Mexico's Indigestible Diet
THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The...
...The Mexican enthusiasts such real property...
...When Seiior Without being malicious enough to examine the pre- Calles speaks interchangeably of the constitution and cise nature of our own Eighteenth Amendment, we can laws, he is speaking just as sensibly as if he put a take the case of our southern neighbor, Mexico...
...of any religious creed shall establish or direct schools Much of her discussion relates to past absurdities in of primary instruction...
...We those e-,.sily changed by an act of legislature, and might, for example, picture President Coolidge, under those (miscalled the constitution) which are exceed- a twentieth amendment to our own constitution, deingly difficult to change...
...To gather their full import, and without any tion, all hope of creating a true constitution is gone...
...They assumed that "the nation is the source These are some of the "constitutional laws" so of all sovereignty, and that there is no authority which naively referred to by Senor Calles in his recent is not derived from it...
...The difference between a constitution tutions into popular melodies...
...music would make a rather dubious traveling com- Now here, we submit, is as delightful an example panion on a lonely road...
...Harriet Sampson 526 Week by Week 513 Franciscan Poems Mary Seton, The Firmness of Saint Francis 517 Charles Wharton Stork, Eileen Duggan, French Clergy and America 518 Clement Wood, Daniel Henderson 527 Philadelphia's Catholic Pageant The Play R. Dana Skinner 528 Philosophy Under the Elms Katherine Bregy 519 A Franciscan Discovery K. R. Steege 530 Ernest Sutherland Bates 520 Communications 530 The Canadian Elections Books Edwin J. Cooley, John A. Lapp, M. Grattan O'Leary 523 Gladys Chandler Graham, George N. Rain At Night (verse) ..Gertrude Callaghan 524 Shuster, Robert R. Hull, Grenville Memories of Bohemia Manor Vernon, A. W. G. Randall 531 Elizabeth S. Kite 525 The Quiet Corner 538 MEXICO'S INDIGESTIBLE DIET THE trouble with most figures of speech is that we self, and through an act of Congress approved by at never take them literally enough...
...facts of the present controversy in Mexico-the exact What actually has happened is that the constitu- extent to which the authorities have enforced the tion writers of 1917, following the example of their existing constitution...
...mere men to alter...
...today...
...but somehow we fail to apply of topsy-turvydom as you could find in any well-reguthe same wise logic to countries who turn their consti- lated asylum...
...But that bears them may continue to be devoted to their present purless on present complications than a more serious error poses...
...means and methods contained in the Constitution it- Unfortunately, the diet is not a new one...
...the brilliant effrontery of prohibiting sunrise in Guada- It is, of course, highly desirable to know the exact lajara...
...Nothing could be simpler, her government, a document labeled "constitution" more obvious...
...To begin with simple things, no Remember that all these provisions are an integral true constitution would contemplate legislation against part of the Mexican Constitution, that to change them -the sun or the moon or the tides...
...It is a medium terpiece (Article 130) we can watchfully await the of expression and also a limit to expression...
...For-note well-"No ministers of religious certain notes...
...or, to keep closer to our of creed, shall in no case have legal capacity to acquire, own figure of speech, in choosing the wrong kind of hold, or administer real property or loans made on instrument to begin with...
...Volume IV New York, Wednesday, October 6, 1926 Number 22 CONTENTS Mexico's Indigestible Diet 511 Cloak of Pride (verse...
...These early con- recognizes no juridical personality in the religious insitution framers did exactly what Calles is doing stitutions known as churches...
...And still further: (Article 130) "The law which Miss Madden also spotlights...
...Further: (Article 27) "The trying to make the man fit the clothes rather than cut- religious institutions known as churches, irrespective ting the clothes to the man...
...By elimination, we come to those matters clear why the Mexican turmoil, aside from any debatof administration and practical adjustment which con- able question of conflicting or impassioned charges, stitute the province of law and the legitimate play- springs from a fundamental error at the very root of ground of popular will...
...It has S12 THE COMMONWEAL October 6, 1926 attained a chronic dignity, so that the resulting colic S ) "The law, therefore, does not permit the estabis likewise chronic...
