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Supplement to 
 
 STfje Snnals; OF 
 
 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL 
 AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 
 
 January, 1917 
 
 The Purposes and Ideals 
 
 Mexican Revolution 
 
 Addresses delivered before the 
 Academy by: 
 
 Hon. Lais Cabrera 
 
 Hon. Ygnacio Bonillas 
 
 Hon. Alberto J. Pani 
 
 Hon. Juan B. Rojo 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The American Academy of Political and Social Science 
 
Origin and Purpose. The Academy was organized December 
 14, 1889, to provide a national forum for the discussion of political and 
 social questions. The Academy does not take sides upon controverted 
 questions, but seeks to secure and present reliable information to assist 
 the public in forming an intelligent and accurate opinion. 
 
 Publications. The Academy publishes annually six issues of 
 its "Annals" dealing with the six most prominent current social and 
 political problems. Each publication contains from twenty to twenty- 
 five papers upon the same general subject. The larger number of the 
 papers published are solicited by the Academy; they are serious dis- 
 cussions, not doctrinaire expressions of opinion. 
 
 Meetings. The Academy holds five scientific sessions each year 
 during the winter months, and it also has an annual meeting in April, 
 extending over two full days and including six sessions. The papers 
 of permanent value presented at the meetings are included in the Acad- 
 emy publications. 
 
 Membership. The subscription price of THE ANNALS of the 
 American Academy of Political and Social Science is $6.00 per year. 
 Single copies are sold at $1.00 each. The Annals are sent to all 
 members of the Academy, $4.00 (or more) of the annual membership 
 fee of $5.00 being for a subscription to the publication. Membership 
 in the Academy may be secured by applying to the Secretary, 36th 
 Street and Woodland Avenue, Philadelphia. The membership fee is 
 $5.00; life membership fee, $100. Members not only receive all the 
 regular publications of the Academy, but are also invited to attend and 
 take part in the scientific meetings, and have the privilege of applying 
 to the Editorial Council for information upon current political and 
 social questions. 
 
ncreft ubf& 
 
 THE ^URPOSES AND IDEALS OF 
 MEXICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 Addresses delivered at a joint session of the 
 
 American Academy of Political and Social Science 
 
 ^tmd the Pennsylvania Arbitration and Peace 
 
 Society, held on Friday evening, November 10, 1916 
 
 HON. LUIS CABRERA 
 
 MINISTER OF FINANCE OF MEXICO AND CHAIRMAN OF THE MEXICAN 
 SECTION OF THE AMERICAN AND MEXICAN JOINT COMMISSION 
 
 HON. YGNACIO BONILLAS 
 
 MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC WORKS OF MEXICO AND 
 MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN AND MEXICAN JOINT COMMISSION 
 
 HON. ALBERTO J. PANI 
 
 DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE CONSTITUTIONALIST RAILWAYS OF MEXICO 
 AND MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN AND MEXICAN JOINT COMMISSION 
 
 HON. JUAN B. ROJO 
 
 COUNSELLOR OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF MEXICO AND SECRETARY 
 
 OF THE MEXICAN SECTION OF THE AMERICAN AND 
 
 MEXICAN JOINT COMMISSION 
 
 With concluding remarks by 
 
 L. S. ROWE 
 
 President of the American Academy of Political 
 and Social Science 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 
 1917 
 
^35 
 
 47 
 
 Copyright, 1917, by 
 
 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 
 All rights reserved. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 BY L. S. ROWE, PH.D., LL.D., 
 
 President of the Academy 
 
 The addresses printed herewith were delivered at a joint 
 meeting of the American Academy of Political "and Social Science 
 and the Pennsylvania Arbitration and Peace Society on the evening 
 of Friday, November 10, 1916. The importance of the occasion, 
 as well as the significance of the addresses, make it desirable to 
 place them in the hands of every member of the Academy. The 
 American public has never had an opportunity to form a judgment 
 of the purposes of the Mexican Revolution. It has seemed im- 
 portant to the officers of the Academy that these purposes should 
 be presented by the men who have taken not only a leading part in 
 the revolutionary movement but who are now actively engaged in 
 an endeavor to work out these purposes in concrete and practical 
 form. 
 
 liii] 
 
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION ITS CAUSES, PURPOSES 
 
 AND RESULTS 
 
 BY HON. Luis CABRERA, 
 
 Minister of Finance of Mexico, and Chairman of the Mexican Section of the 
 American and Mexican Joint Commission. 
 
 Whatever I might say in token of gratitude, for the honor 
 conferred upon us by the American Academy of Political and Social 
 Science and the Pennsylvania Arbitration and Peace Society, 
 would be little in view of the great importance of the special invita- 
 tion extended to us to attend this special session. 
 
 We consider it a high honor for our country more than for 
 ourselves, and we are glad of the opportunity to make ourselves 
 heard before a scientific and scholarly public, free from prejudice 
 and interested in the Mexican situation. Owing to their special 
 nature, the American Academy of Political and Social Science as 
 well as the Pennsylvania Arbitration and Peace Society are institu- 
 tions of scientific and humanitarian character. They have at heart 
 only the investigation and the good of humanity, and in that spirit 
 they study the Mexican situation. 
 
 Literature on Mexico which I have found in the United States 
 is of an entirely superficial character, such as is contained in news- 
 paper reports or interviews. Consequently, it is tinged with shal- 
 lowness, based on rumors, and intended for telegraphic transmission. 
 In many cases those reports have a political purpose and then the 
 facts are not only inaccurate, but are set forth with the intention 
 of moulding public opinion, or that of the United States Govern- 
 ment, or of some political party. In many other cases the literature 
 of Mexico known in the United States, is simply imaginative, like 
 the novel or the moving picture exhibition. I do not know of any 
 book, pamphlet or publication on the Mexican situation which has 
 been prepared with a scientific purpose. 
 
 The sources of information have been either newspaper corre- 
 spondents who discard 99 per cent of the important facts because 
 they cannot extract from them a sensational headline for their 
 papers, or foreigners who have interests in Mexico, and who look 
 at the situation merely from the viewpoint of their own businesses. 
 
 [11 
 
2 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 Other founts of information are either Mexicans who reside abroad 
 and whose views are affected by partisan bias,- or politicians repre- 
 senting some special faction or chieftain. All such sources must 
 necessarily be unreliable. Not one of them springs from the purpose 
 of ascertaining the true conditions of Mexico, and the public who 
 reads them desires to find therein the corroboration of its own 
 opinions rather than precise data. 
 
 The mission which has brought us to the United States being 
 of a diplomatic nature, prevents us from speaking with absolute 
 liberty, and our connection with the Constitutionalist Government 
 might cause our opinions to be viewed as decidedly partial. As 
 regards myself, without losing sight of the fact that I belong to the 
 Government of Mr. Carranza and am taking part in a diplomatic 
 mission, I would like to say some words on the Mexican situation, 
 appraising it from a purely scientific viewpoint. 
 
 Therefore I shall not speak either as an officiaror as a politician 
 or as a diplomat, but only as a member of the American Academy of 
 Political and Social Science who desires to present the general 
 features of a scientific interpretation of the facts which have been 
 agitating Mexico during the past six years. 
 
 THE CHAOS 
 
 The general impression regarding the Mexican situation, not 
 only abroad but in Mexico, is that it is but chaos. The causes put 
 forth by each Government, each chief, each conspirator, each poli- 
 tician or each writer, as the motives of the Mexican Revolution, 
 are so numerous and conflicting that it is almost impossible to under- 
 stand them. Some are general, others concrete, others immediate, 
 and still others remote in their influence. 
 
 The simplest conclusion which indolent intelligence or impa- 
 tient characters have extracted from this galaxy of motives, is that 
 the Mexican people have an incorrigible tendency towards disorder 
 and war, and Mexico is consequently the "sick man," whose cure is 
 hopeless. The number of presidents that Mexico has had in a cen- 
 tury, is nearly as large as the numbers of leaders, generals or chief- 
 tain who in the past six years have assumed the title of legitimate 
 governments of Mexico. All possible forms of administration have 
 tried to rule Mexico, ranking from brutally military governments, 
 without organization of any kind, such as those of Zapata or Villa, 
 
The Mexican Revolution 3 
 
 Up to a Government of Democratic appearance, but headless, as 
 that proceeding from the Aguascalientes Convention. 
 
 Foreign countries know of Mexico only what they see in the 
 press headlines, and those teh 1 merely of bloody deeds, battles, 
 assaults, the blowing up of trains, massacres, shootings, imprison- 
 ments, exiles, etc. Judging from this kind of information, the 
 situation in Mexico is a complete chaos. Neither the American 
 people, nor the men who might be supposed to appraise the situa- 
 tion, can do so for lack of general lines of interpretation of those 
 facts. 
 
