The Mexican Revolution:

...even though it represents various sectors of Mexican life, the mere existence of such a party militates against perfect democracy...

...it has been the control of foreign capital invested in essential economic activity...

...Of all the Latin American nations, Mexico has been most deeply exposed to European and North American influ?ence...

...She is also a nation whose social experience has predated that of most of her hemisphere neighbors...

...Modern Mexican art and architecture are Mexi?can in concept and execution...

...The rebuilding consisted of the agrarian program, the labor legislation, the educational policies, and a wide variety of other policies...

...On the other side of the picture is the discouraging fact that only about half the children between the ages of 6 and 14 are actually attending school...

...The total mining output, particularly in silver, at first glance looks imposing...

...At the same time, literature and philosophy are groping, with consid?erable success, in the same direction...

...none has been met completely, and they remain as ideals to be achieved...

...The writing of no one man can be pointed to as a guide to revolutionary doctrine, nor can any body of writings be so labeled...

...The intense nationalism of the Thirties was a manifestation of a desire to create a new nation, rather than an indication that it had already been created...

...As is to be expected, poor school attendance is at its worst in the rural areas...

...Politi?cal pressure and political favoritism, while on the wane, are still prevalent, and only a small proportion of the eligible voters actually cast their ballots...

...There is little doubt that, despite the Constitutional pro?hibition, Cardenas could have been re-elected in 1940 had he wished...

...All of these were of equal weight, and simultaneous achievement would have been the ideal...

...There seems, however, little doubt that Mexico has come to control her own political and economic destiny...

...Within the concept of the Mexican Revolution here expressed, there can be little doubt of its success to date, though an enormous amount remains to be done...

...But there are many physical signs that much has been done to accomplish the goal...

...They foresee a gradual encroachment by the Church to the point that the clerics will again attain great political and economic power, necessitating a resumption of the battle...

...Based upon ancient Indian concepts which have never been abandoned com?pletely, the agrarian program was and continues to be an experiment, modified as conditions warrant...

...But the 1940 census showed that 37 per cent of the population over the age of 6 could read and write, and by 1950 the figure had zoomed to 56 per cent...

...He is self-critical in a healthy manner, he takes a more active interest in political and public affairs, and he is more willing to devote a part of his time to the public good...

...Additional import restric?tions have recently been imposed...

...A third fundamental is one which is not unique with Mexico...

...The final fundamental which must be remembered with respect to modern Mexico and its revolution is that the nation's vaunted wealth is largely the figment of over?active imaginations and the romantic speculations of those who conceive wealth to be measured in terms of gold and silver production...

...During the Twenties and Thirties, the burden of progressive development fell on the shoulders of a relatively small group of public officials, labor leaders, military men and educators...

...Charles C. Cumberland, Secretary-Treasurer of the Conference on Latin-American History, is on leave from Rutgers University to write a definitive history of that revolution, on grants from the Doherty Foundation and the Social Science Research Council...

...The enthusiasts, with equal or greater vigor, point to civilian government, free elections and women's suffrage, compulsory education, increased agricultural and industrial production, and many signs of economic, political and social progress...

...As a reaction to decades of Ameri?can and British influence in Mexican domestic policies, the revolutionary government rebelled against interven?tion of any kind, even by suggestion...

...The result was a bitter fight, characterized on both sides by bitter excesses, and in the end the Church lost...

...But the indications are that Mexico has nearly come of age, that she is no longer so conscious of the need to express her sovereignty to the point of being blinded to other considerations...

...The third opposition party of importance, the Partido Constitucionalista Mexicana, will undoubtedly disappear in time since it exists merely to support General Miguel Henriquez, one of the opposition candidates in 1952...

...its first volume, The Mexican Revolution: Genesis Under Madero, appeared in 1952...

...it means, rather, that somewhat less than half complete the legally required eight years of schooling...

...One of the most fretful problems confronting the revo?lutionary government has been the delineation of func?tions between religion and Government without doing either an injustice...

...In spite of significant increases in agricultural and industrial out?put, and despite tremendous public and private construc?tion, the national economy is far from sound...

...It would be a mistake to credit the Revolution completely with the change in national health statistics...

