. The Zapatistas saved the City of Mex-
ico and made themselves popular.
The Naco incident was another humiliation for the Unit-
ed States Government. It did not dare to give the order
"Fire!" notwithstanding the fact that it had threatened to
exterminate Hill and Maytorena if they did not stop firing
shells into Douglas. After forty-seven Americans had been
sacrificed, some dead, some wounded and some injured, the
White House played its trump card by sending General
Scott to parley with the belligerents, convincing them some
say by means more persuasive than words of the necessity
of comporting themselves with more respect and circumspec-
tion toward the United States Government, which they had
already sufficiently outraged.
At last President Wilson decided to break with Mexican
anarchy in favor of the revolutionists by the new method of
extinguishing a fire by deluging it with gasoline. When I
take up the Columbus incident for consideration I shall con-
clude my observations of the greatest of President Wilson's
errors recognizing as a de facto government one whose acts
have proved it to be a de facto anarchy.
PART FOUR
MEXICO'S PROBABLE CONDITION IN THE
IMMEDIATE FUTURE
CHAPTER I
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER
THE FURIOUS ASSAULT OF FAMINE
IN Part First I have proved that the so-called agrarian
problem, which of itself offers no difficulty and ought
not to cause the shedding of one drop of blood, is dom-
inated by the problem of hunger, a problem that cannot be
solved by the favorite law of terror with which the revo-
lution attempts to solve all problems whatever their import
may be.
I stated, supported by ample evidence, that in 1803 the
average yield of corn obtained by dry farming in the cold
and temperate zones was seventy-five hectoliters per hectare.
I also proved that this average had decreased in one hundred
years to nine hectoliters per hectare. When this decreases to
three hectoliters per hectare, it will be impossible for the
man depending upon agriculture for his living, to continue
to provide for his family even upon the present meagre scale.
And if we take into consideration the frequent losses of
crops, it will only require a decrease to four and one-half
hectoliters per hectare to bring about a critical state of hun-
ger among the people. To my mind this problem may be
summed up in the question, How long will it be before the
lands of the cold and temperate zones will reach the stage
of unproductiveness that will render their cultivation eco-
nomically impossible? When I spoke before of this serious
situation I said that, once the production fell below the pres-
ent nine hectoliters per hectare, it would be a question of
from only fifteen to twenty years before an acute stage of
famine would exist.
307
308 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The Diaz administration understood this economic situa-
tion. It has always been ignored by the revolutionists. They
turned their attention to the tillers of the soil with no other
thought in mind than that of inciting them to revolt in order
to bring about a great social revolution which would further
their own selfish personal interests.
The problem of hunger caused by the exhaustion of the
lands of the cold and temperate zones, given over almost
exclusively to corn dry farming, has one solution only, the
substitution of the intensive for the extensive method of cul-
tivation. The former has to be done entirely by irrigation.
From scientific estimates it has been computed that with from
$700,000,000 to $800,000,000 gold, honestly spent in irri-
gation plants, a sufficient quantity of land could be irrigated
in fifteen years to produce enough food at a reasonable price
to feed a population of 20,000,000 inhabitants, and do away
with the frequent famines that are such drawbacks to the
progress and well-being of the nation.
The present revolution has cost the unfortunate Mexican
people up to date, March 15, 1913, approximately:
Destruction of Mexican property 1,000,000,000 pesos
Probable amount of foreign claims 1,000,000,000
For the reconstruction and equipping of rail-
roads 150,000,000
Probable railway debt from destruction of
roadbeds and rolling stock 150,000,000
Minimum issue of paper money by the revo-
lutionists 500,000,000
Minimum issue of paper money by the banks.. 150,000,000
Gold and silver coin taken out of the country.. 160,000,000
Increase of the public debt 240,000,000
Left -by the dictator, General Porfirio Diaz, in
the National Treasury 62,000,000
Total 3,412,000,000 pesos
It will be seen from this that the glorious revolution,
carried on especially for the benefit of the poor, has cost the
Mexican people double the amount in gold that it would
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 309
have cost to have irrigated the land and to have thus pre-
vented the famine that may eventually send the majority of
them to the grave. I proved that the Diaz administration
was prepared in 1908 to spend 90,000,000 pesos for irriga-
tion. The work was suspended and contracts nullified by the
revolution of 1910. Madero planned a work of liberty and
succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship by means of a
campaign of hatred. This was the inevitable result in a coun-
try where the people were unfit for liberty. This same
hatred for the Government caused the fall of Madero. It
was subsequently transferred to Huerta, and is now being
displayed toward Carranza.
The "regenerating" cyclone had made the country lose
six years, from 1910 to 1916, which might have been de-
voted uninterruptedly to carrying out the plans for irriga-
tion which the dictatorship had under consideration. Even
if the work of irrigation were begun at once, the probabili-
ties are that it would take from nine to fourteen years to
stay the famine crisis which the nation is now facing. It
will be necessary first to put an end to the present state of
anarchy. How soon this will be cannot be determined, but
in any event it will not be soon, as I shall explain later on.
Mexico must have many million pesos of foreign capital
before she can proceed with the necessary irrigation work,
and to accomplish this even on a small scale it will be abso-
lutely necessary for her to reestablish her public and private
credit, completely lost by the revolution's direful program of
vengeance, theft and demolition. If the total Mexican pub-
lic debt could be estimated at this moment it would be nec-
essary for the Government to set aside at least seventy-five
per cent of its annual revenues to meet it, corresponding to
the maximum revenues collected before this much-lauded re-
demptory revolution. As anarchy is likely to continue its
redeeming work, it is almost certain that with one year
more of this excellent, fructifying redemption, the Mexican
3 io WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Government will be obliged to set aside a sum equivalent to
its entire revenue in its most prosperous times to meet the
public debt.
Taking into consideration probabilities, or we might say,
facts, it will not be possible for Mexico to obtain an annual
loan of $100,000,000 gold to enable it to carry out in ten
years its irrigation plans This, of course, could be obtained
only under the express and absolute condition that a stable
and responsible government would be guaranteed. Such a
government does not exist in Mexico now; the country is
simply in the hands of a band of insatiable thieves. As it is
impossible to reform the Mexican public administration with-
out the extermination of the bandits something that can
be brought about only by a great moral revolution it can be
predicted with certainty almost that the majority of the in-
habitants of the cold and temperate lands will be reduced to
a state of abject misery or exterminated by the inexorable
scourge of famine. It will be difficult for the dying, and
for the minority of the Mexican people who may escape de-
struction, to look with sentiments of gratitude and admira-
tion upon President Wilson and his advisers for the effica-
cious protection given by them to the bandits. The latter
were the first to submerge civilization in Mexico and to at-
tempt to exterminate the majority of her inhabitants.
THE IMMEDIATE DANGER OF FAMINE
It goes without saying that the revolutionary financiers do
not know the real effect of paper money upon a community.
Government paper money is a forced loan made to the pub-
lic, without interest and practically without set time for re-
demption. The distribution of this forced loan does not
work with equity for all classes of society. The issue of
paper money has very little effect on the capitalist, except
that of enabling him to amass wealth with scandalous rapid-
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 311
ity; but it imposes upon the already oppressed poor one of
the most abominable forms of usury. The landowners pro-
tect themselves against its ravages by raising the price of
their products, not only as high as may be necessary to pro-
tect their interests, but also high enough to enable them to
realize enormous profits, as I shall demonstrate.
Mexican money has passed through the following changes:
Value of Mexican
Dates Peso in Gold
May 24, 1911, fall of Diaz $0.4748
February 19, 1913, fall of Madero .4726
July 15, 1914, fall of Huerta, paper money, bank
issue -2938
October n, 1915, recognition of Carranza, Carran-
cista paper money .0700
March 7, 1916 -0255
This table amply demonstrates the potential power of the
revolution to bring the country to the point of disaster. It
also indicates the incompetence of the Carrancista financiers.
As we have said, the issue of paper money by the state is
in reality a forced loan without interest and without time
for redemption, and when the paper money depreciates the
loss falls exclusively upon the wage-earning community, that
is, upon the poor, who must live from the proceeds of their
work. Owing to the exigencies of the revolution more than
1 50,000,000 pesos bank paper money had been issued in Mex-
ico, and a minimum of 500,000,000 pesos Carrancista paper
money. This figure was given by the First Chief himself.
The total of the paper money recognized amounts to 650,-
000,000 pesos. The effects of the depreciation of this has
fallen almost exclusively upon the poor. Without doubt
this revolution has been carried out for their benefit, to the
grim accompaniment of hunger, tears, sighs and official
schools !
3 i2 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
A comparison of the salaries and day wages of the Por-
firian dictatorship with those of the glorious period of re-
demption gives the following:
Day Wages and Salaries Day Wages and Salaries
Wage Earners Before the Revolution , Computed in Gold in
Computed in Gold March, 1916
Peon in the cold and temperate
zone, day wage $0.185 $0.0630
Skilled workman 1.125 .1140
Mason in Mexico .75 .1020
Employee, Federal Government,
daily average salary 2.50 i 2 75
State Government employee, aver-
age daily wage 1.25 .1657
Private employee, daily average
salary 1.50 -1698
I have computed the daily earnings of the private em-
ployees at $0.1698, because their salaries have been doubled
on account of the depreciation of the paper money. The
Government has doubled the salaries of the school teachers
all over the country, the other employees receiving an in-
crease of twenty per cent in the City of Mexico only. Even
taking these increases into account, and even if all salaries
were doubled, the original salaries and day wages have been
so enormously reduced by the depreciation of the currency
that all wage earners have practically been reduced to the
lowest stages of misery. Let us see what salaries and day
wages amount to, computed in corn, which now, more than
ever, represents the exclusive, or almost exclusive, article of
food. In the first half of March, 1916, the average price
of a hectoliter of corn in the most densely populated part of
the Republic was 80 pesos Carrancista paper money
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 313
SALARIES AND DAY WAGES COMPUTED IN CORN AT 80 PESOS PER
HECTOLITER
Wage Earners Before Ike Redemptory After the Rcdemplory
Revolution Revolution
Peon in the temperate and cold
zone, daily wage 9,248 grammes 3,150 grammes
Skilled workman, daily wage.. 42,188 4>275
Mason in Mexico City 28,125 3*825
Federal Government employee,
average daily wage 93>75o 4.782
State Government employee,
average daily wage 46,875 5,738
Private employee, average daily
wage 56,250 2,869
The foregoing table proves that this revolution for the
poor has been a scourge, not a redemption. A family of five,
which can live on four daily adult rations, is obliged to sub-
sist in a semi-acute state of hunger upon not more than two
thousand grammes of corn a day. The Mexican people are
very near the semi-acute state of hunger, which can only be
endured for a few months; and they are even near the acute
state, which kills in a few days. To reach this, thereby com-
pleting the work of redemption, all that will be necessary
will be one year of poor crops, or that the disproportion be-
tween the depreciation of the paper money and the increase
in salaries and day wages continue on the same scale, or,
more properly speaking, that the actual salaries and day
wages continue to decrease at the present alarming rate.
It is not possible at this time to estimate the corn crop
gathered in December, 1915, because, although the price of
a hectoliter, estimated in gold, is more or less what it was
previous to the revolution, when the crop was good, the
planter cannot, in case the crops have been only medium or
bad, keep the grain stored for fear of its being stolen, and,
consequently, sells it as soon as possible. Not until July
next shall we know if in the last half of the present year a
state of absolute famine will exist in Mexico.
3H WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
NEW DEVICES TO ANNIHILATE THE POOR
After bringing the working classes to the brink of the
grave by the reduction in salaries and wages caused by the
depreciated currency, the revolutionists issued an order
with a view to ameliorating their condition in virtue of
which all tenants were relieved of the obligation of paying
rent when this was below one hundred pesos a month. This
order has ruined all small property owners throughout Mex-
ico. Those who depended entirely upon their rents for their
livelihood are in some cases face to face with absolute star-
vation.
It is not possible to fight against plutocracies, and the rich
in general, if one cannot count upon men in the Government
service whose honesty is beyond question. Otherwise, the
rich can easily buy up corrupt officials, making the unfortu-
nate public stand the additional cost. The farmers are in
league with the Constitutionalist officers, who permit them to
raise the price of corn as high as possible, compelling the
poor to pay far more than they ever paid during the dictator-
ship, which never permitted excessive prices to be demanded
for articles of prime necessity. The Constitutionalist sub-
ordinate chiefs and officers have confiscated all freight cars,
classifying them as dwellings, which are to be used for mil-
itary purposes only. A merchant may obtain cars for the
transportation of merchandise only by paying the exorbitant
sum of five, ten or fifteen thousand pesos paper for each car,
an expense that is charged to the consumer.
The revolutionary Government forbids the exportation of
grain, cattle, breeding stock, hides, and cotton. But here,
too, the Constitutionalist chiefs are in league with the ex-
porters, and unblushingly permit them to evade the law,
thereby increasing their revenues at the expense of the un-
fortunate poor. The Constitutionalist chiefs, with a few rare
exceptions, have gone into the field of illegitimate business,
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 315
besides having openly helped themselves to public funds and
to every sort of movable and immovable private property they
could lay their hands upon. This truly inestimable service of
robbing the poor, carried to an extreme never known before,
is perfectly logical, because a revolution that has made theft
its doctrine, its incentive, its passion, its legislative work, its
administrative method, its supreme ideal, its one and only
thought, could hardly have produced real statesmen. Its of-
ficials are a set of grafters, pure and simple, and public opin-
ion stands aghast in the presence of a situation such as that
disclosed by this stupendous collection of grafters and crooks
of all classes, sizes, races and professions, who pose as a gov-
erning body. It has reached a point when to be a revolution-
ist is synonymous with being a thief, and even though an oc-
casional honest man may be found in the ranks of these so-
called reformers, they must be either crazy or strangely dull
not to realize that they have lost, or are fast losing, their
reputation.
Never have the poor of any nation been so wantonly
robbed as have been the Mexicans by their so-called saviors.
It passes belief that this work of moral and economic de-
struction should have had for its chief protector a President
of the United States.
THE PARTITION OF LAND A FIASCO
The responsibility of the Mexican revolutionists and their
protectors is immense. Those who have brought about pres-
ent conditions in Mexico feel an overwhelming political
weight, not that they care about the verdict of history, the
judgment of abstract justice, the protests of victims, or the
moral and material desolation of their country; but because
they know that public opinion, both national and foreign, pos-
sesses the suggestive power to implant terror in the heart of
armies, demoralize the agents of crime and tyranny, and give
3 i6 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
to reactionary movements the strength to conquer. Closely
pressed by the searching inquiries of the civilized world,
which demands to know by what right such an astounding
crime as the destruction of a nation of fifteen millions inhab-
itants has been committed, the responsible ones, after much
deliberation, decided to give to the world the wonderful se-
crets of that revolution, which has had for its component
parts vengeance against those who declined to allow them-
selves to be robbed, and public and private theft.
We know that the ostensible object of the revolution was
the distribution of land among the poor, the destruction of
foreign influence in Mexico, the extermination of obscur-
antism, and the initiation of various reforms. The agrarian
plan is supported by persons who appear to be in good faith,
and among these I find four engineers and one professor,
constituted into an agrarian commission, who are the authors
of a pamphlet entitled A donde vamosf (Where Are We
Going?). After reading the pamphlet, I feel obliged to
ratify the opinion I have several times expressed, that it is
the learned rather than the ignorant who have done Mexico
the most harm by attempting to combine their learning and
their politics. The authors of the pamphlet I have men-
tioned have committed an error common to all mediocre
scientists; that is, giving too superficial consideration to seri-
ous public and private questions.
In this pamphlet New Zealand is, as usual, brought for-
ward as an example of the methods that may be adopted
for the partition of land, but the writers have not taken the
trouble to study the conditions that prevail in New Zealand.
In that country there are magnificent lands, with a climate
in every way favorable for the cultivation of grain; there
are lands in sections where the rainfall is irregular which
are not suitable for the cultivation of cereals, but which
afford excellent natural pasture; and there are lands which
are not suitable on account of climatic conditions for either
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 317
agriculture or cattle-raising. The perusal of the reports
of the various technical and economical commissions, which
have directed the New Zealand Government in the distri-
bution of the land, leaves no doubt that these commissions
advised the Government to distribute only such arable land
as had a suitable climate. It never occurred to them to sug-
gest that land suitable only for summer pasture should be
distributed for purposes of cultivation. Moreover, the lands
distributed were virgin, or almost entirely so. It is only
necessary for some of our sages who write so learnedly about
New Zealand to decide to reform conditions in Mexico for
them to reveal their ignorance of actual conditions there.
I have made it very clear in Part First that in the Republic
of Mexico there are no arable virgin lands in the cold and
temperate zones with good climatic conditions. On the
contrary, those that possess the best climatic conditions are
not suitable for the formation of small landholdings, and are,
moreover, almost if not entirely exhausted. For this reason
the planters have ceased to cultivate them.
The agricultural conditions in New Zealand and Mexico
being very different, it is absurd to try to apply to Mexico
rules that have worked successfully in New Zealand.
