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Carranza and His 
 Bolshevik Regime 
 
 By 
 JORGE VERA-ESTANOL 
 
 Former Secretary of the Interior and 
 
 Former Secretary of Public Education 
 
 of the Republic of Mexico 
 
 Wayside Press 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
 1920 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 JORGE VERA-ESTANOLi 
 
 FORMER SECRETARY OP THE INTERIOR AND 
 
 FORMER SECRETARY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 
 
 OP THE REPUBLIC OF MEXICO 
 
 i 
 
TO MY COUNTRYMEN 
 
 During the year 1919 I published in 
 "Revista Mexicana," a weekly periodical 
 of San Antonio, Texas, a series of seventeen 
 articles designed to show that the Mexican 
 constitution which was adopted at Queretaro 
 in 1917, and which is still in force, is spurious 
 in origin and that such of its articles as 
 effected any changes of serious import in 
 the provisions of the constitution of 1857 
 were in direct conflict with the principles 
 of equity and the demands of national 
 welfare. 
 
 At the time when the aforementioned 
 articles were Written, the government of 
 Venustiano Carranza had been in existence 
 more than two years and during this period 
 it had not succeeded in restoring order in 
 Mexico nor in estajDlishing truly cordial 
 relations with three of the largest world 
 powers, the United States, France and 
 England. Lacking a proper foundation or 
 any real support, either within or without the 
 bounds of its own country, the Carranza 
 
government was enabled to exist only by 
 the maintenance of an army of 100,000 men 
 and the further fact that the neutrality laws 
 of the United States operated to prevent the 
 arming of the nation against its rulers. 
 
 The defection of a single state was all that 
 was necessary to cause practically all of the 
 generals of Carranza's army to turn upon him 
 one after another and to bring about the 
 dissolution of the government in the short 
 space of thirty days. 
 
 And now we are concerned with the 
 question: *'Were the Carranza policies 
 repudiated simultaneously with his downfall.'^'' 
 Those at the head of the federal and state 
 governments are the same men who battled 
 with Carranza in 1913, who styled him "First 
 Chief, " who elected him president, who drew 
 up the constitution of 1917, and kept him in 
 power for three consecutive years. 
 
 But despite the identity of these men their 
 attitude of today contrasts favorably with 
 that of yesterday. No property has been 
 confiscated, no churches have been profaned, 
 no revenges have been exacted and no whole- 
 sale executions have taken place. Instead 
 of the passionate outbursts inspired by hatred 
 or cupidity that characterized the Carranza 
 
revolution of 1913 there fall today from the 
 lips of its most conspicuous leaders words 
 imbued with a spirit of moderation and a 
 desire to conciliate. It appears to be their 
 purpose to give guarantees of safety to 
 political refugees that they may return to 
 their country to collaborate in the work of 
 reconstruction through the exercise of consti- 
 tutional rights rather than by the grace of 
 humiliating permits. And it has also been 
 made known that property illegally seized by 
 officials of the Carranza government will be 
 restored to its owners. 
 
 And what is more, many revolutionists of 
 the Carranza regime, since the heat of the 
 passions which inspired the mistakes of 1917 
 has cooled, recognize the faults of the consti- 
 tution of Queretaro and the injustices which 
 it embodies and admit the desirability of the 
 repeal of a considerable number of its pro- 
 visions and the restoration of corresponding 
 ones in the constitution of 1857. 
 
 Under such circumstances no effort should 
 be spared to legalize the constitution of 1917 
 by a revision of the document in the manner 
 prescribed by the constitution of 1857 and 
 reincorporated in the former, at the same 
 time writing into it such amendments as the 
 
present and future needs of the country 
 appear to demand along political, social and 
 economic lines, while eliminating all those 
 precepts which are recognized obstacles in 
 the way of individual freedom, national 
 welfare and international harmony. 
 
 It is my wish to contribute my grain of 
 sand toward this constructive program, for 
 the opportunity at hand may, perhaps, be 
 the last which will be allowed to Mexicans to 
 accomplish, without aid or interference, the 
 regeneration of their country. In the hope 
 of stimulating deeper and more conscientious 
 study of the subject I have decided to publish, 
 in this form, the series of articles to which I 
 have referred above. I beg my countrymen 
 to read the articles in the same unbiased 
 frame of mind in which they were written. 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal., May 18, 1920. 
 
 JORGE VERA-ESTANOL 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I.— The Mexican constitu- 
 tion of 1917 is illegitimate, viewed 
 from a legal, political or revolutionary 
 standpoint 3 
 
 CHAPTER n.— The Assembly of Quere- 
 taro, which approved the constitution 
 of 1917, did not represent the will of the 
 entire nation but merely that of an arm- 
 ed minority of the proletariat. ... 13 
 
 CHAPTER III.— Religious freedom is 
 necessary to peace of conscience. The 
 constitution of 1917 denies this freedom 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV.— No other problem in 
 Mexico transcends that which involves 
 the education of the masses. Recog- 
 nizing this, the constitution of 1857 
 stipulated that education should be 
 free 33 
 
 CHAPTER v.— The constitution of 1917 
 places odious restrictions upon educa- 
 tional freedom. It also places impedi- 
 ments in the way of carrying out any 
 national educational program which 
 the federal government may undertake. 42 
 
 CHAPTER VI.— Considerations of hu- 
 manity and the precepts of social 
 economy demand that labor be digni- 
 fied. In this respect the constitution of 
 1917 is progressive, though it reaches 
 certain extremes which are incompat- 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ible with a desire to guarantee security 
 for invested capital 55 
 
 CHAPTER VII.— The Constitution of 
 1917 very properly confers upon the 
 State the power to exercise due vigilance 
 for the preservation and conservation 
 of natural elements; but Carranza has 
 endeavored to utilize this prerogative 
 to the extent of socializing industries of 
 a private nature 64 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.— The mihtary caste 
 appropriates two-thirds of the nation's 
 revenue while the school-teachers go 
 hungry 84 
 
 CHAPTER IX.— Under the provisions 
 of the constitution of 1857 private 
 property could be expropriated only 
 upon the payment in cash of a sum 
 covering its actual value. Under the 
 terms of the constitution of 1917, 
 expropriation becomes nothing more 
 than spoliation, since no advance cash 
 payment is required and the indemnity 
 allowed covers only a portion of the 
 actual value of the property. ... 96 
 
 CHAPTER X.— The laws enacted by the 
 Federal Congress since 1884 and prior 
 to the year 1917 have vested in the 
 owners of the surface soil the deposits of 
 petroleum, coal and other mineral 
 fuels contained therein. The consti- 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tution of 1917 despoils these owners of 
 their previously granted rights. . . 106 
 
 CHAPTER XI.— The constitution of 
 1917 withholds forty per cent of the 
 soil from foreign investors and also 
 prevents stock-holders of mercantile 
 corporations from lending their power- 
 ful aid to agricultural enterprises. . . 122 
 
 CHAPTER XII. The constitution of 
 1917 imprudently confers upon the 
 executive powers of the nation and of 
 the states the discretionary power of 
 determining, in every instance, the 
 landed areas which may be owned by 
 stock corporations engaged in non- 
 agricultural enterprises 129 
 
 CHAPTER XIII.— The so-called agrar- 
 ian problem in Mexico is not one which 
 involves the land. It is concerned 
 with matters having to do with irriga- 
 tion, investment problems, rural bank- 
 ing institutions and the organization of 
 an autonomous agricultural class. The 
 constitution of 1917, instead of pro- 
 viding guarantees to property and 
 facilitating colonization, fails to recog- 
 nize the efficacy of patent titles or the 
 force of res adjudicata and the pre- 
 scription in questions pertaining to 
 rural property and at the same time 
 injuriously restricts the land-holding 
 capacity of foreigners 137 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XIV.— Commendable safe- 
 guards against illegal manipulation by 
 capital are provided by for the consti- 
 tution framed at Queretaro but, here 
 again, iniquitious extremes are reached, 
 for exemptions necessary for the 
 stimulation of new industries are 
 denied and the spoliation of the banks, 
 authorized by Carranza, is legaHzed. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XV.— The electoral preroga- 
 tive should be limited to properly 
 qualified voters. The constitution of 
 1917 timidly undertakes to restrict 
 suffrage but does not guarantee, satis- 
 factorily, the freedom of the press. . 195 
 
 CHAPTER XVI.— The constitution of 
 1917 restricts the powers of the Federal 
 Congress, while, on the other hand, it 
 increases the political, co-legislative 
 and even the judicial prerogatives of 
 the Chief Executive. As a matter of 
 fact, it makes dictatorship constitu- 
 tional . . 210 
 
 CHAPTER XVII.— Carrancism and the 
 constitution of 1917 are the most effec- 
 tive proof of the failure of President 
 Wilson's attitude toward the Mexican 
 question. Further pursuance of simi- 
 lar 'foreign policies would inevitably 
 lead to similar results 225 
 
 viii 
 
CARRANZA AND HIS 
 BOLSHEVIK REGIME 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Federal Congress of Mexico, com- 
 posed of the Chamber of Senators and the 
 Chamber of Deputies, was the only legitimate 
 body authorized by the Constitution of 1857 
 to revise and amend that Constitution. To 
 accomplish this the action of a two-thirds 
 majority of said body, followed by the 
 ratification of a majority of the State Legisla- 
 tures, was necessary. 
 
 Nevertheless, Carranza called together a 
 special assembly which met in Queretaro, the 
 sole object of which assembly was to approve 
 the fundamental code which is in force today 
 in Mexico. 
 
 Carranza foresaw since his first decree of 
 September 19th, 1916, that the nation — or, to 
 use his own term, the ^^reactionaries" — 
 would not fail to protest against the bastardity 
 of the Constitution's origin. He, therefore 
 
4 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 at once attempted to justify himself by 
 advancing the argument that the revohition 
 of Ayutla, which overthrew the tyranny of 
 Santa iVnna, had also convened a Constituent 
 Congress and sanctioned a fundamental code 
 without abiding by the regulations of the 
 Constitution of 1824. 
 
 What ignorance, or shall we say duplicity, 
 did he display in citing this precedent! 
 
 According to the wording of the *Tlan de 
 Ayutla" — amended at Acapulco — * 'Those of 
 its good sons who launched forth to vindicate 
 their rights so scandalously trampled upon, 
 cherished not even the vaguest idea of impos- 
 ing conditions upon the sovereign will of the 
 nation, either re-establishing by force of arms 
 the federal system or restoring things to the 
 same state in which they were at the time of 
 the *Plan de Jalisco': for, all those things 
 relating to the form under which the nation 
 must definitely establish itself must be sub- 
 mitted to the Congress which shall be called to 
 that end; thus is it made known publicly and 
 explicitly even now.'' 
 
 Consistent with this program, the fifth 
 clause of the above mentioned plan promised 
 the nation that "fifteen days after the president 
 *ad interim' undertakes his new duties, he 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 5 
 
 shall convene a special congress in conformity 
 with the provisions of the law enacted for 
 that purpose on the 16th of December, 1841, 
 which shall devote itself exclusively to the 
 work of organizing the nation as a popular 
 representative republic and investigating the 
 acts of the present government, and those of 
 the provisional executive, which are treated 
 of in Article 2. This constituent congress 
 is to meet four months after its convocation." 
 
 Thus we see that the Revolution of Ayutla 
 did not offer to restore to the nation a former 
 constitutional system, but rather to convene a 
 constituent assemblage, the form of which 
 had been previously agreed upon, with the 
 object of drawing up a representative, re- 
 publican and popular constitution. 
 
 This was the explicit pledge of the Revolu- 
 tion of Ayutla and it was carried out to the 
 very letter. Nor did the leaders of that 
 revolution deceive the people with the in- 
 tention of dragging them into armed strife, 
 nor did they defraud them after victory was 
 obtained. 
 
 The revolution of Carranza proceeded along 
 entirely different lines. 
 
 From its very origin, it proclaimed itself 
 **the restorer of the constitutional system, 
 
6 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 which, it declared,|had^been'violated with the 
 overthrow of Madero. This system was estab- 
 lished by the Constitution of 1857. Even 
 though in the course of its development, the 
 revolution of Carranza was obliged to pro- 
 claim the necessity of political, economic and 
 social reforms, nevertheless it did not re- 
 nounce, at least publicly, its originally de- 
 clared purpose. In addition to the fact that 
 it assumed the deceiving name of "Constitu- 
 tionalism," there are numberless documents in 
 which it pledged itself expressly or by impli- 
 cation to support the Constitution of 1857, 
 with the amendments so loudly advocated 
 appended. 
 
 It is unnecessary, in order to prove the 
 foregoing statements, to quote the oflScial 
 and confidential messages transmitted by 
 Carranza agents to the United States Govern- 
 ment. Suflace it to say that Carranza's 
 manifesto to the Nation, issued on June 11th, 
 1915, to which I shall refer later on, was the 
 outcome of pledges made in Washington dur- 
 ing the course of negotiations relative to the 
 recognition of the de facto government. Proof 
 of this fact was furnished by Richard H. Cole, 
 one of Carranza's confidential emissaries, who 
 made public the following telegram sent to 
 
Carranza and His Bolsfievik Regime 7 
 
 him in care of the Mexican Embassy at 
 Washington by Carranza on the 23rd of May, 
 1915: '* Received your courteous message. 
 The proclamation will be issued in due time. " 
 
 It will suffice also to quote the following 
 statements published by the American press, 
 with reference to the Mexican-American con- 
 ference held in New London on the 12th of 
 September, 1916: "The Mexican Deputies 
 expect that the election of the Congress which 
 will formulate and submit the new Constitution 
 to the various state legislatures will be simul- 
 taneous with the local elections." Like all 
 reports given out by the press at that time, 
 this report was published after being passed 
 by these same deputies and therefore, there 
 can be no doubt as to its authenticity. This 
 report shows, unquestionably, that in the 
 opinion of the official representatives of the de 
 facto Carranza government the approval of 
 Congress, that is, the Senate and the Chamber 
 of Deputies, and of the State Legislatures was 
 necessary in order to sanction any changes 
 in the constitution. 
 
 But I must speak, not exactly of the diplo- 
 matic pledges made by Carranza, but rather of 
 those which he gave to the Mexican people. 
 These were numerous and explicit. 
 
8 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Article 2 of the decree of February 19th, 
 1913, issued by the Legislature of the State 
 of Coahuila, as the initial act of the Carrancista 
 insurrection, authorizes the Executive of said 
 State "to arm forces in order to co-operate in 
 sustaining the constitutional system of the 
 Republic. " This constitutional system of the 
 Republic was precisely that of the Constitution 
 of 1857. 
 
 The circular issued on the same day by 
 Carranza in which he "urges co-operation in 
 the legitimist movement" affirms that "it is 
 the duty of the general Congress to meet for 
 the purpose of calling at once a special 
 election as provided in Article 81 of our 
 Magna Charta. " Our Magna Charta was of 
 course the Constitution of 1857. And the 
 same circular adds that "the Government 
 of the State finds itself obliged to hoist the 
 flag of legality in order to uphold the 
 constitutional government which grew out 
 of the last election." That government to 
 which Carranza referred could be none 
 other than the one established in pursuance 
 with the provisions of the Constitution of 
 1857. 
 
 In the "Plan de Guadalupe" of the 26th of 
 March, 1913, not one word is said regarding 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 9 
 
 the reconstruction of the Nation under a new 
 constitution. On the contrary, in order to 
 justify its stipulations, it states that the 
 "Legislative body and the Judiciary have 
 recognized and supported General Victoriano 
 Huerta contrary to the constitutional laws 
 and precepts." The said constitutional pre- 
 cepts were those of the Constitution of 1857. 
 
 The decree modifying the "Plan de Guada- 
 lupe" issued on the 12th of December, 1914, 
 asserted that the "constitutional order of 
 things" (originating from the Constitution of 
 1857) "had been interrupted" as a result 
 of the events which took place on the 19th of 
 February, 1913; and as the "Constitutional 
 Governor of Coahuila had solemnly sworn 
 to uphold and cause to be upheld the general 
 Constitution," which was none other than 
 that of 1857, "he was bound to take up arms 
 in order to re-establish the constitutional 
 system in the Mexican Republic," that is, 
 the Constitution of 1857. And, therefore, 
 "at the triumph of the revolution . . . 
 the First Chief shall issue the 
 
 call for election of the Congress of the Union, " 
 and "shall submit to it the reforms pro- 
 claimed and put in force during the strife so 
 that the Congress may ratify, amend, or 
 
10 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 supplement them and may constitutionalize 
 such amendments as may be necessary before 
 the constitutional order of things can be 
 re-established." Such Congress of the Union 
 could be no other than the Senate and the 
 Chamber of Deputies established in con- 
 formity with the Fundamental Code of 1857. 
 
 Even more explicit is the manifesto which 
 Carranza himself issued to the Nation on the 
 11th of June, 1915, in order to secure recogni- 
 tion as a de facto government according to his 
 telegram to Richard H. Cole, quoted above, 
 since the following unmistakable statements 
 can be read in said manifesto: "As Governor 
 of the State of Coahuila and in obedience to y 
 the Constitutional mandates, articles 121 and 
 128 of our fundamental Code,"— that of 1857 
 — "I then assumed the representation of our 
 Republic under the terms in which such right 
 is vested in me by the same Constitution" 
 ^ — that of 1857. Not satisfied with simply 
 mentioning these articles, the First Chief 
 made the following exact quotation from them : 
 "Every public ofiicial, without any exception, 
 before assuming his duties, shall take solemn 
 oath to uphold this Constitution'* — that of 
 1857 — "and all laws emanating therefrom." 
 "This Constitution shall not lose its force 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 11 
 
 and vigor even though its observance be 
 interrupted by a rebellion. In ease that by 
 any public disturbance a government con- 
 trary to the principles which it sanctions is 
 established, its force shall be restored as soon 
 as the people regain their liberty." 
 
 Carranza, therefore, very definitely support- 
 ed the revolution against the government of 
 Huej^ta upon the precepts of the Constitution of 
 i^^y; he called the people to armed strife 
 under that flag; he promised to re-establish the 
 Constitution of i 557, and explicitly acknowledg- 
 ed, furthermore, that inasmuch as this Consti- 
 tution could not lose its force and vigor, under 
 any circumstance the Nation, immediately 
 upon regaining its liberty, would revert to the 
 observance of this same Constitution of 1857, 
 
 Now then, this Constitution contains the 
 following provision: 
 
 "Article 127. The present Constitution 
 may be amended. No amendment shall be- 
 come part of the Constitution, if not agreed 
 upon by the Congress of the Union, by a vote 
 of two-thirds of the members present, and 
 approved by a majority of the Legislatures of 
 the States." 
 
 We see, therefore, that regarded in all three 
 aspects — legal, political and revolutionary — the 
 
12 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Assembly of Queretaro was the bastard off- 
 spring of a coup d'etat, and its work — the 
 Constitution of 1917 — also illegitimate, is 
 inevitably condemned to disappear when ''the 
 people regain their liberty'' as stipulated in 
 Article 128 of the Magna Charta of 1857 
 quoted by Carranza in his manifesto of the 
 nth of June, 1915. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Inasmuch as the Constitution of 1857 pro- 
 vides for its own amendment, and also 
 specifies the legal proceedings to be followed in 
 organizing the administration, why, instead of 
 convoking an illegitimate constituent assem- 
 bly, did not Carranza immediately call elections 
 for a Federal Congress and President of the 
 Republic at the same time, and compel the 
 military governors of the States to do likewise 
 so as to restore state authorities as well? 
 
 Why did he not wait for the Federal Con- 
 gress and the State Legislatures to be convened 
 in order to submit the constitutional amend- 
 ments which the revolution had proposed? 
 
 The answer is simple. 
 
 If the laws of the Magna Charta of 1857 
 had been honestly observed, all social classes 
 would have participated in the general elec- 
 tions. It would have been impossible to 
 withhold the suffrage either from the Villista 
 faction, which disagreed with the Carrancistas, 
 or from the agrarian faction, represented by 
 Zapata and his followers, or from the scattered 
 
14 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 adherents of the old regime, or, in general, from 
 all the passive or orderly classes capable, on 
 account of their education, of comprehending 
 the importance of the moment. 
 
 But such participation of all the social 
 classes in the coming election augured with 
 absolute certainty the defeat of the ruling 
 faction and its elimination from power. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Carrancista faction 
 was composed of a small percentage of the 
 proletariat. With one or two exceptions, 
 those in its ranks acting as advisers were un- 
 successful and embittered professional men, 
 underpaid primary school teachers, mainly 
 from the rural districts, untrained students, 
 and journalists. The officers and heads of 
 the revolutionary army had been recruited 
 from the ranks of foremen, muleteers, police- 
 men, clerks, milkmen, and included also 
 quite a number of drudges, farm hands, peons, 
 and jail-birds. 
 
 Such was the group of men which had 
 seized the government by violence, which 
 had confiscated both individual and public 
 property, which had so easily enriched itself 
 with the proceeds of confiscation, levies, and 
 spoliation concomitant with and following 
 the military campaign. Having obtained 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 15 
 
 victory, they naturally were determined to 
 enjoy the spoils, for they considered that the 
 Nation had become their patrimony. 
 
 They knew full well that in a free political 
 contest they would be eliminated, not only 
 because of their ignorance and their anteced- 
 ents, but also because they represented a 
 scanty minority. 
 
 One of the foremost members of this group, 
 Machorro Narvaez, speaking before the Con- 
 stituent Congress, said: ''The present revolu- 
 tion is not as yet popular in Mexico. The 
 greater part of the Mexican people are still 
 against the revolution; the higher class, part 
 of the middle and the old intellectual element 
 are against the revolution, as well as the 
 laboring class of a certain rank; clerks and 
 office employees who constitute mainly the 
 middle class are also against the revolution. 
 We are still in the minority/' (Diario de los 
 Debates, Vol. II, page 71). 
 
 The ignorance of this revolutionary caste is 
 well known to all, and recognized even by the 
 very mouthpieces of the Carrancista faction. 
 
 Bojorquez, another of the members of the 
 Constituent Congress, made this statement: 
 **I can say, and many of my fellow congress- 
 men can say with me, that we do not only lack 
 
16 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 that preparation" — in financial affairs — "but 
 also all preparation in constitutional and all 
 other laws; we decide these momentous 
 questions after hearing the pros and cons" — 
 sometimes without even hearing them — "be- 
 cause when we vote we are led more by our 
 revolutionary instinct than by our understand- 
 ing . " (Diario de los Debates, 
 Vol. II, page 367). 
 
 And as a sample of the boasted revolutionary 
 instinct, as well as of the ignorance of the 
 leaders, let us hear what one of the pillars of 
 the Carrancista party, General Nafarrete, 
 also a member of the Constituent Congress, 
 in discussing the article referring to the 
 freedom of education says: *"As to the 
 explanatory part which treats of individual 
 guarantees, which declares that Mexico is 
 free because it states that Mexico is released 
 from the restriction of those rights which the 
 people declare of its sovereign and free initia- 
 tive, I believe that it is the representative 
 share of the Executive of the Union in order 
 to state its policy, who is the only one that can 
 occupy that tribune and tell us: *I deem it 
 necessary, in order to sustain this contro- 
 
 (1) — I offer a literal translation of a part of General Nafarrete's speech 
 which is as unintelligible in Spanish as it is in English. — Author's Note. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 17 
 
 versy, to suppress these guarantees,' and not 
 come, gentlemen, to invade the office of the 
 First Magistrate of the Nation so to speak in 
 a manner particular to the ideas. Ideas are 
 sacrifices, gentlemen, as we soldiers sacrifice 
 ourselves. I am willing to justify that the 
 congressmen are invading the office of the First 
 Chief, of the First Magistrate of the Nation, 
 who is the only one who can ask the legislative 
 power whether the suppression of guarantees 
 is to be conceded in whole or in part, for we 
 are in the explanatory session in which we say 
 that man is free. I ask, sir, that my speech 
 may be meditated upon, because the honor 
 of the home is being invaded." (Textual), 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I, page 470). 
 
 Thus spoke and thought not the elect of the 
 people, but the select of the triumphant 
 faction ! 
 
 But if on the one hand this faction, ignorant 
 and in a minority, could expect nothing from a 
 free vote of the people, on the other hand it 
 could rely upon might to kieep itself in power. 
 Inasmuch as the Constitution of 1857 was an 
 obstruction to this end, it was necessary to 
 give it a death blow; and inasmuch as the 
 banner of the Constitution was also an ob- 
 struction, it was necessary to tear it to pieces. 
 
18 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 As a result, the proletariat in arms assumed 
 the exclusive right of citizenship, declared it- 
 self the proprietor of the Nation and the 
 arbiter of its destiny. 
 
 The heads of the military caste joined in 
 what they called the "Liberal Constitutional- 
 ist Party, " pledged themselves to support the 
 candidacy of Carranza for the Presidency of 
 the Republic and that of the members of this 
 same caste or its followers for the Constituent 
 Assembly. 
 
 The lists of congressmen were drawn up by 
 the military chiefs and revised and arranged 
 by their agent, the Secretary of the Depart- 
 ment of the Interior; the congressmen were 
 elected at the polls under the armed pressure 
 of the local military posts and of the military 
 governors of the States in an atmosphere of 
 death and oppression. If here and there a 
 congressman — for example those who had 
 belonged to the "Partido Renovador" of the 
 26th Legislature, during the administration of 
 Madero — succeeded in entering the Consti- 
 tuent Congress, it was through the special 
 efforts of Carranza, and in absolute opposition 
 to the head of the military caste. General 
 Alvaro Obregon, who went so far as to request 
 Congress to reject the credentials of the 
 "Renovadores. " 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 19 
 
 "I come to point out to this Assembly" — 
 said Candido Aguilar, son-in-law-to-be of 
 Carranza — "that it is becoming a victim of 
 ministerial intrigue. I come to tell the truth 
 even though General Obregon and Mr. Acufia 
 (Secretary of the Interior) are my friends. 
 The intrigue against Mr. Palavicini — one of 
 the * Renovadores ' — ^has been hatched by Mr. 
 Acuna and General Obregon, and though you 
 are all aware of the intrigue, only few of 
 you have the moral courage to oppose it; 
 you always oppose the downfallen. That 
 intrigue, gentlemen, dates from the meetings of 
 the Liberal Constitutionalist Party . . ." "I 
 do not come to incite government crises, I 
 come to speak of personal intrigues, for such 
 were those of Chapultepec. Once, when I 
 was in the company of Mr. Acuna and General 
 Obregon, a man whom I admire, esteem, and 
 look upon as a pride of the Nation, they said 
 to me, *that man, Palavicini, is giving too 
 much trouble; but he will see, he will not get to 
 Congress." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I, 
 pages 154-227). 
 
 If the Secretaries of War and of the Interior 
 so treated their associates, is it possible to 
 think that they would allow any one not a 
 member of the military faction of the Carran- 
 cistas to enter the Constituent Congress.'^ 
 
20 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 The decree of the 15th of September, 1916, 
 has the following provisions: **. . . besides 
 those disqualified by the said Constitution 
 (that of 1857) no one shall be elected who 
 either by taking up arms or by holding govern- 
 ment positions, has aided the governments 
 and factions hostile to the constitutionalist 
 cause." (Art. 40). 
 
 The letter of convocation for the elections, 
 of the 19th of the same month of September, 
 adds that "those should be considered citizens 
 of a State" — one of the requisites for election 
 — "who had resided in their locality for at 
 least six months prior to the date of the 
 elections" (Art. 8, Section III), "and those 
 who had been qualified citizens or residents of 
 their respective States during the ten days 
 of the uprising in the City of Mexico, provided 
 that they had proved afterwards with actual 
 deeds their adherence to the constitutionalist 
 cause." (Art. 8, Section IV). 
 
 And the electoral rules of the same date 
 state that the census to be used shall be "the 
 list of voters for the last municipal elections. " 
 (Art. 20). 
 
 In the lists, a large number of voters not 
 identified with the Carrancista cause had been 
 eliminated. Nevertheless, as has been seen. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 21 
 
 this was not considered enough, and those who 
 had supported the governments or factions 
 hostile to the Carrancista cause were also 
 excluded. 
 
 But not even this elimination satisfied the 
 military caste, and they finally exacted as a 
 qualification for electors, a residence of six 
 months immediately preceding the election. 
 Such a ruling deprived of the fi-anchise 
 hundreds of thousands of citizens who, fleeing 
 from the atrocities of the revolutionary rabble, 
 had removed from hamlet to town, from town 
 to city, from city to State Capital, and from 
 State Capital to the Metropolis. 
 
 And in order that the exclusion might be 
 absolute, all inhabitants who had not proved 
 with actual deeds their adherence to the 
 Carrancista cause, or, in other words, to the 
 dominant proletariat caste, were declared non- 
 residents. 
 
 Thus the Assembly of Queretaro, beside 
 the fact that it had usurped constitutional 
 power, did not even originate in the will of 
 all the social classes expressed at the polls. 
 
 The Carrancista mobs, and they alone,; 
 organized under the direction of their generals 
 and with the name of Liberal Constitution- 
 alist Party, manufactured the lists of congress- 
 
22 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 men and obtained credentials for these in 
 fraudulent elections, availing themselves of 
 the public forces managed by the Secretaries 
 of War, of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior, 
 by the military commanders acting as Govern- 
 ors of the States, and the heads of garrisons 
 and military posts. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The separation of Church and State de- 
 serves special consideration as being one of the 
 greatest victories for pubHc rights gained by 
 the Constitution of 1857 and subsequent 
 amendments. 
 
 The Church is a society organized to teach 
 the flock of the faithful the road to Heaven. 
 
 The State is a society established to normal- 
 ize the inter-relations of men living in the same 
 community. 
 
 The former seeks spiritual, the latter, 
 temporal perfection. The Church is supreme 
 in dogma, discipline and worship, so long as 
 her external manifestations are not opposed 
 to the public welfare; the State is supreme 
 in its function of regulator of social conduct, 
 but cannot go beyond the threshold of the 
 sacred tribunal of conscience. 
 
 Members of different religious communities 
 and at the same time of one lay community, 
 can live at peace with their consciences and 
 with their fellowmen only on condition that 
 the Church refrains from all interference in 
 
24 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 public matters and the State abstains from all 
 meddling in matters of faith. If it were 
 necessary to confirm with historical evidence 
 this truth, which is now an axiom, it would 
 suflSce to cite the crime of the Inquisition in 
 order to condemn the Church political, and 
 to recall the madness of the worship of Reason 
 in order to anathematize the State pontifical. 
 
 From these facts, we draw two conclusions : 
 
 Firstly, that all political actions on the 
 part of the Church not only pervert her 
 spiritual ends, but also imperil the peace of 
 nations. No action, no practice of a dog- 
 matic character should serve as a means for 
 obtaining control of governments. 
 
 Secondly, as to the individual, the inviola- 
 bility of conscience must be absolute. 
 
 With reference to the first point, the Con- 
 stitution of 1857 has no other explicit stipula- 
 tion than that all ecclesiastics are deprived 
 of the privilege of holding certain offices. 
 
 Taking advantage of the fact that the Con- 
 stitution of 1857 did not expressly forbid 
 religious institutions as such to organize into 
 political parties, the Catholic Church, immedi- 
 ately after the revolution of Madero, formed 
 the "Catholic Party" with a view to taking 
 part in the elections of 1912. The party was 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 25 
 
 supported by the clergy. All from the highest 
 to the lowest, availed themselves of religious 
 offices, the confessional, the pulpit, doctrine, 
 dogma, faith, superstition, and all the in- 
 struments at hand to gain proselytes. They 
 worked on the consciences of the people, their 
 friends, and their servants, using the formid- 
 able argument of eternal salvation, and when 
 the ballot-boxes were installed they placed 
 about them standards bearing significant 
 legends. On many of them for example, were 
 inscribed the words: "Here you vote for God. " 
 
 The Catholic Church attempted in this 
 way to convert itself into a temporal power in 
 rivalry to the State; it endeavored to re- 
 establish the theocratic regime of the middle 
 ages. It was thus false to the lofty and 
 spiritual ends for which it was instituted at 
 the same time that it substituted religious 
 sentiment for the patriotic spirit in organizing 
 the administration. 
 
 We, sincere and earnest liberals, lovers of 
 the State, and solicitous for its progress and 
 development, cannot but applaud the provis- 
 ions of the Constitution of Queretaro which 
 deny to ministers of any religion the right to 
 hold office, to organize for political ends, to 
 use the pulpit, the confessional, or any other 
 
26 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 clerical function as an instrument for political 
 propaganda, whether by word of mouth or in 
 writing. We also are in complete accord 
 with the provisions which forbid the similar 
 use of publications and periodicals of a 
 religious character and those which forbid any 
 group or political faction to assume a name 
 implying adherence to a religious creed, and 
 finally, that which prohibits any political 
 meetings to be held in temples of worship. 
 
 But in order to be consistent with the same 
 principle of public right, it is only just to 
 admit that the Church must be supreme in 
 questions of faith, that it must enjoy absolute 
 freedom in the determination of its dogmas, 
 in the adoption of its doctrines, in the external 
 forms of its worship, and even in its precepts of 
 morality, with no other restriction on the last 
 two, than a prohibition against perturbing or 
 imperiling public peace or retarding the work 
 of the masses; it must, in addition, be free to 
 organize its hierarchy and to appoint its 
 doctrinal and officiating personnel. 
 
 The Constitution of 1857 with its amend- 
 ments of 1873 places no restriction on liberty 
 of conscience in these matters, and as to 
 external forms of worship and discipline, 
 empowers the federal authorities, to exercise 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 27 
 
 any supervision over them designated by law. 
 In addition to this, it prohibits monastic 
 orders. 
 