...To those who propound this thesis, Mexico's recent overtures for foreign capital are not only an indication of an abrupt change??they are a confession that the earlier policy had been a colossal failure...

...When the political situation had become more or less stabilized and there was no longer any doubt of Mexican sovereignty, foreign capital was again invited to enter??on terms which the Government be?lieves give ample safeguards both to foreign capital and to Mexico...

...The propo?nents of the first attitude point to corruption in Govern?ment (particularly flagrant during the recent Aleman regime), widespread poverty and ignorance, nepotism, and many other indications that Mexico is far from a perfect state...

...Conversely, the pro-clericals can see no justice in Government ownership of Church property which was constructed with loving care and great sacrifice by zealous Catholics, in the pro?hibition against official Catholic political parties, in the ban on non-Mexican nationals as priests, and in exclud?ing the Church from primary education...

...Not since the abortive Saturnino Cedillo rebellion during the Cardenas Administration has there been an attempt to change the Government by force...

...one insists that the Revolution has ac?complished nothing worthwhile, while the other contends that the Revolution is a tremendous success...

...But the Revolution's greatest single victory has been the defeat of inertia and disinterest, the plague of any society...

...Many of the problems just now being faced in South America were met by Mexico ten or twenty years ago, and the Mexican Revolution here described has been closely studied by all Latin American democrats...

...In Mexico itself, there are diametrically opposing points of view...

...On the other hand, they have realized, too, the need to control that capital to aid the development of revolutionary principles...

...This public awareness and inter?est in the future is undoubtedly the best guarantee of the continued vitality of the Revolution's basic concepts and the best guarantee of its peaceful development...

...3) a proper balance between the functions of religion and the functions of Government...

...This does not mean, of course, that only one-half receives any formal education...

...When the Revolution began, only some 15 per cent of the total population could read or write, and by 1920 the proportion had changed very little...

...in the 33 years since 1921, the population has more than dou?bled, and in the 14 years since 1940 there has been a 46-per-cent increase...

...Any social revolution is accompanied by violence and excess...

...How does one convince the Indian popula?tion that a new era has dawned when the Indians have known little but exploitation for nearly four hundred years...

...These factors, added to increased public demands for consumer goods of all types, have meant inflation and economic imbalance...

...the principal ingredient was disgust and the principal goal was change...

...Many years passed before both Mexico and the United States grasped the difference between intervention and cooperation for mutual benefit...

...The most widely heralded and dra?matic shift has concerned the position in Mexico of for?eign capital...

...The answers to these and similar questions, if answers exist at all, must be in terms of boldness and imagination??and from boldness and imagination came radicalism...

...A more important index of political stability is the complete acceptance of the principle of no-reelection, a cornerstone of the original Madero revolution in 1910...

...Improved health and living standards have brought a phenomenal increase in the population...

...but conditions made impossible such simultaneous achievement, thus giving rise to some apparently conflicting policies...

...The answers to the questions posed above depend en?tirely upon an evaluation of contemporary Mexico, and Mexico's complex and contradictory society makes evalu?ation difficult...

...Since neither the economy nor the political balance could withstand the shock of simul?taneous application of all these, the history of the past thirty years has been essentially one of experimentation when the time seemed propitious for the achievement of a particular aim...

...The immediate outlook for the Mexican economy is not as encouraging as the political scene...

...The agrarian program, for example, cannot be justified from a purely economic point of view, nor can oil expropriation, or much of the labor legislation, or most of the controversial aspects of the Constitution's Article 27 dealing with property ownership...

...this absence may be attributed to the fact that the Mexican Revolution had no principal revolutionary philosopher...

...some adversely affected American interests, some seemed a negation of all the settled concepts of property rights, and others appeared to lead nowhere...

...It has been generally accepted that Mexico during the Twenties and Thirties did not desire foreign capital...

...A critical analysis of all other sources of Mexican income would show something of the same pattern, forcing the conclu?sion that the nation is far from naturally wealthy and that Mexico must properly utilize all available mineral and power resources before the standard of living can be measurably improved...

