MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA
CHAPTER I
How the People of Mexico Have Fared Under the Carranza Régime
CARRANZA'S régime was recognized by the United States October 19, 1915, as the de facto, and nearly three years later as the de jure, government of Mexico. That is to say, this nation on the former date gave notice to all the world that, waiving consideration of its legal status, the administration set up by Carranza was in fact the government of Mexico, having the power and the inclination to perform all the functions of a government in relation to its own people and to fulfil all international obligations. Recognition as the de jure government was nothing less than an official notification to the family of nations that Carranza's administration was legally constituted and that it possessed both the lawful power and the inclination to discharge its obligations toward its own people and all the rest of the world.
Having been the recognized authority for about four years the Carranza Administration may be deemed to have had time to demonstrate its fitness to govern. While Mexico has never been free from revolutionary disturbances during this period, and not all the national territory has acknowledged Carranza's authority, a survey of present conditions should give a fair idea of the character and capacity of the Carrancistas and of what may be expected of them in the future.
The Mexican people being more vitally concerned than any one else their case should be considered first. To characterize their condition in a sentence, their existence for the last four years has been an unbroken crescendo of accumulating woes. Carranza and his adherents have destroyed the material prosperity of the country; have robbed the people to whom that prosperity was due of hundreds of millions of dollars; have reduced hundreds of thousands of their countrymen, once happy and contented workers in great industrial enterprises, to starvation; have dragged Mexico down to a depth of degradation and misery without a parallel even in the gloomy history of that unhappy country.
The Carrancistas' superlative power for evil is easily explained. Previous to the Diaz era the Mexican people were chiefly engaged in farming and stock raising, only to a limited extent in mining, and hardly at all in manufacturing industries. The looting and confiscation, always a conspicuous feature of revolutionary activities, therefore, affected but little the daily life of the common people because they produced all the food they needed; and the population being very much less than it now is, starvation, or even hunger, did not often result from these frequent disturbances.
The outstanding achievement of Diaz in the thirty-four years that he guided the destinies of the nation was a tremendous development of public service works, such as railroads, street railways, telephone and telegraph systems, gas works and manufacturing industries of various kinds, mining and smelting. The result was a marked change in the economic life of the country. Under the stimulus of ample employment and wages very much higher than ever before known, the population quite doubled during the Diaz period, much of the increase being concentrated in the cities which had become the centres of industry. Instead of the great majority of the population raising its own food, therefore, hundreds of thousands of laborers were engaged in activities that produced no food at all for themselves and their families. When the Carrancistas destroyed the nation's public service and industrial enterprises this great working population was reduced to idleness; and being without resources was forced to submit to starvation or seek a precarious livelihood by joining the predatory bands that scour the country.
No one ever will know how many thousands of helpless women and children, to say nothing of able-bodied men, actually starved to death as a result of this almost complete stoppage of industrial activity. A prominent Mexican has estimated that not fewer than ten thousand persons have starved to death in Mexico City alone in the last four years. This is merely an informed opinion, to be sure; but beyond any question many thousands of these poor people have died of hunger while yet other thousands of lives have been lost as the result of privations and unsanitary conditions directly attributable to the lawless conduct of the dominant party. The epidemic of Spanish influenza swept through the country last fall, taking frightful toll because after enduring penury and want for so long the people lacked the stamina to resist disease.
Not satisfied with merely taking the bread out of the mouths of so many of their countrymen, the Carrancistas with a refinement of cruelty next deprived them even of the meagre dole of charity. No doubt many readers will recall the fact that in the latter part of 1915 the American Red Cross, which has earned the admiration of the world by its noble work in stricken Europe, which had been ministering to the needs of thousands of destitute and starving Mexicans, was expelled from the country by Carranza. This astounding deed and its consequences are described in the Red Cross Magazine, the official journal of the organization, for November 15, 1915, from which the following extracts have been taken
"At the request of General Carranza, and with the advice of the American Department of State, which was consistent with the request, the American Red Cross discontinued its relief activities in both southern and northern Mexico October 8, and Special Agents Charles J. O'Connor and J. C. Weller, whose enterprise, hardihood, and efficiency in relieving the starving populace had brought them much praise, have been withdrawn. As it developed, the State Department advice in advocacy of the withdrawal of the Red Cross representatives presaged the formal recognition of the Carranza organization. Announcement of the decision to recognize General Carranza and his forces was made October 9th. [The recognition as the de facto government of Mexico is referred to.]
"At this time, just as was the case the month previous, many deaths were occurring daily from starvation and the country as a whole was in a pitiable plight, economically and industrially. It has been devastated from end to end and so impoverished and demoralized that under the most favourable conditions it would be possible only slightly to alleviate the widely extended suffering which will be forced upon the Mexican people during the ensuing winter. General Carranza's assurance that the situation would be cared for, therefore, has not wholly dispelled the feeling of sincere regret on the part of the American Red Cross over relinquishing its part of the relief work.