Owing to lack of scientific knowledge on the part of our
sages, a frantic state of enthusiasm for the execution of im-
possible reforms in favor of the poor has been created. This
exists, however, not among the popular rural classes, who
know more about the land question than the learned engi-
neers and agriculturists, but among the urban popular, sub-
popular and middle classes, and in President Wilson's mind
and in that of the American public. It is true that in Yuca-
tan the land suitable for the cultivation of henequen could
be advantageously distributed ; but this area is an insignifi-
cant proportion compared to the total of the cold and tem-
perate lands. The revolution has presented the agrarian
question as a national problem, not one restricted to
3i8 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Yucatan. The tropical arable lands of Morelos would also
be subject to advantageous subdivision, and there must be
others similar to these in the Republic. But if the benefit
of distribution does not embrace the great majority of the
popular rural classes, who are the needy ones, the only con-
clusion to be drawn is that the revolution is worthy of con-
demnation only, for having brought the unfortunate Mex-
ican nation to its present plight of moral and economic
misery without offering any adequate recompense for the
sacrifices exacted. The distribution of lands has been the
concoction of unscientific sages, uneducated visionaries and
unpatriotic knaves.
Senor Cabrera has attempted to solve the agrarian ques-
tion by reinstating the towns in their original rights over
the lands formerly controlled by the municipality. Appar-
ently under his plan it is of no consequence whether the
lands belong to the planters, to the villages or to the poor
farmers. But if, as we now know, the great majority of
the lands in the cold and temperate zones are no longer of
any value as great, medium or small landholdings, it is
nothing short of the most shocking perversity, stupidity or
ignorance to inaugurate tremendously destructive conflicts
in order to establish the ownership of something that is abso-
lutely worthless. I have stated and proved that in case these
arable lands, with a climate suitable for the advantageous
establishment of small landholdings, had existed, the distri-
bution would have been carried out without the shedding
of blood, because the few opposers would not even have had
recourse to argument, knowing that they could not count
upon an appreciable support to oppose the real social and
governmental will.
What has been the practical result of this great revolu-
tionary promise after twenty months' triumph of the revo-
lution? Failure! The law of January 6, 1915, issued by
the First Chief, decreeing the reestablishment cf the munici-
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 319
pal ownership of land, is not the fulfillment of this promise,
but the making of a new one also to be broken because
in order to divide the lands it will be necessary for the Con-
stitutionalist chiefs to return the lands they have stolen. If
the First Chief exacts this they will declare him a traitor
to the real and sacred principles of the revolution public
and private pillage and will either kill him or depose him
from his high office. The distribution of lands, that fair
promise which has been the fountainhead of this torrent of
tragedies, crimes and shamelessness, has been set aside until
such time as the First Chief, being transformed into a states-
man, will know what he should do and this will never
come to pass.
THE PATRIOTIC ANTI-FOREIGN WAR A FIASCO
The culminating lie the merciless exploitation of the
Mexican people by the cupidity of foreign capitalists
swallowed with all its garnishings by President Wilson,
caused him to say to Mr. Samuel G. Ely the on May 23,
1914, in the interview in The Saturday Evening Post from
which I have already quoted: "Second No personal ag-
grandizement by American investors or adventures or cap-
italists, or exploitation of that country, will be permitted."
When he uttered these imposing words President Wilson
forgot that for a whole year he had protected the mercenary
band of Americans who, in company with the most atrocious
of the Mexican bandits, had established in unmolested tran-
quillity on United States territory a great market for the
disposal of the loot collected all over the downtrodden,
blood-stained Republic of Mexico.
I do not know of any greater, more barefaced, more de-
grading theft perpetrated against the Mexican people by
foreigners than the one I have just mentioned. The revo-
lutionists have been '.the great protectors of foreign thieves
320 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
and continue to be so. I have stated, amply substantiating
my statement, that during the Porfirian dictatorship almost
all the great foreign capital invested in Mexico operated for
the good of the people, delivering them from the overwhelm-
ing misery that had kept them semi-savage and in a state
of anarchy. The assertion that foreign capital, especially
American capital, was the vampire that had sucked the blood
of the Aztec people to the point of inebriation, was the lie
that fomented the Boxer feeling which transformed the heart
of the revolution into that of a hyena. It served, as Senor
Carranza declared to Senor Aldo Baroni, as an unworthy
party weapon for the desperate Constitutionalists when they
saw that the public had no use for the Constitution, or for
those who proclaimed it.
Immediately after the recognition of this government as
a de facto government, Senor Carranza proceeded to keep
his promise of preserving the Mexican people independent
of foreign capital, which had caused such grave damages to
the fatherland, by sending Senor Luis Cabrera, Secretary
of the Treasury of the de facto Government, to New York
to negotiate a loan of $250,000,000 (for the affairs of state
and the needs of the First Chief's friends) with the much-
despised foreign banking corporations. The terms proposed
were most humiliating and if they had been accepted, Mex-
ico would have been placed in very much the same financial
position as Egypt. Notwithstanding Senor Cabrera's read-
iness to accept stipulated conditions, no matter how hum-
bling they might be to the dignity of his country, the bankers
explained, as the public knows from the New York press,
that the First Chief did not possess the power to contract
foreign loans of any kind in the name of the Mexican nation,
that the title de facto of itself implied a government of
short duration, one that, at best, was destined to exist only
until a constitutional form of government could be estab-
lished.
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 321
Undaunted by Senor Cabrera's failure, Senor Antonio
Manero appeared in the United States to try to negotiate a
loan of $50,000,000. This no doubt further impressed the
Mexican people with their enviable independence of foreign
capital. From the American press we know the result of
this transaction. The bankers stipulated as the first condi-
tion that all custom house receipts were to be handed over
to them, guarantees for the fulfillment of the contract being
given by the United States Government, as has been the
case in Haiti. The American press announced that Senor
Manero accepted the conditions, and the holocaust was pre-
vented only because the bankers saw, when the situation was
more carefully studied, that the Mexican customs receipts
would not equal for a long time to come even the sum neces-
sary to cover the obligations solemnly contracted toward
the holders of foreign government bonds, and this respon-
sibility was recognized as indisputably legitimate by the
Constitutionalist Government. Still undaunted, the de
facto Government sent Senor Palavicini to New York
to cooperate with the Mexican Ambassador, Senor Eliseo
Arredondo, to obtain a loan of at least $10,000,000. Once
more let us see what the New York press had to say. It
informed the American public that the bankers had not hesi-
tated to say to the Carranza representatives that it was not
possible to lend a single dollar to Mexico, or to go surety
for a single rifle or cartridge, as the country's bankruptcy
was not only financial but moral, the Carranza Administra-
tion having the w T ell-established reputation of being an ad-
ministration of insatiable thieves.
Everything in the matter of loans undertaken by the de
facto Government has been a failure. Even the mea culpa
humbly offered to American bankers upon bended knee by
the leaders of the movement to make Mexico financially in-
dependent of the hateful and anti-patriotic foreign capital,
failed. President Wilson's recognition of the de facto Gov-
322 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ernment did not obtain for it one single dollar, but com-
pletely stultified the Constitutionalists, who were already
smacking their lips over the prospective haul.
THE REGENERATION OF THE PEOPLE BY MEANS OF THE
SCHOOL A FIASCO
It is an indisputable fact that the Porfirian dictatorship
established eleven thousand primary lay schools. It is also
undeniable that although the people had the right to revolt
against the dictatorship, the manner in which the revolt
was executed, the frightful means employed, the criminal
character of its ideals, the manifestations of hatred against
everything that stands for civilization, the savage, prehistoric
nature of its political passions, prove either that the people
have derived no benefit whatever from these eleven thousand
schools, or that their influence has been pernicious. The
Argentenian writer, Foppa, commenting upon this deplor-
able phenomenon, said that the uprising of the Mexican
people was preeminently an uprising against the eleven
thousand schools. From the fact that after twenty-five
years of school attendance the Mexican people have obtained
no better results than a savage revolution, compels one to
denounce the schools or the people who attended them. One
would naturally cry: No more schools because they are
useless, if not actually productive of pernicious results.
When a race loses completely the moral sense that has
been formed by centuries of human customs and beliefs;
when man unconsciously becomes the implacable enemy of
his fellow men, something foreign even to the beast; when
a people has lost the instinct of self-preservation, the love
of the past, which is the true fatherland, and the respect it
should have for the wisdom and beauty it possesses in the
present; when it has lost faith in greatness, pity for human
suffering, contact with the spiritual atmosphere; when it is
atheistic, not because of scientific conviction, but because it
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 323
is on a level with the brutes; when it kills for the sake of
killing; when it hates because it is told to do so; when it
attacks because it is thrust into the combat; when not even
the gratification of vice makes life dear; when everything
in it is a mixture of primitiveness and degeneration, then
the school must fail, as liberty, religion, democracy, civiliza-
tion and patriotism have failed ; only the inexorable law of
selection will not fail.
A well-informed Cuban said to me : "In Cuba the
schools gain daily in efficiency and the moral sense of the
people degenerates. It cannot be doubted that the demo-
cratic schools in my dear Cuba are not suited to form
democrats." An English pedagogue has asserted that the
school which has made the English what they are, perverts
the Hindoos. A German pedagogue asserts that each nation
should have a system of education suited to its moral and
intellectual idiosyncrasies. In Mexico the German system
has been tried on the Indians of Vera Cruz; the French on
those of Puebla; the American on those of Guerrero; the
Italian on those of Zacatecas, and the Ferrer system on those
of Chihuahua. The inevitable outcome of this method has
been the brutalizing of the Indians. If pedagogy does not
take primal matter into consideration, education is not sci-
ence but a scourge, the destroyer of customs, of religions, of
ideals, leaving the perverted understanding of the inferior
race to be filled with the teaching of the incomprehensible
and the abstract. This is equivalent to attempting to teach
an absolutely illiterate subject arithmetic by presenting to
him as an introduction Laplace's Mechanics of the Heavens.
There are diverse religions, because there are diverse races,
just as there are diverse political constitutions, because there
are diverse peoples, and as there is a diversity in the char-
acter and extent of criminality and of everything that flows
from the diversity of the sub-species developed within the
human species.
3 2 4 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
As we have seen, and as we shall continue to see, the rev-
olutionary program has been a complete failure, without,
however, affecting in any wise the progress of the revolu-
tion. Although this is not the place to make a study of
Mexican pedagogy, it is possible to measure the value of the
popular school in Mexico by noting the decisive part taken
by school teachers in the revolution. Luis Cabrera, the great
intellect of Carrancism, as he has been called, is an ex-
schoolmaster, as are also Antonio Villarreal, Constitutional-
ist general, ex-governor of the state of Nuevo Leon and ex-
president of the Convention of Aguascalientes ; Otilio Mon-
tano, Zapatista general and counsellor to the bandit ; Manuel
Chao, Villista general and ex-governor of Chihuahua; Brau-
lio Hernandez, supporter of the Vasquez revolution and ex-
Secretary of Abraham Gonzalez, governor of Chihuahua;
Federico Gurrion, the great Tehuantepec agitator who at-
tempted to dismember the state of Oaxaca; Figueroa, revo-
lutionary leader in the state of Guerrero; Jose Obregon,
brother of Alvaro Obregon; Candido Navarro, Maderista
leader, who started the revolution in Guanajuato in 1911
and invaded the state of San Luis Potosi; Praxedes Guer-
rero, the socialist poet and general, who led the Mago-
nista movement in Chihuahua; General Carrera Torres, the
most celebrated Constitutionalist leader in the state of San
Luis Potosi ; Colonel David Berlanga, an orator and influen-
tial agitator, and many other less important ones whose
names I do not remember but who were representatives of
the Maderista Congress of 1912.
Even if the schools in Mexico had been equal to the work
of national regeneration, the present Government is not in
a position to spend on schools even one-half what was spent
under the dictatorship. In the City of Mexico and in the
states o^ Vera Cruz and Yucatan there is a certain show of
scholarship which easily deceives fools who mistake card-
board houses for marble palaces; but in the remainder of the
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 325
states education is a farce without a trace of the nobility
that should characterize it a whitened sepulchre filled with
dead men's bones. It will be a long time before Mexico, so
far as education is concerned, will get back to where she was
during the dictatorship of Diaz. I should call attention to
the fact that neither General Diaz nor General Huerta was
ever opposed to the development of public instruction; on
the contrary, they furthered it as much as lay in their power,
and the revolution can never lay claim to the institution of
free, obligatory, lay schools as one of its achievements. If
Mexican blood had to be drawn to further the cause of pub-
lic education it might just as well have been done with
leeches, because recourse to arms was totally unnecessary.
It is a significant commentary on the intellectual equipment
of the revolutionists that not one of them has thought of
making the most trifling sacrifice for the furtherance of ed-
ucation.
THE PROSPERITY OF THE WORKING-MAN A FIASCO
The revolution proclaimed the Socialist doctrine of a
minimum wage to be fixed by the government, and the
promise was fulfilled. This reform, however, has not
brought about the desired effects. In Mexico the number of
working-men dying of hunger because of lack of work is
daily on the increase, as is also the number of those who are
returning to their former masters asking for work, quite
willing to forego the benefits of the government's reforms
in their behalf, and to take any pay their employers may
offer. Only in New Zealand has the government dared to
fix a minimum rate of wage, and if the measure has not pro-
duced the disasters predicted by economists, it is due to the
remarkable prosperity of the English colony. There is no
other country in the world which has taken upon itself the
heavy responsibility of fixing by positive law the minimum
326 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
rate of the day wage. Experts are of the opinion that from
an economic standpoint it is an extremely dangerous measure.
As our revolutionary intellectuals belong to the mediocre
professional class they act more unwisely than the fool, who,
knowing himself to be a fool, seeks the advice of those better
informed than himself. A positive epidemic of political stu-
pidity must be raging when such a measure as the fixing of
the minimum wage is adopted in a country, which is on the
brink of ruin, and in imperative need of the help of foreign
capital to stave off starvation, to reconstruct its shattered
fortunes and to enable it to enter once more into the ways
of civilization and prosperity. The surest means to drive
capital out of a country, unless it is in as flourishing a condi-
tion as New Zealand, is undoubtedly the fixing of the mini-
mum wage by the government. Foreign and national cap-
italists, who have invested money in Mexico in enterprises
which cannot easily be abandoned, have been forced to re-
sign themselves to the violation of a great economic prin-
ciple, that of subjecting wages to the law of supply and
demand. But capital is being gradually withdrawn from
Mexico, and the capitalist who in other times invested his
money there, creating remunerative work, is well aware to-
day that the country offers the poorest of all investments.
Such a situation is disastrous for Mexican industry, and
especially for the working-man. For him the only alterna-
tive is to die of hunger or join the Carrancista army, to be
paid the equivalent of the lowest day wage, in depreciated
paper money. Even this is precarious because the nation
cannot support much longer an army greater than its
strength, which is constantly and rapidly diminishing.
OTHER REFORMS ALSO A FIASCO
Senor Jose N. Macias explains to us the remainder of the
great reforms which are to effect the redemption of the
Mexican people. These are: the freedom of municipalities;
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 327
the independence of the judiciary; the law of divorce and the
working-man's compensation law.
The so-called reform granting independence to municipal-
ities is nothing more than a long-discarded measure which
was found stored away somewhere in the political ware-
house, thrown out because of its worthlessness. In 1861 mu-
nicipal government was established throughout the Republic,
based upon autonomy which was almost equal to sovereignty.
The result was disastrous for the great majority of the
towns. The municipal presidents, treasurers, and almost all
the aldermen began appropriating the municipal revenues,
leaving the towns without lighting systems, without schools,
without public charities, without food for prisoners, who
were discharged in order to cut out this expense, without
hygienic improvements of any kind or even the indispensable
repairs needed to keep roads and public thoroughfares in a
passable condition. The infuriated inhabitants had recourse
to the central government of their respective states, petition-
ing that the municipalities be deprived of their financial au-
tonomy and that, with regard to receipts as well as expendi-
tures, their accounts should be subject to the revision and
approbation of the State Treasurer.
With regard to the taxes, only five out of the three thou-
sand and more municipal treasurers escaped being denounced
before the district judges as having appropriated the public
funds under their control. It was not the Porfirian dictator-
ship that deprived the municipalities of the right to help
themselves to the public funds, but the sovereign will of the
towns, publicly expressed many years before General Diaz
organized his dictatorship. The failure of the free munici-
palities was one of the many fiascos which have overtaken
the Mexicans in their demented attempt to govern them-
selves democratically.
The independence of the judiciary can only be assured
and even then not absolutely by establishing irremovable
328 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
judgeships, so long as the incumbent's conduct is exemplary;
or, at least, by making the term of the chief justice double
that of the President. In 1893 the Cientificos struggled to
institute constitutional reforms in favor of the irremova-
bility of the Federal chief justices. The bill was held up in
the Senate by General Diaz after it had passed the House,
and it was Don Francisco Madero who later fought this
reform, forcing the Senate to reject it in 1911, when it was
proposed for discussion. It is evident, then, that it was the
revolution which gave this great constitutional reform its
death blow in 1911. And after such an exhibition of polit-
ical depravity as this, we are told, in 1915, that it was nec-
essary to destroy the nation in order to enable the revolution
to impose the necessary reform in regard to the independence
of the judiciary!
The divorce law will serve many purposes, other than that
of conferring happiness upon the poor. It will not redeem
them from their misery, neither will it alter their mode of liv-
ing. According to the statistics of the Civil Register of the
Federal District only nineteen out of every hundred births
registered are legitimate ; and if we take into account that the
higher classes represent approximately twenty per cent of
the population, and that almost all the progeny of that class
is legitimate, it follows that almost the entire lower class is
of illegitimate origin. Since marriage, owing to lack of mo-
rality among the people, is not considered necessary, a di-
vorce law would appear to be more or less of a superfluity.