 The first of the foregoing restrictions was 
 quite justifiable. It was inspired only by 
 the wish to preserve public order which, owing 
 to the ignorance and fanaticism of the masses 
 of our people, was very easily disturbed at 
 that time, as it is even now, if the external 
 forms of worship are not properly regulated, 
 especially when services are held outside the 
 churches. 
 
 The second restriction, the necessity for 
 which was easily explainable at that time be- 
 cause of political and economic conditions, 
 should no longer be in force in all its rigor, at 
 least in so far as it concerns orders of pious 
 women consecrated to good works, as for 
 example, the Sisters of Charity. The State 
 should limit itself in this matter to denying 
 civil sanction to monastic vows. 
 
 Although ostensibly the Constitution of 
 Queretaro recognizes liberty of conscience, 
 as a matter of fact, it violates its most funda- 
 mental manifestations. I shall treat of these 
 briefly, leaving for a later chapter the most 
 important, freedom of education. 
 
 The Constitution of Queretaro begins by 
 
28 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 prohibiting foreigners to exercise the functions 
 of the priesthood. Can anything be more 
 ridiculous? Such a prohibition is equivalent 
 to establishing a national religion, and national 
 religions in the twentieth century are worse 
 than the Inquisition at the dawn of the nine- 
 teenth. When religious institutions and their 
 ministers are not allowed the enjoyment of 
 political rights while discharging their priestly 
 duties, what difference does it make whether 
 it is a native or a foreigner who imparts 
 doctrines, moral commandments, or the con- 
 solations of religion? 
 
 Carranza himself, shocked by this excess 
 of tyranny, felt obliged to allow three foreign 
 priests to hold services in Mexico City. It 
 is true that he used as an excuse a demand on 
 the part of congregations for services in 
 foreign languages in order to justify so flagrant 
 a transgression of his own constitution, but, 
 as a matter of fact, one of the priests was a 
 Spaniard. 
 
 Another provision of the Constitution of 
 Queretaro authorizes each State of the Feder- 
 ation to determine the number of ministers of 
 religion that shall practice their profession in 
 its territory. Granted the separation of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 29 
 
 Church and State, is not this another abso- 
 lutely unjustifiable interference? 
 
 If catholics, protestants, and in general, 
 members of any religious body or sect are 
 privileged to follow their form of worship, 
 all limitations of this right trample upon 
 liberty of conscience, inasmuch as the preach- 
 ing, doctrine, religious ceremonies and propa- 
 ganda are essential manifestations of such 
 freedom. 
 
 As a proof of this we can recall the state of 
 tenseness bordering on rebellion which ob- 
 tained in Jalisco due to the decree limiting 
 the number of priests in that State. As 
 further proof, we can also point to the fact 
 that this same decree was revoked because of 
 pressure brought to bear by President Car- 
 ranza himself at the cost of the sovereignty of 
 this same State, thus conceding the indisput- 
 able fact that more than any conception of 
 state sovereignty, society needs peace of 
 conscience. 
 
 Finally, in the same article 130, the Consti- 
 tution of Queretaro authorizes the formulation 
 of laws bearing upon "religious discipline in 
 the Churches." Are laic and civil laws to 
 set the standard of religious discipline inside 
 the churches.'^ They may dictate regulations 
 
30 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 for policing, for morality, and for hygiene, but 
 vesting the State with the power of regulating 
 internal religious discipline is tantamount to 
 denying and repudiating freedom of worship. 
 
 This encroachment on religious liberty 
 resulted from the fact that the Constitution 
 of 1917 was not drawn up by the Mexican 
 people nor for the Mexican people. That 
 Constitution was an agreement of the ** armed 
 citizens" formed by a minority of the sub- 
 social classes turned into fighters, and their 
 works are born of the passions, hatreds and 
 animosities which formed the revolutionary 
 bond of union of this neo-military caste. 
 
 The Secretary of War, Alvaro Obregon, 
 hierophant of the so-called "Liberal Consti- 
 tutional Party," boasted not many mxonths 
 before of having "traversed the Republic 
 from end to end followed by the maledictions 
 of the priests, " and proudly exclaimed : " What 
 greater honor could be mine?" (El Liberal, 
 Mexico City, May 4th, 1915). 
 
 Easily can we imagine what his satellites in 
 the Assembly of Queretaro felt impelled to 
 think and to shout. 
 
 Congressman Gonzales Torres declares that 
 all religions "are absolutely corrupt and have 
 been converted into a woof of tales and 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 31 
 
 legends; of absurdities and aberrations." 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I, page 520). 
 
 Congressman Reeio states in recording 
 his vote that "we are obliged to prevent and 
 correct all that which may contribute to the 
 immorality and corruption of the Mexican 
 people, freeing them at the same time from 
 the claws of the crafty priest who takes 
 possession of consciences in order to carry 
 on his iniquitous work of prostitution." 
 He proposes, as a result, that the ministers of 
 any sect be forbidden to hear confessions, 
 and that the practice of their ministerial 
 profession be limited to Mexican citizens 
 by birth, imposing upon them the obligation 
 of marrying according to the civil law if 
 they have not reached the age of fity. (Diario 
 de los Debates, Vol. II, pages 741-2, 750-1). 
 
 Congressman Alonzo Romero wins loud 
 applause on ending with this tirade: "There is 
 no doubt that any woman who goes to confes- 
 sion is an adulteress and any husband who 
 permits it is a procurer, and a party to such 
 immoral practices." (Diario de los Debates, 
 Vol. II, page 774). 
 
 Congressman Gonzalez Galindo affirms the 
 following: "It has been agreed upon that 
 religion had an evolutionary progress until it 
 
32 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 reached Christianity, which is supposed to 
 be the most perfect form; theologians say 
 that it is the most truthful; I call it a farce; 
 I call it a string of lies and fables. " (Diario 
 de los Debates, Vol. II, page 753). 
 
 What could be expected from the men who 
 shot at images of saints in Monterey, who 
 harassed and expelled the priests and nuns of 
 Zacatecas, who held the bishop of Durango 
 in a well in order to extort from him a rich 
 ransom; who violated virgins consecrated to 
 a religious life, who looted and desecrated the 
 Josephine College, in Mexico City, and who 
 sacked and pillaged every church in the 
 Republic? What could they do in the name 
 of liberty except to crush and profane the 
 religious convictions of the ninety-nine per 
 cent, of the Mexican people, pursuing them 
 even to the sacred precincts of conscience? 
 
 How could these fanatics who upheld the 
 bloody and concupiscent canons of pre-consti- 
 tutionalism permit their victims to seek 
 consolation in that sublime love and grand 
 renunciation which defied the Master? 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Over four-fifths of the Mexican people 
 are illiterate; this indicates the extent of 
 their lack of culture. 
 
 Thirty per cent, of the inhabitants of the 
 country are of a pure indigenous race, a large 
 proportion of these do not speak the Spanish 
 language and all of them live in a state of sub- 
 civilization. Within the same borders, there- 
 fore, there is a double nationality; the sub- 
 civilized and the civilized. The former are 
 still in the period of subordination; while the 
 latter have already reached that of co- 
 ordination. Must we Mexicans of high ideals 
 leave the subcivilized in their state of sub- 
 ordination.'^ 
 
 If their inferiority were ethnical, if their 
 race were opposed to progress, there could be 
 no other course than to let them live as they 
 have lived and utilize their muscular force 
 for the good of the rest of the community 
 until the law of natural selection had definite- 
 ly wiped them out. 
 
 But there is no such ethnical inferiority; the 
 
34 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 native race is strong, intelligent, tenacious in 
 its purpose, and at the same time open to 
 advice and frugal, although in certain regions 
 inclined to the use of alcohol. They reveal all 
 these qualities in a passive way because they 
 have lived for four hundred years under the 
 political, social, economic and mental oppres- 
 sion of the conquering race and its descendants 
 whether full-blooded or mixed. 
 
 But all these faculties, now passive, are 
 capable of becoming active. The power of 
 imitation of the native can be transformed into 
 initiative; his ability to endure suffering and 
 adversity into a persistent and tenacious de- 
 sire for useful work; his docility, resulting from 
 age-long obedience, can bring about conscious 
 social discipline. The only thing that has 
 been wanting to effect this metamorphosis is 
 education. 
 
 There are, nevertheless, many who oppose 
 this, the sole way to regeneration, with the 
 argument that it will only awaken appetites 
 and ambitions in the masses. Those who 
 predict such dangers are retrogressive. They 
 wish to preserve their own privileges, and will 
 heed neither the lessons of history nor the 
 teachings of social science. Ignorance can 
 temporarily hold the masses in meek sub- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 35 
 
 jection, but at the same time it makes them an 
 easy prey to agitators and demagogues and is 
 the underlying cause oT anarchical uprisings. 
 Let the sad picture of Mexico in the past nine 
 years, and the gloomy spectacle which Eastern 
 Europe now presents, in contrast to well- 
 ordered conditions in the United States, stand 
 as a proof of this contention. 
 
 Not a few oppose the education of the 
 masses, arguing that it does not go hand in 
 hand with a moral progress necessary as a 
 check upon anti-social instincts. Those who 
 think thus forget that the most ignorant 
 peoples in the world are not the most moral; 
 that if, in truth, civilization brings its retinue 
 of vices, they are only new^ forms of those which 
 already existed, and to offset them, it is 
 accompanied by virtues which serve as a 
 counterbalance. 
 
 On the other hand, when we speak of 
 education, let it be understood that we mean a 
 practical education which may guide the 
 talents of the people towards the work of econ- 
 omic, civic and moral co-ordination. 
 
 It must, therefore, be an economic education 
 to create in man needs and aspirations at the 
 same time that it provides the means of 
 satisfying them by productive labor. It must 
 
36 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 be a civic education to which end the school, 
 as a community in itself, could use as a daily 
 object lesson the rights and duties, the 
 liberties and restrictions, that every commun- 
 ity prescribes for the individual. It must, 
 finally, be a moral education, which is easy 
 to infuse into young minds by the use of 
 select stories and fables. 
 
 Reading, writing, arithmetic, and the other 
 branches of knowledge which form the con- 
 structive part of education are not ends in 
 themselves but, rather, means towards reach- 
 ing the above-named economic, civic and 
 moral ends. 
 
 It is not possible, therefore, to doubt that 
 the public authorities are under the strictest 
 obligation to extend education to the masses, 
 and that in our country this duty is most 
 pressing because upon it depends the issuing 
 forth from the state of subconsciousness of 
 half the Mexican people. 
 
 Hence, the civilizing mission of our govern- 
 ment will not be fulfilled until the number of 
 schools in each city, town, or village is 
 sufficient to accommodate all children of school 
 age. Furthermore, the government, far from 
 placing obstacles in the way of private 
 schools, should favor and even financially 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 37 
 
 assist them, limiting itself, insofar as elemen- 
 tary education is concerned, to providing that 
 plans, programs, text-books, and official 
 methods of education be adopted which have 
 as their primary and essential object the 
 adaptation of man to the practical conditions 
 of social life. 
 
 Instruction imparted in official institutions 
 should be secular, this being the most natural 
 consequence of the independence of Church 
 and State and the most perfect guarantee of 
 religious liberty. By secular, we understand 
 that the public school should neither defend 
 nor attack any religious dogma, but it must 
 expound facts, state their causes and disclose 
 their natural laws, even though thereby it con- 
 tradicts this or that Biblical myth, or denies 
 dogmas of revealed truth, or destroys legends 
 of miracles. 
 
 But there is a long step between this and 
 forbidding all religious instruction, or, to 
 speak frankly. Catholic propaganda, in pri- 
 vate elementary schools; or carrying intoler- 
 ance so far as to close all schools directed by 
 or in charge of religious societies or ministers 
 of any sect. 
 
 Religions, the Catholic among them, are 
 not injurious to the people. Ignorance is 
 
38 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 injurious, because where it exists, religion 
 carries to the soul only superstition. Only 
 that dogma is sterile which is unaccompanied 
 by the principles of individual and social 
 ethics. 
 
 Can anyone deny that the fear of God is an 
 immeasurable restraint upon the actions of 
 the large majority of men and that at present 
 at least there is no substitute for it.'^ Can 
 anyone question the stupendous influence 
 that the gentle word and ineffable abnegation 
 of Christ have exercised upon the human 
 conscience.'^ How, then, is it possible to 
 contend that the Christian decalogue will be 
 transformed into a corrupting influence merely 
 because its teachings are united with the 
 education of the rest of the faculties of the 
 child? 
 
 We, sincere freethinkers, renounce and 
 condemn such an unreasonable and intolerant 
 spirit. We want many, very many schools, 
 we earnestly desire the education of the 
 masses, physical, mental and moral; but, 
 above all, the education of the will and of the 
 character, without which all other qualities 
 are barren and harmful, and with which even 
 the roughest and most ignorant man becomes 
 useful to himself, to his family, to his friends, 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 39 
 
 to his community, to his state, and to his 
 country. If we could attain that education 
 without rehgious institutions, we should pre- 
 fer it; but inasmuch as that is impossible, we 
 welcome any who wish to aid us in this work 
 whether they call themselves Catholics or 
 reformists, orthodox or heterodox, whatever 
 be their sect or creed, so long as their standard 
 of morality represents the highest type of 
 individual-social human conduct. 
 
 Nor do we, freethinkers, condemn the in- 
 fusion of religious sentiments into man ; rather 
 do we long for them in the masses, not on 
 account of the dogma they may contain, to 
 which we are indifferent, but on account of 
 the moral strength they develop. If we could 
 make a Socrates of each man, we would attain 
 our ideal; morality for the sake of morality; 
 good for the sake of goodness. 
 
 But, as it is impossible to make philosophers 
 of all men, or even of a small minority of men, 
 because of the absence of ethical conceptions, 
 we welcome religions when they bring to us 
 sentiments of altruism. 
 
 With an intensely broad-minded spirit, 
 the Constitution of 1857 thus dealt with the 
 problem of national education. As to the 
 duty of the State, we quote the following 
 
40 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 paternal precept of its article 32: "Laws shall 
 be enacted to improve the condition of in- 
 dustrious Mexicans, by rewarding those who 
 distinguish themselves in any science or art, 
 to foster labor, and to found colleges and 
 manual training schools. " 
 
 It did not limit the power of founding those 
 training schools only to the states, but by 
 this broad ruling, also empowered the Federal 
 Government concurrently to carry out that 
 great essential function for the betterment of 
 the masses; for the education of the people 
 is not an obligation of this or that town or 
 village, of this or that state or territory, but 
 rather of the nation as a whole. 
 
 Since the Constitution of 1857 urged the 
 Federal Government and at the same time 
 the states and municipalities to stimulate 
 labor and to found practical schools of arts and 
 crafts as well as colleges, evidently the Feder- 
 ation, the states, and the municipalities were 
 concurrently empowered to establish rudi- 
 mentary, elementary and grammar schools in 
 every corner of the Republic and to work 
 out in them a plan adequate for civic, economic, 
 mental and moral education. 
 
 For the proper understanding of this subject, 
 it is well to state that primary schools in 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 41 
 
 Mexico are of three types, namely: "Superior 
 schools," corresponding to the grammar 
 schools as known in the United States; 
 "elementary schools," comprising only the 
 four or five lower grades of the grammar 
 schools, and finally, the "rudimentary 
 schools," with a less extensive curriculum, 
 intended to be established in rural districts 
 particularly for the benefit of the Indian 
 population and to be converted later on into 
 elementary schools. 
 
 As to individual initiative, the Constitution 
 of 1857 placed absolutely no impediment in 
 its way. On the contrary, it sanctioned it in 
 these simple words of Article 3: "Instruction 
 is free." 
 
 The statute which aspires to raise the level 
 of the masses without any distinction, to 
 truly regenerate them through education, is a 
 national monument; the statute that com- 
 mends such a lofty mission to all the executive 
 agencies of government — municipal, state and 
 federal — is a national monument; the statute 
 that calls all social classes to collaborate in 
 this great work without discrimination based 
 upon political or religious creeds, be it as a 
 lucrative profession, or for beneficent motives, 
 is a national monument. 
 
 Such a monument is the Constitution of 
 185T. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 To THAT armed ochlocracy which lately 
 usurped the privilege of voicing in a new 
 Constitution the popular sentiment, was re- 
 served the honor of placing the most flagrant 
 obstructions, now by theories, now by hatreds 
 and excesses, in the way of the civilizing 
 influence of the school upon the illiterate 
 masses. 
 
 Up to the year 1910 neither the states nor 
 the municipalities had satisfactorily solved 
 the problem of universal education. 
 
 Based upon the figures afforded us on the 
 subject by Miguel E. Schultz (Course in 
 Geography) and accepting, empirically, the 
 estimate that children between the ages of 
 6 and 15 represent 25 per cent, of the general 
 census, we have drawn up the following table: 
 
 Divisions 
 of the 
 Nation 
 
 Dependency 
 
 Number 
 
 of 
 Schools 
 
 Pupils 
 Registered 
 
 Annual 
 Cost 
 
 Children 
 
 of School 
 
 Age 
 
 Fed. Dist. 
 Territories 
 States 
 
 Government 
 Private 
 
 Government 
 Private 
 
 Government 
 Private 
 
 Totals 
 
 473 
 235 
 
 216 
 46 
 
 9.221 
 2,327 
 
 96,736 
 21.301 
 
 19.610 
 4.269 
 
 616.901 
 142.096 
 
 $4,082,490 
 409.080 
 
 603.250 
 18,540 
 
 5.167.090 
 1.173.670 
 
 179.763 
 
 58.292 
 
 3.527.746 
 
 
 12,618 
 
 900,913 
 
 $11,364,120 
 
 3.765,801 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 43 
 
 From this table we get the following 
 averages : 
 
 Division 
 of the 
 Nation 
 
 Dependency 
 
 Annual 
 Cost per 
 School 
 
 Annual 
 
 Cost per 
 
 Pupil 
 
 % of Child- 
 ren With 
 Education 
 
 Registra- 
 tion per 
 School 
 
 Fed Dist. 
 
 Government 
 Private 
 
 «8,631 
 1.741 
 
 $42.20 
 
 54 
 12 
 
 205 
 91 
 
 Territories 
 
 Government 
 Private 
 
 2,330 
 403 
 
 25.66 
 4.34 
 
 34 
 
 7 
 
 91 
 93 
 
 States 
 
 Government 
 Private 
 
 560 
 504 
 
 8.38 
 8.26 
 
 17 
 4 
 
 67 
 61 
 
 The conclusions to be drawn from the fore- 
 going figures are as exact as they are discourag- 
 ing. 
 
 The quantitative efficiency of the official 
 primary schools of the States, counting only 
 the schools maintained by the public treasury, 
 barely equalled 17 per cent of the scholastic 
 population. 
 
 The qualitative efficiency of this small 
 percentage is not more flattering. An esti- 
 mated annual average of $560 per school, 
 each with an average registration of 67 pupils, 
 plainly indicates that the personnel of these 
 schools consisted of only one teacher with the 
 paltry salary of $30 per month, leaving a 
 balance of $200 per year for rents, and other 
 minor expenses. Could instruction imparted 
 in such schools conceivably be anything but 
 rudimentary.^ 
 
44 Can^anza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 The cause of such deficiency, quantitative 
 and quaHtative, on the part of the States in 
 their educative functions had been none other 
 than lack of resources. There was no reason 
 for expecting that this penury would dis- 
 appear, nor that the States would better their 
 school systems in the near or distant future. 
 Their institutions of learning were so poor, 
 that the States could not have raised them to 
 a capacity of 100 per cent, of the school 
 population except at a cost of $29,190,666, 
 an amount greater than the sum of the 
 revenues of all the States and Territories. 
 
 Persuaded of this inability on the part of the 
 States to fulfill one of their primary social 
 functions, and absolutely convinced of the 
 fact that not only the progress, but even the 
 very stability of Mexican nationality was 
 dependent upon the school, which alone could 
 bring about the regeneration of the unlearned 
 masses, when I assumed the duties of Secretary 
 of Public Education in the last two months of 
 the administration of General Diaz, I an- 
 nounced a new educational policy on the part 
 of the National Government. I announced 
 that my Department was determined to 
 establish an extensive educational scheme, not 
 limiting itself to the narrow boundaries of the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 45 
 
 Federal District and the Territories, but 
 embracing the whole Republic. 
 
 It was not the intention of the Federal 
 Government to encroach upon the functions 
 of the various States, for it did not intend to 
 supplant their schools with the national ones. 
 Its purpose was simply to establish schools 
 where there were none, and to erase gradually 
 from the map of the nation those dark spots of 
 illiteracy, countless and oppressive. 
 
 Willingly would the Federal Government 
 have opened elementary schools with a com- 
 plete curriculum under the advice of educa- 
 tionalists; but such a program was financially 
 impossible. In order to carry it through, 
 taking as a basis the average cost of the 
 schools run by the Government in the Terri- 
 tories, it would have required an additional 
 annual disbursement of $73,530,027, which 
 was impossible at the time in view of the fact 
 that the sum total of the revenues of the 
 administration just barely reached 110 million 
 pesos annually. 
 
 Taking facts and possibilities into consider- 
 ation, therefore, the Department of Education 
 submitted a plan for the installation of 
 rudimentary schools with the simplest courses 
 of study, with the view of enlarging its scope 
 
46 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime. 
 
 in quality and in quantity in proportion to 
 an increase in revenue. 
 
 This project, though approved by the Fed- 
 eral Congress of the Provisional Government 
 which immediately followed that of General 
 Diaz, was opposed by the then Governor of 
 the State of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza. 
 
 He cited no reasons for his attitude; he 
 did not prove, nor could he prove, that the 
 schools established in his state were sufficient 
 in number and capacity or so located that 
 they could impart education to all individuals 
 of school age. He limited himself to setting 
 forth the empty conceptualism of State Sover- 
 eignty.* As if such sovereignty had been 
 established for the purpose of holding the 
 people in ignorance, and worse than in ignor- 
 ance, in a state of subcivilization ! As if the 
 education of the masses were not a vital 
 necessity for all communities, towns, villages, 
 cities, municipalities and States of the Feder- 
 ation. 
 
 The Madero Government, which followed 
 the Provisional Government, was too absorbed 
 
 •The sovereignty of the States is a fact in a Confederation; it is only a 
 restricted home-autonomy in a federal government originating, as did that 
 of the United States of America, "e pluribus unum," and it is a legal fiction, an 
 empty conceptualism in a country where the States did not exist before the 
 Nation but were created by the provisions of a national Constitution, as was 
 the case in Mexico. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 47 
 
 in politics to worry about carrying out this 
 program of universal education, or even to 
 think seriously of placing it on the road to 
 fulfillment. 
 
 The Department of Education which I 
 headed during the first months of the Huerta 
 administration, was the one which revived 
 the project, this time with greater momentum, 
 faith and energy. It presented to the Federal 
 Congress for approval a vast plan for the 
 installation of five thousand rudimentary 
 schools throughout the country during the 
 first year, with a view to following it up with 
 similar efforts in successive years. 
 
 The idea was accepted with enthusiasm by 
 all those who knew about it; many private 
 citizens hastened to offer their services free of 
 charge to the Government in the work of 
 setting up and supervising these rudimentary 
 schools ; many a property holder spontaneous- 
 ly offered land for the schools; and many 
 were the communities of Indians that en- 
 thusiastically pledged themselves to work 
 without wages in the construction of the 
 buildings if they were supplied with the 
 necessary materials. 
 
 So powerful was this popular wave of 
 opinion, that the Chamber of Deputies, 
 
48 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 regardless of political creeds, including, in 
 fact, members of the opposition, approved and 
 even increased a budget of more than six 
 millions of dollars for the first year. 
 
 The project of the Department of Education 
 divided the country into 36 scholastic zones, 
 the boundaries of which were set, not accord- 
 ing to the geographical boundaries of the 
 various States, but according to the general 
 census, the illiterate population and the 
 facilities of communication; and it subdivided 
 each zone into districts, each with ten schools 
 which would be placed in the centers of 
 greatest mental backwardness. 
 
 At the head of each school there was to be 
 one teacher, and, wherever necessary, this 
 teacher would be provided with an assistant; 
 every ten schools were to have a visiting in- 
 spector who was a graduate teacher and who 
 would take charge of the work of installing 
 the schools of his district and supervise them. 
 At the head of each zone there was to be a 
 normal professor under whose direction there 
 would be established a normal school for 
 teachers of rudimentary branches with a view 
 to forming gradually the teaching staff of 
 that institution. 
 
 Political events well known to all, prevented 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 49 
 
 the fulfillment of this really popular program 
 for the actual advancement of the masses; 
 a program which from its very nature could 
 not but build Mexican nationality on a basis 
 of homogeneity in civilization. 
 
 The so-called Constitutionalist Government, 
 headed by the former Governor of the State 
 of Coahuila, did not restrain even for patriotic 
 reasons its hatred of the past regime; on the 
 contrary, because of that very hatred, and 
 prejudiced by his empty conceptualism of 
 State Sovereignty, the First Chief proposed 
 to the Assembly of Queretaro that Article 32 
 of the Magna Charta of 1857 should be struck 
 out, and this was done. According to this 
 Article 32, the Federation, the States and 
 the Municipalities could together arrange a 
 plan for universal education. 
 
 The First Chief went further still: he sub- 
 mitted to the same Assembly, which approved 
 it, a scheme to deprive the Federal Govern- 
 ment of the power to establish primary 
 schools in the States, and to that end the 
 Constitution of 1917 dedicated the following 
 Article 73: "Congress has the power . 
 XXVII. To establish professional schools of 
 scientific research, and fine arts, and technical 
 education, vocational, agricultural and trade 
 
50 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 schools, museums, libraries, observatories, and 
 other institutions of higher learning, until such 
 time as these establishments can be supported 
 by private funds. These powers shall not 
 pertain exclusively to the Federal Govern- 
 ment." 
 
 This article, which authorized the Federal 
 Government to establish schools of higher 
 education, carefully omitting primary schools, 
 taken in conjunction with Article 124, denied 
 to it the right to open rudimentary, elementary 
 or grammar schools. 
 
 The Constitution of 1917 consequently 
 abolished the Department of Education which 
 is as necessary to an illiterate country as 
 water to a thirsty man. And it placed once 
 and for all time an insurmountable obstacle — 
 an article of the Constitution — in the wav of 
 any action on the part of the Federal Govern- 
 ment looking towards the education of that 
 very people whose welfare and advancement 
 had served as a pretext for the Carrancista 
 Revolution. 
 
 Nor will it be possible now to distribute over 
 the country the five thousand rudimentary 
 schools the erection of which was approved by 
 a legally elected Congress, nor will it be 
 possible in the future to develop any national 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 51 
 
 program for the regeneration of the people 
 by means of the school. 
 
 If on the one hand the empty nominalism 
 of State Sovereignty joined with political 
 hatreds dealt a death blow to the broad 
 Federal plan of education, on the other hand, 
 religious intolerance was the cause of closing 
 more than 2,500 private primary schools 
 scattered over the Republic, merely because 
 they were supported or run by religious in- 
 stitutions or by ministers of a sect. 
 
 In fact, opposite the broad article 3 of the 
 Constitution of 1857 which stated without 
 reserve that ** instruction is free," the Code of 
 Queretaro inscribed its everlasting ignominy 
 in the following retrograde injunction: "No 
 religious corporation, nor any minister of a 
 religious sect shall be allowed to found or 
 direct schools of primary education." 
 
 As a pretext for such a prohibition, it was 
 said that religious propaganda deforms the 
 morality and mentality of childhood. But 
 the true motives — we have already proved 
 them with authentic quotations — were a politi- 
 cal grudge against the Catholic clergy and the 
 blind spirit of intolerance which dominated 
 the Assembly of Queretaro. 
 
 We agree that when dogmas, rites, or 
 
52 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 legends take a higher place in religious 
 doctrines than the canons of morality, re- 
 ligious propaganda is easily turned into 
 superstition. 
 
 But superstition is not combatted by the 
 suppression of schools, even though the schools 
 depend for their support upon religious in- 
 stitutions. Ignorance is not the best nor the 
 most powerful shield against fanaticism, nor 
 is the school the only place where religious 
 propaganda can be promulgated. 
 
 In this connection, let us not forget that 
 the most liberal men of the period of reform 
 were educated in seminaries. 
 
 How much better and more liberal would it 
 have been to have recognized the right of 
 religious institutions and ministers of any 
 sect to carry on the work of education, though 
 requiring them to adopt in their primary 
 institutions official plans, methods, text-books, 
 and courses of study, and making it obligatory 
 for students of national history, moral and 
 civic, to undergo examination by state in- 
 spectors. By such a ruling, the government 
 could have availed itself of the powerful educa- 
 tive force of the Church, with the object of 
 civilizing the masses and inculcating in them 
 a civic, moral and sound idea of nationality! 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 53 
 
 But how could one expect such wonders 
 from the Congress of Queretaro, when in his 
 famous speech of the third of March, 1915, 
 already quoted, Alvaro Obregon, leader of 
 that caste of "armed citizens" which formed 
 the majority in the Congress, boasted that 
 "the malediction of the priests carries with 
 it a glorification?" 
 
 And the ignorant so-called representatives 
 of the people in the Congress of Queretaro 
 said through the mouth of Citizen Bojorquez, 
 , "I am firmly convinced of the fact that the 
 best and most just men, those who can best 
 express a sentiment and maintain an ideal, 
 are those who have least cultivated their 
 intelligence, and this is not spoken in praise 
 of ignorance." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. 
 II, p. 734). 
 
 And Congressman Recio, member of one of 
 the reporting committees, supplementing the 
 foregoing idea spoke as follows: "I am now 
 going to appeal to the same element of the 
 House, because the intellectual element (the 
 few tolerant representatives), the more in- 
 tellectual it is considered, the more retrograde 
 it is in its attitude toward the progress of 
 the masses." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. 
 II, pp. 741-2). 
 
54 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 What greater glorification for the "armed 
 citizens" than the maledictions of the priests! 
 So long as they are obtained, what matter if 
 2,500 primary schools are closed! 
 
 What a constructive and fertile conceptual- 
 ism, that of State Sovereignty! So long as 
 that is realized, what matter if 79 per cent, of 
 the population is deprived even of the hope 
 of learning the alphabet? 
 
 What an unspeakable gratification to stupid- 
 ity! To think that the government schools 
 in the States have been decreasing in number 
 and that in the Federal District they have 
 decreased from 473 in 1910 to 360 in 
 1919!* 
 
 The Constitution, which inspired by empty 
 conceptualisms of State Sovereignty, dictated 
 by political hatreds, religious intolerance, 
 and real cretinism, condemns a whole people 
 to vegetate in the most degrading sub- 
 civilization, does not voice, cannot voice, the 
 national aspirations of the people; it expresses 
 those of a caste; it is not national. 
 
 Such is the Constitution of 1917! 
 
 ♦In accordance with information received from the Department of Educa- 
 tion of the Federal District, "El Excelsior," a newspaper of the Capital, 
 announces that during the month of September, 1919, of the 360 primary 
 schools mentioned, 224 were closed. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 No ECONOMIC relation between man and 
 man can last and reach its highest eflSciency 
 in modern communities unless it is based upon 
 equality, not an equality in fact, which does 
 not exist in human nature, but an equality 
 of right, without which the natural law of the 
 economy of forces cannot operate. All legal 
 inequality results in a lack of equilibrium; 
 strife among men instead of co-operation, a 
 deduction from instead of an addition to or 
 combination of energies. The slavery of 
 labor and the abject submission of the laborer 
 to the magnate when sanctioned by law, are 
 absurd anachronisms. 
 
 The Constitution of 1857 established the 
 principles of economic equality in its articles 
 4 and 5. The first decrees that every man is 
 free to embrace the profession, industry or 
 labor that best suits him as long as it is useful 
 and honorable, and enjoy the benefits thereof, 
 no one having the right to curtail such 
 freedom except as ordained by law. The 
 second abolishes all contracts, pacts or agree- 
 
56 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 ments for work which have as an object the 
 impairment, loss or irrevocable sacrifice of 
 man's liberty. 
 
 However, when the Constitution of 1857 
 was adopted there had not arisen, at least in 
 critical states, either capitalism or the conflicts 
 between capital and labor to which the former 
 has given rise in modern society. 
 
 In the realm of principles, therefore, we 
 sincerely believe that the Constitution of 
 Queretaro makes a great step forward in 
 drawing up certain laws relative to the 
 condition of the working classes. 
 
 We include in this appreciation the re- 
 strictions on night work of women, young 
 people and children, the standardizing of the 
 length of a working day for young people and 
 the designation of Sunday as a day of rest; 
 the ruling that the minimum wage, subject 
 to conditions in each locality, shall be enough 
 to satisfy the normal needs of a laborer and 
 provide for his education and legitimate 
 recreation; the equality of wages for an 
 equality of work regardless of sex or national- 
 ity; exemption from seizure or deduction of 
 the minimum salary ; the payment of wages in 
 legal money; the construction of comfortable 
 and sanitarv houses with moderate rents 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 57 
 
 for the laborers; the erection of schools, 
 hospitals and other buildings for general use 
 in working centers; the prohibition of saloons 
 for gambling dens in such centers ; the liability 
 for accidents and occupational diseases; the 
 provisions for safety in industrial plants; the 
 right of working men to form unions or syndi- 
 cates, the power to declare themselves in 
 peaceful strike; the preference of wages and 
 salaries over other credits in case of bank- 
 ruptcy; and the prohibition of certain stipu- 
 lations in labor contracts relating to the 
 already-mentioned exemptions; and the time 
 and place of payment of wages, the forced 
 patronage of stores owned by employers or 
 the retention in whole or in part of wages in 
 payment of fines. 
 
