9: Tasks of Diplomacy
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The petroleum and immigration problems between neighbors touch in many places, a great
web of issues and interests that often vibrates with tension. Some of the vibration
results from the history of relations between the nations, especially as they remember
slights or humiliations. National goals, molded by history, social structures,
institutional aims, and nationalist passion and dreams, help determine international
relations. A part also is played by diplomatic methods, in some measure standard for all
modern states but also fashioned by the idiosyncracies of the national societies. There is
plenty of diplomatic and technical skill on both sides, and no lack of will, so national
interests seldom are sacrificed except under extreme pressure. Great diplomatic coups do
not await cleverer foreign ministers or prettier packaging of bargaining points. One
variant that can alter all calculations occurs when the perceived importance of issues
oscillates, to the confusion of the predicters. Individual issues--such as petroleum,
immigration, political orientation, or economic development--are part of a net of
calculation, but the accuracy of the calculation is not known until the future has become
the present. Who could have guessed in 1938 what roles petroleum and immigration would
play forty years later in the relations between Mexico and the United States?
1821-1980: From Foul to Fair to What?
Recollection of earlier events colors relations today between Mexico and the United
States. Those relations were very poor from Mexican independence in 1821 to the United
States-Mexico war of 1846-1848; a bit better, but not warm, up to the time of the dictator
Porfirio Díaz; considerably warmer during his regime (1876-1911 ); were fouled again
during and after the Mexican Revolution, from 1911 to about 1940; improved considerably
from then to the later 1960s, without being precisely genial; then in the 1970s began to
cool again, so that it was not clear how they would develop in the 1980s.
Early relations largely revolved around territorial matters, with Americans moving
westward and pressing into Mexican territory, and while American statesmen discussed
changes in the boundaries, by one means or another. Mexico was understandably alarmed and
made efforts to get help from France and Britain. Nothing sufficed and the feared
disasters occurred. The acquisition by the United States of much territory claimed by
Mexico soured relations after the annexation of the Texas Republic in 1845, the huge
territorial concessions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and the Gadsden
Purchase of 1 853. Those territorial losses are not forgotten in Mexico today.
From 1821 to the 1880s, the United States developed a bad opinion of Mexico, observing
its political instability and poor economic and social development. American comments on
Mexican "inferiority" did nothing to improve relations; nor were those relations
improved by a few U.S. mutterings about gaining more territorial concessions from Mexico,
even acquisition of the entire country. Somewhat counterbalancing this, some Mexicans
after 1848 developed a mingled admiration and fear of rapid demographic and economic
growth north of the border. But since economic relations between the two countries
remained puny, there seemed to be no benefit likely for Mexico.
The continuing possibility of North American expansion at Mexico's expense was
illuminated in 1859 when the government of Benito Juárez signed the McLane-Ocampo Treaty.
It gave the United States a transit zone, useful for a canal, in the Mexican Isthmus of
Tehuántepec and the right to protect it with troops. Juárez needed the $2 million
granted him by the treaty because his Liberal Party was in the midst of a civil war with
the Conservatives. The latter denounced the treaty as a sell-out of the fatherland. That
would echo ironically in a few years when Conservatives brought in French armies and
Maximilian of Habsburg as "emperor" to shore up a reactionary position they
could not protect with their own Mexican resources. The remarkable thing about the
McLane-Ocampo Treaty in the eyes of posterity was that Juárez, the supreme Mexican hero,
could have so compromised Mexican sovereignty. But the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty,
and it merely became, for later Mexicans, an example of the dangers of internal
dissension.
In the 1860s the United States supported the Juárez resistance to the French armies
and intrusive emperor; but the good will generated soon was smothered by Mexican fear of
the U.S. capitalists probing south of the border for concessions, especially for railway
construction and mining. Some Mexicans, it is true, were convinced that economic growth
could only occur with aid from foreign capital and that above all railways were needed to
bind together the resources of a big and mountainous land.
Mexicans agreed that what was happening in the new American Southwest was insulting and
dangerous. Anglos there treated Mexicans and Mexican-Americans badly. Many border problems
of law and order disturbed relations. Mexico was especially resentful of the American
tendency to invade Mexican territory in pursuit of bandits or hostile Indians. Not before
about 1880 were these irritants offset by an increase in economic ties between the two
countries.(1)
From the 1880s to 1910 relations became more intimate, during the regime of dictator
Porfirio Díaz. He aimed to build quickly railways, mining, industries, and commercial
agriculture, with maximum use of foreign investment and expertise, making great
concessions to attract such interests. This included not only generous railway
construction concessions, but attention to prompt payment on foreign loans as well as vast
sales of mineral, agricultural, and grazing lands to foreigners. The effort, though, was
not marked by any indication that it aimed at ultimate improvement of the lot of the poor
peasants and laborers. It demanded and enforced law and order ("bread or the
club"--pan o palo). It was celebrated abroad as Mexico's first
"civilized" regime, bringer of peace, guarantor of the activities of foreigners.
Washington thought that the utopia created south of the border was as sound as the dollar.
James Creelman, "President Diaz: Hero of the Americas," Pearson's Magazine,
From the heights of Chapultepec Castle President Diaz looked down
upon the venerable capital of his country, spread out on a vast plain, with
a ring of mountains flung up grandly about it, and I, who had come nearly
four thousand miles from New York to see the master and hero of modern
Mexico--the inscrutable leader in whose veins is blended the blood of the
primitive Mixtecs with that of the invading Spaniards--watched the
slender, erect form, the strong, soldierly head and commanding, but
sensitive, countenance with an interest beyond words to express.
A high, wide forehead that slopes up to crisp white hair and over
hangs deep-set, dark brown eyes that search your soul, soften into
inexpressible kindliness and then dart quick side looks-terrible eyes,
threatening eyes, loving, confiding, humorous eyes--a straight, powerful,
broad and somewhat fleshy nose, whose curved nostrils lift and dilate
with every emotion; huge, virile jaws that sweep from large, flat, fine ears,
set close to the head, to the tremendous, square, fighting chin; a wide,
firm mouth shaded by a white mustache; a full, short, muscular neck; wide
shoulders, deep chest; a curiously tense and rigid carriage that gives
great distinction to a personality suggestive of singular power and dignity--
that is Porfirio Diaz in his seventy-eighth year, as I saw him a few weeks ago
on the spot where, forty years before, he stood-with his besieging army
surrounding the City of Mexico, and the young Emperor Maximilian
being shot to death in Queretaro, beyond those blue mountains to
the north--waiting grimly for the thrilling end of the last interference
of European monarchy with the republics of America.
It is the intense, magnetic something in the wide-open, fearless,
dark eyes and the sense of nervous challenge in the sensitive, spread
nostrils, that seem to connect the man with the immensity of the
landscape, as some elemental force.
There is not a more romantic or heroic figure in all the world, nor
one more intensely watched by both the friends and foes of democracy, than
the soldier-statesman, whose adventurous youth pales the pages of Dumas, and
whose iron rule has converted the warring, ignorant, superstitious and
impoverished masses of Mexico, oppressed by centuries of Spanish cruelty and
greed, into a strong, steady, peaceful, debt-paying and progressive nation.
For twenty-seven years he has governed the Mexican Republic with such
power that national elections have become mere formalities. He might easily
have set a crown upon his head.
Yet to-day, in the supremacy of his career, this astonishing man--
foremost figure of the American hemisphere and unreadable mystery
to students of human government--announces that he will insist on
retiring from the Presidency at the end of his present term, so that
he may see his successor peacefully established and that, with his
assistance, the people of the Mexican Republic may show the world
that they have entered serenely and preparedly upon the last
complete phase of their liberties, that the nation is emerging from
ignorance and revolutionary passion, and that it can choose and
change presidents without weakness or war.
It is something to come from the money-mad gambling congeries of
Wall Street and in the same week to stand on the rock of Chapultepec, in
surroundings of almost unreal grandeur and loveliness, beside one who is
said to have transformed a republic into an autocracy by the absolute
compulsion of courage and character, and to hear him speak of democracy as
the hope of mankind.
This, too, at a time when the American soul shudders at the mere
thought of a third term for any President.
The President surveyed the majestic, sunlit scene below the
ancient castle and turned away with a smile, brushing a curtain of
scarlet trumpet-flowers and vine-like pink geraniums as he moved
along the terrace toward the inner garden, where a fountain set
among palms and flowers sparkled with water from the spring at
which Montezuma used to drink, under the mighty cypresses that
still rear their branches about the rock on which we stood.
"It is a mistake to suppose that the future of democracy in Mexico
has been endangered by the long continuance in office of one President,"
he said quietly. I can say sincerely that office has not corrupted my
political ideals and that I believe democracy to be the one true, just
principle of government, although in practice it is possible only to highly
developed peoples."
For a moment the straight figure paused and the brown eyes
looked over the great valley to where snow-covered Popocatapetl
lifted its volcanic peak nearly eighteen thousand feet among the
clouds beside the snowy craters of Ixtaccihuatl--a land of dead
volcanoes, human and otherwise.
"I can lay down the Presidency of Mexico without a pang of
regret, but I cannot cease to serve this country while I live," he
added.
The sun shone full in the President's face but his eyes did not
shrink from the ordeal. The green landscape, the smoking city, the
blue tumult of mountains, the thin, exhilarating, scented air, seemed
to stir him, and the color came to his cheeks as he clasped his hands
behind him and threw his head backward. His nostrils opened wide.
"You know that in the United States we are troubled about the
question of electing a President for three terms?"
He smiled and then looked grave, nodding his head gently and pursing
his lips. It is hard to describe the look of concentrated interest that
suddenly came into his strong, intelligent countenance.
"Yes, yes, I know," he replied. "It is a natural sentiment of democratic
peoples that their officials should be often changed. I agree with that
sentiment."
It seemed hard to realize that I was listening to a soldier who had
ruled a republic continuously for more than a quarter of a century
with a personal authority unknown to most kings. Yet he spoke with
a simple and convincing manner, as one whose place was great and
secure beyond the need of hypocrisy.
"It is quite true that when a man has occupied a powerful office for a
very long time he is likely to begin to look upon it as his personal property,
and it is well that a free people should guard themselves against the
tendencies of individual ambition.
"Yet the abstract theories of democracy and the practical, effective
application of them are often necessarily different--that is when
you are seeking for the substance rather than the mere form.
"I can see no good reason why President Roosevelt should not be
elected again if a majority of the American people desire to have
him continue in office. I believe that he has thought more of his
country than of himself. He has done and is doing a great work for
the United States, a work that will cause him, whether he serves
again or not, to be remembered in history as one of the great Presi-
dents. I look upon the trusts as a great and real power in the United
States, and President Roosevelt has had the patriotism and courage
to defy them. Mankind understands the meaning of his attitude and
its bearing upon the future. He stands before the world as a states-
man whose victories have been moral victories. ...
"Here in Mexico we have had different conditions. I received
this Government from the hands of a victorious army at a time when
the people were divided and unprepared for the exercise of the
extreme principles of democratic government. To have thrown upon
the masses the whole responsibility of government at once would
have produced conditions that might have discredited the cause of
free government.
"Yet, although I got power at first from the army, an election was
held as soon as possible and then my authority came from the
people. I have tried to leave the Presidency several times, but it has
been pressed upon me and I remained in office for the sake of the
nation which trusted me. The fact that the price of Mexican securities
dropped eleven points when I was ill at Cuernavaca indicates
the kind of evidence that persuaded me to overcome my personal
inclination to retire to private life.
"We preserved the republican and democratic form of government. We
defended the theory and kept it intact. Yet we adopted a patriarchal policy
in the actual administration of the nation's affairs, guiding and restraining
popular tendencies, with full faith that an enforced peace would allow
education, industry and commerce to develop elements of stability and unity
in a naturally intelligent, gentle and affectionate people.
"I have waited patiently for the day when the people of the
Mexican Republic would be prepared to choose and change their
government at every election without danger of armed revolutions
and without injury to the national credit or interference with national
progress. I believe that day has come. ...
"In the old days we had no middle class in Mexico because the
minds of the people and their energies were wholly absorbed in
politics and war. Spanish tyranny and misgovernment had disorganized society.
The productive activities of the nation were abandoned
in successive struggles. There was general confusion. Neither life
nor property was safe. A middle class could not appear under such
conditions."
"General Diaz," I interrupted, "you have had an unprecedented
experience in the history of republics. For thirty years the destinies
of this nation have been in your hands, to mold them as you will;
but men die, while nations must continue to live. Do you believe
that Mexico can continue to exist in peace as a republic? Are you
satisfied that its future is assured under free institutions?"
It was worth while to have come from New York to Chapultepec
Castle to see the hero's face at that moment. Strength, patriotism,
warriorship, prophethood seemed suddenly to shine in his brown
eyes.
"The future of Mexico is assured," he said in a clear voice. "The
principles of democracy have not been planted very deep in our
people, I fear. But the nation has grown and it loves liberty. Our
difficulty has been that the people do not concern themselves
enough about public matters for a democracy. The individual Mexican as a
rule thinks much about his own rights and is always ready
to assert them. But he does not think so much about the rights of
others. He thinks of his privileges, but not of his duties. Capacity
for self-restraint is the basis of democratic government, and self-
restraint is possible only to those who recognize the rights of their
neighbors.
"The Indians, who are more than half of our population, care
little for politics. They are accustomed to look to those in authority
for leadership instead of thinking for themselves. That is a tendency
they inherited from the Spaniards, who taught them to refrain from
meddling in public affairs and rely on the Government for guidance.
"Yet I firmly believe that the principles of democracy have grown
and will grow in Mexico."
"But you have no opposition party in the Republic, Mr. President.
How can free institutions flourish when there is no opposition to
keep the majority, or governing party, in check?"
"It is true there is no opposition party. I have so many friends in
the republic that my enemies seem unwilling to identify themselves
with so small a minority. I appreciate the kindness of my friends
and the confidence of my country; but such absolute confidence imposes
responsibilities and duties that tire me more and more.
"No matter what my friends and supporters say, I retire when my
present term of office ends, and I shall not serve again. I shall be
eighty years old then.
"My country has relied on me and it has been kind to me. My
friends have praised my merits and overlooked my faults. But they
may not be willing to deal so generously with my successor and he
may need my advice and support; therefore I desire to be alive
when he assumes office so that I may help him."
He folded his arms over his deep chest and spoke with great
emphasis.
"I welcome an opposition party in the Mexican Republic," he
said. "If it appears, I will regard it as a blessing, not as an evil. And
if it can develop power, not to exploit but to govern, I will stand
by it, support it, advise it and forget myself in the successful inauguration
of complete democratic government in the country.
"It is enough for me that I have seen Mexico rise among the
peaceful and useful nations. I have no desire to continue in the
Presidency. This nation is ready for her ultimate life of freedom. At
the age of seventy-seven years I am satisfied with robust health.
That is one thing which neither law nor force can create. I would
not exchange it for all the millions of your American oil king."
His ruddy skin, sparkling eyes and light, elastic step went well
with his words. For one who has endured the privations of war and
imprisonment, and who to-day rises at six o'clock in the morning,
working until late at night at the full of his powers, the physical
condition of President Diaz, who is even now a notable hunter and
who usually ascends the palace stairway two steps at a time is
almost unbelievable.
"The railway has played a great part in the peace of Mexico," he
continued. "When I became President at first there were only two
small lines, one connecting the capital with Vera Cruz, the other
connecting it with Queretaro. Now we have more than nineteen
thousand miles of railways. Then we had a slow and costly mail
service, carried on by stage coaches, and the mail coach between
the capital and Puebla would be stopped by highwaymen two or
three times in a trip, the last robbers to attack it generally finding
nothing left to steal. Now we have a cheap, safe and fairly rapid
mail service throughout the country with more than twenty-two
hundred post-offices. Telegraphing was a difficult thing in those
times. To-day we have more than forty-five thousand miles of telegraph
wires in operation.
"We began by making robbery punishable by death and compelling the
execution of offenders within a few hours after they were caught and
condemned. We ordered that wherever telegraph wires were cut and the chief
officer of the district did not catch the criminal, he should himself suffer;
and in case the cutting occurred on a plantation the proprietor who failed to
prevent it should be hanged to the nearest telegraph pole. These were military
orders, remember.
"We were harsh. Sometimes we were harsh to the point of
cruelty. But it was all necessary then to the life and progress of the
nation. If there was cruelty, results have justified it."
The nostrils dilated and quivered. The mouth was a straight line.
"It was better that a little blood should be shed that much blood
should be saved. The blood that was shed was bad blood; the blood
that was saved was good blood.
"Peace was necessary, even an enforced peace, that the nation
might have time to think and work. Education and industry have
carried on the task begun by the army." . . .
"And which do you regard as the greatest force for peace, the
army or the schoolhouse?" I asked.
The soldier's face flushed slightly and the splendid white head
was held a little higher.
"You speak of the present time?"
"Yes."
"The schoolhouse. There can be no doubt of that. I want to see
education throughout the Republic carried on by the national Government. I
hope to see it before I die. It is important that all citizens .of a republic
should receive the same training, so that their ideals and methods may be
harmonized and the national unity intensified. When men read alike and think
alike they are more likely to act alike."
"And you believe that the vast Indian population of Mexico is
capable of high development?"
"I do. The Indians are gentle and they are grateful, all except the
Yacquis and some of the Mayas. They have the traditions of an
ancient civilization of their own. They are to be found among the
lawyers, engineers, physicians, army officers and other professional
men.
Over the city drifted the smoke of many factories.
"It is better than cannon smoke," I said.
"Yes," he replied, "and yet there are times when cannon smoke is
not such a bad thing. The toiling poor of my country have risen up
to support me, but I cannot forget what my comrades in arms and
their children have been to me in my severest ordeals."
There were actually tears in the veteran's eyes.
"That," I said, pointing to a hideously modern bull-ring near the
castle, "is the only surviving Spanish institution to be seen in this
landscape."
"You-have not noticed the pawnshops," he exclaimed. Spain
brought to us her pawn-shops, as well as her bull-rings." . . .
There are nineteen thousand miles of railways operated in Mexico,
nearly all with American managers, engineers and conductors, and one has
only to ride on the Mexican Central system or to enjoy the trains de luxe
of the National Line to realize the high transportation standards of the
country.
So determined is President Diaz to prevent his country from falling
into the hands of the trusts that the Government is taking over and merging
in one corporation, with the majority stock in the Nation's hands, the
Mexican Central, National and Inter-oceanic lines-so that, with this mighty
trunk system of transportation beyond the reach of private control, industry,
agriculture, commerce and passenger traffic will be safe from oppression.
This merger of ten thousand miles of railways into a single company,
with $113,000,000 of the stock, a clear majority, in the Government's hands,
is the answer of President Diaz and his brilliant Secretary of Finances to
the prediction that Mexico may some day find herself helplessly in the grip
of a railway trust.
Curiously enough, the leading American railway officials representing
the lines which are to be merged and controlled by the Government spoke to me
with great enthusiasm of the plan as a distinct forward step, desirable alike
for shippers and passengers and for private investors in the roads.
Two-thirds of the railways of Mexico are owned by Americans,
who have invested about $300,000,000 in them profitably.
As it is, freight and passenger rates are fixed by the Government,
and not a time table can be made or changed without official
approval.
It may surprise a few Americans to know that the first-class
passenger rate in Mexico is only two and two-fifths cents a mile,
while the second-class rate, which covers at least one-half of the
whole passenger traffic of the country, is only one cent and one-fifth
a mile--these figures being in terms of gold, to afford a comparison
with American rates.
I have been privately assured by the principal American officers
and investors of the larger lines that railway enterprises in Mexico
are encouraged, dealt with on their merits and are wholly free from
blackmail, direct or indirect. ...
More than $1,200,000,000 of foreign capital has been invested in
Mexico since President Diaz put system and stability into the nation.
Capital for railways, mines, factories and plantations has been
pouring in at the rate of $200,000,000 a year. In six months the
Government sold more than a million acres of land.
In spite of what has already been done, there is still room for the
investment of billions of dollars in the mines and industries of the
Republic.
Americans and other foreigners interested in mines, real estate,
factories, railways and other enterprises have privately assured me,
not once, but many times, that, under Diaz, conditions for invest-
ment in Mexico are fairer and quite as reliable as in the most highly
developed European countries. The President declares that these
conditions will continue after his death or retirement.
Since Diaz assumed power, the revenues of the Government have
increased from about $15,000,000 to more than $115,000,000, and
yet taxes have been steadily reduced.
When the price of silver was cut in two, President Diaz was
advised that his country could never pay its national debt, which
was doubled by the change in values. He was urged to repudiate a
part of the debt. The President denounced the advice as foolishness
as well as dishonesty, and it is a fact that some of the greatest
officers of the government went for years without their salaries that
Mexico might be able to meet her financial obligations dollar for
dollar.
The cities shine with electric lights and are noisy with electric
trolley cars; English is taught in the public schools of the great
Federal District; the public treasury is full and overflowing and
the national debt decreasing; there are nearly seventy thousand
foreigners living contentedly and prosperously in the Republic--
more Americans than Spaniards; Mexico has three times as large a
population to the square mile as Canada; public affairs have developed
strong men like Jose Yves Limantour, the great Secretary of Finances, one of
the most distinguished of living financiers; Vice-president Corral, who is
also Secretary of the Interior; Ignacio Mariscal, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and Enrique Creel, the brilliant Ambassador at Washington.
And it is a land of beauty beyond compare. Its mountains and
valleys, its great plateaus, its indescribably rich and varied foliage,
its ever blooming and abundant flowers, its fruits, its skies, its marvelous
climate, its old villages, cathedrals, churches, convents--there is nothing
quite like Mexico in the world for variety and loveliness. But it is the
gentle, trustful, grateful Indian, with his unbelievable hat and many-colored
blanket, the eldest child of America, that wins the heart out of you. After
traveling all over the world, the American who visits Mexico for the first
time wonders how it happened that he never understood what a fascinating
country of romance he left at his own door.
It is the hour of growth, strength and peace which convinces
Porfirio Diaz that he has almost finished his task on the American
continent.
Yet you see no man in a priest's attire in this Catholic country.
You see no religious processions. The Church is silent save within
her own walls. This is a land where I have seen the most profound
religious emotion, the most solemn religious spectacles--from the
blanketed peons kneeling for hours in cathedrals, the men carrying
their household goods, the women suckling their babies, to that
indescribable host of Indians on their knees at the shrine of the Virgin
of Guadalupe.
I asked President Diaz about it while we paced the terrace of
Chapultepec Castle.
He bowed his white head for a moment and then lifted it high,
his dark eyes looking straight into mine.
"We allow no priest to vote, we allow no priest to hold public
office, we allow no priest to wear a distinctive dress in public, we
allow no religious processions in the streets," he said. "When we
made those laws we were not fighting against religion, but against
idolatry. We intend that the humblest Mexican shall be so far freed
from the past that he can stand upright and unafraid in the presence of
any human being. I have no hostility to religion; on the contrary, in spite
of all past experience, I firmly believe that there can be no true national
progress in any country or any time without real religion.'
Such is Porfirio Diaz, the foremost man of the American hemisphere. What
he has done, almost alone and in such a few years, for a people disorganized
and degraded by war, lawlessness and comic opera polities, is the great
inspiration of Pan-Americanism, the hope of the Latin-American republics.
Whether you see him at Chapultepec Castle, or in his office in
the National Palace, or in the exquisite drawing-room of his modest
home in the city, with his young, beautiful wife and his children
and grandchildren by his first wife about him, or surrounded by
troops, his breast covered with decorations conferred by great nations,
he is always the same-simple, direct and full of the dignity
of conscious power.
In spite of the iron government he has given to Mexico, in spite
of a continuance in office that has caused men to say that he has
converted a republic into an autocracy, it is impossible to look into
his face when he speaks of the principle of popular sovereignty
without believing that even now he would take up arms and shed
his blood in defense of it.
