001041 Mexico in Transition

By

CLARENCE SENIOR flORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARY • '. SOCIALIST· tABOB ~OLL[CTlON

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MARY FOX CARL RAUSHENBUSH HAROLD GOLDSTEIN ESTHER RAUSHENBUSH QUINCY HOWE JOEL SEIDMAN HARRY W. LAIDLER HERMAN WOLF ALONZO MYERS THERESA WOLFSON ORLIE PELL ROBERT G. WOOLBERT • LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 112 East 19th Street. New York City Mexico in Transition

By CLARENCE SENIOR •

L. 1. D. PAM PH LET SERIES

VOL.VI 1939 NO.9

LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 112 EAST 19TH STREET. NEW YORK CITY

1 5 c TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 3

CHAP'l'ER

I- MEXICAN BACKGROUNDS 4

II - FROM DIAZ TO CARDENAS • 6

III-LAND. 10

IV - LABOR 18

V- EDUCATION . 28

VI - THE CHURCH AND STATE • 32

VII - IMPERIALISM 35

VIII - BUILDING THE NEW MEXICO 43

FOOTNOTES 49

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY • 53

Copyright August, 1939, by the...... League for Industrial Democracy , j, BRANDENaURl' CLA KUNIVERSITY WORCESTER, MAS

MEXICO IN TRANSITION

By CLARENCE SENIOR

ROM the Rio Grande to Patagonia, Latin Americans are strug­ gling with new ideas, with domestic and foreign forces which F demand an answer to the question, "Where Are We Headed?" In the United States, fear that the New World countries may follow the path of Spain is growing, as totalitarian nations reach out for new markets and for allies across the oceans. In the Latin American struggle, Mexico occupies a key position. Nineteen million people are struggling for freedom, for the right to exist as a nation, and the right to shape that nation's course to its own needs. The peoples south of Mexico watch her with hope in their hearts. Just as in 1776 the revolutionaries of the Thirteen Colonies needed the sympathetic understanding of other peoples, so Mexico needs such understanding in order that she may cast off the chains that have bound her for almost four centuries. Just as the freedom won by the colonies served as a torch for other liberty-lovers, so will success in Mexico spread among the other peoples of the Western World. Mexico will either go forward to the goals for which her Revolu­ tion st~ives, or backward, through civil war, to fascism. The germs of fascism are there. The agents of fascism are busy and well-financed. In the hope that an increased understanding of what Mexico is trying to accomplish will hinder those in the United States who would interfere with her struggle for freedom, this material is presented. Interference from our own imperialists in the United States is the most certain road to fascism in Mexico.

3 CHAPTER I

Mexican Backgrounds

N THE past five centuries, Mexico has supplied more than one­ third of the total production of silver in the world-yet Mexico I is abysmally poor. From colonial days to the present, the wealth of Mexico has been drained from that tremendous cornucopia for the benefit of others. Her people have had to content themselves with the drippings from the pipes that have siphoned away her natural resources. As late as 1804, a large part of the income of Spain was secured from Mexico. The Spanish ruling class prevented the development of an independent economy in any of the new world colonies. For three hundred years, the Spanish colonial system isolated Mexico from the rest of the world and sucked her life blood. Few of the Conquistadores went to Mexico with the intention of making their homes in the New World. They went to enrich them­ selves and return to Spain as quickly as possible. The conquerors of Mexico differed in motive and action from the settlers of the United States. From these differences stem many of the divergencies in gov­ ernment and other social institutions between the two countries which today interfere with a genuine understanding of one country by the . other. The chains of caste, race, and class hatred forged during the colon­ ial period still bind Mexico. Survivals of feudal institutions of that period, imbedded in the soil by centuries of undisturbed existence, are seen today in Mexico's feeble political life, in the stranglehold the hacendados have on the most backward sections of the country and in the widespread superstition and illiteracy which, combined with poverty, lead to one of the world's highest death rates. The problems inherited from the colonial period, which lasted three centuries from 1521 to 1820, have been complicated since Independ­ ence by the intervention of the French and British empires and the United States. For over a century, these countries have employed

4 diplomatic pressure, economic coercion and armed intervention. They have fomented internal disturbances. They have wrested from Mexico large land areas. They have run the whole gamut of modern imperial­ ism, with Mexico as the victim.

To the foregoing handicaps borne by those who have been trying to build a free and progressive nation must be added the country's geography. While possessing an abundance of mineral wealth, only 10 percent of Mexico's land is arable, as compared with over half the land in the United States. Of this 10 percent, 79.20 percent now de­ pends upon uncontrolled rainfall; 11.5 percent, upon irrigation. For untold centuries rocky heights have separated tribe from tribe, vil­ lage from village. Even today, ~percentof the villages can be reached only by burro trail; ~percent by railroad,.-: percent by automobile. Such geographic isolation has meant diversity of languages, cus­ toms, culture. Such diversity continues to the present day. Just off the Pan-American highway a few hours north of the capital, in the Valley of the Mezquital, a recent survey by Manuel Gamio, Mexico's outstanding anthropologist, showed the material culture of 43.8 per­ cent of the inhabitants was pre-conquest in its nature, 43.5 percent colonial, and 12.70 percent, modern (since 1870)."

In the country at large, five ancient Indian languages are each still spoken every day by more than 100,000 persons, while seven more languages are in daily use by more than 10,000 persons. Fifty-four dialects are spoken by large numbers. The 1930 census showed that 1,185,000 Mexicans speak only an Indian language. Masters of the Mexican Indian have generally preferred to learn the local idiom rather than risk helping the unity of the tribes by teaching them a means of communication. Missionaries, conq.uistadores, landlords, generals, politicians, all, have seen the preservation of the indigenous language as a weapon for domination: It is against this background that The Revolution, with its genera­ tion of trial and error, its triumphs and betrayals, its weaknesses and its aspirations, must be understood.

5 CHAPTER II

From Diaz to Cardenas

N OCTOBER 4, 1910, Porfirio Diaz, dictator for thirty-four years, declared himself elected President for another six-year O.. term. Less than eight months later, his flight from the coun­ try signalized the end of an era. Diaz represented a triumph of the class which wanted freedom from feudal restrictions, the advantages of foreign capital, a regime of "law and order" in which its business would be safe. He had gathered support from the older ruling class groups by respecting their huge haciendas. He had gained the favor of local political bosses by a dis­ tribution of graft, and the support of foreign investors by protecting their interests against labor organization. The Diaz regime, while outwardly strong, was inwardly weak. It depended for its existence upon a vigorous national leadership which could reconcile, at least on the surface, the contradictory forces from which it drew its strength. It began to lose that leadership as Diaz and his self-perpetuating group grew old and contented. In 1908, Francisco 1. Madero, a large landowner with democratic ideas, raised his banner of "Effective Suffrage; No Re-election", and opposed another term for the "dictator. By election year, the forces which rallied to his support were so varied, the old regime so weak, the unsatisfied needs of the masses so great, that Diaz gave up his post after a feeble attempt to make concessions to the demand for change. Under Madero, no real attempt was made to challenge the problems of the Mexican people. The leader of the revolution himself had no thought except to introduce the forms of political democracy. Peasant groups thought differently. The slogan, "Land and Lib­ erty," had been raised in the state of Morelos by Emiliano Zapata, who had recruited an army of peon irregulars to back up their de­ mand. By 1913 six of the states south of the capital were controlled by Zapatistas, and the seat of governm\ent itself was almost sur­ rounded.

6 Zapata was asked by Madero to disband his men, but the answer was a manifesto: "Be it known to Senor Madero, and through him to the rest of the world, that we will not lay down our arms until we have recovered our lands." The small but growing trade union movement also supported Madero, but made demands that his wealthy backers would not coun­ tenance. Madero was opposed by other groups, chief among them Vietoriano Huerta, commander-in-chief of the army, and Felix Diaz, nephew of the former dictator. They were actively aided by business interest~ in the United States, and by our Ambassador. Madero was murdered, ironically enough, on Washington's birthday, 1913. Carranza and Obregon, two of Madero's generals, rallied their followers against Huerta, who lost the support of United States by favoring British oil interests. By August 4, 1914, Huerta had been eliminated, and the ties that held the revolutionary forces together began to weaken. Francisco Villa and Zapata joined forces to drive Carranza from Mexico City. Carranza retreated to Vera Cruz, took stock of the situation, and, as "first chief of the Revolution", began to woo groups which could help him re-establish his regime. He called upon labor groups for their support,and received it in exchange for concessions to labor. On February 17, 1915, Obregon signed, for his chief, a document which bound him to sponsor progressive labor laws. In exchange, the Casa del Obrero Mwndial, (House of the Worker of the World) organized the famous "Red Battalions". To secure similar support from the agrarians, Carranza had issued a decree on January 6 providing for restoration of com­ mon lands taken from villages by previous regimes. By late 1916, the Carranza forces had forged enough military unity in the country to enable them to hold a national constitutional con­ vention. This convention at Queretaro on February 5, 1917, promul­ gated what was' then regarded by many students as the most ad­ vanced national charter in the world. On May 1 Carranza was in­ augurated Constitutional President of Mexico. Carranza later, however, showed great hostility to militant union

7 action and to peasant seizure of the lands they thought were theirs, a hostility which led to a break between him; and Obregon. A bitter struggle followed, in the course of which more than half of the popu­ lation of Morelos and surrounding Zapata strongholds was wiped out: Obregon was successful, and was inaugurated President on Decem­ ber 1, 1920, after another military contest in which Carranza was killed by a traitorous general. The new regim;e was supported by the newly organized Confedera­ cion Regional Obrera Mexicana. The CROM had organized the Par­ tido Laborista in 1919 and nominated Obregon for President against Carranza. The railway and other unions had greatly aided in the campaign against Carranza by sabotage and by sending the "Red Battalions" again into the field. During Obregon's term, a growing coolness developed between the President and General Plutareo Elias Calles, his chief aid, over Obregon's policies toward foreign capital, trade unionism and the peasants. Calles succeedeil Obregon as Presi­ dent in 1924, and was known as the first "labor president" of Mexico. For the next four years, the CROM had more power than it knew what to do with. Four years later, Obregon in turn was elected the country's chief magis1trate, but was assassinated on the eve of his second term of office. Calles thereupon placed in the President's chair in November, 1928, the first of three puppets-Emilio Pones Gil. He was followed by Pascual-Ortiz Rubio, who took office in February, 1930, as the successful candidate of the newly organized National Revolutionary Party, a Calles creation through which he hoped to resolve factional antagonisms within one state party. After two yea~s, Calles replaced Ortiz Rubio with General Abelardo Rodriguez, a more forceful, but no less obedient office holder. In 1934, General Lazaro Cardenas was nominated by the official party. Contrary to all expectations, that selection marked the begin­ ning of the end of the rule of Calles. North, South, East and West, in autos, in boats, in planes, and on horseback, the nominee stumped the country, scorned by the professional politicians who wondered why a man backed by Calles was not satisfied with having his election

8 assured by his party's ability to count the votes. Cardenas was de­ clared elected with 1,091,000 votes, against 30,000 for his two con­ servative opponents. The Communist candidate was given 1,100 votes. Cardenas talked about the Six Year Plan, a party program into which many of the younger intellectuals in the revolutionary move­ ment had put a great deal of work. Their hopes for a revival of the Revolution were placed in the Plan and in Cardenas. Cardenas proved that he was sincere in his use of revolution­ ary phrl:j,ses during his campaign. His election brought encourage­ ment to labor organizations and to the peasants whose land-hunger had been all but forgotten. The country soon learned that Cardenas was President in his own right. His long days and nights of campaigning had brought home to him what Mexico needed and demanded. Also they had likewise developed his strength throughout the country to a point where he felt he was his own master. He closed the huge gambling dens in which s~ many government employes had made their contributions to the Calles coterie; he cleaned house in the Partido N acional Rev'olucion­ ario, in an attempt to breathe some life into what had been a mask used to cover political chicanery; he exiled the Red Shirt leader, Garrido Canabal, one of the most violent of those who used the anti­ clerical battle-cry to cover their own bankruptcy of program. When challenged by Calles to repudiate the growing number of strikes, Cardenas openly rebuked his former boss. Thereupon, in June, 1935, Calles announced his retirement from politics and left Mexico. His re-appearance in the country a few months later led to a series of riots and protests which finally caused Cardenas to deport him. Since April, 1936, Calles has lived in exile, although for almost two years he could have returned under a general amnesty granted to all former enemies of the government by Cardenas. It is upon labor, peasants, and army (to which has recently been added middle class and professional groups joining the official party) that Cardenas bases his attempts to break the chains that bind Mexico to its past, to solve the pressing day-to-day problems, and to work for the time when his people will assume their rightful place as an independent, progressive nation.