...The two most important national opposi?tion parties, neither of which now poses a serious threat to the official party's dominance, are the Partido Popular, an extreme left-wing group generally regarded as a Communist front, and the Partido Action National, an ultra-conservative party generally accepted as representa?tive of the clerical groups but not an official Catholic party...

...On the other hand, members of the clergy and most Catholic women considered any attack on the clergy a manifesta?tion of religious persecution not to be tolerated...

...For the same periods, the United States registered increases of 54 per cent and 24 per cent respectively...

...In spite of the country's size, all of its arable land could be crowded into the two states of Indiana and Illinois, and only in a few places is the land really rich...

...There is more reason to doubt that Avilo Camacho could have perpetuated himself in power, and it is widely accepted now that Miguel Aleman desired to retain the Presidency for another term but was flatly told by other political leaders that it would not be tolerated...

...A dramatic indication of the Communists' weakness was afforded in October, when all good Communists and their sympa?thizers celebrated the October Revolution...

...but, in reality, the total income from Mexican mining in 1950 was only slightly more than the agricultural income from Los Angeles (California) County in the same year...

...The razing process can be seen in the extreme anti?clerical constitutional and legal provisions, in the equally extreme (but somewhat more justified) provisions con?cerning property and property rights, and in the heavy demands made upon the entrepreneur by constitution and law...

...Though the basic goal of creating a new nation has been achieved, it would be inaccurate to say that the achievement is complete...

...rumors persist that the peso will be further devalued, probably on January 1. What has happened, in fact, is that the Mexican economy has not kept pace in certain areas with progress in other fields...

...An official party exists...

...The wonder in Mexico is not that the era of the Epic Revolution (from 1910 to about 1920) was charac?terized by violence in ideas and deeds, but that there was not more in the nature of the French Revolutionary ter?ror...

...Many thoughtful Mexicans are frankly disturbed by recent developments through which the Church has regained much of its lost ground without benefit of change in legislation...

...Many of these funda?mentals do not become immediately apparent, for too much has been written from a highly prejudiced view?point or with more romance than analysis, producing a confusing montage...

...Since 1910, Mexico has been trying to forge a new way of life based on democracy, economic independence and a blend of her European and Indian cultural heritages The Mexican Revolution By Charles C. Cumberland WITHIN THE PAST fifty years, Mexico has witnessed enormous changes, most of them resulting from a movement which began in 1910 and which continues today...

...Available statistics indicate marked improvement in standards of living and health...

...The Revolution's main goals were: (1) political democracy, including every?thing the term implies...

...The question of greatest importance to the Mexican Government has never been the elimination of foreign capital...

...On the other hand, only the blindest optimist would say that the political process has been completely demo?cratic...

...It is almost axiomatic that any development in this area would be accompanied by a leveling social influence, with the lessening of barriers of social stratification, which in turn enhances democratic development...

...Mexico is suffering from a dollar shortage which the April devalu?ation did not completely meet...

...The problem, of course, arose in connection with the formulation of a governmental policy to put into effect these general principles...

...Communist influence and sympathy for Communism are practically nil in Mexico...

...This contention is sheer nonsense and is based on neither logic nor factual data...

...Furthermore, political consid?erations virtually forced the Government to make anti-foreign statements on occasion...

...This is an indication both of better health and of more favorable working conditions...

...compared with political processes in the rest of the world or with conditions in Mexico a generation ago, democ?racy is a flourishing institution...

...In the main, they were a devoted group (though not always completely honest financially) who depended upon public sympathy and apathy rather than active support...

...Furthermore, state and Federal expenditures for education are very high, accounting for a Government outlay exceeded only by the costs of public works...

...Even though current European radical ideas were well known when the Revolution began, this was no movement begun by fanatical intellectuals guided by eso?teric and exotic concepts...

...She has at least gone about as far as a weak country can go in the present age...

...How does one improve health conditions among a people steeped in ignorance and superstition, living perpetually on the ragged edge of disaster...

...An even clearer indica?tion that governmental policy did not propose an extinc?tion of foreign capital may be found in the large amount of foreign investment even during the Cardenas Admin?istration, always considered to be the high-point of anti-foreign feeling...