...It presup- criticize the fundamental laws of the country, the poses limits to human action beyond the authority of authorities in particular, or the government in general...
...And a true constitution sets similar creeds shall, either in public or private meetings . . . limits to the expression of popular will...
...For example : (Article Mexico must first have a true constitution...
...A musical com- ast for criticizing the laxity of prohibition enforceposition written for the piano cannot go above or below ment...
...For example, least one-third of the state legislatures, the derogation we speak of a constitution as an instrument, and then or amendment of the provisions that aim at crushing proceed to treat it, not as an instrument at all, but as the political strength of the clergy by means of making a piece of music-a composition reflecting our imme- their properties the property of the nation, the governdiate mood of the moment...
...It has punishment meted out to some Stratton-like enthusiits fixed range of notes and intervals...
...Then, in a gradually demands a procedure analogous to amending our own narrowing circle, it defines those rights of the indi- constitution, and that they transgress every provision vidual and society which, by common sense and com- in our own constitution relating to the inherent and mon experience, partake of the permanent quality of inalienable rights of religious freedom, including the natural law-rights anterior to popular will, to the right of education...
...Places of public worship of 1824 broke with the tradition of a centralized gov- are the property of the nation, as represented by the ernment and tried to set up a federal government when federal government, which shall determine which of there was really nothing to federate...
...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The Arts, and Public Affairs...
...provocative reference to the use made of them, we The best you can do is to create two kinds of laws, have only to translate them into colloquial terms...
...Again den reviews the Mexican Constitutions of 1824 and (Article 3) "No religious corporation nor minister 1857, by way of giving point to current comment...
...It will then become reasonably state itself...
...Unquestionably, problem as "nothing else but the conflict between the the provisions he mentions are in the Mexican Congreat chiefs of the Catholic Church and the constitu- stitution of 1917, but by the very fact of their inclusion, tional laws [italics ours] of Mexico that these chiefs it has ceased to become a constitution at all...
...He is resting his tarco Elias Calles, president of this restless geographi- case on a constitution that is not a true constitution at cal expression, recently defined its notorious religious all, but merely a collection of laws...
...Of course, anyone who ment fulfils an elemental duty in complying with these spoke of a Stradivarius violin as his favorite piece of laws and enforcing a strict obedience to them...
...violin and the melodies played on it...
...right here, if you please, is the key to most of the In the same article, in the October issue of bewildering happenings south of the Rio Grande...
...We take them seri- as an instrument and the laws enacted under or through ously, but only because we do not take the constitu- that constitution is precisely the difference between a tional figure of speech seriously enough...
...In an extremely able article in lishment of monastic orders, of whatever denominathe September issue of Thought, Marie Regina Mad- tion, or for whatever purposes contemplated...
...yet by starting with the wrong premise, which is, on examination, no constitution at all, a fiat that man, rather than God, is the source of all author- of law and not an instrument for making laws, a ity, it is only through the saving humor of partial sanity usurpation of basic rights instead of a wall for their that constitutions like those of Mexico are saved from protection...
...But it is vastly more important forbears of 1824 and 1857, took all authority unto to know why the turmoil started and why, in all probthemselves and then decided to outlaw the corporate ability, only a complete change in the governmental existence of religious bodies and the possibility of or- theory of Mexico can alleviate an intolerable impasse...
...tant, and Jewish...
...Once you make this assump- article...
...ganized religious education...
...But you have utterly de- ciding during his summer vacation at Paul Smith's stroyed the idea of the constitution as an instrument, camp, how many government-owned churches would because you have given to both constitution and laws be allowed to remain open in New York City, and the identical character of expressions of a nation's how these would be divided among Catholic, Protespopular will...
...Or, adopting another Mexican masA true instrument does two things...
...Plu- man on a diet of cereal and spoons...
...And pretend to ignore...
...Foreign Affairs, he makes the further statement that Mexico has mixed its constitution and its laws, and "so long as the clergy do not obtain through the legal finds the diet incurably indigestible...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 22