Only a few weeks ago Secretary of State Root summed up President Diaz
when he said:
It has seemed to me that of all the men now living, General Porfirio
Diaz, of Mexico, was best worth seeing. Whether one considers the
adventurous, daring, chivalric incidents of his early career; whether
one considers the vast work of government which his wisdom and
courage and commanding character accomplished; whether one considers
his singularly attractive personality, no one lives to-day that I
would rather see than President Diaz. If I were a poet I would write
poetic eulogies. If I were a musician I would compose triumphal
marches. If I were a Mexican I should feel that the steadfast loyalty
of a lifetime could not be too much in return for the blessings that
he had brought to my country. As I am neither poet, musician nor
Mexican, but only an American who loves justice and liberty and hopes
to see their reign among mankind progress and strengthen and become
perpetual, I look to Porfirio Diaz, the President of Mexico, as one
of the great men to be held up for the hero-worship of mankind.
Some Mexicans thought otherwise. They saw Díaz as not only a bloody dictator, but as
selling off the Mexican patrimony. They saw his system sustained by foreign money and
other aid. They knew that Washington cooperated with Díaz by delivering to him exiles he
considered dangerous. They knew that Washington (and London and Paris) sustained the
regime with approval of its political methods and its petitions to international
financiers. So for all the smoothness of certain sorts of high-level financial and
political relations between the neighbors during the Díaz dictatorship, it added in most
Mexican minds another layer of resentment of the United States.
Although not a Mexican, John Turner expressed the views of many Mexicans about the
Díaz regime:
From Barbarous Mexico by John Kenneth Turner (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr
& Company, 1910), pp. 120-137, passim.
The slavery and peonage of Mexico, the poverty and illiteracy, the
general prostration of the people, are due, in my humble judgment, to the
financial and political organization that at present rules that
country--in a word, to what I shall call the "system" of General
Porfirio Diaz.
That these conditions can be traced in a measure to the history of
Mexico during past generations, is true. I do not wish to be unfair to
General Diaz in the least degree. The Spanish Dons made slaves and peons of
the Mexican people. Yet never did they grind the people as they are ground
today. In Spanish times the peon at least had his own little patch of ground,
his own humble shelter; today he has nothing. Moreover, the Declaration of
Independence, proclaimed just one hundred years ago, in 1810, proclaimed also
the abolition of chattel slavery. Slavery was abolished, though not entirely.
Succeeding Mexican governments of class and of church and of the individual
held the people in bondage little less severe. But finally came a democratic
movement which broke the back of the church, which overthrew the rule of
caste, which adopted a form of government as modern as our own, which freed
the slave in fact as well as in name, which gave the lands of the people back
to the people, which wiped the slate clean of the blood of the past.
***
It was under Porfirio Diaz that slavery and peonage were reestablished
in Mexico, and on a more merciless basis than they had existed even under
the Spanish Dons. Therefore, I can see no injustice in charging at least a
preponderance of the blame for these conditions upon the system of Diaz.
I say the "system of Diaz" rather than Diaz personally because, though
he is the keystone of the arch, though he is the government of Mexico more
completely than is any other individual the government of any large country
on the planet, yet no one man can stand alone in his iniquity. Diaz is the
central prop of the slavery, but there are other props without which the
system could not continue upright for a single day. For example, there is the
collection of commercial interests which profit by the Diaz system of slavery
and autocracy, and which puts no insignificant part of its tremendous powers
to holding the central prop upright in exchange for the special privileges
that it receives. Not the least among these commercial interests are American,
which, I blush to say, are quite as aggressive defenders of the Diaz citadel
as any. Indeed . . . these American interests undoubtedly form the determining
force of the continuation of Mexican slavery. Thus does Mexican slavery come
home to us in the full sense of the term.
***
In order that the reader may understand the Diaz system and
its responsibility in the degradation of the Mexican people, it will
be well to go back and trace briefly the beginnings of that system.
Mexico is spoken of throughout the world as a Republic. That is
because it was once a Republic and still pretends to be one. Mexico
has a constitution which has never been repealed, a constitution
said to be modeled after our own, and one which is, indeed, like
ours in the main. Like ours, it provides for a national congress, state
legislatures and municipal aldermen to make the laws, federal, state
and local judges to interpret them, and a president, governors and
local executives to administer them. Like ours, it provides for manhood
suffrage, freedom of the press and of speech, equality before
the law, and the other guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness which we ourselves enjoy, in a degree, as a matter of
course.
Such was Mexico forty years ago. Forty years ago Mexico was at
peace with the world. She had just overthrown, after a heroic war,
the foreign prince, Maximilian, who had been seated as emperor by
the armies of Napoleon Third of France. Her president, Benito
Juarez, is today recognized in Mexico and out of Mexico as one of
the most able as well as unselfish patriots of Mexican history. Never
since Cortez fired his ships there on the gulf coast had Mexico enjoyed such
prospects of political freedom, industrial prosperity and general advancement.
But in spite of these facts, and the additional fact that he was
deeply indebted to Juarez, all his military promotions having been
received at the hands of the latter, General Porfirio Diaz stirred up
a series of rebellions for the purpose of securing for himself the
supreme power of the land. Diaz not only led one armed rebellion
against a peaceable, constitutional and popularly approved government, but he
led three of them. For nine years he plotted as a common rebel. The support
that he received came chiefly from bandits, criminals and professional
soldiers who were disgruntled at the antimilitarist policy which Juarez had
inaugurated and which, if he could have carried it out a little farther,
would have been effective in preventing military revolutions in the future--
and from the Catholic church.
***
In defiance of the will of the majority of the people of Mexico,
General Diaz, thirty-four years ago, came to the head of government. In
defiance of the will of the majority of the people he has remained there ever
since--except for four years, from 1880 to 1884, when he turned the palace
over to an intimate friend, Manuel Gonzalez, on the distinct understanding
that at the end of the four years Gonzalez would turn it back to him again.
Since no man can rule an unwilling people without taking away
the liberties of that people, it can be very easily understood what
sort of regime General Diaz found it necessary to establish in order
to make his power secure. By the use of the army and the police
powers generally, he controlled elections, the press and public
speech and made of popular government a farce. By distributing
the public offices among his generals and granting them free rein
to plunder at will, he assured himself of the continued use of the
army. By making political combinations with men high in the esteem of the
Catholic church and permitting it to be whispered about that the church was
to regain some of its former powers, he gained the silent support of the
priests and the Pope. By promising full payment of all foreign debts and
launching at once upon a policy of distributing favors among citizens of
other countries, he made his peace with the world at large.
***
Take, for example, Diaz's method of rewarding his military chiefs,
the men who helped him overthrow the government of Lerdo. As
quickly as possible after assuming the power, he installed his generals as
governors of the various states and organized them and other influential
figures in the nation into a national plunderbund. Thus he assured himself of
the continued loyalty of the generals, on the one hand, and put them where he
could most effectively use them for keeping down the people, on the other. One
variety of rich plum which he handed out in those early days to his governors
came in the form of charters giving his governors the right, as individuals,
to organize companies and build railroads, each charter carrying with it a
huge sum as a railroad subsidy.
The national government paid for the road and then the governor
and his most influential friends owned it. Usually the railroads were
ridiculous affairs, were of narrow-gauge and of the very cheapest
materials, but the subsidy was very large, sufficient to build the road
and probably equip it besides. During his first term of four years in
office Diaz passed sixty-one railroad subsidy acts containing appropriations
aggregating $40,000,000, and all but two or three of these acts were in favor
of governors of states. In a number of cases not a mile of railroad was
actually built, but the subsidies are supposed to have been paid, anyhow. In
nearly every case the subsidy was the same, $12,880 per mile in Mexican
silver, and in those days Mexican silver was nearly on a par with gold.
This huge sum was taken out of the national treasury and was
supposedly paid to the governors, although Mexican politicians of
the old times have assured me that it was divided, a part going out
as actual subsidies and a part going directly into the hands of Diaz
to be used in building up his machine in other quarters.
Certainly something more than mere loyalty, however invaluable
it was, was required of the governors in exchange for such rich
financial plums. It is a well authenticated fact that governors were
required to pay a fixed sum annually for the privilege of exploiting
to the limit the graft possibilities of their offices. For a long time
Manuel Romero Rubio, father-in-law of Diaz, was the collector of
these perquisites, the offices bringing in anywhere from $10,000 to
$50,000 per year.
The largest single perquisite whereby Diaz enriched himself, the
members of his immediate family, his friends, his governors, his
financial ring and his foreign favorites, was found for a long time
in the confiscation of the lands of the common people--a confiscation, in
fact, which is going on to this day. Note that this land robbery was the
first direct step in the path of the Mexican people back to their bondage as
slaves and peons.
. . . The lands of the Yaquis of Sonora were taken from them
and given to political favorites of the ruler. The lands of the Mayas
of Yucatan, now enslaved by the henequen planters, were taken
from them in almost the same manner. The final act in this confiscation was
accomplished in the year 1904, when the national government set aside the
last of their lands into a territory called Quintana Roo. This territory
contains 43,000 square kilometers or 27,000 square miles. It is larger than
the present state of Yucatan by 8,000 square kilometers, and moreover is the
most promising land of the entire peninsula. Separated from the island of
Cuba by a narrow strait, its soil and climate are strikingly similar to those
of Cuba and experts have declared that there is no reason why Quintana Roo
should not one day become as great a tobacco-growing country as
Cuba. Further than that, its hillsides are thickly covered with the
most valuable cabinet and dyewoods in the world. It is this magnificent
country which, as the last chapter in the life of the Mayas as
a nation, the Diaz government took and handed over to eight Mexican
politicians.
In like manner have the Mayos of Sonora, the Papagos, the Tomosachics--
in fact, practically all the native peoples of Mexico--been reduced to
peonage, if not to slavery. Small holders of every tribe and nation have
gradually been expropriated until today their number is almost down to
zero. Their lands are in the hands of the governmental machine, or persons
to whom the members of the machine have sold for profit--or in the hands
of foreigners.
This is why the typical Mexican farm is the million-acre farm, why it has
been so easy for such Americans as William Randolph Hearst, Harrison Gray
Otis, E. H. Harriman, the Rockefellers, the Guggenheims and numerous others
each to have obtained possession of millions of Mexican acres. This is why
Secretary of Fomento Molina holds more than 15,000,000 acres of the soil of
Mexico, why ex-Governor Terrazas, of Chihuahua, owns 15,000,000 acres of the
soil of that state, why Finance Minister Limantour, Mrs. Porfirio Diaz,
Vice-President Corral, Governor Pimentel, of Chiapas, Governor Landa y
Escandon of the Federal District, Governor Pablo Escandon of Morelos,
Governor Ahumada of Jalisco, Governor
Cosio of Queretaro, Governor Mercado of Michoacan, Governor Canedo of Sinaloa,
Governor Cahuantzi of Tlaxcala, and many other members of the Diaz machine
are not only millionaires, but they are millionaires in Mexican real estate.
Chief among the methods used in getting the lands away from the people
in general was through a land registration law which Diaz fathered. This law
permitted any person to go out and claim any lands to which the possessor
could not prove a recorded title. Since up to the time the law was enacted
it was not the custom to record titles, this meant all the lands of Mexico.
When a man possessed a home which his father had possessed before him, and
which his grandfather had possessed, which his great-grandfather had
possessed, and which had been in the family as far back as history knew; then
he considered that he owned that home, all of his neighbors considered that
he owned it, and all governments up to that of Diaz recognized his right to
that home.
Supposing that a strict registration law became necessary in the course
of evolution, had this law been enacted for the purpose of protecting the
land owners instead of plundering them the government would, naturally, have
sent agents through the country to apprise the people of the new law and to
help them register their property and keep their homes. But this was not done
and the conclusion is inevitable that the law was passed for the purpose of
plundering.
At all events, the result of the law was a plundering. No sooner had it
been passed than the aforesaid members of the governmental machine, headed by
the father-in-law of Diaz, and Diaz himself, formed land companies and sent
out agents, not to help the people keep their lands, but to select the most
desirable lands in the country, register them, and evict the owners. This
they did on a most tremendous scale. Thus hundreds of thousands of small
farmers lost their property. Thus small farmers are still losing their
property.
***
Another favorite means of confiscating the homes of small owners is
found in the juggling of state taxes. State taxes in Mexico are fearfully and
wonderfully made. Especially in the less populous districts owners are taxed
inversely as they stand in favor with the personality who represents the
government in their particular district. No court, board or other responsible
body sits to review unjust assessments. The jefe politico may charge one
farmer five times as much per acre as he charges the farmer across the fence,
and yet Farmer No. 1 has no redress unless he is rich and powerful. He must
pay, and if he cannot, the farm is a little later listed among the properties
of the jefe politico, or one of the members of his family, or among the
properties of the governor of the state or one of the members of his family.
But if he is rich and powerful he is often not taxed at all. American
promoters in Mexico escape taxation so nearly invariably that the impression
has got abroad in this country that land pays no taxes in Mexico. Even
Frederick Palmer made a statement to this effect in his recent writings about
that country.
Of course such bandit methods as were employed and are still employed
were certain to meet with resistance, and so we find numerous instances of
regiments of soldiers being called out to enforce collection of taxes or the
eviction of time-honored land-holders.
***
Hardly a month passes today without there being one or more
reports in Mexican papers of disturbances, the result of confiscation of
homes, either through the denunciation method or the excuse of nonpayment of
taxes.
***
Graft is an established institution in the public offices of Mexico.
It is a right vested in the office itself, is recognized as such, and is
respectable. There are two main functions attached to each public office, one
a privilege, the other a duty. The privilege is that of using the special
powers of the office for the amassing of a personal fortune; the duty is
that of preventing the people from entering into any activities that may
endanger the stability of the existing regime. Theoretically, the fulfillment
of the duty is judged as balancing the harvest of the privilege, but with all
offices and all places this is not so, and so we find offices of particularly
rosy possibilities selling for a fixed price. Examples are those of the jefes
politicos in districts where the slave trade is peculiarly remunerative, as
at Pachuca, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Orizaba, Cordoba and Rio Blanco; of the
districts in which the drafting of soldiers for the army is especially let to
the jefes politicos; of the towns in which the gambling privileges are let as
a monopoly to the mayors thereof; of the states in which there exist
opportunities extraordinary for governors to graft off the army supply
contracts.
Monopolies called "concessions," which are nothing more nor less
than trusts created by governmental decree, are dealt in openly by
the Mexican government. Some of these concessions are sold for
cash, but the rule is to give them away gratis or for a nominal price,
the real price being collected in political support. The public domain is
sold in huge tracts for a nominal price or for nothing at all, the money
price, when paid at all, averaging about fifty Mexican centavos an acre.
But never does the government sell to any individual or company not of its
own special choice; that is, the public domain is by no means open to all
comers on equal terms. Public concessions worth millions of dollars-to use
the water of a river for irrigation purposes, or for power, to engage in this
or that monopoly, have been given away, but not indiscriminately. These
things are the coin with which political support is bought and as
such are grafts, pure and simple.
Public action of any sort is never taken for the sake of improving the
condition of the common people. It is taken with a view to making the
government more secure in its position. Mexico is a land of special
privileges extraordinary, though frequently special privileges are provided
for in the name of the common people. An instance is that of the
"Agricultural Bank," which was created in 1908. To read the press reports
concerning the purpose of this bank one would imagine that the government had
launched into a gigantic and benevolent scheme to re-establish its
expropriated people in agriculture. The purpose, it was said, was to loan
money to needy farmers. But nothing could be farther from the truth, for the
purpose is to help out the rich farmer, and only the richest in the land.
The bank has now been loaning money for two years, but so far not a single
case has been recorded in which aid was given to help a farm that comprised
less than thousands of acres. Millions have been loaned on private irrigation
projects, but never in lumps of less than several tens of thousands. In the
United States the farmer class is an humble class indeed; in Mexico the
typical farmer is the king of millionaires, a little potentate. In Mexico,
because of the special privileges given by the government, medievalism still
prevails outside the cities. The barons are richer and more powerful
than were the landed aristocrats before the French Revolution, and the
canaille poorer, more miserable.
And the special financial privileges centering in the cities are no
less remarkable than the special privileges given to the exploiters of
the hacienda slave. There is a financial ring consisting of members
of the Diaz machine and their close associates, who pluck all the
financial plums of the "republic," who get the contracts, the franchises and
the concessions, and whom the large aggregations of foreign capital which
secure a footing in the country find it necessary to take as coupon-clipping
partners. The "Banco National," an institution having some fifty-four
branches and which has been compared flatteringly to the Bank of England, is
the special financial vehicle of the government camarilla. It monopolizes the
major portion of the banking business of the country and is a convenient
cloak for the larger grafts, such as the railway merger, the true
significance of which I shall present in a future chapter.
Diaz encourages foreign capital, for foreign capital means the
support of foreign governments. American capital has a smoother
time with Diaz than it has even with its own government, which is
very fine from the point of view of American capital, but not so
good from the point of view of the Mexican people. Diaz has even
entered into direct partnership with certain aggregations of foreign
capital, granting these aggregations special privileges in some lines
which he has refused to his own millionaires. These foreign partnerships
which Diaz has formed has made his government international insofar as the
props which support his system are concerned. The certainty of foreign
intervention in his favor has been one of the powerful forces which have
prevented the Mexican people from using arms to remove a ruler who imposed
himself upon them by the use of arms.
When I come to deal with the American partners of Diaz I mention
those of no other nationality in the same breath, but it will be
well to bear in mind that England, especially, is nearly as heavily
as interested in Mexico as is the United States. While this country
has $900,000,000 (these are the figures given by Consul General
Shanklin about the first of the year 1910) invested in Mexico, England
(according to the South American Journal) has $750,000,000.
However, these figures by no means represent the ratio between the
degree of political influence exerted by the two countries. There the
United States bests all the other countries combined.
***
In this chapter I have attempted to give the reader an idea of the means
which General Diaz employed to attract support to his government. To
sum up, by means of a careful placing of public offices, public contracts
and special privileges of multitudinous sorts, Diaz absorbed all of the
more powerful men and interests within his sphere and made them a part
of his machine. Gradually the country passed into the hands of his
office holders, their friends, and foreigners. And for this the people paid,
not only with their lands, but with their flesh and blood. They paid in
peonage and slavery. For this they forfeited liberty, democracy and the
blessings of progress.
That resentment was increased by American reaction to the Mexican Revolution of
1910-1917. The revolution destroyed much of the social basis of the Díaz regime along
with the narrow conservatism that afflicted the country so often after 1821. Americans did
not know, or care, about that. The culture south of the border was so different and
"inferior" that it scarcely engaged American attention, except on a narrow range
of sensational events. In addition, special interests in the United States wished to
protect their investments in Mexico, and the Washington government habitually supposed
that its views must be given sympathetic consideration there. Finally, Americans had a
strong distaste for "revolutions," because their own orderly and successful
society had no need for such violence. They could not think of revolutions as necessary or
moral; nor could they appreciate that rules for ordinary times could not prevail during
such an upheaval.
The Revolution of 1910-1917, and its aftermath until about 1940, quickened old Mexican
fears of the United States, especially that it would become more active in intervening in
Mexican affairs. At the same time, fears arose in the United States of a radically
different Mexican society, not only less subservient to its neighbor but bent on changes
that seemed to threaten American property interests and possibly the very bases of Western
capitalist society. A cyclone of change and threatened change kept relations between the
neighbors badly--at times dangerously--disturbed from 1911 until the beginning of World
War II. More than a quarter-century of bad relations left a rich legacy of resentment
especially in Mexico, because those events meant more there than in the United States. And
Americans thereafter would have some difficulty appreciating the bitterness of Mexico's
recollections of those years.
Radicalism to the United States meant both change of any magnitude and especially
socialism or, even worse, communism, which in the 1920s and 1930s often was called
bolshevism. Destruction of U.S. property and personal injury to American citizens during a
civil war was bad enough, but critics found even more frightening the tendency of the
Mexican Revolution to call for changes in the law of property. Peasants squatting on land
around burned-out hacienda houses aroused less sympathy than fright north of the border.
While America feared revolution in Mexico, leaders in that country feared intervention,
which was really a refusal by the United States to let Mexico determine its own destiny.
Torrents of criticism poured forth from both countries, much of it nearly hysterical with
rage or frustration, some icily derogatory, much of it difficult to forget or forgive.
At the beginning of the disturbances, and before anyone could guess what revolutionary
wind would sweep Mexico, the United States had as ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson,
who did as much as any diplomat could do to worsen relations with the country to which he
was accredited. Without Washington's permission, H. L. Wilson in 1913 plotted the ouster
of the recently elected reform President Francisco Madero, and became at least a near
accessory to the murder of the gentle Madero by a reactionary group led by General
Victoriano Huerta. What did it matter to Mexicans that Wilson acted
"independently"? He was the representative of the United States, and it was
Washington's responsibility to appoint respectable envoys and to supervise and discipline
them. The Blame of Henry Lane Wilson became the title of a well-known Mexican
book and a phrase that echoed through the decades thereafter.
After Woodrow Wilson's presidential inauguration in March 1913, he replaced H. L.
Wilson and then set himself to bring order to a neighbor full of civil war, which had
spilled over the common border. Woodrow Wilson was a man of firm intelligence and alms,
but unfortunately he had no conception of his own ignorance of Mexican society and
persisted in demanding things that it could not or would not perform. Equally unfortunate
was the combination of conviction of rectitude and rightness, together with a traditional
American patronizing attitude toward Mexico, that prevented Wilson from recognizing his
errors. It was also unfortunate that he had less good advice from persons knowledgeable
about Mexico than later presidents would have.
Wilson fully justified Mexican fears of intervention. He changed the American
requirement for recognition from the neutral basis of de facto control of a country to an
emotion-laden and theoretical de jure basis. Wilson thus took upon himself the burden of
deciding when a Mexican regime had a "right" to recognition. To Mexicans, not
only was that intervention an impertinence, but Wilson seemed to define the
"purity" of Mexican contestants in a personal way. He never understood that the
inflamed nationalism of the leaders of the Revolution meant they would not accept his
judgments. What he considered their "stubbornness" was for him forever a
mystery. He could not see why his intervention against Huerta was not pleasing to
Carranza, who benefitted from it but who rejected any United States intrusion into the
internal affairs of Mexico.
A trifling incident in 1914 at Tampico, main port of the oil fields, was mishandled by
an American admiral stationed off the coast. He wanted demeaning concessions from the
Huerta forces. Such minor bumbling could have been smoothed over easily by Washington.
Instead, President Wilson acquiesced in the admiral's initiative, and reinforced Mexicans'
anger at him by following that acquiescence immediately with the seizure of Veracruz.
Mexicans were killed in the invasion. Wilson thought he was justified by a need to bring
down the murderer Huerta by blocking arms imports and customs receipts.
During those years, American oil and mining companies, landowners in Mexico, and
conservatives generally decried the "mild" policy of Wilson. That was known, of
course, in Mexico. A State Department officer suggested an American-supported
counterrevolution in Mexico. Although rejected by President Wilson, it was known and
condemned by Mexican nationalists and served to entice a defeated Pancho Villa into
adventures--including raids into the United States--that would prove his anti-American
position. Wilson even for a time was enamored of the supposed virtues of the mercurial and
primitive Villa.
The fury against the United States in Mexico even encouraged Germany during World War I
to speculate on the possibility of a connection there. The German consul in Tampico
hatched some fanciful schemes. For example, the German foreign office in the famous
"Zimmermann telegram of 1917" tried a feeler to Carranza that included reference
to the "lost territories" in the southwestern United States. Revelation of that
in the United States increased distaste for the Kaiser's Germany, though it did not
necessarily alert Americans to the possible dangers of a hostile Mexico next door. Most
people did not take Mexico seriously-an attitude Mexicans did not find endearing.
Relations remained roiled in the 1920s and 1930s by problems of recognition, claims for
damages, disputes over the new system of land expropriations, and new regulations on oil
drilling and ownership. Although for awhile the United States used nonrecognition as a
weapon against President Alvaro Obregón ( 1920-1924), it dropped that method thereafter,
partly because of a general United States disillusion with nonrecognition and
intervention. The forays between 1895 and 1933 into the affairs of Venezuela, Cuba, Santo
Domingo, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Haiti produced little more than Latin American resentment.