 All these regulations emancipate labor with 
 a view to making it a free factor in the pro- 
 duction of wealth. 
 
 There are indeed some precepts that should 
 not appear in a Constitution, on account of 
 being too rigid to conform with the variable 
 conditions of labor at different seasons and in 
 different regions of the country ; as for example, 
 that limiting the working day to eight hours, 
 the one relating to women employed during 
 pregnancy, and also the one making an 
 
58 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 inflexible addition of 100 per cent, of the 
 wages for overtime work. 
 
 But the leading defect of this Constitution 
 is that it errs on the side of radicalism. That 
 labor may not be a slave, it makes it a tyrant; 
 that capital may not enslave, it tyrannizes 
 over it. 
 
 In this respect, the Constitution of Quere- 
 taro shows clearly that in regulating the 
 relations of capital and labor, its framers were 
 led not so much by love for the working-man 
 as by hatred for the capitalist, and for that 
 reason we can only classify it as Bolshevik. 
 
 According to this new Code, if the manu- 
 facturer does not live up to his contract, the 
 laborer is given effective and practical re- 
 paration; if the laborer is negligent or remiss, 
 in theory he is responsible, but in practice he 
 is immune. If a court of arbitration hands 
 down a decision, the manufacturer must 
 submit under pain of incurring grave penal- 
 ties, while the workman remains free from all 
 obligation. 
 
 There are very many cases where a just 
 cause might exist for dismissing a workman, 
 but either it cannot be substantiated by 
 evidence or is found insuflScient by a court of 
 arbitration. In all such cases, the employer 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 59 
 
 is obliged to pay three months' wages, and 
 there will certainly be more than enough lazy 
 fellows who will dishonestly exploit such a 
 privilege. 
 
 According to the Constitution of Queretaro, 
 strikes are declared lawful under the elastic 
 condition that their object be to establish an 
 equilibrium between the various factors of 
 production by adjusting the rights of capital 
 and labor. It would be only just and equit- 
 able that suspension of work on the part of 
 producers should be lawful under the same 
 condition. But such is not the case. It 
 matters little if the economic balance between 
 capitalists and laborers has been lost due to an 
 excess of wages and a corresponding lack of 
 profit, the enterprise must continue to operate 
 even though it be at a loss. Suspension of 
 work is considered lawful only when there is 
 no equilibrium between the demand and the 
 supply of products manufactured, and let it 
 be understood that this sole exception was 
 admitted to protect the " Comision Reguladora 
 de Nenequen," a concern officially belonging 
 to the Government of the State of Yucatan, 
 at the time the Constitution of Queretaro 
 was being discussed. 
 
 However, the most momentous innovation 
 
60 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 is the article which obHges all enterprises, 
 agricultural, commercial, industrial or mining, 
 to give the workman a share in the profits. 
 
 This precept will either not be put into 
 practice or will result in most chaotic arbitrar- 
 iness and corruption on the part of the men 
 appointed to carry it through. What basis 
 will be used to determine the share? What 
 proportion, in consideration of the length, 
 nature and quality of the service of the work- 
 man; what allowance for risks and differences 
 in estimates will be used as a basis for an 
 equitable division .^^ 
 
 Viewing it from another angle, if this en- 
 actment that frames a seductive ideal which 
 should be pursued as a goal of civilization, 
 were sanctioned in all countries, and if the 
 economic, social and political conditions of 
 Mexico could be compared with those of 
 other nations, then the enterprises would not 
 run the risk of being ruined on account of 
 the workman's share in the profits. 
 
 Facts are different: Mexico, setting an 
 example to the world, may have written the 
 most beautiful page in romantic literature, 
 but she has made the existence of the working- 
 man more precarious still; for we must not 
 forget that capital, whatever its nationality 
 
is Bolshevik Regime 61 
 
 may be, migrates towards those regions of 
 the world where it can obtain the greatest 
 profits; and without capital, there can be 
 no factories, no industries, no progressive 
 acquirement of wealth, under our present 
 economic methods. 
 
 And when in addition to the above, we take 
 into consideration the fact that in the con- 
 flicts between the two factors of production, 
 the deciding vote in the courts of arbitration 
 is left to a salaried representative of the 
 government, no one can doubt the sad results 
 of such a system of inequality; because those 
 who constitute that government at present 
 are the armed proletariat, openly hostile to 
 capital. 
 
 In 1915, one of the Cabinet members of 
 the de facto government longed to return to 
 small industry methods and so proposed it. 
 
 At the end of 1916, another Cabinet member 
 of the same government, the "cuistre"* of 
 the revolution, explained that the progressive 
 tax had been placed upon mining claims in 
 order to force big enterprises to abandon a 
 large number of their mines. 
 
 *"Cui9tre" is the term applied by H. Taine to Maximilian Robespierre. 
 The author here uses the same term to designate Luis Cabrera, a phrase- 
 maker who, on many occasions, attempted to justify, by means of sonorous 
 words, the worst outrages of the Carrancista revolution. 
 
62 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 On the 14th of December, 1918, the Federal 
 Executive presented to Congress an amend- 
 ment to Article 27 of the Constitution of 
 Queretaro to the effect that no suspension of 
 work or strike should be considered lawful, 
 without the consent of the Executive; failure to 
 obtain this consent would result in the 
 Executive taking over the administration of 
 private factories or business concerns which 
 in his judgment might be of public interest. 
 
 What confidence, what security can capital- 
 ists and investors feel in Mexican industry, 
 when they know they are at the mercy of the 
 whims or despotism of courts of arbitration 
 or of the Executive Power, and when they are 
 well aware that these are both animated by 
 hatred, covetousness and ill-will towards men 
 of capital? 
 
 The scanty Mexican capital still available 
 will move even further from industrial enter- 
 prises ; foreign capital will seek more profitable 
 fields of action; factories and industries will 
 gradually languish and eventually disappear. 
 
 The workingmen will be left with great 
 prerogatives, but with no work; with theo- 
 retical rights and high wages, but without 
 real salaries; with the vision of wealth, and 
 the reality of penury. Thus they are living, 
 thus will they continue to live. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 63 
 
 There are two paths to equality. Follow- 
 ing one we must raise those below; following 
 the other we must lower those above. The 
 former is the way of love, progress, construc- 
 tion ; the latter is that of grudge, annihilation, 
 Bolshevism. The Congressmen of Queretaro 
 chose the latter, and for that reason their work 
 is barren and sterile. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 As WE have seen in preceding chapters, and 
 shall have opportunity to emphasize in those 
 which follow, the letter of the law in many an 
 article of the Constitution of Queretaro is 
 Bolshevik. 
 
 The spirit which animates such law is more 
 Bolshevik still, if that were possible. It is 
 inspired, not by love of justice, but by hatred 
 of all non-proletariat classes, particularly the 
 wealthy ; and is dominated by a lust for wealth. 
 
 The period of plunder and spoliation which, 
 under the name of " incautacion " (seizure of 
 property), prevailed prior to the adoption of 
 the Constitution of Queretaro, clearly shows 
 that it was not an ardent desire for justice 
 that really inspired certain laws of that 
 political code. 
 
 Such plunder and robberies were perpetrated 
 individually by the so-called "armed citizens" 
 — the unsound portion of the proletariat and 
 the escaped convicts — who ironically assumed 
 the name of Constitutionalists and later 
 became the nucleus of the Liberal Constitu- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 65 
 
 tionalist Party ; eventually forming the major- 
 ity of the so-called Constituent Congress. 
 
 The **cuistre" of the revolution, estranged 
 from his former associates, denounced the 
 demands of the so-called "armed citizens" 
 for money, arms, horses, pasture, provisions, 
 etc., and charged them with having received 
 funds amounting to round millions without 
 ever having rendered accounts; impudently 
 approving, however, the action taken by 
 Carranza in reserving to himself the preroga- 
 tive of auditing accounts, instead of submitting 
 them to Congress, giving as a reason that "in 
 the history of Mexico the call for a rendering 
 of military expense accounts has been the 
 origin of 90 per cent, of the military uprisings. 
 We do not doubt that the First Chief, if he 
 is well acquainted with Mexican history, will 
 approve all accounts" (in other words, that 
 he will sanction all the systematic robberies) 
 "with relative liberality in order not to fall 
 into the historic error of other eras." 
 (Segunda Meditacion, "El Universal," Mex- 
 ico, June 6, 1917). 
 
 "Under a normal government," continues 
 the same exponent of Carrancista ethics, 
 "it is not conceivable that a government 
 oflScial could appropriate government property 
 
66 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 for personal use; but, during the Constitution- 
 alist Revolution" (and we must add also 
 during the so-called Constitutionalist Govern- 
 ment) "it had, unfortunately, happened with 
 great frequency." Under pretext of "incau- 
 tacion" (official seizure), a large quantity of 
 private property has been appropriated, po- 
 session having been taken presumably for 
 the nation, but instead of handing it over 
 directly to the proper authorities, those who 
 seized such property have kept it for their own 
 private use, or have disposed of it in order to 
 secure funds. It is needless to cite proofs of 
 this charge, inasmuch as unfortunately nearly 
 all seizures of enemy property, with a few 
 honorable exceptions, have been made with the 
 deliberate intention of turning to private use 
 the property attached. This applies to the 
 seizure of a horse or saddle, the commandeer- 
 ing of seeds and pasture, which were never 
 used for the benefit of the troops, and even 
 the occupation of houses, lands, farms and 
 haciendas, which, having been attached, were 
 worked and exploited directly by the men 
 who attached them, ostensibly for the purpose 
 of securing funds for the Government, but 
 as a matter of fact, in many instances the 
 products of these lands never reached the National 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 67 
 
 Treasury.'" (Tercera Meditacion, "El Uni- 
 versal," Mexico, June 7, 1917). 
 
 No wonder that this man, who was at the 
 time of the above mentioned outrages, and is 
 at present the Secretary of the Treasury of the 
 Carrancista Government, recently stated in 
 an interview that he had no faith in human 
 justice. What could be expected of a man so 
 incapable of appreciating that sublime virtue? 
 
 And the then First Chief, in his official 
 report of April 15, 1917, to the Congress of 
 the Union, was forced to acknowledge in 
 the following terms the cupidity of his chiefs 
 and co-workers: "A source of revenue, more 
 nominal than actual, consisted in the seizure 
 of enemy property" (all were considered 
 enemies who had property worth seizing) 
 "and this seizure of property was in the 
 beginning a movement of an entirely 
 spontaneous character" (yes, spontaneous, 
 as is the act of a burglar) "on the part of the 
 military forces occupying enemy territory, 
 and who, upon gaining this territory, seized 
 the property of all those who were considered 
 enemies, in order to prevent them from 
 utilizing their resources against the revolution 
 as well as to secure funds. . The First 
 
 Chieftaincy considered that, either for military 
 
68 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 purposes, or as a source of revenue, or again 
 as a means of enforcing liabilities, the seizure 
 of enemy property should be permitted, subject, 
 however, to whatever steps the Government 
 might later take concerning it.'' 
 
 Thus, by admission of the Chief of the 
 Constitutionalist Revolution and his Secretary 
 of the Treasury, we learn that the robbery 
 and plunder of private property was a spon- 
 taneous movement; that a group of the pro- 
 letariat, unscrupulous and without ideals, 
 armed themselves under the Constitutionalist 
 banner, not for the purpose of obtaining 
 justice for their brother laborers, but in order 
 to enrich themselves. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that 
 in these seizures of property — robberies or 
 usurpations — no one took the trouble to 
 ascertain whether the original ownership of 
 the property was legitimate or illegitimate, 
 whether it had been acquired unlawfully, or 
 was the result of strenuous and persevering 
 labor and sacrifices; the only thing desired 
 was to despoil those who owned anything 
 whatsoever in order to enrich those who had 
 risen in arms for that purpose. 
 
 "It pleases me," said Alvaro Obregon, 
 addressing 300 merchants, manufacturers, land- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 69 
 
 owners, and professional men, called to a 
 meeting in the city of Mexico on the third of 
 March, 1915, "to see that you all have made 
 a common cause; it does not matter, with one 
 rod I can render justice to all . . . The 
 division which I proudly command has tra- 
 versed the Republic from end to end followed 
 by the maledictions of the priests and the 
 imprecations of the bourgeosie! What 
 greater glory could be mine?" 
 
 This spirit, of avarice in some, of envy in 
 others, was what inspired the deputies of 
 Queretaro. 
 
 Anyone, therefore, who presuppose that 
 equanimity and justice inspired the mandates 
 of this Constitution will never be able to 
 understand it. 
 
 The third paragraph of Article 27 says: 
 "The Nation shall have at all times the right 
 to impose on private property such limitations 
 as the public interest may demand, as well as 
 the right to regulate the development of 
 natural resources, which are susceptible of 
 appropriation, in order to conserve them and 
 equitably to distribute the public wealth. 
 For this purpose necessary measures shall be 
 taken to divide large landed estates ; to develop 
 small landed holdings ; to establish new centers 
 
70 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 of rural population with such lands and waters 
 as may be indispensable to them; to en- 
 courage agriculture and to prevent the destruc- 
 tion of natural resources, and to protect 
 property from damage detrimental to society. " 
 
 In any other Constitution, or any other 
 place, this law would not be reprehensible; 
 it would merely denote that which is implied 
 in every civilized country by eminent domain 
 of the State over the land; the undeniable 
 right of the State to exercise high police 
 duty over the natural resources that exist as 
 force or matter in the soil and the sub-soil. 
 
 The letter of the article is clear and precise; 
 it speaks solely of the principles governing 
 landed 'property and natural resources which 
 may be found suitable for appropriation in 
 the land. 
 
 But the Bolshevik spirit made the law speak 
 where it was silent. The circular of Septem- 
 ber 6th, 1917, issued by the Executive of the 
 Union, declared that any private industries 
 which suspended their work should be taken 
 over by the Government, for "no one has the 
 right to lessen the production of social wealth, 
 particularly when that wealth is insufficient to 
 meet the needs." and "when the suspension of 
 work affects the rights of society, crippling 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 71 
 
 wealth or engendering trouble for the public 
 administration, the temporary or permanent 
 suspension of the enterprise violates the 
 spirit and letter ( !) of Article 27 of the Consti- 
 tution, which gives to the Government the 
 right to take over the immediate control of it 
 for the good of the masses. " 
 
 And the Federal Congress in its decree of 
 November 27th, 1917, approved the doctrine 
 of the Executive, authorizing him to take 
 over industrial concerns, and operate them in 
 case of temporary or permanent suspension of 
 work when such suspension is not permitted 
 by the Constitution. 
 
 The Executive, however, was not sure as 
 to the constitutionality of his doctrine, and on 
 the 14th of December, 1918, proposed the 
 following addition to the amended Article 27 
 quoted above: "Private business concerns or 
 plants belonging to individuals or corporations 
 and of public interest cannot be closed on 
 account of strike, lockout or any other analog- 
 ous reason without previously obtaining the 
 authorization of the Executive who shall be 
 empowered to administer them if, in his 
 opinion the strike or lockout may be detri- 
 mental to the interests of society or the needs of 
 public works. The obstacles having been 
 
72 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 cleared away, the Government shall then 
 return to the owners or their legitimate 
 representatives, the concerns which have 
 been taken over, and will deliver, at the same 
 time, the net profits obtained during the 
 government management. Those concerns 
 or plants shall be deemed of public interest 
 which provide means of communication, such 
 as railroads, telegraphs, telephones, cables, 
 radiographs, radiotelephones and street rail- 
 ways; also pharmacies, burial, light, water 
 and city sewerage service, mining industries, 
 including those that treat as well as those that 
 extract the raw material; the petroleum and com- 
 bustible mineral industries; agricultural enter- 
 prises; textile factories operated by electricity, 
 water, steam or any other power; and all other 
 concerns of equal or greater importance, in the 
 opinion of the Executive.*' 
 
 We would have nothing to say against this 
 project if it merely authorized the Executive, 
 in case of strike or lockout, to operate those 
 concerns which are for public utility, provided 
 that, on doing so, he would insure a return 
 equal at least to the average return previously 
 made by said concerns in a period of normal 
 operation. 
 
 All enterprises furnishing a public service, 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 73 
 
 such as cemeteries, water; light and power 
 plants, and city drainage systems, telegraphs, 
 telephones, street-cars, railroads and regular 
 transportation by land or water; docks and 
 other harbor improvements, although organ- 
 ized for individual gain, have, under general 
 conditions, as their principal object a public 
 utility. Such enterprises, therefore, are not at 
 liberty to render or refuse at their will these 
 services; inasmuch as they have contracted 
 the obligation of furnishing them and for that 
 reason the State allows them the specific use 
 of public or common property such as the 
 surface or subsoil of streets and public roads, 
 of river and maritime zones which belong 
 exclusively to the State; and furthermore, 
 the State invests them with the power of 
 expropriation solely on account of the public 
 service which they pledge themselves to perform 
 In these enterprises, called "quasi-public" 
 in legal technical terms, the individual ie 
 substituted for the State in the discharge of 
 certain functions essential to the people, and for 
 that very reason, if he, the individual, does not 
 meet the obligations which he has assumed, 
 the State has the right, according to the needs 
 of the case, to put an end to the substitution 
 either temporarily or permanently. 
 
74 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 But there is a big diflFerence between an 
 enterprise of public utility, such as those above- 
 mentioned, and a private business, the progress 
 and continuation of which may be considered 
 of public interest. 
 
 As a matter of principle and of fact, any 
 private enterprise is of interest to the commun- 
 ity ; because, whatever its nature or the sphere 
 of its operations may be, even though it is 
 undertaken merely for the private profit 
 of the owner, its existence is possible only 
 if it is of service to the community, whether 
 extracting the products of the soil or subsoil; 
 cultivating it, utilizing its energies; turning 
 matter or force to human use, or transporting 
 goods from the place of production to the place 
 of consumption. 
 
 In the same way that the aggregate of 
 private wealth constitutes public wealth, 
 the aggregate of private interests constitutes 
 public interest. 
 
 But community interest does not exact, 
 nor can it exact, the socialization of all private 
 property, nor the socialization of all industries. 
 
 On the contrary, community interest, so 
 long as it does not deal directly with the 
 enterprises which by their nature are public 
 utilities, demands liberty of action, economic 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 75 
 
 liberty, individual initiative, which not only 
 includes the right to start those enterprises 
 when considered convenient, the right to fix 
 the scale of operation, and increase or diminish 
 it in proportion to the emergencies of supply 
 and demand, and in proportion to the cost or 
 production and the market value of the pro- 
 duct, but it also includes the right to close 
 these concerns, when to carry them on does 
 not pay or for any other reason is detrimental 
 to the promoter. 
 
 As far as private enterprises are concerned, 
 public interest is best served by free competi- 
 tion. The intervention of the State has not 
 been proved justifiable either theoretically 
 or practically. 
 
 Theoretically, if the incentive of individual 
 interest is destroyed, initiative disappears, 
 industries tend to become stationary, and 
 where there is no progress, inevitably there is 
 retrogression. 
 
 Practically, all attempts on a large or on a 
 small scale which have been made for the 
 socialization of economic activity have been 
 an utter failure, not only because of the lack of 
 individual initiative which we have referred 
 to, but also on account of the often proved 
 innate unfitness of governments to act as 
 agents of production. 
 
76 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 The unwholesome influence of politics and 
 party obligations, the waste of public funds, 
 the automatism and routine of government 
 machinery, not to mention the opportunities 
 for corruption and fraud, are many more 
 causes which have brought disaster to private 
 enterprises in the hands of governments. 
 
 We do not wish to cite the unflattering 
 results recorded in the United States by the 
 transference to government control during the 
 war of railroads, cable and telegraph lines. 
 It would be enough for us to mention what 
 has happened in Mexico in relation to the 
 national railroads, the Mexican Railroad, and 
 the electric street-railways, the control of 
 which was taken over by the administration. 
 
 But for our purpose, we shall confine our- 
 selves to quoting the following figures taken 
 from "El Universal," a government news- 
 paper of the City of Mexico, dated March 15, 
 1919, relative to the administration, during 
 the preceding four months, of private properties 
 which had been illegally seized by the Federal 
 Government : 
 
 Income $992,374. 11 
 
 Cost of management 675,261 . 63 
 
 Net profit $317,112.48 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 77 
 
 The cost of management — nothing more nor 
 less than the cost of management — of the 
 seized property consumed 68 per cent, of the 
 income producing power of that property. 
 
 Can any argument more eloquent be offered 
 against the socialization of private enterprises.'^ 
 
 For this very reason, our unshaken convic- 
 tion is that properly to look after social 
 interests, the power of the government to 
 interfere in the management of private enter- 
 prises should be limited to those which are in 
 the nature of public utilities. 
 
 Moreover, as private concerns seek profit at 
 the same time, both justice and public interest 
 demand that in case of a forced resumption of 
 work, the government guarantee the average 
 profits obtained during a reasonable period of 
 normal work. 
 
 Since the State, instead of attending directly 
 to public service, authorizes a private concern 
 to do so for commercial ends, it is pledged not 
 to frustrate the expectations which gave rise 
 to such enterprise, just as that enterprise is 
 pledged not to defraud the public of the 
 service for which it was authorized : such is the 
 equation between individual and social inter- 
 est; between the right of the individual and 
 the right of society. 
 
78 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 On the other hand, justice is not at vari- 
 ance with the legitimate claims of the people. 
 Public authority has an interest in promoting 
 and developing this class of enterprises for 
 the benefit of the community. The primary 
 requisite for initiation and development in all 
 private economic activity is safety. If in- 
 dividuals do not feel secure, they will either 
 fail to contribute their brains and their 
 money to the performance of public services 
 or they will enter into them with the deliberate 
 intention of immediately obtaining dispro- 
 portionate gains to cover possible future 
 losses. In either case, the result is detri- 
 mental to the very public which should be 
 served. 
 
 In its context, the amendment to Article 
 27 proposed by the Executive to the Congress 
 of the Union, not only ignores the laws of 
 social-economic science but it is a serious 
 menace to the spirit of enterprise in all lines of 
 production. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it authorizes the taking 
 over of business enterprises, when the Execu- 
 tive, a single man, responsible to no one by the 
 very terms of the Constitution, holds the opinion 
 that the interests of society may be interfered 
 with. Let it be noted that the law does not 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 79 
 
 even require that the said interests be actually 
 impaired, but that the simple possibility is 
 enough. 
 
 This most dangerous power of the Govern- 
 ment extends to mining, agricultural, metallur- 
 gical and textile enterprises; and what is 
 even more dangerous, the Executive reserves 
 the right to discriminate and determine what 
 other enterprises are of an analogous character. 
 
 Shoe and hat factories, wheat and corn mills, 
 and, in general, those industries whose pro- 
 ducts are of most general need, can fall at 
 any moment into the administrative vortex. 
 Moreover, as the State does not ofiFer any 
 guaranties whatsoever relative to the profits of 
 these enterprises while under its control, 
 there is provided no possible check to arbitrar- 
 iness and plunder, nor any limit to uncertainty 
 and insecurity. 
 
 The proposed amendment goes even further: 
 after enslaving capital and the spuit of enter- 
 prise, it enslaves labor, for it denies to laborers 
 the right to go on strike. Thus capital and 
 labor are equalized not so much in the be- 
 stowal of rights as in the denial of them. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have stated why I 
 consider it a progressive step in the realm of 
 principles to have a constitutional clause 
 
80 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 recognizing the right of the working classes to 
 go on strike. Only on that condition is man 
 truly free; without such a right he is a servant 
 or slave, and the freedom of labor is a requisite 
 not only for the prosperity of the proletariat, 
 but also for the general progress of society. 
 
 The explanation accompanying the presi- 
 dential draft of the constitutional amendment 
 stated, however, that the idea which the 
 Executive adopted is progressive; that is, 
 "that the Chief Executive, in his capacity 
 of regulator of social problems, was the only 
 power representing the State that could 
 decide whether or not there should be a 
 suspension of work, and whether labor or 
 capital were at fault. " 
 
 We cannot but call retrograde such an idea. 
 As old as the ages, it has served in all countries 
 as a support of economic despotism: upon it 
 have been based successively social and 
 individual slavery, serfdom, guilds, monopoT 
 lies, sumptuary laws, price-fixing, restrictions 
 affecting international commerce, and all 
 other restraints which humanity has constantly 
 been striving to remove. 
 
 From time to time, however, during periods 
 of retrogression, that same "progressive idea" 
 to which Carranza alludes has appeared under 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 81 
 
 different names. Now it is called Bolshevism, 
 and is the fruit of the Carrancista tree. 
 
 Since this faction found it necessary to 
 flatter the unarmed proletariat so as to be 
 able to destroy, rob and plunder the other 
 social classes, it assumed a pose in favor of 
 the sacred rights of the working man, and 
 for that reason in the Constitution of Quere- 
 taro it sanctioned strikes. 
 
 But as soon as this Constitution had been 
 approved, and the Carrancista faction had 
 become enriched with the product of its 
 rapine during the period of revolution, all it 
 wished for the future was the opportunity to 
 utilize its power to further enrich itself. 
 
 It would give no thought to the welfare of 
 the working classes, nor would it listen to 
 their clamors. Just as formerly it wore the 
 mask of proletarianism to grasp power, now 
 it wears the mask of social interest that it 
 may vest the Government, which is nothing 
 but that same neo-military Carrancista caste, 
 with the most despotic authority over people 
 and property. 
 
 Consequently, it does not recognize the 
 right of capital to manage its own enterprises 
 even though they are not public utilities; and it 
 likewise will not allow the workingman the 
 
82 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 right to choose with freedom the nature and 
 conditions of his labor. 
 
 The most conservative organ of the adminis- 
 tration in the City of Mexico, "El Universal," 
 supplies us with the strongest proof of our 
 assertion. 
 
 In its issue of May 8th, 1919, it furnished 
 us with the news that the Permanent Com- 
 mitee of the Federal Congress had been 
 obliged to start an investigation as to the 
 fate of several workingmen who had disappeared, 
 because suspicions of a serious crime rested 
 upon the Executive Power. The unarmed 
 proletariat is just beginning to fall under the 
 murderous blow of Cain! 
 
 The same newspaper, in a recent editorial 
 relative to the coming presidential elections, 
 forswearing the anti-military policy which 
 has characterized it since its origin, does not 
 hesitate to declare that the next president of 
 the Republic cannot be a civilian because, if 
 he were, political stability would be in 
 danger; in other words, the military caste 
 claims as its very own, the national govern- 
 ment, and through it all the resources of the 
 nation. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 83 
 
 Bolshevism is the absolutism of the one- 
 time proletariat-in-arms over the rest of 
 society. The Carrancistas now aim to perfect 
 the Bolshevism of the Constitution of Quere- 
 taro! 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Since writing the preceding chapter, 
 events have happened to prove that just as 
 Bolshevik as those who drew up the Constitu- 
 tion of 1917 are those charged with enforcing 
 it. They must interpret it so as to favor only 
 those in power, sacrificing not only the 
 middle and wealthy classes, but that part of 
 the proletariat which is not in arms. 
 
 The most active participants in the Carran- 
 cista revolution, in addition to the criminals 
 and renegades, were the proletarians, or to 
 be more exact, the disorderly part of them. 
 The recruits of the revolutionary mobs were 
 peons and day laborers, the majority of the 
 latter being railroad workers. The theorists 
 of those mobs were ruined intellectualists, a 
 large number of them school teachers. A 
 number of laborers and not a few school 
 teachers occupied seats in the so-called Con- 
 stituent Congress of Queretaro. 
 
 I have already stated in part what these 
 proletariat classes conceived and formulated. 
 Under pretense of uplifting the workingman, 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 85 
 
 they established in the constitutional system, 
 the retroactivity of laws; insecurity for capital, 
 and spoliation of lands. Such is, in fact, 
 the synthesis of a good portion of Articles 
 123, 27, 28 and other articles of the Con- 
 stitution of Queretaro, which I have already 
 partially considered and propose to continue 
 analyzing. 
 
 The proletarians, elevated to the rank of 
 "armed citizens,'* were as fruitful in laws 
 tending to destroy social harmony, as they 
 were barren of constructive enactments. 
 
 The great material basis for the economic 
 betterment of the proletariat, particularly 
 for the proletariat of brawn, would have been 
 the encouragement of capital which by this 
 time had been driven away and ruined by 
 the revolution, that it might return to the 
 country and be invested in working, improving 
 and irrigating lands, a condition indispensable 
 to the ultimate division and distribution of 
 these lands, for developing industries already 
 established and for starting new ones. 
 
 The great psychological basis for the uplift 
 of the proletariat would have been a program 
 of universal national education, so that the 
 light of truth might be carried to every section 
 of the country, character strengthened, and 
 
86 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 new desires engendered in the humble classes 
 along with the legitimate ambition to satisfy 
 them with the wages of labor. 
 
 Nor was anything inserted in the Constitu- 
 tion of 1917 to serve as a magnet and channel 
 for the influx of capital, and whatever was 
 done relative to national education was de- 
 structive, since there was denied to the 
 Federal Government the power to establish 
 primary schools outside of the Federal District 
 and Territories, and at the same time the 
 closure of a large number of private schools 
 was forced at one blow. 
 
 The result has been that the proletariat, 
 instead of improving, has deteriorated; and 
 instead of earning higher wages, merely 
 exists under the oppressive burden of the 
 increased cost of living. 
 
 The Government, that government born 
 of the armed portion of the proletariat, 
 instead of increasing the wages of the working- 
 man and the teacher, has been the first to 
 diminish them so considerably as to bring 
 them to the verge of starvation. 
 
 The railroads taken over by the adminis- 
 tration were the first to reduce wages 25 per 
 cent. 
 
 The National Government and the various 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 87 
 
 States of the Republic, with one lone excep- 
 tion, have diminished the number of schools, 
 the number of teachers and the latters' 
 salaries, and still further, they have frequently 
 suspended the payment of these salaries, 
 thus condemning the educators of youth to 
 dishonor or death by starvation. 
 
 "In these latter days," say the teachers of 
 primary schools in their manifesto of May 
 12th, 1919, "popular education in the Federal 
 District is in a lamentable state of deteriora- 
 tion. One sees the closing of schools and an 
 endless reduction of personnel; teachers have 
 been subject for a long time to reductions of 
 salary, besides being owed large sums; their 
 salaries are paid with an exasperating irregu- 
 larity and they faint from hunger in the very 
 classrooms; they are denied the materials 
 necessary for teaching; they are compelled 
 to work in buildings which become more 
 worthless and unhygienic every day, and they 
 are made the object of marked disdain in all 
 society. The education which they have 
 imparted, therefore, has been deficient, nig- 
 gardly, paltry and not at all adequate to the 
 great needs and lofty aspirations of this 
 people. Moreover, this factor of regeneration 
 has become a despised burden in the eyes of 
 
88 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 the authorities . . . And, therefore, con- 
 vinced after a long and bitter experience, that 
 popular education has been converted into a 
 painful social sore; taking into consideration 
 that society makes us every moment more 
 and more responsible because it notes the 
 failure of education, a failure which the 
 teachers are not responsible for, the school 
 teachers cannot but tear to pieces the veil 
 which hides a false situation; they cannot, 
 nor do they wish to, become accomplices in 
 so serious a state of affairs. 
 
 "Fellow-citizens: be it known that edu- 
 cation is not taken care of: that education is 
 not paid for; that the measures taken by the 
 authorities are carrying the people straight 
 to illiteracy, for which we are not responsible. 
 
 "And rather than countenance these meas- 
 ures, rather than view the magnitude of this 
 failure with indifference, and thus become 
 accomplices in this failure, they prefer to 
 suspend their labors until the legislation of 
 the country, and particularly that of the 
 Federal District, may satisfactorily protect 
 the rights of the Mexican people." 
 
 And the school teachers gave up their 
 posts and the schools remained closed. Not 
 a vestige of sympathy for the victims from 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regiine 89 
 
 the interpreters of the Bolshevik Constitution 
 of 1917! 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury, a former 
 school teacher and now a rich grandee — a very 
 natural metamorphosis for one who extolled 
 anarchy and its transgressions with the cyni- 
 cal slogan "revolution is revolution" — does 
 not concede to his former colleagues the right 
 to refuse to work without remuneration; he 
 does not believe social interests to be hurt by 
 the closing of schools of primary education. 
 "The main question," he says, "is whether 
 government employees can enjoy what may 
 be called the right to go on strike, that is, the 
 right to work or not, according to their 
 judgment," for "a strike is a suspension of 
 work with the object of bringing pressure to 
 bear upon employers or capitalists by means 
 of the damage that may be done to their 
 interests by such suspension;" "the damage 
 caused is not even to society in general, but 
 chiefly to the children of the middle and lower 
 classes who are the ones that attend the 
 schools" and "the suspension of work tends 
 to harm not the governing class, but the 
 children of the poor and middle classes." 
 (Interview given to "El Universal," Mexico, 
 May 15th, 1919). 
 
90 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 The Secretary of the Interior, "the proper 
 official to whose vigilance is entrusted the 
 upholding of the Constitution," classifies 
 as "vicious in origin and arbitrary in action 
 the strike called by the teachers, " because "to 
 admit the right of the teachers, servants of 
 the nation, to go on strike, would from the 
 Government standpoint be equivalent to 
 such an absurdity as recognizing a strike of the 
 State against the State," and "these ideas 
 which are strictly logical and of obvious 
 democratic discipline . . . are exactly in 
 accordance with the categorical precepts of 
 the various laws which govern us. In fact, 
 the Supreme Code names as the exclusive 
 prerogative of the Chief Executive, the right 
 to appoint employees and to remove them 
 freely, whether they are cabinet members or 
 persons in the most humble positions; and 
 the penal law punishes in very concrete 
 terms the disobedience or carelessness of 
 the employee who deserts his post, inasmuch 
 as it is obviously impossible to leave to the 
 whim or the convenience of the individual 
 the discretional discharge of duties exacted 
 by social progress." (Manifesto of the Exe- 
 cutive, May, 1919). 
 