"It is hard, for instance, to leave a locality where many thousands of families, mothers and babes predominating, have been absolutely dependent for sustenance upon small portions of nourishing vegetable soup which we had daily distributed. Half-famished mothers with skeleton babies at their breasts have besought the Red Cross agents, in the name of all that is holy, to do something for their little ones — to save them if they could not save the mothers — and there have been many formerly well-to-do persons, not of the peon class, who have been among the pitiful petitioners for Red Cross aid.
"In Mexico City alone, under the very competent direction of Mr. O'Connor, a chain of free soup stations was operated for over a month and 26,000 families were supplied daily at the height of the distribution. Whole families were rescued from the necessity of trying to stomach the putrefied flesh of domestic animals found in the streets of Mexico City. Peon families could desist for a short time from picking up morsels of waste food from the rubbish heaps. They could leave off the réle of human carrion crows amid the offal of the slaughter-houses.
"Thousands of families in Monterey, Monclova and Saltillo were given a little respite from a diet of prickly or cactus pears, mesquite beans and other wild products of northern Mexico prairies, where Special Agent Weller, like Mr. O'Connor, endeared himself to the civilians and took many personal risks in their behalf."In a report from a Red Cross Agent on file in the State Department at Washington appears the following:
"In conclusion, I only regret that some of our higher-up government officials could not have been with me to see the brand of individuals that are now in control of the situation in Mexico. They do not represent any of the good element in Mexico. They are lawless and have no more idea of patriotism than a yellow dog. They are mentally incapable of handling the situation. General Elisondo, in command at Monclova and also in command of a district larger than Massachusetts, is a boy of twenty-four years, uneducated and absolutely irresponsible. General Zuazua, formerly classed as a saloon bum around Eagle Pass, a Lieutenant-Colonel in command of a territory as big as Rhode Island, was sent to the Mexican army some fifteen years ago, having been arrested for stealing horses and cattle. These are not the exceptions but the rule of the character of the men who now dominate one of the largest states in northern Mexico. "This fact is largely due to Carranza, who has allowed them to do as they please and they have no respect whatever for him, each man ruling his district as he sees fit. "I do not find any difference between the Carranza faction and the Villa faction, with the exception that Pancho Villa seems to have a better control of his men.
***
"Having been in personal contact with both factions, I believe that it would be a crime to turn loose this some 200,000 bandits, thieves, and scapegoats on the country. They are rotten with disease and have been divorced from all ideas of ever working again."It is well to bear in mind that tie authors of tie foregoing statements lave no financial interest in Mexico. They were made by tie representatives of tie Red Cross, whom Carranza banished because he did not wish the world to know through them the desperate condition to which he had brought his country.
In a speech made in the Senate of the United States June 2, 1916, Senator Fall, of New Mexico, stated that records on file in the Department of State showed that, at the very time when our Red Cross was feeding 26,000 families a day in Mexico City, the capital of the nation,
"Venustiano Carranza himself, or through adherents, shipped 37,000 tons of food stuffs through the port of Vera Cruz alone and got the golden dollars for it and put them in his pocket.
"I myself saw three carloads of potatoes, the last shipped out from the Guerrero District by Mexican officials and sold at El Paso, Texas, to put gold into their own pockets, while the people who raised these potatoes were living on roots or dying of starvation. If our Government does not know these conditions, it is because its officials will shut their eyes and their ears."This statement has never been challenged and it is so much of a part with other things that have been done by the Carranza party as to be entirely worthy of belief. That the terrible condition of the masses of Mexicans depicted in the reports of Red Cross officials, quoted, still continues is shown by an article published in the New York Sun January 29, 1918. The article is introduced by a statement from the Editor of the Sun which says:
"In view of the many conflicting reports that have come out of Mexico since the United States declared war on Germany, the Sun sent a trained investigator into Mexico from Vera Cruz. His instructions were to be impartial and unbiased in his views and to depict the situation exactly as it is.
In the article in question the investigator of the Sun says:
These conditions exist at the present time. A gentleman who had been in business in Mexico for some ten years prior to the beginning of the Carranza régime, who had travelled much throughout the country, returned there late last fall, to ascertain what present conditions were. He visited Mexico City and other points. I know this gentleman well, and can, therefore, vouch for his high character, and reliability. This is the substance of what he told me:
"I spent several weeks in October and November, 1918, in and around Mexico City, a locality I have known intimately for years. One evening I took a walk for the purpose of seeing what conditions were among the poor. I am sure that on that walk I saw at least three thousand miserable persons crouching in recessed doorways and other places that offered some slight protection from the wind. They were lying as close together as they could get, often with a dog in the centre of the pile to contribute the warmth of its body. They were men, women, and children. Most of the latter were naked, though a few had a ragged, dirty remnant of a coat or pair of trousers or, perhaps, merely a piece of dirty cloth. The older persons were dressed in rags. In all the years I have known Mexico City I had never before seen such a sight.