On the other hand, in almost all the marriages contracted in
Mexico the woman is a Catholic and, as a general thing,
firm in adhering to the precepts of the Church which forbid
divorce. Moreover, in Mexican society a divorced woman is
looked upon in very much the same light as a concubine, and
it will be many years before the divorce law will be the law
of our social life. One must be utterly bereft of reason to
imagine for a moment that the institution of the divorce law
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 329
in Mexico merits one fraction of the sacrifices the revolu-
tion has inflicted upon the Mexican people.
The working-man's compensation law is not an unheard-
of proposition in Mexico, nor is it being advanced now for
the first time. General Bernardo Reyes framed a good law
covering accidents to working-men during the dictatorship
of General Diaz. In 1908, Sefior Ramon Corral, then Sec-
retary of the Interior, commissioned me to draft a complete
plan for him of the code governing the working-man's com-
pensation law, in so far as it had any bearing upon economic
questions. I accepted the task and had almost completed my
work when the Madero revolution broke out. While Con-
gress was in session, from September 15 to December 15,
1911, bills fairly rained in concerning the working-man's
compensation law, child labor, unsanitary working condi-
tions, working-men's protective associations, the establish-
ment of savings banks, and all manner of laws favorable to
the laboring classes that the government of the most civ-
ilized industrial nations have adopted in their favor. In
September, 1912, the triumph of the revolution was assured,
as the Madero faction had an overwhelming majority in the
House. The Catholic faction, representing the minority in
the House, was in favor of the enactment of a working-
man's compensation law, covering all the legitimate claims
of the working class, with all the socialist concessions that
have been granted to them even in the countries that are
most strongly influenced by the doctrine of individualism.
Why did this overwhelming Maderista majority not pass
the reforms proposed for the betterment of the condition of
the working class? Sefior Ramon Prida has given the cor-
rect answer. He says: "Once the representatives were in-
stalled, the House took up its work, or to be more exact, in-
augurated a campaign of vilification such as has never been
witnessed in any other parliamentary body. During the reg-
ular session; that is, from September i6th to December I5th,
330 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
nothing for the good of the country was accomplished by the
House. It looked as though the representatives had come
together for no other purpose than that of vilifying each
other and absentees, who could not defend themselves. The
chairmen who were elected during September, October, No-
vember and December were absolutely impotent to keep the
ultra-radicals in check. And to make matters worse, the
Government, notwithstanding the unedifying spectacle pre-
sented by this body of legislators, called for an extra session
of Congress, which, convening in the latter part of Decem-
ber, was in session until the overthrow of the Madero Gov-
ernment.
"Individually there were many intelligent, educated and
even truly patriotic representatives, but the collective work
of the body was devoid of effects, and the isolated efforts of
the few were lost in that turbulent mob which Senor Gustavo
Madero tried in vain to hold in check." 1
Senor Prida's words are confirmed by Senor Fernandez
Giiell who, as will be remembered, was a fervid Maderista
and is now an impassioned Carrancista, so much so that he
assures us that Don Venustiano Carranza is "cast in the
mould of immortality," and that he shed "a molten tear"
upon Madero's grave. He says: "One of the first acts of
the new representatives was to raise their salaries from the
previous two hundred and fifty pesos monthly to five hun-
dred pesos. Nothing was proposed with a view to arrang-
ing the difficulties with Zapata in the south, or to solve the
problem in the north. The Maderista element rested on its
laurels as though contact with power had benumbed its en-
ergies. Huerta himself seemed less brilliant and persuasive
than upon other occasions." 2
That same revolutionary Maderista majority, which styled
itself progressive, which through fear, cupidity, shameless-
1 Ramon Prida, De la Dictadura a la Anarquia, p 409.
2 Fernandez Giiell, Episodios de la Revolution Mexicana, p. 162.
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 331
ness or its inherent capacity for treason, had sanctioned the
Huerta coup, had opportunities, when it was converted into
a grovelling Huerta instrument, to introduce bills, with
Huerta's decided support, for the betterment of the condi-
tion of the poor, and was morally obliged to pass the bill
introduced into the House during the Huerta administration
by Senor Toribio Esquivel Obregon, Secretary of the Treas-
ury, asking in the Chief Executive's name for an appropria-
tion of several million pesos to buy lands from private indi-
viduals to be distributed among the poor. The solution of
the agrarian question, as Senor Carranza pretended to under-
stand it in 1915, was formerly initiated by General Huerta
before the revolutionary House of Representatives, the ma-
jorky of whose members were unworthy to represent the na-
tion.
I concede that among the military and civilian revolu-
tionists there are many who are in good faith, many who
have worked, some who have even made sacrifices, for the
realization of possible and impossible ideals. Unfortunately
for the Mexican people, these representative men are not at
the head of the movement; on the contrary, almost all the
leaders are representatives of an old element, emanating from
the cancerous core of Reyism. The revolution will have to
continue until it produces great moral effects which will
eliminate all this decayed political vegetation and give the
new element a chance to reveal itself in all its power, pro-
vided that this also be not of the same category.
THE REVOLUTION'S FINANCIAL FIASCO
The Diaz financial administration, directed by Senor
Limantour, was a model of morality, method, science and
results achieved. The revolution declared it a national
scourge and destroyed it, only to replace it with a peculating,
disordered, miserable, rapacious, inept substitute. In order
332 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
to prove the truth of this declaration it is only necessary,
among other facts, to call attention to one. Every bond is-
sued by the Diaz Government, of any kind whatsoever, was
quoted, if it were redeemable in gold, above par in all the
great markets of the world ; the paper money issued by the
de facto Government is worth at present two cents gold for
one hundred cents paper (Havana quotation, March 22,
1916). These data unquestionably reveal that the de facto
Government will not be long in swelling the number of the
victims; its pulse can no longer be felt even with the stetho-
scope.
In a few words I shall present the financial status of
Mexico :
Annual Expenditures
For the interest and payment of the recognized
consolidated debt and the probable floating
debt up to date $45,000,000 gold
Bureaucratic salaries 40,000,000 '
Estimate for army expenses at the rate of $0.50
gold per head, further estimate for chiefs,
officers, equipment, not counting the graft
necessary for the maintenance of the de facto
Government 54,000,000 "
Indispensably need to reconstruct and main-
tain railroads 10,000,000 "
Total $149,000,000 gold
I do not believe that the present Federal receipts aggre-
gate $30,000,000, notwithstanding the fact that the de facto
Government counts as the chief source of revenue the whole-
sale robbery of the Yucatecan planters, who are obliged to
deliver, under pain of confiscation and destruction of their
maguey fields, one-half of the integral value of their produc-
tion. The commission to regulate the price of henequen has
been converted into the commission to continue the spolia-
tion of the Yucatecan planters, who are the producers of the
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER 333
valuable fiber. We see, then, that the basis of the Carran-
cista finances, true to the principle of the glorious revolu-
tion, is nothing but barefaced graft. With regard to the
state finances, a complete state of bankruptcy exists in all.
Each governor has faculties to dispose of all the state rev-
enues as he may see fit, for the public good or for that of his
own private purse. Needless to say, the good of the private
purse predominates.
During the dictatorship, even when one-third of the gov-
ernors were dishonest, the dictator never permitted a state
of public bankruptcy to exist, and, consequently, every one
marched in good order, paying employees and meeting all his
obligations. Some of the states, notably Yucatan, Guana-
juato, Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, Chihuahua, Queretaro and
Nuevo Leon, had considerable reserve funds. To-day every-
thing has disappeared ; a universal state of total bankruptcy
exists, which will not be remedied for many years. Mean-
while, the bureaucracies imbibe miasmic poisons, live upon
typhus, and, bereft of everything but their just indignation,
have nothing to look forward to but greater sufferings until
they reach the final, fatal denouement.
T
CHAPTER II
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM
MACHIAVELLI AND CARRANZA
HE author of The Prince has given simple, exact
hand" administration in countries where it is needed.
Machiavelli separates the people into two classes: First, the
vast, peaceful, servile class which has the power to revolt,
because servility does not preclude the right possessed by
every being to defend himself when the need arises; second,
the politicians, engrossed in their task of obtaining control
of the supreme power so as to mercilessly exploit the people.
The generator of public opinion is the people, even when
it is a servile people; and public opinion is always sovereign
even when its influence produces a different result from
that which emanates from a free people. Public opinion
finally ends by terrorizing tyrants, spreading panic among
their supporters, bringing about their defection, and induc-
ing them to take vengeance against the man they have up-
held. The "iron hand" should guard above all against
arousing the odium of public opinion which, after the coup
de main, is the favorite political weapon for overthrowing
dictators.
The "iron hand," in order to win and keep the good opin-
ion of the masses, who justly demand that they be governed
in conformity with the state of civilization they possess,
should protect them against the oppression of malefactors;
should respect civil rights, at least in that proportion which
the people have heretofore enjoyed in conformity with their
334
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 335
traditions; should strive to supply the people with an easy
means of earning a livelihood, which can best be done
by furthering the economic progress of the country, and,
finally, should establish a sound financial administration and
see that at least tolerable justice be meted out by the courts,
especially to the lower classes. This is all that is necessary
to insure for a dictator their adhesion, which is the best de-
fense against sudden coups. In fact, if we go back to the
Roman Empire, w r hich existed for three hundred years and
which employed regicide and militarism as the means of
eliminating tyrants, we shall find that seven emperors,
Augustus, Tiberius, Adrian, Trajan, Antoninus, Marcus
Aurelius and Pertinax the latter the only exception to the
rule in point of length or reign collectively held the power
for more than half of the three hundred years of the
empire's existence. These seven emperors merited the sup-
port of public opinion, whereas the other thirty-eight were
put out of the way by force, as a rule, by assassination.
Let us see how Carrancism stands in the light of public
opinion. Instead of protecting the people against male-
factors, it has given the latter its assured protection against
any resistance the people might offer. The people were dis-
armed and thus made the helpless victims of this criminal
band. The civil rights of a people demand respect for religion
and private property; the inviolability of personal liberty; the
sacredness of the home ; public and private morals ; the free-
dom to work, and respect for the nation's good name. Car-
rancism has disregarded all these. It has been the implac-
able persecutor of the Catholic religion, almost exclusively
the religion of the Mexican people; it recognizes outside its
own ranks no private property rights, either among the rich
or among the poor; it violates all personal liberty, every
one, from its point of view, being the slave of the armed
bandits of the north ; it disregards public and private morals,
all women being the prey of its lust; it has substituted
336 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
for the free right to work, the "free right" to be a Car-
rancista soldier; it has dragged the name of Mexico in the
mire, until to-day the foreign nations want the United States
to intervene by force of arms, and, if necessary, wipe Mexico
as a nation off the face of the map. During the latter years
of the Diaz dictatorship, Mexico had attained a high place
in the estimation of the nations of the world, as our Cen-
tennial Celebration in 1910 proved; Carrancism has re-
duced it to its present plight.
Instead of building up the resources of the country, Car-
rancism has countenanced the wanton destruction of prop-
erty and of the capital that made it possible for the people
to provide for their own support by work. Instead of estab-
lishing a sound financial administration and a tolerable ad-
ministration of justice, it has based its finances upon theft,
as, for example, the coercing of the henequen planters in
Yucatan and the cotton planters in Torreon, the stealing of
cattle on the frontier, and the spoliation of everything else
worth taking in other parts of the Republic. At the pres-
ent time in every newspaper article, pamphlet, book, or ad-
dress relative to Mexico we find the truth that is, that
the practical principles of the Mexican revolution, implac-
ably carried out, have been vengeance and theft.
As humanity progressed the "iron hand" had to progress
also, and the methods that held good in Machiavelli's time
do not hold good now. In Latin-America it has become a
fixed principle that every dictatorship, however strict, should
respect the representative democratic form, and this prin-
ciple has given rise to certain passive political rights. Dur-
ing the strictest Caesarian epoch of General Diaz's dictator-
ship all w r ere at liberty to declare themselves anti-Porfiristas,
and no one was molested so long as his attitude did not take
the form of an actual rebellious and seditious newspaper
campaign. The most notable example of this policy is that
of the historian and politician, Don Fernando Iglesias Cal-
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 337
deron, who was General Diaz's political enemy for thirty-
three years. During that time he wrote in a serious and
dignified vein everything that he wished, and was never in
any way punished or persecuted. Senor Iglesias Calderon
exercised active political rights, and those who exercised
passive rights, manifesting simply dissatisfaction, were never
molested. The Diaz dictatorship never punished or perse-
cuted any writer who criticized the Administration in its
administrative, economic, legal or even political aspect.
Senor Luis Cabrera, the most implacable of the Carrancistas,
enjoyed this liberty under the dictatorship. In Mexico to-
day neither the Mexican nor the foreigner is allowed the
passive political right of not being an adherent of Carran-
cism. He is obliged under pain of arrest, confiscation of
property and even death to be a Carrancista. Not to be
one is equivalent to being the revolution's enemy, and that
revolution does not tolerate enemies but aims to foment the
greatest amount of hatred against them and even to ex-
terminate them.
The Carrancista Government is a government of terror
of the most repugnant type and of the species most abhorrent
to twentieth-century civilization. There is nothing new or
unusual in this assertion. All humanity bears witness to it.
But under no consideration is the revolution to be de-
famed. It is wise, it is reflective, it is just! The Mexican
people declared tyrants the sixty- four viceroys sent by Spain !
In reality not one of them merited the title, and most of
them were distinguished for their honesty and kindness. The
Mexican people declared tyrants the loyal and energetic
Victoria, the weak and likable Guerrero, the honest Busta-
mante, the just Arista, the reasonable and moderate Juarez,
the exact Lerdo de Tejada, and General Diaz, who, al-
though a despot, deserved that the Mexican people should
accept my estimate of his administration: "A government
with a minimum of terror and a maximum of kindness."
338 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Nevertheless, on May 24, 1911, when he took refuge in his
home surrounded by some of the members of his own family,
and one or two friends, who endeavored to relieve his moral
and physical suffering, although the weight of his eighty
years pressed heavily upon him, although the heart that
throbbed in his weather-beaten breast was the same that had
made him a hero in a war that stemmed a foreign invasion,
although his country was indebted to him . for more bless-
ings than curses, the filthy, political rabble placed itself at
the head of a ferocious mob, seeking the blood of an old
man whom history, notwithstanding his faults, will absolve.
But the revolution is wise and just; we must bend the
knee and submit to its decrees! As the people have ruth-
lessly attacked eminent men, characterizing them as tyrants
and tearing them to pieces without mercy, justice demands
that these people should get a lesson, and be made to under-
stand what real tyranny is. Diaz was overthrown. Ma-
dero, kind and honorable, was also declared a tyrant.
Huerta appeared, like a somber Caesar of Rome's decadent
days. He was discarded and the revolution produced Car-
ranza, a thousand times more tyrannical than Huerta.
Carranza failing to satisfy the people, the revolution the
supreme teacher will impose Obregon, who, in turn, will
be harsher than Carranza. The revolution had destined the
nation for the Caesarism of Villa, and it was what the in-
surgent class deserved. The people are beginning now to
know what real tyranny is, and if they survive they will
know the measure of deference, respect, and kindness that
should be shown to really eminent rulers. There should
be changes in the administration, it is true, because power
enervates, but it should not be done with infamy and dis-
honor. A patriot should be removed without sacrificing
patriotism. A government based upon terror is a weak
government, because, sooner or later, it ends by terrorizing
even the tyrant and his paid assassins. It is evident that
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 339
this terror has already taken possession of Senor Venustiano
Carranza. He cannot remain long in one place; he travels
not for amusement, but to flee from himself; he is beginning
to be obsessed with the thought of himself. The blood that
has been spilt in his name makes him believe that his own
will soon be called for; the tears of that people whom he
offered to make happy may be converted from one moment
to another into bullets to annihilate him; the ruins of his
country curse him as they crumble to pieces, and even the
echo of misfortune and pain has for him the significance of
the fatal summons. His terrors have been further increased
by the ominous glances of fifteen million Mexicans which
say to him: "That is right! Continue also to be a traitor
to your country!"
Senor Carranza's supremacy over his rivals in the pres-
ent chaos and anarchy that reigns in Mexico can be easily
explained. In Mexico politics are anti-patriotic, being sim-
ply the ebullition of personalism. Zapata is not a likely
subject for the development of personalism. He has no
wealth with which to buy friends and partisans in propor-
tion with what he can distribute. He is the real apostle.
He despoils the rich for the benefit of the poor. He con-
fiscates plantations, not to add to his own private property,
but to divide and distribute them among the poor farmers,
fulfilling the promises he has given. His party has no sine-
cures to offer. It will not tolerate the violation of the civil
rights of the people. There is morality, justice, order,
rights to be respected and duties to be fulfilled. The In-
dian follower of Zapata is not his slave, as Senor Palavicini
is Carranza's, and as Senor Rafael Zubaran will be Obre-
gon's, when the latter believes the opportune moment has
come to betray his chief. Zapatism being what it is, a truly
barbaric, Aztec organization, cannot attract the rotten poli-
ticians of the intellectual proletariat or the Constitutionalist
banditti.
340 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Following the lead of the French Revolution, under the
protection of the Villistas and the Zapatistas, a rare political
entity the Sovereign National Convention was formed.
In a country where there is no strength outside of the policy
governed by personalism, this was destined to fail ignomini-
ously and, as a conventional government is the most imper-
sonal of all governments, it could hope to have but few
partisans, and provisional ones at that.
