CHAPTER X

THE HIGHWAY TO SOLUTION

The solution of the problems of Mexico’s commerce and business seems to rest in hands alien to Mexico. The destructions of the past ten years are bringing her steadily nearer to annihilation, and Mexico herself seems helpless to save herself. These make the appearance, and it is vivid indeed. But it may still be only an appearance, if the forces which are acting and must act can be brought to see that they can and must work in Mexico herself.

The cycle of destructions insists upon showing itself as the round from the materialism of Diaz on to the destructions of an era of profaned utopian idealism and now to an era of materialism again. But this time it is an era of materialism which differs from the Diaz time, and is more potent, at the moment, for good and for ill. For to-day, in the high places of government, controlling through their greed the very minions of government, is an animating power which is not the idealism nor the self-sacrifice of devoted rulers, but the worship of wealth alone. That power is mighty for destruction, but at the very moment that it functions thus, another form of wealth, “capitalism” if you will, is working slowly for the saving of such of Mexico as is being saved. For “capitalism,” in foreign guise, in such enterprises as even the mad radicals of the day point to as the signs of their “progress”--here capitalism is giving Mexico her only surcease from the destructions of her rulers.

Wealth is the one power which men recognize in Mexico. It is to-day above government, for it dominates government and destroys government by the very temptation which it holds out to successful revolution. It rules to-day in Yucatan, even as it ruins the individuals of Yucatan. Yet, too, it rules in the oil fields, for it makes the vast production of oil possible, because it alone has the power and the foresight to develop oil’s potentialities. And there, in the oil fields, it is being turned, ever so slightly, to the beginnings of its ultimate destiny, which must be, I believe, the saving of Mexico.

Strange tales I have told of the oil fields, and yet it is a far stranger tale which I have now to tell. For I would point out the vast opportunity which awaits that wealth of oil for the saving of Mexico. In the light of that possibility, the mighty stream of oil which in a thousand ships pours from Mexico into the industries of the globe, is a helpless Niagara, childishly unconscious of its own power.

The constitutions and laws and decrees of the Mexican revolutionaries still hold the wealth of oil in their grip. There has been, in the summer months of 1921, a mild effort to break that grip, to stay the hand of strangulation which is at the throat of the oil industry, but this is still self-defense. There is a yet more persistent force than mere taxation or even than mere confiscation at work in the oil fields of Mexico. This force savors of elements mightier than mere industry; it seems to be taking the form of a sinister elaboration of the vital principles of bolshevism--the bolshevism which rules in Russia and is a battle cry in Mexico.

Among these principles of bolshevism, enunciated by Lenin himself a year ago, was the setting of the capitalistic powers at each other’s throats, such powers as Japan and America, that they might destroy one another.

In Mexico we see that threat from Russia developed with the thoroughness of a too-eager pupil. In Yucatan the cycle has brought two vast financial interests to battle--the millions of the Equitable and the Royal Bank of Canada, against the International Harvester with other unlimited resources. In mightier and more daring terms, and even more deliberately, in Tampico and in the false issues of concessions, Mexico and the governments, radical, bolshevist indeed, of the revolutionary era, have been setting not merely groups of financiers but the interests of nations at each other’s throats. The issues of concessions on the one side and open oil fields on the other seem to have been planned and fomented and distributed with a deliberation which is not Mexican to bring the United States and England to grips--in Mexico. So the spoken threat of Lenin finds elaborate action in distant Mexico.

Oil has been the victim, the tool, then, of those who would destroy our civilization? We do not know. But this we do know--that to save itself, to save great nations from war, to save the world’s oil for the uses of civilization, oil must come to its own rescue. It may be saved temporarily in other ways than by itself, but itself it must save sooner or later. If sooner, the power will be for good; if later, it will be for destruction, even as the powers in Yucatan are being expended for destruction. The comparison is inadequate, perhaps unfair, but the vision is crystal clear. It shows the last great power of the world--wealth--diverted from its proper channels to battle within itself. The dragon’s teeth of capitalism have raised up armies and the stone cast by bolshevism has thrown them at each other’s throats.

And this cannot be, and must not be. Our civilization rocks. Were it to pass on to the millennium, the rocking would be worth the price. But we see, not the millennium, but, as in Yucatan, the coming of new destructions, with capital, and labor, in rôles of ignominy.

For to-day oil, and the capitalism it represents, as yet does little good for Mexico. It pours its wealth--nearly $50,000,000 a year--into the coffers of government and there, like the golden apple, it creates discord and wars and bloodshed. It feeds and fattens the group in power and makes it worth the while for other groups as fast as their petty agitations will allow, to rise up and overthrow their predecessors, to the end of getting their share of the loot, and a new distribution of favors. The gold which pours into the national treasury inspires, as we have seen, all manner of radical legislation and constitutional provisions and oppressions to make the capitalism which develops the oil disgorge more and more of oil’s wealth, and bow more deeply beneath the yoke of political personalism.