"While in the city I met a Mexican gentleman who owned a large hacienda in the state of Guanajuato. He told me that in order to provide some employment for the people on his estate to keep them from starving he decided to have an improvement made which would keep a couple of hundred men, which was all the unemployed there were on the place, busy for some time. The news spread quickly that work was to be had on the hacienda, which was promptly stormed by an army of idle and hungry men. Not fewer than seven thousand men applied for work on a job that was only meant as a makeshift to provide bread for two hundred. Some of these applicants were so reduced by privation and want that they died on the ranch, having used their last remaining strength to reach what they hoped was a chance to work."
It should be borne in mind that these wretched creatures represent the "people" of Mexico; the peon population whose support the Carranza leaders sought and secured by promises to make conditions of life easier for them than they ever had been under former governments. Some time ago newspapers in Mexico City announced that a small revolution had been started by the farmers in the State of. Michoacan because the commanders of Carranza troops had confiscated the food the farmers had raised, and had sold it. This very thing has been done in numerous instances throughout Mexico by the representatives of the Carranza Government as was stated by Mr. Cabrera in a newspaper article quoted in another chapter.
It would be surprising if the members of the Carranza Government, who have shown such dishonesty in their dealing with private possessions, should refrain from exhibiting the same spirit in dealing with public property. That they have observed no such restraint is shown by many instances of the dishonesty of public officials that have come to light.
On October 25, 1917, an editorial appeared in El Universal, the leading daily of Mexico City, which said in part:
"The transcendental depth of the bad railway communications with the consequent uncertainty of transport of passengers and merchandise continues to be one of the gravest problems to settle. Every little while assaults and blowings up of freight trains occur. The scarcity of rolling stock continues and more than anything else, the immoral exploitation of the railways by employees and military chiefs continues. The most important route which connects our first port with the capital of the republic, the route by which the greater part of our exportation leaves and through which almost all imported products from Europe come, is the least safe right now. By what perfected telepathy, or by what arts of marvellous intuition, do bombs explode exactly under the trains filled with the richest and most abundant of high-priced goods?
"These distressing reflections come up again to our mind when we remember the strange circumstances of the destruction of the freight train blown up a short time ago near Atoyac. The locomotive was drawing a car of paper belonging to this newspaper; another, the property of the National Paper Company; a car full of condensed milk; others with valuable cloths, etc. It appears there was not a single death in the derailment and from data received up to now, it is known that the rebels got little or no result from their attack. We know very little about the fortune of the freight which came in this train consigned to various business houses of this capital. As to our 1 1 5 rolls of paper, we have been informed that they were transported almost intact to the city of Vera Cruz by a secondary military authority and sold there to merchants without conscience who bought them, knowing the crime they were committing. We have proof, for our special representative was present at the investigation ordered by the Governor of Vera Cruz, that the responsibility is all upon the military authorities of the port.
"If the public peace requires it, it is well that individual guarantees be suspended in all the country; but, if the military authorities are going to have full power, what will proprietors, merchants, industrial people do when their goods and supplies are improperly sequestered? May a Major Chief of the Line, or a General Chief of Garrison, dispose of private property without the owner having the right to protest?"
It will be noted that the editor who thus complains of having been robbed by the military authorities at Vera Cruz of his 1 15 rolls of paper does not say that he recovered his property or that any one was punished for the theft.
I have a friend who, for many years before the Carranza party came into power, was engaged in a business enterprise in the City of Mexico for which he imported supplies in carload lots through Vera Cruz. The business which he conducted was one of considerable advantage to the city and to the Mexican people.
Some time ago I met this friend in this country where he is now making his home. He said, and his high character guarantees the truthfulness of his statement, that shortly after the Carranza party secured control of the line of railway between Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico, he was required by the management to pay $300 per car, in addition to the regular freight rate, before he could secure delivery of his freight. After his cars started from Vera Cruz they would disappear somewhere on the line and, before he could get them delivered, he would be forced to pay the bribe demanded by the operating force of the railway. The amount of bribe money per car increased until at last he was met with the demand for $1,600 in order to secure" delivery of a car of freight. This he paid and then closed up his business and left the country, as he found it impossible to continue under such exactions.
El Excelsior, a daily newspaper published in Mexico City, in its issue of November 28, 1917, contained the following:
"Under the pretext of modifying the law of organization of departments of government, Deputy Reynoso began yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies a sensational debate, brilliantly ended by Sanchez Ponton, on the economic management of the railways. According to these and other orators, the railway officials have made their hay to the damage of the public, of the nation, and of the credit which we used to have in foreign parts. The orator referred to the deal for the sale of waste material made a short time ago and says that he can prove that two-thirds of the iron and steel sold was new and perfect. Furthermore, he reads a statement of from January to June, 1917, according to which there were 238 railway accidents due to negligence of the employees and the neglect of old track repairment by Pescador, Director General of Railways.
"The Secretary read documents to prove that baggage and other railway matters are controlled by a brother-in-law of Pescador from which damage and delays of passengers result.
***
"Sanchez Ponton read the contract made between Pescador and the Senator General Nafaratte for the sale of so-called waste material at $10 per ton and observes that the business was so good for the purchasers that the same Senator Nafarette ceded his rights for four pesos per ton and that the two gentlemen who figured as accomplices in the operation did the same thing.