So in 1933 the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the "Good
Neighbor" policy and agreed with the Western Hemisphere nations in the Pan American
Union to abandon intervention. That ditching of a failed policy was emphasized in 1938
when Roosevelt declined to intervene following Mexico's expropriation of foreign oil
properties. Mexico thus became a pioneer in the successful resistance by what later would
be called the Third World to the tutelage of the industrial powers.
In addition to American fears of Mexican "bolshevism" during and after the
Revolution, there were cries against Mexico's supposed "atheism." American Roman
Catholics were unable to understand antichurch actions as "anticlerical" rather
than "antireligious," which was natural enough since anticlericalism had no
reason for existence in an America of religious pluralism and consensus against an
established church. Nor did the public schools acquaint citizens with the great struggles
over established religion in the Catholic countries of Europe and Latin America, where
anticlericalism was an important phenomenon. The Catholic parochial schools also preferred
to ignore the fact that good Catholics in many countries had insisted that the church's
property and political habits be reformed.
American Catholic complaints swelled. Fortunately, the administrations in Washington
never considered intervention for that reason. Many Americans either were indifferent to
the issue or even rather sympathetic with the official Mexican position. That did not,
however, reconcile Mexicans in the face of a clamor for intervention raised by American
Catholic organizations and ecclesiastics north of the border.
All church property was expropriated by the Mexican state, which proposed to keep the
temples open itself, permitting the church to use them. Churchmen were forbidden to
express political opinions, priests were required to register with the government, and the
states of the Mexican federal union were permitted to regulate the number of priests
within their territories. On one occasion a Mexican state found one priest to be
sufficient! Serious outrages against churchmen, nuns, and the sanctity of temples occurred
during the Revolution.
Although such conditions were not acceptable to the hierarchy in Mexico, or to the
Vatican, apparently most Mexicans accepted them or were indifferent. A considerable
minority of laymen supported the church, in part because it was a way of objecting to all
the innovations of the Revolution. Tensions came to crisis stage in 1926 when the primate
of Mexico spoke out (not for the first time) against the new rules, and President Plutarco
Calles took punitive measures against what he considered defiance of the constitutional
system. The church then declared an interdict against the performance of priestly
functions, an ancient but now anachronistic church weapon. A pro-church, and
anti-administration, faction in central Mexico took up arms in the Cristero Rebellion
(1926-29). After atrocities committed by both sides, the rebellion was crushed.
Thereafter, happily, some U.S. Catholics helped arrange a compromise between the Mexican
government and the hierarchy in Mexico and the Vatican.(2)
So United States-Mexican relations gradually were stabilized, concessions being made by
both sides. Not only were the issues more or less resolved, but United States involvement
in World War II and Mexican involvement in great economic growth, occasioned in part by
the war, made remaining differences diminish in importance.(3)
From World War II to the early 1970s relations between the neighbors generally were
much less abrasive. Damage claims, oil rights, land division, most boundary questions, and
many other matters had been reasonably well settled. When they required adjustment, that
usually was done without too much trouble. Mexico was busy with economic development; the
United States was busy with new global tasks and was pleased with stable political
conditions in Mexico, with the reduction of tensions, and with the fact that Mexico did
not use the Cold War against the United States.
The worst problems were Mexican nationalist fears of American economic domination,
distaste for U.S. interventions against supposed communist threats in several Latin
American countries, Mexican irritation that the United States would not buy more Mexican
goods, and American uneasiness at illegal Mexican immigration to the north. Clashes over
these matters generally were not bitter until the arrival of the administration of Luis
Echeverría (1970-1976). He embittered relations by escalating Mexican demands for
economic aid and then by assuming leadership of Third World insistence on redistribution
of wealth. His successor, José López Portillo, continued the sharp criticism of American
policies, either out of conviction or to appear as nationalistic as Echeverría, or
because he considered that to be the best way to gain concessions. His strictures
coincided with great new Mexican oil production, upon which the United States hoped to
draw, and with an escalation of United States fears of uncontrolled illegal immigration,
much of it from Mexico. The last year of the 1970s thus saw less cordiality between the
neighbors, and the 1980s promised to be less easy than the 1950s and 1960s.
How much does recollection of past events affect current Mexico-United States
relations? More than for most countries, because Mexico remembers so vividly much that it
dislikes. The history of asserted infamies and slights by the United States is constantly
under review. Mexico not only asks, as do we all, what have you done for me recently? It
also is not just content to remind us of what we did to it recently, but has a ready list
of complaints stretching back for more than a century.
Diplomatic Goals and Methods
A remarkable military policy defines the Mexican international stance: maintenance of
only small and cheap armed forces. Some 85,000 military personnel suffice for a nation of
65 million, and the cost is less than five percent of the national budget, a great
blessing to Mexico's economic and social programs. It means that Mexico considers it
useless to arm against the United States, pointless to plan adventures in nearby weak
countries, and that it counts on American protection from marauding world powers.
Mexico seldom takes action that involves serious economic sacrifices merely out of
ideological or emotional reasons. It wishes for the maximum possible freedom in
international relations, meaning, especially, deviation from United States lines on such
inexpensive matters as recognition of non-constitutional regimes, and a benign attitude
toward what Mexico considers "reform" or "clean revolutionary"
governments. It does recognize the difficulty of reducing much its economic dependence on
the United States and the dangers of departing too vividly from the global political views
of Washington.
Other major foreign policy goals include improvement of the economy by increasing
economic exchange, avoidance of American reprisals (especially deportations) against
Mexicans illegally north of the border, and no great extensions of United States border
restrictions or guard methods. Mexico promotes by international agreement the ideas of
nonintervention and the juridical equality of states as well as support of such agencies
as the United Nations and the Organization of American States, which favor these ideas. It
strongly supports the nineteenth-century Argentine Calvo Doctrine, requiring that
foreign-owned property receive only the protection accorded the property of nationals,
thus rejecting diplomatic pressure. Mexico also insists on its own Estrada Doctrine of
1930, calling for the immediate recognition of de facto governments, thus dismissing as
irrelevant the political coloration of the new regime or the manner in which it came to
power. That is a declaration that the punitive use of recognition is unacceptable, being
intervention and interference with sovereignty. Mexico has not quite been able to live up
to this ideal.
Finally, we may take it that Mexican leaders long to see their country play a much
greater role in global affairs, but they do not say so; always realistic, they recognize
how far Mexico is from such a role and that discussion of it now probably would be
politically counterproductive.
Mexican methods used in pursuit of its goals differ from those of the United States
because Mexico is a weak country dealing with a superpower, because America has worldwide
strategic goals and Mexico's interest is fastened on a narrower range of goals, and
because Mexican institutions are much different from those of the United States.
The Mexican executive is somewhat less constrained than the American by political
considerations. The "one party dominant" political system subjects the president
to pressures from factions within the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), but no
other party threatens to win elections should a serious error be made. The Mexican
congress is nearly a nullity, and exercises almost no constraint on the president.
Organized interest groups are less important in Mexico than they are in America because of
the one-party system, the subservient congress, and weaker state governments. Organized
labor is a part of the PRI, with little independent voice in international affairs.
Organized business has less influence than in the United States, because it is not part of
the PRI, can find no effective help from the minority parties, can accomplish little by
lobbying federal or state legislatures, and has less influence with the public than
business has in the United States. The intellectual elite often decry the government line
on foreign relations, but they are few and unorganized. They also lack influence because
poor education and lack of political sophistication and activism among the population
leaves intellectuals with but a small audience. Furthermore, the press in Mexico, though
it prints much criticism of official foreign policy, is sufficiently influenced by
government to proceed with some caution.
The methods of diplomacy available to Mexico in dealing with the United States are
limited. Mexico can vote against American positions in the United Nations, but that is of
little value. In general, the United States will "pay" little for support in the
U.N., because the U.N. is not very important in world affairs and because the United
States has the veto power. Mexico was reminded of its vulnerability when in 1975 it voted
for a U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism; American Jews punished Mexico by
boycotting the latter's tourist attractions, to the tune of possibly $200 million in the
next year.
Mexico might use control of illegal immigration as a counter, but it does not want to
control it, and it would take a large American quid pro quo to change the Mexican attitude
on the "safety valve." Also, Mexico can extract a price on relatively minor
issues where it does not seem expedient to Washington to exert much power: e.g., water
division and salinity, fishing rights, or minor boundary adjustments. Mexico, furthermore,
can exert only modest pressure on American investment because Mexico wants more, if not in
the older lines then in newer ones, or under new conditions.
So Mexico oscillates between soft words and aggressive demands, partly in response to
domestic political imperatives, partly out of frustration. Echeverría's abrasiveness
during the years 1970-76 did not serve the country well, so López Portillo began with
softer tones--although his remarks in a personal appearance before the U.S. Congress in
February 1977 contained some barbs. When sweet reason got him little but criticism at
home, López Portillo turned on harsher tones. That tactic of frigidity and rhetorical
harshness was displayed during the February 1979 visit to Mexico of President Jimmy
Carter. López Portillo was correct but deliberately stiff, and he lectured the American
president on the shortcomings of his country's policy. Carter tried to reply amiably and
slipped in a feeble pun on "Montezuma's revenge," the diarrhea so many tourists
contract in Mexico. When actors compete, good writers are useful. As the New York
Times explained, "It is hard to defend a president who begins a goodwill mission
... by reminiscing about" diarrhea, and that "stylistically the Carter
administration's foreign relations seem to have lost all sense of class." That was,
of course, "Grandma Times" at her most pontifical, and one would have thought
that style and class as measures of policy would have gone out after President John
Kennedy's admirers so mushily abused the idea.
The United States often thinks that it endures a superfluity of certain staples of
Mexican rhetoric: a flamboyant anti-interventionism that often seems unrelated to reality;
a "liberalism" on international issues that makes headlines and also makes the
United States seem reactionary, often unfairly, and seldom affects fundamental Mexican
policy; a Latin American and Mexican nationalism that often seems anti-Yanqui, and
sometimes anticapitalist, though Mexican policies scarcely support either of those ideas.
Intelligent leaders on both sides, of course, can see the hollowness of the rhetoric
and posing in both countries. But some leaders are not intelligent, and others have
different fish to fry, including the making of political mileage when no other gains seem
available. López Portillo's words are sustained, of course, by the fact that Mexico's new
oil and natural gas resources permit it to be more aggressive. It has judged--probably
correctly--that the United States eventually would pay premium prices and possibly make
concessions on other economic matters, rather than attempt drastic pressures on Mexico.
Some Americans suspected that this was the case partly because the discipline required for
other decisions was not present in the United States; other Americans, that it simply was
not worth other methods; yet others, that the quality of recent Mexican chief executives
might be higher than those north of the border.
American goals as they affect Mexico include (1) a friendly, stable nation along its
southern border; (2) Mexican support internationally--or at least a minimum of
difference--on vital issues; (3) aid in monitoring persons in Mexico thought to be a
threat to the United States; (4) help in fighting the export smuggling of narcotics and
marijuana across the border; (5) cooperation in regulating, possibly even damming, the
flow of Mexicans to the U.S.; and (6) a favorable climate for American private investment
in Mexico.
The methods used by the United States in its relations with Mexico may be described as
aiming at maximization of profit (not just monetary) under clouds of camouflage; in short,
they usually have been conservative and highly rational. The camouflage was not intended
so much for Mexican statesmen, although it occasionally helped save face for the latter,
but for the American public, so practical in many ways, but often misled by nonessentials
in foreign affairs. No doubt that was partly because of concern for world affairs in a
dangerous age, and partly a lack of access to all the mysteries; but also it was due to a
curious belief that haggling over world affairs could be made less sordid than haggling
over sales of rugs and peanuts.
Mexican statesmen understandably found American methods irritating; American
statesmen/politicians naturally continued methods that seemed to serve them well. It was,
of course, foolish to criticize American procedures as hypocritical, since indirection is
part of the definition of diplomacy. Nor was the frequent charge of lack of imagination
impressive; the United States merely took advantage of its power. It scarcely was unique
in that, and it was obvious that Mexican---and other foreign--statesmen despised
Washington when it seemed to forget that power. A few intellectuals thought it worthwhile
to urge that it was psychologically easier for the strong than for the weak to make
concessions, but that was a half-truth--possibly a tenth-truth--better left in the closet.
A favorite Washington device is sloganeering, in which "a great new
initiative," usually with a catchy name, is announced as a result of an inexpensive
brain-storming session. Although the United States has no patent on that method, it is
quite good at it, yet it has overestimated its value. Latin Americans certainly considered
they had a surfeit of Good Neighbor policies, Alliances for Progress, and the like. A
recent example a, the brainchild of Henry Kissinger, who as secretary of state talked of a
"New Dialogue" with Latin America to create better understanding. Latin America
quickly showed plenty of understanding (which Kissinger no doubt knew from the beginning),
so he dropped the New Dialogue when it had served its unannounced ephemeral purpose.
Mexico has no trouble equating sloganeering with empty promises.
Sloganeering is sensible, however, because it is cheap, as long as practitioners are
not bemused by their own rhetoric. That is the danger; it was linked to the dream of cheap
solutions. More bangs for a buck. Fire the manager! Old Potawattomy Snake Oil for
curvature of the spine.
Another cosmetic tactic dedicated to the cheap solution is the "good will" or
"fact finding" mission. They usually were used without hope of accomplishing
more than a relaxation of criticism, at home or abroad. Kissinger, just after becoming
secretary of state in 1973, hurried to Mexico to assure President Echeverría that
Washington "still" thought it a special partner. Mexico managed to restrain its
enthusiasm. Unhappily, some United States officials, even presidents, occasionally
believed that their charming and intelligent presence abroad would smooth out issues
resistant to ironing. Even when the poor things had little hope of that, they often felt
compelled to go in the very different hope that a "success," or even a pleasant
greeting, would elevate their support in the polls at home. Recently, it has sometimes
been difficult to arrange a really pleasant greeting in Mexico. If that were to reduce
cosmetic tours designed to "save" foreign relations, it might be a sanitary
thing for all concerned.
The search for cheap solutions often has a valid point, but a mangled one. A favorite
recommendation is for more "imagination" in foreign relations, almost as though
Merlin or Shakespeare could blow away hard realities. New and better-coordinated study and
policy structures constantly are urged; but often the recommendations are vague and naive,
and usually exaggerate the importance of such action.
In late 1978 and early 1979 the press favorably reported that the administration was
considering closer coordination between federal departments dealing with Mexico, so that
such issues as energy, immigration, and trade could be tackled as a single interrelated
"package." Packaging is popular in America. The Washington Post in
February 1979 declared that issues with Mexico "can no longer be handed over to
lieutenants for narrow solutions, as the Mexican gas issue has been handled"--as
though President Carter or Saint Peter could make Mexico prefer lower prices for natural
gas. The Post in April 1979 was sympathetic to the idea of a special interagency
coordinator for Mexican-American affairs, but wisely described it as
"experimental." In the same month it opposed the notion of a Mexican-American as
ambassador to Mexico, declaring that such offices should not be the preserve of ethnic
minorities.
Education, another commonly presented solution to international problems, is not cheap
and is probably as unrealistic as coordinators and presidential smiles. The role of
education and better understanding is the conventional wisdom in some news media, church,
civil libertarian, and academic circles. The kernel of truth in this idea, however, is
outweighed by its misleading implications. Surely, education and understanding could
sometimes be valuable to the promotion of international harmony. On the other hand, they
sometimes induce distaste rather than cooing agreement.
Possibly the most useful educational effort would be to reduce demagoguery in both
Mexico and the United States. That being chimerical, other sorts of institutions do what
they can. Latin American programs at United States universities lead the way in foreign
area studies, chronologically and in terms of size, by providing experts for further
teaching, government service, and advice to private enterprise. It does not noticeably
reduce tensions between the neighbors, though. Nor does extensive tourism by both sides,
any more than it determines foreign relations between France and Italy. The great influx
of Mexicans here has affected American culture--for example, restaurants and even
markets--but that matters no more to foreign relations than did the great and delightful
invasion of Italian food some years earlier.
Mexicans ate at such Anglo chain outlets south of the border as Denny's, Aunt Jemima's,
Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken--all with possible damage to their digestion as
well as esthetic standards, but there has been no observable effect on grand affairs.
American movies and television programs abound in Mexico, with the same ambiguous effects
on morals and manners as they have on those north of the border-and none on affairs of
state. The Ballet Folklórico de México delights North Americans, without improving their
understanding of natural gas pricing. The Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico does marvelous
work in promoting the Green Revolution, but it is a matter of, What have you done for me
recently?
It has been nearly half a century since the Rockefellers ripped Diego Rivera's leftist
murals from the walls of their music hall, with no discernible effect today. Also, half a
century has gone by since Dartmouth College, no center of leftism, paid José Clemente
Orozco to paint a number of square yards of its library basement with vivid condemnations
of capitalism. No stream of communists has issued from the New Hampshire hills, nor do
Dartmouth alumni hate or love Mexico more than those of Yale do.
Generally Routine Issues
Some issues between the neighbors in recent years generally have been handled with a
minimum of trouble. Occasionally there is a flareup, but usually it dies down, either
because there is a compromise between parties or because public interest is tepid.
1. Allocation of television channels is necessary for neighbors, and is done fairly
easily, because the short range transmission causes a minimum of interference. Radio is
more difficult. The United States wants what its radio industry can afford--that is, a
blanket over the Mexican market; and Mexico wants to protect itself. Adjustments are
needed periodically.
2. Most disputes over the location of the boundary involve little but punctilio. The
shifting bed of the Rio Grande has long caused problems. Agreements have failed to solve
all issues until recently. For example, an area known as the "Chamizal" in the
El Paso, Texas, area was the most notorious little bone of contention. International
arbitration early in the twentieth century divided the territory, but Washington refused
to accept it. At last, in 1963, the two countries agreed to divide a few acres of land,
set out to confine the Rio Grande to unshiftable channels, and agreed to solve all other
boundary problems.
3. Negotiation of reciprocal air transport rights occasions sharp disputes without
inflaming national passions. Mexico, developing its own airlines, has demanded that
American lines be restricted. Essentially, American carriers favor "free
competition," while Mexicans cannot compete. When Mexico began granting concessions
to third country airlines, the United States had to pay more attention. So there was
compromise on routes, frequency of service, and other matters. Adjustments occasionally
are necessary.
4. Pollution wafting across the border has caused some dispute. A lead smelter in El
Paso, for example, permitted emissions that reportedly caused lead poisoning in some
10,000 children in both countries. An investigation in 1977 indicated that the threat was
especially great to Mexican children directly across the Rio Grande from the smelter. The
company began installing scrubbing equipment, on orders from a court and after the Mexican
government took an interest in the matter.
5. There are problems of violence along the border, inevitable when certain cities
there are so large and when there is so much movement of people back and forth, and so
much difference between economic levels in the two countries. Swarms of illegal immigrants
moving from the Tijuana area toward nearby San Diego and Los Angeles are preyed on by
Mexican gangs and draw gunfire from the police of both countries. The police also
sometimes fire at each other. Some Mexican police collaborate with Mexican
"coyotes," smugglers of men north across the border, some of that Mexican police
activity taking place in United States territory. Officials of San Diego and Tijuana met
in 1977 to try to deal with their problems. The mayor of San Diego also appealed directly
to the presidents of the two countries for help in dealing with an "interstate
problem" of violence. It is bound to be a continuing sore spot.
6. There is cooperation in the control of several animal disorders, including
hoof-and-mouth disease. The United States for a long time paid for the slaughter of
infected cattle in Mexico, then when Mexican cattlemen created too much pressure on their
government, a switch was made to vaccination.
7. There are a great variety of lawsuits involving private citizens of both countries,
sometimes involving government. Most of the suits achieve only minor notice. Sometimes
they fail when they try to get a national court to adjudicate a matter that lies in the
jurisdiction of the other country.
8. There still are claims arising out of the Treaty of 1848. Reies López Tijerina, the
Mexican-American leader from New Mexico, would prefer to get the disputed land rather than
monetary reparations, but in 1977 he conceded that the former would be difficult to
arrange after so many years. Most claimants have been willing to take money. In 1923
Mexico and the United States agreed. to adjustment of claims arising from the old border
settlement. Each was to reimburse its own citizens. The United States did so, but Mexico
has not reimbursed the American claimants who are the heirs of the Old Mexican and Spanish
holders of the pre-1848 period.
9. The Pious Fund of the Californias was established in the seventeenth century in
Mexico to foster Catholic missionary activity in the Californias. The Jesuits were in
charge, and when they were ousted from the Spanish dominions in 1767, Spain, then later
Mexico, took over the fund. There was argument as to what to do when Upper California
became part of the United States. Mexico made some money irregularly into the fund but
stopped with the Revolution of 1910. Mexico in 1967 agreed to pay a lump sum of under $1
million to an endowment for a seminary in New Mexico to educate priests for duty in
Mexico. The seminary closed in 1972 and the endowment was transferred to the Mexican
church hierarchy.
10. A little-noticed dispute has worsened recently over illegal removal from Mexico of
archaeological treasures. It is difficult to control because many of the sites are in
remote locations. Citizens of both countries are willing to steal the treasures, even to
use power saws to rip off the inscriptions on ancient Maya stelae in Yucatan. Rich
collectors-individual and institutional-abroad, including the United States, are willing
to buy.
11. Occasionally an American suggests that a canal across the Mexican Isthmus of
Tehuántepec would be useful, and that possibly it might be excavated with nuclear
explosives. The U.S. State Department does not pursue the matter.
12. The drug problem at the border will remain, probably unsolvable and oscillating in
and out of public notice.
13. Few Americans have been much interested in disputes over the definition of
territorial waters. The old three-mile limit has been breaking up, and in the 1930s and
1940s Mexico and the United States modestly increased jurisdiction beyond that. In the
1950s Mexico acted against United States fishing boats inside its nine-mile claim. There
were American objections, but it was a worldwide problem. Peru and Ecuador claimed control
of fishing rights out to two hundred miles from their shores. The United States gradually
yielded and adopted the two hundred mile control of fishing itself, being as much
concerned with Soviet and Japanese fishing near its coasts as Mexico with San Diego boats
in Mexican waters. Delimitation of zones is proceeding.
14. Other border concerns cause flurries of interest. Such issues include short border
fences in critical areas, meticulous rather than routine searches of persons and vehicles,
much of the seizure of contraband and the treatment of the culprits, changes in procedures
with regard to tourist and commuter cards.
15. The 1944 water treaty required the United States to send into Mexico in the
Colorado River 1.5 million acre-feet annually of water of agricultural quality (not too
salty). This became difficult as the great postwar growth of population in the Southwest
put pressure on water supplies. It was especially troublesome in Arizona and California.
Various recent projects tapped the river, for example, the Parker Dam about 150 miles
south of Hoover Dam; and the huge Colorado Aqueduct that ran through desert and mountains
some 250 miles from the river to the Los Angeles area reduced water supplies further. More
Colorado River water also was carried to the Imperial and Coachella Valleys of California,
which by the 1970s had thousands of miles of irrigation channels and grew more than two
crops a year, worth over half a billion dollars. The valleys annually used nearly twice as
much Colorado River water as the United States delivered to Mexico.
The Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona began in 1963 to create Lake Powell, storing
nearly a two-year supply at the "natural and average" rate of the river's flow.
But drought in 1976-1977 made new supplies less than average and nothing about demand was
"natural." Meanwhile, Phoenix and Tucson grew like weeds, watered by wells into
deep aquifers containing ancient water. That drove down the water table, so that future
growth was threatened. Arizona then drew big plans for the use of Colorado River water.
Mexico would liked to have made such plans. Both California and Arizona also dreamed of
bringing water from the Columbia River, Canada, or even Alaska. They snarled at eastern
suggestions that less growth of population, agriculture, and industry also was a solution.
By 1960 the Colorado River water reaching Mexico had far too much salt--resulting from
irrigation use--and was reducing the productivity of Mexican farms. Mexico repeatedly
protested. The United States spent millions between 1961 and 1972 trying to better the
water. It was not enough. In the early 1970s President Echeverría declared that the
salinity of Colorado River water was the major issue between the two countries. That was
an exaggeration, but it illustrated the way an originally small dispute could grow.
