The Mexican Agrarian Question

...It was promoted by a member of a very wealthy land-holding family of Semitic origin, whose acres ran into the tens of thousands, and whose shibboleth for the overthrow of the long regime of Porfirlo Diaz was "No Reelection...

...who are furnished about everything they, want, his government would not last, as one American has put it, "longer than a dollar bill in a New York night club...

...Good American money was poured into them for their purchase and exploitation...

...Thus he was protected from the unscrupulous land-grabber and speculator...

...Villages have come under my personal observation that have been totally ruined by thisi process...

...In one village I succeeded in gaining the confidence of the mayor...

...These were lands In the densely populated regions, along river valleys and other fertile sections where the early missionaries had gathered the natives In, established their missions, taught them municipal government, and had the land set aside for their exclusive use by the crown...

...And in this nefarious practice, Obregon, Calles and Company were particeps criminis...

...Some of those who profited most by this iniquitous action on the part of an immoral government, were Obregon, the "No Reelection" President, who succeeded the "Constitutionalist" Carranza and his band of looters...

...From the speculator's point of view, they interfered with business...

...The story of the ejection of the rightful owners from the fertile valleys of the Yaqui and Mayo Rivers, and their reduction to obligatory servitude, is a pitiful one...

...It contained an excellent survey map with all landmarks, and several pages of text on the margin of which was penciled, "no record...

...he then called out to his questioner...

...Not only that, but as chairman of the committee he corresponded with the British government In London about the case...

...It is the meeting of the Oriental with the Oriental, the East meeting the East from the West...

...And of all the corrupt regimes, his was perhaps the most corrupt...

...The hope that these large estates were to be divided up among the landless was something like the Idea expressed by the emancipated Negro of the South that he was to receive thirty acres, a mule and a plow...

...Nor did Carranza, who was the figurehead in the war that followed against Victorlano Huerta, and whose acres also numbered tens of thousands, show any such inclination...

...This I propose to do, and I know of no power that can stop me...

...The system was an adaptation of the aboriginal method of land ownership in use by the sedentary Indians long before the coming of the Spaniards...

...He could sell whatever he obtained from it, or dispose of it as he saw fit, but having no title to the land itself he could not dispose of that...

...After he had made this demand for truth and justice,' he was interrupted by a voice from the gallery requesting to know if he had not violated the Logan Act by communicating with Calles...

...Is he bringing back the slaves of the chicle forests and hemp plantations, and the people who are still being pursued by his soldiers in the mountains of his native state...

...Senator Borah of Idaho made a plea for tolerance on the part of Americans In dealing with Mexico, in which he said: "God has made us neighbors, let justice make us friends...

...not what is in his own mind, but whal^ he thinks will please the listener and give him a following...

...Daniel Webster, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the act was Illegal a month before the government In Washington admitted It...

...When these two Confederate representatives were on their way to England they were taken off the steamer Trent and made prisoners by the United States...

...In explanation of this, the mayor said that the deed had been returned from the land office with the notation, after it had been presented to prove that the community had a clear title to the land...

...None of the grants or concessions was made outright...

...and Elias, the brother of Calles, now consul-general in New York, who has been doing such effective propaganda work— all friends of Senator Borah whose cause he faithfully champions...

...And restoring to them the lands which were cultivated by their forbears for centuries...

...Mexico presents a complex of the Oriental mind...

...If the man In the gallery had been a quick thinker he might have replied to the Senator that Daniel Webster had been dead and burled nine years before the Mason-Slidell case was heard of...

...One was that which required each individual householder of the community to have a clear title to the piece of land on which he made his home and cultivated...

...The hitherto peaceable people were declared to be in rebellion...

...Calles, who succeeded him...

...Granting the accuracy of the figures for the present, some of the holdings referred to (Carranza's, for instance) were old Spanish grants handed down through colonial times, and others, for the most part in the sparsely settled lower coastal regions...

...A further example of the Senator's unreliability in dealing with foreign affairs was found in his statement that the Mexican revolution of 1910, at the close of the Diaz administration, was agrarian...

...No one wants to crowd the Russian people off the face of the earth, as was shown by our going to their relief when millions of them were perishing of hunger because of the foolish experiment put over on them by a handful of intellectuals...

...Others were great desert regions, such as that of the Bolsa de Mampi, a treeless, waterless expanse of burning sand over which not even a buzzard dared wing its flight...

...We have not yet got Mussolini in the United States...

...In his New Haven speech, the Senator said that he had examined the laws of more than one country where the attempt has been made to break up large estates, and that in none of these countries do the laws more thoroughly respect the vested rights of foreigners—and he might have added natives, for the statement is as loose as the one connecting Daniel Webster with the Mason-Slidell case...

...Those granted during the Diaz regime were, in some instances, tracts of interminable and uninhabited forests, certain of which I have traversed myself during a journey of four or five days without seeing a human inhabitant...

...Not a bit of it...

...The title was not vested in the name of any one Individual, but in the name of the community as a whole...

...Nothing was sacred: church, hospital, convent, orphan asylum, school or college, all were despoiled alike...

...Laws were enacted by the Mexican Congress to this end...

...Do you recall the Mason-Slldell case...

...Calles is of Oriental origin, a Syrian from the plains of Lebanon...

...With the advent of independence from the mother country, these barriers protecting the natives from exploitation were broken down, and the unscrupulous invasion of the ejidos began...