"He continues making charges against certain other people on account of divers contracts as bad as that just cited and especially refers to one in which 70 pesos per ton was paid for steel belonging to the national railways"
El Universal of the same date, in its account of the proceedings in the Mexican Congress, contains the following:
"Among other charges by Deputy Reynoso made against Pescador, the worst is relating to a sale of a great lot of so-called old iron at $10 per ton when he states the fact is that three-fourths of this iron was new iron and that in it were 180 wheels and axles from Monterey."
***
"Deputy Ponton read a copy of a contract made between Senator General Nafaratte and Messrs. Salazar and Maples, by means of which the first of said gentlemen transferred his rights to the second in a purchase made from the constitutionalist railways of 20,000 tons of old iron at $10 per ton. Nafaratte charged 4 pesos for each ton as a profit in the transfer. Later Ponton read a copy of the Certificate of Incorporation of the company organized by a brother of the railway auditor, the first assistant to the director and the treasurer of the company, a company dedicated, as the confession in its circulars states, for the purpose of furnishing freight cars to those who need them.
"He also cited a deal for the sale of rails at 70 pesos per ton when they cannot at present be purchased at 140 pesos and said that payments were not received in money but in very bad and very costly ties.
"He also states that when metallic money began to circulate again, the great majority of railway employees were paid a determined amount in notes for a stated period; certain persons bought these notes at a discount of 25, 50, 60, and even 75 per cent, and when almost all of the notes had been cornered, the order was given to pay them, from which an enormous amount of money was made."
We thus see that General Nafaratte, one of the most prominent members of the Carranza administration, in a deal made for government property, secured a profit amounting to 4 pesos per ton on 20,000 tons of iron by merely permitting his name to be used, and that it was freely charged in the Mexican Congress that the poor employees of the national railways had been speculated upon to a shameful extent in the payment of their wages by the government.
It is commonly said in Mexico that the Villa and Zapata forces operating against Carranza secure their ammunition, and sometimes their arms, by purchase from the commanders of the Carranza troops. On November 2, 1917, El Universal contained the following from a correspondent at Puebla under date of October 31:
"The Chief of the military operations in the state has decided to open proceedings against the chiefs of forces in charge of the garrisons near the zone not yet controlled by the government, who are accused of the very grave crime of being in connivance with the enemy to whom they furnish war supplies in exchange for articles easily sold which the Zapatistas introduce to the regions in which they operate.
"The accusations made to the superior military authorities were made by members of the Mexican brigade 'Hidalgo' which was under the orders of General Segura and which now is converted into a regiment. Officers and troops of said corps informed General Villaseñor that Col. Patrinos and Lieutenant Colonel Torres, chiefs of forces operating in the Atlixco District, had established a criminal trade with the Zapatistas marauding around said city; the trade consisting in the interchange of hides and copper, products of Zapata raids, for ammunition and other war supplies which the supreme government puts into the hands of the army for the defense of our institutions."
In its issue of June 5, 1918, El Excelsior published the following news item:
"In round numbers the amount stolen from the Federal Treasury by paymasters now consigned to the authorities is close to 600,000 pesos. There are 37 cases before the District Court of the Capital. The amount for which the paymasters on trial appear to be responsible is the sum before mentioned, or, to be absolutely exact, 585,000 pesos. In addition there are other cases before the Circuit Court, the Supreme Court of Justice and the District Courts of the states. From the data at hand, a moderate estimate of the sum involved in these cases would be 400,000 pesos. However, we lack the exact data to give a detailed account of these cases. "With regard to the cases pending before the four District Courts of Mexico, two proprietory and two supplementary, we have the following information."
***
The paper then proceeds to give the names of the thirty-seven defaulting army paymasters referred to with the amount which each is accused of having stolen. The list is too long for publication here, but it may be stated that the amounts run from 500 pesos to 180,000 pesos.
The foregoing instances of grafting are merely illustrative of the scope and extent of the public robbery perpetrated by the members of the Carranza government.
The United States Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor shows the total revenue and expenditures of the National Government of Mexico for the fiscal year 1909-1910, the last year of the Diaz régime, in United States dollars as follows:
| Revenue | $52,952,000 |
| Expenditures | 47,324,000 |
Out of this payment was made of the interest on the national debt and on railroad bonds; the national railroads were kept in excellent physical condition, and all obligations of the government were met.