Mexico was not entirely without power of retaliation. It pumped ground water just south
of the border so as to tap supplies in the United States. The latter did "protective
pumping" in counter-retaliation. Finally, in 1972 then-President Nixon agreed to
large-scale desalinization of Colorado River water, and the Colorado River Basin Salinity
Act was passed in 1974.
The first plant-the world's largest-was constructed at Yuma, Arizona. Initial talk was
of a $100-million investment by federal taxpayers; then the figure rose until by 1977 it
was an estimated $316 million for the Yuma plant and associated facilities. Great amounts
of energy were required for the desalinization process. Probably the cost figures would go
up further. Even more dismaying, the Yuma effort might deliver to Mexico only a tenth of
the guaranteed 1.5 million acre-feet of agricultural quality water. The final bill on
compliance with United States obligations to Mexico for Colorado River water ultimately
would run into the billions, with large costs continuing in perpetuity.
Nor is that necessarily all. Mexico might become dissatisfied with the 1.5 million
acre-feet agreement. Its rapidly increasing population has made more agricultural
production essential. How could the United States answer a request for adjustment of the
agreement? A flat "no" scarcely would be acceptable, especially since Mexico has
supplies of natural gas and oil much desired in the United States. Furthermore, Mexico
could again increase use of water in its rivers feeding into the lower Rio Grande, which
again would bring pressure on Washington from Texans.
There are other contestants for the waters of the Southwest: five Indian groups in
Arizona. They have carried many water-rights cases to the courts, where they were resisted
by the Anglo farmers in the valley of the Gila river, a tributary of the Colorado. The
Indians even persuaded Senator Edward Kennedy of faraway Massachusetts to introduce a bill
guaranteeing Indians a share of water. That inevitably would reduce water for Anglo
farmers.
United States and Mexican officials constantly check the Colorado for salinity and
volume of flow. Americans release not a drop more than necessary. Mexico's Morelos Dam
stops what crosses the border; beyond the dam, the Colorado is a creek. All this is of
absorbing interest in the far Southwest, but, as that region is angrily aware, not
considered very important by well-watered states.
Major Political Issues
An issue may have both political and economic aspects, so that categorization merely
shows its predominant character. Chiefly political issues are more intractable than
economic ones. For example, it is easier to imagine a profound Mexican concession on
economic exchange than on intervention in Mexican affairs. Of course, an economic demand
can be perceived as intervention, in which case political emotions wash it with angry
hues.
American Gentleness with Mexico
Washington is notably careful not to even appear to interfere in Mexican affairs. It is
too pleased with Mexico's current political stability and economic growth to risk
offending its prickly neighbor. Washington praises Mexico's "preferred
revolution," an alternative to Castro and proof that the United States is not against
all change in Latin America. How much this muffling of criticism is worth to Mexico in
concrete terms is arguable. Some Americans think it has gone far enough. The New York
Times in February 1979 referred to a "cocky" Mexico. It also reported that
the press there complained that the United States tried to buy natural gas at cut-rate
prices; but the papers did not bother to point out that Mexico's asking price was higher
than Canada's. The director of PEMEX said that poor communications with Washington left
the American position unclear. That was an old ploy. Washington's position was clear
enough; what was uncertain, as the PEMEX director knew, was whether the U.S. government
would stick to it.
Washington's gentle ways with Mexico have met attack from those Americans who say that
the neighbor is a dictatorship and violated human rights. With the growth of the civil
libertarian movement, that charge has put some minor pressure on Washington. In February
1979 the Council on Hemisphere Affairs, a combination of labor, civil rights, education,
and church elements, accused the Mexican government of political repression and inhuman
treatment of political dissenters, and it said that Washington's oil policy made it
reluctant to offend Mexico. At issue were supposedly "missing prisoners" of the
Mexican government, their treatment, and the question of which Mexicans deserved political
asylum in the United States. A California congressman said that one refugee spoke for
human rights against a government "using institutionalized terror and violence
masquerading as law."
The same month the Mexican government, responding to pressure by such groups as Amnesty
International, announced the results of an investigation into 314 supposed cases of
disappearance, finding 154 dead as rural guerrillas, 98 still operating as guerrillas, and
62 accounted for in a variety of ways. It also said there were no secret jails In Mexico,
no torture, and no special anti-guerrilla forces surreptitiously committing atrocities. Of
course, critics--including the mothers of missing sons--did not accept the report.
It is a vexatious matter because it is both complex and subject to various
interpretations, depending on point of view and degree of knowledge. A minority of
American opinion-makers and scholars long has been critical of Mexican society. It claims
that that view is dictated by "liberalism." It is not much interested
in the naive view that American reluctance to offend Mexico is due simply to oil policy.
Long before Mexico offered large oil exports, those critics objected to what they thought
was official American unwillingness to describe Mexican conditions objectively. For those
critics, there are evils south of the border that require much more attention along the
Potomac.
A larger body of American opinion, however, rejects that criticism as exaggerated and
as deliberately isolating Mexican institutions rather than comparing them with other areas
of the world more deserving of the displeasure of liberals. Those of this view agree that
Mexico is different from the United States but insist that it also is quite different from
Uganda or the Soviet Union. They furthermore insist that the Mexican political and social
system is one of the freer and more benign in the world, coming immediately after
twenty-one more open societies-fifteen in noncommunist Europe, plus the United States,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Costa Rica.
Forms of Mexican Nationalism
This not-very-vigorous debate in the United States has not reduced the Mexican fear of
American domination that was at the core of its foreign policy, just as it remains an
important ingredient in Mexico's domestic politics. To Mexicans, being neighbor to the
United States is akin to living next to a "reformed" burglar: remembrance of
past actions prompting paranoia about locking the windows. Fear of political dictation, on
either domestic or international issues, is reinforced by fear of economic domination, or
of cultural or spiritual pulverization by the colossus of the north.
These nationalist terrors make a mighty engine for the mobilization of Mexican opinion.
The Mexican national spirit is so potent and volatile that the government and national
party cannot entirely control it. Even Coca-Cola signs provoke growls of distaste at the
subtle and sinister threat of Yanqui imperialism. Critics of the regime rouse Mexicanidad,
and the establishment must respond, willy-nilly. Nationalism is a slippery tiger to ride.
One form that the distaste for United States tutelage takes is complaint that
Washington disdains Mexico by neglecting its views and its needs, especially as compared
with other countries. The latter part of this refers to the huge rehabilitation aid
provided Europe and Asia after World War IT, as well as the obvious concentration of
United States attention in recent years on the Old World. Mexican leaders know, but are
not interested in, the strong reasons for those American policies. They simply say they
are not treated as an equal. López Portillo was reported in October 1978 as saying that
"Mexico is neither on the list of United States priorities nor on that of United
States respect." The Washington Post in a February 1979 editorial supported
that view in milder terms by noting that in the United States the "Mexican
Connection" --not a happy phrase to use--only recently was seen as requiring direct
and sustained attention.
Another form that Mexican nationalism takes is insistence on at least appearing to have
an independent foreign policy. Opposition to the wars in Korea and Vietnam was a way of
showing that, although they also were objected to as being interference in the affairs of
other nations. An independent foreign policy, together with the hope of profit, no doubt
was mingled in with President Echeverría's promotion through the U.N. in December 1974 of
the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties, which called on the industrialized powers to
share the wealth with the Third World. Leadership of the Third World, so assiduously
pursued by Echeverría, partly served the desire for an independent foreign policy,
although Echeverría also wanted to be U.N. secretary general. An independent foreign
policy was one reason for Mexican support of Panama's demand for return of the Panama
Canal Zone. And it was part of Mexico's promotion of the Treaty of Tlatelolco against
nuclear proliferation in the Western Hemisphere, although certainly Mexico also hoped the
treaty would give protection. It certainly would not prevent nuclear proliferation, as
Brazil's determined pursuit of nuclear power, and probably weapons, indicated.
Disagreements over Communism and Violence
Disagreement between the neighbors over communism has taken many forms, often involved
Mexican nationalism, its belief that its advice and needs were neglected by the United
States, and the desire for an independent Mexican foreign policy. The series of United
States interventions in Latin America to meet perceived communist threats after World War
II provoked many of those disagreements. Mexico objected to American intervention of any
sort in the Western Hemisphere, as a violation of the nonintervention pledges given since
1933. Mexico has taken the view that any intervention threatens every country unable to
match Washington's military power. Mexico incidentally doubts the seriousness of threats
of communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere, or that the United States could not
meet them when they became more clearly manifest. In effect, it has declared that Mexico
would inform Washington when there is sufficient threat to justify intervention.
In 1954, the United States supported an intervention by Guatemalan exiles against the
Jacóbo Arbenz regime, which had accepted communist collaboration. Mexico, and most of
Latin America, never accepted the legality of the intervention or the reality of the
threat it was supposed to meet. In fact, Latin America argued that United States economic
assistance to the hemispheric nations was more important than communist threats. Some
Americans found that argument baffling.
Mexico has disagreed with American policy regarding Fidel Castro's Cuba on all but one
occasion, taking the view that Cuba was entitled to a revolutionary government if it
wanted it; nor was Mexico interested in suggestions that no one knew what Cubans wanted
under a communist police state. Mexico constantly has opposed the measures of the
Organization of American States (OAS), usually initiated by the United States, to condemn
or punish Cuba, even when it interfered in other Latin American countries in attempts to
bring down governments and promote revolution. Mexico condemned the U.S.-supported effort
to use Cuban exiles to bring down Castro at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. When all the other
OAS nations cut diplomatic relations with Cuba, Mexico refused to do so. Of course, Canada
and the European powers also maintained relations with Cuba. Mexico also led a campaign to
return Cuba to a full and equal place in the OAS. It disagreed with Washington's
objections to Cuban expropriations of foreign-owned property, remembering similar events
in Mexico's past. It pointed out that during a revolution a government had neither the
time nor the money to meet external demands. Mexico refused to get excited about communist
doctrine and methods in Cuba, confident of its ability to control Mexican communists.
The United States government accepted all of this Mexican disagreement with little
public complaint, partly because Mexico in one crisis joined the rest of the hemisphere in
standing with the United States against Castro's acceptance of Soviet offensive missiles
in 1962. In addition, Washington understood the political value to the Mexican government
and party of the independent Cuban policy. Finally, strong objections from Washington
would be counterproductive.
Some Americans became permanently disillusioned with Mexican foreign policy in the
1950s and 1960s. They would not accept the lack of Mexican sympathy with the U.N. police
action against communist North Korean and Chinese aggression against South Korea. And it
seemed to them nearly sane that Mexico would not take strong action against Cuban efforts
to revolutionize various countries of the Western Hemisphere. Apparently Mexico was
against intervention even to prevent intervention. It seemed to those critics that Mexico
was so removed from responsibility for its acts in international affairs that it was able
to act with total disregard for realities. After all, the armed forces of the United
States, it was said, would protect it from real harm.
Mexico refused to approve the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965
to defeat a perceived communist threat. Not only did Mexico--and many other Latin American
countries--see no threat, but it condemned intervention as contrary to the OAS Charter, as
indeed it was. Washington merely thought that there were things more important than the
OAS Charter, a view that Mexican purists regarded with horror. Mexico introduced a
resolution to the OAS Council calling for withdrawal of American troops from the Dominican
Republic. The United States managed to convert the military intervention into a
multilateral force under OAS aegis, but much of the organization, including Mexico,
opposed that, too. OAS and U.N. pressure forced the withdrawal of the hemispheric troops
at the end of 1965.
Mexico opposed United States intervention in Chilean affairs during 1970-1973, and
welcomed Chilean exiles from the military coup d'etat of 1973, Mexico even abandoned in
this instance its supposedly sacrosanct policy of recognizing de facto governments,
refusing to accept the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. It was impossible to know the
mix of factors that led Mexican leaders to that decision. Certainly, however, they knew
that opposition to suspected United States intervention was popular at home and would
scarcely hurt abroad. The extent of their interest in conditions in Chile, or in the
amount of American intervention there, was also hard to know. By this time, American
opinion was divided between those who found Mexican foreign policy impeccably liberal at
every turn and those who found that it required a good deal of patient understanding.
Numerous disagreements between the neighbors over communism were based on different
domestic political considerations, readings of global affairs, attitudes toward communism,
and responsibilities in world affairs. Mexico asserted that not only did Washington
exaggerate the danger of communist subversion, but that in any event Latin Americans
should be left to handle it themselves. Indeed, Mexico controlled its own communists with
an iron hand. Also, it helped American agents watch who flew to Cuba and what Soviet Bloc
personnel were doing in Mexico.
Where did Mexico stand? Some haters of Marx mistakenly thought that communal land
holdings such as the big Mexican "ejidos" could only be communist. Others
thought that the large public sector of the medical profession in Mexico showed a terrible
drift to the left. Many thought that leftist rhetoric spouted by Mexican officials and
intellectuals always was to be taken at face value, when they knew better with regard to
American public figures. Exaggerated reports of President Echeverría's radicalism led a
group of U.S. congressmen to write to President Gerald Ford in 1976 that Mexico was being
prepared for a communist takeover. Although the State Department was not fond of
Echeverría, it dismissed this effusion as irrational and ignorant.
Congressional and general public difficulties in interpreting Mexican events were no
greater than doing it with India or Turkey, but they were far away. Much of it was merely
due to reliance on the media rather than spending time and effort on real study. The
American media had trouble all over the world in dealing with the phenomena of violence.
They often exaggerated its incidence and seldom properly indicated its persistence in
societies and the near-impossibility of reducing it with prayers, editorials, and bylined
articles. They also fastened on selected violent actions, which became almost media fads;
they beat them to death while ignoring others which sometimes involved worse cruelties and
more casualties.
Mexico has been a violent society in many senses since the Spanish conquest began in
1519. Both violence and injustice had, however, been much reduced there since the
Revolution of 1910-1917. Inevitably, however, much remains. So it was the old question of
whether the bottle was half filled or half empty. The Mexican government often has thought
it necessary to use forceful methods to preserve what it considers the "true
revolution." Underpaid security forces committed even more illegal violent acts than
those in the United States. A poor and often desperate Mexican proletariat struck out
against persons and property both in frustration and anger and in hope of profit,
sometimes promised by opposition political leaders.
Mexican students often have engaged in political action, but sometimes it is difficult
to disentangle political motivation from high spirits and pedagogical complaints--for
example, against examinations. The great student demonstrations of 1968, and the
accompanying violence, excited some North Americans--including the press--unduly. One of
the authors observed during that time that the numbers of people involved, surging about
the streets and sidewalks, made the temptation to overreact nearly irresistible. The wild
rumors that whistled about the huge Mexican capital blew up the blaze of conjecture. The
approaching Olympic Games in Mexico City gave international prominence to the student
"demands" and the government responses. And the deaths at Tlatelolco on the
night of October 2 gave leftists throughout the world and all dramatic reporters a fine
occasion for rhetorical overkill.(4)
It is a truism that people have a big appetite for trivia and that it can interfere
with an understanding of the issues. Sometimes opinions based on trivia and ignorance led
to near hysteria about Mexico when it was not justified. Notable examples occurred during
the Revolution of 1910-1917. Another occurred late in Echeverría's administration in the
mid-1970s, when his Third World stances, anti-American attitudes, and mildly
anticapitalist remarks irritated Americans. His handling of the Mexican economy drove it
into a tailspin that worried American investors and government officials.
Rumors circulated in Mexico, and were repeated in the American press, that Echeverría
meant to head a coup to keep himself in office or to maintain a big influence in the
following administration. Both rumors were contrary to recent Mexican tradition; probably
would not be supported by the PRI, the army, organized business, or anybody else of
consequence; and certainly would be resisted by the party's presidential nominee and his
allies. These factors were poorly reported by the American news media, which were busy
reporting the currency devaluation of August 1976 and the subsequent weakness of the peso,
which set thousands of Mexicans to making wild statements to foreign reporters.
The American press seized on a few instances of violence in those months to suggest
there was impending "chaos," a word that probably should be banned from all
books but the Bible. The press also spoke of "hysteria" in Mexico in a sloppy
and unnecessarily alarming way. One of the authors, speaking by long-distance telephone
with his Mexican in-laws, detected no hysteria. But inflated language became even more
common when on November 19, 1976, eleven days before the end of his term, Echeverría
expropriated some rich farmland from private Mexican holders, saying they violated
constitutional restrictions on the size of holdings. The lands were ordered distributed to
landless peasants, who were waiting on cue on the borders of the seized lands. The rumor
at once was that Echeverría meant to encourage squatters (Mexicans called them
"parachutists") to take much more private land. A hullabaloo arose among
partisans of private enterprise in Mexico and the United States. The fears pumped up by
excitable Mexicans and Americans, and exacerbated by a sensational press, proved to be
founded on merely sound and fury. Fortunately, the shah of Iran had not yet been ousted,
so that did not further induce panic and saved discriminating readers from much discussion
of "trends."
Mexican Immigration a, a Political Issue
Fear of illegal aliens has been growing recently in the United States, and a few people
point out that the money spent on policing the Mexican border and catching illegal aliens
might be better spent improving the Mexican economy. But the United States is far from
panicking on the question of aliens, although a few individuals make dramatic statements,
such as the senator who a few years ago spoke of the "hemorrhage" of the Mexican
border. Since most Americans are little concerned, it is not surprising that there is no
effective government plan to stop the entry of aliens or to put the American unemployed
into the jobs the aliens fill. Of course, no one knows how to get the jobless to take such
work. U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall in August 1977 was ordered by a federal judge
in Virginia to approve importation of some five thousand foreign workers to pick apples in
nine American states. The secretary called it a "damaging precedent" and refused
to obey because nearly seven million Americans were jobless. But it turned out--as he knew
it would--that he could not block all requirements for labor Americans would not perform.
Some have favored legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already in the United
States, thus, they say, respecting dynamics of the free market. Others oppose that,
especially if it covers all aliens who might come in the future. Some say that factories
that use illegal migrants should move abroad themselves.
Few know that Western European countries have a similar problem, with more
industrialized nations hosting workers from poorer European countries, as Spain, Portugal,
and Italy as well as Turkey, North Africa, and South Asia. Their life in Europe is
increasingly difficult because governments, under pressure, have cut or stopped the flow,
and found ways to reduce slightly those already in Europe. Some are deported for violation
of entry or residence terms, or other infractions of law. But the size of the foreign
group has grown because they have much higher birthrates than Europeans. Thus, the foreign
community in West Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, and Sweden grew from
some 13.8 million to 14.6 million in the years 1973-1979.
The argument in Europe is much as that in the United States. Some natives want more
immigrant labor, but more do not. It is said that the foreigners are dirty and ignorant.
On the other hand, some Europeans feel it right to provide the foreigners with services
and try to integrate them into the community. Many devices to get rid of foreigners have
been tried. West Germany taxes employers who use immigrants, which helps to pay for public
services for the aliens. The West German government has refused, however, to directly
compensate native workers for the depressing effect on wage levels of the alien labor.
France paid $2,000 to each foreign worker who agreed to go home. But, of course, some of
the home countries did not want the immigrants back. Switzerland was the most ruthless in
paring the size of the foreign group through deportations.
Europe also is finding that new restrictions on immigration in the better developed
countries are difficult to enforce. Employers and consumers often connive at illegal
entry. There may be well over one million "black market workers" in Central and
Western Europe today. The oil-wealthy Middle East also is experiencing a great wave of
worker immigration.
If a greatly increased American fear of immigration ever arose, it could lead to strong
measures on the border and to blunt talk about Mexican population growth. Even in 1979 one
heard remarks that the Mexicans should "zip it up or keep it home." Americans
need to face the unpalatable fact that the immigration problem is not solvable without
U.S. investment in the Mexican economy-unless America thinks it can afford a wall.
Major Economic Issues
We have described the international requirements of the Mexican and American economies.
Mexico has two great aims. The first is more economic choice and control. No sophisticated
Mexican believes in economic "independence," although the notion does circulate
south of the border. More control, it is thought, will help forward the second aim: to
greatly enlarge and diversify the economy, improve productivity, enrich the Mexican people
socially and economically, and give the nation a greater place in the world. These goals
are behind all the debates we have mentioned, including those involving transnational
corporations, the cost of imported science and technology, remittances of profits abroad
from Mexico by foreign manufacturing affiliates, foreign investment, expansion of the
tourist industry, and foisting off on the United States many of the Mexican poor.
Mexico especially wants to export more, and complains of restrictions placed on Mexican
entry into the American market; that is, it wants free access to the United States for
Mexican goods that can compete there, and to keep out of Mexico most United States goods
that can compete south of the border. All this is highly rational, and counterbalancing.
Great quantities of contraband manufactured goods from many countries are sold in Mexico,
sometimes quite openly. There is no question that Mexico would prefer increased trade
rather than "handouts," which it has deprecated and even refused. But some of
the foreign trade favors that its requests are merely handouts of another sort.
The United States wants to continue imports of raw materials and agricultural
commodities from Mexico, to ship manufactured products to Mexico, and to have an
opportunity for private investment there. Washington needs to consider American
producers--agricultural and industrial--who can be hurt by low-priced Mexican goods, the
result of cheap wages there. And Washington has to resist Mexican criticism of restriction
on this type of goods when Mexicans at the same time will not let the United States
compete with some of Mexico's high-priced manufactures.
Both foreign ministries, know that great economic change is unlikely to come about by
diplomatic agreement, but they are reluctant to say so publicly. Echeverría told the U.N.
that industrialized nations should share the wealth by buying more and higher-priced
manufactures from developing countries. That probably will occur only slowly. Realistic
Mexicans do not expect American aid without a quid pro quo, and are little moved by
sloganeering and promise that amount to little.
We believe that there is room for expansion of Mexican tourism, that agricultural
imports from Mexico to the United States could possibly be increased with proper
safeguards; that yet other of Mexico's primary commodities in addition to oil might
conceivably manage to improve in price relative to imported manufactured goods-possibly
with a world cartel in coffee; and that almost certainly the United States would continue
to be interested in importing Mexican oil and natural gas, even refined petroleum
products. So there is room for some maneuvering, especially in the case of petroleum. The
United States clearly considers Mexico's greatest lever to be oil, and probably Mexico is
of like mind.
Certainly, without the fear of inundation by Mexican aliens Americans are unlikely to
be attracted by the argument that investment in development of a neighbor eventually will
pay off economically. "Eventually" is not something that most of us care to
think about.
The Washington Post in April 1979 claimed that a majority in the United States
finally was beginning to understand "the true nation-wide American stake in
Mexico," because "no country is more important to the United States in terms
across-the-board, across-the-border impact on people's lives." It also claimed that
in the government there was a consensus "that Mexico cannot be treated like just
another Latin or middle-ranking country: it's too big, too close, too important. In some
matters, such as immigration, a special relationship must be formed."
Maybe so, but most Americans still feel no urgency about Mexico. Of course, political
issues oscillate in public regard, so things could change. Meanwhile, Mexico need not
complain about neglect until a crisis arises; Mexico acted the same toward Guatemala. Some
crises might be expected to be inflammatory. Possibly when the Mexican population reaches
100 million? 200 million? 300 million? If Mexico accepted nuclear weapons from the Soviet
Union or Communist China? A communist regime in Mexico, even without bombs? Mexican
insistence on selling its oil to other countries rather than the United States?
Prediction is so chancy (the authors have tried a bit in government and academic
circles) that in the next chapter we provide three "scenarios" of possible
development in the years ahead. A "scenario" is what government and private
think tanks call a prediction in order to try to reduce criticism when it turns out to be
mistaken. At least one of the scenarios presented here suggests the truth of the
folk-saying with which this book began: "A well-fed neighbor sleeps, and so may
you."
1. On relations during those year, see chapter 3 and
chapter 4.
2. For an analysis of the scholarly controversy surrounding the
Church-State conflict, see Mabry's essay on
the subject.
3. See chapter 3 on the Mexican Revolution;
chapter 4 on post-Revolution nationalism in Mexico; chapter 5 >on the Mexican experience with foreign oil investors and the
expropriation of 1938.
4. See Donald J. Mabry, The Mexican University and the State:
Student Conflicts, 1910-1971. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1982.