 The student or the scientist who would like to understand and 
 follow step by step the phenomena produced in the chemist's glass, 
 or in the receptacle of bacteriological cultures, or in the crucible of 
 the metallurgist; or the botanist who would like to follow minutely 
 the development of the seed or of the grass, would find himself 
 guideless to do so. Neither chemical, biological, nor sociological 
 phenomena can be studied through direct observation of the ele- 
 ments at the time in which processes of transformation are taking 
 place. It becomes necessary to know the nature of those elements, 
 to observe the previous condition of them, and subsequently the 
 phenomena materialized therewith. 
 
 To understand sociological phenomena, we need above all a 
 general interpretation of a whole series of facts and of the evolving 
 process; not a concrete explanation of each one of the facts as they 
 take place. I shall endeavor to make such a scientific interpreta- 
 tion of the Mexican situation. 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL DATA 
 
 Geographically, Mexico is a high triangular plateau, having 
 its vertex towards the south and its base towards the north, com- 
 prised between two mountain chains, of which one runs parallel to 
 the Gulf of Mexico and the other to the Pacific Ocean. This high 
 plateau is dry and bare in its northern part, and has been chiefly 
 devoted to cattle raising. In the southern part it is less dry and 
 more fertile, and this southern portion, properly called the central 
 plateau, is the cereal region. 
 
 The Gulf slope, damp and hot, is rich for tropical agriculture 
 and gifted with extensive oil fields. The Pacific slope, dry and hot, 
 but well irrigated by our mountains, will become an important 
 
4 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 agricultural region. Yucatan, a stony desert, which has been able 
 to produce only hemp, is out of the main body of Mexico, like Lower 
 California. The mountain chains running parallel to the Gulf and 
 to the Pacific, and which interlock in order to form the high Central 
 Plateau, are not merely spurs, but comprise vast regions, constitute 
 the extensive mountain portion of Mexico, and are the mining 
 region. 
 
 For a long time Mexico was considered to be a country of 
 marvelous wealth. Afterwards it was believed that Mexico, on the 
 contrary, was a very poor country. The truth is that Mexico 
 possesses great wealth, unexploited, and needing large investments 
 of capital and exceeding energy and skill to develop it. 
 
 POPULATION 
 
 From the point of view of population, Mexico is as little known, 
 as from the geographical. One speaks of the Mexican people and of 
 the characteristics of such people, without taking into considera- 
 tion that the Mexican people, or the Mexican race is not a well 
 defined group, but an agglomeration which has been constantly 
 changing during the past four hundred years, and is still in the 
 process of formation. Before the Spanish conquest, hundreds of 
 indigenous races existed, of such distinct and opposite character- 
 istics, that it would be difficult to find another country in the world 
 possessing such a number of different races. It is for facility's sake 
 that we speak of the "Mexican Indian," instead of speaking of the 
 hundred of indigenous races of Mexico. 
 
 After the Spanish conquest the indigenous population became 
 enslaved. Later, through the efforts of the Spanish friars to protect 
 the aboriginal races of Mexico, the Indians ceased being slaves, 
 only to fall into a condition of legal incapacity. Subsequent to the 
 Conquest a mixed or mestizos population began to appear, and it is 
 still continuing and modifying its development day by day. In 
 Mexico there is thus not a mixed population, properly speaking, 
 with characteristics different from those of the Indian, or different 
 from those of the white. We have "a varying mixed population, 
 which in certain strata are very near to the Indian, and in others 
 cannot be distinguished from the white. For the rest, the ease- 
 with which whites mix with mestizos, and the latter with Indians, 
 produces the fact that in Mexico the race question properly speaking 
 
The Mexican Revolution 5 
 
 does not exist. There is merely a question of education, for as soon 
 as the Indian has been educated, he actually takes his rank by the 
 side of the mestizo. 
 
 The population problem consists in unifying the mixed race by 
 means of education and intercrossing with the Indian race and in 
 striving to secure the constant dissolving of the immigrant white 
 races into the mixed race. This problem does not present diffi- 
 culties as regards the intercrossing of the Indian race with the mixed 
 race, but it is very serious as regards dissolving the white immi- 
 grants. The white immigration of Mexico as regards numbers, can 
 be classified in the following order: Spanish, North American, 
 French, Italian, English and German. 
 
 Of the white immigrants to Mexico the Spaniard nearly always 
 blends with the native, so that after a generation it may be said 
 that all the Spaniards become Mexicans. We may say the same 
 thing of the Italian and immigrants of Semitic origin: the Arabians, 
 Armenians, etc. After the Spaniard and the Italian, the German 
 assimilates best, and becomes Mexican in two generations. The 
 German frequently marries a Mexican woman and settles per- 
 manently in the country. The French come after the German, as 
 regarding facility of blending. 
 
 The American immigrant very seldom becomes Mexican. The 
 very small percentage of American immigrants who settle perma- 
 nently in Mexico or who marry Mexican women, preserve American 
 citizenship, educate their children abroad, and it may be said that 
 95 per cent of American immigrants remain always American, 
 socially, politically, and ethnically. The English immigrant rarely 
 becomes Mexican. Hardly ever does he marry a Mexican woman 
 and his children are always educated abroad. 
 
 These brief explanations respecting the tendencies to assimilate 
 the white population, reveal also many political and economic 
 questions which exist in Mexico regarding the situation of foreigners. 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 The lack of education of the indigenous population, is the only 
 obstacle to the dissolution of the Indian population into the mixed 
 one. Mexico has a problem of education. It will suffice to say that 
 there are 80 per cent of illiterates in our country. Education in 
 Mexico has had many obstacles. The principal ones have been the 
 
6 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 landlord system, which has created the peon class, who are really 
 serfs, and the action of the Roman Catholic Church during the 
 nineteenth century, which has assisted landlordism to preserve in 
 ignorance the indigenous masses. 
 
 The activities of the Spanish friars in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, and in general of the Catholic clergy during 
 those centuries, may be said to have been constantly beneficial to 
 the indigenous race. However, when the clergy acquired vast 
 wealth and the Church became the great landowner, then the 
 beneficial work of the Catholic Church for the education of the 
 indigenous races of Mexico and the Mexican rural population in 
 general, ceased to exist and there began a counter movement. The 
 tendency of the Church then was directed to maintaining the rural 
 population in ignorance. 
 
 The previous governments, either were not aware of the prob- 
 lem or did not wish to educate the Indian and the proletariat. The 
 best proof of the failure of the Catholic Church as educator of the 
 Indians is that after the Church has had four hundred years of 
 absolute dominion in educational matters, we still have in Mexico 
 80 per cent of illiterates. 
 
 The tendency of the revolutionary government is, not only to 
 remove the obstacles that the Mexican Government might have, 
 but to devote a considerable portion of its efforts and of the public 
 funds to the education of the masses of the people. 
 
 RELIGIOUS PROBLEM 
 
 Mexico has no religious problem properly speaking. The 
 Spanish system of patronage extended to the Catholic Church by 
 the Spanish kings gave a mighty temporal power to the clergy, 
 which lasted up to 1860. In that year owing to the War of Reform 
 the Church was dispossessed of its property, incapacitated from 
 acquiring real estate, and deprived of temporal power. 
 
 During the long government of General Diaz the Catholic 
 clergy creeping on from point to point in concealed form, recovered 
 much of its temporal power and rebuilt part of its fortune. At 
 present some members of the Catholic clergy have a tendency to 
 recover the temporal power which the Church had enjoyed previous 
 to 1860. The tendency of the revolutionary government is to render 
 effective the absolute separation of Church from State, and to 
 
The Mexican Revolution 7 
 
 prevent the Mexican clergy from recovering its temporal power, 
 leaving it, however, in the most absolute liberty as regards religious 
 matters. 
 
 AGRARIAN PROBLEM 
 
 The agrarian problem of Mexico is due to the geographical and 
 ethnical conditions of the country. The Spanish colonial system of 
 huge land grants, the constant absorption of real estate by the 
 clergy during the eighteenth century and the first half of the nine- 
 teenth century, with the system of concession of Government lands 
 adopted during the second half of the nineteenth century, created 
 and continued a state of landlordism which has been the chief 
 cause of disquiet in Mexico during the nineteenth century. 
 
 As a consequence of this landlordism there has been produced 
 a constant condition of serfdom among the rural classes of Mexico, 
 a condition known as peonage. The solution of the agrarian problem 
 of Mexico consists in the destruction of landlordism to facilitate the 
 formation of small farms, and also in the granting of "commons" 
 to the villages. It includes the division or parcelling of large 
 estates, and a system of taxes upon rural property to prevent the 
 reconstruction of large estates. Up to date it may be said that 
 large rural estates have almost never paid taxes. 
 
