The Political Shame of Mexico . By Edward I. Bell , formerly editor and publisher of “La Prensa” and “The Daily Mexican” of Mexico City. (New York: McBride, Nast &Company, 1914. 422 p. $2.00.) 361
The author was editor of a daily newspaper, head of a considerable news-gathering system, and acquainted with most of the important figures of Mexico. His opportunities to know and intelligently interpret the past four years of troubled Mexican history have been unusual. His most important material was gotten “not from books, for none contain it, but from men.” José Ives Limantour read proof of part of the book and discussed freely, but not enlighteningly, certain phases of the Diaz collapse; and the author has evidently been in close touch with some authorized spokesman of the Madero clan. The book is thoughtful, pungently written, suggestive, and fascinating. Mr. Bell knows his Mexico, where “things are never what they seem,” and his picture is atmospherically correct. As a contemporary interpretation of an immensely intricate subject by a well-informed and evidently fairminded observer who has made an effort to check his observations, the book ought to be a useful guide to future investigations. In our present state of knowledge, however, many of its conclusions must be accepted simply as opinion, and some of them will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, either to prove or disprove.
As the author sees it, Mexico began to outgrow Diaz in the nineties, but business interests supported him because they thought him a good policeman. In 1910 they no longer trusted his ability, and the crash came. Many American and some Mexican business men hoped that the inevitable confusion would lead to intervention by the United States. The United States, recognizing the fact, and not the motive, of the general opposition, made no effort to save the Diaz régime. But Madero was an accident, due to the unexpected strength of an almost real popular opinion and to the mismanagement of Limantour, the strong man of the Diaz government. “Many stories have been printed and direct charges made that revolutionary capital to the amount of millions was furnished by American corporations to aid Madero. The stories were fables and the charges unfounded. There was logic behind them but no facts.” The only foreign money used in the revolution was $375,000, the first payment by a French company on a railroad concession that Gustavo Madero controlled in Zacatecas. No important business concern supported Madero before or after his election. All regarded him as impractical and unsafe. But neither they nor the active conspirators formulated any concrete plan for preventing chaos when Madero should fall.
It is not charged that any business corporation influenced the attitude of the United States government toward Madero, but it is pointed out that three great companies which had reason not to welcome the Madero ascendency were in very close touch with the Taft administration. A corrupt connection need not have existed and is not implied. These corporations were certainly in a position to give information on Mexican conditions, may naturally have offered it, by request or unasked, and it would certainly have been unfavorable to the Madero government—a view which would not be modified by the official reports of Ambassador Wilson. As a result of misinformation from these or other sources, “the government at Washington, if one may judge by its acts, has seen on the far side of the Rio Grande nothing but a series of illusions.” Sorely hampered though he was by the blundering movements of the United States, the nagging of Ambassador Wilson, and the obstructive tactics of doctrinaire congressman, Madero almost succeeded. With very little well directed encouragement, or even with absolute non-interference, from the United States, he would have succeeded.
The author is convinced that the United States must ultimately come to forcible intervention, and thinks that it should have done so at Madero's fall. He is inclined to find excuses for the policy of the Wilson administration in the inheritance which it received from Mr. Taft. One closes the book with increased respect for Madero, and with assurance of the impractical nature of his Utopian dreams somewhat shaken; but the conviction of old Evaristo Madero, who died at the beginning of his grandson's revolution, is likely to be the verdict of history—“that old gentleman had seen Mexico grow from a chaotic mass to a well co-ordinated system, and he believed that another generation or two must pass before radical reforms could be introduced.”
Eugene C. Barker .
How to cite:
Barker, Eugene C., "The Political Shame of Mexico", Volume 019, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 103 - 105. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v019/n1/review_27.html
[Accessed Sun Nov 23 3:02:20 CST 2008]