The petroleum and immigration problems between neighbors touch in many places, a great
web of issues and interests that often vibrates with tension. Some of the vibration
results from the history of relations between the nations, especially as they remember
slights or humiliations. National goals, molded by history, social structures,
institutional aims, and nationalist passion and dreams, help determine international
relations. A part also is played by diplomatic methods, in some measure standard for all
modern states but also fashioned by the idiosyncracies of the national societies. There is
plenty of diplomatic and technical skill on both sides, and no lack of will, so national
interests seldom are sacrificed except under extreme pressure. Great diplomatic coups do
not await cleverer foreign ministers or prettier packaging of bargaining points. One
variant that can alter all calculations occurs when the perceived importance of issues
oscillates, to the confusion of the predicters. Individual issues--such as petroleum,
immigration, political orientation, or economic development--are part of a net of
calculation, but the accuracy of the calculation is not known until the future has become
the present. Who could have guessed in 1938 what roles petroleum and immigration would
play forty years later in the relations between Mexico and the United States?
1821-1980: From Foul to Fair to What?
Recollection of earlier events colors relations today between Mexico and the United
States. Those relations were very poor from Mexican independence in 1821 to the United
States-Mexico war of 1846-1848; a bit better, but not warm, up to the time of the dictator
Porfirio Díaz; considerably warmer during his regime (1876-1911 ); were fouled again
during and after the Mexican Revolution, from 1911 to about 1940; improved considerably
from then to the later 1960s, without being precisely genial; then in the 1970s began to
cool again, so that it was not clear how they would develop in the 1980s.
Early relations largely revolved around territorial matters, with Americans moving
westward and pressing into Mexican territory, and while American statesmen discussed
changes in the boundaries, by one means or another. Mexico was understandably alarmed and
made efforts to get help from France and Britain. Nothing sufficed and the feared
disasters occurred. The acquisition by the United States of much territory claimed by
Mexico soured relations after the annexation of the Texas Republic in 1845, the huge
territorial concessions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and the Gadsden
Purchase of 1 853. Those territorial losses are not forgotten in Mexico today.
From 1821 to the 1880s, the United States developed a bad opinion of Mexico, observing
its political instability and poor economic and social development. American comments on
Mexican "inferiority" did nothing to improve relations; nor were those relations
improved by a few U.S. mutterings about gaining more territorial concessions from Mexico,
even acquisition of the entire country. Somewhat counterbalancing this, some Mexicans
after 1848 developed a mingled admiration and fear of rapid demographic and economic
growth north of the border. But since economic relations between the two countries
remained puny, there seemed to be no benefit likely for Mexico.
The continuing possibility of North American expansion at Mexico's expense was
illuminated in 1859 when the government of Benito Juárez signed the McLane-Ocampo Treaty.
It gave the United States a transit zone, useful for a canal, in the Mexican Isthmus of
Tehuántepec and the right to protect it with troops. Juárez needed the $2 million
granted him by the treaty because his Liberal Party was in the midst of a civil war with
the Conservatives. The latter denounced the treaty as a sell-out of the fatherland. That
would echo ironically in a few years when Conservatives brought in French armies and
Maximilian of Habsburg as "emperor" to shore up a reactionary position they
could not protect with their own Mexican resources. The remarkable thing about the
McLane-Ocampo Treaty in the eyes of posterity was that Juárez, the supreme Mexican hero,
could have so compromised Mexican sovereignty. But the U.S. Senate rejected the treaty,
and it merely became, for later Mexicans, an example of the dangers of internal
dissension.
In the 1860s the United States supported the Juárez resistance to the French armies
and intrusive emperor; but the good will generated soon was smothered by Mexican fear of
the U.S. capitalists probing south of the border for concessions, especially for railway
construction and mining. Some Mexicans, it is true, were convinced that economic growth
could only occur with aid from foreign capital and that above all railways were needed to
bind together the resources of a big and mountainous land.
Mexicans agreed that what was happening in the new American Southwest was insulting and
dangerous. Anglos there treated Mexicans and Mexican-Americans badly. Many border problems
of law and order disturbed relations. Mexico was especially resentful of the American
tendency to invade Mexican territory in pursuit of bandits or hostile Indians. Not before
about 1880 were these irritants offset by an increase in economic ties between the two
countries.(1)
From the 1880s to 1910 relations became more intimate, during the regime of dictator
Porfirio Díaz. He aimed to build quickly railways, mining, industries, and commercial
agriculture, with maximum use of foreign investment and expertise, making great
concessions to attract such interests. This included not only generous railway
construction concessions, but attention to prompt payment on foreign loans as well as vast
sales of mineral, agricultural, and grazing lands to foreigners. The effort, though, was
not marked by any indication that it aimed at ultimate improvement of the lot of the poor
peasants and laborers. It demanded and enforced law and order ("bread or the
club"--pan o palo). It was celebrated abroad as Mexico's first
"civilized" regime, bringer of peace, guarantor of the activities of foreigners.
Washington thought that the utopia created south of the border was as sound as the dollar.
James Creelman, "President Diaz: Hero of the Americas," Pearson's Magazine,
From the heights of Chapultepec Castle President Diaz looked down
upon the venerable capital of his country, spread out on a vast plain, with
a ring of mountains flung up grandly about it, and I, who had come nearly
four thousand miles from New York to see the master and hero of modern
Mexico--the inscrutable leader in whose veins is blended the blood of the
primitive Mixtecs with that of the invading Spaniards--watched the
slender, erect form, the strong, soldierly head and commanding, but
sensitive, countenance with an interest beyond words to express.
A high, wide forehead that slopes up to crisp white hair and over
hangs deep-set, dark brown eyes that search your soul, soften into
inexpressible kindliness and then dart quick side looks-terrible eyes,
threatening eyes, loving, confiding, humorous eyes--a straight, powerful,
broad and somewhat fleshy nose, whose curved nostrils lift and dilate
with every emotion; huge, virile jaws that sweep from large, flat, fine ears,
set close to the head, to the tremendous, square, fighting chin; a wide,
firm mouth shaded by a white mustache; a full, short, muscular neck; wide
shoulders, deep chest; a curiously tense and rigid carriage that gives
great distinction to a personality suggestive of singular power and dignity--
that is Porfirio Diaz in his seventy-eighth year, as I saw him a few weeks ago
on the spot where, forty years before, he stood-with his besieging army
surrounding the City of Mexico, and the young Emperor Maximilian
being shot to death in Queretaro, beyond those blue mountains to
the north--waiting grimly for the thrilling end of the last interference
of European monarchy with the republics of America.
It is the intense, magnetic something in the wide-open, fearless,
dark eyes and the sense of nervous challenge in the sensitive, spread
nostrils, that seem to connect the man with the immensity of the
landscape, as some elemental force.
There is not a more romantic or heroic figure in all the world, nor
one more intensely watched by both the friends and foes of democracy, than
the soldier-statesman, whose adventurous youth pales the pages of Dumas, and
whose iron rule has converted the warring, ignorant, superstitious and
impoverished masses of Mexico, oppressed by centuries of Spanish cruelty and
greed, into a strong, steady, peaceful, debt-paying and progressive nation.
For twenty-seven years he has governed the Mexican Republic with such
power that national elections have become mere formalities. He might easily
have set a crown upon his head.
Yet to-day, in the supremacy of his career, this astonishing man--
foremost figure of the American hemisphere and unreadable mystery
to students of human government--announces that he will insist on
retiring from the Presidency at the end of his present term, so that
he may see his successor peacefully established and that, with his
assistance, the people of the Mexican Republic may show the world
that they have entered serenely and preparedly upon the last
complete phase of their liberties, that the nation is emerging from
ignorance and revolutionary passion, and that it can choose and
change presidents without weakness or war.
It is something to come from the money-mad gambling congeries of
Wall Street and in the same week to stand on the rock of Chapultepec, in
surroundings of almost unreal grandeur and loveliness, beside one who is
said to have transformed a republic into an autocracy by the absolute
compulsion of courage and character, and to hear him speak of democracy as
the hope of mankind.
This, too, at a time when the American soul shudders at the mere
thought of a third term for any President.
The President surveyed the majestic, sunlit scene below the
ancient castle and turned away with a smile, brushing a curtain of
scarlet trumpet-flowers and vine-like pink geraniums as he moved
along the terrace toward the inner garden, where a fountain set
among palms and flowers sparkled with water from the spring at
which Montezuma used to drink, under the mighty cypresses that
still rear their branches about the rock on which we stood.
"It is a mistake to suppose that the future of democracy in Mexico
has been endangered by the long continuance in office of one President,"
he said quietly. I can say sincerely that office has not corrupted my
political ideals and that I believe democracy to be the one true, just
principle of government, although in practice it is possible only to highly
developed peoples."
For a moment the straight figure paused and the brown eyes
looked over the great valley to where snow-covered Popocatapetl
lifted its volcanic peak nearly eighteen thousand feet among the
clouds beside the snowy craters of Ixtaccihuatl--a land of dead
volcanoes, human and otherwise.
"I can lay down the Presidency of Mexico without a pang of
regret, but I cannot cease to serve this country while I live," he
added.
The sun shone full in the President's face but his eyes did not
shrink from the ordeal. The green landscape, the smoking city, the
blue tumult of mountains, the thin, exhilarating, scented air, seemed
to stir him, and the color came to his cheeks as he clasped his hands
behind him and threw his head backward. His nostrils opened wide.
"You know that in the United States we are troubled about the
question of electing a President for three terms?"
He smiled and then looked grave, nodding his head gently and pursing
his lips. It is hard to describe the look of concentrated interest that
suddenly came into his strong, intelligent countenance.
"Yes, yes, I know," he replied. "It is a natural sentiment of democratic
peoples that their officials should be often changed. I agree with that
sentiment."
It seemed hard to realize that I was listening to a soldier who had
ruled a republic continuously for more than a quarter of a century
with a personal authority unknown to most kings. Yet he spoke with
a simple and convincing manner, as one whose place was great and
secure beyond the need of hypocrisy.
"It is quite true that when a man has occupied a powerful office for a
very long time he is likely to begin to look upon it as his personal property,
and it is well that a free people should guard themselves against the
tendencies of individual ambition.
"Yet the abstract theories of democracy and the practical, effective
application of them are often necessarily different--that is when
you are seeking for the substance rather than the mere form.
"I can see no good reason why President Roosevelt should not be
elected again if a majority of the American people desire to have
him continue in office. I believe that he has thought more of his
country than of himself. He has done and is doing a great work for
the United States, a work that will cause him, whether he serves
again or not, to be remembered in history as one of the great Presi-
dents. I look upon the trusts as a great and real power in the United
States, and President Roosevelt has had the patriotism and courage
to defy them. Mankind understands the meaning of his attitude and
its bearing upon the future. He stands before the world as a states-
man whose victories have been moral victories. ...
"Here in Mexico we have had different conditions. I received
this Government from the hands of a victorious army at a time when
the people were divided and unprepared for the exercise of the
extreme principles of democratic government. To have thrown upon
the masses the whole responsibility of government at once would
have produced conditions that might have discredited the cause of
free government.
"Yet, although I got power at first from the army, an election was
held as soon as possible and then my authority came from the
people. I have tried to leave the Presidency several times, but it has
been pressed upon me and I remained in office for the sake of the
nation which trusted me. The fact that the price of Mexican securities
dropped eleven points when I was ill at Cuernavaca indicates
the kind of evidence that persuaded me to overcome my personal
inclination to retire to private life.
"We preserved the republican and democratic form of government. We
defended the theory and kept it intact. Yet we adopted a patriarchal policy
in the actual administration of the nation's affairs, guiding and restraining
popular tendencies, with full faith that an enforced peace would allow
education, industry and commerce to develop elements of stability and unity
in a naturally intelligent, gentle and affectionate people.
"I have waited patiently for the day when the people of the
Mexican Republic would be prepared to choose and change their
government at every election without danger of armed revolutions
and without injury to the national credit or interference with national
progress. I believe that day has come. ...
"In the old days we had no middle class in Mexico because the
minds of the people and their energies were wholly absorbed in
politics and war. Spanish tyranny and misgovernment had disorganized society.
The productive activities of the nation were abandoned
in successive struggles. There was general confusion. Neither life
nor property was safe. A middle class could not appear under such
conditions."
"General Diaz," I interrupted, "you have had an unprecedented
experience in the history of republics. For thirty years the destinies
of this nation have been in your hands, to mold them as you will;
but men die, while nations must continue to live. Do you believe
that Mexico can continue to exist in peace as a republic? Are you
satisfied that its future is assured under free institutions?"
It was worth while to have come from New York to Chapultepec
Castle to see the hero's face at that moment. Strength, patriotism,
warriorship, prophethood seemed suddenly to shine in his brown
eyes.
"The future of Mexico is assured," he said in a clear voice. "The
principles of democracy have not been planted very deep in our
people, I fear. But the nation has grown and it loves liberty. Our
difficulty has been that the people do not concern themselves
enough about public matters for a democracy. The individual Mexican as a
rule thinks much about his own rights and is always ready
to assert them. But he does not think so much about the rights of
others. He thinks of his privileges, but not of his duties. Capacity
for self-restraint is the basis of democratic government, and self-
restraint is possible only to those who recognize the rights of their
neighbors.
"The Indians, who are more than half of our population, care
little for politics. They are accustomed to look to those in authority
for leadership instead of thinking for themselves. That is a tendency
they inherited from the Spaniards, who taught them to refrain from
meddling in public affairs and rely on the Government for guidance.
"Yet I firmly believe that the principles of democracy have grown
and will grow in Mexico."
"But you have no opposition party in the Republic, Mr. President.
How can free institutions flourish when there is no opposition to
keep the majority, or governing party, in check?"
"It is true there is no opposition party. I have so many friends in
the republic that my enemies seem unwilling to identify themselves
with so small a minority. I appreciate the kindness of my friends
and the confidence of my country; but such absolute confidence imposes
responsibilities and duties that tire me more and more.
"No matter what my friends and supporters say, I retire when my
present term of office ends, and I shall not serve again. I shall be
eighty years old then.
"My country has relied on me and it has been kind to me. My
friends have praised my merits and overlooked my faults. But they
may not be willing to deal so generously with my successor and he
may need my advice and support; therefore I desire to be alive
when he assumes office so that I may help him."
He folded his arms over his deep chest and spoke with great
emphasis.
"I welcome an opposition party in the Mexican Republic," he
said. "If it appears, I will regard it as a blessing, not as an evil. And
if it can develop power, not to exploit but to govern, I will stand
by it, support it, advise it and forget myself in the successful inauguration
of complete democratic government in the country.
"It is enough for me that I have seen Mexico rise among the
peaceful and useful nations. I have no desire to continue in the
Presidency. This nation is ready for her ultimate life of freedom. At
the age of seventy-seven years I am satisfied with robust health.
That is one thing which neither law nor force can create. I would
not exchange it for all the millions of your American oil king."
His ruddy skin, sparkling eyes and light, elastic step went well
with his words. For one who has endured the privations of war and
imprisonment, and who to-day rises at six o'clock in the morning,
working until late at night at the full of his powers, the physical
condition of President Diaz, who is even now a notable hunter and
who usually ascends the palace stairway two steps at a time is
almost unbelievable.
"The railway has played a great part in the peace of Mexico," he
continued. "When I became President at first there were only two
small lines, one connecting the capital with Vera Cruz, the other
connecting it with Queretaro. Now we have more than nineteen
thousand miles of railways. Then we had a slow and costly mail
service, carried on by stage coaches, and the mail coach between
the capital and Puebla would be stopped by highwaymen two or
three times in a trip, the last robbers to attack it generally finding
nothing left to steal. Now we have a cheap, safe and fairly rapid
mail service throughout the country with more than twenty-two
hundred post-offices. Telegraphing was a difficult thing in those
times. To-day we have more than forty-five thousand miles of telegraph
wires in operation.
"We began by making robbery punishable by death and compelling the
execution of offenders within a few hours after they were caught and
condemned. We ordered that wherever telegraph wires were cut and the chief
officer of the district did not catch the criminal, he should himself suffer;
and in case the cutting occurred on a plantation the proprietor who failed to
prevent it should be hanged to the nearest telegraph pole. These were military
orders, remember.
"We were harsh. Sometimes we were harsh to the point of
cruelty. But it was all necessary then to the life and progress of the
nation. If there was cruelty, results have justified it."
The nostrils dilated and quivered. The mouth was a straight line.
"It was better that a little blood should be shed that much blood
should be saved. The blood that was shed was bad blood; the blood
that was saved was good blood.
"Peace was necessary, even an enforced peace, that the nation
might have time to think and work. Education and industry have
carried on the task begun by the army." . . .
"And which do you regard as the greatest force for peace, the
army or the schoolhouse?" I asked.
The soldier's face flushed slightly and the splendid white head
was held a little higher.
"You speak of the present time?"
"Yes."
"The schoolhouse. There can be no doubt of that. I want to see
education throughout the Republic carried on by the national Government. I
hope to see it before I die. It is important that all citizens .of a republic
should receive the same training, so that their ideals and methods may be
harmonized and the national unity intensified. When men read alike and think
alike they are more likely to act alike."
"And you believe that the vast Indian population of Mexico is
capable of high development?"
"I do. The Indians are gentle and they are grateful, all except the
Yacquis and some of the Mayas. They have the traditions of an
ancient civilization of their own. They are to be found among the
lawyers, engineers, physicians, army officers and other professional
men.
Over the city drifted the smoke of many factories.
"It is better than cannon smoke," I said.
"Yes," he replied, "and yet there are times when cannon smoke is
not such a bad thing. The toiling poor of my country have risen up
to support me, but I cannot forget what my comrades in arms and
their children have been to me in my severest ordeals."
There were actually tears in the veteran's eyes.
"That," I said, pointing to a hideously modern bull-ring near the
castle, "is the only surviving Spanish institution to be seen in this
landscape."
"You-have not noticed the pawnshops," he exclaimed. Spain
brought to us her pawn-shops, as well as her bull-rings." . . .
There are nineteen thousand miles of railways operated in Mexico,
nearly all with American managers, engineers and conductors, and one has
only to ride on the Mexican Central system or to enjoy the trains de luxe
of the National Line to realize the high transportation standards of the
country.
So determined is President Diaz to prevent his country from falling
into the hands of the trusts that the Government is taking over and merging
in one corporation, with the majority stock in the Nation's hands, the
Mexican Central, National and Inter-oceanic lines-so that, with this mighty
trunk system of transportation beyond the reach of private control, industry,
agriculture, commerce and passenger traffic will be safe from oppression.
This merger of ten thousand miles of railways into a single company,
with $113,000,000 of the stock, a clear majority, in the Government's hands,
is the answer of President Diaz and his brilliant Secretary of Finances to
the prediction that Mexico may some day find herself helplessly in the grip
of a railway trust.
Curiously enough, the leading American railway officials representing
the lines which are to be merged and controlled by the Government spoke to me
with great enthusiasm of the plan as a distinct forward step, desirable alike
for shippers and passengers and for private investors in the roads.
Two-thirds of the railways of Mexico are owned by Americans,
who have invested about $300,000,000 in them profitably.
As it is, freight and passenger rates are fixed by the Government,
and not a time table can be made or changed without official
approval.
It may surprise a few Americans to know that the first-class
passenger rate in Mexico is only two and two-fifths cents a mile,
while the second-class rate, which covers at least one-half of the
whole passenger traffic of the country, is only one cent and one-fifth
a mile--these figures being in terms of gold, to afford a comparison
with American rates.
I have been privately assured by the principal American officers
and investors of the larger lines that railway enterprises in Mexico
are encouraged, dealt with on their merits and are wholly free from
blackmail, direct or indirect. ...
More than $1,200,000,000 of foreign capital has been invested in
Mexico since President Diaz put system and stability into the nation.
Capital for railways, mines, factories and plantations has been
pouring in at the rate of $200,000,000 a year. In six months the
Government sold more than a million acres of land.
In spite of what has already been done, there is still room for the
investment of billions of dollars in the mines and industries of the
Republic.
Americans and other foreigners interested in mines, real estate,
factories, railways and other enterprises have privately assured me,
not once, but many times, that, under Diaz, conditions for invest-
ment in Mexico are fairer and quite as reliable as in the most highly
developed European countries. The President declares that these
conditions will continue after his death or retirement.
Since Diaz assumed power, the revenues of the Government have
increased from about $15,000,000 to more than $115,000,000, and
yet taxes have been steadily reduced.
When the price of silver was cut in two, President Diaz was
advised that his country could never pay its national debt, which
was doubled by the change in values. He was urged to repudiate a
part of the debt. The President denounced the advice as foolishness
as well as dishonesty, and it is a fact that some of the greatest
officers of the government went for years without their salaries that
Mexico might be able to meet her financial obligations dollar for
dollar.
The cities shine with electric lights and are noisy with electric
trolley cars; English is taught in the public schools of the great
Federal District; the public treasury is full and overflowing and
the national debt decreasing; there are nearly seventy thousand
foreigners living contentedly and prosperously in the Republic--
more Americans than Spaniards; Mexico has three times as large a
population to the square mile as Canada; public affairs have developed
strong men like Jose Yves Limantour, the great Secretary of Finances, one of
the most distinguished of living financiers; Vice-president Corral, who is
also Secretary of the Interior; Ignacio Mariscal, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and Enrique Creel, the brilliant Ambassador at Washington.
And it is a land of beauty beyond compare. Its mountains and
valleys, its great plateaus, its indescribably rich and varied foliage,
its ever blooming and abundant flowers, its fruits, its skies, its marvelous
climate, its old villages, cathedrals, churches, convents--there is nothing
quite like Mexico in the world for variety and loveliness. But it is the
gentle, trustful, grateful Indian, with his unbelievable hat and many-colored
blanket, the eldest child of America, that wins the heart out of you. After
traveling all over the world, the American who visits Mexico for the first
time wonders how it happened that he never understood what a fascinating
country of romance he left at his own door.
It is the hour of growth, strength and peace which convinces
Porfirio Diaz that he has almost finished his task on the American
continent.
Yet you see no man in a priest's attire in this Catholic country.
You see no religious processions. The Church is silent save within
her own walls. This is a land where I have seen the most profound
religious emotion, the most solemn religious spectacles--from the
blanketed peons kneeling for hours in cathedrals, the men carrying
their household goods, the women suckling their babies, to that
indescribable host of Indians on their knees at the shrine of the Virgin
of Guadalupe.
I asked President Diaz about it while we paced the terrace of
Chapultepec Castle.
He bowed his white head for a moment and then lifted it high,
his dark eyes looking straight into mine.
"We allow no priest to vote, we allow no priest to hold public
office, we allow no priest to wear a distinctive dress in public, we
allow no religious processions in the streets," he said. "When we
made those laws we were not fighting against religion, but against
idolatry. We intend that the humblest Mexican shall be so far freed
from the past that he can stand upright and unafraid in the presence of
any human being. I have no hostility to religion; on the contrary, in spite
of all past experience, I firmly believe that there can be no true national
progress in any country or any time without real religion.'
Such is Porfirio Diaz, the foremost man of the American hemisphere. What
he has done, almost alone and in such a few years, for a people disorganized
and degraded by war, lawlessness and comic opera polities, is the great
inspiration of Pan-Americanism, the hope of the Latin-American republics.
Whether you see him at Chapultepec Castle, or in his office in
the National Palace, or in the exquisite drawing-room of his modest
home in the city, with his young, beautiful wife and his children
and grandchildren by his first wife about him, or surrounded by
troops, his breast covered with decorations conferred by great nations,
he is always the same-simple, direct and full of the dignity
of conscious power.
In spite of the iron government he has given to Mexico, in spite
of a continuance in office that has caused men to say that he has
converted a republic into an autocracy, it is impossible to look into
his face when he speaks of the principle of popular sovereignty
without believing that even now he would take up arms and shed
his blood in defense of it.