 NATURAL RESOURCES 
 
 The lack of Mexican capital has been the reason that mining 
 and other Mexican industries have not been developed save through 
 foreign capital. The Spanish Government believed that the eco- 
 nomic development of Mexico should be based on land monopoly, 
 and also on commercial privileges granted to Spaniards born in the 
 mother country. In the exploitation of the natural wealth of 
 Mexico, the system followed by the past administrations, and 
 especially by that of General Diaz, was that of granting concessions 
 so intrenched in privilege that further competition became impossi- 
 ble. This system of privileges and monopoly comprised not only 
 the mining, petroleum and water power industries, but all kinds of 
 industries and manufactures, commerce and banking. It may be 
 said that, in general, the economic development of Mexico during 
 the administration of General Diaz, was the growth of big business 
 based on privilege. 
 
8 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 The endeavor of the Revolutionary Government of Mexico is 
 to obtain an economic development based on unshackled competi- 
 tion, and of such a nature that the development of existing business 
 may not prevent future commerce and industry. From this point 
 of view, foreign capital invested in Mexico upon the system of 
 privilege considers itself attacked by the present revolution. How- 
 ever, if we understand the general tendency of the Mexican Revolu- 
 tion, we find that it opens a field of action for the investment of 
 foreign capital much wider than that existing heretofore. 
 
 COMMERCIAL PROBLEM 
 
 The lack of fluvial navigation and the great height of the Cen- 
 tral Plateau above the sea level, together with the uneven topog- 
 raphy, have compelled Mexico to rely upon a scant system of 
 railways. Because of this- Mexico's commerce has been established 
 on false bases. It has been simply importation and exportation with 
 foreign countries, without developing domestic interchange of prod- 
 ucts. Commerce itself has been to a great extent the only fount of 
 fiscal revenue, principally the commerce of importation. For a long 
 time exports even of raw materials have been free from duty. The 
 policy of the revolutionary government is to control the railways, 
 these being the only ways of communication that the country has. 
 It purposes also to develop other ways by utilizing the forces which 
 lie latent in Mexico, i.e., oil and water power. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 
 
 The industrial development of Mexico has occurred during the 
 last twenty years. Its basis has been artificial. It has consisted of 
 an excessive protection to infant industries, rendering them uncer- 
 tain and precarious because of their lack of mercantile bases, 
 and (jit has prevented^the establishment of competing industries. 
 The tendency of thej^revolutionary government is to place the 
 industrial development of the country upon a business basis, leav- 
 ing aside the system of protection, concession, privileges and monop- 
 oly, until now the bases of that little development have been effected. 
 
 POLITICAL PROBLEM 
 
 The diversity in types of civilization as shown by the Indian, 
 the mestizo and the white, furnishes to Mexico a serious social and 
 
The Mexican Revolution 9 
 
 political problem which may be set forth by saying that it is neces- 
 sary to find a formula of Government which may serve at the same 
 time for a type of mediaeval civilization, as is the mestizo, and for 
 a type of modern civilization, as is the foreign immigrant or the 
 educated Creole. If this be not possible, it would be necessary to 
 find various governmental formulae and various regimes for each 
 one of the elements forming Mexico's population. 
 
 Up to the time of General Diaz the political laws of Mexico 
 have been based on advanced theories, but these have never been 
 rendered effective. This produced inequality both juridic and 
 economic. The political problem of Mexico consists in rendering 
 effective the political and civil law. In order to do this it is necessary 
 above all to find the proper legal and political formulae, so that 
 after those laws have been promulgated, it may be possible to 
 apply them efficaciously, securing thus equality of rights among all 
 men. 
 
 INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 
 
 The international problems of Mexico deserve special atten- 
 tion, the main one being found in her relations with the United 
 States. 
 
 After the war of 1847 which cost Mexico half of her territory, 
 Mexicans were not able to regain confidence in regard to the impe- 
 rialistic tendency that the Latin American countries attribute to 
 the United States. During the Mexican revolution, after the occu- 
 pation of Vera Cruz and the Columbus expedition, the fears of 
 Mexicans of a conflict with the United States have increased con- 
 siderably, chiefly since it is known that one of the political parties 
 of the United States frankly advocates intervention. The repeated 
 and public statements against intervention made by the Democratic 
 Government of the United States, have not been sufficient to allay 
 the fears of Mexicans. 
 
 As a neighbor of the United States, Mexico will also have as an 
 international problem the danger of a conflict between the United 
 States and some other European or Asiatic power. The foes of the 
 United States, who are always foes of the whole American con- 
 tinent, will certainly assume to be friends of Mexico, and will try 
 to take advantage of any sort of resentment, feeling or distrust 
 that Mexico may have against the United States. Mexico, never- 
 theless, understands that in case of a conflict between the United 
 
10 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 States and any other nation outside of America, her attitude must 
 be one of complete continental solidarity. On this point the revolu- 
 tionary government has followed a policy of frankness and con- 
 sistency in her relations with the United States, putting always her 
 deeds in accordance with her words, and sincerely trying to reach 
 an understanding with the people and the Government of the 
 United States. 
 
 Within Mexico, the real international problem is that of pro- 
 tecting foreign life and property and of establishing proper relations 
 between foreigners and natives. On account of the non-enforcement 
 of the political and civil laws in favor of Mexicans, and on account 
 of the always watchful diplomatic protection that foreigners have 
 enjoyed, a sort of privileged condition has arisen little by little in 
 favor of foreigners. Mexico has the problem of equalizing the 
 condition of Mexicans and foreigners, not by lowering the status of 
 the foreigners, but by raising the condition of natives. 
 
 The privileged condition of foreigners that has existed in Mexico 
 for a long time, has 1 produced a certain jealousy, and distrust with 
 which Mexicans look upon the increase of immigration and foreign 
 investments in Mexico, since such increases would be considered 
 as the strengthening of a privileged class. 
 
 The problem for Mexico is to find the way in which foreign 
 money and immigrants can freely come to Mexico and contribute 
 to her progress without becoming a privileged class. Instead of 
 becoming a growing menace to the sovereignty of Mexico, they 
 should contribute to the consolidation of her sovereignty and her 
 independence as a nation. 
 
 All the problems heretofore stated have been always complex 
 and greatly misunderstood. The old regime had created such 
 interests as have just been described and those interests were so 
 strongly bound up with the Government, that during the last years 
 of the government of General Diaz it was quite clear that no peace- 
 ful solution was attainable. The transformation of the whole 
 system by congressional action trying to change the laws and the 
 Government at large, as well as the economic conditions of the 
 country, would have required probably a whole century of effort, 
 and still it is not certain that such solution would have been reached 
 or that in the meantime civil war would not have broken out. 
 
 After the election of General Diaz in 1910, it was well under- 
 
The Mexican Revolution 11 
 
 stood that the purpose of his election was to perpetuate the same 
 form of Government and the same system as had long been in 
 existence. The people saw that it was impossible to transform 
 anything by peaceful methods. They had then to resort to force 
 in order to destroy a regime which was contrary to their liberty, 
 development and welfare. The last six years of internal upheaval, 
 though chaotic in appearance, mean for Mexico the sociological 
 transformation of her people. 
 
 A scientific interpretation of the Mexican Revolution is not 
 possible, unless facts are taken as a whole and a considerable period 
 of time is analyzed. All of us know that in the every day reading of 
 the newspapers of the United States, matters of the utmost impor- 
 tance are analyzed and studied and conclusions are drawn from 
 incomplete facts. It is impossible to draw sane conclusions from 
 facts thus secured. I have never seen a country, either in Europe 
 or in South America, where conclusions are drawn or editorials are 
 written save after a reasonable time has justified the drawing of 
 such conclusions. But in the United States the rush of public 
 curiosity for facts is misunderstood as an eager curiosity for ideas, 
 and so this is the only country in the world where we can see that 
 an editorial comes the same morning in which a mere rumor on 
 some subject is published. 
 
 This way of studying sociological facts, sounds to me like the 
 attempt of a physics student who studies the swing of the pendulum 
 and instead of waiting until the whole swing is complete or until a 
 certain number of swings have occurred, is so eager to draw scientific 
 conclusions that he would at any moment of the swing proceed to 
 calculate the exact direction in which the center of the earth is 
 placed. The conclusion of that student would be that the earth is 
 mad and that its center is changing foolishly. 
 
 It has been said that the Mexican Revolution is not properly 
 a revolution, but mere anarchy, that countries at peace consider 
 dangerous and intolerable. Nevertheless, if we can demonstrate 
 with facts that the Mexican Revolution has followed exactly the 
 natural course of any other revolution , and if it can be demonstrated 
 that even at the present time the revolutionary government of 
 Mexico is pursuing a well defined program of reconstruction, one 
 must necessarily reach the conclusion that the Mexican people are 
 not acting madly, nor blindly destroying her wealth and her men, 
 
12 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 but performing a task of transformation beneficial and indispensa- 
 ble, from which results may be expected that will be commensurate 
 with the sacrifices that are now being made. 
 
