Álvaro Obregón

“ The mine of Valenciana, in Humboldt's time the most celebrated of Guanajuato, and the richest then known in Mexico, was not much wrought until the end of the eighteenth century, although it had been somewhat worked by the early Indians and the first Spanish settlers. In 1760, a poor man named Obregon, a Spaniard, began to explore a new vein. As he was a worthy man, he found friends willing to advance small sums from time to time to carry on his work. ”

“ These men didn’t want to stop work.”
“My dear girl, you seem to have lost sight of the fact that a revolution is taking place. It is their duty to stop working and to fight.”
“It always seems to be their duty to fight and they never get anything out of it!”
“They do get something out of it. They got their land when they overthrew Diaz. With Carranza, they got a new constitution. With Obregon, they will get peace and a good government.”
“Then you are for Obregon?”
“Naturally. But I must have men and horses and munitions. I—Juan Pachuca—cannot fight in the ranks.” ”

“ Salazar's band of rebels had crossed the mountains from Chihuahua and had come into Sonora. Popular clamor forced the Federal commander at Agua Prietá to do something, and accordingly he ordered Obregon to take his battalion, proceed south, get in touch with Salazar, and "remain in observation." Salazar was looting the ranch of a friend of Obregon's near Fronteras. The rebel had taken no means to secure his bivouac against surprise; his men were scattered around engaged in slaughtering cattle, cooking, and making camp for the night. Obregon deployed his force and charged Salazar's camp. ”

“ President Obregon’s term was drawing to a close; there was soon to be an election; there had never been an election in Mexico without a revolution; in view of the forthcoming excitement, work of any kind was practically at a standstill. An escort of troops was still to be seen on every train—better-uniformed and equipped than in the days of Carranza, but with the same villainous faces. ”

“ Hearing Anastasio's voice, Valderrama was convinced that the prisoners had been set at liberty. A few moments later, he was joined by Venancio and Demetrio.
"Heard the news?" Venancio asked gravely.
"No."
"It's very serious. A terrible mess! Villa was beaten at Celaya by Obregon and Carranza is winning all along the line! We're done for!"
Valderrama's gesture was disdainful and solemn as an emperor's. "Villa? Obregon? Carranza? What's the difference? I love the revolution like a volcano in eruption; I love the volcano because it's a volcano, the revolution because it's the revolution! ”

“ By this time the European war was occupying most of the attention of the American people, but Mexico was a constant irritant. Carranza carried the Presidential art of biting the hand that fed him to an undreamed-of height. Wilson, Villa and Obregon had enabled him to displace Huerta, and Obregon had saved him from Villa. Yet he had quarreled with Villa, he was eventually to quarrel with Obregon; and though the United States and the chief Latin-American powers had given him formal recognition in September, 1915, his policy toward Wilson continued to be blended of insult and obstruction. ”

“ You see, boys, General Obregon has been President of Mexico now for several years, but the country is far from pacified and far from submitting to his rule. The rebel forces in the northern part of Mexico are gaining in strength right along. ”

“ The De la Huerta revolt raged principally in central Mexico. For a few months the republic was aflame from Vera Cruz to Manzanillo. But Obregon had the best generals. The United States, taking the quickest means to bring about order, allowed him to buy arms denied the revolutionists. The Huertistas, beaten and dispersed, fled southward into the jungles of Tehuantepec, fighting sporadically along the railway I had just traversed, until completely disbanded. American newspaper readers settled back in their easy chairs with the self-congratulatory comment, “There’s another revolution over! ”

“ Did our readers ever peruse the book of the adventures of the Squire Marcos de Obregon? [13] No! How should our p. 14readers have perused the scarce book of the life and adventures of Obregon? never mind! we to whom it has been given to hear the voice of Gibraltar whilst standing on the pier of Algeziras one moonlight evening, with our hands in our pockets, jingling the cuartos which they contained, have read with considerable edification the adventures of the said Marcos, and will tell the reader a story out of the book of his life. ”

“ Bob and Frank, elbows planted on the table, leaned forward surprised. Mr. Temple, however, showed no surprise, but merely looked thoughtful.
"You see," continued Jack, "you are an American of wealth and position. They already have captured father. Now, if they were to capture you, there certainly would be some commotion at Washington, the national capital, that would make trouble for President Obregon of Mexico. Maybe another punitive expedition would be sent into Mexico, like General Pershing led in the time of Carranza, after Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico. ”

“ It’s too good a country to go to the dogs. But about this Juan Pachuca——”
“He is no business of mine,” replied the Colonel, briefly. “He was out of favor with the Carranza government 248 and evidently hopes to get into the saddle again through the revolution. Personally, I do not believe he will. General Obregon is not fond of his type. Angel Gonzales is what you call in your country a regular bad lot. I have orders in this dispatch to look into his case. As to the automobile. I can give you an order for the car which you saw outside—the small one. I can’t spare any men.”
“Mendoza’s Ford?” ”

“ Temple would appeal to the American government and that thus trouble between the Obregon government and the United States would be engendered. But Jack Hampton and his pals undertook to rescue the older man without public appeal, and penetrating the Sonoran wilderness they managed to accomplish their object. Since then Don Ferdinand and Mr. Hampton had become fast friends. As for Jack and the Senorita Rafaela, they had corresponded with each other, and now that Jack was back in the South-west, he had spent more and more time below the border. ”

“ Mex., i. 317. ↑ Pablo Obregon was accredited later as Mexican minister to Washington, where he won the respect of all. ↑ Poinsett had travelled in Europe and the holy land. Wherever he went he left pleasant memories. He had been in South America, and proved himself a good soldier in the war of Chilian independence. As a member of the American congress from South Carolina he advocated the recognition as independent nations of the former Hispano-American colonies. Liberty with him was no Utopia. ”