...4) control by Mexico of her own political and economic destiny...

...On this occa?sion, the Communists in Mexico City held a conclave at one of the major theaters and featured Vicente Lombardo Toledano and Diego Rivera...

...expropriations of foreign-owned agricultural and oil properties are cited as proof...

...The 1950 census, for example, showed that nearly 90 per cent of the men were economically active, as compared to 60 per cent ten years earlier...

...The object was to create a sturdy agricultural group, economically independent and socially important, from which would stem democratic values, a desire for education, and all the other values of a vital and progressive society...

...The first fundamental fact which must be grasped is simple to state but more difficult to comprehend: It is futile to attempt an understanding of any facet of the Revolution without taking into consideration the whole...

...But each of these policies has politi?cal, nationalistic, social and educational overtones as well, and each of these in turn is dependent on every other aspect...

...Every major revolutionary policy or development has been intimately connected with every other...

...the recently constructed buildings of the National University, the Polytechnic Institute and the Ministry of Communications could have been conceived and built only in Mexico...

...More important than these, perhaps, is the feeling one gains that modern Mexico is a blend of Indian and European civilizations...

...The agrarian program of communal ownership by villages, which has been a fun?damental characteristic of the Revolution since 1912, was chosen as the most convenient and most effective means of attacking specific problems...

...The experiment has not been an overwhelming success, but prog?ress has been sufficiently encouraging to justify a policy of modification rather than abandonment...

...Compared with the ideal, Mexican democracy leaves much to be desired...

...Bar?ring an unforeseen economic crisis, the future is bright for democratic development...

...2) a standard of living, health and education which would reduce to a minimum under?nourishment, ignorance and chronic disease...

...How does one instill in a nation of illiterates the basic democratic practices...

...In recent years, the balance has tipped in the other direction, and now the majority of thinking citizens are keenly aware of the enormous task confronting the nation if Mexico is to realize her potential...

...Most active revolutionary leaders, even the more conservative, were convinced that Catholic clergymen meddled in politics in an effort to maintain a nation devoted to the principles of the Diaz period...

...The crowd, as sarcastically described by a metropolitan newspaper, "filled the first three rows to overflowing" and competed bravely in numbers with the people on the stage...

...The hard fact is that Mexico is poor, and was relatively poor even during the heyday of silver mining in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries...

...The men who have directed Mexican economic planning have been well aware of the dearth of Mexican capital available for economic development, and of the need for that capital...

...The ideas came from a wide variety of sources...

...as an essential to democracy, this is an extremely important development...

...But one thing is clear: Any attempt at sophisticated analysis of the nation today is sterile unless one first acquires a clear understanding of the funda?mentals of Mexico's Revolution...

...Some of the revolutionary aims have been met to a considerable degree...

...The discovery that many corporations holding real estate were in fact dummy corporations acting for the Church strengthened the conviction that an alliance existed between the Church and the ultra-conservatives...

...All available information indicates better eating habits, a decline in debilitating and crippling diseases, a marked decline in the death-rate, and an increase in life expectancy...

...Juan Andreu Almazan in 1940 and General Henriquez in 1952 made loud noises threatening revolt, but in both cases public reaction was so adverse to any such movement that noth?ing happened...

...and (5) the creation of a new nation, including the best of the Indian and European values while discarding the worst features of both...

...In the general field of health, education and living standards, the success has also been marked...

...After all, only one person in seven could read and write...

...some were new, some were traditional, some were European, and some were Mexican??but they were nearly all within the framework of democratic concepts...

...A second fundamental is that the Revolution was the product of real grievances??political, social and eco?nomic...

...in one sense, the agrarian program, the labor legislation, the oil expropriation, the anti-clericalism, the Government-inspired industrial de?velopment, and the other specific policies have been incidental to the Revolution...

...The most readily ascertainable change is in education, where attacks upon illiteracy have produced startling results...

...an uneasy truce continues to exist...

...This changing emphasis to meet demands has brought about some apparent contradictions and conflicts, but close analysis will show that the contradictions have in fact been very few...

...the greater the change, the greater the violence...

...The rapid population increase places an excessively heavy burden on the productive members of society, since nearly two-fifths of the population is below the age of 14...