9 CHAPTER III Land

RESIDENT CARDENAS showed his fundamental grasp of the real needs of the Mexican people by the manner in which the tackled P the agrarian problem. Through the complicated pattern of Mexican life since 1521 one thread can always be seen in major social and political changes-the desire of the common man for land. The same hunger for soil which The Good Earth showed to exist in the heart of the Chinese peasant has moved the Mexican peon. It has been an elemental force, shift.ing and molding political phenomena. Prior to the landing of the Spaniards, communal land ownership widely prevailed. The Conquistadores and their successors brought under private ownership all but the most remote villages. Diaz, Indian hater, sought to eliminate the remains of the Aztec system, under which each family was entitled to land or to an opportunity to work on common plots as long as the family contributed its share of labor. In the last 30 years of the Diaz regime, 3,000,000 Indians were re­ duced to slavery. One hundred thirty four and a half million acres of public land were turned over to prlvate interests by Diaz.' By 1910, one percent of the people held 85 percent of the land. The Terrazas family estate in Chihuahua comprised more land than Massachusetts and Rhode Island together. In the same state, the Zuloaga family held two million acres. Mr. Hearst and other foreign­ ers owned ranches of immense size. Tierrr:t y libertad, first a slogan of the determined Zapata, then a phrase to be bandied about by the politicians, has in the past few years become a reality to many villages. Begun in 1916, and speeded up tremendously under President Cardenas, the land distribution system is changing the face of Mexico. The land is given to the villagers, to be held in common. The village which owns land has come to be known as an ejido, although the original use of that word meant simply the common plot of land itself. There is no pri­ vate ownership in the ejido; the land can be worked either collec­ tively or individually, but if the latter, the individual cannot alien­ ate the land he works. Cardenas has placed more stress on communal

10 farming than his predecessors. Under Cardenas the area of the ejido's has increased: the average size from 1916 to 1934 was 10.14 hectares, or 25.05 acres; since 1934 it has almost doubled: The most ambitious single attempt to apply the new policies is found in the Laguna region of the northern states of Durango and Coahuila. A description of the Laguna experiment will best explain the present land program, based on the ancient Indian pattern, but utilizing the newest technics and machinery. The region was chosen more or less on the old pioneer principle that "the wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease". The plan­ tations which supplied 48 percent of Mexico's cotton were in this irrigated desert region. Seventy percent of these were foreign-owned, forty percent by two British companies. Absentee owners and their superintendents had had trouble for many years with the workers, who were paid low wages for their work both in the fields and in the processing plants. The wave of unionization which followed the elec­ tion of Cardenas brought strikes and lockouts to the territory. Car­ denas went personally to investigate the situation, as he has done in so many other cases. His study convinced him that the solution lay along collective lines. On October 6, 1936, the President signed an order turning over to 221 ejidos (communal land-owning societies) almost 250,000 acres of irrigated land and over 300,000 acres of cattle land in the Laguna area. On one plantation alone there were 21 villages, each of which became an ejido. Altogether, 25,503 heads of families joined land­ owning communities." Cardenas had learned that, in addition to the sm~llness of the individual plots, there were two other factors the lack of which had worked against the success of the land distribution program-fi­ nancial aid and technical assis,tance. In DeceIlllber, 1935, he had con­ vinced the Congress that a new type of bank should be founded, the National Bank of Ejidal Credit. In the hands of the Laguna branch of this bank rests much of the responsibility for the success or failure of this key experiment. The bank, with a staff of trained agronomists, divided the region into 24 zones (reduced the second year to 17), each with an agro-

11 nomist in charge. There are a dozen or more ejidos in each zone. The zone chief endeavors to see that various bank regulations are enforced and that the machinery for the operation of the communal ventures runs smoothly. To one familiar with the stultifying "leadership" complex of the past, the amount of responsibility left in the hands of the peasants in these ejidos is astounding. In a meeting embracing the whole mem­ bership, the peasants in each ejido elect their own work bosses, whose functions, though not manners, might be compared with those of the riding bosses of our Southern cotton plantations. Bank officials told me that, out of the first 400 elections, less than 10 had proved un­ satisfactory either to the bank or to the peasants. In each ejido, three members are elected to a "council of adminis­ tration", as general representatives of the new corporate body. One of this council is chosen as legal representative. His signature makes the contracts between the Bank and the ejido binding. Three members are also elected to a "council of vigilance" to super­ vise production. The community likewise elects a store-man, who takes care of the monies, mules, plows, tra~tors and other equipment, and a "social delegate" who attends to local social problems and services and consults with delegates from other eji,jos on such prob­ lems. The zones engage in "socialist competition" to keep up morale and speed up laggards. Each community keeps a public chart of the work accomplished both by individuals ,and groups. Each worker gets a fixed daily wage, based roughly on the skill needed for his job. The field laborer gets one and a half pesos a day, in many cases twice as much as he obtained under his previous employer. In addition to his daily wage, each worker at the end of the season sha~es in the profits of the community endeavor, on the basis of the number of hours he worked during the season, without reference to his daily wage. (In the division of profits for the first year, the highest sum given any worker was 1,450 pesos, the smallest, 278. Some ejidos, however, made no profit.)' During the year, the Bank advances money for wages to each community. The loan is repaid out of the proceeds of the sale of the

12 season's crop. The bank also lends money for the purchase of mach­ inery, for stock, and for improvements, to be repaid over a five-year period. It organizes group buying and scientific selection of machin­ ery, tools, stock, and seed, handles the transportation of goods into the region and ships and sells the crops. The Bank likewise adopts the newest technics in large-scale farm­ ingand it runs contests to choose peasants to be sent to the United States for study of technical methods. It likewise conducts agricul­ tural schools. In about 25 years, the ownership of the Bank will pass into the hands of the ejidatarios. Every time an ejido gets a loan (the Bank lends only to ejidos) a small percentage of it is used to buy the Ba?k's unlimited class C stock. Class A, subscribed by the Federal govern­ ment, and class B, owned by the state and local governments, are limited, so that the peasant groups eventually will be able to outvote the governmental representatives. Thus, the agrarian officials say, another prop is being built for economic democracy. The first year of the experiment was marked by a number of set­ backs. A severe drought hit the region, which depends for its irriga­ tion water on two treacherous rivers. A hail-storm ruined the first planting of cotton and forced a late second planting. Added to these troubles were the difficulties encountered in turning what were virtu­ ally serfs into free-men almost overnight; the attempt of former own­ ers to sabotage the experiment, and the endeavor of professional politicians to profit from the money spent in connection with the de­ velopment.· As the experiment entered its second year, peasant demonstrations were held demanding "the weeding out of the personnel oJ the Bank and the lowering of their salaries, as well as amendments to the Law of Agrarian Credit to permit the Bank to lend more than 70 percent of the probable valu"e of the crops"." The government's figures show a profit for the first year of 4,­ 4.00,000 pesos, which was distributed to the Laguna peasants after the Bank had repaid itself for the wages advanced and had taken one-fifth of its advances for machinery and other long-range invest­ ments. An investigating committee of professors of the Centro de

13 Estudio8 Pedagog·icos e Hispanoamericanos, which visited the region in the summer of 1938, checked the Bank's books and verified that figure. However, no mention was made of the possible losses sustained by the government after paying the peasants about 10 cents a pound for the cotton and then selling it at the world price, a reduction of from two to four cents. Fortune for October, 1938, repeats the story carried in the conservative press in Mexico that the losses of the first year approximated $5,000,000. The 28,503 members of 221 ejidos produced the first year on 90,­ 941 hectares of land, 84,.650 bales of cotton, 7,033 tons of wheat, and 1,020 tons of alfalfa. The second year, 1937-38, the number of members had grown to 30,452 and the ejidos to 287, but the area planted was reduced to 65,638 hectares. The yield, however, was in­ creased to 94, 034 bales of cotton by improved working methods,'O For the sake of a cash crop saleable in the internal market, the wheat area WI:!,S increased; the second season yielded over 30,000 tons. The wheat yield for the third season is set at 50,000,'0' Pro­ duction of alfalfa, corn, and melons is also being pushed to free the region from its exclusive dependence on cotton. The economic side of the experiment is not the only side. Of equal importance are its' social features. A complete system of socialized medicine has been created. Two well-equipped nO-bed hospitals are precursors of one hospital for each of the zones. Two hundred doctors, nurses and social workers make available medical and surgical treat­ ment for the ejida.tario and his family for two pesos a month. The government li~ewise is pushing education, sanitation, coopera­ tive stores, anti-alcohol campaigns, sports, and the organization of women. Customs and mores which have kept the Indian ignorant, superstitious, intoxicated,and disease-ridden are being broken down. The ejidatarios are learning to work together. The former owners have largely either left the region or are cooperating with the new organization. The haste which marked the first year was unnecessary the second season. The drought hazard will be practically eliminated by the completion of the El Palmito dam across the Rio N azas, planned for 1940. In other sections of Mexico, huge plantations of cotton, henequen,

14 wheat, corn and cane are being given to the land workers. Since land distribution began in 1916, 23,175,219 hectares have definitely been placed in possession of t~e peasants. Of this amount, 14,878,197 hectares were distributed by Cardenas in his first four years, more than by all of his revolutionary predecessors. The following table, supplied by the DepartamentO' Agrario, merits careful study in connection with an attempt to understand the suc­ cess or failure of any of the revolutionary Presidents:

LAND DISTRIBUTION, BY YEARS, 1916-1938 No. of ejidos A l'ea i7~ hectal'CS 1916 . 1 1,246 1917 . 8 5,635 1918 . 57 68,309 1919 . 60 33,276 1920 . 64 64,333 1921 . 121 178,814 1922 ,. 68 140,267 1923 .. ,, .. 128 284,871 1924 . 307 623,095 1925 . 404 787,014 1926 . 408 816,474 1927 . 397 991,526 1928 . 367 638,864 1929 . 692 1,084,370 1930 . 463 744,090 1931 . 373 610,305 1932 . 208 348,400 1933 . 135 195,939 1934 . 495 680,194 1935 . 1,665 2,668,261 1936 '. 2,563 3,656,006 1937 . 2,641 5,319,598 1938 . 1,679 3,234,332