 Oh false one-time champions of the prole- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 91 
 
 tariat; ingenuous priests of the Constitution 
 of Queretaro, it is not love for the destitute 
 classes who live by the fruits of their toil, nor 
 a regard for social welfare which has impelled 
 and continues to impel your actions, but 
 covetousness, and grudges against successful 
 men! 
 
 Obviously, it would be contrary to order 
 and discipline in the public administration as 
 well as prejudicial or dangerous to the nation, 
 to recognize the right of government employees 
 to go on strike as a coercive means for obtain- 
 ing an increase in salary; because the appro- 
 priations for public expenditure are not, nor 
 should they be, determined by the will or 
 action of a certain social class, as for instance 
 the employees, but rather they are, and should 
 be, the expression of the national will mani- 
 fested by means of the duly established 
 legislative branch of the Administration. 
 
 Public employees, barring only those very 
 exceptional cases where service is obligatory 
 by Constitutional precept, are free to accept 
 or refuse work as they are also free to resign 
 it; inasmuch as "no one can be compelled to 
 render personal services without his full 
 consent." If the remuneration is not satis- 
 factory, the remedy, as far as individual 
 
92 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 interest is concerned, is to refuse the position 
 or to resign it, and as far as the collective in- 
 terests of good public service is concerned, the 
 correction should be sought in political plat- 
 forms, in election work, and in the use of the 
 vote to elect to the legislative bodies men who 
 are willing to vote in favor of just and equit- 
 able remunerations. 
 
 But the case which prompted the state- 
 ments of the Secretaries of the Treasury 
 and the Interior was not a strike of teachers 
 called for the purpose of obtaining salaries 
 higher than those set by law ; it was especially 
 and fundamentally called for the purpose of 
 securing for those teachers a guaranty that 
 their labors would be remunerated as pre- 
 scribed by law, inasmuch as the Municipal 
 Governments of the Federal District had 
 shown that they were unable to pay such 
 compensations, putting off the payment of 
 the teachers' salaries until the month of 
 September, 1918; and the Federal Govern- 
 ment, after assuming those payments for 
 some months, had finally resolved in April of 
 that year to suspend them and let the school 
 teachers die of starvation. 
 
 Under the terms of the Constitution of 1857, 
 reiterated also by that of Queretaro, "no one 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 93 
 
 can be compelled to render services without just 
 compensation, "except in specific cases in which 
 that of the school teachers was not included. 
 
 Therefore, in spite of being employees 
 of the government, they had the right to dis- 
 continue their services, since they were not 
 remunerated and sad experience gave them no 
 guaranties that they would be remunerated 
 in the future. Even the letter of the law, 
 in the Bolshevik Constitution of 1917, sup- 
 ported them in their stand. 
 
 But the letter of the law is worthless when 
 it is not animated by the spirit, and in the 
 spirit of the Constitution of 1917, there is no 
 true love for the poor but useful classes. In 
 the soul of the government emanating from 
 that Constitution, there is also no sympathy 
 towards them; there is envy and there are 
 grudges against other classes; there are ambi- 
 tions of a faction which yesterday was with- 
 out caste and today is feudal. 
 
 About two weeks ago the school teachers of 
 Los Angeles gathered together and decided 
 in view of the present high cost of living, 
 to ask for a raise in salary, with the under- 
 standing that if it were not granted they 
 would not renew their contracts for the next 
 scholastic year. 
 
94 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 This action of the teachers awakened 
 nothing but sympathy among all the social 
 classes and in every rank of community; 
 and the Board of Education had to pass 
 favorably upon the request. 
 
 Such is the course taken by governments 
 when guided by considerations of equity and 
 national interest; they submit to the dictates 
 of public opinion. 
 
 In Mexico, the decision of the teachers to 
 discontinue their services because their salaries 
 were not paid, far from being favorably 
 received by public officials, is classified as 
 rebellion and as vicious behavior. At the 
 same time that the Secretary of the Treasury 
 denies to teachers the right to feed themselves 
 and to live, a right which can be denied to no 
 human being, the Secretary of the Interior 
 feels no scruples against condemning the 
 teachers to perish from starvation, because 
 "the Federal Government was obliged to 
 adopt the resolution recommended by the 
 Secretary of the Treasury as a result of the 
 increase in the salaries of the army." And 
 the teachers not only fail to receive salaries, 
 but are even threatened with criminal prosecu- 
 tion for leaving their posts. 
 
 From the Federal budget of 203,000,000 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 95 
 
 pesos* for the year 1919, deducting 25 per 
 cent, discount made by the Government in 
 salaries, we can calculate an actual expenditure 
 of not more than 190,000,000 pesos, of which 
 the amount of 134,000,000 pesos was devoted 
 to the support of the army, to the support of a 
 caste armed, voracious, insatiable and oppres- 
 sive. And on the other hand, there cannot 
 be spared annually 3,500,000 pesos for the 
 maintenance of all the government schools 
 in the Federal District. 
 
 *The MexicftD peso is equivalent to about 60c. in U. S. money. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 It is a well-known fact that communal 
 property has been the first legal form of land 
 occupation when people have abandoned 
 nomadic life to establish themselves in settle- 
 ments. It is also well known that family 
 property marks the second stage of this 
 social institution. And, finally, no one is 
 ignorant of the fact that in a higher state of 
 evolution, family property has become in- 
 dividual property, and thus the latter is 
 sanctioned by all modern peoples. 
 
 This transformation of landed property 
 has not been a casual phenomenon. It is the 
 inevitable result of the law of the economy of 
 forces which governs super-human organisms 
 as well as man and sub-human organisms. 
 
 Collective property stifles individual in- 
 itiative, individual interest, individual in- 
 telligence; in one word, all of the motive 
 forces which contribute to improved pro- 
 duction. For example, in recent times we 
 can cite those corporations endowed with 
 entailed properties which strangle wealth 
 by mortmain. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 97 
 
 Individual property offers to the owner, 
 the benefits which may result from his 
 activity, intelligence and economy, and for 
 that reason is the form most appropriate for 
 stimulating the constant improvement of 
 the land, its economic exploitation, and the 
 increase of its produce. The result is not 
 only beneficial to the proprietor but to the 
 community as well. 
 
 The constituents of 1857, firm believers in 
 individual property, recognized it, providing 
 in article 27 that "private property cannot 
 be expropriated without the consent of the 
 individual. 
 
 Individual property is, nevertheless, a social 
 institution; it is recognized not only be- 
 cause it is beneficial to individuals, but also 
 because it is convenient and advantageous to 
 society. Consequently, if society needs spe- 
 cifically certain property of pubUc utility, 
 it ought to have the right to take possession 
 of it; otherwise, the interest of the individual 
 would be above the interest of the community, 
 and the right of the individual would sur- 
 mount the right of the community. 
 
 The fundamental task is to find the equation 
 which will limit to strict necessity the right 
 of society to take possession of private 
 
98 Carranza and His Bolshevik Rsgime 
 
 property without impairing the right of the 
 individual more than is strictly necessary. 
 
 The Constitution of 1857 admirably solved 
 this problem, subjecting expropriation to three 
 conditions: the need of the property for 
 public utility, the indemnification of the 
 owner, and the payment in advance of said 
 indemnity. 
 
 Public utility is the only valid reason for 
 setting aside private utility; it is the only 
 valid reason for converting private property 
 into social property. 
 
 The legislative body, proceeding from an 
 election, which represents all social classes 
 and interests, and which has charge of defining 
 these, is the body authorized to determine 
 the public utilities. According to the Consti- 
 tution of 1857, therefore, it belongs to the 
 law, that is, to the legislative power, to deter- 
 mine the necessary requisites for expropriation 
 among which is included the cause of public 
 utility. The intervention of the legislative 
 power in a really democratic organization 
 removes the fear that expropriation may 
 only serve as a pretext for a single man or 
 a small group of men to despoil private 
 citizens whether impelled by covetousness or 
 unsound personal passions. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 99 
 
 Naturally, from the moment when the 
 democratic principles of a Constitution begin 
 to degenerate, and by the granting of extra- 
 ordinary powers the fundamental prerogative 
 of law-making passes from the Legislative 
 body to the Executive, the essential guarantee 
 to private property disappears and in its 
 place appears the first danger. 
 
 The second requisite is relative to the 
 indemnity. In case of expropriation, society 
 has an interest in taking possession of a 
 specific property in order to convert it, also 
 specifically, into an object of public utility. 
 If there were any other way of obtaining the 
 same service, there would be no necessity for 
 expropriation. But, although the State has 
 the right to take possession specifically of 
 property, and to deprive the owner of its use 
 and disposition because social interest demands 
 it, this same social interest demands that the 
 proprietor be indemnified. Only on that 
 condition can man feel that his property is 
 his own and have an inducement for improv- 
 ing its condition and productivity. From 
 these facts, we deduce that indemnity must 
 be real, effective and correspond to the 
 commercial value of the property expropriated. 
 If less is paid, the proprietor is not only dis- 
 
100 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 possessed of his property, but he is also 
 unjustly despoiled of a part of his patriraony. 
 
 The man whose property is expropriated, 
 is not fully indemnified merely by having 
 its value put to his credit, but it should be 
 paid for in cash, before he is deprived of its 
 possession. In that way there will never be 
 plunder. Moreover, as long as society is 
 obliged to pay the owner the real value of the 
 property prior to its occupation, the power of 
 expropriation will always be limited by the 
 financial resources of the State, and this 
 restraint will prevent abuse; but from the 
 moment public authority is authorized to 
 expropriate without previously paying the 
 indemnity, there is no possible limit either 
 to the determination of public utilities or to 
 the consequent expropriations; in exchange 
 for real property of great cash value, the 
 State will contract obligations or will issue 
 bonds which will depreciate the more the 
 greater they are in amount. And the same 
 thing will happen with expropriation that 
 happens with inflated issues of paper money 
 which, at bottom, are nothing more than 
 plunder. 
 
 The Constitution of 1857 prescribed the 
 aforementioned restraints against the abuse of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 101 
 
 expropriation for it required the intervention 
 of the legislators in the determination of the 
 public utility; it indemnified the owner with 
 the payment in cash of the real value of the 
 property expropriated, and, finally, it exacted 
 that the payment of the said indemnity should 
 be in advance. Subsidiary laws demanded 
 the appraisement by experts to determine 
 the value in case of disagreement in the price, 
 and went so far as to refuse to authorize even 
 temporary occupation, unless the approximate 
 value of the property had been previously 
 deposited. 
 
 The Constitution of Queretaro contains no 
 effective limitation to the right of expro- 
 priation other than to state that it is the duty 
 of the legislative power to determine the cases 
 where the occupation of private property is of 
 public utility; but a very elastic law for the 
 determination of those cases will suflSce. 
 Of this, we already have concrete examples 
 in various States of the Republic where 
 the Executive power, whether Federal or 
 local, exerts the most stupendous discretionary 
 power over private property. 
 
 In fact, as concerns indemnity, the para- 
 graph immediately following part VII of 
 Article 27 of the Constitution of Queretaro 
 
102 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 states that "the price that shall be fixed as 
 indemnity for property expropriated shall be 
 based on the amount recorded as its fiscal 
 value in the assessor's office, whether this 
 value has been declared by the proprietor 
 or simply accepted tacitly by his having 
 paid the taxes on this basis. This amount 
 shall be increased 10 per cent." 
 
 If there existed in the Mexican Republic a 
 fiscal appraisement scientifically and system- 
 atically verified; if this fiscal appraisement 
 showed with real exactness the value of each 
 and every piece of real property, taking into 
 account its location, its use, the composition 
 of its soil, and other particulars, the rational 
 and equitable basis for the expropriation of 
 landed property would be the assessor's 
 appraisement. But there is no fiscal census 
 in the Mexican Republic; taxation there 
 has been based traditionally upon the declara- 
 tion made by the owner, especially in the case 
 of agricultural lands; those declarations have 
 never given the genuine value of the property 
 simply because the proprietor who declared 
 truthfully would have been sacrified to the 
 rest. The men who drew up the Constitution 
 of 1917 could not be ignorant of these facts 
 if they knew anything at all, but in spite of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 103 
 
 this, they fixed as a basis for indemnification 
 in case of expropriation, the value declared for 
 taxes or accepted for that purpose; that is, 
 25 per cent or at most 30 per cent of the real 
 value, commercial or for exchange. The 
 Assembly of Queretaro proclaimed, therefore, 
 as one of the constitutional canons of the 
 nation the systematic plunder of individuals 
 under the semblance of expropriation. 
 
 Just as dangerous, and perhaps more so, is 
 the unlimited power with which the State 
 has been vested in the matter of expropriation, 
 by the simple fact that the indemnity need 
 not, according to the second paragraph of 
 Article 27, be paid in advance. The State 
 can expropriate today and pay in twenty years. 
 Is this expropriation or spoliation .^^ 
 
 It would be inexpedient, absurd, and even 
 preposterous to re-establish communal owner- 
 ship of land, as there is no doubt it would 
 mean a return to the stagnation which 
 characterized the mortmain; but it at least 
 could be argued that by depriving individuals 
 of their property, rightly or wrongly, the 
 community could use it for the benefit of all. 
 
 The system adopted by the new constitu- 
 tion is worse, far worse, than the long-since 
 extinct communal system. On the one hand 
 
104 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 it recognizes the existence of private property, 
 thereby faihng to place all property, rightly 
 or wrongly, at the service of the community; 
 and on the other hand, all lands are virtually 
 considered liable to seizure by the community. 
 In this way, their value is reduced, the oppor- 
 tunities for their division and subdivision are 
 removed, the investment of capital for their 
 improvement, which is an indispensable con- 
 dition by which they can be parcelled out, is 
 prevented, and agriculture remains stationary. 
 When the fondest hope in case of expropria- 
 tion consists in receiving in worthless paper 
 money nominally 25 per cent or 30 per cent 
 of the real value of the property, it is humanly 
 impossible to expect the owner to stake work or 
 money on the land. 
 
 Therefore, the system of landed property 
 under the Constitution of Queretaro is not 
 properly individualistic, since it offers no real 
 guarantee to the individual owner; neither is 
 it communal, since it does not place property 
 at the direct service of the community. 
 
 It is simply and solely a system of establish- 
 ed spoliation, for it upholds, under the guise 
 of a constitutional system, the program of 
 seizure of property and robberies which the 
 "armed citizens" carried through during the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 105 
 
 period of revolution. And the "armed citi- 
 zens" — who are today called public officials — 
 have admirably interpreted the spirit of their 
 constitution. 
 
 Alvaro Obregon, who knows his colleagues 
 well and intimately, says that the leaders of 
 the Revolution, "very especially those of 
 the highest ranks," have diverged from the 
 road of high principles "to follow that which 
 leads to wealth and power, taking advantage 
 of the prestige gained by combined effort, 
 to acquire fortunes and commit excesses/' 
 and "many of the men of high rank, both 
 military and civil, have completely deadened 
 the aims of the revolutionary movement" 
 (I would say, had literally followed the 
 purposes of the Carrancista movement) "de- 
 voting all their activities to acquiring 
 fortunes. "* 
 
 *See also the following statement* taken from an interview given *o "The 
 Time*," of Los Angeles, by P. Elias Calles, on April 36, 1920: 
 
 ''Daring my short stay as a member of the Carrancista Cabinet I had the 
 best opportnnity to persuade myself of the immorality of government prO' 
 ceedings and how a corrupt coterie labors with such an unscrupulous man, 
 headed by his chief of staff, Gen. Juan Barragan. 
 
 "Right there in the chief of staff's office, everything is a matter of specula- 
 tion. They sell government positions and concessions of all kinds and robberies 
 of the public funds are authorized; they speculate with the bonds of officers 
 and chiefs of the army and even with the pensions of widows and orphans of 
 soldiers of the revolution which are subject to a charge of a commission by the 
 authorized Barragan." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 At the end of the year 1916, the civil 
 elements of the Carrancista faction, few and 
 of little importance, had clustered around 
 the only two centers of material force, the 
 political, which was personified in Carranza, 
 and the military, which at that time was 
 controlled by ten or twelve generals of the 
 powerful caste of "armed citizens." 
 
 Those who placed themselves under the 
 protection of Carranza declared themselves 
 opposed to militarism ; but their real intention 
 was to have Carranza gain the Presidency 
 of the Republic, first having strengthened 
 and increased the prerogatives of the Presi- 
 dent, because upon the political strength of 
 their protector depended the success of their 
 personal ambitions. 
 
 Such were the civil constituents that helped 
 Carranza frame the Constitution, and, there- 
 fore, it is not to be wondered at that in it 
 appear only one or two insignificant inno- 
 vations for social and economic order. The 
 main object of Carranza and his personal 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 107 
 
 friends was to organize constitutional tyranny 
 so as to assure the greatest amount of political 
 power. I shall discuss later on that part of 
 the Constitution of Queretaro which increases 
 the co-legislative prerogatives of the President 
 of the Republic, which invests him with 
 judicial powers, and which finally makes 
 him immune even in the most serious cases of 
 violation of the Constitution. 
 
 As to the armed caste and their civilian 
 followers, little did they care about political 
 power so long as they controlled the military 
 force as if it were their private property. 
 After having dedicated themselves during the 
 revolutionary campaign to the work of plun- 
 der, devastation and seizure of property, 
 what they sought was to organize those 
 transgressions under constitutional law. 
 
 This explains why the so-called Liberal 
 Constitutionalist Party, which was nothing 
 more than the staff of the caste of "armed 
 citizens" initiated and supported in the 
 Congress of Queretaro the most radical meas- 
 ures against economic liberty, particularly 
 against property, for their object in socializing 
 property and labor was to place all the 
 resources of the country under the control 
 of their caste. 
 
108 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 If the motives of these two groups of the 
 Congress of Queretaro had been altruistic, 
 neither the extremes of absolutism proposed 
 in the political system by the First Chief nor 
 the extremes of plunder and arbitrariness 
 formulated in the economic social system by 
 the neo-military caste would have been reach- 
 ed. One group would have served as a check 
 on the other. But the Congress was, for 
 the greater part, composed of men who had 
 lost caste, and the temperament of its members 
 is summed up in the following words of 
 Congressman Manjarrez: "I think the Com- 
 mittee should accept the motion of Mr. 
 Lizardi with all the more reason because the 
 radical spirit of the Assembly, which applauds 
 the suggestions of the Committee, knows how 
 to add to radicalism, but not how to subtract 
 from it. Those things which are to be added 
 are accepted, but not those to be subtracted." 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 796). 
 
 Thus it happened that the personal pro- 
 tegees of Carranza who formed a part of the 
 Congress of Queretaro allowed the most 
 illegal measures against economic liberty and 
 property to be passed, so long as they ob- 
 tained political changes in favor of the 
 Executive, and the armed Soviets did not 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 109 
 
 object to these political changes so long as 
 they assured success to their measure for 
 spoliation. 
 
 Congressman Rouaix, in union with others, 
 presented in the session of January 25th, 1917, 
 an amendment to Article 27, part X, which 
 declared in favor of the direct control by 
 the nation of petroleum, solid, liquid and 
 gaseous hydrocarbons, and other products 
 of the soil or sub-soil. "The right of owner- 
 ship thus conceived," says the amendment, 
 **is notably progressive and allows the Nation 
 to retain under its dominion everything neces- 
 sary for social development, such as mines, 
 petroleum deposits, etc., granting to individu- 
 als on that property nothing but the beneficial 
 interests authorized by the respective laws. 
 The first part of the text which we present 
 for Article 27 gives a clear idea of what we 
 propose and parts X and XI express very 
 precisely the nature of the rights reserved." 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, Ap., p. XXX). 
 
 Little urging did the reporting Committee 
 need to adopt this veiled transgression, for 
 in the session of the 29th of January it pre- 
 sented a new draft of Article 27 substantially 
 incorporating into it the ideas of the above- 
 mentioned amendment. As to the socializa- 
 
110 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 tion of the petroleum, hydrocarbons, combusti- 
 ble minerals, and other substances of the soil 
 and sub-soil, the Committee did not believe 
 it necessary to incorporate the radical reform 
 proposed, limiting itself to stating the follow- 
 ing: "It is a principle admitted without 
 contradiction that the eminent domain of 
 Mexican lands belongs primarily to the Nation. 
 That what constitutes and has constituted 
 private property is the right which the Nation 
 has ceded to individuals, the granting of 
 which cannot include the right to the product of 
 the sub-soil," (Why? — it is not said) "nor 
 to the waters as routes of communication. 
 In practice, great difficulties are encountered 
 in trying to specify the natural resources 
 which are eliminated from private property: 
 the Committee considers acceptable on this 
 point the ideas expounded by Congressman 
 Rouaix". (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, 
 p. 772). 
 
 In consequence, the Committee proposed 
 the following measures as part of Article 27: 
 
 "The direct domain over all minerals or 
 substances which form deposits in veins, 
 strata, lumps, or beds, the nature of which is 
 distinct from the component parts of the soil, 
 belongs to the Nation. Such are: minerals 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 111 
 
 from which are extracted metals and metalloids 
 utilized in industry; deposits of precious 
 stones, rock-salt, and the salt-pans formed 
 directly by sea-water; products derived from 
 the decomposition of rocks when their ex- 
 traction involves subterranean works, phos- 
 phates fit for utilization as fertilizers; com- 
 bustible solid minerals; petroleum, and all 
 the carbonates of hydrogen — solid, liquid, or 
 gaseous. 
 
 "In the cases referred to in the two pre- 
 ceding paragraphs, the domain of the Nation 
 is inalienable and imprescriptible and con- 
 cessions can be made by the Federal Govern- 
 ment only to individuals or to civil or commer- 
 cial companies formed in accordance with the 
 laws of Mexico on condition that regular works 
 for the exploitation of the referred-to ele- 
 ments be established and the requisites pro- 
 vided by law be complied with." 
 
 From a legal standpoint, the question which 
 related to the products derived from the 
 decomposition of rocks, phosphates, com- 
 bustible minerals, solid, liquid or gaseous, 
 including coal, petroleum, and hydrocarbon- 
 ates, was simple. Not only the eminent 
 domain, but also the civil, of all the national 
 lands had belonged originally to the Crown 
 
112 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 of Spain, and from it had passed, by virtue 
 of the independence of New Spain, to the 
 Mexican Nation. Therefore, when the direct 
 ownership of the soil or the sub-soil of said 
 lands was transferred to private individuals 
 by grace, sale or special concession from the 
 Crown or from the independent government 
 of Mexico, or, by general provision of the law, 
 that soil or subsoil was converted into private 
 property, the Government could no longer 
 claim civil domain, direct or indirect, over it, 
 excepting only that domain which is known 
 as sovereignty. 
 
 To refuse to recognize private property 
 which by an act of the Crown or the national 
 government had passed from civil ownership 
 by the State was nothing more than unquali- 
 fied spoliation. 
 
 Now then, such was the case with coal, 
 petroleum, carbonates of hydrogen and other 
 Substances of the soil and sub-soil. The 
 Nation, owner of these riches, had renounced 
 them and converted them into private property 
 by an act of its sovereign will. 
 
 The law of the 22nd of November, 1884, 
 declared in its Article 10 that salts, petroleum, 
 gaseous springs, and springs of thermal or 
 medicinal waters, were the property of the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime US 
 
 owner of the surface. From that time, there- 
 fore, the State ceased to be the owner of those 
 substances and only under claim of expropria- 
 tion and with the corresponding indemnity, 
 could it have regained them from their new 
 owners. 
 
 The law of June 4th, 1892, definitely de- 
 clared, in its 4th article, that the owner of 
 the surface could exploit freely, without 
 necessity of concession, combustibles, oils, 
 and mineral waters. 
 
 Finally, the law of November 25th, 1909, 
 stated in its Article 2: 
 
 **The following are the exclusive property 
 of the owner of the soil: 
 
 "I. Seams or deposits of combustible min- 
 erals in all their forms and varieties. 
 
 "II. Seams or deposits of bituminous 
 substances. 
 
 '*III. Seams or deposits of salts which 
 come to the surface. 
 
 "IV. Superficial and subterranean waters 
 subject only to what may be regulated by 
 public rights and the special laws relating to 
 water without detriment to the provision of 
 Article 9. 
 
 "V. Rocks and other materials in the 
 soil such as slate, porphyry, basalts, and 
 calcium carbonate, earth, sand, and clay. 
 
il4 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 "VI. Marsh and alluvial iron, alluvial 
 tin, and ochres." 
 
 Trusting to these legal precepts, extensive 
 enterprises for the exploration of the carbonif- 
 erous and petroleum zones of the country had 
 been launched prior to 1917; immense sums 
 of money had been invested in those enter- 
 prises, in the drilling of wells, the construction 
 of buildings, the installation of machinery, 
 pumping stations, oil ducts, wharves, and 
 other accessories, the investments being esti- 
 mated at something more than two hundred 
 millions of dollars; the greater part of which 
 was American, English, French and Dutch 
 capital. In some instances, the surface of 
 the land had been acquired in ownership; 
 in other instances, contracts for the leasing or 
 exploitation of the sub-soil had been closed, 
 and the owners of the surface had been 
 receiving incomes of varying amounts from 
 rentals or royalties. 
 
 The proposed draft of Article 27 meant, 
 consequently, not only an illegal spoliation of 
 the individual owners of the lands, and for 
 the same reason of the combustible wealth of 
 the sub -soil according to the laws previously 
 passed, but also a spoliation of the exploitation 
 rights acquired by the concerns operating. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 115 
 
 The draft was, in addition, of an eminently 
 retroactive nature unless its application were 
 to be restricted exclusively to those lands, 
 such as waste and national lands, the control 
 of which had not as yet been transmitted to 
 individuals by the State, or public property or 
 property of common use over which the State 
 had not ceased to exercise direct ownership. 
 
 And the proposed amendment was not only 
 despoiling and retroactive, but it was also 
 absolutely anti-economic, because the country, 
 impoverished by the revolution, needed the 
 inflow of foreign capital, whereas the threat of 
 socialization could have no other effect than 
 to drive away new investments. 
 
 Finally, the amendment was most dangerous 
 to the stability of national sovereignty be- 
 cause, as affecting foreign interests and rights 
 in an in justifiable way, it must surely bring 
 remonstrances from the respective govern- 
 ments. 
 
 Nothing, however, deterred the so-called 
 Constituents of Queretaro. Paragraph 4 of 
 the proposed new Article 27, in which was 
 sanctioned the socialization of petroleum, 
 coal, hydrocarbons, and other substances of 
 the soil or sub-soil, was not even lightly 
 discussed. Upon being read once^ the rules 
 
116 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 permitting debate were suspended and it was 
 unanimously approved. (Diario de los De- 
 bates, Vol. II, pp. 786, 819). Furthermore, 
 during the sessions of the 29th and 30th at 
 which Article 27 was voted upon, not a few 
 of the Congressmen fell asleep. "The Chair- 
 man," said the Secretary of the Congress, 
 "begs the Congressmen to keep awake, for from 
 the very moment that they voted to continue 
 the permanent session, they assumed the 
 responsiblity of voting upon this law; as some 
 of the Congressmen are asleep, no one knows 
 how they can consciously give their votes." 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 807). 
 
 Only over paragraph 6 of Article 27 relative 
 to the conditions by which the State should 
 agree upon the concession for utilizing the 
 riches of the sub-soil and the other riches 
 socialized under paragraphs four and five 
 was there some discussion. But that debate 
 was not because any one opposed the plunder, 
 but because Congressman Ibarra claimed 
 that the amount of royalty which the govern- 
 ment w^as to ask from the grantees as compen- 
 sation for the right of exploitation should be 
 determined immediately. If this amount was 
 not determined upon finally, it was because 
 Congressman Rouaix, the instigator of the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 117 
 
 project and Chairman of the Reporting Com- 
 mittee, declared this to be matter for sub- 
 sidiary legislation. 
 
 " . . . I believe," said Rouaix, "that it is 
 more expedient for the Nation to fix directly 
 what may seem most profitable. At present, 
 mines pay a certain per cent for exportation, 
 and the Nation is authorized to charge up 
 to one and one-half per cent; I do not think 
 it would be convenient to fix right now the 
 sum that should be paid to the Nation, but 
 believe rather that the case should be studied 
 thoroughly; then, with completeness of data, 
 it could be determined what sum should be 
 paid and whether taxes should be on the profits 
 or only on the property." (Diario de los 
 Debates, Vol. II, pp. 786-7). 
 
 "The Committee," adds its Chairman, 
 Congressman Colunga, "does not deem it 
 necessary to make a constitutional precept 
 of the addition proposed by Congressman 
 Ibarra, because it considers it entirely a 
 subsidiary question. Moreover, the matter 
 deserves discussion and cannot be lightly 
 passed upon; besides, the mining law must be 
 drawn up by the Congress of the Union; it is 
 in that law that Congressman Ibarra's idea 
 can preferably be incorporated without the 
 
118 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 necessity of making it a constitutional pre- 
 cept." 
 
 In other words, the essential question, 
 that concerning the exploitation of the owners 
 of petroleum and coal and the retroactivity 
 of the provision by which those owners were 
 despoiled, could be lightly passed upon without 
 meriting discussion in the Assembly of Quere- 
 taro. 
 
 The sentiment, essentially Bolshevik and 
 Jingoish, which prevailed in that Assembly, 
 is perfectly summed up in the following words 
 of Deputy Jara: "I believe that the Com- 
 mittee is now in the right, it has played its 
 part, it has attempted to defend the father- 
 land, and, finally, it has tried to secure the 
 Mexican property -holder against the plunder 
 to which he has been a victim in former years. 
 The petroleum regions are very much coveted ; 
 many measures, many evil practices, many 
 influences, are brought to bear so that owner- 
 ship of these lands may be acquired; we have 
 observed that a good part of the cantons of 
 Tuxpam and Minatitlan have passed with 
 extraordinary rapidity into the hands of 
 foreigners, the natives receiving a ridiculously 
 low amount. This property has passed into 
 the hands of the foreigners under atrocious 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 119 
 
 and fatal conditions, to such an extent that 
 any foreigner who has a small property for 
 which he has paid a few dollars feels that, 
 when his sovereign will is not done, he has 
 the right to obtain foreign force to secure 
 recognition for his rights of ownership ac- 
 quired by a truly ridiculous amount of 
 money. (Applause)." (Diario de los De- 
 bates, Vol. II, p. 789). And further on the 
 same Jara adds: "Now is the time to take 
 radical measures to correct these evils, now 
 is the time for us to dictate solid and wise 
 bases for action in the future, and to assure 
 a bright prospect for the country, we should 
 not be deterred by scruples, but, rather, we 
 should go forward. If we are to have inter- 
 national diflSculties because some chapters of 
 the Constitution are distasteful to foreigners, 
 we shall not escape these diflSculties by 
 omitting some chapters, nor will the difficul- 
 ties be increased if we add another chapter; 
 rest assured that if through perfidy or through 
 eagerness for expansion, they wish to oppose 
 the carrying out of this proposition, with our 
 Constitution or without it, this country will 
 come to war; therefore, let us not be deterred; 
 let us as Mexicans perform our duty, and on 
 signing our Constitution, let us fix our eyes 
 
120 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 only on our own tri-colored flag and not have 
 before us that of the Stars and Stripes. 
 (Applause)." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, 
 p.791). 
 
 Much to our sorrow, we know the result of 
 this Constitutional amendment; instead of 
 asserting the dignity and sovereignty of 
 Mexico, it has brought the country to the 
 brink of international conflicts; instead of 
 assuring its prosperity, it has diminished, in 
 fact, almost annihilated, its power for drawing 
 foreign capital. 
 
 Weighed down by economic penury, harass- 
 ed by the diplomatic protests of the American, 
 English, and French Governments in their 
 notes of April 2nd, June 29th, April 30th, and 
 May 13th, 1918, respectively, the Carrancista 
 Government has done nothing but commit 
 errors in the petroleum matter. 
 
 It issued its decree on the 19th of February, 
 1918, modified it on the 18th of the following 
 May, changed it again on the 8th of July, 
 and the 8th of August of the same year; issued 
 the decrees of July 31st and August 12th and, 
 finally, in December of last year submitted 
 to Congress for approval a proposed by-law 
 to Article 27 without satisfying the foreign 
 governments whose attitude is that the right 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 121 
 
 of ownership of the sub-soil which legally 
 belongs to the owners of the surface, be 
 respected, and that the legitimacy and irre- 
 vocability of the contracts for lease and ex- 
 ploitation closed by those same owners, be 
 likewise recognized. 
 
 And the Carrancista Government has had 
 to bear a suspension of relations with France 
 and England, the slight to Ambassador Pani, 
 who was made to wait four months in the 
 antechambers of the Quai d'Orsay, the ex- 
 clusion of Mexico from the League of Nations, 
 and the mendicant mission of Candido Aguilar, 
 son-in-law of Carranza and confidential envoy 
 to the Department of State in Washington, 
 who went to the American Capital to learn 
 under what terms the proposed Petroleum 
 Law would be acceptable to it. 
 