It is also of interest to note that during the last fifteen years of the Diaz régime, there was a surplus of national revenue amounting to $73,500,999, of which $36,500,000 was devoted to public works, the remainder of $37,000; being used to form a part of the available cash holdings of the National Treasury which existed when Diaz went out of power. The same statistical authority shows the national revenues and expenditures of the Carranza government during the fiscal year 1914-1915 to have been (in U. S. dollars):
| Revenue | $72,687,000 |
| Expenditures | 75,798,000 |
It may be well to call attention specifically right here to the fact, although it is made plain in these pages, that this increase of twenty million dollars in the revenues as compared with the Diaz régime does not indicate a healthy growth in commerce and industry, but quite the reverse. The national revenues are raised chiefly by confiscation rather than by a just tax on prosperous business. Furthermore, it must be noted that the national expenditures do not include a cent for the payment of interest or principal of the national debt. They could not have included any considerable sum for the maintenance of the railways for the reason that since the Carranza administration began operating them there has been a constant deterioration of rolling stock and permanent way until to-day there are barely enough engines and cars remaining in use to operate intermittently the most important two lines. Large mining and commercial interests are compelled to furnish their own rolling stock in order to secure service.
It will be noted in the following table that 120,755,631 pesos, or nearly two-thirds of the budget, is assigned to the Department of War and Marine, which, of course, means almost entirely to the army. There is no provision made for the payment of interest on the public debt and nothing for education beyond an item assigned to the "Bureau of University and Fine Arts"; nothing for the education of the common people who had been promised such liberal educational advantages by the Carranza party before it came into power.
The Federal appropriations passed by the Mexican Congress for 1918 were as follows:
| pesos | |
| Legislative Power | 2,967,858.75 |
| Executive Power | 1,064,577.20 |
| Judicial Power | 1,552,258.00 |
| Department of Government | 1,280,428.50 |
| Department of Foreign Affairs | 3,362,591.50 |
| Department of Finance and Public Credit | 20,213,094.40 |
| Department of War and Marine | 120,755,631.65 |
| Department of Agriculture and Fomento | 7,005,683.00 |
| Department of Communication and Public Works | 21,382,229.65 |
| Department of Industry and Commerce | 2,831,384.00 |
| Bureau of University and Fine Arts | 2,269,301.00 |
| Bureau of Public Health | 1,898,396.50 |
| Office of Attorney General of the Nation | 549,888.50 |
| Total | 187,133,322.65 |
In a statement published in the Washington Star, October 31, 1917, from a person described as Charles A. Douglas, "Counsellor in the United States for the Mexican Government, who returned to Washington this week after a month's stay in Mexico," the following appears:
"Order is being slowly but surely restored. Barring exceptional train robberies and small sore spots in the states of Morales and Durango, conditions are approaching normal everywhere.
***
"The recently and intelligently revised system of education is in full operation from the common free schools all over the Republic to the National University at the capital.
***
"The work of railroad rehabilitation is illuminating. More than 12,000 freight cars and locomotives were destroyed down to their steel frames during the Revolution. They are now running at full blast eight or ten workshops located in various sections of the Republic, giving work to 11,000 employees and the cars are being rebuilt wholly at home at the rate of 4,000 per annum."
Compare the foregoing with the following from a report of the debate in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies on the suspension of constitutional guaranties published in El Universal of Mexico City, October 17, 1917, at which time Mr. Douglas must have been in the Mexican capital, according to the Washington Star, in which Luis Cabrera, who at that time was second in importance in the Carranza administration, is quoted as saying:
"To commence a review of the determining factors of this present situation I must at once refer to our delicate economic situation. And I put it in the first place because we all know that in politics success comes with money and there can be no success without money.
***
We have destroyed the banks because they opposed the revolution but now shall we say 'We are done; give us your bills again?' No; we will not do it. We have destroyed the railways because it was necessary to do it to combat the military enemy. Very well; now what we have to do is to repair the railways so that the blood of prosperity of the country may begin to circulate again over them, for without ways of communication we can do absolutely nothing.
***
Our political obligation toward attacks on train and highway robbery is to study them to see if they are independent or if there is some cause which unites them.
***
Does the army exist? Yes. Does the Villa movement exist? Yes, it exists and it must be extirpated ruthlessly. Does the Zapata movement exist? Yes, the Zapata movement covers exactly the large grant which Charles V assigned to Marquis Del Valle: Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca and Chiapas."
The places named by Mr. Cabrera as the locale of the Zapata movement are five Mexican states. His statement harmonizes with other facts adduced in this chapter, all tending to show the existence of a condition very far from that described in the Washington Star article.
Regarding the "recently and intelligently revised system of education," which according to the Counsellor for the Mexican Government, "is in full operation, from the common free schools all over the Republic to the National University at the capital," the following excerpt from El Excelsior, of Mexico City, for December 21, 1918, will be found illuminating:
"One hundred and sixteen thousand three hundred eleven children of school age in the Federal District are receiving no instruction at all. This figure, which is all the more significant and discouraging in that it relates to a section which is usually considered the most cultured of the Republic, has been taken from the statistical data just published by the Bureau of Education.
"The present census gives the Federal District a population of approximately 1,000,000 inhabitants. Applying the generally accepted rule which gives 20 per cent, of the total population to children of school age, there should be 200,000 such children in the Federal District.
"The school census taken at the opening of the present year which was unquestionably deficient in several respects shows an enrolment of 89,689 children, thus leaving 116,311 children who are receiving no instruction at all. These figures, which offer much food for thought, bring out strikingly the backwardness of education as compared with former years.