If one of the First Chief's friends wins a battle, he gives
him one, two, three or more million pesos (paper), a fine
country house, valued at no less than one million dollars
gold; ten or twelve town residences in the most fashionable
quarter, and one hundred women, chosen from among the
most beautiful and attractive of the Republic. A conven-
tion expresses its appreciation by a vote of thanks, a medal,
a diploma, or at most it may decree that the victor's name
be inscribed in letters of gold upon the tablet in the conven-
tion hall. The supreme reward is to declare the hero de-
serving of his country's consideration, leaving him, however,
to die of hunger or to live upon the alms of the friends who
flee from him when the opposing party gets into power and
brands him a traitor, meriting the opprobrium of humanity.
A flatterer may hang around a convention for twenty years
without even getting a letter-carrier's job out of it. Imper-
sonal governments are not susceptible to the blandishments
that turn the heads of personal rulers.
On the other hand, conventions, like all sovereign assem-
blages, are merciless in decreeing death penalties, confisca-
tion of property, and the most atrocious vengeance against
the superior men of the nation, because, as all assemblages
are formed from the mediocre political element, the assem-
bly's enemies are the eminent men of the nation and, by a
natural inference, necessarily the country's enemies as well.
Personalism does not enter much into Villa's make-up,
because it is debatable whether or not he is a person. If
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 341
he is, he is not one whose friendship can be counted upon.
Studying Villa's conduct, it is evident that not one of the
intellectuals who surrounded him ever had any great in-
fluence over him. Villa's favorites were always the most
terrible of the bandits: Fierro, Rodriquez, Urbina and
Banda. In Villa's circle no one was sure of his life because
not only the chief himself, but any of his favorites, had the
right personally to take the life of any one who displeased
him, no matter how insignificant the cause might be. Villa
gave plantations, houses, jewelry, and money, but later on
he would take them back to bestow them upon some new
favorite. There is not a single one of Villa's favorites who
really became rich and retained for any length of time a re-
spected and remunerative position. Any tale carried by a
busybody and scandal mongers abound in these political
coteries was enough to cost the defenseless victim his head.
Senor Carranza, on the contrary, is an ideal exponent of
personalism. He is constant to his friends, slow to give
credence to talebearers, generous almost past belief in recom-
pensing services, and above all in rewarding adulation. He
pays his debts of gratitude at a high rate of interest, and
is constant toward the faithful. In a word, and to use a
Mexican expression, Carranza is what the personal politicians
call "un a?niffo pare jo" (a friend on the level) ; and for
politicians with great and unbridled ambition he possesses
the advantage of being as manageable as an organ-grinder's
monkey.
The amount expended by Senor Carranza upon his friends
and partisans has been simply enormous. In seventeen
months, deducting only what has been spent upon armament
and munitions, and the small amount distributed among the
lower bureaucracy, he has given to his friends more than
700,000,000 pesos paper, produced by his unique little
money-making machine, besides $20,000,000 gold, stolen
from the Yucatecan planters, $5,000,000 gold from the cot-
342 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
ton growers, and $3,000,000 gold, from the oil companies.
Great herds of cattle, enormous quantities of hides, cof-
fee and every kind of merchandise, houses and plantations,
valued at not less than 300,000,000 pesos, and all the state
and municipal revenues, have also been distributed among
them, his friends being constituted absolute owners of the
lives, honor and revenues of the people. I do not believe
that among modern rulers, even including those of the lux-
urious oriental nations, there ever has been a sultan, kalif,
emperor, great lama, great chief or great Latin-American
liberator who has given more wealth to his partisans
than Senor Venustiano Carranza has distributed among his
friends, and who at the same time has permitted them to
commit as great a number of crimes and acts worthy only of
irrational brutes.
It is quite evident that Senor Carranza has not assimi-
lated the dictatorial method. Terror and corruption, as is
well known, are the infallible and indispensable arms of all
Caesarian governments. But the indispensable condition for
Caesarism is a Caesar, and in the very nature of things he
must be supreme. No Caesar or dictator, worthy of the
name, would consent to be the lap-dog of his favorites. In
modern times Cromwell and Napoleon I were generous pro-
tectors of their partisans, but never consented to be bossed
by them. Juarez and Diaz never had favorites and were
always their own masters. The chief who permits himself
to be bossed can never govern, and serves only as the instru-
ment which makes the public service the mistress of the
military, as well as of the frock-coated soldiery.
Senor Carranza has not understood that terror is a means
applied to politicians by governments when corruption has
failed to subjugate them, or when they put an unheard-of
price upon their submission. He has applied terror not to
the politicians of his party, but to the peaceful, honest, hard-
working people, who would be satisfied with a few civil
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 343
rights which would allow them to live as frugally or mis-
erably as they have lived for centuries past.
The generosity that has created for Don Venustiano Car-
ranza such a powerful party of personal adherents will lead
ultimately to disorder, and the collapse will precipitate Senor
Carranza and his partisans into the abyss; that is, if the
latter have not already turned upon him and betrayed him
in conformity with the code of honor binding politicians in
general, and those of Latin-America in particular.
Without the abundant issue of paper money the revolu-
tion would not have attracted to itself this immense follow-
ing. However, the issue of such paper money is not an
inexhaustible resource. When those who employ it do not
know how to manage it and to put on the brakes in time,
a complete state of bankruptcy ensues, absolutely destruc-
tive of political and social order, reacting principally upon
the authors of the catastrophe. The paper money has gone
down as low as two cents gold for every one hundred cents
paper (March 25, 1916). One short step more and Car-
rancism will plunge into the dark, fathomless abyss, as a
torpedoed ocean liner heaves and disappears beneath the
waves.
As Senor Carranza has not been a disciplinarian, but a
coddler of bandits, in order to secure at least their nominal
recognition of him as their First Chief, with the waning of
his material prosperity the source of his power he will
have to flee from his own coterie in order to escape being
put to death, according to the rules of the Barbary pirates:
"When the captain is of no further use, he is to be hung
to the top of the main mast."
A COUNTRY HONEYCOMBED BY THEFT
Taking into consideration the pharisaical nature of the
de facto Government, no possible rational motive can be
344 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
found for supposing that it can survive more than six months
longer.
Putting aside the great events that bear some relation to
historical precedents, and coming down to the level of home
politics, the conviction of the impossibility of the perma-
nancy of the Carranza dictatorship is forcibly driven home.
At present there are two great political parties in Mexico,
irreconcilable and not to be dominated, so far as the fierce
conflict of cupidity and baseness is concerned : first, those who
have stolen much and who want to steal more ; second, those
who have not had the opportunity to steal and are fairly
rabid to join those sordid ranks. The latter embraces also
those who have only been able to steal moderately, or those
who, having stolen much, have squandered the fruits of
their spoliation. The words of the French publicist, whom
I have previously quoted, are realized in Mexico now as
never before: "The political problem in Latin- America is
fundamentally a problem of public thieving." The Mexican
political problem is fundamentally, formally, absolutely, rel-
atively, in its length, breadth and depth, in every respect in
fact, a problem of public thieving, because the revolution has
put the stamp of its approval upon it, making both public
and private theft a respected, sacred, political and patriotic
proceeding. In Mexico to steal is to live; not to steal is to
fall into the pit dug for cowards and honest men, and the
hope of stealing is implanted as deeply in the soul of the
revolutionist as the hope of heaven in the Christian's soul.
The dictatorship of Senor Carranza seems to count upon
but few propitious circumstances. Napoleon I defined
Caesarism as "the struggle of the ambition of one against the
ambition of all." The "ambition of all" has passed and is
passing through a tremendous crisis in Mexico. During the
Diaz dictatorship the country's problem of public thieving
was, on the whole, satisfactorily solved in favor of the na-
tion. There was corruption but, as I have proved, it was less
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 345
in Mexico than in any other Latin-American country, the
Diaz administration being a model in this respect.
The Reyista press aroused the envy of the middle class,
especially that of the educated proletariat, and the general,
accepted concept of General Diaz's Government was that
it was a band of thieves, lead by Limantour. Limantour
was never a thief, and many persons, Mexicans as well as
foreigners, are now convinced that this is true-. He ener-
getically fought and prevented almost all the dishonest
schemes projected by "patriots"; he waged war unto death
against the most dexterous and obstinate thieves; he ren-
dered incalculable services to his country; and, nevertheless,
his large estates in Mexico have been confiscated. A plot
was on foot to assassinate him when Madero triumphed, and,
even to-day, if he were captured he would be executed at
once, the only grievance against him being that he did not
permit those to steal who to-day are thirsting for gold and
for vengeance against those who dared to hold back this
army of Constitutionalist rapacity.
But the revolution is great and noble and we must once
more bend the knee and kiss its hand, that blood-stained hand
that is licked by a miserable and starving nation ! The revolu-
tion has avenged Limantour, the dictator, his administration.
It was the well-paid, well-fed, lazy bureaucratic middle class,
assured of a roseate future in view of the abundant vintage
to be pressed from the juicy budget, that was most indignant
against the imaginary thieves. The bureaucrat of those days
was the type of the lotus eater, inviolable in his blissful
egotism. The bureaucrat of to-day is an emaciated, mangy
spectator of universal spoliation, of veritable public and
private theft, of that theft which swallows bureaucratic sal-
aries and which hourly submerges the bureaucracy more and
more in the terror of abject want, and brings it nearer to
death by starvation. And to think that in the decadent days
of the dictatorship, General Diaz should have countenanced
346 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the protests, the hypocritical judgments, the paroxisms of
outraged virtue, hysterical envy and wounded patriotism, and
all that program of vilification which was carried on against
the Cientificos! To-day theft is the right of the conqueror,
the recompense of his crimes, the only constitutional law,
and the envious, the honorable, the poor, the rich and above
all the cowards, must do homage to it under pain of death.
To-day mock virtue does not parade, campaigns of vilifica-
tion are not inaugurated, nor do the bells of public opinion
peal forth denunciations of the dishonest Cientificos. To-day
one must die a cowardly death, overcome by the anaesthesia
of profound abjection, or gagged by the filthy hands of ban-
dits. There can be no doubt that the revolution has been
justice-dealing. Against the immense imaginary theft of the
dictatorship, we have the barefaced, noisy, feverish, brutal,
prehistoric robbery of Constitutionalism. The calumniators
of the Porfirian Administration are satisfied; the revolution
has been an excellent teacher. Let us ponder its lessons !
During the Porfirian regime there was only one key to
the paradise of political theft, and that was the consumma-
tion of dirty business transactions by means of the contract
system, the system that in Cuba is colloquially called ff los
chivos" (the goats). Theft was possible only by means of
extortion. To-day peculation is the bloom to be plucked
from the administration, without prejudicing the normal de-
velopment of the contract system. Formerly theft had pene-
trated into the judiciary by means of the coercion of higher
authority. To-day coercion is not needed to convert the
courts into robbing machines. In all civil or penal judg-
ments the judge asks which of the contending parties is a
Cientifico ; that is, which has the greatest amount of portable
wealth and, therefore, the greater responsibility as the people's
enemy. Once this important legal point has been settled, the
Cientifico is immediately condemned. Such is the Roque
Estrada code. To-day all private property is under the law
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 347
of confiscation or supervision. Everything that has any eco-
nomic, moral or intellectual value is listed as subject to con-
fiscation or destruction. This admirable anarchistic ma-
chine, consumer of the last cent, the last honest man, the
last trace of social life, is called pre-Constitutionalism, and
was, it seems, invented by Senor Luis Cabrera.
The position of a dictator in the face of this pre-Constitu-
tionalist machine can now be understood. This patriotic in-
vention has increased ambition one hundredfold. Every
bandit leader, with his following of frock-coated bandits,
knows that if he triumphs he will enjoy a delicious period
of pre-Constitutionalism in which he and his friends can
help themselves to everything there is to take, assassinate all
their personal enemies, and even their troublesome friends;
and, happiness once secured, the era of Constitutionalism will
dawn to consolidate all the rapine of pre-Constitutionalism
and absolve from its responsibilities. Mexican politics have
been renewed, reformed, intensified, strictly adapted to a
chronic and mortal state of anarchy, and all this marvellous
transformation is due to the invention of pre-Constitutional-
ism!
ANOTHER GRAVE OBSTACLE CONFRONTING THE CARRANZA
DICTATORSHIP
The intrepid and honorable Porfirista general, Senor Do-
nato Guerra, with the unreserved frankness of a soldier, de-
clared in September, 1872, when Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada,
a civilian, was raised to the presidency by process of law, that
the army would never tolerate as president of Mexico any
one but a military man, because the fatherland being heroic
only a hero could govern it. Consequently, whether they
liked it or not, the Mexican people would have to be ruled
by the patriotic laws of heroism. This doctrine agrees with
that of the Colombian military president, who said: "These
348 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
countries (the Latin-American nations) belong to the
strong."
From 1821 to 1914 there have been only three Constitu-
tionalist civilian presidents in Mexico: Benito Juarez, Se-
bastian Lerdo de Tejada and Francisco I. Madero. All
three had the army for their deadly enemy. Juarez died be-
fore his overthrow was accomplished, but the downfall of
both Lerdo de Tejada and Madero was brought about by
the army. Bearing this national tradition in mind, it seems
almost impossible that Senor Venustiano Carranza, who is
not a military man, can hold for long the loyalty of the
Constitutionalist army; all the more as this army thinks it-
self more military than the German army, and, like the
latter, does not understand that it could have a civilian for
a Kaiser. The Constitutionalist army resents not only that
a civilian should be president of the Republic, but that he
should presume to be anything more than a dragoon's boot-
black or a mule in the artillery train. The Constitutionalist
revolution was launched especially against the extreme mil-
itarism represented by General Victoriano Huerta, but, as
in this redemptory revolution all the reforms conceived by the
revolutionists have been fiascos, it turns out that the redemp-
tion from militarism has produced a reactionary militarism
bordering upon that of Attila's time. Under these condi-
tions the dictatorship of a civilian of Senor Carranza's stamp
is just as logical as the successful operation of an ice plant i
the sun.
Senor Carranza bears the title of General decreed by him-
self and even by the revolutionary formulary, but neither
military men nor civilians, so far as that is concerned, con-
sider him a military man. The best proof of this assertion,
which implies such grave consequences, is that Senor Car-
ranza's most ardent admirers, who are trying by every pos-
sible means to heighten his prestige, never speak of him as
a great military hero. Quoting from his panegyrists we find
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 349
the following: ."He is the man of the revolution" (Pala-
vicini) ; "The living symbol of the aspirations of the down-
trodden masses" (R. Pesqueira) ; "The prototype of the re-
formers"; "The leading man of Mexico" (J. N. Macias) ;
"The divine breath of the fatherland" (P. Martinez) ;
"The genius that has inspired sacrifices for the fatherland"
(E. Gomez Caso) ; "He is cast in the mould of immortality
and shed a molten tear upon Madero's grave" (R. Fernan-
dez Giiell) ; "The everlasting idol of free peoples" (R.
Rivera) ; "The real arbiter of our future destinies" (Pedro
Lamicq) ; "The pure fire of patriotic souls"; "Universal
heir of the granite-like soul of the sublime Juarez" (C.
Dominguez) ; "Great prophet"; "Great statesman who be-
fore long will surprise the New World"; "Patrician soul";
"Luminous talent, and above all he is The Man!" (Santos
Chocano) ; "The vindication of rebellion"; "The brilliancy
of patriotism"; "The diamond-like purity of the national
ideals" (M. Fernandez Cabrera).
In all this psalter of Carrancista praises we do not find
such expressions as "the flaming sword," "the thunderbolt of
war," "the terror of the furies," indicating that any martial
traits are included in the concept of the First Chief. Even
supposing that Carranza were a general in reality, and not
one simply by courtesy, he does not possess the personal mag-
netism indispensable to a great leader. The country needs
a dictator as great as the greatness of the misfortune that is
submerging it, and it is indispensable that he should be a
hero possessing the magnetic qualities of a Cromwell or a
Napoleon I such heroes, in short, as Mexico herself has
produced: Morelos, Iturbide, Santa Anna, Miramon, Por-
firio Diaz, and Villa among his bandit followers. Obregon
has not as yet displayed his power completely to dominate
the Constitutionalist army, or even the whole of the western
branch, but he is the only military man at this time who has
350 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
enough prestige among his followers to attempt the pacifica-
tion of the country upon a somewhat rational basis.
No class, especially the military, can stand Senor Car-
ranza as dictator or as president of the Republic because he
lacks the indispensable qualities for a Mexican dictator.
Every one in Mexico (except the bandits who are profiting
by anarchy) wants peace; but not the peace of the Asiatic
slave of three thousand years ago ; not the Carrancista peace,
which is nothing but anarchy whitewashed into a de facto
Government, much less the peace imposed by President Wil-
son. Carranza is simply a business proposition, and a fairly
good one at that, so long as the financial and economic con-
ditions in the country permit of the co-existence of social life
with the disorder and pillage raging everywhere.
OBREGON'S COUP
National and foreign opinion looks for the Obregon coup
as an inevitable outcome in the evolution of the present an-
archistic situation in Mexico. This can be predicted with
almost mathematical precision from the precedents of uni-
versal as well as Mexican history. General Guadalupe Vic-
toria, the hero of the War of Independence, associated with
General Santa Anna, revolted against the Emperor Iturbide
and won the supreme power by means of a military coup.
General Miguel Bravo, also a hero of the War of Independ-
ence, revolted against President Victoria but without suc-
cess, and another Independence hero, General Vicente Guer-
rero, carried his revolt against Victoria to a successful ter-
mination. General Anastasio Bustamante, in turn, ousted
General Guerrero from the presidential chair by force.
General Santa Anna, the "military genius," by means of a
military coup overthrew President Bustamante in 1832 and
again in 1841.