15 Adding "provisional possessions", i.e., land distributed but not having passed through all necessary legal steps to definite possession, we find that, since the beginning of The Revolution, 1,586,796 heads of families in almost 14,000 ejidos have been given 26,357,732 hec­ tares of land. The government has spent 34,000,000 pesos in the past four years on its agrarian projects, and an additional 8,263,131 pesos on civic improvements in the newly created ejido centers. The average area given to each family in the past four years has risen to 18.25 hectares (45.07 acres)." While the figures are impressive, it must be pointed out that, under present legislation, about two-thirds of all known villages are in­ eligible to receive land, and that only about 2,500,000 additional peasants can rightfully expect to be included in the land program. According to the Departamento Agrario, there are only 2,500,000 hectares of cultivable land and 70,000,000 hectares of forest and pas­ ture land at present available for the possible use of these peasants." Barring a return to pre-1910 days, however, it may be predicted that either the laws will be liberalized when the present supply of available land is exhausted, or the government which ceases land­ distribution will lose the support of the largest single group in Mex­ ico and seizures of land will again be resorted to. Critics of the land policy of Cardenas point out that, in the past two years, Mexico has had to import corn and beans. This, however, Ihas happened many times in Mexican history, including every year of the last two decades of the highly-praised Diaz regime," and can hardly be put forth as a proof that the increased distribution of land is the cause of what on the surface seems an astonishing fact. The agrarian authorities claim that, while the national production of beans and corn fell slightly (6 percent from 1934 to, 1937), na­ Itional production of thirteen other important crops increased in the I same period by 51 percent, and that communal production has in- creased more than private." The ejidatarios cultivate more of their I land than the hacendado. The hacienda system was never' efficient in supplying the national market, and tended toward local and regional self-sufficiency. Ejidal production as a whole has tended to increase. In 1934-35

16 the production on ejidos was valued at a little over 80 percent more than in 1929-30, while their area during that period had increased 77 percent, and their population 72 percent.'" The value of the 29 principal crops cultivated by the 5,042 ejidos affiliated with the Banco Ejidal, in the past three years was given in September as: 1935 . 34.713.394 pesos 1936 90.926.570 pesos 1937 125.915.459 pesos The average income per ejidatario in 1937 in the ejidos served by the Bank was announced as 283 pesos, to which should be added food­ stuffs from the communal plots.'· While small, it compares favorably with the annual income of large sections of our own sharecroppers, and is a considerable improvement over the 104 peso average wage of the Mexican farm laborer." In spite of the showing that has been made, government officials, from the President down, have issued pleas to the communal farmers to remember that "The Revolutionary program will be defeated if the farmer produces only enough for himself. He must provide for the nation as well. The government has given the land to the man who works it, but we cannot expect national prosperity to develop auto­ matically from this.'· Critics of the government, when confronted with figures showing that the private plantation is lagging, may admit that it is true, but ask how a landowner can be expected to keep up his production when his land may be taken away from him at any time. This argument seems logically to call for an intensification of land distribution so that the superior production of the "socialized sector" will be in­ creased. This logical deduction, however, does not seem to have been made by the critics of the system. "The day every Mexican cas a piece of land, all revolutions here will be over," said Obregon. That day is still far off, but the future of Mexico depends on its arrival. Will the ejidos produce enough to free Mexico from the necessity of importing foodstuffs? Will they produce enough to lower prices to the city worker, now suffering from the agricultural dislocation? 'Vill the ejidatario rise to the new democratic forms which are being offered him, and demand their fulfillment?

17 These questions are of outstanding interest to those who see in this experiment the world's first approach to a socialized agriculture on a voluntary basis.

CHAPTER IV

Labor

THOUGH involving far fewer persons, the labor problem ranks with the problem of the land in political and social import­ A ance. The 1930 Census placed only 31 percent of Mexico's population in the economically productive classification. The division by occupation of the economically-productive and of the total popu­ lation is shown in the following table:

OCCUPATIONAL DIVISION OF POPULATION

% of Economically % of Productive Total Workers'· Population'·' Agriculture, cattle-raising, forestry, hunt- ing and fishing . 22.0 70.2 Extraction of minerals (coal, petroleum, salt, metals) . .3 .9 Industries . 4.1 14.4 Communication and transportation . .6 2.1 Commerce . 1.6 5.3 Public employees . .9 2.7 Liberal professions . .3 .9 Miscellaneous . 1.2 3.5 In 1929, the public, through its local, state and national govern­ ments, was the largest single employer of labor, having on its payroll nearly 160,000 workers. Next came the food products industries, with 82,789 workers; textiles, with 71,01l; the railroads, with 58,­ 550 and the mines and smelters with 57,773. Further down the scale in importance were metal products (25,755 employees), wearing ap­ parel, (17,509), oil fields and refineries (13,203), and furniture and

18 wood products (10,323). Of still less importance as an employer of labor were the light and power, chemical, construction material, gra­ phic arts, ceramics, tobacco, furs and hides, paper, glass and jewelry, and construction of vehicles.'· The total value of industrial production in 1929 was double that of agriculture, although the investment in the hitter was more than two and a half times that in industry (2,658,000,000 pesos, as com­ pared with 976,529,483). That Mexico is becoming industrialized is seen by the fact that industrial production increased 621 percent in the period 1902 to 1930, as compared with an increase in agricultural production of 72 percent." Foreign capital in Mexico holds an important position. One-third of the products of the food industry and 62.90 of the textile products come from foreign-owned plants." The Spanish possess the largest share among the foreigners in both of these industries; the French, the second largest. INDUSTRIES, BY WORKERS AND NUMBER OF ESTABLISHMENTS­ 1929 and 1934* Number of Number of Workers Establishments Industry 1929 1934 1929 1931, Food products . 82,789 39,630 14,530 2,875 Textiles . 71,011 69,058 7,838 1,076 Metal products . 25,755 21,292 4,616 343 W earing apparel . 17,509 15,704 5,944 936 Furniture and wood products .. 10,323 12,575 5,411 304 Light and power . 8,731 5,424 735 141 Chemicals . 6,457 7,663 1,098 339 Construction materials . 6,333 6,866 1,148 160 Graphic arts (printing, photo- graphy, motion pictures) . 5,509 5,098 525 221 Ceramucs . 4,026 867 2,485 8 Tobacco . 3,910 3,092 47 Furs and hides . 3,706 2,917 2,228 204

,*. Oompiled from Mexico Eii Oifras, Atlas Estadistica, lH34, (for 1929 figures) and Segundo Oenso Industrial de 1935, (for 1934 figures). Both published by the Direccion General de Estadfstica, Secretaria de fa Economia Nac'ional, Mexico, D.F.

19 Paper ...... 3,367 4,228 67 Oil refining ...... 2,605 6,359 9 Glass ...... 1,237 2,524 27 Jewelry, objects of art, musical and precision instruments .. 627 301 818 29 Construction of vehicles ...... 413 201 15

The 1934 figures are lower in many cases for two reasons: (1) the 1935 census included only establishments with a production worth more than 10,000 pesos in the previous year; and (2) the depression which followed the 1929 crash in the United States. Especially in those cases where the number of workers does not vary widely, the drop in the number of plants enumerated indicates the handicraft nature of much of Mexico's economy. There are still factories which produce on order only, many use rural workers only when they are not busy in the fields. The light and power industry is divided between the British-owned Mexican Light and Power company and the United States-ownen Electric Bond and Share. The telephones belong to two foreign trusts -the Swedish Ericsson Telephone company and the Mexican Tele­ phone and Telegraph Company, an 1. T. & T. affiliate. Before most of the oil industry was nationalized, United States capital accounted for 52 percent of its investment; Anglo-Dutch, for 41.5 percent. In this general economic environment the Mexican labor movement has developed-a movement which, in a few years, has had to fight battles equal to those of..many older movements. Unions appeared late on the Mexican scene. The rising industrial­ ism sponsored by Diaz accomodated itself to the feudal structure of Mexican society. Industry failed to break feudal bonds as it had in Europe. Working class action prior to the passing of the Diaz re­ gime took the form of fraternal, mutual aid groups, or was vigorous­ ly suppressed as in the Cananea copper strike of 1906 and the Rio Blanco textile strike of 1907. Anarchist, socialist and syndicalist ideas had seeped into Mexico, despite police and censorship, and the growth of factory employ­ ment helped their spread. In 1912, the Casa del Obrera Mundial, Mexico's first coordinating center of working class propaganda, was formed by a group of radicals who had been meeting as a discussion group in the capital. Those who later beca,me the leaders of the labor movement worked through this o'rganization. The theory of the Casa

20 was_anarcho-syndicalist; it decried political action, but soon found itself knee-deep in politics. The movem~nt was so frowned upon by large sections of the popu­ lation that even Madero suppressed its newspaper. However, it had smooth sailing under the Madero regime as compared with its experi­ ence under that of Madero's assassin, Huerta. Following the first May Day meeting in the country, in 1913, Huerta suppressed the Casa and deported its foreign-born leaders. Embittered by this sup­ pression, the Casa organized six "Red Battalions" to fight against Huerta, agreed to hold towns taken by the Constitutionalist forces, and to act as reserves in districts where no military action was re­ quired.23 Workers entered the batallions by unions, elected their own officers, and, after capturing a city, organized a branch of the Casa and supported with arms the strikes that were called. Soon after the workers had helped assure Carranza's power, the new President, as has been stated before, began to go back on his promises. Labor, during the Carranza regime, however, found its posi­ tion strengthened by the insertion of several provisions in the new Constitution, inserted partly as a result of the assistance of the "Red Battalions" during the civil war. The labor provisions in the 1917 Constitution were contained in Article 123. They included an eight-hour day; a six day week; restric­ tions on labor of women and children; a minimum wage; abolition of company currency; double time for overtime; compulsory schooling for workers' children, with employers furnishing the schools, taught by state-selected teachers; the furnishing of "comfortable and sani­ tary dwelling places" by employers; employers' liability for accidents and occupational disease and recognition of the right of employers and workers to resort to strikes and lockouts. All workers' groups that registered with the government boards were to be given legal standing. The Constitution required all em­ ployers to enter into written contracts, if it were demanded of them, and to register the agreement legally before it became enforcable. According to the Constitution, the employer must collect dues for the union, if so requested. Strike-breaking was declared to be against public policy. (Because of this last provision, it is a common sight

21 to see the black and red strike flag nailed across the gate of an idle factory, with perhaps only one striker on guard. If anyone, worker or employer, tries to enter the factory, the police are called to evict him.) Other sections of the Constitution set up boards of conciliation and arbitration and gave the state machinery power to decide upon 23 the legality of a strike. ' The social theory of the authors of the Constitution is adequately summed up in the section that defines strikes as legal, if, "by the em­ ployment of peaceful means, they shall aim to bring about a balance between the various factors of production and to harmonize the rights of capital and labor." These constitutional provisions were supplemented in various states by liberal labor laws. Perhaps the most advanced of these were to be found in Yucatan, the first "socialist" state in the Western Hemisphere. Many of these laws were inspired, however, not so much by the general rise of laborism throughout the world as by the tradi­ tion of the paternalistic regulations of the artisan's guilds of the XVI century in Mexico," and by a desire to restrict the foreign own­ ers of the chief industries." As a result of these constitutional and legislative provisions, labor suddenly found itself in possession of weapons for which, in other countries, the movement had had to struggle for decades. It likewise discovered that the government held a tremendous power over the affairs of the labor movement. The result has been that keeping in the good graces of the government has been one of the main activities of the labor movement. If Mexico were an independent industrial na­ tion, that might mean the organization of a labor party through which the workers could run their own government. Ina semi-colonial country such as Mexico, this situation has led to the development of a labor movement which, in the final analysis, always bows to the wishes of the government. The government, pressed to placate out­ side powers, often finds that its attitude in the class struggle is deter­ mined by which foreign owners control the industry in dispute. Until Mexico frees itself from its colonial status, or until the workers in the United States and Great Britain, coming into power, give Mexicans