 Such have been the deplorable results— and 
 we do not as yet know what extremes they 
 will yet reach — of the Bolshevik and Jingoish 
 spirit of the so-called Constituents of Quere- 
 taro, well synthesized in the fourth and 
 sixth paragraphs of the famous Article 27 
 of the Constitution of 1917. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 We must now turn to the analysis of the 
 provisions contained in Sections I and IV of 
 Article 27 which introduce certain legal in- 
 capabilities for the acquisition of landed 
 property. 
 
 These sections read as follows: 
 *'I. Only Mexicans by birth or naturaliza- 
 tion and Mexican companies have the right 
 to acquire ownership in lands, waters and their 
 appurtenances, or to obtain concessions to 
 develop mines, waters or mineral fuels in 
 the Republic of Mexico. The Nation may 
 grant the same right to foreigners, provided 
 they agree before the Department of Foreign 
 Affairs to be considered Mexicans in respect 
 to such property, and accordingly not to in- 
 voke the protections of their Governments in 
 respect to the same, under penalty, in case of 
 breach, of forfeiture to the Nation of property 
 so acquired. Within a zone of 100 kilometers 
 from the sea-coast, no foreigner shall under 
 any conditions acquire direct ownership of 
 lands and waters. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 123 
 
 "IV. Commercial stock companies shall 
 not acquire, hold or administer rural proper- 
 ties. Companies of this nature which may be 
 organized to develop any manufacturing, 
 mining, petroleum or other industries, may 
 acquire, hold, or administer lands only in an 
 area absolutely necessary for their establish- 
 ments or adequate to serve the purposes in- 
 dicated, which the Executive of the Union or 
 of the respective State in each case shall 
 determine. " 
 
 Nobody can deny to a Nation the right to 
 restrict either by its constitution or by its 
 subsidiary laws, the foreigner's legal capacity 
 to acquire landed property. International 
 tradition and doctrine as well recognize such 
 right. 
 
 It is also indisputable that the Nation has 
 the right of determining by either its consti- 
 tutional or its subsidiary laws under what 
 conditions corporations of any kind may be 
 formed and to what extent their capacity to 
 acquire or hold real or personal property shall 
 be limited or denied for the welfare of the 
 community. 
 
 The important thing is to know whether 
 these restrictions redound to the social welfare 
 or whether they place obstacles in its way. 
 
124 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 The restrictions against the acquisition of 
 real estate by foreigners can be upheld on 
 the ground of economic order. Such, for 
 example, is the attitude in the State of 
 California towards the Japanese, whose com- 
 mercial competition is considered detrimental. 
 
 Again, the restrictions may be founded 
 upon reasons having to do with the foreign 
 policy, whether of reprisal or with a view to 
 preventing in certain regions the formation 
 of foreign colonies which might easily give 
 rise to international complications. For that 
 reason one of our fundamental policies for the 
 preservation of public order has been to pro- 
 hibit foreigners in general from acquiring 
 property in the frontier zones. 
 
 Section I, Article 27 which relates to the 
 direct domain over lands and waters within a 
 zone of 100 kms. along the line of the frontier, 
 reproduces the prohibition already established 
 by subsidiary legislation. However, in the 
 new Constitution the prohibition is absolute, 
 while our previous laws authorized the Ex- 
 ecutive Power to concede permits in excep- 
 tional cases. 
 
 The section we have been considering 
 furthermore prohibits all foreigners to acquire 
 lands or waters situated within a zone fifty 
 miles from the sea-coast. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 125 
 
 As the Mexican coasts have a length of 
 8,330 kms., the prohibited zone covers 441,500 
 square kilometers, or 22% of the total area 
 of the Republic, which, added to the frontier 
 zone of 100 kilometers also prohibited, em- 
 braces 40% of the total area. 
 
 Over this enormous surface lie rich lands 
 fit for agriculture and cattle-raising. It con- 
 tains also great latent industrial potentialities, 
 for beneath it are rich beds of mineral ore, 
 coal and combustible liquid. 
 
 The development of all these riches is of 
 the greatest importance to the country and 
 whatever tends to thwart it retards the pro- 
 gress and detrimentally affects the welfare 
 of its inhabitants. 
 
 Could it possibly be argued that our exten- 
 sive frontier zone and our still more extensive 
 sea-coast zone, deprived of the benefits of 
 foreign capital are already being exploited or 
 are on the road to complete development? 
 Or could anyone assert that national capital 
 has already acquired the spirit of enterprise, 
 or that it is sufficient in amount to supplant 
 foreign capital or make the investment of such 
 unnecessary.^ 
 
 The framers of Section I of Article 27 did 
 not ask themselves these questions nor did 
 
126 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 they believe them pertinent. Had they sought 
 facts, they would have learned that a great 
 portion, or rather the greater portion of the 
 frontier and sea-coast zones is wholly or 
 largely undeveloped through lack of money; 
 they would have ascertained that Mexican 
 capital which only yesterday began to quicken 
 with a new impulse of commercial and in- 
 dustrial life, today is absolutely idle as a result 
 of the revolution, and, finally, they would 
 have realized that all Mexican capital com- 
 bined is but a drop in the bucket when com- 
 pared with the immense amount of money 
 which our latent resources require for their 
 development. 
 
 Section IV, above quoted, of the same 
 Article 27, aggravates still further a situation 
 which in itself is baneful enough. 
 
 Referring to the provisions of the Constitu- 
 tion which prohibit all civil and commercial 
 enterprises from acquiring ownership of rural 
 property, the First Chief says in explana- 
 tion: "The need of this change is self- 
 evident, for no one is unaware that the 
 clergy, incapable of acquiring landed property, 
 has mocked the prohibition contained in the 
 law by hiding behind stock companies; and 
 as these companies have undertaken the busi- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 127 
 
 ness of acquiring extensive lands in the Mexi- 
 can Republic, it has become necessary to place 
 a quick and effective check upon this evil, 
 otherwise it would not take long for our land 
 to be, openly or under cover, in the hands of 
 foreigners,'' (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I., 
 p. 265.) 
 
 Thus it was that with the sole purpose of 
 preventing religious institutions and foreigners 
 from evading the constitutional restrictions, 
 the First Chief proposed that there should 
 be denied to every kind of corporation or 
 company the right to acquire rural lands, 
 although such denial could not but put an end 
 to all agricultural progress. 
 
 It was fortunate that the Assembly of 
 Queretaro confined this prohibitive clause to 
 stock companies, and that in spite of identity 
 of purpose, it did not make it include urban 
 property, factories, foundries and industrial 
 plants of various kinds. 
 
 In the last years of peace and tranquility, 
 the formation of stock companies brought 
 about powerful help in the way of irrigating, 
 improving and cultivating lands. Along the 
 whole length of the frontiers and coasts and 
 in the interior of the Republic, there are 
 scattered important enterprises which were 
 
128 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 organized as stock companies and which are 
 responsible for the launching of prosperous 
 agricultural undertakings where formerly there 
 were only deserts or untilled lands. 
 
 As proof of this assertion, we can point to 
 the cotton fields of Lower California and the 
 basin of the Nazas ; the sugar-cane plantations 
 on the slopes of Sinaloa and along the Gulf 
 of Mexico; the coffee plantations in the tropi- 
 cal regions of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas; 
 the great saw -mills turning out wood of com- 
 mon use in all parts of the country and those 
 milling rarer woods in the isthmian region and 
 the State of Tabasco, and many other enter- 
 prises of similar character. 
 
 All these are prohibited in the future ! 
 
 Bolshevik logic, Jingoish logic, permits of 
 no debate. Rather than allow the Catholic 
 Church, which recognizes as its head a foreign 
 Pope, and rather than allow men of enter- 
 prise from foreign countries to acquire any 
 right whatsoever in Mexican land, four-tenths 
 of the native soil must remain barren and 
 fifteen million Mexicans must continue to go 
 hungry and naked. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 As WE have pointed out in the preceding 
 chapter. Section IV of Article 27 of the 
 Constitution of 1917, is one of the most for- 
 midable existing obstacles to the agricultural 
 development of Mexico^, particularly in the 
 coast and frontier zones. 
 
 However, the baneful eflFects of that section 
 go still further, for they extend to all enter- 
 prises organized for manufacturing, mining, 
 the extraction of petroleum and similar in- 
 dustries. 
 
 The First Chief orginally drew up this sec- 
 tion in the following terms: "Ci\'il and com- 
 mercial companies may possess, within or 
 without the limits of any town, urban prop- 
 erties, factories, industrial enterprises, plants 
 for the exploitation of minerals, petroleum or 
 any other substances of the subsoil, as well as 
 railroads and pipe-lines; but they cannot 
 acquire or operate rural properties in a larger 
 area than that strictly necessary for the 
 purposes above mentioned, which area shall 
 be fixed by the Executive in each instance." 
 
130 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 The text finally approved by the Assembly 
 of Queretaro reads as follows: "IV. Com- 
 mercial stock companies shall not acquire, 
 hold or administer rural properties. Com- 
 panies of this nature which may be organized 
 to develop any manufacturing, mining, petro- 
 leum or other industry, excepting only agri- 
 cultural industries, may acquire, hold or ad- 
 minister lands only in an area absolutely 
 necessary for their establishments or adequate 
 to serve the purposes indicated which the 
 Executive of the Union or of the respective 
 State in each case shall determine. 
 
 The approved clause, therefore, confines 
 only to commercial stock companies the in- 
 ability to acquire rural lands while the pro- 
 posed clause included all kinds of companies, 
 civil as well as commercial. But, although 
 from this point of view the approved restric- 
 tion is. less of an obstruction than that pro- 
 posed to the Assembly by the First Chief, on 
 the other hand it allows greater opportuni- 
 ties for abuse, since it confers not only upon 
 the Executive of the Nation, but also upon 
 the Executives of the States the power to 
 limit the area of the lands permitted to 
 be acquired for undertakings not of an agri- 
 cultural nature. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 131 
 
 A mining enterprise, a foundry, any in- 
 dustrial plant whatsoever, needs vast areas of 
 land, determined in accordance with the 
 nature or importance of the business, for the 
 installation of machinery, the building of 
 side-tracks, the erection of warehouses, office 
 buildings, dwellings for the laborers, and other 
 requisites. 
 
 And in the case of many mining enterprises, 
 plants for working and refining the ores must 
 also be erected when transportation for such 
 purpose is impracticable. 
 
 For other enterprises, the amount of land 
 required is even less easily to be determined. 
 For the extraction of petroleum, for instance, 
 the construction of tanks erected at points 
 determined by experts is necessary and rights- 
 of-way for the laying of pipe-lines from the 
 wells to the storage tanks, and thence to 
 the places of shipment, are first requirements. 
 
 The area allowed any of the industrial 
 plants mentioned affects primarily the success 
 or failure of the enterprise because the plant 
 must be a harmonious unit, and the incapa- 
 city of any one part must necessarily reduce 
 the working efficiency of the other parts. 
 
 It will avail nothing for a mining concern 
 to uncover abundant ore deposits, if it can- 
 
132 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 not hold enough land for a refining plant, 
 when the quality of the ore is poor and can- 
 not stand the cost of transportation. This 
 means that if the enterprise does not possess 
 enough water on its own land for working 
 the metals, it is obliged to get it somewhere 
 else, even though to do so it must acquire 
 the water-bearing lands and construct aque- 
 ducts over one or several properties. 
 
 It would be useless for a petroleum com- 
 pany to sink oil wells of great promise if it 
 has not the land necessary for storing the 
 product and removing it from the place where 
 it flows to the railroads or steamers which 
 must carry it to the markets. 
 
 Nevertheless, the constitutional restriction 
 which we have been considering, places all 
 these enterprises at the mercy of the arbitrary 
 judgment of the Executive, whether of the 
 Nation or of the States. 
 
 In other words, it will not be the organizers 
 or managers who will be the judges of the land 
 area necessary for the success of the business, 
 but irresponsible public oflScials in whom class 
 prejudices, political animosities, or a desire 
 to defraud, will give rise to grave errors and 
 injustices. 
 
 Let the President of the Republic, or the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 1S3 
 
 Governor of a State, availing himself of the 
 power which the Constitutional law gives him, 
 limit to less than a required amount the land 
 to be allowed an industrial plant, and failure 
 will inevitably follow. 
 
 Furthermore, on starting a business, not 
 only the present is to be taken into account- 
 such short-sightedness would be unthinkable 
 in men of enterprise — but also, and much 
 more seriously, the future with all the pros- 
 pects of development which it holds. 
 
 If the Executive, Federal or local, has a 
 restricted vision, he will concede to this class 
 of enterprise only the area of land essential 
 for their actual needs, and will thus condemn 
 the business to remain stationary, when it is 
 to the interest, not alone of the capitalists, 
 but of the country as a whole, to encourage 
 constant progress and the increase of produc- 
 tive labor. 
 
 Not a few industrial plants in the Mexican 
 Republic are installed in isolated places, 
 having no access to public highways or rail- 
 roads, and consequently are forced to supply, 
 of themselves, the daily wants of their people. 
 We have numerous enough examples of in- 
 dustrial enterprises which have found them- 
 selves obliged to undertake farming work in 
 
134 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 the center of uncultivated lands so as to 
 provide their employees with vegetables, milk 
 and other perishable foods. The production 
 of these articles of prime necessity cannot be 
 left to contingencies dependent upon the 
 individual efforts of the occasional farmer who 
 may settle there. Such production is in- 
 dispensable to the existence of the community 
 built up by an industry, and this industry 
 must commercially depend only upon itself 
 if it does not want to run the risk of having 
 its work abandoned for lack of articles needed 
 for the sustenance of its employees. 
 
 In the case of these isolated industries, as 
 in those previously mentioned, the result often 
 is that the enterprises are implacably sacri- 
 ficed to an oppressive bureaucracy. 
 
 Experience has likewise shown that some 
 industries need certain agricultural products, 
 the cultivation of which is just beginning or 
 is not known in the country; such is the case 
 with hops and malt barley, essential to the 
 manufacture of beer. If they are not to 
 exist precariously, it is necessary for the in- 
 dustries to encourage and even to undertake 
 on their own accoimt those branches of agri- 
 culture upon which they are dependent. 
 
 The constitutional law which we have been 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 135 
 
 considering, definitely stands in the way of 
 such a solution of the problem. 
 
 The objections to this law could be multi- 
 pled, but all can be resolved into one con- 
 clusion ; the immediate success, and more than 
 that, the future development, of industrial 
 enterprises of any character, is made de- 
 pendent upon the arbitrary judgment of 
 one irresponsible public oflicial, inasmuch as 
 the President of the Republic and the Gov- 
 ernors of the States — not the managers of 
 the industry — are empowered by the Con- 
 stitution to measure and judge the technical 
 needs of those enterprises. 
 
 It is unthinkable that the productive capac- 
 ity of a country should be limited by the 
 errors, prejudices or passions of this or that pub- 
 he official, and it is likewise imthinkable that 
 the development of its potentialities should 
 depend upon the will of a tyrant-in-chief and 
 twenty-eight sub-tyrants even though we 
 suppose them incorruptible. 
 
 But we must not forget what these men are 
 and have been; what lusts launched them into 
 the revolution; what numerous evidences of 
 voracity they have shown during their tenure 
 of office; nor must we forget that if, in every 
 public administration, there exist corruptible 
 
136 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 elements, these are innumerable and un- 
 bridled where, as in Mexico, there is not the 
 restraint of public opinion. A precept, there- 
 fore, which places in their hands the success 
 or failure of immense capital invested in in- 
 dustries cannot but be, as it has been, an 
 irresistible instrument of abuse, extortion 
 and betrayal. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 In the analysis of Article 27 of the Carran- 
 cista Constitution, it remains for us to con- 
 sider the problem of the distribution of land. 
 
 There can be no doubt of the existence of 
 this problem nor of the fact that its solution is 
 urgent, if there is a desire to increase the 
 possibilities of agricultural productivity and 
 stably improve the condition of the rural 
 masses. But in order to solve it properly, it 
 is necessary to examine its very roots with the 
 impartiality of a scientific study, and not 
 attend merely to the surface. Solely in that 
 way will the cause of the evil be removed, and 
 more serious evils avoided than those which 
 are to be corrected. 
 
 The unequal distribution of lands in the 
 Republic of Mexico originates in the form in 
 which these lands were reduced to private 
 property during the colonial period. 
 
 Taking as a basis the famous bull of Pope 
 Alexander VI, which gave to the Crown of 
 Spain as civil property, and at the same time 
 gave it political dominion over the territory 
 
138 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 west of the Pontifical Meridian, the system 
 adopted by the mother country embraced five 
 general kinds of grants, to-wit: 
 
 1. It recognized the right of established 
 native towns (pueblos de indios), to the lands 
 of which they were in communal possession 
 at the time of the conquest, and it favored the 
 conquest or submission of wild Indians by 
 the creation of new towns endowed with 
 patrimonial lands. These endowments con- 
 sisted generally in the "fundo legal" (town- 
 site) destined to serve as the seat of the manor 
 house with its church and public square; in 
 those lands, "'de repartimiento," which were 
 distributed among the families of natives for 
 their use, and in "ejidos" which were lands 
 for the common use of inhabitants. Occa- 
 sionally, also, it comprised, under the name of 
 '^parcialidades," certain lands allotted to 
 Indians, the products of which were to be 
 used for specific communal expenses. The 
 natives were forbidden to dispose of the lands 
 which had been assigned to their heads of 
 family. 
 
 2. It conceded to this or that 'conqueror 
 the ownership of extensive lands as a reward 
 of his achievements. Thus, for example, the 
 "Marquisado del Valle" entailed to the de- 
 
Carranza andJIisJBolshevik Regime 139 
 
 scendants of Hernan Cortez, extended over 
 several thousand square leagues, from the 
 high plains of the Central Table Lands to the 
 shores of the Pacific. 
 
 3. It gave to the Spaniards, under the 
 name *'encomiendas," certain kinds of fiefs 
 granted for life and comprising extensive 
 lands; also it conferred upon them the right 
 of exploiting said lands in consideration of 
 their agreement to give instruction in the 
 Catholic religion and doctrines to the native 
 rural population. These fiefs made the in- 
 habitants (encomendados) veritable slaves of 
 the soil; the greater part of the fiefs became 
 hereditary patrimonies and inertia, aided by 
 traditional conservatism, served to perpetuate 
 the servitude of the native peons. 
 
 4. It rewarded soldiers — cavalrymen and 
 infantrymen — with relatively small grants 
 of land under the name of "caballeria" or 
 "peonia, " to be cultivated by the grantees in 
 compensation for their services. 
 
 5. Finally, it transferred lands to indi- 
 viduals by means of a legal instrument of 
 conveyance. These transfers which are the 
 origin of the greater part of Mexican rural 
 property, embraced immense territorial areas 
 owing to the small consideration for which 
 they were made. 
 
140 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 The sales, grants, allotments and, in 
 general, all transfers of land made during the 
 colonial period always had the very serious 
 defect of describing the property in vague and 
 obscure terms, many times indicating only 
 the location and area. This fault was not 
 corrected when possession was granted owing 
 to the ambiguity of measurements, boundaries 
 and points of record. 
 
 The balance of the lands not transferred, 
 remained civil property of the Crown of Spain, 
 and for that reason, as the mother country was 
 continually in need of resources for its con- 
 stant wars, there was introduced the abusive 
 system of revision (" composicion ") of titles for 
 the purpose of adjusting the amount of land 
 held by the owners to the dimensions fixed by 
 the said titles and settling the surplus through 
 the payment of certain sums of money. 
 
 Such is the origin, open to censure from all 
 points of view, of the system of alienation, 
 revision, measurement and survey of land, 
 which rendered property uncertain, all titles 
 defective, and what is even more serious, all 
 possession contestable, giving cause or pre- 
 text for frequent spoliation. 
 
 From that time, with the exception of 
 landed property awarded to towns, territorial 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 141 
 
 property in what is today known as the Mexi- 
 can Republic was marked by "latifundia," 
 that is, by lands of considerable area not 
 available for cultivation — except to a mini- 
 mum degree — by its proprietors, a condition 
 which was accentuated in the course of years, 
 thanks to unlimited entailment carried through 
 by the Church in spite of all the restrictions 
 of the "Leyes de Indias" (Statutes for the 
 colonies). 
 
 It is well to quote, in confirmation of what 
 precedes, the following data taken from that 
 very excellent treatise of Jose L. Cossio, 
 entitled "How and by whom Rural Property 
 in Mexico has been Monopolized." 
 
 According to these data, the entails (vin- 
 culaciones) created during the colonial govern- 
 ment embraced immense areas of land. There 
 is no need to mention the estates of Ibarra, of 
 the Marshals of Castilla, of Flores Valdez, 
 of the Marquises of Salvatierra, of Urrutia 
 de Vergara, of La Llave, of Higuera, of the 
 Counts of Santiago de Calimaya, of the Mar- 
 quis of Peduguera, of the Counts of Casa Rul, 
 and others of less importance. SuflSce it 
 to say that the estate of the Marquis del 
 Valle extended over the Valleys of Mexico, 
 Toluca, Cuernavaca, and Oaxaca, embracing 
 
142 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 also part of Vera Cruz and some of the state 
 of Guerrero; that of the Count of el Valle de 
 Orizaba covered seventy-six haciendas in the 
 states of Vera Cruz, Hidalgo and Puebla; that 
 of the Count of Regla twenty-four haciendas 
 in addition to eleven unentailed ones situated 
 in various states; that of the Count of Sierra 
 Gorda covered enormous areas in the State 
 of Tamaulipas; that of the Marquis of San 
 Miguel Aguayo more than two hundred and 
 ninety-nine square leagues in the district of 
 La Laguna alone and that of the Marquis of 
 Guadalupe more than two hundred. (*) 
 
 The number of haciendas scattered over the 
 whole country, which fell under the decree of 
 confiscation of Jesuit property issued by 
 King Charles III of Spain amounted to one 
 hundred and twenty-eight. 
 
 Baron Humboldt calculated in 1808, that 
 four-fifths of the land belonged to the clergy; 
 Doctor Mora estimated their holdings in 
 1833 at $179,000,000; Lucas Alaman con- 
 sidered that the said property represented not 
 less than one-half of the value of the whole 
 land and Miguel Lerdo de Tejada appraised 
 it between $230,000,000 and $300,000,000, a 
 
 *One square league is approximately equivalent to seven square miles. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 143 
 
 valuation which coincided with that of Lucas 
 Alaman. 
 
 It is true that these enormous areas of land 
 were subdivided by virtue of the disentail- 
 ment laws passed at the beginning of the 
 19th century by the Spanish Congress and 
 ratified by the independent government of 
 Mexico, as also by the disentailment and 
 nationalization laws enacted during the 
 period of the Reform; but even though the mort- 
 main was ended, there still remained intact the 
 immense haciendas formerly affected by it, for 
 neither the disentailment nor the nationaliza- 
 tion was accompanied by the subdivision of 
 rural property except in the case of the lands 
 of the "pueblos." 
 
 The evil, however, did not stop there, but 
 rather was brought to an acute crisis by the 
 erroneous policy relative to contracts of 
 survey and colonization which President Diaz 
 developed during his administration. 
 
 From 1881 to 1889, the surveyed lands 
 reached 32,240,373 hectares (*) of which 
 12,693,610 hectares were awared to the sur- 
 veying companies in payment for surveying 
 expenses, and 14,813,980 hectares were sold 
 or promised — the majority of them to the 
 
 *Eacb hectare is equivalent to approximately two and one«haIf acres. 
 
144 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 surveyors themselves. It is worthy of note 
 that the number of individuals and companies 
 benejBted by these contracts according to the 
 "Boletin de Estadistica" of 1889 was only 29. 
 
 Under similar conditions 12,382,292 hectares 
 were surveyed from 1889 to 1892 and from 
 1904 to 1906 titles to the number of 260 and 
 covering 2,648,540 hectares were issued to 
 surveying companies and 1,331 titles to na- 
 tiotial lands embracing an area of 4,445,665 
 hectares were executed. 
 
 The deals of the surveying companies 
 transacted during the years 1881 to 1889, 
 entailed, consequently, into the hands of 
 twenty-nine individuals or companies 14% 
 of the total surface of the Republic and 
 during the five subsequent years a few other 
 companies monopolized 6% more of the total 
 area. In other words, altogether one-fifth of 
 the whole land area was monopolized by 
 not more than fifty proprietors. 
 
 On the other hand, the division of "ejidos" 
 (common lands of the native towns) made 
 during the years from 1877 to 1906 embraced 
 only 19,983 titles and a total of 583,287 
 hectares. Assuming that the "ejidos" of 
 each town included approximately 1750 hect- 
 ares, it would reach a total of 330 towns, 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 145 
 
 when the number in the Republic was 5,213. 
 
 And from 1898 to 1906, 357 titles covering 
 an area of 57,421 hectares were granted to 
 poor laborers. 
 
 Truthfully speaking, all the surveyed area 
 consisted of unimproved lands, many of them 
 deserts, others absolutely unfit for agriculture, 
 and a few, very few as a matter of fact, with 
 good irrigation. The system of survey and 
 colonization which brought about this im- 
 mense monopoly of land was, nevertheless, 
 a serious error, because on the one hand, under 
 the protection of the respective concessions 
 there did not fail to be encroachments upon 
 the small landowners whose titles and measure- 
 ments were defective, and on the other hand, 
 those areas of land undoubtedly lacked the 
 individual attention of the majority of the 
 Mexican people, no care having been taken 
 to see that the grantees developed effective 
 works of irrigation and improvement nor 
 much less that they put into operation that 
 fountain of wealth. 
 
 Such, then, is the origin of the great 
 "latifundia" existing in the Republic and of 
 the very limited importance of the small and 
 medium rural property. 
 
 But the persistence of those "latifundia" 
 
146 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 through the economic progress of the Nation, 
 must be imputed to two coincident causes, 
 namely: lack of capital, and lack of personnel 
 adequate for the agricultural exploitation of 
 smaller tracts. 
 
 Mexican land, on the average, is not ex- 
 actly rich, in spite of the belief to the contrary 
 which has prevailed for a long time. From 
 the work of the notable Mexican economist, 
 Carlos Diaz Dufoo, entitled "Mexico and 
 Foreign Capital," we quote the following 
 facts : 
 
 "Owing to its variegated configuration, 
 Mexico presents a heterogeneous pluvial sys- 
 tem. According to Mr. Beltran y Puga, 
 Engineer, there are five zones: 
 
 "The first embraces lands in which pre- 
 cipitation is less than 250 mm. It is a large 
 land zone in the deserts of Sonora, Chihuahua, 
 and Baja California, extending southward to 
 24° latitude, in the Central Table Land. Its 
 area is 296,000 square mms. *(15% of the 
 area of the Republic). 
 
 "In the second zone, the pluvial precipita- 
 tion varies between 250 mm. and 500 mm. 
 It comprises part of the States of Sonora, 
 Chihuahua, Durango, Aguascalientes and San 
 
 ♦One square k. m. is equivalent to approximately 250 acres. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 147 
 
 Luis Potosi. It embraces 340,000 square 
 kms. (17% of the National land.) It is not 
 a zone suitable for agriculture either; it can 
 be compared in its pluvial system to La 
 Mancha (Spain), a region which none will 
 presume to call desirable for agriculture. 
 
 "In the third zone, the precipitation is 
 between 500 mm. and 1 meter. This zone 
 embraces the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and from the Pacific Ocean, the highest part 
 of the Central Table Land to the east of 
 Oaxaca and to the western part of the penin- 
 sula of Yucatan. Its area is 848,000 square 
 kms. (42% of the area of the Republic). 
 Its pluvial system, very superior to the other 
 two, presents conditions favorable to agricul- 
 ture although not on that account does it 
 surpass some districts of Europe, as the west- 
 ern part of England, the Mediterranean coast 
 of France, etc., and even these cannot be said 
 to have the best supply. 
 
 "The fourth zone has pluvial precipitations 
 of between 1 and 2 meters and embraces the 
 southern coasts of the Gulf of Mexico and of 
 the Pacific Ocean, and the eastern part of 
 Yucatan. Its area is 424,000 square kms. 
 (20% of the area of the country) and may be 
 compared, as to rains, with the North of Spain, 
 
148 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 the eastern coast of Australia, some districts 
 of Chile, the west coast of Norway, and the 
 plains which extend over the foothills of the 
 Alps. Unfortunately this precipitation is not 
 invariable and there are years in which it 
 diminishes considerably. 
 
 "The fifth, finally embraces small portions 
 of the coasts of Vera Cruz and Tabasco on 
 the Gulf of Mexico, and the coasts of the 
 State of Chiapas on the Pacific covering an 
 area of 43,000 square kms. In this zone the 
 rain-falls are torrential. 
 
 "The French writer, Raul Bigot, engineer 
 of arts and crafts of the College of Paris, who 
 has visited our country, in his "Notes Econo- 
 miques sur le Mexique" asserts that over a 
 surface of 198,720,000 hectares, the country 
 presented at the end of 1903, 39.6% of its 
 land area utilized in the following form : 
 
 Cultivated hectares, not under irrigation 10,605,887 
 Cultivated hectares, irrigated 1,550,980 
 
 Cultivated hectares 12,156,867 
 
 Hectares of pastures 48,762,849 
 
 Hectares of forests 17,786,715 
 
 Total 78,706,431 
 
 "The 12,156,867 cultivated hectares re- 
 present a little over 6% of the land area." 
 Of the extensive zones subject to contracts 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 149 
 
 of colonization only insignificant lots can be 
 used for cultivation. All efforts made, whether 
 by the government or by private enterprises, 
 failed for reasons not worthy of mention here. 
 
 In virtue of the law of 1894, the said zones 
 almost as a whole were relieved of the condi- 
 tion relative to colonization, the Federal 
 Government extending the title of ownership 
 pure and simple pending additional payments, 
 generally made by the grantees. It can be 
 said with relation to these zones that the 
 greater part, if not all, were transferred in a 
 "bona fide" manner to a third party. Only 
 a small area of these lands has been cultivated 
 owing in some localities to a scantiness of 
 population, in others to aridity of soil, and 
 in not a few to both circumstances combined. 
 The greater area has been devoted to cattle- 
 raising, but the rest, which is quite consider- 
 able, still remains uncultivated. 
 
 Of the zones awarded to the surveying com- 
 panies in payment of surveying expenses, all 
 were held in fee simple and their exploita- 
 tion carried out under conditions similar to 
 those affecting the lands alloted for coloniza- 
 tion. 
 
 Rural properties acquired as stated in this 
 chapter, whether of the colonial era, or in the 
 
150 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 independent period, occasionally were sub- 
 divided by means of hereditary transfer. 
 But, frequently, such transfer amounted to 
 keeping the property technically undivided 
 in shares although actually distributing it in 
 specific parcels of land to the successive 
 generations, and this practice resulted in an 
 insuflSciency of titles and documents difficult 
 to validate. Such was the occasion for the 
 spoliation committed by surveying companies 
 and by claimants of waste lands since the 
 laws on the matter did not provide an effectual 
 manner of establishing ownership without the 
 existence of a proper instrument of convey- 
 ance. 
 
 The balance of the landed estates were 
 conserved in the form of large haciendas 
 worked to a small degree as agricultural en- 
 terprises, and much more so for cattle raising, 
 but barren in their greater surface owing to 
 that same lack of irrigation already spoken of, 
 and also, in not a few instances, owing to the 
 want of easy access to the markets of con- 
 sumption." 
 
 Generally short of ready money, and devoid 
 of the spirit of enterprise, it was only the 
 exception among those great landowners who 
 attempted to improve his lands with works of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 151 
 
 irrigation, and country roads or with the 
 application of fertiUzers and modern methods 
 of cultivation. 
 
 Consequently, the average productivity of 
 Mexican lands according to statistical data 
 is and has been positively poor. 
 
 In more populated regions and with ele- 
 ments of irrigation — of which the basin of 
 the Nazas, the Bajio, and a large part of 
 Jalisco can serve as an example — the medium 
 sized and also the small property could be 
 created. In most instances, however, large 
 estates were parcelled into lots by their 
 owners and granted to farmers for exploita- 
 tion under lease contracts or on a crop-sharing 
 basis (aparceria) . 
 
 With the above exceptions, the farming 
 work was done by means of peons who are, as 
 a whole, of mixed race or natives, true serfs 
 of the soil, condemned, through lack of educa- 
 tion, to live precariously from hand to mouth, 
 ignorant, devoid of a spirit of economy and 
 foresight, slaves to routine and lax in work. 
 
 During the last years of the Diaz admin- 
 istration, contracts of irrigation were closed 
 with several enterprises, the principal condi- 
 tion of which was the division of lands and 
 sales in small lots. The carrying out of those 
 
15% Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 contracts just barely began, for the majority 
 of the enterprises were surprised at the very 
 beginning of their labors by the revolution. 
 
 Finally, as to native property, it was re- 
 spected, sanctioned, and improved by the 
 laws of the Indies and confirmed by native 
 legislation. Thus it subsisted until the period 
 of Reform when the disentailment of public 
 land of the Indian towns (pueblos) and its 
 subdivision and allotment to the heads of 
 families was ordered. It has already been 
 stated that on executing these laws barely 
 19,883 deeds were issued with a total area of 
 582,237 hectares, insignificant in comparison 
 with the nine million hectares which should 
 legally correspond to the native communities 
 existing at the beginning of this century. 
 
 Of the native grantees of parcels of said 
 communities, not a few hastened to sell what 
 had been apportioned to them; others, if we 
 believe general opinion, were despoiled of 
 their property by the Indian Chiefs of the 
 locality. 
 