 It will appear indeed as strange and bold, and it will perhaps 
 shock to a certain extent, especially the members of the American 
 Academy of Political and Social Science and of the Pennsylvania 
 Arbitration and Peace Society that in a scientific and pacifist 
 audience like this, one should come to apologize for force and insur- 
 rection as a means of securing the liberty and welfare of her people. 
 I am not trying to impose my views, but simply applying sociolog- 
 ical criteria to facts that have occurred in Mexico. 
 
 When a system of work is right, but we fail to obtain results 
 from our efforts for lack of efficiency, the task of the reformer con- 
 sists in improving that system. But when a system is radically 
 wrong, we must abandon that system and find a better one. The 
 gradual and slow reform of a system to make it suit the require- 
 ments of a man, of a business enterprise, of an institution or of a 
 country, is called evolution. The abandonment of a system to be 
 replaced by another, is called a revolution. The use of force is not 
 essential to a revolution; but the revolution in the personal conduct 
 of men, in business or in communities, implies always a considerable 
 effort and a great amount of sacrifice. 
 
 Historically, we can assert that with very few exceptions, the 
 greatest conquests of human liberty and human welfare have not 
 been made without large sacrifices of men and property. Sociolog- 
 ically, the revolution is the rebellion of a people against a social 
 system that has been found wrong. But as every social system is 
 embodied in certain laws and in a certain political organization, 
 revolution appears always as a violation of existing laws and as an 
 insurrection against the Government. Hence all revolutions appear 
 as anarchical attempts to destroy society and this is also why most 
 insurrections are called revolutions. 
 
 A revolution means the use of force to destroy an unsatisfactory 
 system and the employment of force and intelligence to build the 
 new system. A revolution has consequently two stages clearly 
 defined; the destructive, which is nearly always a period of war and 
 rebellion against the so-called established Government, and the 
 stage of disavowal of most of the existing laws, which means the 
 use of force against the social, economic and legal system. 
 
The Mexican Revolution 13 
 
 When the old re'gime has been destroyed, the mere reestablish- 
 ment of legal order without any change, would be tantamount to 
 the simple reconstruction of the same structure already destroyed. 
 This is what sometimes makes revolutions fail. To avoid this, any 
 revolution has a second stage that is always known as the period 
 of revolutionary government. During this second period, force is 
 also employed in the form of a dictatorial government, to establish 
 the required reforms, that is to say, to lay the foundations of the 
 new social, economic and political structure. After every revolu- 
 tion, a period of dictatorial interregnum has always followed, 
 because revolutionary dictatorship means the use of force for recon- 
 struction. 
 
 When the foundations of reconstruction have been laid down, 
 then it is possible to return to a legal re'gime no longer based upon 
 the old legislation nor upon the obsolete system, but upon new 
 principles that become the new legal system, that is to say, the 
 new re'gime. The French Revolution has been the most complete 
 example of a revolution, with its frankly destructive period, its 
 anarchic state, its revolutionary government and its new re'gime 
 upon which France afterwards developed and we also can say upon 
 which the rest of Europe has subsequently developed. 
 
 The Mexican Revolution was nothing more than the insurrec- 
 tion of the Mexican people against a very repressive and wealthy 
 re'gime represented by the government of General Diaz, and against 
 a social, political and economic system supporting such govern- 
 ment. This revolution had as its prodrome the political insurrec- 
 tion of Madero. But Madero saw no more than the political side 
 of the Mexican situation. He professed that a change of Govern- 
 ment was sufficient to bring about a change in the general condi- 
 tions of the country. Madero compromised with the Diaz re'gime, 
 acquiesced in taking charge of his Government, and ruled the coun- 
 try with the same laws, the same procedure and even with the same 
 men with whom General Diaz had ruled. The logical consequence 
 was that Madero had to fail because he had not destroyed the old 
 nor attempted to build a new re'gime. The assassination of Ma- 
 dero and the dictatorship of Huerta were mere attempts at reaction 
 made by the old re'gime with its same men, its same money and its 
 same procedure, and an attempt to reestablish exactly the same old 
 conditions that existed during General Diaz* rule. 
 
14 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 The Constitutionalist Revolution set forth from the very begin- 
 ning its line of conduct. The Plan of Guadalupe issued by Mr. 
 Carranza in March, 1913, immediately after the assassination of 
 Madero, is the straightest revolutionary proclamation that could be 
 imagined to destroy an old regime. This plan meant the absolute 
 disavowal of the executive, legislative and judicial powers that had 
 existed up to that time, and authorized the use of force for the 
 destruction of Huerta's government, which was being supported by 
 General Diaz' army, by the power of the landowner and by the 
 moral influence of the Catholic clergy. 
 
 A period of bloody war followed, and when Huerta was finally 
 defeated and the chief of the constitutionalist revolution reached 
 the City of Mexico, it was believed that the destructive period of 
 the Mexican Revolution was at an end. But a period of an extremely 
 chaotic and anarchic character necessarily followed. At the end of 
 1914 the Mexican situation was most puzzling and bewildering, and 
 still it was at that very moment and in the middle of such an ex- 
 treme confusion, that Don Venustiano Carranza, as the chief of 
 the Constitutionalist Revolution, set forth the general outlines upon 
 which the reconstruction of Mexico was to be carried out. 
 
 These outlines are embodied in the decree of December 12, 
 1914, which I will quote here as the best interpretation of the basic 
 lines upon which the new regime and the new social system were to 
 be found. The decree in substance indicates that whereas the use 
 of force had been required to overthrow the Huerta Government in 
 view of the chaotic conditions of the country, it was necessary to 
 use the same force to continue the struggle until peace should be 
 attained, and to reconstruct the new regime. 
 
 The main provisions of said decree read as follows: 
 
 ARTICLE 1. The Plan of Guadalupe of the 26th of March 1913 shall remain 
 in force until the complete triumph of the Revolution. Consequently Citizen 
 Venustiano Carranza will continue as First Chief of the Constitutionalist Revolu- 
 tion and in Charge of the Executive Power of the Nation, until such tune as the 
 enemy is vanquished and peace is restored. 
 
 ART. 2. The First Chief of the Revolution, in Charge of the Executive 
 Power, will issue and put in force during the struggle all such laws, regulations 
 and measures that may satisfy the economic, social and political requirements of 
 the country, carrying out such reforms as public opinion may require to estab- 
 lish a re'gime to guarantee the equality among all Mexicans, to wit: Agrarian 
 laws that may facilitate the creation of small property, parcelling the large 
 estates and restoring to the villages the commons of which they were unjustly 
 
The Mexican Revolution 15 
 
 dispossessed; fiscal laws tending to reach an equitable system of taxation upon 
 real estate; legislation to better the condition of rural laborers, working men, 
 miners and in general of all the proletariat; establishment of municipal liberty as 
 a constitutional institution; basis for a new system of organization of the army; 
 reform of the'electoral system to obtain actual suffrage; organization of an inde- 
 pendent judicial power both in the Federation and the States; revision of laws 
 relating to marriage and civil status of persons; regulations that will guarantee 
 the strict enforcement of the Reform laws; revision of the civil, criminal and 
 commercial codes; reformation of judicial proceedings for the purpose of obtaining 
 a rapid and efficient administration of justice; revision of laws relative to the 
 exploitation of mines, oil, waters, forests and other natural resources of the coun- 
 try, in order to destroy monopolies created by the old regime and to avoid the 
 formation of new monopolies in the future; political reforms that may guarantee 
 the real enforcement of the Constitution of the Republic, and in general of such 
 other laws as may be considered necessary to ensure to the inhabitants of the 
 country the real and full enjoyment of their rights and equality before the law. 
 
 ART. 4. At the triumph of the Revolution, when the Supreme Power be 
 reinstated in the City of Mexico and after municipal elections take place in most 
 of the States of the Republic, the First Chief of the Revolution, in Charge of the 
 Executive Power, will call elections for the Federal Congress fixing the proclama- 
 tion, the dates and conditions in which said elections must take place. 
 
 ART. 5. When the national Congress assembles, the First Chief of the 
 Revolution will report to it concerning his stewardship of the power vested upon 
 him by this decree, and he will especially submit the reforms issued and put in 
 force during the struggle, so that Congress may ratify, amend or supplement 
 them, and raise to the rank of constitutional provisions such laws as may have 
 to take that character; all before the establishment of constitutional order. 
 
 The reading of this decree is of the utmost importance to all who 
 seem to be confused by events developing in Mexico since the over- 
 throw of Huerta, and to those who see in Mexico only an incom- 
 prehensible condition of anarchy. It will be of still greater impor- 
 tance to kAow that this decree has been the rule under which the 
 construction 'of Mexico is being made by the Revolutionary Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Students of the Revolution of Mexico from a disinterested and 
 scientific point of view, should keep in mind, as an outline for the 
 interpretation of the events of the last six years, the following 
 points, which might be at the same time a sort of index to the 
 chapters of an extended study of the Mexican situation. 
 