22 a chance to run their own affairs untrammeled by political or eco­ nomic pressure, the Mexican labor movement will be decidedly limited in the things it can successfully undertake. Until 1931, the labor provisions of the Constitution were left up to the states for implementation and enforcement. In that year a national labor code was finally adopted. Since 1917, however, the labor movement has found that the things it obtained without strug­ gle from either the state or national governments could, without much difficulty, be taken away. Only through deals with politicians or through the strength of its independent organization has labor bene­ fitted from the laws it so enthusiastically hailed. In this environment, the labor movement went through many changes. From the days of the "Red Battalions" through the reign of Calles, the unions grew by leaps and bounds. In the early days of the movement, great credit for this growth must be given to Luis N. Morones, first secretary of the Confereracion Regional Obrera Mexi­ cano, for his tremendous energy, his diplomacy, a,nd his ability to weld together various groups for common action. When the workers were in trouble, Morones was able, if necessary, to induce the govern­ ment to bring the re~alcitrant employer to terms. Workers at times were "persuaded" to join the union through governmental pressure. The CRaM, under the secretaryship of Morones, jumped from a mem­ bership of 7,000 in 1918 to 1,200,000 in 1924. Morones was appointed Secretary of Industry, Commerce, and Labor when Calles became President in 1924. Calles, in his first mes­ sage as President said, "Laborism, as a principle adopted by the na-­ tional government, as an orientation of the masses, and as a system of economic, politic·al and social organization, has been fully estab­ lished in Mexico in a new phase of its evolution." The CRaM became virtually an organ of the national government. When revolt flared up again in 1924, the "Red Battalions" were revived and were used to help Calles suppress the de la Huerta up­ rising. Hundreds of "labor leaders" were suddenly thrown into posi­ tions which gave them more power than they had ever dreamed of, and many of them betrayed their trust. Personal graft became rampant. The rank and file of many unions were merely pawns in the game car-

23 ried on by the leaders. Substantial groups of unions that refused to go along with the CROM leadership were bullied into line or threat­ ened with destruction. Morones, whose breadth of vision had been responsible for many advances made by labor, either could not, 01'­ too deeply involved in the amassing of personal wealth-would not, call a halt. By 1928 CROM membership had skyrocketed to nearly 2,000,000. Prior to that date, however, storm clouds had begun to gather. Calles and his "men of The Revolution" had begun to reap the rewards of governmental position, and, in the latter years, had associated with representatives of business interests in the United States. The Cal­ listas had begun to supply what Mexico had lacked up to that time, a native capitalist class. Calles himself owned four large haciendas, and his colleagues owned or controlled almost all the new industries that had been started in the country during his regime. The leaders began to be weary of labor troubles, and to doubt that further distribution of lands was "in the true spirit of the nation". The CROM leadership split. The Morones group was torn between the demand of the unions for continued activity and the demands of Calles for a brake on these activities. Then, in 1928, came the assassination of Obregon, as he was about to assume office. Calles, desirous of taking the Obregon supporters into camp, placed in the Presidents' chair Emilio Portes Gil, who, as Governor of Tamaulipas, had been t}1e CROM's bitter enemy. The CROM immediately began to attack the administration. Using the. ;ame tactics the CROM had employed when in control of the national government, Portes Gil, while Governor, had demanded that state groups withdraw from the parent body and create a new state 01'­ ganization." Labor inspectors, labor courts, police and army were used against any groups that did not follow this recommendation. To give his state federation idea a radical connotation with the workers, communist propagandists were subsidized to support the new group. Pictures of Lenin were printed at state expense and widely distrib­ uted:' As President, Portes Gil carried on the same tactics against the CROM nationally. The communists formed a new national group,

24 the Mexican Unitary Syndicalist Federation, (Confederacion Silndical Uwitaria Mexicana) and, for a while, looked forward to supplanting the CROM as the labor arm of the government. When the CROM had been greatly weakened, however, Portes Gil in turn a,ttacked the new group, wooed the conservatives, and made peace with the Church. For eight year,s, labor was without a nationally-recognized central body. Governors of various states took over ex-CROM bodies and used them for their own ends. The General Federation of Labor, (Confederacion General de Trabajadares), founded in 1921 by an­ archist, I.W.W., and communist groups and disgruntled politicians, tried hard to secure governmental favor, and succeeded to some small extent, but did not have the leadership capable of building on it ef­ fectively. In 1932, the government created another labor organiza­ tion, the Chamber of Labor. In spite of adequate finances and govern­ ment support it failed, however, to take root and to become the CROM's successor. Lombardo Toledano, after his defeat as candidate for general sec­ retary of the CROM, had split away with a few followers. When Calles attacked Lombardo and other unionists who were leading strikes, the CROM, regarding Lombardo as a "traitor", made common cause with Calles.so At the same time it attempted to keep on the good side of Cardenas by attacking Lombardo for calling the government "bourgeois". It also sought favor with the President on the ground that its fraternal relations with the labor movement of the United States had been of the greatest importance to Obregon. But the day of the CROM as the government's labor pillar had passed. The struggle against Calles served both greatly to weaken the CROM and to unify the labor movement around Lombardo Toledano. The government-owned Chamber of Labor, the Communist CSUM, and the groups that Lombardo had rallied around himself since his defection from the CROM, united, in March, 1936, to form the Fed­ eration of Mexican Workers, the CTM. (Confederacion de Traba­ jadores de Mexico). The CROM and the CGT immediately attacked the CTM as communist and as government-inspired and financed. At its first national congress, February, 1938, Lombardo, as gen­ eral secretary, reported a membership of 945,913 in 3,594 affiliates,

25 national, regional, state, and local, including 76,000 railroad workers, 50,000 sugar workers, 25,000 textile workers, and 12,000 oil work­ ers." The 945,000 estimate is probably too high. There are only about 1,100,000 workers in mining, industry, trade, communications, trans­ portation and government service in Mexico and, in addition to the CTM membership, there is the miners' federation which claims 100,­ 000 members, and the strongest union of electricians in the country, both of which left the CTM as a result of the communist split of April, 1937, plus an estimated 50,000 for the CROM, and 30,000 for the CGT. There is likewise the newly formed union of federal employees which, "in deference to the government's wishes", the CTM has announced that it will make no attempt to secure as an affiliate:' Finally, there are some state labor groups under government domination.'" The peasants, many of whom once belonged to the CROM, are now in the government-organized National Peasants' Federation. In spite of ancient grudges, the CTM, the CROM, and the CGT have worked together on several occasions in the past two years. Sev­ eral "demonstration" general strikes have been held in the textile industry, where both the older organizations still have forces, the CROM in the Puebla and Orizaba regions and the CGT in the Federal District. Structurally, the three central bodies are practically identical, al­ though the CTM has tried to tighten up its organization. They in­ clude representation from local, state, regional, and industry-wide bodies'" The CT'M is affiliated with the International Federation of Trade Unions. The difference between the CROM and the CTM is not one of craft versus industrial unions, although the CTM has ties with the CIO and the CROM, with the A. F. of L. Craft unions scarcely ever existed in Mexico, outside the theatrical and graphic arts industries. The Mexican unions were much more influenced by Spanish, French, Ger­ man and British experience than by the craft philosophy which dom­ inated the A. F. of L. in the days when Mexican unions were born. The basis of Mexican labor organization, old and new, is the plant union,

26 which may include everyone -from janitor to typist. The difference lies partly in the greater militancy of the newer organization and partly in the governmental backing it receives. Almost the only intellectual ever to secure a following ~mong the Mexican workers, Lombardo Toledano, has a background of univer­ sity teaching, study of law and anthropology, and service to the CROM as its attorney and as ad interim labor governor of Puebla. He has to spend much of his time working to keep his federation from falling to pieces under the pulls and strains of the complicated Mexi­ can political patterns, especially during a presidential campaign. Although he is fond of the current communist phraseology (just as Morones was in the early days of the Russian revolution), and has been one of the most insistent of those attacking Trotsky, he is not a member of the Communist party, and not entirely trusted by com~ munist leaders. He is also under fire from the more conservative unions for allowing the communists in the CTM. Toledano is trying, through his Workers' University, his daily newspaper, El Popular, and political activities within the framework of the Party of the Mexican Revolution, to build up an independent labor movement which will not go the way of the CROM if the election should make an anti-labor man President. He has organized a "work­ ers' militia" which parades in military formation and which is at­ tacked by the conservatives as a danger to the country. How well the lessons he may have learned from the decay of the CROM can be applied under the present circumstances, time alone will telL In the few short years of its existence, the Mexican labor movement has had to face and try to solve all the usual problems of workers in a growing industrialism plus those of fighting in the struggle for national independence. The labor movement has given to the Mexi­ can worker at least a rallying cry in times of chaos, and in countless cases, real protection against feudalism in industry. It has provided to thousands a feeling of independence that nothing else could have given, and has all but eliminated the suppliant, cap-in-hand attitude of the former serf. It has made many Mexican conscious of themselves as part of the world-wide organization of the workers. The Mexico of the future will benefit from the pioneering work of

27 those who are now in eclipse, as well as those who are at present lead­ ing the forces of labor. No matter what happens in building the new Mexico, labor cannot be ignored.

CHAPTER V

Education

NTIL after the Revolution, education in Mexico was almost exclusively for the upper-class groups. For centuries, the U Mexican people had been characterized by ignorance and superstition. The illiteracy rate for the whole country in 1910 was 69.73 percent. In the rural areas it was much higher. By the 1930 census, the rl:\,te had been reduced to 59.26 percent, and the 1940 count when the returns are finally in, is· expected to show a drop of at least 10 percent. Since 1921, and particularly since the inauguration of the Six­ Year Plan in 1934, there has been a frontal attack on illiteracy. Itin­ erant teachers penetrate into the farthest villages. In most places they are well-received. In some, they are subjected to the attacks of groups who do not want the peasants to be able to understand what the government is doing and printing. Many have returned to their homes with their ears lopped off. Since 1934, 300 have been killed. The Six Year Plan placed main stress on rural education in an attempt to counter-balance scales long weighted in favor of the mid­ dle class city folk. It took a revolution to remind the government that more than two-thirds of the people live outside of urban areas. The Plan provided that 12,000 new rural schools should be built during th~ 1934-1940 period; 1,000 in 1934, 2,000 in each year from 1935 to 1938 inclusive, and 3,000 in 1939:" The Plan also provided that the share of the federal budget de­ voted to education should increase from 15 percent in 1934 by one percent a year until it reached 20 percent in 1939. State budgets were also to include at least 15 percent for education under state auspices. The building of schools has fallen slightly behind the Plan,

28 largely due to the finlJ.ncial crisis, according to government support­ ers. The 1939 budget included five percent less than called for under the Plan. Legally, primary education is compulsory. Even at the present rate of expansion, however, it will take fifteen years to extend educa­ tional facilities to all those who need them. Nor will provision of new buildings solve the main problem, as real today as when Juarez pointed it out in the last century:

"Even though schools multiply and be well endowed and teachers well paid. there would always be a scarcity of pupils so long as the cause which prevents the attend­ ance of children persists. That cause is the widespread misery under which our people live •••" Fifty percent of the pupils who start in the Mexico City schools drop out the first year; 90 percent drop out during the six years of elementary schooling.