Santa Anna's great friend, General Mariano Paredes y
Arrillaga, in his capacity of "military genius," betrayed him
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 351
by means of a military coup, and General Gabriel Valencia
retaliated by overthrowing Paredes y Arrillaga to reinstate
Santa Anna, who returned from exile to assume the power
in virtue of the Guadalajara coup executed in his favor.
General Ignacio Comonfort, the "military genius" of the
Plan de Ayutla, was loyal to President Juan Alvarez, but
General Manuel Doblado, Comonfort's associate, initiated
the revolt of San Luis Potosi, and President Alvarez pru-
dently resigned and withdrew to his estates in the south.
General Felix Zuluaga, intimate friend of Comonfort's,
betrayed him through the Tacubaya coup, and General
Miguel Miramon, the brilliant "military genius," turned
against Zuluaga and overthrew him. If the French had
not appeared in 1862, General Gonzalez Ortega, the daz-
/ling "military genius," would have started a revolt against
President Benito Juarez. General Porfirio Diaz, recognized
a "military genius" in 1869, launched his Plan de la Nona,
and would unquestionably have overthrown Juarez if the
latter had not been called to his final accounting, dying
on July 1 8, 1872. As the "military genius" of the day,
General Porfirio Diaz was able to carry out his coup against
President Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, and by this means
reached the presidency in 1876. General Bernardo Reyes,
converted into the "military genius" of the day by the power
of the anti-Cientifico press, prepared to revolt against Gen-
eral Diaz, but his courage failed him at the critical moment
and he fled, leaving the apostle, Francisco Madero, heir to
the carefully prepared revolution. Pascual Orozco's flam-
ing sword, or to be more exact, flaming rifle, won the victory
for Madero, thereby earning the title of "military genius,"
and the consequent obligation of revolting against Madero.
"The Apostle" was saved by Huerta's sword, and his vic-
tories over Orozco proclaimed him the "military genius" of
the day. Huerta, following historic precedent, betrayed
Madero and permitted the latter's Reyista and Felicista en-
352 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
emies to put him to death. The "military genius" Villa
betrayed Carranza, and in the natural order of things Obre-
gon will be obliged to betray his chief.
Machiavelli takes up the relations between the Caesar and
the "military genius" and finds that they are incompatible
with harmony. The only logical solution is the recognition
of the inalienable right of the "military genius" to be the
Caesar. The testimony of history constantly reminds the
Caesar that if there is a "military genius" in the field he may
eventually overthrow him, and perhaps put him to death.
The informer odious but indispensable to the existence of
Cassarism daily carries tales to the Caesar of the conspira-
cies of the "military genius" even when no such conspiracies
exist. The informer must be abundantly supplied with the
very marrow of calumny, and he chooses the unfortunate
"military genius" as the base of supplies, even though the lat-
ter may have no personal ambitions. The historic phrase (f tu
quoque Marce Brute fill mi ex Us es" attributed to Caesar,
has remained the somber formula of the general evolution of
Caesarian forms of government when the Caesar is not a good
judge of men, and should be his parting words as he falls,
stabbed through the heart by the hand of the traitor. But
in Latin-America the dictator, instead of cherishing the "mil-
itary genius" as a son, detests him and endeavors to reverse
the order, making Brutus fall by the hand of Caesar. Ac-
cording to Machiavelli, and in this he is correct, the Caesar's
life is as much in danger at the hands of the "military
genius" as the life of the latter is in danger at the hands of
the Caesar. On the other hand, when public opinion has
pronounced against the emperor it looks for a deliverer at
any cost, and if at that moment there is a military hero to
turn to, it proceeds to arouse his ambition, to hypnotize him,
to convince him, in order to induce him to carry out the inex-
orable law of nations ruled by dictators: to the victor be-
long the spoils. If the "military genius" does not respond,
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 353
he is branded a coward, unpatriotic, despicable. The Caesar,
on his side, devotes himself to nullifying these efforts, to
postponing the inevitable, and if possible to putting an end
to the "military genius." Nothing is left to the latter but
to follow historical precedent, or to end like Belisarius, the
attractive hero of the Eastern Empire, a wandering beggar,
blind and forgotten.
Peace in Mexico cannot be founded on the Carranza-
Obregon formula, which, tested sociologically, gives a blood-
and-death reaction. It is true that in Mexico we have had
the example of General Sostenes Rocha, who cleaved to Pres-
ident Benito Juarez with the loyalty of Agrippa for Augus-
tus; but it must not be forgotten that Rocha's devotion to
Juarez partook of the nature of a cult. To him Juarez was
a demi-god; whereas, according to certain information that
has filtered through the pompous phrases of the Carrancista
press, and above all from the declarations of some of the rev-
olutionary chiefs, those of a Sonora colonel in particular, it
is evident that Carranza is not his subordinate's idol. Ac-
cording to this colonel, Don Venustiano Carranza is only "a
poor man" in General Obregon's eyes, soaked in flattery and
adulation, the greater part of which has been paid for by the
First Chief himself from his substantial "reptile fund."
Even in the event that Obregon caved in, as Reyes did in
1909, he would always have a successor, because one of the
most formidable enemies to Senor Carranza's ambition is
militarism, irreconcilable in its attitude against civilian pres-
idents, and especially against a civilian who has not, as
was said of President Lerdo de Tejada, the "sun for a
brain."
PRESIDENT WILSON'S APOSTASY AND THE REFORMERS
In every body of men credited with great virtue there is
always a certain number of hypocrites. In every body of
354 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
unprincipled politicians, boasting of sublime humanitarian
principles, there is always a certain number of sincere men,
and some of them may even touch the heights of real sub-
limity. In view of this fact we are obliged to accept the
presence of a certain number of truly apostolic men among
the revolutionists, even though they may be thieves, because
it is possible to be an apostle even if one be a thief. The real
apostle who is also a fanatic is dangerous, because he exer-
cises a power akin to the divine over the masses, as is ex-
emplified by Zapata's influence over his own race. Even
though President Wilson captures and executes his ff ex-buen
amigo" (ex-good friend), the bandit Villa, Villism, instead
of dying out with its creator, will take the form of a popular
religious cult which will impregnate with fanaticism all the
poor to whom the Constitutionalists have preached the dog-
ma that this revolution was being fought expressly to make
the poor happy. The poor have understood what they have
seen; that is, that although the ostensible reason of the spo-
liation of the rich was to benefit the poor, the Constitutional-
ists have not lived up to their promises; what they have
stolen, which includes all that the poor possessed, they have
pocketed.
The unfortunate Mexican feels that he actually has been
robbed by his apostles, who have lost all standing among
the people. They are looked upon as the real enemies of the
people, even more than the Cientificos who gave them work
and paid with silver. Constitutionalism either does not give
work or defrauds the working-man by paying with worthless
money. Villism is a species of Vandalistic vindication of the
poor against Carrancism, which has increased their misery
and which laughs at their hopes, attempting to satisfy their
hunger for bread and slake their thirst for justice by flaunt-
ing before them Carranza's dazzling ambition to restore the
decadent Porfirism of 1910. Villism may triumph and give
the final death blow to Mexico, or it may always remain a
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 355
revolutionary furnace, well-kindled or only partially slacked,
ready at any moment to leap into flame.
According to the latest reports, an extreme radical faction
has come into being and is ready for the struggle. It is con-
vinced that as the Constitutionalists have manifested their
contempt for the dictatorial form of government, Carranza
has become the reform's worst enemy. They are as keen
now for the distribution of the supreme power among dif-
ferent Federal and state powers as they once were for the
distribution of land, some going so far as to aspire to have
the nation reformed and pulverized by a luminous conven-
tion, dowered with a corresponding Comite de Sante Public
and as many guillotines as may be necessary. Senor Car-
ranza told the poet Santos Chocano that he was ready to go
wherever his partisans might take him. I think this is doubt-
ful, because it is to the guillotine that the partisans of the
conventionist type usually take First Chiefs when they at-
tempt to assume the rank of kings or presidents.
President Wilson is beginning to gather the bitter fruits
of his idealism. The sincere reformers are more antagonistic
to President Wilson than even the Huertistas, and it must
be granted that they are amply justified. Our great revolu-
tion, they say, was initiated to carry out the distribution of
lands and to lift from Mexico's neck the foreign yoke, and
the most humiliating example of the latter is the present
Mexican Government's state of abject subjection to the tute-
lage of the President of the United States.
General Alvarado, the governor of Yucatan, ordered that
the Yucatecan lands producing the valuable henequen should
be distributed as far as they would go, not only among the
poor of the state but among all poor Mexicans. General
Alvarado publicly, and over his own signature, explained
that the promises made by the revolution must be kept at
any cost in order to avoid bringing dishonor upon it and in-
curring the charge of cowardice. The planters endeavored
356 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
by every means to induce the governor to rescind the fatal
decree, and not receiving a favorable reply they had recourse
to Carranza, who upheld the governor. The planters then
sent a commission to Washington which obtained from Mr.
Lansing, the Secretary of State, the promise that the
Alvarado decree would be nullified by Carranza. The com-
mission also had a conference in the United States with
Senor Luis Cabrera, the First Chief's Secretary of Treas-
ury, who at the instance of Mr. Lansing, communicated by
the unfaithful revolutionist Cabrera, obtained from Carranza
a special decree nullifying all the sacred, socialistic, vindicat-
ing work begun by General Alvarado. The First Chief
placed his subordinate in a ridiculous position, but Alvarado
himself has given all the world the right to call him vile and
cowardly. The radical faction, in a printed sheet that lies be-
fore me, accuses Mr. Wilson of having betrayed them and of
inciting the Mexican people to a new revolution more bloody
than the one that apparently was coming to an end. This as-
sertion is based upon the fact that the Mexican people will
not tolerate that, after the unheard-of sacrifices they have
made to obtain the distribution of the land, Mr. Wilson
should change his mind and decide to take up the cause of the
landowners. I do not believe that President Wilson's action
means a betrayal of the Mexican reformers. It must for the
time being be looked upon simply as an inexplicable act of
apostasy. Strange, indeed, must be the reason which Presi-
dent Wilson will be able to give in justification of his sud-
den change of ideals, ideals which have contributed to the
destruction of a nation of 15,000,000 inhabitants. This
holocaust had for its object the distribution of land, and when
the moment arrived to fulfill the promises so sacredly pledged
by the revolution, his Secretary, Mr. Lansing, forced Car-
ranza to restore the old order in Yucatan.
In the incendiary sheet to which I have referred the mal-
contents point to Senor Venustiano Carranza as an un-
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 357
happy traitor to his country, basing this terrible accusation
upon the following facts. In order to systematize the spo-
liation of the henequen planters of one-half the value of
their gross production, General Alvarado ordered the reor-
ganization of the Yucatan Adjusting Company. The profits
of this spoliation were to be divided between the de facto
Government, the Yucatan state Government, and the in-
triguing authors of this combination a barefaced monopoly
for universal spoliation. The International Harvester Com-
pany, which had a contract for the entire henequen pro-
duction of Yucatan, complained to President Wilson, and in
order that this adroit business scheme might not fall
through, General Alvarado had recourse to a characteristic-
ally Carrancista measure. He obliged all the planters, under
pain of confiscation of their plantations and the destruction
of their maguey fields, to form a commission to go to Wash-
ington to inform President Wilson that it was not true that
they had been despoiled, or that the Adjusting Company was
in any sense of the word a monopoly, or that their interests
would continue to suffer; but that, on the contrary, they
were eminently satisfied with General Alvarado's orders,
which were daily adding to their capital.
The foregoing facts, which can be absolutely substantiated,
prove that the governor of Yucatan recognizes President
Wilson as the supreme authority in Mexican affairs, and that
the revolutionist's so-called aspiration to confer real national
independence on the Mexican Government has been one of
the many farces proclaimed to obtain the supreme power.
The malcontents conclude by saying that at this moment
Mexico is being governed by the Wilson-Carranza alliance,
and decide that from the moment that Mr. Wilson has con-
stituted himself a supreme authority in Mexican affairs war
against Carranza and the United States is indispensable, the
Mexican people having the right to revolt against all Mex-
ican authority which oppresses them.
358 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
The spirit manifested by these malcontents, who are rap-
idly organizing, increases the gravity of the Mexican conflict,
and there can be no doubt that President Wilson's conduct
is to be characterized as apostasy.
A REVOLUTION IS A REVOLUTION
The positive and justifiable basis of the revolution of 1910
against the permanent dictatorship of General Diaz was the
necessity of renewing the personnel of the Government.
Public opinion has aspired and still aspires to the speedy ap-
pearance of capable new men. Mexico cannot hope for
anything from the old men as a whole, be they Porfiristas,
Felicistas, Huertistas or Carrancistas. Neither Senor Venus-
tiano Carranza nor those of his circle belong to the ranks
of the new men. Carrancism is an offshoot of Reyism, and
is a species of bossism tainted with its most corrupt and per-
nicious qualities.
The budding statesmen Carranza has held up to the pub-
lic view as new men are more worn out than the Porfirian
mummies that retired into their niches in August, 1914. In
politics nothing ages as much as incompetency, and so far the
Carrancista younger element has shown more aptitude for
appropriating automobiles and other things not belonging to
it, than to dazzling its contemporaries with its civic virtue
and its genius for government.
Every revolution necessarily brings about a renewal, and
the present Mexican revolution has attempted the daring and
dangerous feat of renewing not only the political order, but
the social as well. If the conquered do not react energetic-
ally to undo the revolutionary program, it will exterminate
them by hunger, pestilence, expatriation and sorrow. Some
of the many who are overwhelmed by abjection may be
saved by humbly soliciting mercy or by having their mendi-
cancy relieved by official preferment.
There are many so-called new men belonging to the old
THE COLLAPSE OF CARRANCISM 359
element who with cunning cynicism and stupendous aptitude
for intrigue have managed to worm themselves into high of-
fices. These they do not deserve even among bandits, be-
cause they have not earned them by exposing their lives, but,
like all shameless politicians, have taken advantage of the un-
sophisticated and inexperienced wild beasts they are guiding.
Fortunately, the revolution is more implacable than the most
implacable revolutionist, and inasmuch has to be merciless
toward Carranza and all the men of the old stamp who pay
court to him. All these incompetents followers of the old
regime traditions, but traitors to it must be eliminated by
the revolution, ending their career tragically or going into
exile to enjoy the fruits of their spoliation. A revolutionist
who does not possess superior traits of character becomes
brutalized. He believes that a real revolution is waged ex-
pressly to satisfy his personal ambitions, and when these are
satisfied, or on the way to being satisfied, the revolution can
be brought to a standstill, just as a powerful engine can be
stopped at the will of the engineer. A revolution ends when
it has fulfilled its mission. It never miscarries; it is the
dreams, the projects, the turpitudes of the revolutionists
which miscarry. Who represents the de facto Government
at this moment? Carranza? Then the revolution has not
ended. Carranza is the product of the discredited Porfirian
regime and it is politically impossible, no matter what the
slant, as yet unknown, the revolution may take, that this
should end by raising to power one who ought to be most
speedily eliminated. The appointment of General Obregon
as Secretary of War signifies that Senor Venustiano Car-
ranza has taken the first step toward exile or the grave.
CHAPTER III
FINAL CONCLUSIONS: PRKSIDKNT WILSON'S
LATKST SKKIOUS KKKORS
'INI. ONLY SOLUTION OF Till* MI-XFCAN I'ROIJLKM IN
Shl'Th.MKKK,
Till, different propositions offered for the solution of
the Mexican question have been:
Kirst, according to American public opinion:
Armed intervention, or to It ;,\ c tin- Mexicans absolutely free
to solve the present anarchistic situation by a healthful reac-
tion or by self-extermination.
Second, according to the opinion of foreigners living in
Mexico: Armed intervention to establish a stable govern-
ment, supported by the United States and capable of guar-
anteeing peace. This is the solution upheld by the European
Governments and peoples. The Latin-American republics
have not expressed a general opinion on the subject.
Third, according to the Mexican patriotic criterion,
which is mine: To leave the Mexicans absolutely free
to solve their internal difficulties, relying solely upon na-
tional elements, President Wilson relinquishing his idealistic
theories and his apostolic and humanitarian efforts in behalf
of the poor and downtrodden. Only in the event that
anarchy attacks foreigners by a systematic, well-formulated
program shall the United States intervene, and then
strictly in conformity with the dictates of international law.
In case anarchy cannot be brought to an end by a salutary
reaction in Mexico, and the Mexican people's inability to
establish a tolerable government and restore social order be
360
FINAL CONCLUSIONS 361
plainly demonstrated, then intervention could be undertaken
in the name of humanity, based upon the fact that the
United States Government had given complete freedom to
ail the positive reactionary elements to work out the nation's
salvation.
From this it will he ^erji that the rational solution of the
an problem could not be other than armed interven-
tion, or the absolute abstention by the President of the
United States from interference in Mexico's internal affairs.
Kor military n-a :,oir,, upon which it is unnecessary to ex-
patiate here, the United States cannot intervene in Mexico
as easily as it has in Panama, in Nicaragua or in Haiti, be-
cause it would necessitate putting the nation upon a war
footing, a condition not existing at present. The solution
by armed intervention requires time for preparation in order
to carry it out prudently, and this could not be done in less
than six months. In September, 1915, then, the immediate
solution of the Mexican question for the President of the
United States was to leave anarchy to operate with absolute
freedom for an indefinite period, or until the United States
was in a fit military position to have recourse to armed in-
tervention.