 I. Causes of the Mexican Revolution as derived from the 
 political and economic development of the country up to 
 the end of the nineteenth century. 
 
16 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 II. Prodromes of the Mexican Revolution until the death of 
 
 Madero. 
 
 III. Destruction of the political and military powers of the old 
 regime, until August 1914. 
 
 IV. Destruction of the economic power of the old regime during 
 the preconstitutional period (1915-1916). 
 
 V. Beginning of the reconstruction. 
 
 Such has been the development of the Mexican Revolution, 
 and such is the interpretation of past, present and future occurrences 
 in regard to this revolution. Such has to be the interpretation, 
 regardless of who are the men in the government. 
 
 If Carranza and the men around him are personally over- 
 powered by the new anarchic period, and if they have to die or get 
 out, that would not mean that my conclusions are wrong. It would 
 only mean that a man is not always a span between two regimes. 
 There have been cases in which a revolution has been completed 
 during the life of a man, be he Cromwell or Washington. At other 
 times a long list of heroes and martyrs is required to complete a 
 transformation of the people, from Mirabeau to Napoleon. 
 
 In Mexico we have had three revolutions. Our revolution of 
 independence in 1810 was not carried out by a single man. Hidalgo 
 initiated it and died without seeing the end. Morelos continued it 
 and also passed away before our country was free. Guerrero was 
 the only one who saw the consummation of our independence. In 
 1857 it took only Juarez to see the beginning and the end of the 
 reform revolution. The present revolution has already consumed 
 Madero. If Carranza does not see the end of this movement, that 
 will not change the development of the revolution. It will only 
 mean that Carranza himself and the men around him are no more 
 than a link in the chain of men who will sacrifice their lives for the 
 liberty and the welfare of the Mexican people. 
 
 To close my remarks I wish to reiterate my apologies to the 
 audience, and especially to the members of the American Academy 
 of Political and Social Science and of the Pennsylvania Arbitration 
 and Peace Society, for the theme I have chosen for this conference. 
 I sincerely believe that the people of this country need to study the 
 Mexican Revolution, not only for the sake of their interest toward 
 Mexico, nor for their own interest alone as our neighbors, but also 
 
The Mexican Revolution 17 
 
 as an example of an economic and social revolution that is taking 
 place in the twentieth century. 
 
 I wish a great prosperity and a long peace to this country, and 
 that the solution of all its problems may be made by peaceful 
 methods. Nations nevertheless, when they make mistakes in their 
 development, have to experience a revolution. If such a revolution 
 can be accomplished without disturbance of peace, unnecessary 
 evils can be avoided and all the benefit that a revolution neces- 
 sarily brings about will be reaped. 
 
 Bernard Shaw says that revolution is a national institution in 
 England, because the English people, through democratic proceed- 
 ings, can make a revolution every seven years, if they choose to do 
 so. The Anglo Saxon referendum is no more than a right to peaceful 
 revolution. The Mexican people do not enjoy that blessing, and 
 have been obliged to engage in a bloody and costly revolution to 
 attain their liberty and welfare. There is an excellent reason. 
 
 A revolution is not always a source of evil and tears, just as 
 fire does not always produce devastation. Unexplored wildernesses 
 of the Temperate Zone can be opened to agriculture by exploiting the 
 forest wealth and at the same time preparing the soil for future 
 cultivation. In tropical countries, however, the common way of 
 opening fields to cultivation is to clear them with a great fire that 
 consumes indeed much natural wealth, but which at the same time 
 devours r apidly the jungle and by purifying and fertilizing the soil, 
 saves a large amount of work. 
 
BY HON. YGNACIO BONILLAS, 
 
 Minister of Communications and Public Works of Mexico, and Member of the 
 American and Mexican Joint Commission. 
 
 From its very inception, the spirit of reconstruction along lines 
 of social, economic, political and industrial tendencies has been 
 manifest in the Mexican Revolution. It has crystallized in deeds 
 which have produced a deep impression upon the minds not only of 
 those who have taken an active part in the movement, but also 
 of those interested in preserving the old conditions. The character 
 and earnestness of the principal leaders of the Mexican Revolution 
 proclaimed to Huerta, the usurper, and to his associates, that the 
 struggle, begun in the northern states of the Republic, was to be 
 waged to a finish, not only to avenge a hideous crime, and to dispel 
 from the mind of the civilized world the impression that the people 
 of Mexico would submit tamely to such a national affront, but 
 also that a new order of things might be established embodying 
 improvements in all departments of the national life. It was 
 annoying to Huerta and his followers that men from the north, 
 whose records in private and public life were clean, and that men 
 emerging from partial or complete obscurity, should sever their con- 
 nections with homes and business; that they should give themselves 
 up with all their resources to the vindication of the national honor 
 and to the creation of new institutions and a government by the 
 people and for the people. 
 
 Because of this attitude of the Huerta government, the revolu- 
 tionists whether engaged in military or civil pursuits were 
 often approached by the partisans of the illegal government, with 
 tempting offers to discontinue their participation in the revolution 
 and to accept high positions in civil, diplomatic, or active military 
 service. The invariable reply was a flat refusal accompanied by 
 patriotic declarations of unswerving fidelity to the high ideals pro- 
 claimed by the revolution. Such an attitude from resolute men, 
 in the very capital and from all quarters of the Republic, could 
 
 118] 
 
Character and Progress of the Revolution 19 
 
 only forebode ill to the usurper and to the privileged classes who 
 supported him. The downfall of the government which had been 
 born of treason and murder was accomplished by the victorious 
 army headed by its first chief Venustiano Carranza. As Constitu- 
 tional Governor of the State of Coahuila at the time of the coup 
 d'e"tat, he had never hesitated a moment to disavow the military- 
 government of Huerta. He did it also in spite of the appalling odds 
 against him and the small group of patriots who took up arms with 
 him. They firmly resolved to blot out the shame cast upon the 
 national honor and to restore to the country the constitutional 
 government which had perished with the tragical demise of its 
 lawful representatives Madero and Pino Suarez. It took seven- 
 teen months from March, 1913 to August of the following year 
 to accomplish this. The enemy was vanquished in numerous 
 encounters and the City of Mexico, the capital of the Republic, 
 was finally occupied. 
 
 It is needless to mention the terrible sacrifices incurred in at- 
 taining the triumph. Historical precedents show distinctly that no 
 important achievements in the life of a nation are accomplished 
 without sacrifices, and we hold that, in the vindication of our 
 national honor, no sacrifice could be too great. 
 
 It may be supposed by those who are unacquainted with Mexi- 
 can political, social and economic conditions, that the original pur- 
 pose of the revolution, having been accomplished by violent and 
 destructive means, further conquest and the attainment of the 
 national wellfare, might be left to the slow processes of evolution. 
 To the leaders of the revolution, however, and to all other sound 
 thinking people in Mexico, the opportune moment had arrived for 
 carrying out political, social and economic reforms, deemed indis- 
 pensable for the reestablishment of a government founded upon 
 principles of right and justice to all. 
 
 Furthermore, the triumph of the revolution was a triumph of 
 the people, of the down-trodden and oppressed, over a corrupt 
 aristocracy and more corrupt clergy. Since Colonial times and 
 almost without interruption these privileged classes have held the 
 reins of government and complete despotic sway over the country 
 and its destinies. They have governed it for their own selfish 
 aggrandizement and to the detriment, in all respects, of the other 
 classes who constitute the great majority of the people. The sue- 
 
20 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 cess of the revolution had been comparatively easy and the resources 
 of the privileged classes at home and abroad, remained practically 
 intact. Large numbers of officers, civil and military, of the old 
 regime, who had been generously amnestied, remained within the 
 confines of the country and many more such were enjoying the 
 spoils of their rapacity in foreign lands. 
 
 It could hardly be expected that such elements, so thoroughly 
 accustomed to rule the country in an absolute manner, would as- 
 sume a mild attitude without a further struggle. While the armies 
 of the old regime were being vanquished, they practiced their old 
 tactics of creating dissension among the victors. The insubordina- 
 tion of the Division of the North and the unpatriotic action of the 
 Aguascalientes convention was due to the efforts of these reaction- 
 aries to regain power. 
 
 In this second epoch of the Constitutionalist Revolution the 
 struggle was more intense and the number of participants was greater 
 than in any previous war in the history of the country. There was 
 a time during the armed conflict when all except honor seemed to be 
 lost for the cause of legality, personified by the First Chief Carranza 
 and by the group of loyal citizens who derived from him a constant 
 inspiration to perform acts of chivalry and valor, and to persist 
 undismayed until final success was attained. Victory was achieved 
 by the indomitable army under the leadership of General Obregon 
 upon the battlefields of Celaya, Leon, Trinidad, Aguascalientes and 
 many others where the armies of the reactionaries were completely 
 and ignominiously defeated and dispersed. 
 