"The education imparted by the State shall be socialistic. and in addition to exclud­ ing all religious doctrine. shall combat fanaticism and prejudices by organizing its instruction and activities in such a way that shaH permit the creation in youth of an exact and rational concept of the Universe and of social life". That is the basis for "socialist education" which lead to so much trouble and misunderstanding both at home and abroad. We shall see what it means in actual practice. It will, of course, take many years of painstaking work in the rural sections before the superstitions built up during centuries will be replaced by an acceptance of natural explanations for everyday oc­ curences. In an effort to weaken the superstitions and advance the welfare of the people, the rural teacher is being equipped with thermo­ meters to register the existence of fever, with blJ.rometers to combat rain and cloud worship; while sports are pushed as part of the cam­ paign against drunkenness. The teachers start their educational process with unsolved village problems. It may be corn which doesn't grow, a high typhoid death rate, the need for a better market place, the building of a basket ball court, or the setting up of a community radio, which serves as the point of departure. The teacher is doctor, lawyer, nurse, social work­ er, musician, mec;hanic and agriculturist. Six in the morning to nine

29 or ten at night are not unusual hours on the job. Some teachers must start from scratch, getting the peasants to build the school and to make the equipment for it. Even in the rural primary schools, attempts are made by the teach­ ers to build up in the student group the same sense of responsibility for which the most advanced progressive schools strive. Heads of the educational program are quite frank in saying that one of the greatest curses of their national life has been the blind following of a "leader". Student self-government is meant to help counteract this tendency. Backward regions are served by "cultural missions", consisting of a staff of six persons, each with special training. Agronomists, physi­ cal educators, painters, teachers of arts and crafts, social workers, and nurses make up most of them. Several months are spent in each cOIIliIllunity, helping start projects to better the health and welfare of the villagers. When these missions depart, they leave plans for teach­ ers who remain in the community. In one village I visited, a coopera­ tive store, a clean water supply, and an open air theatre were among the results of the three month visit of the "missionaries". Education looking toward the incorporation of the Indian popu­ lation, so largely untouched by modern culture, into the Mexican entity has been speeded up by Cardenas. Schools have been created in all parts of the country to which young people who have shown some leadership and initiative can be sent by their tribes. After three years, they are expected to serve as educators for their people. Prior to The Revolution, the belief was widespread that the Indian had to be wiped out, or, at least, that he must be kept in a position inferior to the criollo or mestizo. Cardenas does not subscribe to this belief, as is shown by his recent statement on the need for expanding Indian education:

"The Indian has been described as beinq lazy. but his judqment undoubtedly is based upon the spectacle of the types intoxicated by excessive use of alcohol or deqenerated by hunqer. This fault is not theirs but the fault of the classes which exploited them for qenerations. Throuqhout the nation. Indians work in conditions 01 personal humiliation and privation. yet willinqly contribute their service to the build· inq of communal works for which they receive no pay:' The "socialist" part of Mexican education appears largely in the city schools, but in a fourth year rural primer which sells for less than

30

/ does an ice-cream cone one can find the following among the chap­ ters ;38 "A Strike", "Agrarianism in Mexico", "The Liberation of the Peas­ ant Woman", "The First of May", and "First Phases of Trade Unionism in Mexico", including a story of the shooting of strikers by the Diaz forces in the country's first great strike on January 7, 1907. The closing chapter is called "The Proletariat". One of the official secondary school texts is "The Class Struggle in Mexican History". Also widely used is an anthology of revolutionary writings from all lands, including Eugene V. Debs' essay, Woman, Organized Labor, by Samuel Gompers, The Right to the Land, by Tolstoi, and thumbnail lives of Mexican heroes such as Hidalgo, Ric­ ardo Flores Magon, early syndicalist leader, and Felipe Carrillo Puerto, socialist governor of Yucatan who was murdered by the henequen plantation owners. Other lands contribute Karl Marx, Nic­ olai Lenin, Romain RoIland, Tolstoi, Kropotkin, Ghandi, Rosa Lux­ emburg, and Luisa Michel, heroine of the Paris Commune. Surpris­ ingly enough, the last sketch is of "The Christ of the People""· Simply written and profusely illustrated books and pamphlets con­ stitute a large part of widespread informal education. City libraries increased from 15 in 1934 to 37 in 1937. Trucks full of books follow the farthest passable roads, their sides covered with signs reading, "Peasants and workers, this is your library, use it". Branch libraries have been set up in union headquarters. Films, choruses, puppet shows, open-air theatres, and organized play for adults and children, are everywhere pushed as supplements to the regular school work. Democracy was the great slogan under which the Revolution start­ ed in 1910. Democracy is not yet a fact in Mexico, although the political, economic and social bases for democracy are being laid. The great pillars of a democratic future for Mexico are education, communal ownership of the land, the growing cooperative movement, and labor legislation backed by a well-organized labor movement. They will rise or fall together. The Mexicans realize that the keystone of the arch must be education, since without it the worker and the peasant will not be able wisely and well to use the power the others give him.

31 CHAPTER VI

The Church and State

NE of the indictments brought against the Church by the revolutionaries is that it fosters ancient superstitions harm­ O ful to the life of the nation. Catholics in the United States make a grave mistake when they assume that the Church to which they belong is the Church which exists below the Rio Grande. Mexican Catholicism is a mixture of Roman Catholic doctrine with pagan beliefs and practices, such as the wor­ ship of stars, the moon, the sun and other objects of nature.'· However, the Church would probably still have undisputed sway over the indoctrination of the young if it had been content with exer­ cising its ministerial functions alone. Churchmen came to New Spain with the conquistadores, and, with a few honorable exceptions, blessed the enslavement of the Indians. The Church secured large tracts of land from a servile king of Spain and was soon one of the wealthiest institutions in the new world. It held tremendous power over the civil government and became embroiled in all the conspiracies and intrigues of the colonial rulers." It erected magnificent buildings, many of them monuments to the back-breaking toil of thousands of Indians." To such scholars as Gamio, it was one of the root causes of the indiffer­ ence to exertion which troubles so many critics of Mexico." The Church excommunicated Hidalgo, the "Father of His Coun­ try", a Catholic priest, for opposing Spanish tyranny. It helped the invasion of Mexico by troops of the United StattS in 1847. It assisted Napoleon set up the puppet Emperor Maximilian. It aided Porfirio Diaz to suppress constitutional rights. Generally, village priests were looked upon as allies of the planta­ tion owners. "A working arrangement was developed between the planters and the Church, by which the religious dues of all kinds were advanced by the hacendado, enjoyed by the clergy, and charged to the laborer."" .. It is sometimes said that only since the 1910 revolution has there been trouble between Church and state in Mexico. However, in 1767,

32 Charles III expelled the Jesuits from Mexico, and Charles IV ordered the expropriation of all Church lands in 1804. In 1833, 1857 and 1875, other attempts were made by constitutional provision or legis­ lation to curb the power of the Church." The Constitution of 1857 prohibited the Church from owning prop­ erty and mortgages, and from giving religious instruction in public buildings. The use of clerical garb was restricted, marriage was made a civil contract and clericals were made ineligible to serve in Con­ gress or as president. These principles were again written into the 1917 document, and considerably strengthened because, as a Catholic source declared, "Church institutions had tied their external position to the politicians of the old regime and to the aristocratic land system"." Ownership of all religious property was vested in the state and could be used only with permission from the state. No religious officer could vote or hold public office. Religious publications and priests were prohibited from commenting on public questions and states were given power to fix the number of ministers of religious creeds who might function in each locality. Foreigners were prohibited from serving as ministers of religion. Most important of all, education was to be lay and secular and Church primary' instruction was made illegal. For twelve years there were protests, sometimes rising from passive resistance to armed revolt. In 1926, at the height of the trouble, the hierarchy endorsed a boycott called by the League of Religious Defense to "create in the nation a state of intense economic crisis" and "paralyze social and economic life."" Armed bands, shouting "Long live Christ the King", raided villages, killed government sup­ porters, attacked trains, destroyed schools, and helped the land-own­ ing class in its struggle to keep the revolutionary forces from coming to grips with the land problem. In the United States, the Knights of Columbus set out to raise $1,000,000 in a campaign in opposition to the Mexican government. In 1929 an armistice was arranged, which was upset two years later when trouble flared in the state of Vera Cruz. Again there was trouble in 1934, when the Constitution was amended to provide for "socialist education". The Church objected both to the ideas on

33 which education was to be based, and to the further restrictions on religious education. In spite of the laws which the Church considers too rigorous, there is now an easing of the tension. I have seen religious instruction given children in the cathedral in Tlaxca,la. I have seen priests receiving confessions from large numbers of communicants in the cathedral in Mexico City. I have seen religious processions, forbidden by law since 1873. I have seen churches functioning in every small town where I have happened to be on a Sunday. There has been a great deal of camouflage about the whole Church issue; religious Mexicans can still carryon their religious practices, but the political and economic power of the Church has been broken. Ecclesiastical authorities seem to be responding to the new spirit. The March 8,1937, Apostolic letter of Pope Pius XI on the situation in Mexico does not attempt to create antagonism against the govern­ ment.1t calls for "sanctification of the Mexican Clergy", and "collab­ oration of the laity in apostolic works of the hierarchy." The Church authorities praised the oil expropriation, and they gave no support to the Cedillo rebellion. An article in the Catholic organ America, Oct. 29, 1938, says that all but three Mexican Bishops are back in their dioceses:· It criticises the government, however, for its educational program and its re­ strictions on the free functioning of the Church machinery. It charges that the present program is proceeding "temperately but thoroughly in undermining religious faith and conviction so that the children of today will- close the Churches of tomorrow, or, if not close them, will prefer, without the slightest qualms of conscience, a Sunday morning in the park or at the movies, instead of going to mass."

34 CHAPTER VII

Imperialism

EXICO for years has been faced not only with numerous domestic problems but likewise with the vital problem of M its relation to neighboring countries and, particularly with its relation to "the colossus of the North", the United States. The acquisition by the United States of more than half of the total area of Mexico after the Mexican War, the war referred to by Presi­ dent Grant as "one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation", furnishes difficult background for relations between the United States and Mexico. The economic penetration of Mexico by capitalists from this country during the Diaz days did little to increase the Mexican's love for us. In 1912, United States' investments in Mexico represented half t~e total wealth o~o~ntry:- :Aiilerican-capitalists controlled 78 per­ cent of the mines, 72 percent of the smelters, 58 percent of the oil, and 68 percent of the rubber business. Harry Lane Wilson, our am­ bassador, used the power these investments gave him to secure a considerable degree of government suppression of newspaper criti­ cism of the United States. "We" owned, in those days, not only more than all other foreign capital combined, but more than all the Mexicans themselves! It was not all absentee ownership, either. "All over the tropical sections of Mexico, on rubber, sugar-cane, fruit plantations, every­ where," wrote John Kenneth Turner, "one will find Americans, buying, imprisoning, killing, slaves."" Following the Madero revolution, our Embassy became the center of the Huerta ,conspiracy agajinst tJ,he goV'ernment. Ambassador Wilson knew all the moves the counter-revolutionaries were to make, and even reported the revolt of Huerta and his generals to Washington as an accomplished fact an hour and a half before it took place! As dean of the diplomatic corps, Wilson assembled the representatives of other countries the night of the treachery of Huerta and presented

35 them to the traitor and to his military leader, Felix Diaz. The full story, with its background, should be read in the well-documented chapter on Foreign Relations in Gruening's Mexico a;nd Its Heritage. During that period, President Wilson ordered armed invasions and supported at first Huerta, then Villa and then the henequen kings of Yucatan before he finally recognized Carranza." Under the Coolidge regime, when Dwight W. Morrow served as Ambassador to Mexico, the attitude of the United States toward American investments was somewhat liberalized. Morrow found that it was easier to extend a friendly hand than to use armed force. At the same time he was not adverse to making deals with government officials where the latter were taken into partnership with interests in the United States, in the exploitation of their own people." Hoover improved on the Coolidge policy by withdrawing the Mar­ ines from Nicaragua and making a "goodwill" tour around South America on a United States battleship. President Roosevelt followed the Hoover example, and captivated the Latin American people with his personal charm.GG Oil Responsible for the greatest I:l,mount of friction between the two countries were the oil interests of the United States. In both 1919 and 1927, these interests, which maintained at times their own private armies, brought the United States and Mexico to the brink of war." In the spring of 1938, when all but a small number of the foreign oil groups were nationalized, there was again a flare-up. The United States stopped the purchase of Mexican silver, and the State Depart­ ment started issuing blasts against the Cardenas government. In 1938, however, both the economic and political situation was different from that of former periods, and the relations between the two countries, while somewhat strained by the messages of Secretary Hull, did not reach the crisis of previous years. During the last few decades, American oil investments in Mexico have considerably decreased. From a total of $478 million in 1924," they were reduced to $408 million in 1928," to $200 million at the end of 1929, and to $69,039,000 by the end of 1936. (Mexican consul figures said $49 million in 1934). Production of petroleum in Mexico