 It also seems certain that of the balance of 
 common lands which were not divided and 
 allotted to the residents, a good portion was 
 subject to usurpations, or rather, to successive 
 encroachments by the surrounding large 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 158 
 
 owners, giving cause for cruel antagonism be- 
 tween "pueblos" and owners of estates and 
 the fixed conviction of the native race that it 
 had been infamously despoiled. 
 
 In this connection, however, it is timely to 
 make it clear that in answer to the petitions 
 for restitution presented by the people to the 
 various agrarian commissions according to 
 the oflScial report submitted to the Federal 
 Congress by the government of Carranza, 
 only 21,284 hectares have been granted by way 
 of restitution, so that it has been necessary to 
 concede endowments, equivalent to 86,746 
 hectares. 
 
 This study of the private agricultural 
 property, as far as concerns its owners, con- 
 dition, possibilities, form of cultivation, and 
 men available to work it, discloses two 
 aspects in the land problem, namely: that of 
 the redistribution of land and that of restitu- 
 tion. 
 
 The first, which is the more important, may 
 be summed up as follows: 
 
 There exist immense areas in the form of 
 "latifundia" which were created by laws duly 
 enacted and grants from legitimate authori- 
 ties. Those properties establish undeniable 
 rights of ownership on account of their legal 
 
154 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 origin, also by prescription, and, if we desire 
 further reasons, were sustained, in the ma- 
 jority of cases, by principles of equity in 
 favor of bona fide third acquirers. 
 
 A minimum part of such latifundia is 
 irrigated and together with all other private 
 properties under irrigation makes only eight- 
 tenths per cent of the total area of the country. 
 On the other hand, the lands farmed without 
 irrigation works scarcely reach altogether 
 much more than five per cent of said total 
 area. 
 
 As far as the lands of the "pueblos" are 
 concerned, their area, approximately equi- 
 valent altogether to four and one-half per 
 cent of the total surface of Mexico, is almost 
 entirely devoid of irrigation works and is 
 unsuitable for agriculture. 
 
 The relatively small number of tenants 
 and "aparceros" (crop-sharing farmers) who 
 have already acquired the habits and aptitudes 
 indispensable to free farm hands could well 
 and conveniently be changed into the per- 
 sonnel for parcelled lands. 
 
 It would also be well to add to this per- 
 sonnel that of the natives who have kept on 
 living in their old towns and communities 
 devoting themselves to labor in the fields; 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 155 
 
 but it should be under the express condition 
 of not abandoning them at first to their own 
 efforts and resources, for, even though there 
 exists in them the embryo of an autonomous 
 farmer, nevertheless a great effort of educa- 
 tion and helpfulness is necessary to make 
 them get out of the rut, familiarize themselves 
 with modern methods, implements, and fer- 
 tilizers which are necessary to intensive 
 agriculture, create in them habits of economy, 
 and, finally, finance them in their first efforts. 
 
 Under this aspect of the problem, its solu- 
 tion is not simply to be found in laws which 
 may declare of public utility the division and 
 distribution of lands. Those laws are not 
 new; many have been enacted since Mexico 
 became independent, for the development of 
 its agricultural wealth has been the constant 
 concern if its public men. 
 
 In confirmation of this assertion, we can 
 cite the decree of January 4th, 1823, upon 
 foreign colonization; that of July 4th of the 
 same year upon the distribution of lands to 
 the members of the standing army; that of the 
 30th of the same month ordering the distribu- 
 tion of San Lorenzo among the residents of 
 Chachapalcingo; those of the 19th of July, 
 6th of August and the 18th of September of 
 
156 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 the following year upon the assignment of 
 national lands to the defenders of the country; 
 the most important and general one was that 
 of the 14th of October, 1823, upon the division 
 of lands in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and 
 others too numerous to mention. 
 
 What is more needed than laws, is a plan, 
 clear and thoughtfully conceived, for the 
 gradual acquisition by purchase or expro- 
 priation, on a cash basis, of lands adaptable 
 to subdivision; a policy of well thought-out 
 contracts of irrigation with the same object; 
 the improvement of lands for works of this 
 nature and construction of roads; practical 
 and regional propaganda for the spread of 
 modern agricultural knowledge and the erec- 
 tion of adequate oflScial and extra-official 
 institutions for providing the capital necessary 
 for permanent works as well as for supplies 
 to laborers and the equipment suitable for the 
 lands when they are divided. 
 
 The basis of this program must be the 
 recognition of rights acquired, pending real 
 indemnity and not simply promises of pay- 
 ment in case of expropriation; because 
 there is no indemnity, property ownership 
 ceases to be a respectable and respected right. 
 Under such conditions, on the one hand its 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 157 
 
 value depreciates, and on the other the capital 
 necessary to work it will be driven away to 
 seek less precarious and more profitable in- 
 vestments. 
 
 The second aspect of the problem, that of 
 recovery against unjust spoliation of lands is 
 rather ethical-social than agrarian. All these 
 restitutions added together would not con- 
 tribute to the agricultural industry a sub- 
 stantial proportion of lands suitable for culti- 
 vation and they would leave the problem 
 unsolved, for we have seen that the lands 
 technically belonging to the "pueblos" would 
 reach four and a half per cent of the national 
 territory. 
 
 There is no doubt, however, that it is im- 
 perative to give satisfaction to this claim of 
 justice; but it is necessary to do it without 
 undermining the two bases which support the 
 right of ownership; the res ad judicata and the 
 prescription. It is necessary to do it without 
 converting the despoilers into despoilees. 
 
 The institution called upon to give each 
 one what belongs to him is the judicial branch 
 of the administration; to it, therefore, should 
 be referred the power of acting upon all ques- 
 tions relative to restitution; and if the actual 
 laws of procedure are slow, cumbersome, and 
 
158 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 costly, if in them technicality predominates 
 over equity, it is necessary to modify them in 
 such a way that the tribunals, in full knowl- 
 edge of the transaction, may decide easily 
 and justly whether it is a case of restitution 
 without compensation to the expropriated 
 party, or one of expropriation in order to 
 make settlement upon the claimant pueblos. 
 
 Such is the form in which the Congress of 
 Queretaro should have considered the two 
 fundamental problems relating to private 
 ownership of land; that of equitable redis- 
 tribution of this wealth and that of restitution. 
 
 The Congress of Queretaro was not a 
 body of men level-headed and capable of 
 discriminating between the just and the un- 
 just, the proper and the improper. We have 
 already stated and shown that the majority 
 of members of that body were moved by class 
 hatred, by a spirit of rapine, and by the most 
 radical conceptions of social change. 
 
 Therefore, the land problem in its double 
 aspect received solutions in which iniquity 
 rivalled stupidity. 
 
 The now famous Article 27 contained the 
 following provision: 
 
 "All proceedings, findings, decisions and all 
 operations of demarcation, concession, com- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 159 
 
 position, judgment, compromise, alienation, 
 or auction which may have deprived properties 
 held in common by co-owners, hamlets situated 
 on private property, settlements, congrega- 
 tions, tribes and other settlement organiza- 
 tions still existing since the law of June 25, 
 1856, of the whole or a part of their lands, 
 woods and waters, are declared null and void; 
 all findings, resolutions and operations which 
 may subsequently take place and produce 
 the same effects shall likewise be null and void. 
 Consequently all lands, forests and waters 
 of which the above-mentioned settlements 
 may have been deprived shall be restored to 
 them according to the decree of January 6, 
 1915, which shall remain in force as a con- 
 stitutional law. In case the adjudication of 
 lands, by way of restitution, be not legal in 
 the terms of the said decree, which adjudica- 
 tion may have been requested by any of the 
 above entities, those lands shall nevertheless be 
 given to them by way of grant, and they shall 
 in no event fail to receive such as they may 
 need. Only such lands, title to which may 
 have been acquired in the divisions made by 
 virtue of the said law of June 25, 1856, or 
 such as may be held in undisputed owner- 
 ship for more than ten years are excepted 
 
160 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 from the provision of nullity, provided their 
 area does not exceed fifty hectares. Any 
 excess over this area shall be returned to the 
 commune and the owner shall be indemnified. 
 All laws of restitution enacted by virtue of 
 this provision shall be immediately carried 
 into effect by the administrative authorities. 
 Only members of the commune shall have the 
 right to the Iknds destined to be divided, and 
 the rights to these lands shall be inalienable 
 so long as they remain undivided; the same 
 provision shall govern the right of ownership 
 after the division has been made. 
 
 *'The exercise of the rights pertaining to 
 the Nation by virtue of this article shall 
 follow judicial process; but as a part of this 
 process and by order of the proper tribunals, 
 which order shall be issued within the maxi- 
 mum period of one month, the administra- 
 tive authorities shall proceed without delay 
 to the occupation, administration, auction, 
 or sale of the lands and waters in question, 
 together with all their appurtenances, and 
 in no case may the acts of the said authorities 
 be set aside until final sentence is handed 
 down. " 
 
 All guarantees of stabihty for vested rights 
 consecrated by the world's institutions are 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 161 
 
 disavowed by this precept; all acts of the 
 public authorities consummated since June 
 25, 1856, that is, for half a century, are 
 annulled. The good faith of the acquirer is 
 not respected nor the saving principle of the 
 positive prescription, except for surfaces not 
 exceeding fifty hectares, nor the undeniable 
 canon of res adjudicata. When, in case 
 of expropriations, indemnity is authorized 
 to the owner, no guaranty is given that 
 this indemnity will be in advance and in 
 cash, and, finally special authority to make 
 preliminary examination of all these actions 
 is conferred upon administrative commissions 
 instead of being granted to tribunals. 
 
 We already know what the results of this 
 precept have been; agrarian commissions have 
 been formed in each one of the states charged 
 with examining the proceedings for restitu- 
 tion and endowment, and those commissions 
 have sold their judgments to the highest 
 bidder, constituting a rich and inexhaustible 
 foimtain of levies and bribes. 
 
 "Excelsior," a newspaper of the City of 
 Mexico known for its conservatism and moder- 
 ation, in its issue of August 18, 1919, states 
 in the following terms that the reformation 
 of the personnel of the agrarian commission 
 was being undertaken: 
 
162 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 "In view of precise and conclusive reports 
 which have been suppHed us by some persons 
 who have been on local agrarian commissions, 
 established in the various states of the Re- 
 public, we can say that the commissions have 
 been responsible for the conflicts which have 
 arisen between them, the people, and the 
 proprietors. 
 
 "As a matter of fact, owing to the work of 
 reformation carried out by the President of 
 the National Agrarian Commission, at present 
 there are at the head of the local commissions, 
 decent and undoubtedly honorable people 
 competent to execute the resolutions adopted 
 relative to restitution and settlement of public 
 lands. 
 
 " But, formerly, the personnel which formed 
 several of the local agrarian commissions was 
 so useless and corrupt that complaints and 
 protests were received daily by the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture and at length by the 
 President of the Republic until it was finally 
 decided to take radical and energetic measures. 
 
 "The evil was general and for that reason 
 we cannot even fix charges against one 
 particular agrarian commission. Many com- 
 missioners, without the least scruple, exacted 
 money from people for a favorable decision 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 163 
 
 whether they were Indians soUciting pubhc 
 lands or land owners who opposed some land 
 division. 
 
 "A long time ago we received reports of the 
 corruption which prevailed in the local agra- 
 rian commissions, but as we did not at once 
 acquire proofs to substantiate those charges 
 so as to secure the exposure of the offenders, 
 much to our regret we had to wait until we 
 were in possession of precise data. 
 
 "The conflicts which arose between the 
 agrarian commissions, the "pueblos" and the 
 land owners were usually as follows: the com- 
 missions would refuse to hand down their 
 decisions providing for the restitution or 
 endowment of lands in favor of a soliciting 
 pueblo even though it might be in the right, 
 unless a sum of money large enough to be 
 distributed among the members of the com- 
 mission were given. 
 
 "The corresponding petition would be con- 
 sidered and when a decision was about to be 
 given, one or two of the members of the 
 agrarian commission would appear before the 
 owner of the lands to be divided and to 
 other residents of the claimant pueblos. 
 They would then, in spite of protests from 
 the opponents, give the decision to the side 
 paying the largest sum of money. 
 
164 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 "Other corrupt acts were committed, but 
 not like that already mentioned which angered 
 everybody who was aware of it. 
 
 "We can mention the former local com- 
 missions of the States of Jalisco, Puebla, 
 Tlaxcala, and others where there was greater 
 corruption, to such an extent that the National 
 Commission with the approval of the Presi- 
 dent of the Republic and the Secretary of 
 Agriculture found it necessary to send in- 
 spectors to make a revision of the acts of 
 restitution and endowment of lands with 
 instructions to revoke any resolutions which 
 lacked legality. 
 
 "The appointment of inspectors gave very 
 good results according to reports received by 
 us. Due to it, not a few resolutions were 
 revoked on account of illegality and, in gen- 
 eral, all the members of the local commissions 
 against whom charges were brought and 
 proved, were relieved of their duties. 
 
 "We are informed that the National Agra- 
 rian Commission which has charge of the 
 solution of the important agrarian problem 
 was on the point of failing radically at the 
 time that it was decided to take morahzing 
 and energetic measures which, apparently, 
 have given very good results." 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 165 
 
 The above quoted Article 27 further pro- 
 vides in its last paragraph as follows: 
 
 "All contracts and concessions made by 
 former governments from and after the year 
 1876 which shall have resulted in the monopoly 
 of lands, waters and natural resources of the 
 Nation by a single individual or corporation, 
 are declared subject to revision, and the 
 Executive is authorized to declare those null 
 and void which seriously prejudice the public 
 interest. " 
 
 This provision is even more outrageous 
 than the preceding, because it sanctions the 
 power of the Executive of the Union — that is, 
 of one official who according to the same con- 
 stitution is irresponsible — to declare null the 
 transference of property made by legally 
 constituted governments since the year 1876, 
 and, this, without any consideration of the 
 fact that those transferences have been made 
 in strict accordance with the law; in other 
 words, to render them null, it is enough that 
 in the judgment of the President of the 
 Republic they carry a monopoly of land 
 detrimental to public interest. 
 
 Exercising this stupendous power, the Fed- 
 eral Executive has already confiscated millions 
 of hectares without the slightest argument 
 of justice or equity. 
 
166 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Where spoliation is an institutional system, 
 there are properly no rights and no law; 
 there is anarchy, and anarchy never is, nor 
 can it be, the foundation for tranquility and 
 prosperity of a country. 
 
 Finally, other sections of the quoted article 
 27 of the Federal Constitution relative to 
 the subdivision of lands, authorize the State 
 Legislature to determine the maximum area 
 which each individual or company may possess, 
 and to fix the terms under which expropriation 
 must be conducted ; and on the understanding 
 that its value is not payable in cash, but 
 rather in a minimum term of 20 years, with 
 a maximum annual interest of 5 per cent., and 
 in bonds of a special issue called agrarian. 
 
 It would have been natural to have pro- 
 tected from these threatened expropriations 
 those landowners who had shown a pro- 
 gressive and enterprising spirit by starting 
 improvements of importance on their lands; 
 it would also have been prudent to have 
 exempted from expropriation those lands 
 which in the future might be irrigated by 
 their owners. By these means, security would 
 have been given to former investments and 
 an incentive for future ones. 
 
 Instead, all landowners are threatened with 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 167 
 
 being deprived of their property by means of 
 low compensation payable in depreciated 
 agrarian bonds. 
 
 The basis for indemnity, in fact, is the 
 assessed value, and this, as we have already 
 seen, is equivalent to barely 25 or 30 per cent, 
 of its real value. 
 
 As to the agrarian bonds which may be 
 issued, what value can they have when the 
 Federal Government is in bankruptcy and the 
 bankruptcy of the States is even more over- 
 whelming.^ The administration ends annual- 
 ly with a deficit in spite of the fact that it 
 leaves undischarged several important civil 
 services and does not pay one single cent of 
 interest on the recognized national debt. 
 And the States are in need of constant loans 
 from the Federal Government in order to 
 pay but half of their most pressing expenses. 
 According to oflScial data of the Department 
 of the Treasury, the following are the amounts 
 owed to the Federal Government by the 
 various states for loans which, in general, 
 date from the 1st of May, 1917, to the 31st 
 of December, 1918, and which represent on 
 an average 20 per cent, of the total annual 
 revenue of the said states: 
 
168 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Chihuahua $118,774.83 
 
 Coahuila 110,947.88 
 
 Colima 67,152.05 
 
 Durango 29,983 .21 
 
 Guanajuato 39,748.20 
 
 Guerrero 95,171 .60 
 
 Jalisco 410,631 .96 
 
 Mexico 92,994.25 
 
 Michoacan 534,963 . 12 
 
 Oaxaca 149,020.70 
 
 Puebla 126,458.50 
 
 Queretaro 124,674.21 
 
 San Luis Potosi 553,874.38 
 
 Sinaloa 146,140.38 
 
 Sonora 224,096. 02 
 
 Tlaxcala 51,168.20 
 
 Zacatecas 143,366.06 
 
 Various State Legislatures have already 
 begun to carry out their laws of apportion- 
 ment, and, as was to be feared, the expropri- 
 ations are being directed against those very 
 enterprises which have already made a con- 
 siderable investment in works of irrigation 
 and improvement. 
 
 With such a menace, who will dare in the 
 future to* undertake new enterprises, to con- 
 tribute new capital, to convert waste and 
 barren lands into real and positive founts of 
 production and wealth? 
 
 Rural property has already suffered serious 
 exactions, and continues to be threatened on 
 all sides by mortal dangers. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 169 
 
 Mexican landowners, if they are utilitarians 
 or fainthearted, give in to convenience or 
 terror and barter their rights at the price of 
 bribes; if they are manly of spirit, they prefer 
 to fight rather than become the accomplices 
 of corruption; and all seize the opportunity 
 of selling their possessions even for ridiculous 
 amounts. 
 
 Those who feel least insecure are foreigners 
 who have the diplomatic protection of their 
 governments. After each offense, there 
 follows an international remonstrance, a bitter 
 dispute, a protest and the cloud of threatened 
 intervention comes nearer and becomes blacker 
 each day. 
 
 In the same proportion that cautious 
 foreigners refrain from investing more capital, 
 speculators are on the hunt for cheap estates; 
 the business, to them, is a game of poker in 
 which they have the winning hand; they buy 
 and buy lands at insignificant prices and in 
 amounts that cannot but cause alarm. 
 
 In that way, the industry of agriculture is 
 dragged on the ground, serious and enter- 
 prising capital flees, corruption and poverty 
 in the administration corrode the innermost 
 recesses of society, our land is passing into 
 the hands of foreign stock gamblers, the 
 
170 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 national conscience finds no peace, the inter- 
 national situation darkens, and order and 
 progress are longed for futilely. 
 
 In the agrarian problem, as in almost all 
 others, the constitution of Queretaro, instead 
 of being constructive, just, and useful, is 
 contrary to law, dissolvent and destructive. 
 
 As we have already said, it is not a national 
 work, it is abortive, Bolshevik. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Whatev^er tends to throttle the economic 
 hberty is an impediment in the way of, if 
 not an absolute hindrance to, material pro- 
 gress. For that reason the Constitution of 
 1857 condemned explicitly all monopolies 
 and prohibitions which, professing to protect 
 industry, had in former years contributed to 
 the misery of the masses while benefiting 
 a small privileged minority. 
 
 But there is no doubt that apart from the 
 evils of monopolies protected by the coaction 
 of the State, the increasing development of 
 modern capitalism gives rise to similar ills, 
 such as combinations and syndicates, which 
 artificially limit the production or the supply 
 of articles of prime necessity, or lessen the 
 facilities disposable for their transportation 
 with the deliberate object of obtaining ex- 
 cessive profits. 
 
 Industrial and commercial liberty is a 
 desirable institution inasmuch as, leading to 
 open competition, it directs capital and labor 
 towards the most remunerative enterprises 
 
172 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 and thus there is maintained an equiHbrium 
 in the production and distribution of wealth, 
 and the discovery and exploitation of unknown 
 energies of nature is favored. 
 
 But when free competition is destroyed in 
 the name of such liberty; when rather than 
 enlarge the output of material commodities 
 it is used to increase artificially their cost for 
 the benefit of a few; when it is turned into an 
 instrument of wicked slavery and becomes a 
 cause of impoverishment, it ceases to be a 
 social institution and becomes actually anti- 
 social. 
 
 To the list of prohibitions contained in our 
 old Fundamental Code, the new one very 
 justly adds in its Article 28 the following: 
 "any accumulation or cornering by one or 
 more persons of necessaries for the purpose 
 of bringing about a rise in prices; any act 
 or measure which shall stifle or endeavor to 
 stifle free competition in any production, 
 industry, trade or public service; any agree- 
 ment or combination of any kind entered into 
 by producers, manufacturers, merchants, com- 
 mon carriers or other public or quasi-public 
 service, to stifle competition and to compel 
 the consumer to pay exorbitant prices; and 
 in general whatever constitutes an unfair and 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 173 
 
 exclusive advantage in favor of one or more 
 specified person or persons to the detriment 
 of the public in general or of any special 
 class of society." 
 
 This change, as it stands, is highly com- 
 mendable, provided that the danger of official 
 abuse of power is averted by wise laws. 
 But the new Constitution, leaping in this 
 matter, as in others, to the opposite extreme, 
 abolishes the provision for certain tax ex- 
 emptions formerly made and intended as a 
 stimulus to industry. 
 
 It cannot be denied that under the pretext 
 of encouraging the development of the natural 
 resources and industries of the country, the 
 system of franchises under the old regime 
 gave ample and frequent opportunities for 
 favoritism. But the fact is that the few 
 isolated evils were less, infinitely less, than the 
 benefits derived by the country from the 
 adoption of that system. 
 
 Is it necessary for us to review the well 
 known economic progress of Mexico during 
 the administration of General Diaz.^^ 
 
 The nation, seeking to emerge from its 
 state of economic isolation and atrophy, 
 found no other road open save that of en- 
 couraging the investment of foreign capital. 
 
174 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 With that end in view, it granted franchises, 
 exempted taxes, and even subsidized certain 
 enterprises. In that way, and only in that 
 way, was it able to secure railroads and erect 
 foundries, open immense mining zones, employ 
 modern metallurgy for working low rate 
 ores, develop and exploit the carboniferous 
 beds on the frontier and the extensive deposits 
 of petroleum along the Gulf of Mexico, 
 promote commercial and agricultural credit, 
 lay the foundations for future Mexican in- 
 dustry, and in general, convert into tangible 
 riches the latent potentialities of the country. 
 The system of franchises was on the whole 
 beneficial whatever may have been the abuses 
 to which it gave rise in many instances. 
 Therefore, inasmuch as the resources of the 
 country were not fully developed by the end 
 of 1916, and in addition the revolutions had 
 impoverished the nation anew and to the 
 utmost degree, the only rational policy would 
 have been to regulate the system of enfran- 
 chisement in such a way that the granting 
 a franchise should always be in accordance 
 with the law, applicable without discrimina- 
 tion, to everybody, other things being equal, 
 and a limited, though reasonable, period for 
 its initiation granted to each industry. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 175 
 
 The dangers of abuse having thus been 
 eliminated, the system of lawful franchise 
 would have continued to lend the most 
 powerful assistance to the gigantic work of 
 reconstruction. That its abolition was not 
 inspired by a clear perception of facts, and 
 farsightedness; that it was accomplished only 
 as the result of a blind doctrinarianism or a 
 preconceived desire to destroy everything 
 that existed, is proved by the numberless 
 concessions carrying exemptions from taxes 
 that were granted by the government founded 
 upon the Constitution of Queretaro. (See 
 "Diario Oficial de los Estados Unidos Mexi- 
 canos.") 
 
 The new constitution does not stop at 
 prohibiting tax exemptions in the future. It 
 also has furnished grounds for the repudiation 
 of exemptions granted by the former govern- 
 ments, notwithstanding that by readopting 
 the provisions of the Constitution of 1857 it 
 confirms the principle of non-retroactivity, 
 which is the basis for the stability of private 
 rights; and in spite of the fact that those 
 franchises were granted by legitimate acts of 
 the federal or state legislatures. In their 
 eagerness to destroy any and every fount and 
 source of the economic development of the 
 
176 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Nation, in their determination to attack 
 capital in every possible form, the Federal as 
 well as the State Governments have availed 
 themselves of Article 28 of the new Constitution 
 to repudiate with impunity exemptions legally 
 granted by previous administrations. 
 
 In line with the same principles, the Consti- 
 tution of 1917 destroys at one blow the 
 charters of the existing banks of issue with 
 the excuse that they wished to establish the 
 so-called "Banco Unico de Emision," a 
 single bank of issue under the control of the 
 Government. 
 
 After deep investigations and difficult ne- 
 gotiations with the "Banco Nacional de 
 Mexico," a corporation which at the time 
 enjoyed an exclusive franchise for issuing 
 bank-notes, the administration of General 
 Diaz adopted a system providing for a 
 plurality of banks of issue, and by the banking 
 law of May 19th, 1897, it authorized the 
 establishment in all States of banks of issue 
 upon conditions which guaranteed their firm- 
 ness and stabiUty. Corporations alone were 
 qualified to do a banking business. Their 
 authorized capital, at least one-half of which 
 must be paid up, was required to be not less 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 177 
 
 than one million pesos* The value of their 
 notes in circulation could not exceed twice 
 the amount of their metallic reserves, which 
 consisted of the gold and silver stock on hand. 
 The banks were subject to the supervision 
 of the federal government and also to certain 
 restrictions which applied to the nature and 
 extent of their operations. And finally, they 
 were granted certain special judicial facilities 
 to enforce the collection of their loans. 
 
 Under the terms of this law, which granted 
 certain exemptions, at the same time making 
 favorable tax rates for the first bank to be 
 established in every State, twenty banks 
 were opened in different parts of the Republic, 
 in addition to the banks known as "Banco 
 Nacional de Mexico," "Banco de Londres," 
 "Banco Minero" and perhaps one or two 
 others. 
 
 Those operating in commercial, manufactur- 
 ing or agricultural centers of importance, 
 undoubtedly lent valuable aid to the progress 
 of those regions and consequently they pros- 
 pered. Such were, among others, the banks 
 of Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Jalisco, Puebla, Monte- 
 rey, Durango, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Chihua- 
 
 *The minimum authorized capital of the banks, as fixed by the law of 
 1897, was lower than one million peiot, to which sum it was raised by the law 
 of June 19th, 1908. One peto is equivalent to fifty cents of American money 
 
178 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 hua; others made little progress, while there 
 were one or two which were forced to close 
 their doors or merge with some other bank. 
 
 After the monetary reform of 1905 which 
 created the gold standard and at the same time 
 fixed the value of the silver peso, limited its 
 coinage and continued it as legal tender, it 
 was deemed necessary to limit the circulation 
 of fiduciary money. Therefore, after the 
 enactment of the law of May 13th, 1905, 
 which forbade for four years the opening of 
 new banks, the term was extended to the 
 year 19^2, by the provisions of a new law 
 dated June 19th, 1908. 
 
 Towards the end of 1913 and the beginning 
 of 1914, the Huerta government ordered the 
 banks to take over a considerable portion of 
 the foreign loan which European bankers 
 had not subscribed to. And in order to 
 enable the banks to use their gold and silver 
 reserves for this purpose, it decreed that in 
 the future, bank notes would be accepted as 
 legal tender and the issues could reach three 
 times the value of their metallic reserves, 
 plus the notes of other banks which they 
 might have in their possession. 
 
 For some of the banks, that measure was 
 life-saving, as the general crisis in which the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 179 
 
 country was involved had affected them and 
 they were not in condition to redeem their 
 notes on presentation. Others would not 
 have been able to take over the loan forced 
 upon them except with the aid of the new 
 franchise. There were on y a few that pre- 
 served the old proportion between their re- 
 serves and the value of their notes in circula- 
 tion. 
 
 The Carrancista faction saw in such a 
 situation the opportunity to seize the bank 
 funds, privately by bribes backed up by 
 threats, and officially by the seizure of them. 
 
 On the 4th of January, 1914, before the 
 Carrancista mobs had gained control of the 
 Mexican Republic, and before they had 
 established even the semblance of a govern- 
 ment, the First Chief issued his decree 
 number 15 excluding from the legal reserves 
 of the banks the certificates of the " Comision 
 Monetaria," which were redeemable at sight, 
 since, in conformity with the laws of December 
 22nd, 1905, and May 18th, 1912, they were 
 secured by deposits of gold bullion, foreign 
 gold coins, or silver pesos. The decree also 
 excluded from the legal reserves the notes of 
 other banks of issue. 
 
 The decree of September 29th, 1915, issued 
 
180 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 by the same First Chief, fixed a term of forty- 
 five days in which the aforementioned banking 
 concerns were to readjust the circulation of 
 their notes so that the amount covered by 
 them would not exceed twice that of their 
 metallic reserves. 
 
 Finally, by its circular of October 26th, 1915, 
 the Department of Finance created a com- 
 mission styled "Comision Reguladora e In- 
 spectora de Instituciones de Credito, " charged 
 with the investigation of each bank's condition 
 and commissioned to report as to the advisa- 
 bility of allowing them to continue under their 
 present charter. A man who had confessed 
 to, and received sentence for, the embezzle- 
 ment of funds of the Banco Nacional, was 
 appointed as one of the members of the above 
 commission, and the plundering of banks 
 began. 
 
 As in most cases, the reports rendered by 
 the commission were adverse to the banks, 
 prominent Carrancistas and high officials of 
 the administration were waited upon by 
 representatives of the banks, pleaded with, 
 and offered large sums of money. The out- 
 come was that several of the banks were able 
 to ward off their threatened closure. 
 
 The "Boletin Financiero," a commercial 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 181 
 
 publication of the City of Mexico, in its 
 volume covering the months from April, 1915, 
 to December, 1915, publishes the reports of 
 Superintendent Manero, which recommend 
 the forfeiture of the charters of the banks of 
 Coahuila, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Queretaro, Ta- 
 maulipas, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Guana- 
 juato, Morelos and Durango, and the Banco 
 Oriental de Puebla. The same paper states 
 that the banking commission above mentioned 
 has already declared the forfeiture of the 
 charters of the banks of Guerrero, Hidalgo, 
 Queretaro, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi, the 
 Mexican Bank of the Peninsula, the Banco 
 Oriental de Puebla. In the same volume, 
 the Boletin Financiero publishes the reports 
 of superintendent Manero recommending the 
 continuance of the charters of the following 
 banks: Banco Nacional de Mexico, Banco de 
 Londres y Mexico, Banco de Zacatecas, and 
 Banco del Estado de Mexico. It does not 
 state which charters were definitely declared 
 forfeited by the Department of Finance, but 
 according to circulars number 71 and number 
 72, of September 20th, 1916, published in the 
 third volume of the same bulletin, the Banco 
 Nacional de Mexico, the Banco de Londres y 
 Mexico, and all the State banks except those of 
 
182 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Coahuila and Durango were still in operation 
 on that date, which undoubtedly was due 
 to the fact that no declarations of forfeiture 
 had been enforced. According to reports of 
 the superintendent of banks, the declarations 
 of forfeiture recommended by him were based 
 strictly on the provisions of the decrees of 
 September 29th, 1915. The fact that the 
 charters were still in force at the time of the 
 issuance of the circular, indicates that the 
 decree was not issued with the sincere purpose 
 of having it enforced, but rather with the in- 
 tention of making it an instrument of extor- 
 tion and creating an opening for bribery. 
 
 The gold vein thus opened up was too 
 valuable not to be exploited. After the lapse 
 of one year, the First Chief issued a new 
 decree which stated that within the term of 
 three months, all banks must reduce the 
 amount covered by their outstanding notes 
 to a sum not exceeding the value of their 
 metallic reserve, under penalty of a forfeiture 
 of their charters and seizure of their assets by 
 special Commissions known as "consejos de 
 Incautacion, " in case of failure to comply 
 with the terms of the decree. 
 
 The truth of the matter is that the Carran- 
 cistas claimed that this action was taken be- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 183 
 
 cause the exemptions granted to the banks of 
 issue created hateful monopoHes and exclusive 
 privileges. Such an argument was nothing 
 but shameless sophistry. 
 
 The banks established in Mexico — with the 
 exception of the Banco Nacional and the 
 Banco de Londres, which were conducted 
 according to prior contracts — ^had been created 
 by virtue of the banking law, passed in 1897, 
 in conformity with a general basis outlined 
 for that purpose by the Federal Congress. 
 In proof of the assertion that they were not a 
 monopoly, witness the fact that twenty-two 
 banks of issue operated independently; nor 
 did their charters give them exclusive privil- 
 eges, since according to the law, any persons 
 who could fulfill the required conditions of 
 solvency and security would be able to obtain 
 the respective charter. Moreover, the First 
 Chief's decree of September 29th, 1915, and 
 others previous to it, had recognized the 
 legality of the banking law of 1897. Strictly 
 speaking, they could have held as objection- 
 able the laws of 1905 and 1908 above mention- 
 ed, which had limited to the already existing 
 banks the franchise as banks of issue and 
 the object of which was to maintain the 
 equilibrium of the monetary system adopted 
 
184 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 in 1905; they could also have objected to the 
 regulations of the banking law which allowed 
 the banks special judicial facilities to enforce 
 the collection of their loans, notwithstanding 
 the fact that these facilities had in view the 
 strengthening of the financial status of the 
 banks. 
 
 All the decrees of the First Chief were 
 therefore arbitrary. They altered pre-exist- 
 ing laws and thereby impaired vested rights; 
 and furthermore, if the purpose of the First 
 Chief was to abolish privileges which he 
 qualified as exclusive, he should have limited 
 himself to withdrawing from the institutions 
 of credit the special judicial facilities granted 
 them, and to decreeing that in the future new 
 charters would continue to be granted, on 
 equal terms, to all who could comply with 
 the requirements of the law of 1897. 
 