Only a few weeks ago Secretary of State Root summed up President Diaz
when he said:
It has seemed to me that of all the men now living, General Porfirio
Diaz, of Mexico, was best worth seeing. Whether one considers the
adventurous, daring, chivalric incidents of his early career; whether
one considers the vast work of government which his wisdom and
courage and commanding character accomplished; whether one considers
his singularly attractive personality, no one lives to-day that I
would rather see than President Diaz. If I were a poet I would write
poetic eulogies. If I were a musician I would compose triumphal
marches. If I were a Mexican I should feel that the steadfast loyalty
of a lifetime could not be too much in return for the blessings that
he had brought to my country. As I am neither poet, musician nor
Mexican, but only an American who loves justice and liberty and hopes
to see their reign among mankind progress and strengthen and become
perpetual, I look to Porfirio Diaz, the President of Mexico, as one
of the great men to be held up for the hero-worship of mankind.
Some Mexicans thought otherwise. They saw Díaz as not only a bloody dictator, but as
selling off the Mexican patrimony. They saw his system sustained by foreign money and
other aid. They knew that Washington cooperated with Díaz by delivering to him exiles he
considered dangerous. They knew that Washington (and London and Paris) sustained the
regime with approval of its political methods and its petitions to international
financiers. So for all the smoothness of certain sorts of high-level financial and
political relations between the neighbors during the Díaz dictatorship, it added in most
Mexican minds another layer of resentment of the United States.
Although not a Mexican, John Turner expressed the views of many Mexicans about the
Díaz regime:
From Barbarous Mexico by John Kenneth Turner (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr
& Company, 1910), pp. 120-137, passim.
The slavery and peonage of Mexico, the poverty and illiteracy, the
general prostration of the people, are due, in my humble judgment, to the
financial and political organization that at present rules that
country--in a word, to what I shall call the "system" of General
Porfirio Diaz.
That these conditions can be traced in a measure to the history of
Mexico during past generations, is true. I do not wish to be unfair to
General Diaz in the least degree. The Spanish Dons made slaves and peons of
the Mexican people. Yet never did they grind the people as they are ground
today. In Spanish times the peon at least had his own little patch of ground,
his own humble shelter; today he has nothing. Moreover, the Declaration of
Independence, proclaimed just one hundred years ago, in 1810, proclaimed also
the abolition of chattel slavery. Slavery was abolished, though not entirely.
Succeeding Mexican governments of class and of church and of the individual
held the people in bondage little less severe. But finally came a democratic
movement which broke the back of the church, which overthrew the rule of
caste, which adopted a form of government as modern as our own, which freed
the slave in fact as well as in name, which gave the lands of the people back
to the people, which wiped the slate clean of the blood of the past.
***
It was under Porfirio Diaz that slavery and peonage were reestablished
in Mexico, and on a more merciless basis than they had existed even under
the Spanish Dons. Therefore, I can see no injustice in charging at least a
preponderance of the blame for these conditions upon the system of Diaz.
I say the "system of Diaz" rather than Diaz personally because, though
he is the keystone of the arch, though he is the government of Mexico more
completely than is any other individual the government of any large country
on the planet, yet no one man can stand alone in his iniquity. Diaz is the
central prop of the slavery, but there are other props without which the
system could not continue upright for a single day. For example, there is the
collection of commercial interests which profit by the Diaz system of slavery
and autocracy, and which puts no insignificant part of its tremendous powers
to holding the central prop upright in exchange for the special privileges
that it receives. Not the least among these commercial interests are American,
which, I blush to say, are quite as aggressive defenders of the Diaz citadel
as any. Indeed . . . these American interests undoubtedly form the determining
force of the continuation of Mexican slavery. Thus does Mexican slavery come
home to us in the full sense of the term.
***
In order that the reader may understand the Diaz system and
its responsibility in the degradation of the Mexican people, it will
be well to go back and trace briefly the beginnings of that system.
Mexico is spoken of throughout the world as a Republic. That is
because it was once a Republic and still pretends to be one. Mexico
has a constitution which has never been repealed, a constitution
said to be modeled after our own, and one which is, indeed, like
ours in the main. Like ours, it provides for a national congress, state
legislatures and municipal aldermen to make the laws, federal, state
and local judges to interpret them, and a president, governors and
local executives to administer them. Like ours, it provides for manhood
suffrage, freedom of the press and of speech, equality before
the law, and the other guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness which we ourselves enjoy, in a degree, as a matter of
course.
Such was Mexico forty years ago. Forty years ago Mexico was at
peace with the world. She had just overthrown, after a heroic war,
the foreign prince, Maximilian, who had been seated as emperor by
the armies of Napoleon Third of France. Her president, Benito
Juarez, is today recognized in Mexico and out of Mexico as one of
the most able as well as unselfish patriots of Mexican history. Never
since Cortez fired his ships there on the gulf coast had Mexico enjoyed such
prospects of political freedom, industrial prosperity and general advancement.
But in spite of these facts, and the additional fact that he was
deeply indebted to Juarez, all his military promotions having been
received at the hands of the latter, General Porfirio Diaz stirred up
a series of rebellions for the purpose of securing for himself the
supreme power of the land. Diaz not only led one armed rebellion
against a peaceable, constitutional and popularly approved government, but he
led three of them. For nine years he plotted as a common rebel. The support
that he received came chiefly from bandits, criminals and professional
soldiers who were disgruntled at the antimilitarist policy which Juarez had
inaugurated and which, if he could have carried it out a little farther,
would have been effective in preventing military revolutions in the future--
and from the Catholic church.
***
In defiance of the will of the majority of the people of Mexico,
General Diaz, thirty-four years ago, came to the head of government. In
defiance of the will of the majority of the people he has remained there ever
since--except for four years, from 1880 to 1884, when he turned the palace
over to an intimate friend, Manuel Gonzalez, on the distinct understanding
that at the end of the four years Gonzalez would turn it back to him again.
Since no man can rule an unwilling people without taking away
the liberties of that people, it can be very easily understood what
sort of regime General Diaz found it necessary to establish in order
to make his power secure. By the use of the army and the police
powers generally, he controlled elections, the press and public
speech and made of popular government a farce. By distributing
the public offices among his generals and granting them free rein
to plunder at will, he assured himself of the continued use of the
army. By making political combinations with men high in the esteem of the
Catholic church and permitting it to be whispered about that the church was
to regain some of its former powers, he gained the silent support of the
priests and the Pope. By promising full payment of all foreign debts and
launching at once upon a policy of distributing favors among citizens of
other countries, he made his peace with the world at large.
***
Take, for example, Diaz's method of rewarding his military chiefs,
the men who helped him overthrow the government of Lerdo. As
quickly as possible after assuming the power, he installed his generals as
governors of the various states and organized them and other influential
figures in the nation into a national plunderbund. Thus he assured himself of
the continued loyalty of the generals, on the one hand, and put them where he
could most effectively use them for keeping down the people, on the other. One
variety of rich plum which he handed out in those early days to his governors
came in the form of charters giving his governors the right, as individuals,
to organize companies and build railroads, each charter carrying with it a
huge sum as a railroad subsidy.
The national government paid for the road and then the governor
and his most influential friends owned it. Usually the railroads were
ridiculous affairs, were of narrow-gauge and of the very cheapest
materials, but the subsidy was very large, sufficient to build the road
and probably equip it besides. During his first term of four years in
office Diaz passed sixty-one railroad subsidy acts containing appropriations
aggregating $40,000,000, and all but two or three of these acts were in favor
of governors of states. In a number of cases not a mile of railroad was
actually built, but the subsidies are supposed to have been paid, anyhow. In
nearly every case the subsidy was the same, $12,880 per mile in Mexican
silver, and in those days Mexican silver was nearly on a par with gold.
This huge sum was taken out of the national treasury and was
supposedly paid to the governors, although Mexican politicians of
the old times have assured me that it was divided, a part going out
as actual subsidies and a part going directly into the hands of Diaz
to be used in building up his machine in other quarters.
Certainly something more than mere loyalty, however invaluable
it was, was required of the governors in exchange for such rich
financial plums. It is a well authenticated fact that governors were
required to pay a fixed sum annually for the privilege of exploiting
to the limit the graft possibilities of their offices. For a long time
Manuel Romero Rubio, father-in-law of Diaz, was the collector of
these perquisites, the offices bringing in anywhere from $10,000 to
$50,000 per year.
The largest single perquisite whereby Diaz enriched himself, the
members of his immediate family, his friends, his governors, his
financial ring and his foreign favorites, was found for a long time
in the confiscation of the lands of the common people--a confiscation, in
fact, which is going on to this day. Note that this land robbery was the
first direct step in the path of the Mexican people back to their bondage as
slaves and peons.
. . . The lands of the Yaquis of Sonora were taken from them
and given to political favorites of the ruler. The lands of the Mayas
of Yucatan, now enslaved by the henequen planters, were taken
from them in almost the same manner. The final act in this confiscation was
accomplished in the year 1904, when the national government set aside the
last of their lands into a territory called Quintana Roo. This territory
contains 43,000 square kilometers or 27,000 square miles. It is larger than
the present state of Yucatan by 8,000 square kilometers, and moreover is the
most promising land of the entire peninsula. Separated from the island of
Cuba by a narrow strait, its soil and climate are strikingly similar to those
of Cuba and experts have declared that there is no reason why Quintana Roo
should not one day become as great a tobacco-growing country as
Cuba. Further than that, its hillsides are thickly covered with the
most valuable cabinet and dyewoods in the world. It is this magnificent
country which, as the last chapter in the life of the Mayas as
a nation, the Diaz government took and handed over to eight Mexican
politicians.
In like manner have the Mayos of Sonora, the Papagos, the Tomosachics--
in fact, practically all the native peoples of Mexico--been reduced to
peonage, if not to slavery. Small holders of every tribe and nation have
gradually been expropriated until today their number is almost down to
zero. Their lands are in the hands of the governmental machine, or persons
to whom the members of the machine have sold for profit--or in the hands
of foreigners.
This is why the typical Mexican farm is the million-acre farm, why it has
been so easy for such Americans as William Randolph Hearst, Harrison Gray
Otis, E. H. Harriman, the Rockefellers, the Guggenheims and numerous others
each to have obtained possession of millions of Mexican acres. This is why
Secretary of Fomento Molina holds more than 15,000,000 acres of the soil of
Mexico, why ex-Governor Terrazas, of Chihuahua, owns 15,000,000 acres of the
soil of that state, why Finance Minister Limantour, Mrs. Porfirio Diaz,
Vice-President Corral, Governor Pimentel, of Chiapas, Governor Landa y
Escandon of the Federal District, Governor Pablo Escandon of Morelos,
Governor Ahumada of Jalisco, Governor
Cosio of Queretaro, Governor Mercado of Michoacan, Governor Canedo of Sinaloa,
Governor Cahuantzi of Tlaxcala, and many other members of the Diaz machine
are not only millionaires, but they are millionaires in Mexican real estate.
Chief among the methods used in getting the lands away from the people
in general was through a land registration law which Diaz fathered. This law
permitted any person to go out and claim any lands to which the possessor
could not prove a recorded title. Since up to the time the law was enacted
it was not the custom to record titles, this meant all the lands of Mexico.
When a man possessed a home which his father had possessed before him, and
which his grandfather had possessed, which his great-grandfather had
possessed, and which had been in the family as far back as history knew; then
he considered that he owned that home, all of his neighbors considered that
he owned it, and all governments up to that of Diaz recognized his right to
that home.
Supposing that a strict registration law became necessary in the course
of evolution, had this law been enacted for the purpose of protecting the
land owners instead of plundering them the government would, naturally, have
sent agents through the country to apprise the people of the new law and to
help them register their property and keep their homes. But this was not done
and the conclusion is inevitable that the law was passed for the purpose of
plundering.
At all events, the result of the law was a plundering. No sooner had it
been passed than the aforesaid members of the governmental machine, headed by
the father-in-law of Diaz, and Diaz himself, formed land companies and sent
out agents, not to help the people keep their lands, but to select the most
desirable lands in the country, register them, and evict the owners. This
they did on a most tremendous scale. Thus hundreds of thousands of small
farmers lost their property. Thus small farmers are still losing their
property.
***
Another favorite means of confiscating the homes of small owners is
found in the juggling of state taxes. State taxes in Mexico are fearfully and
wonderfully made. Especially in the less populous districts owners are taxed
inversely as they stand in favor with the personality who represents the
government in their particular district. No court, board or other responsible
body sits to review unjust assessments. The jefe politico may charge one
farmer five times as much per acre as he charges the farmer across the fence,
and yet Farmer No. 1 has no redress unless he is rich and powerful. He must
pay, and if he cannot, the farm is a little later listed among the properties
of the jefe politico, or one of the members of his family, or among the
properties of the governor of the state or one of the members of his family.
But if he is rich and powerful he is often not taxed at all. American
promoters in Mexico escape taxation so nearly invariably that the impression
has got abroad in this country that land pays no taxes in Mexico. Even
Frederick Palmer made a statement to this effect in his recent writings about
that country.
Of course such bandit methods as were employed and are still employed
were certain to meet with resistance, and so we find numerous instances of
regiments of soldiers being called out to enforce collection of taxes or the
eviction of time-honored land-holders.
***
Hardly a month passes today without there being one or more
reports in Mexican papers of disturbances, the result of confiscation of
homes, either through the denunciation method or the excuse of nonpayment of
taxes.
***
Graft is an established institution in the public offices of Mexico.
It is a right vested in the office itself, is recognized as such, and is
respectable. There are two main functions attached to each public office, one
a privilege, the other a duty. The privilege is that of using the special
powers of the office for the amassing of a personal fortune; the duty is
that of preventing the people from entering into any activities that may
endanger the stability of the existing regime. Theoretically, the fulfillment
of the duty is judged as balancing the harvest of the privilege, but with all
offices and all places this is not so, and so we find offices of particularly
rosy possibilities selling for a fixed price. Examples are those of the jefes
politicos in districts where the slave trade is peculiarly remunerative, as
at Pachuca, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Orizaba, Cordoba and Rio Blanco; of the
districts in which the drafting of soldiers for the army is especially let to
the jefes politicos; of the towns in which the gambling privileges are let as
a monopoly to the mayors thereof; of the states in which there exist
opportunities extraordinary for governors to graft off the army supply
contracts.
Monopolies called "concessions," which are nothing more nor less
than trusts created by governmental decree, are dealt in openly by
the Mexican government. Some of these concessions are sold for
cash, but the rule is to give them away gratis or for a nominal price,
the real price being collected in political support. The public domain is
sold in huge tracts for a nominal price or for nothing at all, the money
price, when paid at all, averaging about fifty Mexican centavos an acre.
But never does the government sell to any individual or company not of its
own special choice; that is, the public domain is by no means open to all
comers on equal terms. Public concessions worth millions of dollars-to use
the water of a river for irrigation purposes, or for power, to engage in this
or that monopoly, have been given away, but not indiscriminately. These
things are the coin with which political support is bought and as
such are grafts, pure and simple.
Public action of any sort is never taken for the sake of improving the
condition of the common people. It is taken with a view to making the
government more secure in its position. Mexico is a land of special
privileges extraordinary, though frequently special privileges are provided
for in the name of the common people. An instance is that of the
"Agricultural Bank," which was created in 1908. To read the press reports
concerning the purpose of this bank one would imagine that the government had
launched into a gigantic and benevolent scheme to re-establish its
expropriated people in agriculture. The purpose, it was said, was to loan
money to needy farmers. But nothing could be farther from the truth, for the
purpose is to help out the rich farmer, and only the richest in the land.
The bank has now been loaning money for two years, but so far not a single
case has been recorded in which aid was given to help a farm that comprised
less than thousands of acres. Millions have been loaned on private irrigation
projects, but never in lumps of less than several tens of thousands. In the
United States the farmer class is an humble class indeed; in Mexico the
typical farmer is the king of millionaires, a little potentate. In Mexico,
because of the special privileges given by the government, medievalism still
prevails outside the cities. The barons are richer and more powerful
than were the landed aristocrats before the French Revolution, and the
canaille poorer, more miserable.
And the special financial privileges centering in the cities are no
less remarkable than the special privileges given to the exploiters of
the hacienda slave. There is a financial ring consisting of members
of the Diaz machine and their close associates, who pluck all the
financial plums of the "republic," who get the contracts, the franchises and
the concessions, and whom the large aggregations of foreign capital which
secure a footing in the country find it necessary to take as coupon-clipping
partners. The "Banco National," an institution having some fifty-four
branches and which has been compared flatteringly to the Bank of England, is
the special financial vehicle of the government camarilla. It monopolizes the
major portion of the banking business of the country and is a convenient
cloak for the larger grafts, such as the railway merger, the true
significance of which I shall present in a future chapter.
Diaz encourages foreign capital, for foreign capital means the
support of foreign governments. American capital has a smoother
time with Diaz than it has even with its own government, which is
very fine from the point of view of American capital, but not so
good from the point of view of the Mexican people. Diaz has even
entered into direct partnership with certain aggregations of foreign
capital, granting these aggregations special privileges in some lines
which he has refused to his own millionaires. These foreign partnerships
which Diaz has formed has made his government international insofar as the
props which support his system are concerned. The certainty of foreign
intervention in his favor has been one of the powerful forces which have
prevented the Mexican people from using arms to remove a ruler who imposed
himself upon them by the use of arms.
When I come to deal with the American partners of Diaz I mention
those of no other nationality in the same breath, but it will be
well to bear in mind that England, especially, is nearly as heavily
as interested in Mexico as is the United States. While this country
has $900,000,000 (these are the figures given by Consul General
Shanklin about the first of the year 1910) invested in Mexico, England
(according to the South American Journal) has $750,000,000.
However, these figures by no means represent the ratio between the
degree of political influence exerted by the two countries. There the
United States bests all the other countries combined.
***
In this chapter I have attempted to give the reader an idea of the means
which General Diaz employed to attract support to his government. To
sum up, by means of a careful placing of public offices, public contracts
and special privileges of multitudinous sorts, Diaz absorbed all of the
more powerful men and interests within his sphere and made them a part
of his machine. Gradually the country passed into the hands of his
office holders, their friends, and foreigners. And for this the people paid,
not only with their lands, but with their flesh and blood. They paid in
peonage and slavery. For this they forfeited liberty, democracy and the
blessings of progress.
That resentment was increased by American reaction to the Mexican Revolution of
1910-1917. The revolution destroyed much of the social basis of the Díaz regime along
with the narrow conservatism that afflicted the country so often after 1821. Americans did
not know, or care, about that. The culture south of the border was so different and
"inferior" that it scarcely engaged American attention, except on a narrow range
of sensational events. In addition, special interests in the United States wished to
protect their investments in Mexico, and the Washington government habitually supposed
that its views must be given sympathetic consideration there. Finally, Americans had a
strong distaste for "revolutions," because their own orderly and successful
society had no need for such violence. They could not think of revolutions as necessary or
moral; nor could they appreciate that rules for ordinary times could not prevail during
such an upheaval.
The Revolution of 1910-1917, and its aftermath until about 1940, quickened old Mexican
fears of the United States, especially that it would become more active in intervening in
Mexican affairs. At the same time, fears arose in the United States of a radically
different Mexican society, not only less subservient to its neighbor but bent on changes
that seemed to threaten American property interests and possibly the very bases of Western
capitalist society. A cyclone of change and threatened change kept relations between the
neighbors badly--at times dangerously--disturbed from 1911 until the beginning of World
War II. More than a quarter-century of bad relations left a rich legacy of resentment
especially in Mexico, because those events meant more there than in the United States. And
Americans thereafter would have some difficulty appreciating the bitterness of Mexico's
recollections of those years.
Radicalism to the United States meant both change of any magnitude and especially
socialism or, even worse, communism, which in the 1920s and 1930s often was called
bolshevism. Destruction of U.S. property and personal injury to American citizens during a
civil war was bad enough, but critics found even more frightening the tendency of the
Mexican Revolution to call for changes in the law of property. Peasants squatting on land
around burned-out hacienda houses aroused less sympathy than fright north of the border.
While America feared revolution in Mexico, leaders in that country feared intervention,
which was really a refusal by the United States to let Mexico determine its own destiny.
Torrents of criticism poured forth from both countries, much of it nearly hysterical with
rage or frustration, some icily derogatory, much of it difficult to forget or forgive.
At the beginning of the disturbances, and before anyone could guess what revolutionary
wind would sweep Mexico, the United States had as ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson,
who did as much as any diplomat could do to worsen relations with the country to which he
was accredited. Without Washington's permission, H. L. Wilson in 1913 plotted the ouster
of the recently elected reform President Francisco Madero, and became at least a near
accessory to the murder of the gentle Madero by a reactionary group led by General
Victoriano Huerta. What did it matter to Mexicans that Wilson acted
"independently"? He was the representative of the United States, and it was
Washington's responsibility to appoint respectable envoys and to supervise and discipline
them. The Blame of Henry Lane Wilson became the title of a well-known Mexican
book and a phrase that echoed through the decades thereafter.
After Woodrow Wilson's presidential inauguration in March 1913, he replaced H. L.
Wilson and then set himself to bring order to a neighbor full of civil war, which had
spilled over the common border. Woodrow Wilson was a man of firm intelligence and alms,
but unfortunately he had no conception of his own ignorance of Mexican society and
persisted in demanding things that it could not or would not perform. Equally unfortunate
was the combination of conviction of rectitude and rightness, together with a traditional
American patronizing attitude toward Mexico, that prevented Wilson from recognizing his
errors. It was also unfortunate that he had less good advice from persons knowledgeable
about Mexico than later presidents would have.
Wilson fully justified Mexican fears of intervention. He changed the American
requirement for recognition from the neutral basis of de facto control of a country to an
emotion-laden and theoretical de jure basis. Wilson thus took upon himself the burden of
deciding when a Mexican regime had a "right" to recognition. To Mexicans, not
only was that intervention an impertinence, but Wilson seemed to define the
"purity" of Mexican contestants in a personal way. He never understood that the
inflamed nationalism of the leaders of the Revolution meant they would not accept his
judgments. What he considered their "stubbornness" was for him forever a
mystery. He could not see why his intervention against Huerta was not pleasing to
Carranza, who benefitted from it but who rejected any United States intrusion into the
internal affairs of Mexico.
A trifling incident in 1914 at Tampico, main port of the oil fields, was mishandled by
an American admiral stationed off the coast. He wanted demeaning concessions from the
Huerta forces. Such minor bumbling could have been smoothed over easily by Washington.
Instead, President Wilson acquiesced in the admiral's initiative, and reinforced Mexicans'
anger at him by following that acquiescence immediately with the seizure of Veracruz.
Mexicans were killed in the invasion. Wilson thought he was justified by a need to bring
down the murderer Huerta by blocking arms imports and customs receipts.
During those years, American oil and mining companies, landowners in Mexico, and
conservatives generally decried the "mild" policy of Wilson. That was known, of
course, in Mexico. A State Department officer suggested an American-supported
counterrevolution in Mexico. Although rejected by President Wilson, it was known and
condemned by Mexican nationalists and served to entice a defeated Pancho Villa into
adventures--including raids into the United States--that would prove his anti-American
position. Wilson even for a time was enamored of the supposed virtues of the mercurial and
primitive Villa.
The fury against the United States in Mexico even encouraged Germany during World War I
to speculate on the possibility of a connection there. The German consul in Tampico
hatched some fanciful schemes. For example, the German foreign office in the famous
"Zimmermann telegram of 1917" tried a feeler to Carranza that included reference
to the "lost territories" in the southwestern United States. Revelation of that
in the United States increased distaste for the Kaiser's Germany, though it did not
necessarily alert Americans to the possible dangers of a hostile Mexico next door. Most
people did not take Mexico seriously-an attitude Mexicans did not find endearing.
Relations remained roiled in the 1920s and 1930s by problems of recognition, claims for
damages, disputes over the new system of land expropriations, and new regulations on oil
drilling and ownership. Although for awhile the United States used nonrecognition as a
weapon against President Alvaro Obregón ( 1920-1924), it dropped that method thereafter,
partly because of a general United States disillusion with nonrecognition and
intervention. The forays between 1895 and 1933 into the affairs of Venezuela, Cuba, Santo
Domingo, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Haiti produced little more than Latin American resentment.
