Mexican Revolution

“ It may truly be said that the characteristic feature of the Mexican revolution is that spirit of moderation and generosity which the maxims of the Gospel recommend, and which are the best means for establishing true liberty. Our revolution, in its object, its means, and end, is very different from that of France: among us, it is not an overthrow of all principles; it is a natural tendency to create a new order; it is a general combination to promote the happiness of a vast continent; [293] it is a necessary transition from darkness to light, from superstition to christian morality. ”

“ The Mexican Revolution
That a nation of people considering themselves enlightened, informed, alert to the interests of the hour, should be so generally and so profoundly ignorant of a revolution taking place in their backyard, so to speak, as the people of the United States are ignorant of the present revolution in Mexico, can be due only to profoundly and generally acting causes. That people of revolutionary principles and sympathies should be so, is inexcusable. ”

“ He says—
"The Mexican Revolution, with all its crudities and brutalities, I found had a very definite purpose. Briefly, this purpose was to get rid of the mediaeval organisation left by the Spanish occupation.
"The land was divided into enormous tracts, held largely by non-residents, upon which the ordinary people, peons, were little more than slaves. Besides that, the great resources of the country had been peddled out in concessions to natives and foreigners, largely Americans, Germans, and British. The pawnbroking banker system had loaned the nation money on ruinous rates. ”

“ Can you find in the history of any people an example of greater magnanimity than that? There were heroes in those days! Our fathers fought no more fiercely in the American Revolution, nor prolonged the struggle with less encouragement, than these fathers of Mexican independence.
Soon after the death of Morelos Congress was disbanded, and the people no longer had a central point upon which to focus their gaze. ”

“ It is unnecessary to run through the long list of revolutions which have torn this country of Mexico in her struggles to free herself from her inherited miseries. The number of presidents and dictators who have followed each other in rapid succession, shows what a terrible struggle and fratricidal strife has been going on at the very door of the United States for nearly a half century, from the date of the revolution of Iturbide. ”

“ They, as well as every Mexican, whether man or woman, not under forty, have lived under the Spanish government; have seen the revolution of Dolores of 1810, with continuations and variations by Morelos, and parahzation in 1819; the revolution of Yturbide in 1821; the cry of Liberty, (grito de Libertad) given by those generals "benemeritos de la patria," Santa Anna and Victoria, in 1822; the establishment of the federal system in 1824; the horrible revolution of the Acordada, in which Mexico was pillaged, in 1828 ”

“ Santa Anna's army and the thieving guerillas, for over fifty days and nights. The Mexicans claimed to be a Republic Government, but it is no Government of any progress or advancement; its history is full of war and bloodshed, superstition and arrogance, revolution upon revolution, and anarchy holds sway. There is constant discord among the people, and are only happy when their land is drenched with human blood.
The city of Mexico is built in the great fertile valley of Mexico, and the regularity, breadth and cleanliness of the streets, and the extent of the squares and public buildings ”

“ On the death of the second Emperor of Mexico, the republic again came into being; six presidents had controlled its destinies up to the assassination of Francisco Madero and the assumption of the executive power by Victoriano Huerta. Porfirio Diaz, who ruled from 1877 to 1911 gave Mexico a stability that it never possessed before or since.
More than 300 successful or abortive attempts at revolution are recorded during the stormy life of Mexican independence. A confusion 159of empires, republics, dictatorships and military usurpations have succeeded each other with bewildering rapidity. ”

“ Perhaps one revolution more or less in Mexico wouldn’t make much difference, but the United States is bound to protect its neutrality and not permit the various factions of Mexican banditti to carry on their operations or to enlist men on our soil. No actual or would-be Mexican leader has as yet displayed sufficient patriotism to subordinate his personal ambitions to the welfare of his country. ”

“ Well may the disinterested spectator have concluded, with those foreign leaders who united to intervene in Mexican politics, that the Mexicans could not—nor would they ever be able to—govern themselves. The friend of Mexico, viewing the affairs of that time at a distance, may well have despaired of the political regeneration of her people. More than a thousand men—without regarding previous revolutions—had been killed in the year 1871, in a time of peace; yet these headstrong leaders again rushed to arms, prepared to desolate the country in a prolonged fratricidal strife! ”

“ A new era is dawning in Mexico. The advent of railways is opening a wide field; her people are rousing from their slumber. The government is extending her protection over the poor as well as the rich classes, and rapid progress is witnessed on every side. The wealthy and powerful of the Mexican Republic owe it to themselves to let the spirit of freedom and independence find full growth in the bosoms of all, from the toiling peon on the hacienda to the wild, dark Indian in the fastnesses of his mountains. ”

“ He knew, of course, that the Mexican constitution made impossible demands upon the political capacity of the people. He was himself mainly of Indian blood and he believed that he understood the temperament and limitations of most Mexicans. Knowing how tenaciously they clung to political notions, he believed that it was safer and wiser to forego, at least for a time, real popular government and to concentrate power in the hands of a strong man who could maintain order. ”

“ They took no part in the partisan revolutions which so constantly agitated the central portion of the Republic, but in 1832, jealous of the centralization of Mexican power as against the rights of States, rose in arms against the scattered Mexican garrisons. ”

“ The ultraism of American reforms would defeat all reform.
Mexico has taken no backward step. Since she made her natural secession from the Spanish crown she has progressed, and her institutions have advanced in proportion. From each revolution she has emerged, purified, strengthened and with government better fitted for a people who in the end will enjoy full liberty under a pure republic. Her revolutions are the fires through which she must pass for refinement. They accomplish in a brief, though desperate, period what it might require ages to perfect by moral suasion. ”