 Without considering the legality of his 
 action, in support of which no possible argu- 
 ment could be deduced, the last decree of 
 the First Chief was absurd from the economic 
 point of view. Owing to the unlimited issu- 
 ance of government fiat money, the silver 
 pesos and gold pieces had disappeared and 
 there was in circulation nothing but paper 
 money, which had become very much de- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 185 
 
 predated by that time, and bank notes, which 
 on the average were quoted at something 
 between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of their 
 face value in National gold. Taking those 
 notes off the market, leaving only the paper 
 money, of necessity rendered the monetary 
 crisis more serious. It placed an insurmount- 
 able obstacle in the way of the resumption of 
 the more or less paralyzed industries of the 
 country, thereby bringing the poorer classes 
 to want, since the cost of articles of prime 
 necessity had risen with gigantic strides. 
 
 However, the de facto government troubled 
 itself about everything except what might en- 
 courage the work of reconstruction, or, at 
 least, favor conservation of resources. The 
 chief ambition was to get the metallic re- 
 serves of the banks in order to meet the needs 
 of the administration, but more particularly 
 so that the insatiable voracity of the military 
 chiefs and political leeches might be satisfied. 
 
 Some of the banks were not able, and others 
 probably did not wish to redeem their out- 
 standing notes, as ordered by the First Chief 
 in violation of the terms of their franchises. 
 Therefore, the time allowed them having 
 expired, before they had recalled their surplus 
 notes in circulation, the de facto government 
 
186 Carranza cmdjlis Bolshevik Regime 
 
 proceeded to seize the funds of the banks, 
 resorting to all kinds of violent measures. 
 
 In the Presidential message read to Congress 
 September 15th, 1917, which treated of the 
 "pre-constitutional" period, the following is 
 stated : 
 
 "The Constitutionalist government, com- 
 pelled by circumstances, has found it necessary 
 to take from all the banks approximately 
 twenty millions for the affairs of the govern- 
 ment. " 
 
 And in the Presidential message of Sep- 
 tember 1st, 1918, also presented to Congress, 
 we read as follows: "As is generally known, 
 the pre-constitutional government first, and 
 later the constitutional, took" (that is just 
 the word, took, and took by force), "as a 
 loan from the banks of issue their metallic 
 stock on hand having an approximate value 
 of $54,000,000." 
 
 Unofficial data makes the amount larger 
 than that quoted by the First Chief. Except- 
 ing those which transferred their funds to 
 the United States before the plunder began, 
 all the banks are at present drained of gold 
 and silver; and we must remember that the 
 amount of this stock in their vaults on March 
 31st, 1915, according to balances published 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 187 
 
 in the Boletin Financiero of September 11th, 
 1915, reached the sum of $85,596,183.01. 
 
 In September of 1916, the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, Luis Cabrera, told the American 
 Commissioners in the conferences of New 
 London that the measures taken were "the 
 result of a policy which the Carranza Govern- 
 ment felt had been carried on by certain of the 
 Mexican banks to depreciate the government 
 currency, that these banks were in fact the 
 money trust of Mexico, and that the Govern- 
 ment was anxious to make these banks more 
 loyal to the purposes for which they were 
 instituted" . . . "These banks", he added, 
 "were the chief agencies used for the depre- 
 ciation of the paper currency, and this was 
 hostile to the welfare of the country. The 
 Government of Mexico is just contemplating, 
 when these banks close permanently, the 
 establishment of a national banking system 
 similar to that in the United States, the 
 foundation for which already exists in the 
 newly established monetary commission." 
 (Official bulletin published in the Boston 
 Transcript, September 20th, 1916). 
 
 The voracity and spirit of destruction of 
 the Carrancista caste called for the demolition 
 of the banks even though there might not be 
 
188 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 anything to substitute for them immediately. 
 However, so as to give apparent justification 
 to their plan, they announced their intention 
 of creating the "Banco Unico de Emision" 
 (a single bank of issue). 
 
 When the draft of the new Constitution 
 prepared by the First Chief was discussed 
 in Queretaro, the Assistant Secretary of the 
 Treasury proposed that in Article 28 there 
 should be included a clause eliminating once 
 and for all the possibility of the continuance 
 of the existing banks of issue. By this 
 measure the seizures already made were 
 sanctioned; and the plunder of the bank 
 vaults carried on by the pre-constitutional 
 government was included in the category — 
 what mockery! — of constitutional rights. 
 
 The minutes of the Assembly of Queretaro 
 reveal how that ignorant and passionate body 
 regarded the problems raised by so far- 
 reaching a question. 
 
 The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 
 regards the theory of a single bank of issue 
 as dogma: "a fact that is not under discussion 
 anywhere," he says, "is, that there should be 
 but one bank of issue because it is a principle 
 adopted many years ago by the science of 
 political economy. In all the more pro- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 189 
 
 gressive countries, the principle that there 
 should be but one bank authorized to issue 
 bank notes has been gaining more and more 
 ground from day to day." (Diario de los 
 Debates, Vol. II, p. 368). 
 
 From the same so-called dogma, the Assist- 
 ant Secretary also deduces that "that monop- 
 oly should be in the hands of the government 
 from the moment that it is empowered to 
 coin and issue the money of the country." 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 368). 
 
 Naturally, since it is a "dogma," it admits 
 of no discussion. In vain does Congressman 
 Lizardi twice bring to the attention of the 
 Assembly the fact that it has absolutely no 
 preparation for solving the question, that it 
 does not have in its possession the necessary 
 statistical data. (Diario de los Debates, 
 Vol. II, pp. 365, 395). 
 
 Congressman Necio, member of the Com- 
 mission, considers it obvious that the new 
 bank "is going to be formed with money 
 belonging to the Federal Government." 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 362). 
 Congressman Zavala declares that "statistics 
 relative to economic questions have a very 
 insignificant and doubtful value." (Diario 
 de los Debates, Vol II, p. 392). The Assist- 
 
190 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 ant Secretary of the Treasury from his lofty 
 pedestal says, "the intellectual level of this 
 Constituent Congress, if not superior, is 
 not, I think, inferior to that of the Congress 
 which will follow; nor do I think it would be 
 expedient to postpone indefinitely the solution 
 of this problem just because the Chamber is 
 not in condition to solve economic questions, 
 for that would be absurd . . . The Con- 
 stituent Congress would commit a grave error 
 if it left that question without solution for 
 the next Congress, because undoubtedly the 
 existing banks of issue will attempt to defend 
 their interests at all hazards and to that end 
 will exert vigorous efforts in the next Con- 
 gress." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 
 368). 
 
 To dogma is added passion. On this 
 occasion it is the turn of Congressman 
 Mugica, President of the Reporting Com- 
 mittee, to pour the acrimonious vitriol. " My 
 ideas," he exclaims, "are entirely radical; 
 I do not know whether they are good or bad; 
 my ideas were these: that the government, 
 taking advantage of the law in force, should 
 compel the banks to declare themselves in 
 liquidation, for the reason that it was public 
 and notorious that the strongest banks of the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 191 
 
 nation were bankrupt owing to the illegal 
 issues which they had been obliged to make 
 by the government of Huerta ; that these banks 
 being in a state of liquidation, bankruptcy 
 would follow necessarily and inevitably; that, 
 in my opinion, the government in order to 
 guarantee private interests ought in that 
 case to assume the outstanding credits of 
 the banks, taking over their assets which were 
 national property mortgaged in their favor, 
 and in this way face the situation. The 
 banks should have disappeared at the very 
 moment in which we took the Capital of 
 the Republic . . . Not one of the Congress- 
 men will doubt that as soon as the banks' 
 condition had been strengthened by closing 
 them, as soon as they had redeemed much 
 of the paper issued, they were in condition 
 to wage war against the Constituent Govern- 
 ment and they did wage it . . . I see, there- 
 fore, in the creation of this bank controlled 
 by the government, a very immediate result: 
 the death of the rest of the banks, which are 
 the sworn enemies of the Mexican people; 
 because we have seen all banks operating in 
 the Republic, not alone when they were 
 fighting the Revolution, but also when they 
 favored the landowners, enter into disastrous 
 
192 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 operations and cause the ruin of citizens in a 
 few months . . . And are we going to let 
 them stand? No, gentlemen, let us establish 
 at once in the constitution, the Bank of the 
 State, which will benefit the Nation, and which 
 above all, will prevent deals from being hatch- 
 ed by the government oflScials which might 
 be beneficial to the bankers and detrimental 
 to the Nation. (Applause.) " (Diario de los 
 Debates, Vol. II, pp. 372, 373). 
 
 Upon such arguments rested the provisions 
 of Article 28 of the Constitution of Queretaro 
 upon authorizing "the issuing of notes by a 
 single bank, to be controlled by the Federal 
 Government. " 
 
 And the organization of the "Banco Unico" 
 as provided for in the Carrancista constitution, 
 was outlined in the draft submitted more 
 than two years ago by the Executive of the 
 Federal Congress and which later on had to be 
 withdrawn. 
 
 The truth of the matter is that such a bank 
 does not exist because the Government has 
 not the money to establish it; because the 
 Government has not the credit necessary to 
 make its stock marketable; because the 
 Government, which has issued and repudiated 
 more than a billion pesos in paper money. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 193 
 
 will feel no scruples against once more up- 
 holding such questionable ethics, once the 
 "Banco Unico de Emision" shall have been 
 launched. 
 
 If a constructive spirit had prompted the 
 conception of this idea, the best use would 
 have been made of the money, assets and 
 credits of the existing banks so as to re- 
 organize the banking system in the Mexican 
 Republic under a well thought-out plan in 
 accordance with the teachings of the science 
 of political economy, free from all passion and 
 rapacity; those institutions would not have 
 been destroyed before their successors had 
 been created. 
 
 But, in this as in almost all other matters, 
 the military caste in control of the Mexican 
 Government has been inspired only by hatred 
 and rapacity and eagerness for destruction. 
 
 It is now more than three years since the 
 country has had paper circulation; for three 
 years it has existed with only metallic circu- 
 lation; the former alone represented in bank- 
 notes $227,555,799 . 75 up to the 31st of March, 
 1915, and the latter, undoubtedly for the 
 same period, was not less than 80 per cent of 
 that figure. 
 
 Now, however, all the transactions^of this 
 
194 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 extensive country with fifteen million in- 
 habitants can be carried on only with coined 
 money, the stock of which hardly reaches a 
 hundred millions of pesos; money is not to be 
 had for the initiation of new enterprises, nor 
 even to further the continuance or mainten- 
 ance of those already existing; the rate of 
 interest rises to two, three, and even six per 
 cent, per month on good collateral securities; 
 personal credit has ceased to exist and anaemia 
 aflPects to a super-acute degree the social body. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Democracy is not in itself an end; its 
 objective is not that all men should participate 
 in public matters; it proclaims the co-operation 
 of the greatest number, as the most eflFective 
 means of procuring the common welfare with 
 the maximum of intensity and inclusiveness. 
 
 Now, then, any one not able to understand 
 party platforms although thefee may be the 
 very simplest and most elementary in their 
 conception; any one not able to form a judg- 
 ment upon the fitne^ of the men who would 
 carry out those platforms, neither has he any 
 interest in public matters nor would his 
 participation in them contribute anything to 
 the social welfare. 
 
 In the realm of democracy, if the object of 
 the institutions is taken into consideration, 
 it is necessary for man to be capable of judging — 
 even though his judgment does not reach 
 remote causes — in order that he may deserve 
 to collaborate in the management of the 
 political aflfairs of his country. 
 
 Public opinion keeps up the vigor of demo- 
 
196 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 cratic proceedings because it expresses itself 
 periodically by means of the elections, showing 
 the presence or lack of confidence in the men to 
 whom it has delegated the exercise of sover- 
 eignty; but more, very much more, than by 
 this intermittent action, public opinion repre- 
 sents the soul of democracy by its constant 
 and uninterrupted vigilance over the conduct 
 of the oflScials, now enlightening them, now 
 approving public management, now censuring 
 it according as it satisfies the aims, aspirations 
 and needs of the nation or fails to do so. 
 
 When public opinion does not express itself 
 in the elections, but more than that when it 
 fails to make its voice heard at all times with 
 relation to every important act of the adminis- 
 tration, the interchange of ideas between 
 the people and their representatives insensibly 
 diminishes; the ties of dependence and re- 
 sponsibility relax by degrees, and, if the 
 silence is prolonged, the government comes 
 to feel independent, irresponsible, infallible, 
 omnipotent. 
 
 Democracy then becomes a chimera; auto- 
 cracy, clad in false garments, is the reality; 
 the government is the master, not the servant; 
 it makes the elections, instead of the elections 
 making it. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 197 
 
 The formula of the poHtical equation for 
 obtaining a representative government, the 
 only stable and at the same time progressive 
 one, is very simple : suffrage must be co-extensive 
 with judgment, in the same way that action is 
 co-relative with the force which moves it. 
 
 Suffrage restricted to the portion of the 
 population able to read and write, regardless 
 of social class or race would, therefore, have 
 been the true solution for the problems of 
 the incipient Mexican democracy. 
 
 The electoral machine placed in the hands 
 best prepared to utilize it fitly in the work of 
 social welfare; the civic weapon handed to an 
 active citizen for supporting within the govern- 
 ment its convictions; the creation of an open 
 mesocracy conscious of its strength, jealous 
 of its political rights, assiduous in the exercise 
 of these; grouping the aims directing national 
 poUcy into organized parties with leaders who 
 should be their representatives and not their 
 bosses; strife within the institutions so as to 
 carry through those aims in place of armed 
 strife against the institutions themselves; 
 the influence of the parties, gradually ex- 
 pansive, over the unlearned classes, aimed 
 always at increasing the forces in action; 
 and, consequently, the interest of the political 
 
198 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 parties to push national education forward; in 
 one word, potential democracy, restricted in 
 number, though entirely open to indefinite 
 growth, to the incorporation of new collabora- 
 tors; such would have been the development 
 of the Mexican nation, if, in the matter of 
 suffrage, the institutions had responded to 
 reality. 
 
 But our constituents of 1857 embroidered 
 Utopian dreams. From man as a social unit 
 they passed to man as a political unit, from 
 the undeniable right of living within the in- 
 stitutions they deduced in favor of the individ- 
 ual the privilege of governing himself; from 
 equality as a condition for individual progress, 
 they rushed even to considering that progress 
 realized; and, imitating the example of other 
 countries of a superior homogeneous culture, 
 of an aptitude already well experimented with 
 in their own government, they proclaimed 
 universal suffrage, and, what is worse, compli- 
 cated it with the indirect ballot. 
 
 The result of this error has been transcen- 
 dental; its effects were seen from the very 
 moment that, the period of French inter- 
 vention having terminated and the Empire of 
 Maximilian having fallen, the republican 
 system again operated in principle throughout 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 199 
 
 the country. 
 
 The masses did not rush to the polls, the 
 educated minority went to them; but the 
 government, with all the civil and military 
 personnel at its service, assisted by the local 
 authorities, using the resources and the organi- 
 zation of the administrative machine and 
 taking the greatest possible advantage of the 
 waste of strength involved by the indirect 
 ballot, dominated in the ballot boxes, at the 
 polls, and in the electoral colleges, and the 
 independent party would infallibly lose the 
 elections. Dictatorship or revolution were 
 the only alternatives. Such has been our 
 history. 
 
 Parallel with a rational conception of 
 suflFrage, freedom of speech and of the press 
 is indispensable. The constituents of 1857 
 considered that liberty well guaranteed by 
 means of trial by jury against any offenses 
 of the press; but the policy of the Diaz 
 faction suppressed it during the administration 
 of General Gonzalez, and since then the press 
 stopped being the free organ of public opinion, 
 and as a result, this opinion was no longer 
 able to give strength or support to honest and 
 fit oflScials nor could it be a check to incompet- 
 ency or corruptness. 
 
200 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Is it possible to cite in favor of the Constitu- 
 tion of Queretaro adequate reforms relative 
 to this matter? 
 
 In the Mexican nation there are funda- 
 mentally two classes incapable of forming 
 judgments upon public affairs, because they 
 are lacking in knowledge as well as in interest : 
 those who have not yet learned the Spanish 
 language and those who are illiterate. 
 
 Neither the one nor the other lives our 
 civilized life; neither the one nor the other 
 imderstands its workings, the intimate and 
 intricate individual social relations, and the 
 rights and duties of a citizen, of the public 
 power, and its agents. If a pure democracy 
 were possible in modern commonwealths in- 
 stead of a representative one, would the 
 adherents of universal suffrage consent to 
 having this enormous mass of ignorant people 
 dictate the constitution, draw up the laws, 
 manage the public treasury, outline the course 
 of our agricultural, industrial and commercial 
 development and formulate the canons of 
 our public and private morals? 
 
 Any one who proposed so glaring an absurd- 
 ity would be thought stupid and senseless. 
 
 Now the electoral prerogative is nothing 
 but a substitute for the direct exercise of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 201 
 
 sovereignty. In the sphere of principles, 
 it is identical; as a matter of fact, although at 
 first thought the elections seem to simplify 
 the process, they do not, for voters must of 
 necessity consider party platforms. 
 
 To leave to the individual and uninfluenced 
 judgment of the masses that selection, is not 
 feasible. In the great democracies composed 
 of civilized men, such a system is not in 
 practice, but rather the vote is organized by 
 means of parties. 
 
 But the existence of parties implies pro- 
 grams of government and well-defined policies, 
 so that through the election of representatives 
 we again face the same question relating to 
 the direct exercise of sovereignty. 
 
 Political parties, when they work with 
 intelligent masses, seek to appeal to reason. 
 When they work with unintelligent masses, 
 they do not seek to convince. It is to their 
 interest to incite passions; demagogy then 
 takes the field. 
 
 In view of the fact that at the time the 
 Carrancista faction announced its intention 
 to reform the Constitution of 1857 it gave as 
 a reason the necessity of making its precepts 
 practical and feasible, it should have required 
 as a first condition for the exercise of citizen- 
 
202 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 ship a knowledge of the national language 
 and the ability to read and write. 
 
 Carranza well knew that without such a 
 restriction, the germs of demagogy or those 
 of dictatorship, nourished by clericalism, would 
 have continued to be cultivated in Mexico 
 under the cloak of democracy; but in this 
 instance, as in all similar instances, during 
 his revolutionary period, it was not patriotic 
 fervor which guided Carranza; it was not the 
 sincere and firm determination to solve once 
 and for all the eternal problems originating 
 in the antithesis between nominalism and 
 realism of institutions, but, rather, to attract 
 to himself the roused populace and insure his 
 next election even though it were by ignoble 
 tricks and misrepresentations. 
 
 Carranza acknowledged that "suflFrage, be- 
 ing a function essentially collective, inasmuch 
 as it is the indispensable condition for the 
 exercise of sovereignty, should be granted to 
 all the members of the body social who may 
 understand the interest and the value of that 
 most lofty function. 
 
 "We would, therefore, be justified in con- 
 cluding that the electoral privilege should be 
 granted only to those individuals who may 
 have full consciousness of its lofty end. This 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 203 
 
 would, naturally, exclude all those who by 
 their ignorance, their carelessness, or in- 
 diflFerence, are incapable of discharging this 
 duty worthily, co-operating in a spontaneous 
 and eflScient manner with the government of 
 the people, by the people." (Exposition of 
 Motives, joined to the project of the Consti- 
 tution). 
 
 But the same First Chief declared that "as 
 it is the ignorant classes who have suffered 
 most because cruel despotism and insatiable 
 exploitation in all their violence have weighed 
 upon them particularly, it would be, I shall 
 not say a simple inconsequence, but an un- 
 pardonable fraud, to take away from them 
 today what they have gained previously. 
 
 "The government under my charge, there- 
 fore, considers that it would be impolitic and 
 inopportune at this moment after a great 
 popular revolution, to restrict the suffrage, 
 exacting for it the one condition which can 
 rationally be required, that is, that all citizens 
 have a sufficient elementary education to 
 recognize the importance of the right to vote 
 and discharge it under conditions fruitful to 
 society. " (Ibidem) . 
 
 And the Reporting Committee in the 
 Assembly of Queretaro, not wishing to fall 
 
204 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 behind, asserted that "The defense of the 
 principle of the restriction of suffrage is very 
 wisely made in the report of the First Chief. 
 The moral qualities of the ethnical groups 
 dominating the country by their numbers, 
 justifies the theory of restricted suffrage; 
 but political reasons prevent this doctrine 
 from being put into practice at the present 
 time." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, 
 p. 559). 
 
 In this way did the Assembly of Queretaro 
 with opportunist politics allow imiversal suf- 
 frage to stand and with it the seed of autocracy 
 alternating with demagogy. 
 
 However, it is but just to state in its favor, 
 that the Constitution of Queretaro, besides 
 endorsing the system of direct suffrage sanc- 
 tioned since 1912, declares that this prerog- 
 ative shall be taken away from any remiss or 
 neghgent citizen who does not fulfill his civic 
 duties such as reporting to the census office, 
 registering at the polls, enrolling in the 
 National Guard, casting his ballot, discharg- 
 ing his electoral duties and serving on juries. 
 
 This innovation, uncensurable in its motives, 
 may be of transcendental good in the future; 
 for if there should be enacted statutes to 
 provide that the suspension of the suffrage 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 205 
 
 prerogative must continue automatically after 
 the first year referred to by the constitution, 
 so long as the citizen continues at fault or 
 does not seek restoration of his political 
 prerogatives, the end would be that all those 
 who lacked the will or knowledge to reap the 
 benefit of so valuable a prerogative would be 
 eliminated. 
 
 Concerning what refers to liberty of the 
 press, the debates in the Assembly of Quere- 
 taro showed only a spirit of caste. 
 
 TMien the Reporting Committee proposed 
 an its draft of Article 7 the re-establishment 
 of trial by jury for offenses by the press, the 
 radicals opposed it according to the words of 
 Congressman Calderon, because trial by jury 
 was a "privilege in favor not of the liberal 
 newspaper man, but rather of the enemies of 
 tlie Revolution. The liberal journalist can 
 always count in his favor on the influence of 
 his political party, on the power of the liberal 
 press, and on the writ of "amparo" in order 
 to be successful in any process. 
 
 "The useless special jurisdiction of which I 
 speak, is sought only by the reactionaries to 
 assure the impunity of press offenses. The 
 jury, in an environment loyal (hostile?) to 
 constitutionalism, as is the general environ- 
 
206 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 ment, is incapable of rendering justice; if it 
 did, it would be stoned to death by the excit- 
 able multitude injBuenced by the opposition 
 press, as has already happened. The per- 
 verse journalists, who would form a legion for 
 the aid of this same jury in order to be 
 acquitted, would take advantage of the enor- 
 mous moral pressure which can weight down 
 the jury." (Diario de los Debates, Vol. I, 
 pp. 582-3). 
 
 The Assembly finally defeated that part of 
 Article 7 by the overwhelming majority of 
 101 votes. 
 
 When trial by jury again came up for 
 discussion with the draft of Section VI, 
 Article 20, Marchoro Narvaez summarized 
 the same oppressive standard in the following 
 words: "The present revolution is not yet 
 popular in Mexico, The majority of the 
 people are still against the revolution; the 
 higher classes, the middle classes to a great 
 extent, and the old intellectual class, are 
 against the revolution; the working classes 
 of a certain kind, private employees, those who 
 make up the principal part of the middle 
 class are against the revolution; we are still in 
 the minority, . . . " " . . .Now, six 
 months after the establishment of the consti- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 207 
 
 tutionalist regime, there will be many re- 
 actionary newspapers, enemies of the consti- 
 tutionalist cause. ...""... And 
 then we shall have no way of repressing them, 
 why? Because the jury will come from 
 those same classes, from those same readers, 
 enemies, reactionaries. From there the jury 
 will be drawn." "... And if any 
 newspaper men come to ask for guaran- 
 tees, I shall tell them, *wait, journalists, wait, 
 you are not now in the hands of enemies, no 
 one will judge you, no one will censure you. 
 If at some time your efforts are needed to 
 save liberty, do not then come to ask for 
 guarantees; come to offer yourselves as vic- 
 tims, just as the soldier who goes to campaign 
 does not ask to be given a cuirass and to be 
 protected behind a wall; so you, do not ask 
 for the jury, because now it would be a guaranty 
 only for your very enemies.^' (Ibidem, Vol. 
 II, pp. 71, 72). 
 
 If the Assembly finally approved the estab- 
 lishment of the jury system by the scant 
 majority of eighty-four to seventy votes, it 
 was merely because it found no other way of 
 assuring liberty of the press to their political 
 colleagues while at the same time denying it 
 to the opponents of the Carrancista revolution. 
 
208 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 After what we have quoted in preceding 
 lines, it will seem strange to no one that the 
 exercise of the vote as well as the freedom of 
 the press should have been and continue to 
 be a privilege of the Carrancista caste to the 
 exclusion of all other social classes. 
 
 In the elections for the Presidency, the 
 Federal Congress, Governorships and State 
 Legislatures, no candidates except those of 
 Carrancista affiliations have been allowed to 
 figure nor have any independent political 
 parties been permitted to organize. 
 
 There has been rivalry at the polls, but it 
 has always been among members of the same 
 caste. Frequently, this rivalry has moved the 
 crowds to riot and brought about the simultan- 
 eous installation of two legislatures and two 
 governors for a single state, as in the case of 
 Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Tabasco, and San Luis 
 Potosi. Or again it resulted in impudent 
 mockery of the will of the majority as happen- 
 ed in Nuevo Leon, or in the armed rebellion 
 of one of the contestants, as in Tamaulipas. 
 
 In the City of Mexico, independent news- 
 papers have appeared; but with one or two 
 exceptions, they have had to protect them- 
 selves with a staflF of ex-revolutionary men, 
 and not even this has been of any avail, for 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 209 
 
 their editors have been victims of outrage. 
 Some newspaper men have been imprisoned 
 by order of the Department of the Interior or 
 the military authorities without form or 
 semblance of a trial. 
 
 In the states, independent writers have noit 
 enjoyed, nor do they now enjoy, any guaran- 
 tees. Their liberty and persons are at the 
 mercy of the Governors and of the MiUtary 
 Commanders and heads of garrisons. 
 
 Thus, therefore, the Federal Government 
 and that of the States is a government by a 
 caste and not by the people; public opinion 
 exerts no influence whatsoever upon the 
 administration, which, concerned only with 
 the enrichment of its own members, pays 
 absolutely no attention to the interests of 
 the nation. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The so-called Congress of Queretaro was 
 just as obstinate in not providing for institu- 
 tions which should openly give to the country 
 a government by public opinion, the only 
 dowry of progressive stability, as it was lax 
 in sanctioning a constitutional dictatorship, 
 now granting judicial attributes to the execu- 
 tive, now increasing his legislative and co- 
 legislative powers, or taking liberty of action 
 from the Federal Congress, 
 
 In other chapters I have pointed out the 
 series of dangerous prerogatives which Article 
 27 confers upon the President of the Republic 
 and, in certain cases, upon the Governors of 
 the states in matters which directly affect 
 private property. 
 
 Not less contrary to law is the provision 
 of Article 21 which refers to the imposition of 
 fines. 
 
 The Constitution of 1857 limited the power 
 of the administration to impose disciplinary 
 fines to the amount of five hundred pesos , 
 according to the terms established by law. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 211 
 
 The Constitution of 1917 fixes a maximum 
 fine equivalent to one week's wages in favor 
 of the journeyman or day-laborer; for all 
 others, there is no limit whatever, and, what 
 is worse, the amount of the fine is entirely 
 at the discretion of the administrative author- 
 ity, for it does not require that the maximum 
 amount be fixed by law. 
 
 The Constitution of 1857 condemned the 
 confiscation of property which, historically, 
 has always been the instrument of personal 
 vengeance or covetous plunder since the time 
 of Marius and Sulla. The Constitution of 
 1917 explicitly declares that the application 
 of the entire property of one person in payment 
 of fines is not confiscation. 
 
 An explanation of these amendments hav- 
 ing been requested by a member of the 
 Congress of Queretaro, the Reporting Com- 
 mittee replied: "To fix a limit to those penal- 
 ties, both pecuniary and corporal, is assuredly 
 to bring about a result contrary to that sought 
 by the Committee and which, undoubtedly, 
 is not the one desired by this honorable 
 Committee; because if the pecuniary penalty 
 is limited, then we shall find that the ad- 
 ministrative authorities will continue to im- 
 pose upon the rich the same fine as upon the 
 
212 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 poor, upon all that social class which is 
 divided only into two parts, the poor and the 
 rich, because the middle class is but the poor 
 class characterized by its learning and for 
 that reason is not truly poor nor is it as 
 ignorant as the moneyed class thinks it." 
 (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, p. 111). 
 
 But the foregoing is nothing compared to 
 the changes which the Constitution of Quere- 
 taro introduced with a view to making a 
 veritable constitutional dictator of the Presi- 
 dent of the Republic. 
 
 It authorized but one annual session of 
 the Federal Congress (Art. 65), while in the 
 former constitution there was provision for 
 two; it provided that in case of disagree- 
 ment between the two houses upon the pre- 
 mature adjournment of its sessions, it would 
 rest with the executive to settle the dispute 
 (Art. 66); it deprived, not only both houses 
 of Congress but also the permanent committee, 
 of the prerogative conferred upon it by the 
 Constitution of 1857 to call special session, 
 vesting the President of the Republic ex- 
 clusively with this prerogative, and it forbade 
 the congress in such extra sessions to consider 
 any matters but those specified in the Presi- 
 dential letter of convocation. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 213 
 
 It amplified the co-legislative prerogatives 
 of the executive requiring that in order to 
 pass a law over his vote, a two-thirds majority 
 vote of the members of each house would be 
 necessary. (Art. 72, paragraph c). 
 
 It demanded a two-thirds vote of the senate 
 to declare high federal officials guilty of 
 official offenses. (Art. 110). 
 
 It repealed the provisions of the old Consti- 
 tution which made the President of the 
 Republic liable to impeachment for grave 
 violations of the Constitution, as well as for 
 encroachments upon electoral liberty, and 
 thus granted him immunity from such offenses. 
 (Art. 108). 
 
 The Assembly of Queretaro went even 
 further : it conferred upon the then First Chief 
 the power to enact laws governing the next 
 elections for president and federal congress 
 with the deliberate purpose and result of 
 excluding from voting or being elected all 
 those who had not given proof of their 
 Carrancista affiliation. (Art. 9 transitory). 
 
 And, finally, in transitory Article 15, it 
 authorized the President of the Republic to 
 enact a law defining liability for political 
 crimes committed previously, thus including 
 the acts which gave origin to the government 
 
214 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 of Huerta, those supporting that government 
 and the successive secessions experienced 
 by the Carrancista faction from its beginning 
 up to the date of the new Constitution. A 
 baneful law, not only because it vested the 
 above mentioned arbitrary power exclusively 
 in one man, but because of its hideous retro- 
 activity begotten in rancor! 
 
 Attempting to somewhat justify such con- 
 centration of power in the hands of the 
 executive, the First Chief in his "Exposicion 
 de Motivos" said: "Nor has the other 
 fundamental principle established by the 
 Constitution of 1857 relative to a division of 
 the exercise of public power been carried out 
 and consequently it has been valueless. Such 
 a division, generally speaking, has been merely 
 written in the law; it has never been made 
 eflFective, for as a matter of fact all powers 
 have been exercised by one person alone, 
 to such a degree that by a series of constantly 
 repeated acts contempt has been shown for the 
 supreme law, for, without the least scruple, 
 there has been given to the Chief Executive the 
 power of legislating upon all matters. And 
 thus the functions of the legislative branch 
 of the administration were confined in the 
 past merely to delegating power to the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 215 
 
 Executive and approving all acts performed 
 by him in virtue of said power, there having 
 been no record leading to the belief that the 
 Congress would disavow or even take excep- 
 tion to any act of the Executive. (Diario de 
 los Debates, Vol. I, p. 261). 
 
 The report of the Committee accepted the 
 theories advanced by the First Chief in the 
 following terms: 
 
 "The second committee had left in abey- 
 ance the presentation of the report upon 
 Article 49 because the said article made a 
 reference to the 29th, which should first be 
 approved in order that the said article 49 
 might be considered in its entirety. As 
 Article 29 has already been approved, the 
 Committee will now proceed to report upon 
 the referred-to Article 49. 
 
 "This article treats of the division of 
 power, following the theory that the exercise 
 of sovereignty is performed by the people 
 through three powers which are equal among 
 themselves as organs of the same sovereignty 
 — ^that of the people. 
 
 "This theory of the three powers is essential 
 in our political system: it is the pivot upon 
 which rest all our institutions from merely the 
 
216 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 constitutional point of view. 
 
 "The same reasons, well known to all, 
 which for centuries have been given for the 
 division of the said powers, imply the most 
 absolute prohibition of the concentration of two 
 of them in a single "person. The process of 
 deliberation, discussion, and representation of 
 the various interests of a country in the prepara- 
 tion of its laws, presupposes a group of repre- 
 sentatives to exercise the legislative power, 
 and necessarily prohibits such power from 
 being vested in one individual. 
 