...As to the land question, of which Senator Borah appears to have some information when he says that, at the close of the Diaz administration, "there were 834 single holdings ranging in size from 22,000 to 6,000,000 acres, while there were 12,000,000 propertyless and landless people, forced day by day into cruel and unending economic bondage," he does not by any means tell the whole of the story...

...The extensive Terraza holdings, consisting of hundreds of thousands of acres, were, during the rise of the bandit Villa, cited as an example of the immense possessions of a single individual, such as Senator Borah now refers to as placing "at the other end of the ladder 12,000,000 propertyless and landless people, forced day by day into cruel and unending economic bondage...

...and that the Governor of the once rich and prosperous state of Yucatan was an out and out Bolshevist, with the red flag also flying over the government buildings, until the people, rising in their might with the De la Huerta revolution, put him out of business...

...Senator Borah, however, throughout his New Haven address confused the two words "communism" and "Bolshevism," which actually have fundamentally different meanings...

...Francisco I. Madero, on attaining his goal, did not, nor did any member of his numerous family, show any Inclination to divide their numerous acres with the landless...

...He will never tell you his true thoughts unless you have the happy faculty of breaking down the barriers of suspicion which encompass his mind...

...He might also have replied to the statement "We have not yet got Mussolini in the United States," that they had one In Mexico a great deal worse, for Mussolini evidently has the support of a majority of his people while the Senator's good friend Calles, the dictator of Mexico, does not have 2 percent of the Mexican people behind him...

...The opposition to it by the clergy was one of the original causes for the present^ conflict with the Church...

...Unlocking a strong box in a corner of the town hall, he took out the deed of the original grant to the community...

...Soldiers werel then used to enforce the edicts of the usurpers...

...If we refuse to recognize them, they will still be there—suffering...

...nor was Spaniard or other foreigner permitted to take up residence within the bounds of the ejidos, as the communal lands were called, unless it was to render professional service such as was required by the Church, by teaching or welfare work...

...It was nothing of the kind...

...forgetting wholly that the red flag, the symbol of both communism and Bolshevism, was flown over the National Palace of Mexico...

...Another was a law by which claim could be made to the land as baldia, land without ownership, and at the end of a specified time, if no one appeared to contest the claim, a clear title would be given to the claimant...

...It is the mind of the Bolshevist, and in this sense Mexico is Bolshevist...

...Question him and he will try to ascertain what you are thinking before giving you an answer, and, on obtaining your thoughts, will return them to you as his own...

...But for the support given him by his military cohorts...

...Buti where is he restoring the ejidos...

...The fact that large tracts of land were held under single ownership was seized upon for the purpose of propaganda...

...We can't crowd them off the face of the earth...

...The Indian undoubtedly is of Asiatic origin...

...Some of these grants were ceded by purchase and some by what is known as concessions, with specific stipulations for the development or exploitation of their latent resources—rubber growing, mahogany cutting and the gathering of chicle gum...

...nothing was obtained for nothing...

...He said, "No country on this western continent has been more outspoken against communism than Mexico," evidently in this instance substituting "communism" for "Bolshevism...

...In some localities the half-breed white man opened a grog-shop in the village with a demijohn of rum, and by this method demoralized the community and got possession of whatever he could lay his hands on...

...According to a special despatch to the New York Times, he shouted back: "As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I have a right to get my Information from any source I wish...

...In order to place himself at the head of the government and carry out whatever theories he may have had, Francisco I. Madero promised the masses anything and everything...

...The first step toward justice Is to stop making false and unfair statements about Mexico...

...Calles now proudly proclaims his purpose to restore the ejidos, which, according to his manner of telling it, sounds wonderfully fine...

...Madero, who headed the revolution against Diaz and the thirty years of peace and prosperity, was of Semitic origin, and in order to make his revolution a success he promised everything, as I have already stated...

...There were communities, however, where the municipal authorities were sufficiently strong of character and sufficiently far-seeing to keep the rum traffic out by refusing to find an available site for the nefarious business...

...He is grabbing, or attempting to grab, the land which has been acquired by legitimate purchase, and allotting It to that class of worthless Mexican known as the pelado...

...To the question asked of the Senator whether or not he was in favor of recognizing Russia, he replied: "If I had my way, I would recognize Russia tomorrow...

...And then came the most outrageous proceedings ever devised by government in order that those who stood in^ with the authorities might get possession of the rich and productive bottom lands which had furnished homes and support for an industrious laboring class for generations...

...Like the Indian, he tells you what he wants you to know...

...they were driven into the mountains, hunted down like wild beasts, and those who surrendered, if not shot immediately, were herded with others who had made no resistance whatever, and sold into slavery in the forests of Quintano Roo, or on the plantations of Yucatan...

...For his further protection the sale of liquor was prohibited in, the village or community...

...There were wrongful seizures of land from the rightful owners, but the revolutionists never touched upon these sore spots...

...But instead of this being so, the Terraza holdings were a part of the great Chihuahua mesquite-covered desert and the treeless, waterless Bolsa, which by the extraordinary initiative, enterprise and energy of a Mexican of the better class, with the Investment of capital in irrigation projects and in agricultural machinery, had been turned into green fields and blooming gardens in parts, giving employment and sustenance to hundreds of persons...

...Each member of the community, however, had a right to the use of a portion of the land for himself and family...

...Told that the lands which they had tilled for generations were no longer theirs, and that they must work for others for a mere pittance or get off, they resisted...

...It seems to me that the Senator's dependability regarding Russia is on a par with that concerning Mexico and Daniel Webster's connection with an important episode in our history which every student should know...

...The 140,000,000 people of Russia are a homeloving people...