36 had fallen ofi' sharply during the 1920's, from a 1921-25 average of 156,098,000 bbls. to 40,300,000 in 1936, thus the decline in the book value of the properties. In addition to oil investments, American capitalists have invest­ ments in many other types of Mexican property. In 1936 they totalled $213,000,000 in 50 mining and smelting properties, and about $150,­ 000,000 in 24 public utility and transportation companies. The utility companies had an interest in not letting the oil controversy come to a breaking point, as did manufacturers in the United States who had sold nearly $110,000,000 of goods to Mexico in 1937." One of the most recent incidents involving the United States and Mexico was the exchange of notes in 1938 over the failure of Mexico to pay for land expropriated from firms owned by United States citizens. An agreement was reached on November 12, 1938, which gave Mexico better terms than could have been expected from the tone of most of the notes."' It did, however, force Cardenas into the position of treating United States citizens whose land had been given to the peasants better than the native landowners. The agreement leaves the oil question unsettled. The government claims that it was forced to expropriate the companies on March 18, 1938, because of their refusal to obey the laws of Mexico, and that the act was not part of a general campaign of socialization. From Octo­ ber, 1936 to March 1,1938, a dispute over wages and working condi­ tions had been carried on between the major companies and the Oil Workers union. Only eleven days of that period were spent on strike. The rest of the period was devoted to appeals by the workers to the labor courts, in waiting for the report of a committee of experts ap­ pointed by the government to investigate the economic capacity of the companies to meet the demands of the union, and waiting for a Supreme Court decision on their case. The oil union leaders point out that, even at the end of seventeen months of waiting, the workers were willing to accept half of what they had originally demanded. In the course of the dispute, however, its character changed from a strictly economic controversy to a question of "national prestige"."' The government charges that the oil companies tried to bluff Mexico, by announcing in advance (through full page advertisements in the

37 press on March 2, 1938) that they would not obey the ruling of the Supreme Court if it were against their interests. The government called the bluff. The technical reason for the application of the Ex­ propriation Law was that the companies had withdrawn their bank deposits from Mexico and that, therefore, the only recourse the gov­ ernment had in recovering the wages the Supreme Court decision awarded the workers was to take the properties'" Few doubt, however, that, if the companies had not taken a patronizing attitude toward the government, some method of adjusting the difficulties would have been found. A few hours before the expropriation was decreed, the companies offered to pay the w~ges named in the Supreme Court decision. By that time it was too late. Mexican nationalism had long been fed by the insults it had suffered in the past, both from other countries and from self-invited guests within their own borders. The spectacle of private companies defying the highest legal tribunal in the land united all factions behind the retaliatory actions of President Car­ denas. As part of his plan to pay for the oil properties, Cardenas sug­ gested that the former owners take 60 percent of the output, to be supplemented with cash when Mexico was able to pay. Business Week advised its acceptance, saying: "Once the idea of expropriation is accepted, no matter how reluctantly, the plan has its good points. It would keep the distribution of oil in the hands of the companies, which could then prevent distress-selling by the Mexicans in the world markets ..." ... The advice was not taken. Instead, a world-wide boycott of Mexi­ can oil was attempted. "The British Empire has a boycott against Mexican oil and recent court decisions have made its sale in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands almost impossible", wrote a financial expert in review of happenings in the oil world during 1938." One of the measures of retaliation used in the United States was to spread a fear of disorder among prospective tourists in an attempt to reduce the tourist traffic, which in 1937 had yielded Mexico about 40,000,000 pesos"· Also, various companies (of which I have a list of twenty) refused to sell parts needed for repairs on the oil refineries.

38 When Cardenas issued his decree, he promised that Mexico would not allow its chief natural resource to be used by the fascist countries, but it was a question of dealing with the fascists or seeing Mexico's oil exports collapse at a time when they were desperately needed. Some oil has been sold to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Brazil, and Nicaragua in an attempt to find a Latin-American substitute for the markets denied them by the boycott, but the amounts are small. Mexico has felt forced to deal with the dictators as a result of the refusal of the democra,cies to allow her to solve her own problems and maintain friendly relations. Germany is now supplying the kind of oil processing machinery which has been denied Mexico in the past, and is sending some planes, motor cars, and office equipment. Italy is building the tankers which were refused by other countries and in May, 1939, signed a one-year contract to send artificial silk in exchange for oil. Japan has been sending beans. During 1938, trade with the United States shrank." This shrinkage gave rise in the sensational press to cries of fascist penetration in Mexico. Questions about the internal affairs of Mexico were heard on the floor of Congress. The Mexican press carried headlines, "MeXICO Treated as a Colony of the United States", "Mr. Kennedy Continues His Impertinence". The oil companies began direct approaches to the government to plead for a return of their properties. Business men in the United States are wondering how long the situation which prevents their selling goods in Mexico is going to continue. Persons interested in democracy are asking whether the refusal of the oil companies and their supporters to accept the com­ pensation plan advanced by Carde!1as is going to result in the strengthening of fascist forces in Mexico. Persons with a sense of humor are wondering how long it will be before the people of the United States get tired of hearing of the fascist danger inherent in Mexican trade with the dictatorships while the United States arms Germany and Japan, and sells them more oil than Mexico can pos­ sibly ship. As for the administration of the oil companies under national own­ ership, the government has, according to several observers, succeeded

39 in establishing a reasonably efficient regime. The federal administra­ tive board includes three representatives of the oil workers, union."" Government management has meant higher living standards. Wage increases of about $89,000 a month were given 15,000 employes of the oil administration on July 25, 1938. At the same time, Vicente Cortes Herrara, general manager, announced plans to drill 34 new wells, to build houses costing about $1,200,000 for the workers, to lay new pipe lines, and to erect a new refinery.'· Crude oil production in 1938 was 82.1 percent of the 1937 total; refined oil and kerosene production, 99.3 percent, while domestic consumption had increased to 104.7 percent of that of the preceding year:' The oil administra­ tion claimed that it had increased the primary octane rating to 58 and 60 from 40 and 42. Until the controversy is settled, a well-financed propaganda to create misunderstanding will have to be combatted. General Hugh Johnson, ex-Governor Henry Allen and ex-Governor Landon, and various "Committees on Mexican Affairs" will continue to charge one day that Mexico is fascist, and the next that she is communist. That the people will not be stampeded seems to be indicated by the action of Congress in tabling the meddlesome questions of Representative Kennedy on February 7, 1939.

Railroads Citizens of the United States have been dominant forces not only in the natural resources of Mexico, but in that country's public utili­ ties, among them the railroads. Imperialist expansion into Mexico was greatly aided by a deal between Limantour, Minister of Finance under Diaz, and Harriman, during the railroad manipulataion era. Diaz subsidized the building of roads by United States interests at $20,000 per mile, almost the full cost. In 1908, he announced with a great flourish that Mexico had secured control of its main system by merging the Mexican Central and the Mexican National systems, and that it was holding 51 percent of the stock. While this was technically true, the roads were controlled by the Harriman interests by reason of the enormous debt that had been saddled on the merged road. Under the Limantour-Harriman deal, interest of $16,525,000 a year, or tour to four and a half percent on a greatly increased valua­ tion, was promised on the strength of the merger of one road which, in 30 years, had never paid a cent of dividends; with another which, in 25 years, had paid less than 2 percent !71 By the time Cardenas expro­ priated the roads in June, 1937, however, only 20 percent of the railway securities with a face value of $273,123,200 (plus accumu­ lated,.interest of nearly that much) was held by United States citi- zens. On May 1, 1938, the roads were turned over to the Workers' Admin­ istration of the National Railroads, a council of seven members, with two comptrollers representing the Federal government. The workers, according to the agreement, were to pay the government $3,780,000 a year, and keep operating expense below 85 percent of the gross revenue. The Administration is listed under the labor laws as a private employer." The general manager reported on February 2, 1939, a saving in 1938 of 'over two million pesos in the operation of the roads, despite a wage increase in October, 1938, of 16 percent. The public acquisition of oil and railroad property was carried out under the Expropriation Law of November 25, 1936, which imple­ mented Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution. Under this law, the Presi­ dent may declare "expropriation, temporary seizure or limitation of ownership" in connection with numerous types of public utility en­ terprises. The law provides for payment for the expropriated prop­ erty on the basis of their value on the tax books, "whether said value has been declared by the owner concerned, or whether it has merely been accepted by him in a tacit manner by reason of his having paid his taxes upon said basis",'" At present writing, the law has been used in the cases of only two nation-wide industries, railroads and oil, although, in other lines, a few plants have been taken over following labor disputes and given to the workers to operate. Many rumors have been in circulation to th~ effect that the foreign-owned mining properties were the next to be nationalized,'· The truth of these rumors has been denied by Presi­ dent Cardenas. The expropriation law and stricter enforcement of the labor laws,

41 many persons declare, constitute a deliberate attack on capitalism, though an opposite view seems to be held by General Motors, the Chrysler corporation, the Canadian Car and Foundry company, and other foreign interests which have been investing considerable sums of money in the country during the past few years. The latter view is consistent with the oft-repeated statement of Cardenas that foreign capitalists who enter Mexico with the intention of obeying the laws and of working in harmony with the government would be respected in their private possessions. Mexicans maintain that their laws give ample basis for the legality of the expropriations. Spanish law during the colonizing period gave the exclusive ownership of all land and all "bitumens and juices from the earth" to the King. After achieving its Independence, the Mexican State claimed the same control over property which had been the prerogative of the King, and that control has been recognized, and exercised, except when foreign pressure prevented, from that day to this. Even Diaz used it, as Gruening points out." That the Diaz practice of giving irrevocable concessions to for­ eigners was illegal and that Mexico is simply retrieving its own sovereignty is the contention of all Mexican legal authorities, without regard to political position.'" Most of the lectures on international law and morality directed at Mexico do not seem to be based on good history, good common-sense, or good law.'·

42 ClIAPTER VIIt

Building the New Mexico

HAT the future will bring forth in Mexico has been the subject of endless debate. The Mexican Revolution has W many times been pronounced dead but h~s risen to con­ found its detractors and delight its friends. "The agrarian program is a failure", declared Calles in 1930. "The Revolution has ceased being a revolution", remarked Carleton Beals at a Mexican Seminar a year later.80 Eyler Simpson, author of the definitive book on the agrarian prob­ lem, wrote in 1935, "Co-incident with his [Morrow's] presence in Mexico, the life went out of the revolution. He succeeded in putting the brakes on the only real reform movement in the history of the country."" Following the predictions of these two men, in the top rank of those who really know Mexico, more land has been distributed than in all previous years, and much of it collectivized. The railroads and the oil fields have been taken over. The cooperative movement has gained strength. Women are increasing their participation in public affairs, and civil servants have received the right to strike against the gov­ ernment. Mexico is the only country in the world where that is true, and, in spite of restrictions on its exercise, it marks a significant ad­ vance in the training f.or self-government. In addition, there has been a steady march of control over new industry by a government system of banks, which include a central bank, the ejidal and agricultural banks, a national urban mortgage and public works institution, a national investment bank, a foreign tradebank, and popular credit unions, and a bank to finance the ac­ quisition of factories taken over by labor." The total capital of these public credit institutions is estimated at over $43,000,000.83 In the field of general industry, all but three percent of the sugar business is under the government's AZ'lbcar corporation, with an an­ nual production of $26,000,000. In insurance, a mixed government­ private company, Seg'lbros de Mexico, has been formed with a capital