But the solution I have outlined the only feasible one
at the time did not appeal to President Wilson. Swayed
by political motives, looking to the coming elections, he was
anxious to put an end to anarchy in Mexico and present as
one of his presidential achievements the pacification of a
people who, supported by his benevolence, made great sacri-
fices in order to die of hunger and to totter to their graves
along the <!a/,/ling highway of liberty pointed out by him.
The plan adopted by Mr. WiKon to put an end to anarchy
in Mexico \va> nothing short of a great blunder. He called
a me. -ting of tlie chiefs of the various factions fighting in
Mexico, expecting by means of moral force no longer pos-
b\ the United States to oblige them to sign a peace
362 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
compact and to choose a provisional president whom all
would agree to obey. President Wilson's blunder consisted
in continuing to close his eyes to the testimony of history,
which should serve as a guide for statesmen. Never has
anarchy in Latin-America, originating from strifes in which
the element of personalism has existed, been solved by im-
personal means. Mexican anarchy, like all anarchy reigning
in countries ruled by dictators, has to be brought to an end
by the appearance of a dictator created by the situation it-
self, which will also take care of creating official men, or
what amounts to the same, forming a governing aristocracy,
which is indispensable even in the dictatorial system.
Dictators are never appointed ; they create the post ; they
impose themselves upon the people; they organize their des-
potism; they develop it, and govern with more or less suc-
cess as the case may be. When President Wilson's plan to
put an end to anarchy in Mexico by means of a conciliatory
meeting failed, he decided to settle upon Sefior Venustiano
Carranza as the "iron hand," because the latter had con-
vinced him that he had dominated the situation from the
military standpoint. At this point President Wilson was
guilty of another blunder in believing that Carranza had
dominated the military situation. The dominator was Gen-
eral Alvaro Obregon, and as the sociological law governing
dictatorial nations is, to the victor belong the spoils, Presi-
dent Wilson's recognition of Carranza would have placed
him in a ridiculous position if Obregon had laid claim to
his rights to the Mexican presidency won by his victorious
sword. In that case President Wilson would have been
obliged to embroil the Mexicans in a new war by fighting
Obregon, as he fought Huerta, until he overthrew him.
Even if Obregon does not claim his rights, rights that no
Latin-American dictatorial country can deny him, a twen-
tieth-century dictator in America must possess three qualities
to bring a country out of anarchy and reconstruct it socially
FINAL CONCLUSIONS 363
and politically: He must have an "iron hand"; he must
respect the representative democratic form of government;
and he must have public opinion in his favor, and the de-
cided support, or at least the toleration, of the conservative
classes.
As has been proved, Senor Venustiano Carranza has read
the law of dictators backwards, as he places the "iron hand"
upon the peaceful and the honest, and caresses the bandits
with a maternal tenderness. Carranza's ambition is the
well-defined program of being the parasite of those who
make game of his weakness, consenting to all kinds of crimes
in order to win their false allegiance. The indispensable
requisite of respect for the representative democratic form of
government does not exist, having been replaced by the
shameless proclamation of the period of pre-Constitutional-
ism, reminiscent of prehistoric tyranny. With regard to
the requisite of public opinion, President Wilson has com-
mitted the unpardonable error of believing that in Latin-
America all that is necessary to smother anarchy is to create
an "iron hand," no matter who the wielder may be. The
history of Latin-American nations throughout one hundred
years, as well as the history of Imperial Rome and of the
Italian condottiere, proves that dictators who have been
hated by the whole nation, and who were without any other
support than that of their miserable agents, were always
weak in the extreme and were subject to being betrayed by
their own followers. They were obsessed by the terror of
the ever-increasing odium of the public which urged them
traitors to tyranny to throw themselves at the mercy of
the people in order to preserve the fruit of their rapine.
Neither Mr. Wilson nor the delegates of the Latin-Amer-
ican Government who, in October, 1915, made up the com-
mission which so degraded Mexico placing her on the
same level as Albania recognized the fact that even though
Carranza had dominated the situation from a military point
364 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
of view, the guerrilla bands had not yet been subjugated.
And even if he dominated these, there still remained the
economic situation (the problem of the starving nation),
and the financial situation (the complete state of bank-
ruptcy), which must eventually lead him in the direction
toward which he is now headed. It is becoming impossible
for him to pay his mercenaries and the inevitable result will
be that they will pounce upon the remainder of the country's
wealth, because otherwise they will starve. But even
if the financial situation could be solved and dominated, pub-
lic opinion still remains which, as I have so frequently said,
basing my assertions on our national history, always ends
by obsessing the paid assassins of the tyrant and inducing
them to turn their arms against the person of the Caesar.
National and foreign public opinion is against Car-
rancism, and there is a counter-revolutionary movement,
whether President Wilson wishes to acknowledge it or not.
First, Villism, properly so-called, which embodies the popu-
lar Mexican hatred for the United States and for President
Wilson in particular. This hatred is manifested by the dis-
position of all the bandits to kill Americans and destroy
their property, not only in the state of Chihuahua but all
over the country. Second, Zapatism, which represents the
real aspirations of the indigenous race, brave, indomitable,
resolved to triumph or to die, and which professes the same
degree of hatred for the United States that the Villistas do.
Third, the conservative classes, represented by all property
owners, business men, manufacturers, the great bureau-
cratic class which is starving to death, and the radical
Jacobin lower middle class. All these various elements have
the most profound hatred for President Wilson, because,
being a white man, he has given his protection to a war
against the whites; because, being a foreigner, he has pro-
tected a war against foreigners; because, being the Presi-
dent of the United States and in virtue of the Monroe Doc-
FINAL CONCLUSIONS 365
trine bound to see that the rights of foreigners who are not
Americans are respected, he has protected the bandits, who
are the enemies of all foreigners, presenting the only example
in history of a proxy protecting the enemies of his own
clients; because, being an American, that is, a believer in
liberty of conscience, he has protected a frenzied war against
Catholicism, waged as cruelly and bloodily as the religious
wars of the sixteenth century; and, lastly, because he has
protected a war of the poor against the rich, notwithstand-
ing the fact that he is the President of a democratic republic
in which one of the first rights of a man is to work to get
rich, and the second, to be respected when he has attained
this goal.
When the Civil War ended in 1865, three years after
the invasion of Mexico by the French, Mr. Seward, the
Secretary of State, sent Napoleon III, through Mr. Bige-
low, United States Minister to France, the famous note in
which he was told that the United States, in view of the
amplified Monroe Doctrine, could not consent to the occu-
pation of Mexico by a foreign army, and that it was abso-
lutely necessary that this should be withdrawn. French
diplomacy called President Lincoln's attention to the fact
that the Monroe Doctrine was not being violated, because
the French army was not in Mexico for the purpose of
acquiring territory, either definitely or temporarily, but
simply to establish solidly a government freely elected by
the Mexican people, who had voted for a monarchy, select-
ing as their ruler the Archduke Maximilian of Austria.
Mr. Seward replied that even if this were the case it did
not meet the United States' approval to have a country
ruled by a monarchical form of government for its next-door
neighbor. As interpreted by Mr. Seward, the Monroe
Doctrine was stretched to include the prohibition of the
establishment of monarchies in Latin-America.
The American people and the Latin- American republics
366 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
have the right to ask Mr. Wilson: Does the establishment,
adjoining its frontier, of a socialistic, anarchistic republic,
having as a fundamental principle the war of the poor
against the rich, meet with the approval of the people of
the United States, where a menacing Socialistic party already
exists, and which is in a fair way to develop along lines ex-
tremely dangerous to the stability of the American Govern-
ment? Are monarchical institutions more dangerous to the
well-being of the American people than anarchistic institu-
tions, given over to pillage, crime and national dissolution?
I believe President Wilson in the position of President of
the United States is one of the most dangerous enemies of
humanity.
If the conservative classes are opposed to the establish-
ment of Carrancism let us see what goes on in the popular
class. For eight years General Reyes carried on secretly
and in the open a campaign against the Cientificos, trying
to inflame popular sentiment against them and to disguise
the war of the poor against the rich by the substitution of
one word for another. The Reyista formula was: The
war of the poor against the rich, who are the Cientificos.
For three years after the Creelman conference, from
1908 to 1910, inclusive, the agitators all over the country
who were affiliated with the Reyistas upheld the war of the
poor against the Cientificos, making the people believe that
they were the rich men of the nation. In the Madero elec-
tions of 1912, the demagogues, in order to break the power
of the Catholic party, which possessed enormous electoral
strength, openly and boldly fell back upon the promise of
war against the rich and the distribution of their property
among the poor. The promise of the distribution of the
land has been the cloak most frequently used to conceal the
real cry to excite the popular mind the war of the poor
against the rich and the extermination of the latter. I have
given ample proof in this book that the sinister, vivifying
FINAL CONCLUSIONS 367
principle of the revolution has really been two leading pas-
sions carried to the point of dementia vengeance and pil-
lage. By means of this great promise the Mexican people
became convinced that the revolution had been waged, or
should be waged, for the exclusive benefit of the poor. As
these people are illiterate, their boundless credulity was
played upon, and they were convinced that with the division
of the wealth of the rich among the poor they would be
rich and, consequently, happy, because they would not have
to work.
The revolution that overthrew Huerta was initiated and
consummated by the men of the north, the population of
this section being 2,500,000. The northerners had the active
support of the states of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Vera
Cruz, and the moral support of the 10,000,000 inhabitants
of the central states. When the northerners triumphed and
obtained possession of all the Republic except the state of
Oaxaca and the territory dominated by Zapata, they ordered
the disarmament, under pain of death, of all the towns. No
one possessing a firearm or sidearm of any description was
allowed to keep it. Having accomplished the complete dis-
armament, the northerners proclaimed themselves conquerors
of the central states and the inhabitants became virtual slaves.
Such is the democracy President Wilson has succeeded in
establishing in Mexico at the expense of its national life.
Naturally, the virile portion of this enslaved population is
beginning to understand its true situation, and is resolved
not to submit to the yoke imposed by the northerners. They,
moreover, have seen and continue to see that the northerners
have despoiled the rich of all their possessions, but have not
divided them among the poor, that, on the contrary,
any unfortunate poor person caught stealing is shot. The
fruits of this rapine are for the conquerors, and an evident
undercurrent of insurrection against their oppressors is be-
ginning to be evident among the working classes; that is,
368 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
among the eighty-five per cent which has aroused Mr. Wil-
son's sympathies. Carrancism, then, has arrayed against it
at present the odium of the poor, who have been deceived
and placed in such a desperate plight by the rapacity of the
conquerors, as well as by their inability to govern. An
actual state of famine is not far off. Paper money is depre-
ciating rapidly and the daily wage is not increasing, even at
a rate to enable the poor to starve gradually to death.
A real statesman and undoubtedly Mr. Wilson is not
one should have taken into consideration the fact that
from a political standpoint Senor Carranza cannot be the
head of the Mexican Government. All honest Maderistas
hate him. Senor Carranza has carried his passion for ven-
geance to the point of confiscating all Madero's property, as
well as that of his brother Gustavo. For Carranza only
one rule holds good : either you are a Carrancista or you are
not; if not, you are to be punished by confiscation of all
your property and even death itself. A politician of this sort
can never govern. Implacable haters were never born to
rule; they are destined to raise up an enemy to every square
yard of territory they profess to rule. In October, 1915,
Senor Carranza was face to face with the revolting forces
some armed, others about to be armed of the Maderistas,
the Huertistas, the Felicistas, the Villistas, the Zapatistas,
the counter-reformers, the landowners, the roving bandits,
the dissatisfied bandits, who will not long remain faithful
to him, the Catholics, and even the clergy. And since the
Columbus incident he will have against him, whether Villa
is captured or not, every true patriot, taking into account
that there are also patriots in the ranks of the Carrancistas.
No one will forgive Carranza for having given permission
for the punitive expedition undertaken by the United States
which is so humiliating for Mexico and significant of a
tremendous blow against her sovereignty.
Reflecting upon the facts I have just stated all of which,
FINAL CONCLUSIONS 369
excepting the Columbus incident, existed in October, 1915
one becomes convinced of Carranza's political impotency to
establish a stable government. Nevertheless, President Wil-
son decided to recognize Carranza, without feeling the
slightest compassion for the Mexican people; without taking
into consideration the abject state of salvery to which they
had been reduced; without experiencing any sense of moral
responsibility at confirming the subjugation of I2,OOO,OOO
souls in the central states by the men of the north; without
estimating his responsibility before the American people for
his conduct, because his action could not help but provoke
a fierce and inextinguishable hatred of Americans among the
people whom he had helped to enslave. I am going to set
forth the pitious results of this action, although they may
be well known.
CHAPTER IV
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS
WHO IN REALITY IS VILLA?
IN view of the Columbus incident, the world, moved by
the moral aspect of the question, has exclaimed: So
long as Villa killed Mexicans and foreigners, other
than Americans, so long as he indulged in brutal mutilations,
so long as he destroyed public and private property, so long
as he sacked and burned, and trampled civilization under
foot, he was for President Wilson and his unlucky advisers
a hero, a liberator, a military genius, a Napoleon, a William
Tell. But it was enough for Villa to turn the smallest of
his batteries against his former protectors, for the ardent
admirers of yesterday to rise and brand him as a wretched
bandit worthy only of death.
It is evident that the American people are not unmoral,
perverse or imbecile. They are capable of the noblest pub-
lic passions and as quick to respond to the electric current
of public sentiment as any Latin or subjugated nation. The
American people knew Villa was a bandit; but when a
bandit represents a great revolutionary cause, his repugnant
physical characteristics are but an atom compared with the
immensity of his political character. The American peo-
ple saw in Villa a Ziska struggling to redeem an enslaved
people, languishing from hunger, pain and brutalizing tradi-
tions, surrounded by marvellous lands, but despised and kept
370
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 371
under by a vicious, avaricious, plutocratic landowning class.
The American people have but one alternative; they must
either face the unfavorable verdict of humanity and history,
or agree that they considered Villa a great leader, equal
to Drake, acclaimed by the British, or Herman Cortes, hon-
ored as the conqueror of the New World. And no one
will deny that both were as much to be admired as heroes
as they were to be execrated as bandits.
Villa, in his capacity of President of the Republic of Chi-
huahua, was for President Wilson a colleague ; as an apostle,
his confrere ; as a redeemer of the Mexican people, an equal ;
as a politician, a "buen amigo." President Wilson must
take his choice. Either he must acknowledge that he con-
firmed the American people's universal acclamation of Villa
as a belligerent, or that as the President of the United States
he has lowered his dignity to an inconceivable depth: first,
by treating a bandit with the consideration due to an equal;
second, by sending the Chief of Staff of the American Army
to treat as power to power with a bandit; and, finally, by
allowing the American soldiers, who are the social, political
and legal representatives of the national honor, to honor
Villa by the presentation of arms. There is only one way
open for President Wilson to evade the responsibility that
rests upon him for having stained his administration and
his country by maintaining cordial official relations with the
bandit Villa, and that is to stand up manfully for the truth
(which will be the verdict of history), and confess that in
the eyes of the United States Government and the American
people Villa has been a glorious belligerent, a warrior of
the epic type, fighting for a great revolutionary cause, en-
compassing the humanitarian dreams of President Wilson.
In November, 1914, the celebrated governing Conven-
tion was established with its ministers, army, administra-
tive body, counsellors, diplomatists and everything that was
necessary to give it a representative form, the majority of
372 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Mexican territory coming under its jurisdiction. Mr. Bryan
entered a claim before this Convention for the killing of an
American by a Zapatista soldier, and after brief negotiations
the Conventional Government agreed to recognize the claim
and to indemnify the widow of the deceased. When com-
munication between the capital and the north was cut off,
the Convention appointed Villa General-in-Chief of all the
Conventional army and delegate of the Convention in the
north, investing him with supreme faculties, fully as ample
as those possessed by the Convention itself. Villa proceeded
at once, in virtue of his exalted functions, to form an admin-
istration, naming a cabinet, appointing diplomatists and
counsellors, and exercised in the north an absolute govern-
ment as the representative of the Conventional Government.
PAN-AMERICANISM IS A FARCE OR AN IGNOMINY
Pan-Americanism has to be either a broken reed or some-
thing decidedly unpleasant and unsavory. The fundamental
reason for the foundation of Pan-Americanism was the co-
operation of all the nations on the American continent to
guarantee .each other's independence. The note sent by
President Wilson to General Huerta in August, 1913, by
his representative, Mr. Lind, was a barefaced attack upon
Mexican sovereignty from the moment President Wilson
imperatively ordered President Huerta recognized by all
the Great Powers as President of Mexico to cease hostili-
ties at once, to renounce the presidency, to arrange for gen-
eral elections and to submit to the prohibition of appearing
as a presidential candidate himself. What did Pan-Ameri-
canism do in the face of so flagrant a violation of Mexican
sovereignty? What Michelena, the Mexican general, said of
the judges of the Supreme Federal Court in 1827: "These
gentlemen are in their posts to flatter the winning revolu-
tionists and to sentence the losers." The Latin-American
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 373
members of the Pan-American Union are in their posts to
flatter the United States Government, because it is strong,
and to sentence the weaker nations, which are related to
them by ties of blood, to death or degradation.
In May, 1914, the Pan-Americans gave their support to
the mediation comedy held at Niagara Falls. Their mis-
sion should have been to censure the government which
brusquely exacted satisfaction by arms when it was being
granted by diplomatic means. Even more. The Pan-
Americans countenanced the subterfuge of prolonging the
negotiations in order that Huerta's overthrow might be
effected, thus saving Mr. Wilson from the anger of the
wounded Mexican dictator, who was resolved to invade
Texas in order to convert Mr. Wilson's nicely-planned
comedy into a dark tragedy.