“ If Mexico had no other great charity than this, the fact of its existence, and that it has been allowed to carry on uninterrupted business through civil wars and changes of government, revolutions and counter revolutions, speaks volumes in favor of Mexican foresight and forbearance. ”

“ It was so in Europe during the formative years of the various nations. Mexico’s political development is about that of the twelfth or thirteenth century in Europe. We should wait patiently until some leader arises strong enough to dominate the situation and enforce order, in the mean time bringing to bear such moral influences as we can to hasten the pacification of our sister republic. But we do not think that public sentiment in the United States is ready to approve the shedding of red American blood in a Mexican crusade to compel that people to adopt our ideals. ”

“ It is not to be supposed that the Mexicans, oppressed as they were by the revolutions and disasters arising from their own character, were without any good and noble traits which might redeem the lawlessness from which they suffered. Many deeds of Mexican arms, of self-abnegation in times of peril, and of heroic acts in the face of deadly odds, have left glorious episodes in their history. ”

“ Provoked by the anarchy which has so long existed in Mexico, American writers, and writers of other countries, have sometimes contrasted the condition of that nation with the order that prevailed there during the Spanish ascendency, and it is not uncommon to hear Americans say that the worst thing that ever happened to the Mexicans was the overthrow of that ascendency. They forget that the causes of Mexican anarchy were of Spanish creation, and that it must have exhibited itself, all the same, if Mexico had not achieved her independence. ”

“ The movement of 1810, on the other hand, reasserts itself almost at once overwhelmingly, and is practically carried out under the old leaders, who regain prominence and retain it for their party, with brief exceptional intervals.
And so Mexico becomes again her own mistress, after a probationary course of three centuries under stringent colonial régime. Born of oppression, baptized in blood and rapine, often the tool of selfishness and other base passions, the revolution achieves in almost bloodless coup-d'état one aim—political independence. ”

“ The despotism of the Mexican government, the innumerable evils which the nation suffers, the unceasing remonstrances which have been made against these evils, and which have met with no attention, have forced us to take a step this evening which is not one of rebellion, but is the energetic expression of our resolution to sacrifice everything to the common good and interest. The cause which we defend is that of all Mexicans; of the-rich as of the poor; of the soldier as of the civilian. We want a country, a government, the felicity of our homes, and respect from without ”

“ There was established a system of government that brought peace, freedom from pillage in the name of the people, and at least a greater measure of freedom for the economic development of the country, but the political ideals of the revolution were brushed aside and ignored.
How Mexico came to the belief that peace at any price was the first need of the republic is the theme of a great part of its early history. In the generation following the revolution against Spain the contests had been between the Conservatives, or supporters of the church, and the Liberals. ”

“ But they mark a people, not decadent, but evolving. The Mexicans are at the beginning, not the end, of their civilisation; the rise, not the fall, of their life. Here is the material of a vigorous and prolific race which may be destined to bulk largely—like the whole of Spanish-America—in the future régime of the civilisation of the white man.
The "era of glorious progress"—to use the Mexican term—which the long dictatorship of the present famous President of Mexico inaugurated is a theme which occupies the Mexican mind and pen very largely. ”

“ Beyond a doubt, too great indifference to blood has been a fertile source of unnecessary agitations, and so of weakness and anarchy.
We have postponed to this stage of our inquiry the consideration of that rock upon which the Mexican State has finally split,—party-spirit. During the forty stormy years of its existence, that ancient conflict, ever old and ever new, between conservatism and radicalism, has been going on. A statistician records that Mexico has had twenty-seven new constitutions, or at least modifications of old ones, or final plans of settlement. ”

“ It was not long that this quarrelsome people could live together without fighting amongst themselves, and ten or fifteen years after the founding of the city the two parties—the Mexicans and the Tlatelolcans—separated, the latter going to a still smaller island near the main one. The Mexicans, however, kept the god, and, though their neighbors were more progressive at first, were in the end triumphant. Though for a while each faction had a separate government and its king, the Mexican is the one that finally absorbed the other, and whose history we shall mainly follow. ”

“ The Mexicans knew better, far better, than they acted. In 1824 the Constituent Congress pointed out distinctly in a solemn address to the nation, that without virtue liberal institutions would fail, revolution would follow revolution, anarchy would ensue; and as time went on editors and orators frequently traced the causes of Mexico's downfall in vivid and truthful sentences. ”

“ Today, with the indigenous heart which is the dignified root of the Mexican nation, and having listened long enough to the voice of death which comes in the government's war, we call on the People of Mexico and on the men and women of the entire planet to unite their steps and their efforts with us in this stage of the struggle for liberty, democracy, and justice, through this... ”

“ That the adventurous citizens of the American Union, knowing little or nothing; of civil strife and commotion in their own country, should be unable at all times to distinguish between the party in power and their opponents, and should sometimes disregard the regulations and enactments which appeared to them to have been unjustly and arbitrarily established, were the natural consequences of the unsettled character of the Mexican government. ”

“ Ever fighting against the Mexicans, ever on the alert against surprise as they were, and successful in the defence of their homes, they had yet been unable to check Mexican progress, or to prevent themselves from being entirely surrounded and cut off from the sea. Hence, not strong enough to act more than on the defensive, they had been prohibited from trade with other nations, and had existed for many years without several articles that many people, term the necessaries of life. ”