 It might be supposed that during the armed conflict in these 
 two epochs attention had been given to nothing but the vanquish- 
 ment of the enemy, and that nothing but a destructive campaign 
 was the rule. Such was not the case. All departments of the gov- 
 ernment were organized and much reconstructive work was ac- 
 complished, although under most adverse circumstances. Where- 
 ever the Constitutionalist arms obtained control the organization of 
 temporary municipal and state governments followed, and the work 
 of pacification, and the betterment of conditions for the ameliora- 
 tion of the people ensued. 
 
 The most earnest endeavors have been and are being made by 
 the government of the Revolution to restore order at the earliest 
 possible moment. To that end, municipal elections have been held 
 
Character and Progress of the Revolution 21 
 
 throughout the country and the officials elected in their respective 
 localities took their oath of office and entered upon the discharge 
 of their duties on the 16th of last September, the anniversary of 
 Mexican independence. 
 
 Another general election of great significance was held through- 
 out the country last month. Delegates were chosen to a constitu- 
 tional convention which is to meet at Queretaro on the 20th of 
 this month, for the purpose of revising the federal constitution and to 
 pass upon such decrees of the First Chieftaincy as are in the nature 
 of Constitutional amendments. The convention will be in session 
 for two months and during its deliberations will set the time for the 
 next presidential election. This is an event to which the country 
 looks forward with intense interest, as it hopes that with the return 
 to Constitutional order, Mexico will take her place among the fam- 
 ily of nations under a government of the people, by the people and 
 for the people. 
 
THE SANITARY AND EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS OF 
 
 MEXICO 
 
 BY HON. ALBERTO J. PANI, 
 
 Director General of the Constitutionalist Railways of Mexico and Member of the 
 American and Mexican Joint Commission. 
 
 During the most acute and violent period of an armed revolution 
 a veritable chaos in which it would seem that the people after 
 destroying everything try to commit suicide in a body the news 
 of isolated cases, however horrible, makes but little impression. As 
 the struggle gains form by the grouping of men around the various 
 nuclei which represent the different antagonistic principles, in- 
 dividuals grow in importance until the nucleus which best inter- 
 prets the ambitions and wants of the people acquires absolute as- 
 cendancy. Henceforward this group is unreasonably expected to 
 fulfil strictly all the obligations usually incumbent upon a govern- 
 ment duly constituted. The sensation then provoked by the news of 
 isolated cases of individual misfortune, because of their very rarity, 
 causes greater consternation. 
 
 This is precisely what is occurring with^the present Mexican 
 government. Select any two dates from the beginning of its organ- 
 ization. Compare dispassionately the relative conditions of na- 
 tional life on each, and one must admit that the country is rapidlj 
 returning to normal political and social conditions. It is also un- 
 deniable that the temporary interruption of a line of communica- 
 tion, or the attack on a train or village by rebels or outlaws, now 
 causes an exaggerated impression. People forget that not so long 
 ago, the greater part of the railway lines, or even of the cities of the 
 Republic were in the hands of these rebels or outlaws, and that in 
 the very territory now dominated by the constitutionalist govern- 
 ment, trains and towns were but too frequently assaulted. 
 
 It is unreasonable to try to make the present government 
 responsible for the transgressions of its predecessors. The revolu- 
 tion itself is a natural consequence of these faults. Former govern- 
 ments who knew not how to prevent the revolution, are responsible 
 for the evils which may have come in its train, and should the nation 
 
 [22] 
 
Sanitary and Educational Problems of Mexico 23 
 
 be saved, as it shall be, it will be due solely to the citizens who have 
 been willing to sacrifice themselves. Only through such personal 
 sacrifices as these is it possible to construct a true fatherland. 
 
 The enemies of the new regime irreconcilable because they 
 will not accept the sacrifices imposed are now burning their last 
 cartridges, making the constitutionalist government responsible 
 for many of the calamities which caused the revolution, and which 
 the government, impelled by the generous impulse which generated 
 it, purposes to remedy. Thus do we explain the protests of the 
 discontented, and the monstrosity that these protests are even 
 more energetic and loud when they defend money than when they 
 defend life itself. 
 
 The theme of this night's address refers to one of these calami- 
 ties, a shameful legacy of the past. Inimical interests are trying 
 to attack the constitutionalist government on this score, though it 
 is the first government in Mexico which has tried to remedy this 
 evil. Having been appointed by the first chief in charge of the ex- 
 ecutive power of Mexico, Mr. Carranza, to make a study of the 
 problem, I would have only to summarize or to copy, in order to 
 develop such theme, some fragments of the resulting report. 
 
 One of the most imperative obligations that civilization imposes upon the 
 State is to duly protect human life, to permit the growth of society. It becomes 
 necessary to make known the precepts of private hygiene and to put them in 
 practice, and to enforce the precepts of public hygiene. For the first, there is the 
 school as an excellent organ of propaganda. For the second, with more direct 
 bearing on healthfulness, there are principally special establishments to heal, to 
 disinfect, to take prophylactic measures. Then there are engineering works, 
 laws and regulations to put in force by a technical personnel, or by an administra- 
 tive or police corps. It may therefore be said without exaggeration, that there is a 
 necessary relation of direct proportion between the sum of civilization acquired by a 
 country, and the degree of perfection attained by its sanitary organization. 
 
 The activities, in this respect, of General Diaz' government, 
 during the thirty odd years of enforced peace and of apparent ma- 
 terial well-being, were devoted almost exclusively to works to gratify 
 the love of ostentation or peculation. Seldom were they devoted 
 to the true needs of the country. There were erected magnificent 
 buildings. To build the national theatre and capitol, both un- 
 finished, it was planned to spend sixty millions of pesos. When it 
 was a case of executing works of public utility, their construction 
 was made subservient to the illicit ends pointed out. Thus, for 
 
24 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 example, the works of city improvement, never finished, not even 
 in the capital, in spite of the conditions of notorious unhealthfulness 
 in some important towns, were always begun with elegant and costly 
 asphalt pavements, which it became necessary to destroy and re- 
 place, whenever a water or drainage pipe had to be laid. The work 
 of education undertaken by the government was chiefly dedicated 
 to erecting costly buildings for schools : it is only in this way, there- 
 fore, that we can realize that the proportion of persons knowing how 
 to read and write is barely 30 per cent of the total population in the 
 Republic. 
 
 The net result of what was done in these respects during the 
 long administration of General Diaz could not be more disastrous. 
 If we take the average mortality for the nine years from 1904 to 
 1912, the heyday of that administration, we find that in Mexico 
 City, where the greatest sum of culture and material progress is to 
 to be found, there is a rate of mortality of 42.3 deaths for each one 
 thousand inhabitants. That is to say: 
 
 I. It is nearly three times that prevailing in American cities of 
 similar density (16.1}; 
 
 II. Nearly two and one-half times larger than the average co- 
 efficient of mortality of comparable European cities (17.53} and 
 
 III. Greater than the coefficient of mortality of the Asiatic and 
 African cities of Madras and Cairo (39.51 and 40.15 respectively) 
 in spite of the fact that in the former, cholera morbus is endemic. 
 
 During the same period the annual average of deaths in the 
 City of Mexico was more than 11,500. These deaths were due to 
 diseases that are avoidable if proper care of private and public 
 health be observed and constitute an arraignment against the admin- 
 istration of General Diaz. As the deaths occasioned by the Revo- 
 lution during the six years surely do not reach 70,000, we find that 
 the government of General Diaz so greatly eulogized in the midst 
 of peace and prosperity, did not kill fewer people than a formidable 
 Revolution which set afire the whole Republic, and horrified the 
 entire world. 
 
 But the truth is that General Diaz' government did not recog- 
 nize the formula of integral progress- 1 - -the only one which truly 
 ennobles humanity but wasted its energies in showy manifesta- 
 tions of a progress purely material and fictitious, with the inevitable 
 train of vice and corruption. The ostentatious pageant the most 
 
Sanitary and Educational Problems of Mexico 25 
 
 shameless lie with which it has ever been attempted to deceive the 
 world which celebrated the anniversary of national independence, 
 took place only a few weeks prior to the popular revolution of 1910, 
 before whose onrush the government fell like a house of cards. 
 
 Let us now turn to the constitutionalist government. On its 
 banner it has written its resolve to better the condition of the life of 
 the people, socially and individually, and its sincerity and energy 
 may be seen not only in its words but in its deeds. 
 
 The constitutionalist government remained at Vera Cruz at the 
 close of 1914 and at the beginning and middle of 1915, while its 
 army reconquered the territory of the Republic, which had been al- 
 most wholly in the hands of the enemy. In spite of being engaged 
 in the most active campaign in the annals of Mexican history, this 
 government still found time to take up the efficient political and ad- 
 ministrative reorganization of the country. 
 