"In 1910, when the population of the Federal District according to the census of that year, was 720,752, the school enrolment was 86,896, a difference of less than 3,000, with a population of 300,000 less than in the present year. "But even more recent years have shown a larger school attendance than for the year just closed. Thus, in 1917 the attendance reached 104,038, that is to say, 21,000 more pupils than there are to-day.
"If we turn now to the number of schools, here again we find a remarkable difference. In 1910, the following schools were open: Grade Schools 332; Higher Grade Schools 40; Night Schools (Extension Schools) 42; Kindergarten 5 — total 419. "During the year just closed the following schools were open: Grade Schools 270; Higher Grade Schools 60; Night Schools (Extension Schools) 42; Kindergartens 11 — total 382.
"It will be seen, therefore, that to-day with a larger population the Federal District has 36 less schools than it had in 1910.
"The number of teachers assigned to the 382 schools that were open during the past year was 1980, of whom 826 were Normal School graduates, 335 certified teachers, and 819 were without any certificate at all.
"The budget for last year, which covered the Federal District, and the territories of lower California, Tepic, and Quintana Roo, assigned 13,000,000 pesos to educational purposes. The budget for 1919, covering only the Federal District, carries only 5,500,000, distributed as follows: For the City of Mexico 2,971,634; for the municipalities exclusive of the city, 955,455; for the Bureau, 1,817,385."
One of the gravest charges brought by the Carranza revolutionists against their predecessors and most strongly insisted upon, was that proper provision had not been made for the education of the masses of the Mexican people. The Carrancistas pledged themselves to afford ample facilities for popular education, as the most important of the reforms which they were to institute. Notwithstanding this, we find that, although the population of the capital city of Mexico has increased nearly 50 per cent. since 1910, the last year of the Diaz administration, there is to-day in the Federal District containing the City of Mexico, 37 fewer schools than existed in 1910. Furthermore, while the Carranza budget for last year for education in the federal district and territories was 13,000,000 pesos, the national budget for education for 1919 carried only 5,500,000 pesos. This, of course, means that the public revenues are being so fully absorbed by the grafting officers of the army which keeps Carranza in power, that little is left for popular education. The failure of the Carranza régime to live up to its promises is emphasized by the fact that its declared annual income is 46,000,000 pesos larger than was that of the Diaz administration.
Propaganda publications maintained in Washington by the Carranza government assure the public in almost every number that peaceful conditions throughout all the territory of Mexico are nearly or quite restored. Notwithstanding all this it appears that nearly two-thirds of the national appropriation for the year 1918 has been devoted to maintaining the military power. To all who understand conditions in Mexico, this means that the heads of the army are being bribed, at the cost of the public, to maintain the Carranza element in power, and that the leaders of that party are prepared to sacrifice the country and its people in every way so long as they may retain the reins.
While the Carranza government is devoting nearly two-thirds of the national revenue to the army, recent reports show how the mass of the people are faring and what is being done for their benefit. An American business man of high character who had just returned from a trip through Mexico for the purpose of deciding whether it was possible to reopen an important public service undertaking in the City of Mexico which had necessarily been discontinued shortly after the Carranza forces took possession of that city, writing under date of March 21, 1918, reported the following among other things:
"Our train left Laredo, Mexico, on time, February 17, and the trip was very pleasant from there until we reached San Luis, from which point it was necessary that we be accompanied by an armoured train and on asking the reason for this we were informed that the country thereabouts was infested with bandits, so much so that it was unsafe to travel save in this way. An armoured car was attached to the rear of the Pullman. In this way we got through without any mishap. The train that went to the city the day previous was detained for five hours while the bandits were being driven into the hills.
"As you know, the national railways of Mexico pass through a very rich agricultural section of the republic and this is the season of the year when the ranchers should be busy planting their crops. On the entire trip we did not see a single man in the fields getting ready for spring planting and saw that very little fall wheat had been sown. The crop this year from that section of the Republic will be very small. In addition to the above we did not see more than one hundred head of cattle grazing on the entire trip.
"During the first day in the city we were surprised by the number of people on the streets and were told that the city and its suburbs now had a population of one million people, and that the cities of Vera Cruz and Guadalajara had populations of sixty-five and one hundred and fifty thousand people, respectively. This condition is brought about by the fact that it is not safe for them to live out in the country and work their farms. This great influx of people has caused rents and foodstuffs to increase in price, or as it was expressed, there is a large consumption here and no production.
"The railroads of the country are all in control of the government. The trains that run to Laredo and Vera Cruz are being run, and will be run, at all hazards to the extent of the Carranza control. Trains to Laredo run every day and those to Vera Cruz run about five days each week. This irregularity is due to rebel activities in the vicinity of Ometusco.