Thus is the gold which flows from the oil wells dynamically active--as a poison and a weapon against those who create it. The oil companies of themselves take no part in Mexican politics. This, I admit, is almost unbelievable, but I am convinced that except where government--our government or that of England--has directed them, the oil companies have not used their power politically. The United States and England have both taken hands in Mexican politics, and particularly was Washington active in arbitrating the destinies of Mexico in the eight years just closed. But that does not concern us just now. The liquid gold from the oil fields has never used its power alone.

It has not yet used its power for its great possible good, either. Not even for so much good as the International Harvester and the Eric corporation have used theirs in Yucatan to the discomfiture of Alvarado and the chastening of the henequen industry. Never, for the sake of a principle alone, has an oily hand been lifted to say “thus far and no farther.” Never has an oil official done more than cry aloud over the pressure of the thumb-screws--cries which do no more than extract more wealth to fatten the generals who, with added strength, only gave the screw another turn.

For seven years the oil companies paid the rebel general, Manuel Pelaez, a comfortable tribute. In that time they also paid Carranza all he asked in “taxes.” They were helpless, and the war was the excuse, not for strength on their part, but for submission to unwarranted and unjust oppression, oppression which had no object save personal aggrandizement and enrichment.

Here is the one power in Mexico which is potent, accepting the rule of corrupt government, passing on its power of gold to those who use it for nothing but their own ends, and for the destruction of all that our civilization holds dear.

They buy privilege in Mexico, the privilege to do the business which they must do, while the sinister powers to whom they pay tribute cut them from the development of new fields upon which their ultimate future and Mexico’s immediate future depend. The whole power of Mexican revolution and of the groups which control the revolution lies in that one principle which I have reiterated: they give no rights, they sell no rights; only privilege is on the auction-block. Those who buy it to-day and those who contemplate the buying of it as a way to enter a promising foreign trade and investment field are the upholders of the shameful exploitation under which Mexico herself bows. And of these, the greater sinner, to my mind, is he who plans to enter Mexico now. After all, we must in fairness admit that the old companies have the potent excuse of their vast holdings and of their duty to their stockholders.

The plan which I hold as the solution of the economic and political chaos of Mexico would comprise a shifting of the center of control from politics to economics, where the motive force, at least, has ever rested. I would no longer tolerate the application of political remedies for economic ills, but would go so far as to suggest an economic remedy for both economic and political afflictions. Apparently this is what our government plans, and what Mexico’s government will not bring herself to accept.

Years of observation of the Mexican problem has led to the conviction that the international difficulties of Mexico are between the Mexican politicians and the American government--their interests decidedly conflict. But there is no division of interest between Mexican business men and American business men; the former are just as disturbed over the confiscatory policies of the Constitution of 1917 as are the latter. So recently as April 7, 1921, a petition was sent to President Obregon by a group of landowners in the Mexican state of Jalisco, protesting against the enforcement of the rulings of the “National Agrarian Commission” which confiscated their properties in the name of the “social revolution” under the same Article 27 which attacks foreign property rights. Its words are worth recording as an indication that it is not alone the American business man who feels the pinch of the rule of privilege in Mexico.

“Such commissions,” the petition reads, “are nothing more than partisan centers where laws, reason and justice are mocked.

“This atrocious work will be judged by public opinion as soon as the deep and serious damage which has been done is known, and history will in time establish the responsibility. Suffice it to say that in every case it has been a work of destruction and never of construction....

“The local agrarian commission is inventing fantastic plans of taxation, confiscating large and small properties, and sugar, _mezcal_ and orange plantations, which have cost their legitimate owners years of toil and the investment of considerable capital. The federal tribunals, deaf to all appeals, follow an invariable line of conduct in every case against the landowners. Should the landowner invoke in his behalf the same doctrines which have been applied to the benefit of others, he finds out that these same doctrines are never interpreted in his favor. The authorities only favor those they wish to favor and to accomplish this end they do not hesitate to override justice and reason.”

It is to this Mexican business man, still a stable factor in Mexico, that we must look for the change in government attitude toward business which is indispensable to the solution of the social, economic and political chaos of Mexico to-day. In numbers these Mexican business men are few; in grasp of world affairs they lag behind men in similar positions in this country. Nevertheless, their interests, those of the American companies now operating in Mexico and those of the Americans and other foreigners who hope to share in Mexican trade, are and will be one. It is in the way of supporting such Mexicans in their efforts to influence the government of their own country that I speak of an economic remedy for all the afflictions of Mexico. I would, if I could, put them in control, would bring back to their aid the brains and the energy of the exiles who belong, in one way or another, to their class of producers.

It is to such an end that the foreign business man who hopes, in the immediate or in the distant future, to share in Mexican trade should turn his hand. He should demand, in the councils of his government, in the congress of the country, in the powerful conventions of chambers of commerce, that Washington insist definitely on a return to civilized and economic rule in Mexico. This Washington seems to seek but they and they alone have the power to compel the decision by the powers of this world that the day of privilege in Mexico must be put aside, and the era of equal rights shall dawn. In the hands of American business interests the tool of pressure is very powerful. This is a moment, not to rush in to get easy markets on the “ground floor,” but to demand conditions which will give the opportunities and the profits to those who can best use them--the truly Golden Rule of business the world around.