So in 1933 the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the "Good
Neighbor" policy and agreed with the Western Hemisphere nations in the Pan American
Union to abandon intervention. That ditching of a failed policy was emphasized in 1938
when Roosevelt declined to intervene following Mexico's expropriation of foreign oil
properties. Mexico thus became a pioneer in the successful resistance by what later would
be called the Third World to the tutelage of the industrial powers.
In addition to American fears of Mexican "bolshevism" during and after the
Revolution, there were cries against Mexico's supposed "atheism." American Roman
Catholics were unable to understand antichurch actions as "anticlerical" rather
than "antireligious," which was natural enough since anticlericalism had no
reason for existence in an America of religious pluralism and consensus against an
established church. Nor did the public schools acquaint citizens with the great struggles
over established religion in the Catholic countries of Europe and Latin America, where
anticlericalism was an important phenomenon. The Catholic parochial schools also preferred
to ignore the fact that good Catholics in many countries had insisted that the church's
property and political habits be reformed.
American Catholic complaints swelled. Fortunately, the administrations in Washington
never considered intervention for that reason. Many Americans either were indifferent to
the issue or even rather sympathetic with the official Mexican position. That did not,
however, reconcile Mexicans in the face of a clamor for intervention raised by American
Catholic organizations and ecclesiastics north of the border.
All church property was expropriated by the Mexican state, which proposed to keep the
temples open itself, permitting the church to use them. Churchmen were forbidden to
express political opinions, priests were required to register with the government, and the
states of the Mexican federal union were permitted to regulate the number of priests
within their territories. On one occasion a Mexican state found one priest to be
sufficient! Serious outrages against churchmen, nuns, and the sanctity of temples occurred
during the Revolution.
Although such conditions were not acceptable to the hierarchy in Mexico, or to the
Vatican, apparently most Mexicans accepted them or were indifferent. A considerable
minority of laymen supported the church, in part because it was a way of objecting to all
the innovations of the Revolution. Tensions came to crisis stage in 1926 when the primate
of Mexico spoke out (not for the first time) against the new rules, and President Plutarco
Calles took punitive measures against what he considered defiance of the constitutional
system. The church then declared an interdict against the performance of priestly
functions, an ancient but now anachronistic church weapon. A pro-church, and
anti-administration, faction in central Mexico took up arms in the Cristero Rebellion
(1926-29). After atrocities committed by both sides, the rebellion was crushed.
Thereafter, happily, some U.S. Catholics helped arrange a compromise between the Mexican
government and the hierarchy in Mexico and the Vatican.(2)
So United States-Mexican relations gradually were stabilized, concessions being made by
both sides. Not only were the issues more or less resolved, but United States involvement
in World War II and Mexican involvement in great economic growth, occasioned in part by
the war, made remaining differences diminish in importance.(3)
From World War II to the early 1970s relations between the neighbors generally were
much less abrasive. Damage claims, oil rights, land division, most boundary questions, and
many other matters had been reasonably well settled. When they required adjustment, that
usually was done without too much trouble. Mexico was busy with economic development; the
United States was busy with new global tasks and was pleased with stable political
conditions in Mexico, with the reduction of tensions, and with the fact that Mexico did
not use the Cold War against the United States.
The worst problems were Mexican nationalist fears of American economic domination,
distaste for U.S. interventions against supposed communist threats in several Latin
American countries, Mexican irritation that the United States would not buy more Mexican
goods, and American uneasiness at illegal Mexican immigration to the north. Clashes over
these matters generally were not bitter until the arrival of the administration of Luis
Echeverría (1970-1976). He embittered relations by escalating Mexican demands for
economic aid and then by assuming leadership of Third World insistence on redistribution
of wealth. His successor, José López Portillo, continued the sharp criticism of American
policies, either out of conviction or to appear as nationalistic as Echeverría, or
because he considered that to be the best way to gain concessions. His strictures
coincided with great new Mexican oil production, upon which the United States hoped to
draw, and with an escalation of United States fears of uncontrolled illegal immigration,
much of it from Mexico. The last year of the 1970s thus saw less cordiality between the
neighbors, and the 1980s promised to be less easy than the 1950s and 1960s.
How much does recollection of past events affect current Mexico-United States
relations? More than for most countries, because Mexico remembers so vividly much that it
dislikes. The history of asserted infamies and slights by the United States is constantly
under review. Mexico not only asks, as do we all, what have you done for me recently? It
also is not just content to remind us of what we did to it recently, but has a ready list
of complaints stretching back for more than a century.
Diplomatic Goals and Methods
A remarkable military policy defines the Mexican international stance: maintenance of
only small and cheap armed forces. Some 85,000 military personnel suffice for a nation of
65 million, and the cost is less than five percent of the national budget, a great
blessing to Mexico's economic and social programs. It means that Mexico considers it
useless to arm against the United States, pointless to plan adventures in nearby weak
countries, and that it counts on American protection from marauding world powers.
Mexico seldom takes action that involves serious economic sacrifices merely out of
ideological or emotional reasons. It wishes for the maximum possible freedom in
international relations, meaning, especially, deviation from United States lines on such
inexpensive matters as recognition of non-constitutional regimes, and a benign attitude
toward what Mexico considers "reform" or "clean revolutionary"
governments. It does recognize the difficulty of reducing much its economic dependence on
the United States and the dangers of departing too vividly from the global political views
of Washington.
Other major foreign policy goals include improvement of the economy by increasing
economic exchange, avoidance of American reprisals (especially deportations) against
Mexicans illegally north of the border, and no great extensions of United States border
restrictions or guard methods. Mexico promotes by international agreement the ideas of
nonintervention and the juridical equality of states as well as support of such agencies
as the United Nations and the Organization of American States, which favor these ideas. It
strongly supports the nineteenth-century Argentine Calvo Doctrine, requiring that
foreign-owned property receive only the protection accorded the property of nationals,
thus rejecting diplomatic pressure. Mexico also insists on its own Estrada Doctrine of
1930, calling for the immediate recognition of de facto governments, thus dismissing as
irrelevant the political coloration of the new regime or the manner in which it came to
power. That is a declaration that the punitive use of recognition is unacceptable, being
intervention and interference with sovereignty. Mexico has not quite been able to live up
to this ideal.
Finally, we may take it that Mexican leaders long to see their country play a much
greater role in global affairs, but they do not say so; always realistic, they recognize
how far Mexico is from such a role and that discussion of it now probably would be
politically counterproductive.
Mexican methods used in pursuit of its goals differ from those of the United States
because Mexico is a weak country dealing with a superpower, because America has worldwide
strategic goals and Mexico's interest is fastened on a narrower range of goals, and
because Mexican institutions are much different from those of the United States.
The Mexican executive is somewhat less constrained than the American by political
considerations. The "one party dominant" political system subjects the president
to pressures from factions within the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), but no
other party threatens to win elections should a serious error be made. The Mexican
congress is nearly a nullity, and exercises almost no constraint on the president.
Organized interest groups are less important in Mexico than they are in America because of
the one-party system, the subservient congress, and weaker state governments. Organized
labor is a part of the PRI, with little independent voice in international affairs.
Organized business has less influence than in the United States, because it is not part of
the PRI, can find no effective help from the minority parties, can accomplish little by
lobbying federal or state legislatures, and has less influence with the public than
business has in the United States. The intellectual elite often decry the government line
on foreign relations, but they are few and unorganized. They also lack influence because
poor education and lack of political sophistication and activism among the population
leaves intellectuals with but a small audience. Furthermore, the press in Mexico, though
it prints much criticism of official foreign policy, is sufficiently influenced by
government to proceed with some caution.
The methods of diplomacy available to Mexico in dealing with the United States are
limited. Mexico can vote against American positions in the United Nations, but that is of
little value. In general, the United States will "pay" little for support in the
U.N., because the U.N. is not very important in world affairs and because the United
States has the veto power. Mexico was reminded of its vulnerability when in 1975 it voted
for a U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism; American Jews punished Mexico by
boycotting the latter's tourist attractions, to the tune of possibly $200 million in the
next year.
Mexico might use control of illegal immigration as a counter, but it does not want to
control it, and it would take a large American quid pro quo to change the Mexican attitude
on the "safety valve." Also, Mexico can extract a price on relatively minor
issues where it does not seem expedient to Washington to exert much power: e.g., water
division and salinity, fishing rights, or minor boundary adjustments. Mexico, furthermore,
can exert only modest pressure on American investment because Mexico wants more, if not in
the older lines then in newer ones, or under new conditions.
So Mexico oscillates between soft words and aggressive demands, partly in response to
domestic political imperatives, partly out of frustration. Echeverría's abrasiveness
during the years 1970-76 did not serve the country well, so López Portillo began with
softer tones--although his remarks in a personal appearance before the U.S. Congress in
February 1977 contained some barbs. When sweet reason got him little but criticism at
home, López Portillo turned on harsher tones. That tactic of frigidity and rhetorical
harshness was displayed during the February 1979 visit to Mexico of President Jimmy
Carter. López Portillo was correct but deliberately stiff, and he lectured the American
president on the shortcomings of his country's policy. Carter tried to reply amiably and
slipped in a feeble pun on "Montezuma's revenge," the diarrhea so many tourists
contract in Mexico. When actors compete, good writers are useful. As the New York
Times explained, "It is hard to defend a president who begins a goodwill mission
... by reminiscing about" diarrhea, and that "stylistically the Carter
administration's foreign relations seem to have lost all sense of class." That was,
of course, "Grandma Times" at her most pontifical, and one would have thought
that style and class as measures of policy would have gone out after President John
Kennedy's admirers so mushily abused the idea.
The United States often thinks that it endures a superfluity of certain staples of
Mexican rhetoric: a flamboyant anti-interventionism that often seems unrelated to reality;
a "liberalism" on international issues that makes headlines and also makes the
United States seem reactionary, often unfairly, and seldom affects fundamental Mexican
policy; a Latin American and Mexican nationalism that often seems anti-Yanqui, and
sometimes anticapitalist, though Mexican policies scarcely support either of those ideas.
Intelligent leaders on both sides, of course, can see the hollowness of the rhetoric
and posing in both countries. But some leaders are not intelligent, and others have
different fish to fry, including the making of political mileage when no other gains seem
available. López Portillo's words are sustained, of course, by the fact that Mexico's new
oil and natural gas resources permit it to be more aggressive. It has judged--probably
correctly--that the United States eventually would pay premium prices and possibly make
concessions on other economic matters, rather than attempt drastic pressures on Mexico.
Some Americans suspected that this was the case partly because the discipline required for
other decisions was not present in the United States; other Americans, that it simply was
not worth other methods; yet others, that the quality of recent Mexican chief executives
might be higher than those north of the border.
American goals as they affect Mexico include (1) a friendly, stable nation along its
southern border; (2) Mexican support internationally--or at least a minimum of
difference--on vital issues; (3) aid in monitoring persons in Mexico thought to be a
threat to the United States; (4) help in fighting the export smuggling of narcotics and
marijuana across the border; (5) cooperation in regulating, possibly even damming, the
flow of Mexicans to the U.S.; and (6) a favorable climate for American private investment
in Mexico.
The methods used by the United States in its relations with Mexico may be described as
aiming at maximization of profit (not just monetary) under clouds of camouflage; in short,
they usually have been conservative and highly rational. The camouflage was not intended
so much for Mexican statesmen, although it occasionally helped save face for the latter,
but for the American public, so practical in many ways, but often misled by nonessentials
in foreign affairs. No doubt that was partly because of concern for world affairs in a
dangerous age, and partly a lack of access to all the mysteries; but also it was due to a
curious belief that haggling over world affairs could be made less sordid than haggling
over sales of rugs and peanuts.
Mexican statesmen understandably found American methods irritating; American
statesmen/politicians naturally continued methods that seemed to serve them well. It was,
of course, foolish to criticize American procedures as hypocritical, since indirection is
part of the definition of diplomacy. Nor was the frequent charge of lack of imagination
impressive; the United States merely took advantage of its power. It scarcely was unique
in that, and it was obvious that Mexican---and other foreign--statesmen despised
Washington when it seemed to forget that power. A few intellectuals thought it worthwhile
to urge that it was psychologically easier for the strong than for the weak to make
concessions, but that was a half-truth--possibly a tenth-truth--better left in the closet.
A favorite Washington device is sloganeering, in which "a great new
initiative," usually with a catchy name, is announced as a result of an inexpensive
brain-storming session. Although the United States has no patent on that method, it is
quite good at it, yet it has overestimated its value. Latin Americans certainly considered
they had a surfeit of Good Neighbor policies, Alliances for Progress, and the like. A
recent example a, the brainchild of Henry Kissinger, who as secretary of state talked of a
"New Dialogue" with Latin America to create better understanding. Latin America
quickly showed plenty of understanding (which Kissinger no doubt knew from the beginning),
so he dropped the New Dialogue when it had served its unannounced ephemeral purpose.
Mexico has no trouble equating sloganeering with empty promises.
Sloganeering is sensible, however, because it is cheap, as long as practitioners are
not bemused by their own rhetoric. That is the danger; it was linked to the dream of cheap
solutions. More bangs for a buck. Fire the manager! Old Potawattomy Snake Oil for
curvature of the spine.
Another cosmetic tactic dedicated to the cheap solution is the "good will" or
"fact finding" mission. They usually were used without hope of accomplishing
more than a relaxation of criticism, at home or abroad. Kissinger, just after becoming
secretary of state in 1973, hurried to Mexico to assure President Echeverría that
Washington "still" thought it a special partner. Mexico managed to restrain its
enthusiasm. Unhappily, some United States officials, even presidents, occasionally
believed that their charming and intelligent presence abroad would smooth out issues
resistant to ironing. Even when the poor things had little hope of that, they often felt
compelled to go in the very different hope that a "success," or even a pleasant
greeting, would elevate their support in the polls at home. Recently, it has sometimes
been difficult to arrange a really pleasant greeting in Mexico. If that were to reduce
cosmetic tours designed to "save" foreign relations, it might be a sanitary
thing for all concerned.
The search for cheap solutions often has a valid point, but a mangled one. A favorite
recommendation is for more "imagination" in foreign relations, almost as though
Merlin or Shakespeare could blow away hard realities. New and better-coordinated study and
policy structures constantly are urged; but often the recommendations are vague and naive,
and usually exaggerate the importance of such action.
In late 1978 and early 1979 the press favorably reported that the administration was
considering closer coordination between federal departments dealing with Mexico, so that
such issues as energy, immigration, and trade could be tackled as a single interrelated
"package." Packaging is popular in America. The Washington Post in
February 1979 declared that issues with Mexico "can no longer be handed over to
lieutenants for narrow solutions, as the Mexican gas issue has been handled"--as
though President Carter or Saint Peter could make Mexico prefer lower prices for natural
gas. The Post in April 1979 was sympathetic to the idea of a special interagency
coordinator for Mexican-American affairs, but wisely described it as
"experimental." In the same month it opposed the notion of a Mexican-American as
ambassador to Mexico, declaring that such offices should not be the preserve of ethnic
minorities.
Education, another commonly presented solution to international problems, is not cheap
and is probably as unrealistic as coordinators and presidential smiles. The role of
education and better understanding is the conventional wisdom in some news media, church,
civil libertarian, and academic circles. The kernel of truth in this idea, however, is
outweighed by its misleading implications. Surely, education and understanding could
sometimes be valuable to the promotion of international harmony. On the other hand, they
sometimes induce distaste rather than cooing agreement.
Possibly the most useful educational effort would be to reduce demagoguery in both
Mexico and the United States. That being chimerical, other sorts of institutions do what
they can. Latin American programs at United States universities lead the way in foreign
area studies, chronologically and in terms of size, by providing experts for further
teaching, government service, and advice to private enterprise. It does not noticeably
reduce tensions between the neighbors, though. Nor does extensive tourism by both sides,
any more than it determines foreign relations between France and Italy. The great influx
of Mexicans here has affected American culture--for example, restaurants and even
markets--but that matters no more to foreign relations than did the great and delightful
invasion of Italian food some years earlier.
Mexicans ate at such Anglo chain outlets south of the border as Denny's, Aunt Jemima's,
Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken--all with possible damage to their digestion as
well as esthetic standards, but there has been no observable effect on grand affairs.
American movies and television programs abound in Mexico, with the same ambiguous effects
on morals and manners as they have on those north of the border-and none on affairs of
state. The Ballet Folklórico de México delights North Americans, without improving their
understanding of natural gas pricing. The Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico does marvelous
work in promoting the Green Revolution, but it is a matter of, What have you done for me
recently?
It has been nearly half a century since the Rockefellers ripped Diego Rivera's leftist
murals from the walls of their music hall, with no discernible effect today. Also, half a
century has gone by since Dartmouth College, no center of leftism, paid José Clemente
Orozco to paint a number of square yards of its library basement with vivid condemnations
of capitalism. No stream of communists has issued from the New Hampshire hills, nor do
Dartmouth alumni hate or love Mexico more than those of Yale do.
Generally Routine Issues
Some issues between the neighbors in recent years generally have been handled with a
minimum of trouble. Occasionally there is a flareup, but usually it dies down, either
because there is a compromise between parties or because public interest is tepid.
1. Allocation of television channels is necessary for neighbors, and is done fairly
easily, because the short range transmission causes a minimum of interference. Radio is
more difficult. The United States wants what its radio industry can afford--that is, a
blanket over the Mexican market; and Mexico wants to protect itself. Adjustments are
needed periodically.
2. Most disputes over the location of the boundary involve little but punctilio. The
shifting bed of the Rio Grande has long caused problems. Agreements have failed to solve
all issues until recently. For example, an area known as the "Chamizal" in the
El Paso, Texas, area was the most notorious little bone of contention. International
arbitration early in the twentieth century divided the territory, but Washington refused
to accept it. At last, in 1963, the two countries agreed to divide a few acres of land,
set out to confine the Rio Grande to unshiftable channels, and agreed to solve all other
boundary problems.
3. Negotiation of reciprocal air transport rights occasions sharp disputes without
inflaming national passions. Mexico, developing its own airlines, has demanded that
American lines be restricted. Essentially, American carriers favor "free
competition," while Mexicans cannot compete. When Mexico began granting concessions
to third country airlines, the United States had to pay more attention. So there was
compromise on routes, frequency of service, and other matters. Adjustments occasionally
are necessary.
4. Pollution wafting across the border has caused some dispute. A lead smelter in El
Paso, for example, permitted emissions that reportedly caused lead poisoning in some
10,000 children in both countries. An investigation in 1977 indicated that the threat was
especially great to Mexican children directly across the Rio Grande from the smelter. The
company began installing scrubbing equipment, on orders from a court and after the Mexican
government took an interest in the matter.
5. There are problems of violence along the border, inevitable when certain cities
there are so large and when there is so much movement of people back and forth, and so
much difference between economic levels in the two countries. Swarms of illegal immigrants
moving from the Tijuana area toward nearby San Diego and Los Angeles are preyed on by
Mexican gangs and draw gunfire from the police of both countries. The police also
sometimes fire at each other. Some Mexican police collaborate with Mexican
"coyotes," smugglers of men north across the border, some of that Mexican police
activity taking place in United States territory. Officials of San Diego and Tijuana met
in 1977 to try to deal with their problems. The mayor of San Diego also appealed directly
to the presidents of the two countries for help in dealing with an "interstate
problem" of violence. It is bound to be a continuing sore spot.
6. There is cooperation in the control of several animal disorders, including
hoof-and-mouth disease. The United States for a long time paid for the slaughter of
infected cattle in Mexico, then when Mexican cattlemen created too much pressure on their
government, a switch was made to vaccination.
7. There are a great variety of lawsuits involving private citizens of both countries,
sometimes involving government. Most of the suits achieve only minor notice. Sometimes
they fail when they try to get a national court to adjudicate a matter that lies in the
jurisdiction of the other country.
8. There still are claims arising out of the Treaty of 1848. Reies López Tijerina, the
Mexican-American leader from New Mexico, would prefer to get the disputed land rather than
monetary reparations, but in 1977 he conceded that the former would be difficult to
arrange after so many years. Most claimants have been willing to take money. In 1923
Mexico and the United States agreed. to adjustment of claims arising from the old border
settlement. Each was to reimburse its own citizens. The United States did so, but Mexico
has not reimbursed the American claimants who are the heirs of the Old Mexican and Spanish
holders of the pre-1848 period.
9. The Pious Fund of the Californias was established in the seventeenth century in
Mexico to foster Catholic missionary activity in the Californias. The Jesuits were in
charge, and when they were ousted from the Spanish dominions in 1767, Spain, then later
Mexico, took over the fund. There was argument as to what to do when Upper California
became part of the United States. Mexico made some money irregularly into the fund but
stopped with the Revolution of 1910. Mexico in 1967 agreed to pay a lump sum of under $1
million to an endowment for a seminary in New Mexico to educate priests for duty in
Mexico. The seminary closed in 1972 and the endowment was transferred to the Mexican
church hierarchy.
10. A little-noticed dispute has worsened recently over illegal removal from Mexico of
archaeological treasures. It is difficult to control because many of the sites are in
remote locations. Citizens of both countries are willing to steal the treasures, even to
use power saws to rip off the inscriptions on ancient Maya stelae in Yucatan. Rich
collectors-individual and institutional-abroad, including the United States, are willing
to buy.
11. Occasionally an American suggests that a canal across the Mexican Isthmus of
Tehuántepec would be useful, and that possibly it might be excavated with nuclear
explosives. The U.S. State Department does not pursue the matter.
12. The drug problem at the border will remain, probably unsolvable and oscillating in
and out of public notice.
13. Few Americans have been much interested in disputes over the definition of
territorial waters. The old three-mile limit has been breaking up, and in the 1930s and
1940s Mexico and the United States modestly increased jurisdiction beyond that. In the
1950s Mexico acted against United States fishing boats inside its nine-mile claim. There
were American objections, but it was a worldwide problem. Peru and Ecuador claimed control
of fishing rights out to two hundred miles from their shores. The United States gradually
yielded and adopted the two hundred mile control of fishing itself, being as much
concerned with Soviet and Japanese fishing near its coasts as Mexico with San Diego boats
in Mexican waters. Delimitation of zones is proceeding.
14. Other border concerns cause flurries of interest. Such issues include short border
fences in critical areas, meticulous rather than routine searches of persons and vehicles,
much of the seizure of contraband and the treatment of the culprits, changes in procedures
with regard to tourist and commuter cards.
15. The 1944 water treaty required the United States to send into Mexico in the
Colorado River 1.5 million acre-feet annually of water of agricultural quality (not too
salty). This became difficult as the great postwar growth of population in the Southwest
put pressure on water supplies. It was especially troublesome in Arizona and California.
Various recent projects tapped the river, for example, the Parker Dam about 150 miles
south of Hoover Dam; and the huge Colorado Aqueduct that ran through desert and mountains
some 250 miles from the river to the Los Angeles area reduced water supplies further. More
Colorado River water also was carried to the Imperial and Coachella Valleys of California,
which by the 1970s had thousands of miles of irrigation channels and grew more than two
crops a year, worth over half a billion dollars. The valleys annually used nearly twice as
much Colorado River water as the United States delivered to Mexico.
The Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona began in 1963 to create Lake Powell, storing
nearly a two-year supply at the "natural and average" rate of the river's flow.
But drought in 1976-1977 made new supplies less than average and nothing about demand was
"natural." Meanwhile, Phoenix and Tucson grew like weeds, watered by wells into
deep aquifers containing ancient water. That drove down the water table, so that future
growth was threatened. Arizona then drew big plans for the use of Colorado River water.
Mexico would liked to have made such plans. Both California and Arizona also dreamed of
bringing water from the Columbia River, Canada, or even Alaska. They snarled at eastern
suggestions that less growth of population, agriculture, and industry also was a solution.
By 1960 the Colorado River water reaching Mexico had far too much salt--resulting from
irrigation use--and was reducing the productivity of Mexican farms. Mexico repeatedly
protested. The United States spent millions between 1961 and 1972 trying to better the
water. It was not enough. In the early 1970s President Echeverría declared that the
salinity of Colorado River water was the major issue between the two countries. That was
an exaggeration, but it illustrated the way an originally small dispute could grow.