"The train equipment on these two roads is kept in good shape due to the fact that all of the equipment of the railroads of the Republic is concentrated on the two lines. Up to the present time, when the equipment was getting to be in bad shape, the government would confiscate another railroad and replenish, but now they have taken over their last road and the source of supply will soon be exhausted. To show how the railroad equipment has deteriorated, let us state the following facts:
"The Mexican railroad had in its service 100 engines. After nine months' operation by the government of Mexico, there are only 30 of these engines that are fit for service. Of the equipment of nationally owned lines, at least ninety per cent, is in the yards along the lines. Aguascalientes yard has 288 broken-down engines, San Luis 231, and all the other small yards are full. Steel for the repairing of the tracks is being secured from the old Central Railroad of Mexico.
"The Mexico City of to-day is not the Mexico City of six years ago. At that time, the people looked better, the streets were cleaner, the pavements were in good condition, the foreigners were all busy and provided employment for all the Mexican people who wanted to work. Their homes were kept up in good shape and showed evidences of prosperity and wealth. None of this exists now; just the reverse, and it is plain to the casual observer that the present state of affairs can easily be traced to the inefficiency of the several parties which have ruled the country during the elapsed time.
"Not a single one of the several rebel chiefs, who have been in power, can be said to represent the wishes of the Mexican people. They do represent a small faction and all of the laws made and enforced in that time have been for the benefit of the officials and their friends and not for the people. "The present officials are taxing the people much above the taxes of former years. They are collecting more money but they are not paying their employees. School teachers in the City of Mexico have not been paid for months. Clerks in the employ of the government are receiving half pay. But they do not fail to pay the excessive salaries of the generals and a few subordinates who are so much in evidence in the streets, riding around in high-priced automobiles.
"The generals and their subordinates in Mexico City are the only government employees who are receiving full pay. This pay is increased by graft secured on army business, so that thousands of dollars are expended by each one in the purchase of automobiles and the entertainment of disreputable characters. This was so marked that a history of the subject was published in El Universal, which antagonized the army officials to such an extent that the editor of this paper was thrown into jail where he was kept for more than a month. Needless to say, the article did not have the desired effect as the dissipation increased rather than decreased. If such a thing is possible, it is getting worse every day."
Another description of conditions up to the end of June, 1918, is furnished by a gentleman who had resided in Mexico City during all of the revolutionary period until the latter part of last June. He is a newspaper man of experience, a trained observer, familiar by years of life in Mexico with the people of the country and the conditions which prevail. His character is so high that I am convinced that he is entitled to the fullest credence. He says:
"According to newspapers, entirely friendly to the Carranza administration, literally thousands of government employees have been dismissed, including not only clerks in the government departments but school teachers and railway men as the railways of the country are being operated by the government. Even entire government bureaus have been abolished. There is retrenchment everywhere along the line except in one department of the government — the military establishment. The significance of this fact is not to be overlooked.
"In El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper now owned by prominent officials of the Mexican Government and entirely friendly to Carranza, a good bird's-eye view of the situation in Mexico is given in an editorial published June 5, 1918. The editorial seeks to remonstrate with certain railroad employees for protesting against a government order that their wages should be paid 75 per cent, in cash and the remainder in government promises to pay to be redeemed in actual cash 'when there is an improvement in the economic circumstances that prevail at present' The editor says:
"'The argument [of the employees] is based on a falsehood, namely, that the weight of this policy of economy will fall solely on the working men of the Mexican Railway. The truth is that the weight of this policy of economy has been felt for some time past by social classes just as important as the Mexican Railway workmen. The facts are much too recent to call for repetition. Who is ignorant of the fact that many government bureaus have been closed because of the policy of economy? Thousands of school teachers have been dismissed; thousands of government employees have been discharged, even in the railways, the reduction of the personnel cannot be called slight.
"'Did not the newspapers of yesterday or the day before state that nine hundred railway men, who had been dismissed from their jobs, were going to the United States?'
"There is great suffering among the lower classes from lack of food and the pangs of hunger are not unknown among the middle classes. Beggars, always numerous in Mexico, have multiplied tenfold. In Mexico City, beggars are constantly at the entrances of all the restaurants of any size and persons going in and out are importuned for charity. Waiters have to keep constantly on the alert to prevent beggars in their filthy rags from entering the restaurants and begging bits of food from persons dining at the tables. In the central streets of the capital at night, it is a common sight to see doorways heaped with boys and girls of tender age, sleeping huddled together for warmth, often with a dog or two in the pile.
"Excessive prices of corn and beans make it almost impossible for the poorer classes to use them and the middle classes, whose wages have been only slightly increased, if increased at all, are in even greater straits as they have to maintain an appearance of respectability.
"As a class, perhaps, there has been no greater suffering than among the school teachers. In some of the states, there were instances where the teachers in the public schools had not been paid for four or five months. In Mexico City even, it was frequently the case that their pay was a month or more in arrears.
"Under the Mexican system, they should receive their pay every ten days, there being three pay days to the month. Due to the characteristic Mexican custom of living from day to day, the passing of even one pay day was a serious matter, causing suffering and with the pay constantly in arrears, teachers, as a class, were almost always in a state of not knowing where their next meal was to come from.