43 of $280,000, with a VIeW to "progressive nationalization of insur­ ance."" A similar hybrid, PIPSA, imports a,nd distributes newsprint and magazine stock, and has acquired land for the construction of an 8 million peso plant near Toluca." This corporation claims credit for part of the increase of 986 new periodicals published! in the country in the year ending July, 19~8. The government printing office, making a profit each year under union control and management, the national telegraph system, under public ownership for many years, and the munitions plants, operated by the army as a "cooperative"," all are used to train increasing numbers of Mexican workers in the responsibilities of management. Is there, then, a socialist regime in Mexico? The official language of the school system is to a great extent Marxist. The President speaks of socialism as the aim of The Revolu­ tion. The official party in its declaration of principles, declares that it is based on the class struggle."' The party and government officials, in discussing their goal, take pains to point out, however, that they are talking about "Mexican socialism". Said Cardenas on his campaign tour in 1934, "The Mexi­ can Revolution progresses toward socialism, a movement that draws away equally from the superannuated tenets of classical liberalism and from the norms of the communistic experiment in Russia"." Those who fear communism south of the Rio Grande should remem­ ber that the Russian ambassador was given his walking papers quite unceremoniously in 1929,'· that Trotsky was given asylum there two years ago, and that the Communist party was not allowed to participate in the formation of the Party of the Mexican Revolution. In his message to the nation on the Laguna situation, Cardenas returned to the theme of the uniqueness of the Mexican experiment: "All movements arising out of situations peculiar to other countries and foreign to our own, are equally alien to the l\fexican Revolution as regards tactics employed, programs outlined, and governmental policies proposed." The truth is that no one of the political names which have fairly exact meanings in the older industrialized countries can be applied to

44 Mexico. Side by side with phrases about the class struggle in the Program of Action of the National Revolutionary Party, was the statement: "Therefore, special favor and preference shall be given to those industries that are totally financed by Mexican capital, or by foreign capital permanently .rooted in Mexico and which re-invest their profits in this country."'· It was made clear, however, that the new industries must conform to the labor laws. Private, state, cooperative (both producers and consumers) and mixed enterprises now occupy the economic field. Politically, as well as socially, Mexico is in a transition stage. Actually, under democratic forms into which Cardenas is trying vali­ antly to pump more real life, Mexico is just emerging from a benevo­ lent, tribal paternalism. Cardenas has been trying to arouse a desire and train the workers, peasants, army and small business and profes­ sional men, and the organized women, to work together toward making democratic slogan~ a reality."' Organizationally, the form he uses is are-vamped PNR, (the Party of the National Revolution) inherited from Calles. Cardenas utilizes as his political instrument the Partido de la Revoludon Mexi­ can-a, born April 4, 1938. The two most significant groups in the new party are the CTM (the Federation of Mexican Workers) and the army. The latter had the ll!rgest representation at the first conven­ tion, which troubles the labor forces. One hundred and one army delegates attended; 100 from five labor organizations (the miners and the electricians in addition to the Con-federacion de Trabajadores de Mexico, the Confederacion General de Trabajadores and a faction of the CROM) ; 96 from the peasant groups; and 96 from the "popular sector". The constitution provides that the Secretary of National Defense shall determine the number of army delegates and the method of their selection at following conventions.j2 Through greatly increased educational facilities, special attention to family life in the army, the raising of pay, the use of large sections in constructive national work (road building, irrigation, forestry service, etc.) Cardenas has tried to diminish the chances of a reac­ tionary coup by the army. Constant shifts in assignments take place in the officer caste. When General Cedillo revolted, no repercussions

45 were felt throughout the army, indicating a far more stable situation than in past years. As a counter-foil to the army, however, most of the peasants who have secured land have been made members of the armed reserve~. With tacit government approval, the workers' militia of the CTM has been organized. At least, say the government support­ ers, if reactionary forces in the army attempt to halt the progress of the revolution, they will find the workers· and peasants ready to speak their own language. That such forces are not straw men is indicated by the public statement of five colonels·' that "The army is tired of anti-army calumny by labor leaders like Lombardo who are seeking to fool the workers into starting a fight like that in Spain ... We wish it known that if our brother officers, in defense of our armed institutions, punish Lombardo, we are not guilty since we have been provoked." With the approach of the presidential election, the number of reactionary groups claiming to be "revolutionary" mounted daily. Among the older rightist groups are the Gold Shirts (founded at a meeting attended by Hermann Schwinn, a Los Angeles Nazi agent, in 1933 and suppressed by Cardenas, but functioning through its legal group, the Mexican Nationalist Vanguard), the Social Democratic party, Mexican National Union, Nationalist Youth, Nationalist Revolutionary Action, Nationalist Social Action, National Anti­ Reelectionist party, Confederation of the Middle Classes, Union of Veterans of the Revolution, Nationalist Civic Action, the Party of National Salva.tion, and others with a small and widely over-lapping membership. Foreign groups have the Falange, Spanish Renovation, Popular Spanish Action, the National Socialist party, and the Nazi-Juyend. Catholic political activities are directed by the Church through Mexican Catholic Action, with four branches having jurisdiction over men, women, boys, and girls. Recently a united front of' most of the reactionary groups was formed as the Revolutionary Anti-Communist party. Among its leaders are almost all the well-known native fascists, plus direct agents of foreign groups. Eye-witnesses have told me that Nazis directed the anti-Semitic

46 riot of January 26, 1939, and, according to El Popular, they paid many of the participants. The unions and the revolutionary youth groups have warned the fascists against a repetition of the incident. For the purpose of opposing Cardenas, funds, guns and ammuni­ tions are available from Nazi, fascist and "democratic" imperialist sources. The government charges that Cedillo received aid from all these quarters. Other groups have been found by the government to have received guns smuggled into the country. Funds have also gone into direct purchase of space in a number of newspapers. Since the venality of the general Mexican press is about equal to that of the French papers, there has been of late a large outcropping of anti-Semitic and pro-fascist editorials. There has also been an increase in the number of papers and magazines directly representing the anti-Semitic, reactionary viewpoint. That this prop­ aganda is relished by some of the small business men who are being squeezed by labor law enforcement, government regulations, and competition from the insignificant number of Jewish business men in the country, is scarcely surprising. Mexico has not allowed foreign fascist work to proceed undisturbed, however. In March, 1939, Baron von Hoehlwefer, a German citizen, and Pablo Garbinsky, said to have been head of the Polish spy service during the World War, were expelled from Me:ll.ico as Nazi spies. In April, just after the defeat of the Spanish Republican forces, the "inspector-general" of the Spanish Falange and two of his lieutenants were summarily deported following charges by labor leaders that the Falangists had intimidated democratically-inclined members of the Spanish colony and forced Spanish merchants to contribute to Franco and to anti-Cardenas movements. Mexico is welcoming some thousands of Spanish Loyalist refuges, in spite of opposition from both native l:\.nd Spanish fascist sympa­ thizers. If outside interference is active enough to weaken the present gov­ ernment to a point where it cannot continue to carry out its social program and maintain the confidence of the masses, then the pseudo­ radical phrases of the foreign-financed native fascists will attract

47 them. That Mexicans will follow the foreign leaders themselves is unthinkable; Mexico wants neither democratic nor fascist interference. If Mexico is allowed to work out its own destiny, she hopes to evolve toward the goal described by one of her keenest intellectuals, Ramon Beteta, sub-secretary of Foreign Relations: "We think that we should attempt to industrialize Mexico con­ sciously, intelligently, avoiding the avoidable evils of industrialism, such as urbanism, exploitation of man by man, production for sale instead of production for satisfaction of human needs, economic in­ security, waste, shabby goods and the mechanization of workmen ... W"e are convinced that the evils of capitalism are ... due to a merely legal question: who is the owner of the machinery?"·' Again: "I believe that Mexico, precisely because it finds itself in the period of pre-capitalist transition, is in a position favorable to the finding of a more humane and just system of economic relations by means of the intelligent intervention of a government with working­ class interests. If it can avoid a fatal friction with the capitalist im­ perialism of other countries which could, in one moment, put an end to the Mexican experiment and even to our very national existence, I believe that it will be able to evolve toward a society without classes which in our day is the condition nearest to the ideal in the economic relations of men."·' In Mexico today, one finds on the walls of the schools and public buildings everywhere pictorial evidence of the great artistic renais­ sance which the Revolution has brought.... Through the eyes of radicals such as Diego Rivera, the masses see Mexico, past, present, and future. In the schools, young Mexico is taught that power rightfully should rest in those who produce the wealth of the world. In the villages, the Indian no longer bows his head and holds his breath while the patron speaks. In the factories, the worker no longer needs feel the whip of the straw-boss, the fear of arbitrary discharge. In the cooperatives, in the unions, in the ejidos, the former slaves, the former serfs struggle toward an understanding of the growing com­ plexities of life; struggle toward a collective control over the new sources of power which will some day free them from the hunger, the disease, and the fear of centuries.

48 FOOTNOTES

, Manuel Gamio, Hacia Un Me~ico Nuevo, pp. 112-125, Mexico. 1935. • Herring and Weinstock, Renascent Me~ico, pp. 16-20, N. Y., 1935. • Rosa E. King, in Tempest Over Me~ico, Boston, 1935, gives a sympathetic account of the Zapata movement in spite of the loss of her property because of it. • Eyler Simpson, The Ejido, Mewico's Way Out. Chapel Hill, 1937. p. 28. • El Nacional, January 28, 1939. • El Ejido en La Comarca Lagunera, Torreon, Coah. 1936. 'New York Herald-Tribune, September 15, 1937. • Alejandro Carrillo, General Secretary of the Worker's University, writes, "the intervention of professional politicians ... today constitutes a serious ob­ stacle to the development of ejidal agriculture." Me~ico's Resources for Liveli­ hood, p. 20, N. Y. 1938. • Me~ican Labor News, February 17, 1938. '0 El Nacional, September 29, 1938. Mexico. '0. Boletin Ejidal, Nov. 5, 1938, Torreon. Coah. 11 El Nacional, January 28, 1939..Mexico. "M e~ican Labor News, February 17, 1938. Mexico. 13 Ernest Gruening, Me~ico and Its He1'itage, pp. 132-33. N. Y., 1928. ,. Statement of Dr. Jose G. Parres, Secretary of Agriculture, El Nacional, Febru- ary 5, 1939. Mexico. " La Reforma Agraria en Me~ico, DAPP. Mexico. 1937. Lamina 13. ,. Me~ican Labor News, September 22-29, 1938. Mexico. n Carrillo, op. cit., p. 31. 18 Speech by Gabino Vasquez, head of the Departamento Agra'rio, March, 1938. ,. Gilberto Bosques, The National RevolAttionary Party and the Si~-Year Plan, Appendix XII. Mexico. 1937. Many other important data may be found in the book.

20 Me~ico En Cifras, Atlas Estadistico, p. 20. 1934. Mexico. .. Carrillo, op. cit., pp. 26 and 31. " Me~ico En Cifras, op. cit., pp. 70-71.

23 Marjorie Clark, Organized Labor in Me~ico, Chapel Hill, 1934, is the definitive work on the Mexican labor movement to that year. It tells the story of the "Red Battalions" in some detail. 23. For a survey of the functioning of the boards, see Labour Courta, pp. 125-131, International Labour Office, Washington, D. C., 1939. "Clark, op. cit., p. 36. ,. Alfonso Teja Zabre, Guide to the History of Me~ico, pp. 176-78. Mexico, 1934. Cites some of the early ordinances. 2. Frank Tannenbaum, Peace by Revolution. N. Y., 1933. Ch. 19-23 contain best treatment of this aspect.

21 See "Contra Portes Gil y contra el Grupo de los Si", speech by Luis N. Morones, August 21, 1930. In Memoria de la CROM, 1932. Mexico. ,. Clark, op. cit., pp. 134-5. 29 Clark, op. cit., 82-85.

30 The Calles statement, with significant passages in bold-face, Cardenas' answer, and a manifesto on the situation by the CROM are reproduced in Memoria, CROM, 1935. pp. 368-83.