“ Under a single military leadership the revolution might have been shortened, saving thousands of lives. Following the collapse of the Porfirio Díaz regime, leaders tottered like dominos, and local revolts involved years of quixotic terrorism.
Zapata, Villa, Madero, Carranza, Huerta, and Obregón attempted to form a government or attempted to attain power for the sake of power. Greed and chicanery took their toll. Almost every community felt the impact as governments failed. The Church did its best to retain the feudalism of the hacienda ”

“ A great political question, such as the official American recognition of President Obregon’s Government, finds Cabral sympathetically interpreting the international aspirations of the Mexican people. The danger of Bolshevism in the State of Veracruz becomes a subject for many convincing cartoons, of more influence than dozens of leading articles. Mexico City, due to an exceptional drought, is called upon to economize in its use of electric energy and daylight-saving is officially established for a time. ”

“ We stood a while in the patio. The place was thronged with self-important Mexicans button-holing other self-important Mexicans who rushed from door to door with portfolios and bundles of papers. Occasionally, when the door of the Department of the Secretaryship opened, a roar of typewriters smote our ears. Officers in uniform stood about the portico waiting for orders. General Obregon, Commander of the Army of Sonora, was outlining in a loud voice the plans for his march south upon Guadalajara. ”

“ Then Madera was assassinated and Mexico went on in turmoil. Obregon got in in 1921. Under Madera, Antonio Villareal, one of the men who had been in the Los Angeles jail, was made ambassador to Spain. When he returned, fortunes had changed and he was arrested and released on a $30,000 bond. He came to New York to see me.
“‘You take the Pennsylvania railroad at four o’clock tomorrow evening and go to Washington and I will be on the same train. I will take the matter up with the government and I have no doubt that it will give you a square deal. ”

“ The result of every discussion was the renewed conviction of the supremacy of Orbajosa and its inhabitants over all the other towns and peoples on the face of the earth.
These distinguished men were the cream of the illustrious city; some rich landowners, others very poor, but all alike free from lofty aspirations. They had the imperturbable tranquillity of the beggar who desires nothing more so long as he has a crust of bread with which to cheat hunger, and the sun to warm him. ”

“ Communist-controlled and more or less committed to an anti-revolutionary policy, talked about ‘our glorious revolution’. And meanwhile the Communist press in foreign countries was shouting that there was no sign of revolution anywhere; the seizure of factories, setting up of workers’ committees, etc., had not happened — or, alternatively, had happened, but ‘had no political significance’. According to the Daily Worker (6 August 1936) those who said that the Spanish people were fighting for social revolution, or for anything other than bourgeois democracy, were’ downright lying scoundrels’. ”

“ On the grimy walls revolutionary slogans — ‘Visca P.O.U.M.!’ ‘Viva la Revolucion!’ and so forth — had been scrawled. The place had been used as a dump for political prisoners for months past. There was a deafening racket of voices. This was the visiting hour, and the place was so packed with people that it was difficult to move. Nearly all of them were of the poorest of the working-class population. You saw women undoing pitiful packets of food which they had brought for their imprisoned men-folk. There were several of the wounded men from the Sanatorium Maurín among the prisoners. ”

“ Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life — snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc. ”

“ I have beheld these things with grief and inward rage; but, as thou knowest, Don Pedro hath been appointed by the king, and, though he be technically a usurper, still he is supported by the crown. Had but Arbolancha arrived a few weeks sooner than he did all might have been in thy favor; but now—now the king's eyes have been opened too late to bestow upon thee thy deserts. But patience, my son, for yet a little while. To-day, this very morning, will I see the governor and plead thy cause. ”

“ It is this that makes one hope that in Spain even Fascism may take a comparatively loose and bearable form. Few Spaniards possess the damnable efficiency and consistency that a modern totalitarian state needs. There had been a queer little illustration of this fact a few nights earlier, when the police had searched my wife's room. As a matter of fact that search was a very interesting business, and I wish I had seen it, though perhaps it is as well that I did not, for I might not have kept my temper.
The police conducted the search in the recognized Ogpu or Gestapo style. ”

“ The whole process is easy to understand if one remembers that it proceeds from the temporary alliance that Fascism, in certain forms, forces upon the bourgeois and the worker. This alliance, known as the Popular Front, is in essential an alliance of enemies, and it seems probable that it must always end by one partner swallowing the other. The only unexpected feature in the Spanish situation — and outside Spain it has caused an immense amount of misunderstanding — is that among the parties on the Government side the Communists stood not upon the extreme Left, but upon the extreme Right. ”

“ There is very little doubt that arms were deliberately withheld lest too many of them should get into the hands of the Anarchists, who would afterwards use them for a revolutionary purpose; consequently the big Aragon offensive which would have made Franco draw back from Bilbao, and possibly from Madrid, never happened. But this was comparatively a small matter. What was more important was that once the war had been narrowed down to a ‘war for democracy’ it became impossible to make any large-scale appeal for working-class aid abroad. ”

“ Passing the crimes of Columbus and Bobadilla, the sins of the two being, for biographical effect, usually placed upon the latter, let us look at the conduct of Ovando, who, as Spanish provincial rulers went in those days, was an average man. He ruled with vigor; and as if to offset his strict dealings with offending Spaniards, unoffending Indians were treated with treachery and merciless brutality.
Rumor reaching him that Anacaona, queen of Jaraguá, meditated revolt, he marched thither at the head of two hundred foot-soldiers and seventy horsemen. ”