"I was told by a former Mexican public school teacher, who is now working in a private institution, that she frequently met her old friends on the street and that their constant story was that of suffering and want. She said that at first she hesitated to offer them money but having made the experiment once, she never hesitated again. She said that tie offer of a peso or a half peso brought tears of gratitude to the eyes of the recipient and often a confession of not having tasted food for twenty-four hours or longer. These were teachers coming from the respectable middle class, and even in some cases, from former wealthy families of the upper classes, and only extreme necessity would have brought them to the point of accepting alms.
"In the state of Zacatecas months passed without the school teachers being paid and during the teachers' convention at the state capital, for the purpose of registering a general protest, statements were made that teachers had pawned all their furniture and other household goods, and in many cases, actually were on the verge of starvation. One man teacher stated that he had just lost a child because he could not by any possible means obtain money to buy certain foods which the attending physician had declared were necessary to save the child's life.
"In the states and in the capital teachers of many years' experience have abandoned their positions and sought other means of making a living, often being forced into menial employment.
"In travelling from Mexico City to the American border one cannot fail to be impressed with the number of beggars at the stations as the train proceeds through the central Mexican states and, with the added fact that, as the American border is approached, the beggars are less numerous and finally disappear altogether.
"A typical condition is described in the following note from the San Luis Potosi correspondent of El Excelsior, one of the leading Mexico City newspapers:
"'San Luis Potosi, June 2 — A great affluence of beggars has been noted in different parts of the city for some days past, especially in the paseos and central streets. Passers-by are literally assaulted by these beggars — sometimes there are entire families of them — who appeal to the charity of the public. The sights presented by these persons, in addition to being repugnant, are highly immoral, as many of them, including men, women, and children, exhibit themselves in the public highways in a condition which lacks hut little of complete nakedness, often a serious danger to the public health on account of the filthy condition of the rags which but half cover them.'
"The Mexican army is Carranza's salvation and at the same time is his greatest danger. Estimates as to the actual force sunder arms vary from fifty to seventy-five thousand, the observer stating that the pay rolls probably show double the number given in their estimates. This army is the biggest drain on the Carranza treasury; it is keeping the federal government in a state of bankruptcy, and yet so widely spread are revolutionary activities in Mexico that the maintenance of such a force is necessary.
"The Carranza income is larger than that of the Diaz government and could he reduce army graft even fifty per cent, his problem of making the income meet disbursements would be comparatively easy.
"On June 18, 1918, El Universal published the following:
"'We were informed yesterday from an authorized source that in the new budget the federal government is preparing, the salaries assigned to government employees will be seventy-five per cent. of that they now receive. At present seventy-five per cent. of the salary is being paid in cash and twenty-five per cent. in bonds but, in the new budget, the salary basis will be seventy-five per cent. of that now in effect.'
"It is virtually impossible for Carranza to stop graft and keep a loyal army. This is more especially the case when one remembers that some of the leading generals with the most important commands in the country are earning very modest salaries and living at the proverbial clip of Pittsburgh millionaires despite the fact that they had no private fortunes before joining the Carranza movement."
The criminal waste of public funds by public officials in Mexico City at the present time is mentioned in the article from the New York Sun, previously referred to, in the following language:
It is evident, judging from all reliable information, that the Carranza party has violated its pledges to the people of Mexico as completely as the pledges of its leaders to the United States and the civilized world were violated.
While generals of the army are permitted to rob the public funds and pursue a career of shameless dissipation and extravagance, the employees of the railroads have their wages reduced; the school teachers remain without their pay and are forced to resign their positions by thousands; the civil employees of the government are dismissed and departments closed while important business remains unattended to. The country is filled with beggars, and people are dying by the thousands for lack of the necessities of life.
The experience of the masses of the people under the government given the major portion of Mexico by the Carranza party furnishes a striking parallel to that of the Russians at the hands of the Bolsheviki. In every country there exists a predatory element whose chief ambition it is to secure control of the machinery of government by violence and then to use it in depriving industrious, frugal people of the property they have accumulated, and dividing it among themselves. This element is represented in Mexico by the Carranza party, in Russia by the Bolsheviki, and in the United States by the I. W. W.
In Mexico the destruction of productive industry by the greed of this party has deprived hundreds of thousands of the citizens of the chance of making a living and has brought indescribable miseries upon that country. Dispatches day by day for the last year have told the story of similar conditions in Russia, brought about by the actions of the Bolsheviki. By their plots for burning harvest fields, grain elevators, factories of various kinds, and destroying animals, the I. W. W. have shown that they would do the same thing if they should ever succeed in securing control of our country as the Carranza party has in Mexico and the Bolsheviki in Russia.
The fact that in each country these predatory elements have been the tools of Germany, have accepted her money, done her criminal bidding, and in every way shown their sympathy for that country and its malignant purpose, to thwart which the Allies have expended the lives of millions of their citizens and billions of money, presents a peculiar psychological situation. Surely, the evident sympathy of these criminal classes in each country with Germany can be accounted for only on the theory that it is an expression of that "fellow feeling which makes us wondrous kind."