When that day comes, all will profit. Until that day comes, none can have aught but risk and chance, the chance of the gambler. For who can say how the wheel of politics will turn? And only he who knows Mexico and the Mexicans of old can assume that he can buy his way to privilege with the next pirate crew. The solution is in the hands of American business men because it is in the hands of the Mexican business men whom they can support and aid. And in the group of such Mexican business men we must include not only the true Mexicans, but the foreign companies which have worked long in Mexico and so have made themselves a true part of Mexico, vitally concerned in her progress and prosperity.

Those foreign companies of Mexico are the business world of Mexico. And they know Mexico and her needs better, in many ways, than Mexico knows herself. They know, as every one who is honest with himself knows, that the hope of Mexico is in truly devoted, native government. Yet we still see them pass the power which could to-morrow restore Mexico to the family of nations over to those who use it for their own ends and for the utter destruction of all Mexico that is outside the influence of the oil fields and of their civilization.

The great companies are Mexican, in essence. They have rights as Americans and as Englishmen, to be sure, but their greater right is in Mexico. And they have the right to use their power as they will. They seek to be good and to be honest and just, but the ends of justice are defeated by their very honesty. I do not advocate activity in politics, nor even the tangible aid of oil companies to revolutionists of any stamp. I hold only that if the oil companies would give over their profits (as they did temporarily in the summer of 1921) long enough to shut off the stream of gold from corrupt government, if they would thus render revolution and loot unprofitable, the solution of the problem of Mexico would soon come, in a return to an age of honest work and honest government, free from the temptation of vast unearned wealth. We need not ask how or by whom the change shall be made, whether by a sincere Mexican government ready to cast out its evil elements, or by a government yet to be born. That is not our concern, for our concern is to search for our part and having found that part, to play it well.

Is not this a solution of the Mexican problem? Should we not say to the foreign companies:

“You are in Mexico, you are of Mexico. You represent all that is stable in Mexico. You know those Mexicans who can solve the country’s problems, and make Mexico again a land where white men can keep the altar fires burning bright, where honest Mexicans, and foreigners if they will, may help to make it all that it should and must be.”

Revolutionary radicalism has run its course in Mexico, and we are back again at a rule of capitalism, a rule which capitalism, for right or wrong, cannot longer avoid. The eyes of the world are on the moneyed powers of the world. It is childish to try to deceive radicals or conservatives with saying anything else. To-day, in Yucatan, capitalism (because circumstances have forced it to do so) is exacting the toll of penalty from the henequen industry and its native spokesmen. To-day in Tampico, capitalism hesitates to move on, and waits for the ruin which will tumble about it, forcing it, in its turn, to grind Mexico beneath its heel. Somehow, dimly, seems to emerge the lesson which Mexico has for us and for the world. Capitalism must in the end save the world from the ruin of revolution. To-day in Mexico it can move quickly and freely. To-morrow it may be clutched in the very destruction which is upon it, and be forced, itself, to the destruction not alone of the enemies of our civilization, but of the fabric of progress of that civilization. The story of Yucatan is written. Is the story of Tampico and all Mexico to follow the same plot, and is the world to go blindly on, believing that in compromise it shall gain strength?

Truly the crimson feast is preparing for the vultures, and vultures will our eagles of business become if they wait longer on their distant heights for revolution to finish its bloody orgy. To-day there is yet time. In Mexico there is yet time. Why wait for the chaos, from which there seems but one emergence, the emergence to intervention and blood and long foreign rule? The one stable force, the wealth of Mexico, must choose a nobler course than that waiting, than that cynical hoping. It can choose and it must choose. Old worlds are indeed passed away and the paths of new stars are to-day being plotted. In the courses of those new stars power will be used without apology, as the revolutionary radicalism which our old civilization created moves without apology. Our duty is to the future, not to the dead past of compromise and convention and self-righteousness. Is capitalism honest and sincere and bound up with the welfare of the human race? Or is it indeed the vulture which waits to feast only upon dead bodies amid ruins? To-day in Mexico it waits vulture-like. Its sincerity and its true righteousness are to be determined not by slavish waiting for the ruin which will force it to use its power, as it is using it in Yucatan, but by its moving, to-day, to the solving of the great problems of a great nation as it alone can solve them. Capitalism and not revolution, the corporations and people of Mexico, and not foreign pressure, must in the end give answer before the last Tribunal.

Transcriber’s Notes

Page 18: “southermost point” changed to “southernmost point”

Page 114: “outrage perpetated” changed to “outrage perpetuated”

Page 142: “or for propety” changed to “or for property”

Page 200: “Sante Fe Railroad” changed to “Santa Fe Railroad”

Page 236: “pyschology of depravity” changed to “psychology of depravity”