Conditions in Mexico

Gutierrez De Lara

[An address delviered at the Fels Fund Conference, held in San Francisco, California, 1915. This review and summary reprinted from the Single Tax Review, 1915]

Mr. de Lara said he came from his brothers in Mexico who were trying to solve the land problem for their country. In the United States we had the ballot by which sociological problems can be settled, but in Mexico they had the same problems, more pressing, but they did not have the ballot. It had been absolutely refused them. They were compelled to appeal to revolution.

It was wonderful to see how in the history of Mexico, since the conquest of Spain, all social movements ran round one pivot, the land question. Five years ago, four hundred families controlled the great bulk of the land and allied to them were all other privileged classes. They were supported by the psychological force of the Catholic Church. The Catholic clergy used their religious influence to hold down the large majority of the people. They preached submission.

Referring to Carranza, Mr. de Lara said that he may have done well or badly, but that did not concern him. What have the people accomplished? That was the question. Answering his own query the speaker said, the people had overthrown the Catholic Church. The bishops had fled. In San Antonio, where he had recently been, there were twenty-three bishops -- the "whole gang were there." The priests of Mexico had grown rich at the expense of the common people, but the common people had now kicked them out. Still the majority of the people were Catholics and would continue to be, but they are going to have no more mediaeval superstition in the name of religion. These things had not been accomplished by Mr. Caranza or Mr. Villa or by Madero, but by the common people. In the old times, everywhere you could see being taken for the army the strongest men -- taken from their wives and families. That system was gone. Now men fought for Mexico because of their will to fight, not because they were forced to. Today the lands of Mexico were in the hands of the people. The farm products do not now go to a few land owners, but to the man who tills the soil. The feudal class was gone, but they had the speculator, and these speculators are the men who are making all the trouble in Mexico today.

In reply to a question with reference to Villa, the speaker said he had proved a wonderful organizer and fighter, but the propertied class had got his ear. They backed Villa. One Los Angeles wealthy man gave Villa $5,000,000 in one day. This was the beginning of Villa's defeats. He became a strong man, an iron leader. But the day of the strong man in Mexico was gone. The people were awakening to their own power. Never in history has a revolution been the work of one man. It has always been a social growth. Revolution was always the work of purification. So it was in Mexico. Americans should not be impatient. Mexicans were not impatient of American revolutions -- and reforms!

The present revolution would bear wonderful fruit -- the people would reap the harvest. In the two previous revolutions, the fruits had been lost to the people because of foreign intervention. Now Europe was too busy to bother about Mexico, and the United States, with Wilson at the head, could be trusted. If they were allowed to finish this revolution, violence in Mexico would be a thing of the past.