In October, 1915, the Pan-Americans, in the fulfillment
of their duty, once more proved their littleness. They were
called together to decide upon the internal political problem
of the Mexican nation. They treated Mexico as the Euro-
pean Powers treated Albania and, albeit their Pan-Ameri-
canism, acquiesced in the formation of a conciliatory com-
mission which should decide which of the warring chiefs
should be recognized. In other words, their role was to
relieve Mr. Wilson of the disloyalty of convoking the chiefs
of the various Mexican factions, so that they might name a
provisional president. When all the chiefs, except the Car-
rancista representatives, had answered Mr. Wilson's call, he
decided to break his promises, ridicule the attitude of the
attendants, frustrate their hopes and surprise them by recog-
nizing Carranza. This was equivalent to imposing Car-
ranza as the dictator of Mexico, because it gave the assured
protection of the United States Government and the conse-
quent power to snuff out all opponents of Carrancism. One
must have very little knowledge of human nature not to
know that in the face of Mr. Wilson's treachery Villa and
374 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Zapata would be inflamed with hatred and decide upon
prompt vengeance it mattered not what, so long as it were
telling.
According to Senator Fall, the conduct of the Latin-
American members of the Pan-American Union has been
mysterious, and without a doubt it has been surprising. Be-
fore the formation of the Conciliatory Commission which
might aptly be called the Treacherous Commission they
were opposed to the appointment of Carranza. They had
been influenced by Duval West's report. Mr. West, a
representative and highly respected gentleman, had been
commissioned by President Wilson to report the true state
of things in Mexico. They also took into consideration the
following reports: that of the American Red Cross, which
was adverse to Carranza; that of the Ministers from Brazil
and Guatemala, accredited to the legitimate Mexican Gov-
ernment; that of the European Diplomatic Corps stationed
in Mexico; besides the information possessed by the Wash-
ington Government and the various public statements made
by eminent Mexicans living in the United States and which
were based upon documentary evidence. These reports were
supported by the declarations made before a notary public
by prominent Americans who had escaped from Mexico,
afraid to remain at the mercy of the mob that pretended to
govern. All this weighty testimony was set aside, dis-
credited for that submitted by Sefior Eliseo Arredondo, Car-
ranza's agent, supported by Senor Luis Cabrera, Carranza's
Secretary of the Treasury, who came to the United States
resolved to exert his powers of eloquence not as an orator,
for he does not possess them but as a diplomat, taught in
some mysterious but very thorough school. And the Latin-
American members of the Pan-American Union decided in
favor of Carranza!
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 375
A VERY SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL PRECEDENT
In 1862 Mr. Corwin, United States Minister to Mexico,
asked President Juarez, on behalf of President Lincoln, to
permit the American Federal army to cross Mexican terri-
tory in order to make an attack upon the Southern army.
The day after Mr. Corwin had presented this petition, the
agent of the Southern Government called upon President
Juarez to tell him that his Government would not tolerate
the passage of Northern troops through Mexican territory.
Such an action, he said, would be considered as an alliance
between the Mexican and Federal Governments, and the
Southerners would declare war against Mexico. President
Juarez called his attention to the fact that under interna-
tional law no such government as the Southern Government
existed and, as Mexico had not recognized the belligerency
of the Confederate States, they were nothing but rebels and
the Mexican Government could not take up for considera-
tion claims or petitions which could lawfully be submitted
only by an established government or recognized belliger-
ents. The Mexican City press, which sympathized with
the Southern cause, advocated recognizing their belligerency.
The Secretary of Foreign Relations was interpellated in the
Federal Congress with regard to this serious question, and
a heated debate was held in secret session, which, however,
resulted in non-recognition of the belligerency of the South;
but neither did it grant the request to allow the troops to
pass through Mexican territory. Senor Manuel Doblado, a
great political orator, upheld the right of the Confederates
to declare war upon Mexico in case the Mexican Govern-
ment should grant the desired permission, because, although
according to international law the Southerners were rebels,
in the sphere of reality they were belligerents, possessing the
physical and moral right to act in the premises.
There were cases, said Senor Doblado, in which the real,
376 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the legitimate and the just were opposed to what in a legal
sense is unjust, and in this case every honest man and every
government worthy of the name should be on the side of
justice; more so, as no law compelled the Mexican Govern-
ment to an act of injustice such as that of acceding to the
petition of President Lincoln's diplomatic representative.
The Mexican Congress unanimously agreed that a declara-
tion of war against Mexico by the South, would without
any doubt be justifiable, if Juarez gave permission for the
Federal army to cross Mexican territory, thereby gravely
injuring the political interests of the Southerners, whom
they believed to be patriots.
President Lincoln's Government later insisted upon carry-
ing its point, and I do not remember whether or not Presi-
dent Juarez had already given his consent to the passage of
the troops when Congress conferred extraordinary almost
absolute faculties upon him. What President Juarez
might have done after Congress in secret session had denied
permission for the troops to pass is of no consequence, if the
Southern Governments' conduct be conceded to have been
moral and just, because in reality they were belligerents, and
realities take precedence over juridical fictions and over the
decrees of international law when these are erroneously
applied.
PRESIDENT DAVIS'S RIGHT AND THE BELLIGERENT VILLA'S
RIGHT
Undoubtedly, from a personal point of view, there is a
vast difference between the honorable President of the Con-
federacy and the bandit Villa; but from a political and jurid-
ical point of view the situation is identical. President
Davis was considered a rebel by President Lincoln, and a
traitor to his country. Carranza, after having been recog-
nized by President Wilson, considered Villa a rebel and a
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 377
traitor to his country, his country in this case being identi-
fied with the revolution. Jefferson Davis was President of
the Confederacy. Villa was the Supreme Delegate of the
Mexican National Convention, which had established a
government, and he exercised the functions of President in
Chihuahua in behalf of the Convention in the north. Presi-
dent Davis was never recognized as a belligerent by Presi-
dent Juarez; General Villa was never directly recognized
as a belligerent by President Wilson, but he was expressly
and indirectly recognized as such when President Wilson
asked for a solemn conference with General Scott, his Chief
of Staff, the bandit being honored at this time by the pres-
entation of arms by the United States soldiers. Moreover,
the American people acclaimed him as a belligerent, and only
by sustaining this acclamation can they save themselves from
the imputation of having been the admirers and protectors
of a bandit who has ruthlessly destroyed a civilized nation,
which was upon the most friendly terms with their own
Government.
Once President Wilson had recognized Senor Carranza's
government he declared himself his ally. This is proved by
indisputable facts. He permitted the Carrancista troops,
provisions and munitions to pass through American terri-
tory in order to succor the Carrancista General Calles and
his four thousand men, who were threatened with annihila-
tion by Villa and his fifteen thousand troopers. In order
to help Carranza, he prohibited the shipment of provisions
to Mexico which might be used to feed the Villa forces; he
ordered the water conduit from which the Villistas drew
their supply to be closed; and, finally, he directed General
Funston, in case Mexican shells fell upon American terri-
tory, to open fire upon Villa. General Funston said pub-
licly that shells had fallen on American territory during the
first Calles and Villa encounter, but they had not returned
fire because it was clearly evident that they came from
378 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
Calles's guns, who relied upon the support of American arms
to vanquish his adversary. President Wilson was Sefior
Carranza's ally, and Villa a belligerent in the sphere of
reality would have been justified, from the standpoint of
equity, in declaring war against the United States, just as
President Davis would have been justified in declaring war
against Mexico if President Juarez had acted as President
Lincoln's ally during the War of Secession.
I should be the last to deny that Villa since he first made
his appearance in Mexico has been a bandit and an outlaw,
but his attack upon Columbus cannot be qualified as the act
of a bandit. For a force of two or three hundred men to
attack a town defended by six hundred and fifty American
soldiers, well equipped, well officered and well armed, can
hardly be called brigandage. If a pirate in a fragile canoe
were to attack an English armored cruiser in mid-ocean it
could not be classed as piracy, but as the act of a reckless
fighter or of a madman. Villa's motive in attacking Colum-
bus was to take vengeance on Wilson and Carranza, and to
bring down upon both the wrath of the American people,
who had been so outrageously affronted Jby his attack. He
wished especially to wreak vengeance on Carranza, who, he
hoped, would be crushed by the military power of the
United States. Undoubtedly Villa's action is to be classified
as high treason as well as low treason; but just as a revolu-
tion is a revolution, so Villa is Villa, and it is quite natural
that he should have retaliated like a wild beast and not like
a patriot, when he realized that he was being annihilated by
the Wilson-Carranza alliance.
Villa's first impulse when he heard that President Wilson
had recognized the Carranza Government was to concen-
trate his forces, approximately thirty thousand men, to fling
them against the American frontier towns, massacre the in-
habitants and reduce the buildings to ashes. Some of his
better educated and more conservative followers were able
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 379
to dissuade him from carrying out this program, convincing
him that he would gain more by surprising the Carranza
troops stationed in Sonora, because the chances of routing
them completely were in his favor, as Carranza was not in
a position to give them any aid. The permission granted by
President Wilson for Carrancista troops to cross American
territory to relieve General Calles, who was hemmed in at
Agua Prieta, was the culminating blow, and Villa decided
to carry out his plan of vengeance by attacking Columbus.
AN IMPARTIAL EXPOSITION OF THE CASE
The Mexican question in its final stage must be examined
with calmness, reasoned out intelligently and settled with
justice. Patriotism when it is carried to the extreme of pas-
sion is always inimical to truth, and its conclusions are re-
jected in judgments that are based on learning and morality.
From the moment that Villa accomplished the attack on
Columbus he ranked, in the eyes of the United States Gov-
ernment and those of the American people, as a bandit, the
leader of a band of bandits as infamous as himself.
I have read with regret the published statements of cul-
tured Mexicans to the effect that Villa's attack cannot com-
promise Mexico in the slightest degree. It is an accepted
and absolutely unimpeachable principle of international law:
"que toute communaute politique organisee assume la re-
sponsabilite des acts des ses membres a 1'egard des autres
Etats, si, sur une plainte a elle adressee, elle ne contraint
pas les auteurs de 1'offense a donner satisfaction a 1'Etat
lese. Un Etat ne peut exiger de reparation de la part d'un
sujet d'un autre Etat qu'en s'adressant au gouvernement de
la nation dont 1'offenseur est membre. S'il y a refus, 1'Etat
assume la responsabilite des actes de son sujet." x
An extradition treaty was in force between Mexico and
1 H. Bonfils, Droit International, p. 651.
380 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the United States at the time the attack upon Columbus took
place. Article IV of this treaty says: "Neither one of the
contracting parties shall be obliged in virtue of this agree-
ment to hand over its own citizens, but the Executive of
either nation shall be endowed with the faculty of turning
them over if in his opinion it be deemed expedient."
In virtue of this treaty Carranza possessed the right to
refuse to hand Villa and his followers over to the United
States; but he was obliged to pursue, capture and punish
them in conformity with the Mexican penal laws. The
United States Government had the right to set a time for
Carranza to capture and punish the culprits, and if he failed
to do so, for any reason whatsoever, the United States Gov-
ernment had the right to declare war against Mexico in
order to mete out justice with its own hand, or to decree
some act of reprisal against the Mexican Government.
President Wilson acted with regard to the existing extra-
dition treaty just as Germany did with regard to the treaty
guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium to which it had
affixed its signature declared it a "scrap of paper," and
proceeded forcibly against Mexico. The President of the
United States began by carrying out against Mexico the act
of reprisal to which the American nation undoubtedly would
have been entitled if the Mexican Government had not
given the satisfaction demanded in the time agreed upon by
both nations, or in that stipulated by the United States.
By proceeding so ruthlessly against Mexico before he was
justified in doing so, President Wilson did not act in bad
faith, or in a spirit of aggression against the Mexican peo-
ple or their Government. On the contrary, not wishing to
go to war, he aimed only at calming the popular agitation
which already appeared violent enough to force the White
House to declare war upon Mexico without further delay.
At dawn, on March 9, 1916, the ex-military genius, Fran-
cisco Villa, attacked the town of Columbus, and the next
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 381
day President Wilson's secretary made the following official
announcement: "An adequate force will be sent at once to
pursue Villa. The sole object of the expedition will be to
capture him and put an end to further raids. This can
and will be done with the friendly assistance of the consti-
tuted Mexican authorities, and with scrupulous respect for
the sovereignty of that Republic."
From this, then, it will be seen that President Wilson
was responsible for the statement that the force that was to
be sent into Mexican territory in pursuit of Villa would
have the friendly assistance of the constituted Mexican au-
thorities, and would be carried out with scrupulous respect
for the sovereignty of the Mexican Republic.
Was it not rash, even to the point of temerity, for Presi-
dent Wilson to give assurance that the American military
expedition could count upon the friendly cooperation of the
constituted Mexican authorities, when its mission was an
act of reprisal that could not be considered otherwise than
in the nature of an affront by the nation against whom it
was being carried out?
THE PATRIOTISM OF THE CONSTITUTIONALISTS
If President Wilson has formed a low estimate of the
patriotism of the Constitutionalists, undoubtedly, he cannot
be said to have acted with equal rashness.
In August, 1913, President Wilson's personal representa-
tive, Mr. Lind, presented an insulting note to the Mexican
Government of which General Huerta was then the head.
The latter was commanded by the White House to sus-
pend hostilities at once, to resign the provisional presidency,
to arrange for a presidential election and to refrain from
taking part himself as a candidate. If in any country of
recognized patriotism take Spain for example the Presi-
dent of the United States had ordered Alfonso XIII to
3 8a WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
renounce the throne, to arrange for republican elections, and
to refrain from taking any part in them as a candidate, even
the street whelps would have protested against the insult
offered, not only to the person of the king, but to the sover-
eignty, independence and dignity of the Spanish nation. But
when this occurred in Mexico, the Constitutionalists, both
by word of mouth and in writing, publicly applauded Mr.
Wilson, conferred upon him the title of "Doctor Inslgne"
(Distinguished Doctor), and protector of Mexican liberties
and of the revolution that was destined to save the poor.
It was considered that Carranza's diplomatic agent at Wash-
ington had played the part of a consummate patriot in the
negotiations to further the cause of Mexican democracy.
Later events were even more deplorable. In April, 1914,
without any motive to justify an invasion of Mexican terri-
tory by land and sea, President Wilson decreed the Vera
Cruz expedition. His sole object was to further the revolu-
tionary cause by weakening Huerta's position. This invasion
was approved by the pro-Yankee patriots, and even Carranza
retreated from his patriotic attitude of protest when Villa
threatened him if he did not accept the armed intervention
of the United States. Consul Carothers made this state-
ment, and it is corroborated by Mr. Bell in his book The
Political Shame of Mexico.
A talented writer who is one of Senor Carranza's sincere
sympathizers has written the following: "The events to
which I refer took place previous to the occupation of Vera
Cruz by the Yankee forces. With regard to the latter,
we regret that President Wilson, notwithstanding possible
good intentions (confirmed perhaps by more recent acts),
should have embarked upon a mistaken, bloody and useless
mission, which involves no matter from what point of view
one considers it a humiliation for Mexico. We regret
that Victoriano Huerta, once the conflict was provoked,
should not have known how to find in the midst of all his
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 383
vices a remnant of dignity and decorum which would have
urged him to offer a substantial resistance. We regret that
Venustiano Carranza, always blameless in his relations with
the United States, always tenacious although blinded at
times should not have maintained his dignified attitude of
energetic protest which he frankly outlined in his ultimatum
to President Wilson." l
No one can understand why, according to these politicians,
patriotism should impose on the Mexicans the duty of shed-
ding the last drop of their blood in defense of their national
sovereignty and territory when an American armed force
occupies a section of the state of Chihuahua; and that, when
an American armed force occupied the city of Vera Cruz,
with a previous heroic shedding of Mexican blood, President
Wilson should be acclaimed the benefactor of Mexico and
the protector of its liberties and independence. This rather
startling phenomenon can be explained by the fact that
politicians in almost all of the Latin-American nations take
advantage of the docility and credulity of the masses over
whom they tyrannize. So far as patriotic enthusiasm is
concerned they can mould them at will. When an Ameri-
can armed force invades a Latin-American country for the
purpose of overthrowing the established government, the
revolutionists, if the invading army supports their cause,
preach the doctrine that nothing is more patriotic or respect-
ful to national sovereignty than the intervention of the
Yankees. But when these traitors get control of the supreme
power they do not hesitate to declare that nothing is more
reprehensible or more offensive to national honor than a
Yankee invasion, when this is not undertaken to further the
interests of the established government, which owes its
triumph to the intervention of this very same hateful Yankee
army. Senor Guzman, who is neither a reactionary, a cleri-
cal, or a Cientifico, says: "When Carranza, the chief of
1 Martin Luis Guzman, La querella de Mexico, p. 69.
384 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
the revolutionary faction, asks the United States Govern-
ment to recognize him as the President of the Republic of
Mexico, he does nothing but pay homage to a very old politi-
cal truth recognized in Mexico; that is: No political party
in Mexico possesses of itself the inherent strength to domi-
nate the situation; its stability and strength depend upon
the support of a foreign power. . . . The recent Huerta
case is conclusive proof of this. Bloated with power, in-
undated with wealth, and above all, not troubled by con-
scientious scruples as to the means employed to obtain results,
he, nevertheless, fell. One word from Woodrow Wilson,
one "No" from the President of a foreign nation decided
Huerta's fate and the destinies of Mexico. All that he
needed to establish him in power was the recognition of the
Yankee. Villa and Carranza had no other help." 1
Senor Guzman's observations, written in 1915, tally ex-
actly with the declarations of high officials of the United
States Department of State, published on June 21, 1916.