49 31 Report of the National Committee, CTM, 1936-37, p. 67. Mexico. 1937. 3> Mexican Labor News, November 3, 1938. Mexico. 33 Mexican Labor News, October 27,1938. Mexico. "Futuro, Universidad Obrera, September, 1938. pp. 52-3. 35 Bosques, op. cit., pp. 183-93. 3. Ernest Gruening, Mexico and Its Heritage, p. 516. N. Y., 1928. 31 Bosques, op. cit., pp. 233-34.. 38 G. Lucio, Simiente, Libro No. 4., Jalapa. (1,4.75,000 copies of the Simiente series were sold in 1936.) ,. Lectures Populares, Mexico. 1935. George I. Sanchez, Mexico, a Revolution by Education, N. Y., 1936; Frank Tan­ nenbaum, Peace by Revolution; and the chapter on "Education" in Gruening should be read by those interested in this subject. To those who read Spanish, material will be furnished by DAPP, the official publicity agency, Bucareli, 12,Mexico, D.F.

'0 Anita Brenner, Idols Behind Alters, N. Y. 1929; Gruening, op. cit., pp. 229-286 " See Catholic Encyclopedia, pp. 264.-5 for an apology for the Inquisition. .. Manuel Gamio, 1'he Population of the Valley of SanJuan Teotihuacan, p. XLV. Mexico. 1922. "Gamio, op cit., p. LXXXIII. "w. W. Cumberland, in 1'he Social and Economic Program of Mexico. (Report of a Charlottsville, Va. discussion in 1935.) "Hubert Herring, Toward An Understanding of Mexico. N. Y. 1936. ,. See L. Lloyd Mecham, Church and StOJte in Latin America. Chapel Hill. 1934.; and Earle K. James, Church and State in Mereico. Foreign Policy Reports, July 3, 1935.

H Latin America and the United States, p. 21, Catholic Assn. for International Peace. 1929. (quoted by James) . .. James, op. cit., p. 109. See also, Gruening, op. cit., pp. 275-286. "N. Y. 1'imes, March 28, 1937. GO Ambassador Daniels announced on December 17, 1938, that two more bishops were going back to their posts in Tabasco and Chiapas.

51 Robert W. Dunn, American Foreign Investments, p. 90, N. Y., 1927, gives the total wealth of the country as $2,4.34.,24.1,4.22; Grucning, op. cit., pp. 560-1, gives the total U. S. investment as $1,057,770,000.

U3 Turner, Hands Off Mexico. N. Y., 1920. 0' Betram W. Wolfe and Diego Rivera, Portrait of Mexico, pp. 174-8, pp. 188-9. N. Y. 1937. These authors give a concise account of this development, . '0 Carleton Beals, The Coming Struggle for Latin Amer·ica. N. Y. 1938. This book should be consulted for a realistic analysis of the Good Neighbor policy.

50 On September 11, 1919, the chairman of the Senate Hearings on Mexican Af­ fairs asked Mr. E. L. Doheny, "Has our State Department been aware that you have been making payments to Pelaez?". Doheny answered, "Yes, not only aware of it but so far as they could, without giving it in w'riting, they have approved of it". Pelaez was the head of the private army of the oil companies in the Tampico region. os Investments of V. S. Capital in Latin America, pp. 224.-5. Boston. o. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, American Direct Investments in Foreign Countries-1936. U. S. Printing Office. 1938. eo Business Week, June 25, 1938. N. Y. •, N. Y. Times, November 13, 1938, carries the text of the agreement.

50 .S President Lazaro Cardenas, "Mexico's Viewpoint on the Oil Situation" state­ ment of March 18, 1938, said that the "situation must be dealt with at once if national prestige is to be upheld." .3 The properties of the Mexican Gulf Oil Company and other smaller firms were not taken over, the Government says because they were not involved in the labor conflict. •• Business Week, June 25, 1938.

• 0 N. Y. Times, Financial Review, November 27, 1938. .. The writer received a letter from an oil company travel bureau on July 21, 1938 headed "WARNING ... tourists entering Mexico are exposing themselves to conditions that may be dangerous." .7 Bl Nacional, January 28, 1939. os Exports from the United States to Mexico dropped 43.3 percent from 1937 to 1938. "United States Trade With Latin America, 1938", H. W. D. Mayers, The Quarterly Journal of Inter-American Relations, April, 1939, pp. 97-111. The first two months of 1939 showed a drop in United States exports to' Mexico from $15,166,000 in January and February of 1938 to $11,508,000 in 1939. "Value of U. S. Foreign Trade by Grand Divisions and Countries", Department of Com­ merce, Washington, D. C., April 3, 1939. 7' Associated Press despatch, July 25, 1938. 71 Turner, Barbarous Mexico, pp. 263-7 Bosques, op. cit., pp. 324-25, and Carlton Beals, Porfi1'io Diaz, Philadelphia, 1932, pp. 343-44.

72 N. Y. Times, Des. 5, 1937. 73 Mexican Labor News, April 21, 1938.

B Bl Universal, February 4, 1939. "Bosques, op cit., pp. 250-58, gives the full text of the law. 7. An interview with H. R. Knickerbocker in mid-February was "mutilated or badly translated" according to the President. The official statement appears in Mexico Today, Mexico, February 11, 1939. 71 Gruening, op cit., pp. 101-105. 78 Enriquez, Andres Molina, "Mexico's Defense", in Atlantic Monthly, March, 1939, pp. 378-84.

79 Wild, Payson S., Jr., "International Law and Mexican Oil", The Quarterly Journal of International Relations, April, 1939, pp. 5-21. 8. Herring and Terrill, The Genius of Mexico, p. 320. N. Y., 1931. 81 Eyler Simpson, TIle' Bjido-Mexico's Way Out, pp. 581-2. Chapel Hill. "Gilberto Bosques, The National Revolutionary Party and the Six-Year Plan, pp. 22-29. Mexico, 1937. 83 "Mexico in Revolution", Fortune, Oct. 1938, p. 130 and Bosques, op. cit., PP. 22-29. .. Department of Labor, Mexico. Policies of the Present Administration, p. 65. 1936. " Bl Nacional, November 20, 1938. .. The cooperative of workers in the national munitions works in 1937 manufac­ tured 20,000 plows from the metal of obsolete cannon, swords, and other weapons for the ejidos.

81 Pacto Constitutivo, Declaracion de Principios, Programa y estatutos, Partido de la Revolucion Mexicana, p. 9. Mexico, 1938.

88 Bosques, op cit., p. 132. 8. Beals tells the whole story in The Coming Struggle for Latin America, op cit.

51 00 Bosques, op. cit., p. 63.

01 Hubert Herring in "Cardenas of Mexico", Harpers, October, 1938, pays tribute to the manner in which the President has handled political questions, especially his pacific methods of eliminating his enemies.

92 Pacto Constitutivo, etc., p. 98. o. N. Y. Times, June 30, 1938. o'Social and Economic Program of :Mexico, p. 44. 35 Herring and Weinstock, op. cit., p. 109.

00 For material on Mexico's cultural renascence not dealt with for lack of space, see, Anita Brenner, op. cit.; Wolfe and Rivera, op. cit.; Wolfe, The L'ife and Times of Diego Rivera, N. Y., 1939; Augustin Valazquez Chavez, Contemporm·y Mexican Artists. N. Y. 1937; and Gruening, op. cit., pp. 635-53. "The New Architecture in Mexico" is the theme of the complete issue of The Architectuml Record for April, 1937.

52 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Two recent books which should be called particularly to the readers' attention are: Parkes, Henry Bamford, A History of Mexico. Houghton. 1938. A brilliant syn­ thesis of the multifold factors which make up modern Mexico. Plenn, J. H., Mexico Marches On. Indianapolis: Bobbs, Merrill. 1939. A breezy and sympathetic account of present-day Mexico by a newspaper man, long a resident in the country. Recommended for prospective tourists to Mexico are: Anita Brenner, Your Mexican Holiday, Putnam. 1935. This contains good social and historical background material. Frances Toor, Guide to Mexico. McBride. This is most easily carried.and based on real understanding and sympathy for Mexico and Mexicans. Her Motm';sts Guide to Mewico, 1938, contains up-to-dale touring data plus most of the ma­ terial in the earlier book.

Other good books include: Beals, Carleton, The Coming Stntggle for Latin Ame1·ica. 1938. Carrillo, Alexandro, Mexico's Resoul'ces fm' Livelihood. International Industrial Relations Institute. 1938. Chase, Stuart and Tyler, Marian, Mexico: A Study of Two Ame1";cas. Macmillian. 1931. Clark, Marjorie, Organized Labor in Mexico. Chapel Hill. 193·1<, Gruening, E. H., Mexico and Its Heritage. Century. 1928. Inman, Samuel Guy, Latin Ame1·ica. Chicago. 1937. Kirkpatrick, F. D., Latin America. Macmillan. 1939. Mexico, Relaciones exteriores, Secretaria de, The Mexican Gove1'nment in the P·res- ence of Social and Economic Problems. Mexico City, 1936. Sanchez, G. 1., Mexico, A Revolution by Educat';on. Viking. 1936. Simpson, E. N., The Ejido, Mewico's Way Out. University of North Carolina. 1937. Tannenbaum, Frank, Peace by Revolution. Columbia Univ. Press. 1933. Weinstock, Herbert, Renascent Mexico. 1935. Zabre, A. T., A Guide to the History of Mexico. 1935. Special Bibliography on Oil Question Impartial studies: Thomson, Charles A., "The Mexican Oil Dispute", Foreign Policy Bepm·ts, August 15, 1938. Foreign Policy Assn. Stocking, George Ward, The Mexican Oil Problem, Dallas Tex. Arnold Founda­ tion Studies in Public Affairs, 1938.

Government and friendly viewpoint: Cardenas, Qeneral Lazaro, Mexico's Viewpoint on the Oil Situation. Consulate General of >Mexico, N. Y. March, 1938.

53 Cardenas, Lazaro, Message to the 1I'Iexican Nation on the Oil Question, DAPP. Mexico, D. F. March, 1938. Herring, Herbert, "Mexico Claims Its Own", The Nation, pp. 440-2. April 16,1938. Mexican Oil Controversy, Extension of Remarks of Hon. Robert G. Allen of Penna. June 13,1938, (Copies available from the Information Center of the Americas, 22 East 17th St., N. Y. C.) De le Salva, Salomon, Chronical of Events i Leading to the Expropriation of the Foreign-Owned Oil Industry by the Mexican Government. Party of the Mexican Revolution, Mexico. D. F. (Also available from the Information Center of the Americas.) Enriquez, Andres Molina, "Mexico's Defense," in Atlantic Monthly, March, 1939. Greene, Amy Blanche, The Present Cri.Yis in Our Relations With Mexico. Doran. 1927. (Good background ac~ount of the 1926-27 dispute.) deBekker, L. J., The Plot Against Mexico, Knopf. 1919. (Of the days of the first oil troubles.) Wild, Payson S., Jr., "International Law and Mexican Oil", The Quartely Journal of International Relations, April, 1939. Weinfeld, Abraham C., "The Mexican Oil Expropriation", National Lawyers' Guild Quarterly, Vol. I, No.5, Dec., 1938; Vol. II, No.1, April, 1939. Company material may be secured from the Committee on Mexican Relations, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, N. Y. and from the Committee of 100 formed by Ralph Easley of the National Civic Federation. Kaltenborn, H. V., "Mexico Leads-Who Follows?". The Commentator, Nov., 1938. (Has been reprinted for free distribution by the Standard Oil Co., N. J. 30 Rockefeller Plaza, N. Y.) "Trouble Below the Border", a special pamphlet issued by the Atlantic Monthly, July, 1938, has also been distributed widely by the oil interests. It includes attacks on the whole social program of the Mexican government.

Those desiring to go to Mexico with a seminar group should communicate with the Committee on Cultural Relations with Latin America, 156 Fifth Ave., New York City.

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