Mexico was not entirely without power of retaliation. It pumped ground water just south
of the border so as to tap supplies in the United States. The latter did "protective
pumping" in counter-retaliation. Finally, in 1972 then-President Nixon agreed to
large-scale desalinization of Colorado River water, and the Colorado River Basin Salinity
Act was passed in 1974.
The first plant-the world's largest-was constructed at Yuma, Arizona. Initial talk was
of a $100-million investment by federal taxpayers; then the figure rose until by 1977 it
was an estimated $316 million for the Yuma plant and associated facilities. Great amounts
of energy were required for the desalinization process. Probably the cost figures would go
up further. Even more dismaying, the Yuma effort might deliver to Mexico only a tenth of
the guaranteed 1.5 million acre-feet of agricultural quality water. The final bill on
compliance with United States obligations to Mexico for Colorado River water ultimately
would run into the billions, with large costs continuing in perpetuity.
Nor is that necessarily all. Mexico might become dissatisfied with the 1.5 million
acre-feet agreement. Its rapidly increasing population has made more agricultural
production essential. How could the United States answer a request for adjustment of the
agreement? A flat "no" scarcely would be acceptable, especially since Mexico has
supplies of natural gas and oil much desired in the United States. Furthermore, Mexico
could again increase use of water in its rivers feeding into the lower Rio Grande, which
again would bring pressure on Washington from Texans.
There are other contestants for the waters of the Southwest: five Indian groups in
Arizona. They have carried many water-rights cases to the courts, where they were resisted
by the Anglo farmers in the valley of the Gila river, a tributary of the Colorado. The
Indians even persuaded Senator Edward Kennedy of faraway Massachusetts to introduce a bill
guaranteeing Indians a share of water. That inevitably would reduce water for Anglo
farmers.
United States and Mexican officials constantly check the Colorado for salinity and
volume of flow. Americans release not a drop more than necessary. Mexico's Morelos Dam
stops what crosses the border; beyond the dam, the Colorado is a creek. All this is of
absorbing interest in the far Southwest, but, as that region is angrily aware, not
considered very important by well-watered states.
Major Political Issues
An issue may have both political and economic aspects, so that categorization merely
shows its predominant character. Chiefly political issues are more intractable than
economic ones. For example, it is easier to imagine a profound Mexican concession on
economic exchange than on intervention in Mexican affairs. Of course, an economic demand
can be perceived as intervention, in which case political emotions wash it with angry
hues.
American Gentleness with Mexico
Washington is notably careful not to even appear to interfere in Mexican affairs. It is
too pleased with Mexico's current political stability and economic growth to risk
offending its prickly neighbor. Washington praises Mexico's "preferred
revolution," an alternative to Castro and proof that the United States is not against
all change in Latin America. How much this muffling of criticism is worth to Mexico in
concrete terms is arguable. Some Americans think it has gone far enough. The New York
Times in February 1979 referred to a "cocky" Mexico. It also reported that
the press there complained that the United States tried to buy natural gas at cut-rate
prices; but the papers did not bother to point out that Mexico's asking price was higher
than Canada's. The director of PEMEX said that poor communications with Washington left
the American position unclear. That was an old ploy. Washington's position was clear
enough; what was uncertain, as the PEMEX director knew, was whether the U.S. government
would stick to it.
Washington's gentle ways with Mexico have met attack from those Americans who say that
the neighbor is a dictatorship and violated human rights. With the growth of the civil
libertarian movement, that charge has put some minor pressure on Washington. In February
1979 the Council on Hemisphere Affairs, a combination of labor, civil rights, education,
and church elements, accused the Mexican government of political repression and inhuman
treatment of political dissenters, and it said that Washington's oil policy made it
reluctant to offend Mexico. At issue were supposedly "missing prisoners" of the
Mexican government, their treatment, and the question of which Mexicans deserved political
asylum in the United States. A California congressman said that one refugee spoke for
human rights against a government "using institutionalized terror and violence
masquerading as law."
The same month the Mexican government, responding to pressure by such groups as Amnesty
International, announced the results of an investigation into 314 supposed cases of
disappearance, finding 154 dead as rural guerrillas, 98 still operating as guerrillas, and
62 accounted for in a variety of ways. It also said there were no secret jails In Mexico,
no torture, and no special anti-guerrilla forces surreptitiously committing atrocities. Of
course, critics--including the mothers of missing sons--did not accept the report.
It is a vexatious matter because it is both complex and subject to various
interpretations, depending on point of view and degree of knowledge. A minority of
American opinion-makers and scholars long has been critical of Mexican society. It claims
that that view is dictated by "liberalism." It is not much interested
in the naive view that American reluctance to offend Mexico is due simply to oil policy.
Long before Mexico offered large oil exports, those critics objected to what they thought
was official American unwillingness to describe Mexican conditions objectively. For those
critics, there are evils south of the border that require much more attention along the
Potomac.
A larger body of American opinion, however, rejects that criticism as exaggerated and
as deliberately isolating Mexican institutions rather than comparing them with other areas
of the world more deserving of the displeasure of liberals. Those of this view agree that
Mexico is different from the United States but insist that it also is quite different from
Uganda or the Soviet Union. They furthermore insist that the Mexican political and social
system is one of the freer and more benign in the world, coming immediately after
twenty-one more open societies-fifteen in noncommunist Europe, plus the United States,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Costa Rica.
Forms of Mexican Nationalism
This not-very-vigorous debate in the United States has not reduced the Mexican fear of
American domination that was at the core of its foreign policy, just as it remains an
important ingredient in Mexico's domestic politics. To Mexicans, being neighbor to the
United States is akin to living next to a "reformed" burglar: remembrance of
past actions prompting paranoia about locking the windows. Fear of political dictation, on
either domestic or international issues, is reinforced by fear of economic domination, or
of cultural or spiritual pulverization by the colossus of the north.
These nationalist terrors make a mighty engine for the mobilization of Mexican opinion.
The Mexican national spirit is so potent and volatile that the government and national
party cannot entirely control it. Even Coca-Cola signs provoke growls of distaste at the
subtle and sinister threat of Yanqui imperialism. Critics of the regime rouse Mexicanidad,
and the establishment must respond, willy-nilly. Nationalism is a slippery tiger to ride.
One form that the distaste for United States tutelage takes is complaint that
Washington disdains Mexico by neglecting its views and its needs, especially as compared
with other countries. The latter part of this refers to the huge rehabilitation aid
provided Europe and Asia after World War IT, as well as the obvious concentration of
United States attention in recent years on the Old World. Mexican leaders know, but are
not interested in, the strong reasons for those American policies. They simply say they
are not treated as an equal. López Portillo was reported in October 1978 as saying that
"Mexico is neither on the list of United States priorities nor on that of United
States respect." The Washington Post in a February 1979 editorial supported
that view in milder terms by noting that in the United States the "Mexican
Connection" --not a happy phrase to use--only recently was seen as requiring direct
and sustained attention.
Another form that Mexican nationalism takes is insistence on at least appearing to have
an independent foreign policy. Opposition to the wars in Korea and Vietnam was a way of
showing that, although they also were objected to as being interference in the affairs of
other nations. An independent foreign policy, together with the hope of profit, no doubt
was mingled in with President Echeverría's promotion through the U.N. in December 1974 of
the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties, which called on the industrialized powers to
share the wealth with the Third World. Leadership of the Third World, so assiduously
pursued by Echeverría, partly served the desire for an independent foreign policy,
although Echeverría also wanted to be U.N. secretary general. An independent foreign
policy was one reason for Mexican support of Panama's demand for return of the Panama
Canal Zone. And it was part of Mexico's promotion of the Treaty of Tlatelolco against
nuclear proliferation in the Western Hemisphere, although certainly Mexico also hoped the
treaty would give protection. It certainly would not prevent nuclear proliferation, as
Brazil's determined pursuit of nuclear power, and probably weapons, indicated.
Disagreements over Communism and Violence
Disagreement between the neighbors over communism has taken many forms, often involved
Mexican nationalism, its belief that its advice and needs were neglected by the United
States, and the desire for an independent Mexican foreign policy. The series of United
States interventions in Latin America to meet perceived communist threats after World War
II provoked many of those disagreements. Mexico objected to American intervention of any
sort in the Western Hemisphere, as a violation of the nonintervention pledges given since
1933. Mexico has taken the view that any intervention threatens every country unable to
match Washington's military power. Mexico incidentally doubts the seriousness of threats
of communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere, or that the United States could not
meet them when they became more clearly manifest. In effect, it has declared that Mexico
would inform Washington when there is sufficient threat to justify intervention.
In 1954, the United States supported an intervention by Guatemalan exiles against the
Jacóbo Arbenz regime, which had accepted communist collaboration. Mexico, and most of
Latin America, never accepted the legality of the intervention or the reality of the
threat it was supposed to meet. In fact, Latin America argued that United States economic
assistance to the hemispheric nations was more important than communist threats. Some
Americans found that argument baffling.
Mexico has disagreed with American policy regarding Fidel Castro's Cuba on all but one
occasion, taking the view that Cuba was entitled to a revolutionary government if it
wanted it; nor was Mexico interested in suggestions that no one knew what Cubans wanted
under a communist police state. Mexico constantly has opposed the measures of the
Organization of American States (OAS), usually initiated by the United States, to condemn
or punish Cuba, even when it interfered in other Latin American countries in attempts to
bring down governments and promote revolution. Mexico condemned the U.S.-supported effort
to use Cuban exiles to bring down Castro at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. When all the other
OAS nations cut diplomatic relations with Cuba, Mexico refused to do so. Of course, Canada
and the European powers also maintained relations with Cuba. Mexico also led a campaign to
return Cuba to a full and equal place in the OAS. It disagreed with Washington's
objections to Cuban expropriations of foreign-owned property, remembering similar events
in Mexico's past. It pointed out that during a revolution a government had neither the
time nor the money to meet external demands. Mexico refused to get excited about communist
doctrine and methods in Cuba, confident of its ability to control Mexican communists.
The United States government accepted all of this Mexican disagreement with little
public complaint, partly because Mexico in one crisis joined the rest of the hemisphere in
standing with the United States against Castro's acceptance of Soviet offensive missiles
in 1962. In addition, Washington understood the political value to the Mexican government
and party of the independent Cuban policy. Finally, strong objections from Washington
would be counterproductive.
Some Americans became permanently disillusioned with Mexican foreign policy in the
1950s and 1960s. They would not accept the lack of Mexican sympathy with the U.N. police
action against communist North Korean and Chinese aggression against South Korea. And it
seemed to them nearly sane that Mexico would not take strong action against Cuban efforts
to revolutionize various countries of the Western Hemisphere. Apparently Mexico was
against intervention even to prevent intervention. It seemed to those critics that Mexico
was so removed from responsibility for its acts in international affairs that it was able
to act with total disregard for realities. After all, the armed forces of the United
States, it was said, would protect it from real harm.
Mexico refused to approve the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965
to defeat a perceived communist threat. Not only did Mexico--and many other Latin American
countries--see no threat, but it condemned intervention as contrary to the OAS Charter, as
indeed it was. Washington merely thought that there were things more important than the
OAS Charter, a view that Mexican purists regarded with horror. Mexico introduced a
resolution to the OAS Council calling for withdrawal of American troops from the Dominican
Republic. The United States managed to convert the military intervention into a
multilateral force under OAS aegis, but much of the organization, including Mexico,
opposed that, too. OAS and U.N. pressure forced the withdrawal of the hemispheric troops
at the end of 1965.
Mexico opposed United States intervention in Chilean affairs during 1970-1973, and
welcomed Chilean exiles from the military coup d'etat of 1973, Mexico even abandoned in
this instance its supposedly sacrosanct policy of recognizing de facto governments,
refusing to accept the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. It was impossible to know the
mix of factors that led Mexican leaders to that decision. Certainly, however, they knew
that opposition to suspected United States intervention was popular at home and would
scarcely hurt abroad. The extent of their interest in conditions in Chile, or in the
amount of American intervention there, was also hard to know. By this time, American
opinion was divided between those who found Mexican foreign policy impeccably liberal at
every turn and those who found that it required a good deal of patient understanding.
Numerous disagreements between the neighbors over communism were based on different
domestic political considerations, readings of global affairs, attitudes toward communism,
and responsibilities in world affairs. Mexico asserted that not only did Washington
exaggerate the danger of communist subversion, but that in any event Latin Americans
should be left to handle it themselves. Indeed, Mexico controlled its own communists with
an iron hand. Also, it helped American agents watch who flew to Cuba and what Soviet Bloc
personnel were doing in Mexico.
Where did Mexico stand? Some haters of Marx mistakenly thought that communal land
holdings such as the big Mexican "ejidos" could only be communist. Others
thought that the large public sector of the medical profession in Mexico showed a terrible
drift to the left. Many thought that leftist rhetoric spouted by Mexican officials and
intellectuals always was to be taken at face value, when they knew better with regard to
American public figures. Exaggerated reports of President Echeverría's radicalism led a
group of U.S. congressmen to write to President Gerald Ford in 1976 that Mexico was being
prepared for a communist takeover. Although the State Department was not fond of
Echeverría, it dismissed this effusion as irrational and ignorant.
Congressional and general public difficulties in interpreting Mexican events were no
greater than doing it with India or Turkey, but they were far away. Much of it was merely
due to reliance on the media rather than spending time and effort on real study. The
American media had trouble all over the world in dealing with the phenomena of violence.
They often exaggerated its incidence and seldom properly indicated its persistence in
societies and the near-impossibility of reducing it with prayers, editorials, and bylined
articles. They also fastened on selected violent actions, which became almost media fads;
they beat them to death while ignoring others which sometimes involved worse cruelties and
more casualties.
Mexico has been a violent society in many senses since the Spanish conquest began in
1519. Both violence and injustice had, however, been much reduced there since the
Revolution of 1910-1917. Inevitably, however, much remains. So it was the old question of
whether the bottle was half filled or half empty. The Mexican government often has thought
it necessary to use forceful methods to preserve what it considers the "true
revolution." Underpaid security forces committed even more illegal violent acts than
those in the United States. A poor and often desperate Mexican proletariat struck out
against persons and property both in frustration and anger and in hope of profit,
sometimes promised by opposition political leaders.
Mexican students often have engaged in political action, but sometimes it is difficult
to disentangle political motivation from high spirits and pedagogical complaints--for
example, against examinations. The great student demonstrations of 1968, and the
accompanying violence, excited some North Americans--including the press--unduly. One of
the authors observed during that time that the numbers of people involved, surging about
the streets and sidewalks, made the temptation to overreact nearly irresistible. The wild
rumors that whistled about the huge Mexican capital blew up the blaze of conjecture. The
approaching Olympic Games in Mexico City gave international prominence to the student
"demands" and the government responses. And the deaths at Tlatelolco on the
night of October 2 gave leftists throughout the world and all dramatic reporters a fine
occasion for rhetorical overkill.(4)
It is a truism that people have a big appetite for trivia and that it can interfere
with an understanding of the issues. Sometimes opinions based on trivia and ignorance led
to near hysteria about Mexico when it was not justified. Notable examples occurred during
the Revolution of 1910-1917. Another occurred late in Echeverría's administration in the
mid-1970s, when his Third World stances, anti-American attitudes, and mildly
anticapitalist remarks irritated Americans. His handling of the Mexican economy drove it
into a tailspin that worried American investors and government officials.
Rumors circulated in Mexico, and were repeated in the American press, that Echeverría
meant to head a coup to keep himself in office or to maintain a big influence in the
following administration. Both rumors were contrary to recent Mexican tradition; probably
would not be supported by the PRI, the army, organized business, or anybody else of
consequence; and certainly would be resisted by the party's presidential nominee and his
allies. These factors were poorly reported by the American news media, which were busy
reporting the currency devaluation of August 1976 and the subsequent weakness of the peso,
which set thousands of Mexicans to making wild statements to foreign reporters.
The American press seized on a few instances of violence in those months to suggest
there was impending "chaos," a word that probably should be banned from all
books but the Bible. The press also spoke of "hysteria" in Mexico in a sloppy
and unnecessarily alarming way. One of the authors, speaking by long-distance telephone
with his Mexican in-laws, detected no hysteria. But inflated language became even more
common when on November 19, 1976, eleven days before the end of his term, Echeverría
expropriated some rich farmland from private Mexican holders, saying they violated
constitutional restrictions on the size of holdings. The lands were ordered distributed to
landless peasants, who were waiting on cue on the borders of the seized lands. The rumor
at once was that Echeverría meant to encourage squatters (Mexicans called them
"parachutists") to take much more private land. A hullabaloo arose among
partisans of private enterprise in Mexico and the United States. The fears pumped up by
excitable Mexicans and Americans, and exacerbated by a sensational press, proved to be
founded on merely sound and fury. Fortunately, the shah of Iran had not yet been ousted,
so that did not further induce panic and saved discriminating readers from much discussion
of "trends."
Mexican Immigration a, a Political Issue
Fear of illegal aliens has been growing recently in the United States, and a few people
point out that the money spent on policing the Mexican border and catching illegal aliens
might be better spent improving the Mexican economy. But the United States is far from
panicking on the question of aliens, although a few individuals make dramatic statements,
such as the senator who a few years ago spoke of the "hemorrhage" of the Mexican
border. Since most Americans are little concerned, it is not surprising that there is no
effective government plan to stop the entry of aliens or to put the American unemployed
into the jobs the aliens fill. Of course, no one knows how to get the jobless to take such
work. U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall in August 1977 was ordered by a federal judge
in Virginia to approve importation of some five thousand foreign workers to pick apples in
nine American states. The secretary called it a "damaging precedent" and refused
to obey because nearly seven million Americans were jobless. But it turned out--as he knew
it would--that he could not block all requirements for labor Americans would not perform.
Some have favored legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already in the United
States, thus, they say, respecting dynamics of the free market. Others oppose that,
especially if it covers all aliens who might come in the future. Some say that factories
that use illegal migrants should move abroad themselves.
Few know that Western European countries have a similar problem, with more
industrialized nations hosting workers from poorer European countries, as Spain, Portugal,
and Italy as well as Turkey, North Africa, and South Asia. Their life in Europe is
increasingly difficult because governments, under pressure, have cut or stopped the flow,
and found ways to reduce slightly those already in Europe. Some are deported for violation
of entry or residence terms, or other infractions of law. But the size of the foreign
group has grown because they have much higher birthrates than Europeans. Thus, the foreign
community in West Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, and Sweden grew from
some 13.8 million to 14.6 million in the years 1973-1979.
The argument in Europe is much as that in the United States. Some natives want more
immigrant labor, but more do not. It is said that the foreigners are dirty and ignorant.
On the other hand, some Europeans feel it right to provide the foreigners with services
and try to integrate them into the community. Many devices to get rid of foreigners have
been tried. West Germany taxes employers who use immigrants, which helps to pay for public
services for the aliens. The West German government has refused, however, to directly
compensate native workers for the depressing effect on wage levels of the alien labor.
France paid $2,000 to each foreign worker who agreed to go home. But, of course, some of
the home countries did not want the immigrants back. Switzerland was the most ruthless in
paring the size of the foreign group through deportations.
Europe also is finding that new restrictions on immigration in the better developed
countries are difficult to enforce. Employers and consumers often connive at illegal
entry. There may be well over one million "black market workers" in Central and
Western Europe today. The oil-wealthy Middle East also is experiencing a great wave of
worker immigration.
If a greatly increased American fear of immigration ever arose, it could lead to strong
measures on the border and to blunt talk about Mexican population growth. Even in 1979 one
heard remarks that the Mexicans should "zip it up or keep it home." Americans
need to face the unpalatable fact that the immigration problem is not solvable without
U.S. investment in the Mexican economy-unless America thinks it can afford a wall.
Major Economic Issues
We have described the international requirements of the Mexican and American economies.
Mexico has two great aims. The first is more economic choice and control. No sophisticated
Mexican believes in economic "independence," although the notion does circulate
south of the border. More control, it is thought, will help forward the second aim: to
greatly enlarge and diversify the economy, improve productivity, enrich the Mexican people
socially and economically, and give the nation a greater place in the world. These goals
are behind all the debates we have mentioned, including those involving transnational
corporations, the cost of imported science and technology, remittances of profits abroad
from Mexico by foreign manufacturing affiliates, foreign investment, expansion of the
tourist industry, and foisting off on the United States many of the Mexican poor.
Mexico especially wants to export more, and complains of restrictions placed on Mexican
entry into the American market; that is, it wants free access to the United States for
Mexican goods that can compete there, and to keep out of Mexico most United States goods
that can compete south of the border. All this is highly rational, and counterbalancing.
Great quantities of contraband manufactured goods from many countries are sold in Mexico,
sometimes quite openly. There is no question that Mexico would prefer increased trade
rather than "handouts," which it has deprecated and even refused. But some of
the foreign trade favors that its requests are merely handouts of another sort.
The United States wants to continue imports of raw materials and agricultural
commodities from Mexico, to ship manufactured products to Mexico, and to have an
opportunity for private investment there. Washington needs to consider American
producers--agricultural and industrial--who can be hurt by low-priced Mexican goods, the
result of cheap wages there. And Washington has to resist Mexican criticism of restriction
on this type of goods when Mexicans at the same time will not let the United States
compete with some of Mexico's high-priced manufactures.
Both foreign ministries, know that great economic change is unlikely to come about by
diplomatic agreement, but they are reluctant to say so publicly. Echeverría told the U.N.
that industrialized nations should share the wealth by buying more and higher-priced
manufactures from developing countries. That probably will occur only slowly. Realistic
Mexicans do not expect American aid without a quid pro quo, and are little moved by
sloganeering and promise that amount to little.
We believe that there is room for expansion of Mexican tourism, that agricultural
imports from Mexico to the United States could possibly be increased with proper
safeguards; that yet other of Mexico's primary commodities in addition to oil might
conceivably manage to improve in price relative to imported manufactured goods-possibly
with a world cartel in coffee; and that almost certainly the United States would continue
to be interested in importing Mexican oil and natural gas, even refined petroleum
products. So there is room for some maneuvering, especially in the case of petroleum. The
United States clearly considers Mexico's greatest lever to be oil, and probably Mexico is
of like mind.
Certainly, without the fear of inundation by Mexican aliens Americans are unlikely to
be attracted by the argument that investment in development of a neighbor eventually will
pay off economically. "Eventually" is not something that most of us care to
think about.
The Washington Post in April 1979 claimed that a majority in the United States
finally was beginning to understand "the true nation-wide American stake in
Mexico," because "no country is more important to the United States in terms
across-the-board, across-the-border impact on people's lives." It also claimed that
in the government there was a consensus "that Mexico cannot be treated like just
another Latin or middle-ranking country: it's too big, too close, too important. In some
matters, such as immigration, a special relationship must be formed."
Maybe so, but most Americans still feel no urgency about Mexico. Of course, political
issues oscillate in public regard, so things could change. Meanwhile, Mexico need not
complain about neglect until a crisis arises; Mexico acted the same toward Guatemala. Some
crises might be expected to be inflammatory. Possibly when the Mexican population reaches
100 million? 200 million? 300 million? If Mexico accepted nuclear weapons from the Soviet
Union or Communist China? A communist regime in Mexico, even without bombs? Mexican
insistence on selling its oil to other countries rather than the United States?
Prediction is so chancy (the authors have tried a bit in government and academic
circles) that in the next chapter we provide three "scenarios" of possible
development in the years ahead. A "scenario" is what government and private
think tanks call a prediction in order to try to reduce criticism when it turns out to be
mistaken. At least one of the scenarios presented here suggests the truth of the
folk-saying with which this book began: "A well-fed neighbor sleeps, and so may
you."
1. On relations during those year, see chapter 3 and
chapter 4.
2. For an analysis of the scholarly controversy surrounding the
Church-State conflict, see Mabry's essay on
the subject.
3. See chapter 3 on the Mexican Revolution;
chapter 4 on post-Revolution nationalism in Mexico; chapter 5 >on the Mexican experience with foreign oil investors and the
expropriation of 1938.
4. See Donald J. Mabry, The Mexican University and the State:
Student Conflicts, 1910-1971. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1982.
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