They evince surprise at Carranza's conduct, which they char-
acterize as rebellion, since he owes his triumph and his post
as First Chief to them. The press in the United States, with-
out exception, comments upon the sudden development by
the Constitutionalists of such delicate patriotic susceptibilities,
when heretofore, from March, 1913, to October 9, 1915,
when President Wilson recognized the de facto Government
much to the surprise of the civilized world they had
done nothing but wipe up the floors of the National Capitol
at Washington in their servile homage to the powers that be.
In 1 86 1, when the War of Secession broke out in the
United States, France and England offered to act as media-
tors between the Unionists and Secessionists. President
Lincoln and his eminent Secretary of State, Mr. Seward,
rejected the offer indignantly, and gave Mr. Dayton definite
instructions that he was not to accept offers of mediation
1 Martin Luis Guzman, La querclla de Mexico, pp. 58, 59.
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 385
from any foreign government, adding, that the United States
Government would consider as a grave offense any meddling
on the part of any foreign power in the internal affairs of
the United States. M. Billault, Napoleon Third's un-
accredited Minister, informed the Diplomatic Corps that Mr.
Dayton had rejected all idea of mediation as contrary to
the dignity and sovereignty of the American nation.
President Wilson, although he was well aware of these
precedents, convoked the Conciliatory Conference, composed
of the representatives of the Governments of Argentine,
Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Guatemala, putting
Mexico on a level with Albania by presuming to decide
which of the bandits who figured in the Mexican revolution
should be accorded the distinction of being recognized as
the head of a de facto government by the United States.
This question of de facto governments is an offense to
Mexico because under international law only the States is a
person, and there are no de facto, constitutional, legal,
usurping or legitimate States according to international law.
The President of the United States has the right to recog-
nize or not to recognize a Mexican government, but he has
not the right to call its origin, its nature or its deficiencies
into question. The de facto feature in these negotiations
was in reality an offense which Carranza mistook for an
international caress or an enviable mark of distinction. Not
one of the Constitutionalist representatives invited to attend
the Conference of October, 1915, refused to do so on the
ground of the offense offered to the Mexican nation by the
purpose of the gathering. If Sefior Carranza refused to
send his representative, it was not because he thought
Mexico's internal political affairs should not be aired by
foreign governments, but because he did not want to face
the possibility of not being selected. He, however, recog-
nized the Conference because he pleaded before it his right
to be recognized as the head of the de facto government,
386 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
in virtue of the fact that he had dominated the situation
from a military standpoint.
The Evening Post, in its issue of August 7, 1915, said
with regard to the work of the Conference of Latin-Ameri-
can representatives gathered together by the Yankee Sec-
retary of State to settle the affairs of Mexico: "It seems
that not one of the Latin-American diplomatists has opposed
this part of the plan (the recognition of Manuel Vazquez
Tagle, ex-Minister of Justice in Madero's Cabinet, for
President of Mexico), even if some of the ambassadors think
that a representative of the Cientifico group should be chosen
for the post. They, however, were informed, so it is said,
that President Wilson is opposed to the return to power of
the Cientifico or conservative interests which were identified
with Porfirio Diaz."
President Wilson's determination not to consent to the
return to power of the Cientifico or conservative elements
which were identified with the Diaz regime, was hailed by
the Constitutionalists as another master stroke of Mexico's
benefactor. It is evident, then, that it did not appear neces-
sary at that time to the followers of Constitutionalism for
the Mexicans to shed the last drop of their blood, or even
an infinitesimal part, when the President of the United States
was grinding Mexican sovereignty to dust with the heel
of his boot. It must be remembered that notwithstanding
the fact that General Funston had received orders to fire
against the Mexican combatant who should, intentionally or
unintentionally, fire shells into American territory, he failed
to do so although the Carrancista general, Calles, continued
to send projectiles across the boundary line, with the in-
tention, no doubt, of egging on the American commanders
to fire upon Villa. Notwithstanding the official report made
by the Commander-in-Chief of the American forces at
Douglas concerning the firing, General Calles was not prose-
cuted as a traitor to his country, not even reprimanded. On
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 387
the contrary, his conduct was fully approved and he was
congratulated by Carranza.
In view of the facts presented, President Wilson had
reason to believe that the punitive expedition against Villa
could be made to fit within the limits of the elastic patriot-
ism that had looked with favor upon the punitive expedition
sent against Huerta in 1914.
A HEROIC STRUGGLE TO AVOID A STRUGGLE
On March 10, 1916, Senor Carranza received the note
sent by the United States Government, in which President
Wilson announced that in order to punish the attack on
Columbus, the United States Government was resolved to
pursue 'Villa and his bandit followers into Mexican territory
and to exterminate them. If Carranza had acted with the
patriotism exacted by Mexican law, and in compliance with
public sentiment, he should have protested against the im-
mediate invasion of Mexico, called the American Govern-
ment's attention to the existing extradition treaty, and in-
timated that if this were violated diplomatic relations be-
tween Mexico and the United States would be severed until
such time as the will of the Mexican people could be as-
certained.
Carranza wished to avoid war, and taking into considera-
tion the emphatic and somewhat heated statements constantly
reiterated by the American press to the effect that the puni-
tive expedition would penetrate into Mexico to put an end
to Villa whether Carranza wished it or not, he decided to
accept the humiliating situation, and covered his shameful
condescension by proposing a reciprocal treaty with the
United States, which was to permit Mexican troops to cross
the frontier into American territory in pursuit of those
bandits, a similar privilege to cross the frontier into Mexico
to be accorded to the American troops if the Columbus at-
388 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
tack should unfortunately be repeated at any other point
along the frontier.
The diplomatic heads of the Mexican Chancery Office
must have been preoccupied, as there was no element of rec-
iprocity in the petition of the new treaty, as the Mexican
troops were to have permission to pursue Villa into Ameri-
can territory where he was not; and in exchange the Ameri-
can forces could only penetrate into Mexico in case an at-
tack similar to that of Columbus were repeated at any other
point along the frontier.
In order to show that he did not want war and that he
did not wish to embarrass Carranza, President Wilson said
to him in his telegram of March I3th: " ... in order to
assure peace between the two republics and to preserve order
in the territory adjacemt to the border, permission is granted
with pleasure for the armed forces of the de facto Mexican
Government to cross the international boundary line in pur-
suit of bands of armed men who may have invaded Mexico
from the United States, committed depredations on Mexican
territory and then escaped to the United States, with the
understanding that the same privilege be granted to the
United States military forces to pursue across the inter-
national boundary line and into Mexican territory bands of
armed men who, coming from Mexico, may have penetrated
into American territory, committed depredations on Ameri-
can soil and then escaped into Mexico. The United States
Government understands that in view of its acceptance
of this reciprocal arrangement, proposed by the de facto
Government, said arrangement is considered complete and
in force, and the reciprocal privileges to which it refers can
consequently be exercised by either one of the Governments
without the necessity of entering into any new arrangement."
This treaty of reciprocity entered into without any of the
formalities exacted by international law was designed to
cover the humiliation which a weak nation like Mexico re-
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 389
ceived through the punitive expedition which, as I have
already said, was an act of reprisal employed by the United
States to enable it to avoid obliging Mexico to accept the
alternative of war. This reciprocal treaty possessed the de-
fect that for the United States the rights were effective and
the obligations hypothetical, whereas, for the de facto
Government the rights were hypothetical and the obligations
effective.
Sefior Carranza proved himself weak in consenting to the
cooperation of the Mexican military forces in the punitive
expedition. The note of March I4th, addressed by the
White House to Carranza, says: "It is a source of sincere
satisfaction to the United States Government that the de
facto Mexican Government has manifested such a cordial
and friendly spirit of cooperation in the efforts of the United
States authorities to apprehend and punish the band of ma-
rauders. ..."
Senor Jacinto Lopez, the distinguished Central American
writer, in a study relative to the situation which he pub-
lished in a Cuban newspaper devoted to social sciences, says:
"There was, then, a perfect understanding between the two
governments just previous to the opening of the American
campaign in Mexican territory against Villa. . . . The
United States forces, then, were in Mexico with the sanction
of the Mexican Government." Senor Lopez does not
breathe the vitiated atmosphere inhaled as a general thing by
all Mexicans at present, and I quote his words to establish
a fact which no one can deny, that Don Venustiano Carranza
openly accepted the punitive expedition, with the accompany-
ing aggravating circumstance of having consented to the
Constitutionalist army acting as the guide, friend, ally,
and, as an El Paso newspaper said, procurer for the Amer-
ican army in the violation of the fatherland.
Senor Lopez does not handle Senor Carranza quite so
roughly in judging his action concerning the proposition
390 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
made by the de facto Government to the White House with
regard to the treaty of reciprocity, as he says: "It is easy
to understand the object of this proposition, which is nothing
more than a resort, an expedient undoubtedly the last
available one by which the situation can be met with some
semblance of decorum, and to soften as much as possible the
resentment of national pride."
INDECOROUS PROCEEDINGS
Sefior Carranza quite justly estimated that the advent of
the punitive expedition would naturally arouse a sentiment
of indignation in the public mind that would be dangerous
to the existence of the de facto Government. To obviate
this catastrophe the Carrancista press announced, for the
benefit of the Mexican public, that a treaty, drawn up and
signed at Washington in 1882, existed between the Ameri-
can and Mexican Governments which authorized Carranza
to receive the punitive expedition with open arms.
This treaty referred to the pursuit of parties of savages,
that is, Indians, and Villa, however much of a savage
he may be in a figurative sense, cannot juridically be
classed in this category. Admitting, however, for the sake
of argument, that a treaty applicable to Indian raids
could be made to cover an attack such as that made upon
Columbus, this treaty had been extinct for twenty years.
Senor Federico Gamtoa, Mexican ex-Minister to Guate-
mala and Belgium and Secretary of Foreign Relations in
Huerta's Cabinet, writes the following with regard to this
subject in La Reforma Social: ". . . it is to be borne in
mind that Article VIII of that agreement (that of 1882),
entered into for a period of two years, was modified on
September 2ist, of the same year (1882), and renewed on
two other occasions, June 28, 1882, and October 16, 1885.
The first treaty was replaced by that of June 25, 1890, which
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 391
was renewed on November 25, 1892, and finally replaced
by the agreement of June 4, 1896. This was provisional
and valid only until such time as the band headed by the
Apache Kid was exterminated, always with the proviso that
the pursuit should not extend over a period longer than one
year." It follows, then, that the de facto Government au-
thorized the punitive expedition in virtue of a treaty which
was in no sense applicable to the case, and which possessed
the additional disadvantage of having been extinct for
twenty years, and that Senor Carranza attempted with this
subterfuge to fool the nation.
Fearing that the Mexican public might become aware of
the trick played upon it, the Carrancista politicians resolved,
in order to put an end to the punitive expedition, to have
recourse to another ruse produce Villa's corpse. This
may have been any corpse, or it may have been the body of
a man resembling Villa, converted into a corpse to fill the re-
quirements of the occasion. When the authorized representa-
tives of Carrancism gave out in Mexico, in El Paso and
in Washington that the body of Villa had been found, the
skepticism evinced on all sides was so great that the "manu-
facturers of opportune corpses" were rather taken aback,
and resolved to abandon their fraudulent scheme. The best
proof that this was the invention of clever politicians is the
fact that the de facto Government did not attempt to sus-
tain the contention that the body of Villa had been found,
as it naturally would have done if its claim could have
been substantiated, as it would have solved the difficulty
immediately and saved the situation.
All these facts prove the determination of the de facto
Government to keep out of war at any cost. It may be by
drawing up reciprocal treaties; by ingratiating itself with
President Wilson; by permitting the Carrancista troops to
cooperate in the punitive expedition ; by giving the impres-
sion that a treaty covering the pursuit of Indian raiders
392 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
existed, thus identifying Villa with an Apache Indian; by
opportunely manufacturing a corpse, said to be the body of
the ex-military genius of the revolution; by sending notes
to Washington similar to that of April I2th, which closed
with a mild, supplicatory clause in which President Wilson
is told that the time has come to negotiate for the retire-
ment of the American forces; by dispatching a so-called
forcible note which instead of concluding with an ultimatum
closes by informing Washington that it is merely a continua-
tion of the controversy between the two governments.
President Wilson on his side has made superhuman efforts
to avoid a rupture with the de facto Government, and only
the pressure brought to bear upon him by the press and the
influential politicians who voice the sentiments of the ma-
jority of the American people, who disapprove of his policy,
has had the power to bring him to the point of unsheathing
his sword and challenging his former proteges, the Mex-
ican revolutionists.
A DISPASSIONATE JUDGMENT OF THE CASE
What in reality is the cause of the threatened war be-
tween Mexico and the United States on this I5th day of
June, 1916? The punitive expedition? It is clear to the
world that Senor Carranza takes this view. In the so-called
forcible notes sent by the de facto Mexican Government
reference is made only to the affront offered to the nation
by the continued presence of the American forces in Mex-
ican territory, since the Mexican Government is in a posi-
tion to give the United States sufficient guarantees that its
boundaries shall not again be violated by Mexican bandits.
It is true that Carranza is in a position actually to give
these guarantees? Evidently not. Between May 5 and
June 21, 1916, Glen Springs, Big Bent, Coleman's Ranch,
the San Ignacio, San Benito (Texas) and Mercedes camps
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 393
have been raided by bandits from across the border. The
world has seen that neither the American nor the Car-
rancista forces are able to prevent the accomplishment of
Villa's purpose, the annihilation of Carranza by Wilson,
brought about by means of repeated attacks which will in-
flame the American public to the point of forcing Wilson
to defend the rights and honor of the United States.
On the other hand, it is absurd to expect the United
States to sacrifice its indisputable, sacred and inalienable
right to protect its border upon the altar of Villista brigand-
age, in order to respect Mexican sovereignty in a case in
which international law gives them the right not to respect
it. According to international law, whatever may be Car-
ranza's reasons for not living up to his international obliga-
tions, the United States has the right to declare war against
Mexico or to have recourse to an act of reprisal in order to
force the de facto Government to give complete satisfaction
to the outraged American public.
According to international law, Mexico has the indis-
putable right on her own account to reply to war with war,
and not to tolerate an act of reprisal such as the sending of
the punitive expedition. There is, then, a conflict of rights
between the two nations, not a clash between Mexican right
and the insolent and intolerable brutality of the United
States.
MEDIATION
In a conflict where equal rights are at stake mediation
should be resorted to as the logical and patriotic means of
avoiding a devastating war. Unfortunately mediation is
not possible. Villism exists and will continue to exist for
some time to come. It represents, once its few intellectual
and orderly elements have been nullified or separated from
it, the victorious brigandage which, protected by the Presi-
394 WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT MEXICO
dent of the United States, was the force that actually over-
threw Huerta. Villism was the real vivifying principle of
the revolution of 1913. Carrancism has been the outcome of
a social and political reaction among the more intelligent
bandits who, at last, understood that it was not possible in
1916, in the midst of civilization, to govern according to pre-
historic methods which were viewed with horror and dis-
gust by civilized nations.
The trouble between Mexico and the United States is not
one of the moment only; it will be continual as its origin
lies in the hatred of the Villistas for the Carrancistas, and
so long as the former are in the field and Carranza cannot
maintain at least one hundred and fifty thousand well dis-
ciplined soldiers in the north to protect the border and grad-
ually exterminate the Villistas, the anti-Carrancista faction
will continue to slap the colossus of the north in the face,
subject him to the ridicule of the world, until it forces him
to declare war or completely to sacrifice his honor.
The "mediators" should not treat with Wilson and Car-
ranza, but with Villa and Carranza in an attempt to bring
about a reconciliation between them. However, as there is
no discipline in the Villista bands, any northern bandit with
anti-Carrancista tendencies could repeat the Columbus inci-
dent on his own account any time it occurs to him. The
punitive expedition had for its present and future object the
prevention of future raids into American territory. What
can the mediators do to guarantee to the United States that
there will be no further incursions into her territory? In
my estimation nothing, absolutely nothing.
AN UNEXPECTED SOLUTION
The unexpected turn that affairs have taken and the prob-
able solution of the situation since the last pages of this book
were written (July 16, 1916), and as it goes to press,
ARMED INTERVENTION BEGINS 395
have been a surprise to me. According to international law
and common sense war between Mexico and the United
States began on June 2ist with the Carrizal fight, which
resulted adversely for the Americans. The failure of the
mobilization of the militia obliged President Wilson to seek
peace from Carranza, which he did through his speech at the
Press Club banquet. Carranza hastened to accede to the re-
quest, and it appears that the peace negotiations are under
way and that the discussion will be long drawn out. There
can be no doubt that Mexico's triumph has been unqualified
as the punitive expedition has retired from Mexican territory
owing to the pressure brought to bear by Constitutionalist
arms.
The solution of the "Mexican question" by means of
armed intervention has been rejected, and the attitude of the
American people indicates that they are resolved that under
no circumstances whatsoever shall the Mexican difficulty be
settled by recourse to armed intervention. Unfortunately,
President Wilson, instead of laying aside the idea of con-
trolling the Mexican Government, appears to be more de-
termined than ever, supported by the military power of the
United States, to impose his will upon the Mexican people
through means which he believes will be efficacious, but
which are absurd to those who know the sociology of the
Mexican people.