 Whoever may know something of our history, and may view with impar- 
 tiality the long and complicated process of formation of our nationality, from the 
 pre-Cortes period through the troublous time of the Conquest, the colonial 
 days under the viceroys, the wars of Independence, the convulsions only calmed 
 by the iron hand of Diaz, through nearly a century of autonomous existence until 
 our own tune will be bound to discover in the salient manifestations of the life of 
 our national organism, the unequivocal symptoms and stigmata of a serious 
 pathological state, brought about by two principal agents: the loathsome corruption 
 of the upper classes, and the inconscience and wretchedness of the lower. 
 
 The iniquitous means used by Don Porfirio Diaz to impose peace during more 
 than thirty years, not only annulled all efforts tending to remedy the evils dis- 
 cussed, but rather determined their greater intensity. As a matter of fact, it 
 satisfied the omnivorous appetites of his friends and satellites; it crushed and 
 caused the criminal disappearance of whoever failed to render tribute or bow to 
 his will; it fostered cowards and sycophants, repressing systematically and with 
 an iron hand, every impulse of manliness and truth. It placed the administra- 
 tion of justice at the unconditional disposal of the rich, paying not the slightest 
 heed to the lamentations of the poor. In a word, it increased the immorality 
 and corruption of the small and privileged ruling class and increased in conse- 
 quence the sufferings of the immense majority, grovelling in ignorance and hunger. 
 Therefore, the thirty or more years of praetorian peace but served to deepen still 
 further the secular chasm of hatred and rancor separating the two classes men- 
 tioned, and to provoke necessarily and fatally the social convulsion, begun in 1910, 
 which has shaken the whole country. 
 
 The three aspects of the problem which I have presented the economic, 
 intellectual and moral coincide with the purposes of education through schools, as 
 ideally dreamed of by thinkers, that is as "Institutions whose object is to guide 
 and control the formation of habits to realize the highest social good." But our schools, 
 
26 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 unfortunately, have not yet acquired the necessary strength to assuage in an ap- 
 preciable degree, the horrible ambient immorality, or to counterweigh its inevitable 
 effects of social dissolution. 
 
 The true problem of Mexico consists therefore in hygienizing the population 
 physically and morally, and in endeavoring to find through all means available, an 
 improvement in the precarious economic situation of our proletariat. 
 
 The part of the solution of the problem which corresponds to the Department 
 of Education or to the municipalities, must be realized, by establishing and main- 
 taining the greatest possible number of schools. To do this their cost must be re- 
 duced by means of a rational simplification of the organization and of the school 
 programs. This must be done unthout losing sight of the fact that its preferential 
 orientations should be marked by: (I) the essentially technological character of the 
 teaching, to cooperate with all the other organs of the Government, in the work 
 of economic improvement of the masses, and (2) the diffusion of the elemental 
 principles of hygiene, as an efficient protection for the race. 
 
 "And finally, as the medium constitutes an educational factor more powerful 
 than the schools themselves, the country must, before and above all, organize its 
 public administration upon a basis of absolute morality." 
 
 Restricting myself to the purpose of this address, it will in con- 
 clusion suffice to say that even when the constitutionalist govern- 
 ment ruled but an insignificant portion of the country there were 
 sent to the principal centers of culture of the United States several 
 hundred teachers to investigate and secure data to reform school 
 matters in Mexico. This was done at a time when dollars were of 
 great importance for the purchase of war material. 
 
 Subsequently, in spite of the countless obstacles which seemed 
 to obstruct every step of the government, the number of schools 
 has been greatly increased. It is not much greater than it was 
 before the Revolution and in some states the number has been 
 doubled. There have been effected, besides, important works of 
 city improvement in Mexico, Saltillo, Queretaro, Vera Cruz, etc., 
 and the mouth of the Panuco River is about to be dredged. It has 
 been specified in the respective contracts that the soil taken out is 
 to be used to fill in the marshy zone around Tampico, thus elimi- 
 nating the chief cause of the city's unhealthfulness. 
 
 In short, in order that the government which has arisen from 
 the constitutionalist revolution may realize its program of public 
 betterment, which implies the physical and moral hygienizing of 
 Mexico, it is only necessary to give it time. Only some magic art 
 could transform in a moment a group of human beings into an angel 
 choir, or a piece of land into a paradise. 
 
THE MEANING OF THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 BY HON. JUAN B. ROJO, 
 
 Counsellor of the State Department of Mexico and Secretary of the Mexican Section 
 of the American and Mexican Joint Commission 
 
 The Mexican Revolution is a revolution. I use these words, 
 which are not my own, to emphasize the true character of our strug- 
 gle; and as I know that in the United States as well as in foreign 
 lands, public opinion is at sea regarding us, due to the efforts of 
 those who strive to resurrect obsolete systems, I have thought it 
 my duty, as a Mexican who loves his native land, to try to explain, 
 however deficiently, the real motives of this vast social movement. 
 This excuses my efforts, such as they are, before so distinguished a 
 gathering, in a language practically unknown to me. 
 
 The founts of alleged information are responsible for the de- 
 rogatory conception of Mexico in the minds of most Americans. 
 Writers of overheated imagination depict Mexico as a land of mental 
 as well as physical quakes, where everything is perpetually boiling, 
 the climate, the politics, and the passions. Men of business look 
 upon Mexico as an alluring field for capital, for investment (or 
 rather for exploitation), in the most onerous sense of the word. 
 The reader in general, reflecting on the morning pabulum of his 
 favorite newspaper, believes that the revolution is but a kaleido- 
 scopic succession of battles and skirmishes, with the leaders now on 
 top, and now underneath, something like dogs and cats in a barrel. 
 Even the fair-minded cannot know what is going on south of the 
 River Grande, as they cannot know the truth. 
 
 In all social upheavals which have to be decided on the field 
 of battle, the far-away observer is apt to lose sight of the motives 
 and purposes, the psychological energy. He only rivets his atten- 
 tion upon the warrior's bloody business, which is but the exte- 
 riorization of thought's evolution. In all its history, from the strug- 
 gle for independence, Mexico has struck some notes, has cleared 
 some paths, which have awakened the interest of the United States. 
 
 The struggle to throw off the Spanish yoke, though it did not 
 awake any special interest in the United States, did at least elicit 
 
 [27] 
 
28 The Annals of the American Academy 
 
 its sympathy. In truth the subjects of mutual interest between the 
 budding North American democracy, and the secular Spanish 
 colony were few. Investments of American capital, and American 
 settlers were barely noticeable. It was after the fall of Maxi- 
 milian's empire, and the triumph of the liberals in Mexico that re- 
 lations really began. In that critical period of our history, when 
 Napoleon III decided to impose by force an imperial throne upon 
 free America, the spirit of justice and foresight of the American 
 people awoke to the danger, and the United States helped us in a 
 positive manner to regain our freedom and develop our individual- 
 ity. Slowly, capital and technical skill came to work among us, and 
 we received them with open arms. 
 
 Mexico is a great field for endeavor and capital, and fortunes 
 have been made overnight. Therein lay the red flag of danger. 
 Enormous regions on the north were surrendered for a song to would- 
 be colonists who were to transform them into rose gardens, yet the 
 wilderness still exists and the rose gardens are not in evidence. 
 The Mexican government's concessions were utilized to exploit, 
 not the land but the concession. This benefited many but not the 
 country itself which lost untold millions of acres solely for the ad- 
 vantage of speculators, who had no intention of making needed 
 improvements or of creating anything except trouble. 
 
 If it was the case of an "infant industry," it was smothered 
 with privileges and franchises to such an extent that if a competitor 
 tried later to enter the field, it found its efforts of no use in view of 
 the first one's monopoly. It was simply that the first got all, and 
 the others found the field closed. It would be out of place to 
 cite examples in these cursory remarks, but there were many 
 companies with no competition to face who dreamed only of their 
 privileges. They did nothing, and prevented others from doing 
 anything. I must say that free competition appeals much more to 
 me. In struggles of all kinds, biological, social, and economic, the 
 triumph goes to the fittest. I cannot believe that individuals, or 
 industries, really require the state's crutch in order to progress. 
 
 The Mexican revolution understands the need of developing 
 the country; that progress depends on work. It wishes to unshackle 
 opportunity, and open the doors to those who wish to work and to 
 get an adequate return for their efforts. Instead of accumulating 
 all of the wealth in the grip of a handful who adopted a dog-in-the- 
 
Sanitary and Educational Problems of Mexico 29 
 
 manger policy towards development, the revolution wishes to help 
 the average man and to destroy the treadmill of hateful privilege. 
 