...And one need only reflect for a moment on the appalling illiteracy, the almost complete lack of democratic practices for the 35 years prior to the Revolution, the high incidence of disease in most of the country, the concentration of land ownership in vast haciendas, the almost slavish devotion to European ideas and customs affected by the economic and social aristocracy, the class consciousness and wealth of this same aristocracy, and the close financial alliance between this group and the Church, in order to realize the enormous proportions of the problem...

...For the first time in Mexi?can history, the press and other media of public informa?tion are actually as well as legally free...

...The present estimates are that more than 60 per cent of the population over the age of 6 is literate...

...Complacency has given way to vitality, and the average Mexican no longer accepts an unattractive feature merely because it exists and has existed in the past...

...scientific progress in the past twenty years has certainly played its part...

...Furthermore, in recent years voting has been relatively free from official pressure and now women have the same political rights as men...

...However, the crusading zeal (a product of the Revo?lution) with which various public-health agencies have attacked the problem has certainly been a major factor...

...Opposition political parties are free to carry on un?molested propaganda campaigns, the only restriction being that, in order to register as a national political party, a specified number of eligible voters must indicate membership...

...The degree of accomplishment is difficult to assess, since the entire concept is an intangible, a feeling which may or may not be accurately reflected in words and policies...

...Many of the changes have been the subject of bitter controversy, often giving the country a prominent place in international press notices...

...the Revolution has given improvement and hope to the classes which are normally Communist propaganda targets, leaving the Communists little to say except that they could do the same thing better??at best, an argument of desperation...

...Antonio Villarreal, Alvaro Obregon, Fran?cisco Mugica, Plutarco Elias Calles and others of like mind counseled extreme measures, to be taken without consideration for the niceties of individual justice or individual loss...

...When all policies are considered in the same light, the shifting specifics lose their contradictory flavor and the Revolu?tion emerges as a continuous flow of progressive devel?opment...

...The proper balance agreeable to all parties has not been found...

...It is perfectly obvious that many of the worst features of Indian and European civilizations are still a part of the normal complex of living, and that many of the best features of both are moribund...

...neither Indian nor European, it is a synthesis of the two and as such is unique...

...the recent election of a woman to Congress from Baja California shows that this right is not illusory...

...In recent years, the restrictions have been eased in fact if not in law, but the problem is far from settled...

...To these men, the only way to build an imposing new edifice was first to raze the old...

...Probably the most difficult task of all confronting the government emerging from the Revolution has been that of creating a new nation??Mexican to the core??proud of its people and proud of its accomplishments...

...Stated in its simplest form, the Mexican Revolution had as its prime goals a set of principles with which few Americans could publicly disagree...

...Under the law as eventually evolved, no cleric could appear outside the church building in distinctive dress, the clergy was excluded from primary education, the number of clerics was severely limited, clergymen were forbidden to discuss political questions, outdoor religious ceremonies were banned, all Church property became the property of the Government, only Mexican nationals could perform clerical functions, and the Government enforced civil registry...

...Furthermore, much of the land counted as arable suffers from periodic droughts which make agriculture a hazard?ous enterprise...

...The most remarkable development has come in the field of politics, where within one short generation the military strong man has disappeared and in his stead has come the elected civilian...

...Mexico will follow a fiercely independent policy, but it will be a policy of independence tempered by self-interest...

...These two will probably continue to function as national parties of principles, since neither is completely dominated by one man...

...But the economic situ?ation is far from critical, and the present policy of stimu?lating improved agricultural methods, increased indus?trial output and added power facilities has an excellent chance of success...

...A naval officer in World War II, he also served with the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs...

...Pie-Revolutionary Mexico was a plutocracy based on the exploitation of the vast majority and supported by a philosophy of government which bore little rela?tionship to the realities of the Mexican heritage and culture...

...It must be emphasized that the specific policies char?acterizing Mexican development in the recent past have been means and not ends...

...Whether the benefits derived from the changes have been worth the pain inflicted and whether contemporary Mexico represents progress or retrogression are a matter of considerable speculation both in Mexico and abroad...

...Political executions were rare...