 "The last two rules have one exception, 
 which applies to cases considered in Article 
 29, an article which gives to the Executive 
 the power of issuing a decree for the establish- 
 ment of a special penalty or else for the estab- 
 lishment of tribunals, also special, and to 
 proceed according to the demands of the 
 abnormal situations referred to in the said 
 article; in this case also, that of the Article 
 29, the special tribunals referred to may also 
 be formed for the very prompt and speedy 
 application of the law by authorities auxiliary 
 to the Executive power. And in all these 
 cases, by force of circumstances, two powers 
 are united in the personnel of one power, 
 though subject to the strict terms of Article 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 217 
 
 29, to the supervision of the Permanent 
 Committee and lasting for a Hmited time. 
 But the mere possibility that such a necessity 
 may arise, is enough to merit the exception to 
 the general principle formerly established. 
 
 "In view of the foregoing, the committee 
 proposes to the honorable Assembly the 
 approval of Article 49 in the following terms: 
 
 "Article 49. The supreme power of the 
 federation is divided for its exercise into the 
 Legislative, Executive and Judicial. 
 
 "Two or more of those powers shall not be 
 concentrated in one person alone nor in one 
 body, nor shall the Legislative power be 
 intrusted to one individual except in the case 
 of extraordinary powers given to the Executive 
 of the Union in accordance with the provisions 
 of Article 29." 
 
 The debate took the same course as is 
 shown by the following quotations: 
 
 "Congressman Fajardo: I believe, fellow 
 congressmen, that the Congress, that is, 
 the members of the Congress, do not bring to 
 it the power of delegating its mandate, or, in 
 other words, of being able to hand over its 
 functions to the Executive Power, whatever 
 may be the circumstances which may present 
 themselves. 
 
218 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 "They may allow the Executive certain 
 liberties, they may give him extraordinary 
 powers, but it cannot be permitted, consti- 
 tutionally speaking, that the Executive be 
 enabled to assume the two powers, and it is 
 a well known fact that there is a division 
 between the powers; that is, that there is one 
 power that legislates and one which executes. 
 
 "If we could conceive the Legislative 
 power and the Executive in a single person, 
 it would be the same as sanctioning in the 
 constitution a dictatorship, and that has not 
 been in the mind of any one of us; at any 
 rate, I believe it and for that reason I have 
 taken the floor, just to say in a clear way that 
 I am not in favor of Article 49 and that I 
 shall vote against it, because it states that 
 the Legislative power may be vested in the 
 Executive; I do not favor it even in the extra- 
 ordinary cases mentioned in Article 29. 
 
 Congressman Machorro Narvaez (member 
 of the Commission): . . . "Article 49 
 is nothing but the logical result of Article 
 29." 
 
 "Now let us see whether in the case of 
 Article 29, already approved, any circum- 
 stance can present itself as an argument for 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 219 
 
 uniting in one person two powers. Article 29 
 says that the president with the approval of 
 the Congress of the Union, or during its 
 recesses, with the approval of the Permanent 
 Committees, may suspend throughout the 
 country or in a given place, the guaranties 
 which might be obstacles in the way of 
 meeting a situation quickly and easily, etc., 
 and it might happen that the general preven- 
 tions to which the quoted article refers might 
 consist in legislative measures. In order that 
 it might not be argued in such a case that the 
 rulings made by the president were null 
 because he was not authorized to make them 
 since they did not belong to him on account of 
 being attributes of the Legislative power, the 
 exception is made that in that case he may 
 also dictate general measures of a legislative 
 nature,'' (Diario de los Debates, Vol. II, 
 pp. 343, 344 and following). 
 
 Judging from such explicit utterances, and 
 though possibly at the cost of other preroga- 
 tives, of the Federal Congress, it at least 
 seemed that the basic principle of the division 
 of powers was victorious and the corrupt 
 practice of delegating legislative powers to 
 the president appeared abolished since no 
 other exception was made save in the case of 
 
220 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 a suspension of guarantees because of serious 
 national peril threatening from within or 
 without. 
 
 Nothing could be more deceiving! A week 
 after the houses of Congress had been elected, 
 Carranza obtained from them the decree of 
 May 8th, 1917, which delegated to him ample 
 powers for legislating in the department of 
 finance, with the aggravating circumstance 
 that no basis was fixed nor was a time limit 
 placed for their exercise. 
 
 For two years has Carranza been issuing 
 decrees relative to import and export, stamp 
 tax, direct and indirect contributions, and, in 
 general, upon all kinds of taxes. 
 
 Not satisfied with this, he has invaded the 
 field of civil and mercantile legislation, not 
 included in the extraordinary powers, dictating 
 the laws of moratorium and those relative to 
 the liquidation of banks of issue and commer- 
 cial banks. 
 
 And in the way of usurpations, he has not 
 hesitated to legislate concerning the owner- 
 ship of petroleum and similar products, de- 
 termining the manner of acquiring, exploiting 
 or forfeiting them, in spite of the fact that said 
 products should, in accordance with Article 
 27 of the same Constitution of Queretaro, 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 221 
 
 have been the object of special organic laws. 
 
 Many of these decrees have had an ephem- 
 ereal life; some have been enforced before 
 becoming known throughout the republic by 
 publication in the oflScial papers; others have 
 been revoked before they went into effect, 
 and not a few have had as their object the 
 favoring of some personage or other of the 
 administration, or have served as an instru- 
 ment of coaction for the benefit of the favorites 
 of Carranza who would obtain shameful 
 gratuities as a price for final repeal. 
 
 The use of these extraordinary powers 
 has been so infamous, expensive, and immoral, 
 that, finally, the Chamber of Deputies, now 
 estranged from Carranza through the 
 approaching presidential elections, proposed 
 last October that those powers be abrogated. 
 
 The Department of the Interior then turned 
 to the cabinet minority and during various 
 consecutive sessions succeeded in getting the 
 said majority, in open violation of the express 
 regulations of Congress, to absent itself from 
 the sessions with a view to breaking the 
 quorum each time the said law was to be 
 voted upon. 
 
 The ofllcial declaration of the Secretary 
 of the Interior says thus: 
 
222 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 "To break a quorum when the minority 
 knows beforehand that its arguments will be 
 ignored, is a legitimate resort, because the 
 resolutions of the Assemblies should not 
 indicate the exclusive preponderance of 
 number as number, but as the rational sum of 
 convictions derived from study, "(sic). 
 "The democratic conception of majorities, 
 far from depending upon blind domination, 
 is founded upon the predominance of the 
 minds which have discerned the pro and con of 
 a question, and subject only to this logical and 
 rational standard the minority is bound to 
 submit to the resolution of the majority. Other- 
 wise, the progress of civilization would be 
 checked and fall into the primitive state 
 where sheer force rules. If the matter under 
 discussion is a simple defense within the same 
 judgment, the minority exercises its right, 
 its action becomes patriotic, highly moral 
 and life-saving when it discusses such a 
 theme as extraordinary powers in finance, 
 vital to the country." ("El Universal," 
 Mexico, Oct. 16, 1919). 
 
 General Pablo Gonzalez — Carranza's right- 
 hand-man — whose duties are exclusively those 
 of a leader in command of forces, when 
 interviewed, declared to the reporter of "Ex- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 223 
 
 celsior" (a conservative newspaper of Mexico 
 City) that in case the conflict between the 
 minority and the majority should assume 
 dangerous proportions, "he would order the 
 doors of the Chamber of Deputies to be 
 closed." (Edition of the 22nd of Oct, 1919). 
 It is true that the speaker, frightened by his 
 own words retracted them the following day, 
 but his letter of rectification, signed by him 
 and published in the metropolitan papers of 
 the 24th of October, accuses him instead of 
 absolving him. 
 
 Carranza has not yet made use of the 
 power given to him by the Constitution of 
 Queretaro to fix the responsibilities of, and 
 the penalties to be imposed on, supporters of 
 former administrations or factions hostile 
 to the Carrancistas, but this negligence has 
 been through calculation and not through 
 benevolence or magnanimity. 
 
 Under the pretext that the said law has 
 not yet been formulated, the government 
 holds in exile thousands of individuals, whose 
 only crime is that of not agreeing with 
 Carrancista ideas, and before permitting the 
 return of this or that person, it exacts from 
 him the solemn promise that he will not interfere 
 in politics. 
 
224 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Under the same pretext, the government 
 continues in the illegal possession of the 
 property of the exiles, although no law nor 
 any judicial authority whatsoever has sanc- 
 tioned the occupation. 
 
 Bolshevik, therefore, is the Carrancista 
 constitution, Bolshevik is the Carrancista 
 government, because they are the constitution 
 and government of a caste — the armed caste 
 of the lowest social order — without any nation- 
 al constructive inspiration, dominated by an 
 appetite and a thirst for riches for its own 
 members and by a hatred or contempt for 
 all others. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Thinking Americans frequently have ask- 
 ed how it is possible that the constitution and 
 the Bolshevik government which have oppres- 
 sed the Mexican people during the last few 
 years could be imposed upon fifteen million in- 
 habitants by a handful of adventurers. 
 
 It is not an extraordinary occurrence in the 
 United States for two bandits, revolvers in 
 hand, to hold up a train, rob the express, 
 oblige several hundred passengers to throw up 
 their hands, and strip them of their money 
 and valuables without meeting any resistance 
 from the victims. Such, on a large scale, is 
 the case of Mexico. 
 
 But, comes the reply, in train hold-ups the 
 passengers are taken by surprise, they either 
 have no arms or no opportunity to use them, 
 and when the choice comes between life and 
 property they prefer to give up the latter. 
 In Mexico, on the contrary, it may be said 
 that the people have now for five long years 
 submitted to oppression and have had suffici- 
 ent time to recover from the surprise and arm 
 themselves. 
 
226 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Time, yes; but not opportunity. During 
 that long term of five years, outside of the 
 United States, there has been no country from 
 which a supply of arms and munitions could 
 be obtained. The proclamations of the 
 American Government purported to maintain 
 the neutrality of the country. However, 
 they have resulted in arming to the teeth the 
 Carrancista caste and leaving the rest of the 
 Mexican people helpless. 
 
 The erroneous conception which the head 
 of the American Government has had of 
 the Mexican problems, and the still more 
 erroneous idea that the said problems could 
 be solved by means of intervention, have 
 contributed to this strange and inexplicable 
 state of aflFairs. 
 
 General discontent and a spirit of revolt 
 throughout the country at the beginning of 
 1913 gave warning that the Madero regime, 
 lacking prestige, unfaithful to its principles, 
 and undermined by anarchy within was about 
 to fall, because the governing class had 
 opened a gulf between itself and the governed. 
 
 Neither the revolt of Tacubaya nor the 
 treachery of Huerta to the Madero govern- 
 ment was the direct cause of this collapse; 
 they merely hastened it. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 227 
 
 The American Government was well in- 
 formed of the above facts through the letters 
 and telegrams of its ambassador, Henry Lane 
 Wilson, which were published in part during 
 the months of August and September, 1916. 
 In his correspondence the ambassador made it 
 plain that political and economic conditions 
 in Mexico were day by day changing from bad 
 to worse, for which reason American battle- 
 ships were sent to ports on the Gulf of Mexico, 
 notably Vera Cruz. He further reported that 
 during the ten days of strife in the city of 
 Mexico resulting from the Revolt of Tacubaya, 
 the Diplomatic Corps had met and decided 
 that, for the sake of peace, the resignation of 
 President Madero should be requested, his 
 government being hopeless; that the Spanish 
 Minister had been appointed to approach 
 Madero and endeavor to convince him of 
 the desirability of his resignation and that 
 of the Vice-President; that when Huerta put 
 both ojfficials in prison, he, the American 
 Ambassador, had invited Huerta and Felix 
 Diaz, chief of the rebels, to meet with him in 
 the Embassy building, for the purpose of 
 agreeing upon a plan for the organization of a 
 "provisional government to take charge of the 
 situation, and in a short time issue a call for 
 
228 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 presidential elections with a view to return- 
 ing to a normal elective government, as other- 
 wise the American Government would con- 
 sider itself compelled to take drastic measures. 
 Mr. Wilson also stated that Huerta and Diaz 
 had agreed that the former, with the sanction 
 of the Federal Congress and in the manner pro- 
 vided by the Constitution, would assume the 
 provisional presidency, would undertake the 
 immediate pacification of the country, and 
 would issue a call for presidential elections. 
 As there was no confidence that Huerta would 
 keep his word, a group of independent men, 
 none of whom were followers of Huerta, nor 
 even sympathizers of his, was appointed to 
 form his cabinet. 
 
 The American Ambassador gave his promise 
 that if the provisional government were 
 organized in the agreed form, it would obtain 
 the recognition of the United States. 
 
 President Madero and Vice-President Suarez 
 presented their resignations which, in ac- 
 cordance with the provisions of the Constitu- 
 tion, were accepted almost unanimously, 
 there being only five votes against it, 
 and it is worthy of note that the majority 
 of the members of the said body were 
 Maderistas. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 229 
 
 The Secretary of Foreign Relations, also 
 following the form fixed by the Constitution, 
 assumed the duties of First Magistrate, ap- 
 pointed Huerta as Secretary of the Interior 
 and then presented his own resignation. This 
 resignation having been likewise accepted by 
 Congress, Huerta took his oath as Provisional 
 President before the said Assembly and with 
 its sanction. 
 
 Intellectual people, as well as the genuine 
 concensus of opinion, looked with favor upon 
 the new order of things, for the nation was 
 surfeited with anarchy and unrest and felt 
 confident that with the cabinet chosen, the 
 government would be able to restore tranquil- 
 ity, it being understood that a call for new 
 elections would be issued. 
 
 The Supreme Court of Justice recognized 
 the constitutionality of the new government; 
 all the states of the republic, with the excep- 
 tion of Sonora and Coahuila, the governors of 
 which rose in arms, proclaimed their loyalty 
 to it. 
 
 As far as Sonora is concerned, however, it 
 is well to quote the following significant words 
 pronounced at the Carrancista convention in 
 Mexico on the 5th of October, 1914, by Alvaro 
 
230 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Obregon, the most widely known of the Sonora 
 rebels : " Our revolutionary banner says ' eon- 
 sti-tu-tion-al-ism ' and our actions affirm the 
 contrary, * an-ti-con-sti-tu-tion-al-ism. ' If, be- 
 cause we are constitutionalists, we were to 
 abide by the constitution, we should have 
 recognized Huerta, inasmuch as Congress recog- 
 nized him and we were ordered to do so. " ("El 
 Liberal," Mexico, Oct. 6, 1914.) 
 
 As to the action of the State of Coahuila, 
 its then Governor, Venustiano Carranza, ad- 
 dressed himseK officially to the Secretary of 
 the Interior of the Huerta Government mani- 
 festing his desire to submit to it. In a tele- 
 gram sent on the 25th of February, 1913, he 
 says the following: "In order to co-operate 
 in the re-establishment of peace in the Re- 
 public and relieve the delicate situation due 
 to existing relations between the Federal 
 Government and that of this state, which 
 might bring about a conflict, I take the liberty 
 of proposing a conference by telegraph on the 
 day and hour that you may assign. " 
 
 So general was this state of mind, that Luis 
 Cabrera, radical Maderista, and today Secre- 
 tary of Finance to Carranza, addressed a 
 letter from New York on the 5th of March, 
 1913, to "El Imparcial" of Mexico for publi- 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 231 
 
 tion, in which he says: "I believe that the 
 personahstic elements of the Maderista fac- 
 tion should cease in their resistance, for it is 
 a useless effort since the deaths of Francisco 
 I. Madero and Jose Maria Pino Suarez. The 
 'renovadores,'* who were never personal- 
 istic, ought, with greater reason, to accept 
 the deeds accomplished without trying to 
 improve upon them, taking the present situa- 
 tion as the point of departure for their future 
 labors within the paths of constitutionalism 
 procuring the prompt re-establishment of 
 liberties, but abstaining from action until 
 acquainted with the political programs of the 
 new men concerning the administration of 
 justice, municipal autonomy, military re- 
 cruiting, agrarian reforms, and all other new 
 ideals. " 
 
 It is not, therefore, out of the way to assert 
 that had the American Government recognized 
 Huerta as provisional president, with the 
 understanding that the election of a per- 
 manent president would take place in a very 
 short time, the revolution would have died 
 in its infancy. Then, under the combined 
 pressure and action of all the live forces of the 
 country, Huerta would have had to call elec- 
 
 *The Maderista group in Congress. 
 
232 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 tions, and law and order would have been re- 
 established in a short period. 
 
 But, upon entering the White House, the 
 new American president Woodrow Wilson, 
 adopted a radical policy opposed to that 
 warranted by circumstances; he usurped the 
 right to intervene in the domestic affairs of 
 Mexico, and resolved to try out his political 
 ideals there. 
 
 His ideals — if we are to accept literally 
 all that he has said and to ignore the devia- 
 tions shown in respect to Peru, Santo Domin- 
 go, Haiti and even Mexico — were summed 
 up in his hope of seeing the sovereignty of the 
 people realized in all the nations of the world 
 because a "just government rests always 
 upon the consent of the governed and upon 
 the public conscience and approval." (Cir- 
 cular telegram of March 12, 1913, addressed 
 by the Department of State in Washington 
 to all the Latin-American nations). By 
 "people" he understood not exactly "those 
 above," but rather the *'lower layer," for he 
 claimed that not one instance could be cited 
 "in all the history of the world where liberty 
 was handed down from above" and "liberty 
 always is attained by the forces working be- 
 low, underneath, by the great movement of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 233 
 
 the people." (Interview given by President 
 Wilson to the "Saturday Evening Post" on 
 the 23rd of May, 1914). He firmly believed 
 "that when a government proves unsuitable 
 to the life of the people under it, they have a 
 right to alter or abolish it in any way that they 
 please." (Speech of President Wilson de- 
 livered in Columbus, Ohio, on the 11th of 
 December, 1915); and the United States, 
 "the champions of free government and na- 
 tional sovereignty in both continents of this 
 hemisphere" (speech of President Wilson de- 
 livered at the Waldorf Hotel, New York, on 
 the 26th of January, 1915) "can have no 
 sympathy with those who seek to seize the 
 power of the government to advance their own 
 personal interests or ambitions." (Circular 
 telegram above cited). 
 
 And speaking more concretely of the causes 
 and origin of the Mexican problem, Wilson 
 himself adds: "The economic development 
 of Mexico has so far been accomplished by 
 such 'concessions' and by the exploitation of 
 the fertile lands of the republic by a very small 
 number of owners who have accumulated 
 under one title hundreds of thousands of 
 acres . . . and reduced the population to a 
 sort of peonage. " (Interview with President 
 
234 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 Wilson published in The Ladies Home Journal, 
 October, 1916). He further said: "No one 
 asks for order, because order will help the 
 masses of the people to get a portion of their 
 rights and of their land; but all demand it so 
 that the great owners of property, the over- 
 lords, the hidalgos, the men who have ex- 
 ploited that rich country for their own selfish 
 interests, shall be able to continue their 
 processes undisturbed." . . . (Aforementioned, 
 interview of May 23, 1914); ''eighty-five per 
 cent of the Mexican people have never been 
 allowed to have any genuine participation in 
 their own government or to esercise any sub- 
 stantial rights with regard to the very land 
 they live upon. All the rights that men most 
 desire have been exercised by the other fifteen 
 per cent.;" (Address of President Wilson de- 
 livered at Independence Hall, July 4, 1914) ; 
 those who demand order "want . . . the old 
 order; but . . . the old order is dead." Presi- 
 dent Wilson in his own words declared his 
 task to be "to aid in composing those differ- 
 ences so far as I may be able, that the new 
 order, which will have its foundation on human 
 liberty and human rights, shall prevail" and 
 "those in de facto control of the government 
 (Huerta) must be relieved of that control before 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 235 
 
 Mexico can realize her manifest destiny." 
 (Above-mentioned interview in the Saturday 
 Evening Post); "and then, when the end 
 comes, we shall hope to see constitutional 
 order restored in distressed Mexico by the 
 concert and energy of such of her leaders (the 
 Carrancistas) as prefer the liberty of their 
 people to their own ambitions." (Presidential 
 Message to the United States Congress, 
 December 2, 1913). 
 
 In the result of such a social experiment 
 President Wilson has nothing to be proud of. 
 
 He intended to have the political power of 
 Mexico vested in the will of the governed and 
 to banish forever governments depending 
 upon force; but the Carrancista faction has 
 neither admitted suffrage beyond its own 
 ranks, nor has it stood except for the 100,000 
 *'hopHtes" that devour four-fifths of all the 
 federal revenue. 
 
 President Wilson wishes to suppress the 
 oligarchy of the former governing classes and 
 transfer public affairs to the eighty per cent, 
 of laborers and illiterates; but under his 
 patronage the basest of ochlocracies, some- 
 thing less than one per cent, of the whole 
 nation, has taken possession of the govern- 
 ment to the systematic exclusion of all other 
 
236 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 social classes, educated or illiterate, rich or 
 poor. 
 
 President Wilson determined to try out 
 south of the Bravo a Utopian democracy and 
 establish it among sub-civilized multitudes; 
 but, instead, he has seen enthroned the 
 absolutism of one man in whose irresponsible 
 hands the neo-constitution places the property 
 of the governed, and to whom the members 
 of his caste, against the canons of that neo- 
 constitution, have delivered the legislative 
 power and with it the power, not recognized 
 in any democracy, of creating and readjust- 
 ing taxes without the consent of the com- 
 munity; an autocracy which, limitless in its 
 capacity for evil doing, has been impotent in 
 preventing it in the twenty-eight satrapies 
 of the States, cut by the same pattern. 
 
 President Wilson intended to establish the 
 reign of equality, of justice, and of liberty, 
 vesting the government in the hands of the 
 armed citizens; but he succeeded only in 
 creating two castes: that of the upstart rulers 
 — murderers, abductors and thieves from the 
 penitentiary — and that of the pariahs; the 
 latter, exposed to all kinds of attacks and 
 humiliations, the former vested with all rights 
 and prerogatives. For each act of oppression, 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 237 
 
 each plunder, each injustice in the past, 
 Wilson, indifferent, has watched a thousand 
 outrages, a thousand spoliations, a thousand 
 iniquities, taking place under the rule of his 
 protege. 
 
 President Wilson dreamt of bringing about 
 the happiness of the destitute classes, and of 
 creating a new Mexico, but he has succeeded 
 only in allowing Carranzaism to submerge 
 them in misery, abjection and ignorance, and 
 carry on without respite or rest the destruc- 
 tion of every particle of culture and progress 
 which the country had achieved. 
 
 But the most unbiased commentary which 
 could possibly be made on the Mexican policy 
 of Woodrow Wilson, President, is the criti- 
 cism written by W^oodrow Wilson, historian, 
 relative to the period which followed the 
 emancipation of the slaves at the end of the 
 Civil War in the United States. 
 
 For the sake of impartiality, the length of 
 the quotation will be pardoned. 
 
 The Historian Wilson speaks as follows: 
 
 "Negroes constituted the majority of their 
 electorates; but political power gave them no 
 advantage of their own. Adventurers swarmed 
 out of the North to cozen, beguile, and use 
 them. These men, mere * carpet baggers' for 
 
238 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 the most part, who brought nothing with 
 them, and had nothing to bring, but a change 
 of clothing and their wits, became the new 
 masters of the blacks. They gained the 
 confidence of the negroes, obtained for them- 
 selves the more lucrative oflSces, and lived 
 upon the public treasury, public contracts, 
 and their easy control of affairs. For the 
 negroes there was nothing but occasional 
 allotments of abandoned or forfeited land, 
 the pay of petty offices, a per diem allowance 
 as members of the conventions and the state 
 legislatures which their new masters made 
 business for, or the wages of servants in the 
 various offices of the administration. Their 
 ignorance and credulity made them easy 
 dupes. A petty favor, a slender stipend, a 
 trifling perquisite, a bit of poor land, a piece of 
 money satisfied or silenced them. It was 
 enough, for the rest, to play upon their 
 passions: they were easily taught to hate the 
 men who had once held them in slavery, and 
 to follow blindly the political party which 
 had brought on the war of their emancipa- 
 tion. 
 
 "There were soon lands enough and to 
 spare out of which to make small gifts to 
 them without sacrifice of gain on the part of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 239 
 
 their new masters . . . Enormous debts 
 were piled up to satisfy the adventurers. 
 
 "TVTiere the new rulers acted with less as- 
 surance and immunity or with smaller re- 
 sources at hand, debts grew more slowly, but 
 the methods of spoliation were everywhere 
 much the same; and with the rise of debts 
 went always the disappearance of all assets 
 wherewith to pay them. Treasuries were 
 swept clean. 
 
 "The real figures of the ruin wrought no 
 men could get at. It was not to be expressed 
 in state taxes or state debts. The increase 
 in the expenditure and indebtedness of counties 
 and towns, of school districts and cities, re- 
 presented an aggregate greater even than that 
 of the ruinous sums which had drained the 
 treasuries and mortgaged the resources of the 
 governments of the States; and men saw with 
 their own eyes what was going on at their own 
 doors. What was afoot at the capitals of 
 their states they only read of in the news- 
 papers or heard retailed in the gossip of the 
 street, but the affairs of their own villages 
 and coimtry-sides they saw corrupted, mis- 
 managed, made base use of under their very 
 eyes. There the negroes themselves were the 
 oflSce holders, men who could not so much as 
 
240 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 write their names and who knew none of the 
 uses of authority except insolence. It was 
 there that the pohcy of the congressional 
 leaders wrought its perfect work of fear, 
 demoralization, disgust, and social revolution. 
 "No one who thought justly or tolerantly 
 could think that this veritable overthrow of 
 civilization in the South had been foreseen 
 or desired by the men who had followed Mr. 
 Stevens, and Mr. Waden and Mr. Morton 
 in their policy of rule or ruin. That handful 
 of leaders it was, however, hard to acquit of 
 the charge of knowing and intending the 
 ruinous consequences of what they had planned. 
 They would take counsel of moderation 
 neither from northern men nor from southern. 
 They were proof against both fact and reason 
 in their determination to *put the White 
 South under the heel of the black South.' 
 They did not know the region with which they 
 were dealing. Northern men who did know 
 it tried to inform them of its character and of 
 the danger and folly of what they were under- 
 taking; but they refused to be informed, did 
 not care to know, were in any case fixed upon 
 the accomplishment of a single object. Their 
 colleagues, their followers, kept, many of 
 them, a cooler mind, a more prudent way of 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 241 
 
 thought, but could not withstand them. 
 They, too, were ignorant of the South. They 
 saw but a Uttle way into the future, had no 
 means of calculating what the effects of these 
 drastic measures would be upon the life and 
 action of the South, and lacked even the 
 knowledge of mere human nature which might 
 have served them instead of an acquaintance 
 with the actual men they were dealing with. 
 They had not foreseen that to give the suffrage 
 to the negroes and withhold it from the more 
 capable white men would bestow political 
 power, not upon the negroes, but upon the 
 white adventurers, as much the enemies of 
 one race as of the other. 
 
 "In that day of passion, indeed, they had 
 not stopped to speculate what the effects 
 would be. Their object had been to give the 
 negro political power in order that he might 
 defend his own rights, as voters everywhere 
 else might defend theirs. " (A History of the 
 American People, by Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 
 V, pp. 49, 50). 
 
 Is not the parallel overwhelming? 
 
 In the American nation at the time of the 
 abolition of slavery, urgently demanded by 
 civilization and humanity, the men of the 
 north, congressional leaders, ignorant of the 
 
242 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 slave region, proof against fact and reason, 
 refusing information and advice from their 
 own colleagues and from the white men of the 
 South, had granted suffrage to the negroes 
 on no other basis than their theories concern- 
 ing self-government. In the Mexican nation, 
 Wilson, the man of the north, the democratic 
 leader, ignorant of the idiosyncracies of his 
 neighbor on the south, proof against fact and 
 reason, deaf to the reports and the advice of 
 his fellow-countrymen and the governing 
 classes of Mexico, had wished to carry the 
 social and economic emancipation of the 
 lowest proletariat, in itself a noble and 
 humanitarian ambition, to the Utopian ex- 
 treme of vesting this eighty per cent of the 
 national population exclusively with the pre- 
 rogative of political power. 
 
 In the South, conscienceless adventurers 
 swarmed to cozen and beguile the negroes. 
 They obtained for themselves the more lucra- 
 tive offices, emptied the public treasuries, 
 contracted enormous debts, lived upon public 
 contracts, and caused the ruin of the South; 
 and, in order to satisfy and silence the freed- 
 men, they gave them insignificant allotments 
 of land, petty offices in the administration, 
 now and then a paltry favor, and even played 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 243 
 
 upon their passions, implanting in them a 
 hatred for their former masters. In Mexico, 
 adventurers also swarmed, men without prop- 
 erty, without patrimony, enemies to decent 
 dress, and to the short brimmed hat, many of 
 them shirtless and shoeless, criminals from 
 penitentiaries in great numbers took possession 
 of the seats of authority, rifled public, private 
 and religious exchequers, abducted and 
 murdered systematically, destroyed railroads, 
 factories, and plants, and in place of provid- 
 ing bread and work for the eighty per cent of 
 liberated slaves, they harangued the masses 
 and fanned their rancour to white heat. 
 
 In the American nation, the leaders of 
 Congress by giving suflfrage to the negroes 
 and withholding it from the white men, 
 bestowed the public power, not upon those 
 negroes, but upon the adventurers, as much 
 the enemies of one race as of the other. 
 
 President Wilson's Mexican policy aimed 
 at wresting political power from the class 
 then exercising it in order to bestow it, 
 theoretically, upon the eighty per cent of the 
 population which composed the proletariat, 
 a semi-civilized group incapable of governing 
 even their own villages. The result of that 
 policy was, naturally enough, that the newly- 
 
244 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 delegated power immediately fell into the 
 hands of unscrupulous adventurers, the lead- 
 ers of the "armed citizens," who were enemies 
 alike of the former political leaders and the 
 unfortunate people whom it had become their 
 privilege to exploit. 
 
 The situation was aggravated by the fact 
 
 that President Wilson, by recognizing the de 
 
 facto government of Carranza, had opened 
 
 the way for the band of adventurers who 
 
 composed that government to lay in a supply 
 
 of arms and other munitions of war while 
 
 ninety-nine per cent of the Mexican people 
 
 were shackeled and rendered defenseless. 
 
 President Wilson was admittedly actuated 
 
 by the best of intentions but it is difficult to 
 
 believe that he could not have foreseen, at 
 
 least to some degree, the disastrous results 
 
 to Mexican civilization which the pursuit of 
 
 such a policy must inevitably have brought 
 
 about. The errors which he committed are 
 
 not, as we have seen, to be charged to a lack 
 
 of magnanimity. His chief mistake, and it is 
 
 / a magnitudinous one, has consisted in the 
 
 fbelief that a better solution of the problems 
 
 / of a people can be worked out by a foreign 
 
 ' government than by the people themselves, 
 
 Any attempts whatsoever at intervention. 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 245 
 
 whether they carry out the ideas of President 
 Wilson or are at variance with them, must 
 inevitably bring new and probably greater 
 calamities. 
 
 Any future diplomatic intervention, such 
 as have been all previous ones, with one or two 
 accompanying martial demonstrations, will 
 fail through lack of an understanding of the 
 ideals, sentiments, customs, traditions, history, 
 culture, and racial characteristics of the 
 Mexican people and will only succeed in 
 bringing about a loss of prestige by the United 
 States and rendering unpopular the political 
 party which sanctions it. 
 
 If armed intervention should at some time 
 come about, to the foregoing evils will be 
 added others of a most serious nature, for 
 national sentiment, stronger than that of any 
 faction, will be aroused, all Latin-America will 
 protest, and it is not to be doubted that the 
 laboring classes of the United States, tradi- 
 tionally discontented, would raise the old 
 cry of capitalistic greed. 
 
 Bolshevism in Mexico was a minor force 
 in 1917 — as the Bolshevik Congressman 
 Marchoro Narvaez admitted in the Assembly 
 of Queretaro. Intellectuals, capitalists, heads 
 of industries, employees, the middle class in 
 
246 Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 
 
 general, and a large portion of the laboring 
 classes, were opposed to the faction in power 
 according to the admissions of the same 
 Marchoro Narvaez. At present, the Bolshe- 
 vik group is even smaller, for it has been 
 deserted by the very few honest leaders it 
 formerly relied upon, and, above all, by the 
 laboring classes of the cities and of the country 
 to whom the sad experience of two and a half 
 years of misery and humiliations has demon- 
 strated that the Carrancista revolution did not 
 sponsor, nor can it sponsor, anything what- 
 soever of a magnanimous or constructive 
 nature. 
 
 We can see, therefore, that many and of 
 great influence are the national elements that 
 seek to uproot Carrancista Bolshevism. They 
 include equally the governing and the gov- 
 erned classes, the only exceptions being the 
 military chiefs and demagogues who occupy 
 prominent places in the federal and state 
 governments and in the army, and who seek 
 only to satisfy their insatiable appetites for 
 riches. 
 
 If the caste which today has possession of 
 power in Mexico were to lose the moral and 
 material support of the United States, the 
 Mexican nation would no longer face the 
 
Carranza and His Bolshevik Regime 247 
 
 obstacle which has stood in the way of the 
 achievement of its aspirations and, unaided, 
 it could restore the constitution of 1857, 
 accomplish the reforms which the general 
 concensus of opinion considers mandatory as 
 affecting labor, lands, the educational system, 
 the courts and the laws which govern suffrage 
 and could establish a respected, stable and 
 progressive government capable of fulfilling 
 its national and international obligations. 
 
 The above conclusions, then, suggest the 
 policy which considerations of expediency, 
 justice and humanity would seem to render it 
 advisable for the United States to follow in its 
 relations with Mexico. It can be summed up 
 in one compound word: non-intervention. 
 
 Los Angeles. November 12, 1919.