 Finally, the revolution has been called inimical to foreigners, 
 and it is alleged that it denies them their rights. This is a phe- 
 nomenon like those Spencer called "errors of social perspective." 
 For a long time written law existed in Mexico merely as a matter 
 of form and only in books. Its guarantees and its sanctions were 
 never applied for the benefit of the common people. Only foreign- 
 ers, and especially those of such high position that they could bring 
 their influence to bear upon their diplomatic representatives, 
 could secure the application of the law through diplomatic channels, 
 provided such law was favorable to them. A rigorous law was 
 always applied against the Mexican. 
 
 From all this there resulted the fact that thus the foreigner was 
 aided and the Mexican was at a serious disadvantage in the enjoy- 
 ment of rights and in the protection of the laws. It is now the pur- 
 pose of the revolution that all may equally enjoy such benefits. 
 The revolution withdraws nothing from the foreigners that they had 
 before, but it grants to Mexicans what was denied to them. Hence 
 the astonishment that for the first time in the history of Mexico 
 the equality of all before the law is sought. 
 
 I wish to make this point clear. Our purpose is not to lower 
 the status of the foreigners. We desire that they come and work 
 among us, and contribute to the nation's development through 
 their capital and labor and skill. But we also wish that the Mexi- 
 can too may know that in his own country he will receive similar 
 justice. 
 
 If my labored words have not been well understood, they may 
 yet cast some light upon the points which I wish to make clear. 
 If I have secured this result I shall consider myself happy. I beg 
 this distinguished gathering to excuse my many deficiencies in the 
 use of a language that is not my own. 
 
CLOSING REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE 
 
 ACADEMY 
 
 Permit me, in the first place, to say to the members of the 
 American and Mexican Joint Commission, how deeply we appre- 
 ciate the privilege of welcoming you to this special session, which is 
 being held in your honor. We all have the feeling that in the con- 
 duct of her international relations the United States must stand for 
 new and higher standards of international dealing. Jealousy and 
 distrust must give way to frankness, helpfulness and cooperation. 
 If there is any one mission which the privileged position of the 
 United States calls upon her to perform it is to sound a new note in 
 international intercourse. It is because the work of this Commis- 
 sion is the expression of these higher standards that we deem it a priv- 
 ilege to do honor to the men who are conducting these negotiations. 
 We realize that the situation bristles with difficulties; that the 
 problems involved are delicate and undoubtedly at times baffling, 
 but it is no less true that it is only through such negotiations that 
 a permanent and effective settlement can be reached; a settlement 
 not only in harmony with the dignity of both countries, but one 
 calculated to allay animosities, promote mutual confidence and es- 
 tablish a relationship which will contribute to the peace and pros- 
 perity of both nations. 
 
 We desire to avail ourselves of your presence to give you a 
 message which we hope you will carry with you to your people. 
 We earnestly hope that the mission which has brought you 
 to this country will be entirely successful; that the difficult and 
 delicate problems pending between the United States and Mexico 
 will be solved to the satisfaction of both countries. We hope, 
 furthermore, that your domestic problems will be solved in a man- 
 ner no less satisfactory. The people of the United States desire to 
 see a Mexico prosperous, progressive, independent and sovereign. 
 We desire this both for your sake and for our own. Our welfare, 
 our peace of mind, depend in large measure on the establishment of 
 cordial relations with our neighbors. You carry with you, therefore, 
 the earnest hope of these two associations for the peace and pros- 
 perity of your country. You may rest assured that every effort 
 
 [30] 
 
Closing Remarks by the President 31 
 
 in Mexico to improve the condition of the masses of her people will 
 find a responsive echo in the United States. In this work you have 
 not only our good wishes, but the assurance that if we can in 
 any way be helpful in the furtherance of this great plan we will 
 deem it a privilege to cooperate. The vast educational agencies 
 of this country are at your service in the solution of your educational 
 problems; the public health agencies of the United States are ready 
 to assist in the solution of the sanitary problems. It is our earnest 
 hope that through a policy of frank and cordial cooperation there 
 will be established in the relations between Mexico and the United 
 States a new standard of international helpfulness and solidarity. 
 
INDEX 
 
 BONILLAS, YON AGIO. The Character 
 and the Progress of the Revolution, 
 18-21. 
 
 CABRERA, Luis. The Mexican Revo- 
 lution Its Causes, Purposes and 
 Results, 1-17. 
 
 Civilization: obligations, 23; types, F 8. 
 
 CLOSING REMARKS. L. S. Rowe, 30- 
 31. 
 
 Foreigners, status, 29. 
 FOREWORD. L. S. Rowe, iii. 
 
 Huerta, military government, 19. 
 Hygiene: private, 23; public, 23. 
 
 Mexican Commission, work, 30. 
 
 people, welfare, 16. 
 
 Mexican Revolution: development, 
 15-16; purposes, iii, 19; reconstruc- 
 tion, 18; scientific interpretation, 11; 
 triumph, 19. 
 
 MEXICAN REVOLUTION, THE ITS 
 CAUSES, PURPOSES AND RESULTS. 
 Luis Cabrera, 1-17. 
 
 MEXICAN REVOLUTION, THE MEAN- 
 ING OF THE. Juan B. Rojo, 27-29. 
 
 Mexico: agrarian problem, 7;- average 
 mortality, 24; chaos, 2-3; commer- 
 cial problem, 8; economic develop- 
 ment, 7; education, 5-6; geograph- 
 ical data, 3-4; industrial problem, 
 
 8; international problems, 9-10; 
 natural resources, 7-8; political 
 problem, 8-9; population, 4; prob- 
 lem, 26; reconstruction, 11, 14-15; 
 relations between United States and, 
 9-10, 31; religious problem, 6-7; re- 
 organization, 25; true conditions, 2; 
 United States and, 28. 
 MEXICO, THE SANITARY AND EDUCA- 
 TIONAL PROBLEMS OF.][ Alberto^J. 
 Pani, 22-26. 
 
 PANI, ALBERTO J. The Sanitary and 
 Educational Problems of Mexico, 
 22-26. 
 
 Public opinion, moulding, 1. 
 
 Reconstruction, foundations, 13. 
 Revolution: meaning, 12; stages, 12- 
 
 13. 
 REVOLUTION, THE CHARACTER AND THE 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE. Ygnacio Bonil- 
 
 las, 18-21. 
 ROJO, JUAN B. The Meaning of the 
 
 Mexican Revolution, 27-29. 
 ROWE, L. S. Closing Remarks, 30-31; 
 
 Foreword, iii. 
 
 United States: educational agencies, 
 31; international relations, 30; 
 Mexico and, 28; relations between 
 Mexico and, 9-10, 31. 
 
 32 
 
The November (1916) ANNALS 
 
 ON 
 
 AMERICA'S 
 CHANGING INVESTMENT MARKET 
 
 Edited by E. M. PATTERSON, Ph. D. 
 
 yarding the AXNALS I must say I was aina/.. 
 
 information. One can hardly afford to skip an article, and it is to be 
 hoped that our men of aff. iind sufficient time to look into the 
 
 articles contained therein.'' 
 
 JAMES J. SHIRLEY, M.E.E.E., New York City. 
 
 "la t&e midst of the unpreeed phi ...ad and with ;>!.. 
 
 mal conditions at home, your Xov :< issue on AMERICA'S 
 
 CHAXGIXG INVESTMENT MAllKI-T by eminent authb! 
 helps wonderfully t< ' . \ of our transformation from a 
 
 debtor to a creditor nation. This transformation takes us into the 
 international field for investments, and thus adds new problems to our 
 ever expanding progi 
 
 ANDREW JAY FRAME, President, 
 Waukesha National Bank, Waukesha, Wis. 
 
 ; : rong food for thought on 
 
 any 'allied su -. it is an awesoiih 
 
 'left any pnrticular contribution for specific mention, 
 one of them is worth}- of several careful rending-' when one's mind 
 is free from every other subject and ott< -ntration at 
 
 their best. Perhaps 1 was most ini)-: 
 
 graph of Mr. Waiting's l-iconomic Internationalism; the instn, 
 artici' -...hange by Mr. Zimii : 
 
 of M- Mr. Shirley." 
 
 E. B. JONES, President, The Colonial Trust Company, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
OF 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
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 L. S. ROWE, Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 
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 CARL KELSEY, Ph.D. CHARLES W. DABNEY, Ph.D. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania University of Cincinnati 
 
 DAVID P. BARROWS, Ph.D. 
 University of California 
 
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 J. P. LICHTENBERGER, Ph.D. HON. CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF 
 University of Pennsylvania North American Building, Philadelphia 
 
 Treasurer Librarian 
 
 CHARLES J. RHOADS, Esq. JAMES T. YOUNG, Ph.D. 
 
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 PROF. C. F. BASTABLE i HON. LYMAN J. GAGE 
 
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 University of Paris 
 
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