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AMERICAN TILLE

BELL
SYSTEM

AND ASSOCIATED

AN ADVENTURE in communication was made last January when transatlantic radio telephone service was established between New York and London. There had been previous tests and demonstrations. Nevertheless, the fact that at certain hours daily this service was made available to anyone in these cities from his own telephone, created such public interest that for several days the demands for overseas connections exceeded the capacity of the service.

It was then demonstrated that there was a real use for telephone communication between the world's two greatest cities. It was further demonstrated

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COMPARIES

that the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, with the co-operation of the British Post Office, was able to give excellent transmission of speech under ordinary atmospheric conditions.

In accord with announcements made at that time, there will be a continued effort to improve the service, extend it to greater areas and insure a greater degree of privacy.

It is true that static will at times cause breaks in the ether circuit, but a lòng step forward has been made towards international telephone communication and more intimate relationship between the United States and Great Britain.

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The Index for Volume CXIII, November, 1926, to April, 1927, inclusive, will be sent free of charge, on request

THE CENTURY MAGAZINE; Published monthly: 50 cents a copy, $5.00 a year in the United States, $5.60 in Canada, and $6.00 in all other countries (postage included). Publication and circulation office, Concord, N. H. Editorial and advertising offices, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Subscriptions may be forwarded to either of the above offices. Pacific Coast office, 327 Van Nuys Building, Los Angeles, California. W. Morgan Shuster, President; Dana H. Ferrin, Secretary: George L. Wheelock, Treasurer; James Abbott, Assistant Treasurer. Board of Trustees: George H. Hazen, Chairman, George C. Fraser; W. Morgan Shuster. The Century Co. and its editors receive manuscripts and art material, submitted for publication, only on the understanding that they shall not be responsible for loss or injury thereto while in their possession or in transit. All material herein published under copyright, 1927, by The Century Co. Title registered in the U. S Patent Office. Entered as second-class matter August 18, 1920, at the U. S. post-office, Concord, N. H., under the act of March 3, 1879; entered also at the Post Office Department, Ottawa, Canada. Printed in U. S. A.

Vol 113

April 1927

No 6

W

MEXICO IN QUEST OF SALVATION
She Faces the Big Hard Task of Saving Herself

FREDERICK SIMPICH

HEN Spain lost her colonies in the Western World, about 1820, there began to spawn the now baffling Mexican problem. To-day it is Uncle Sam's favorite foreign nightmare.

Now the mere mention of Mexico throws our State Department into a fit of the diplomatic doldrums.

Like a sort of hereditary political club-foot, this chronic Mexican situation is handed down from one administration to the next. It is not a party problem. It gives grief and pain to Democrats and Republicans alike. Tactful Mr. Taft, seeing it growing when Diaz was ditched, wished it on to Wilson. It tormented the timid Bryan, and peeved the fretful Lansing. It harried Harding, and harassed Hughes. Coolidge, Kellogg & Company duly inherited it. And, without doubt, this ever lengthening string of stale diplomatic fish, the Mexican situation, will in time be handed on down to presidents that come after.

Since we cannot shift the map and shunt Mexico away from our frontier, since we apparently cannot

junk the Monroe Doctrine—and since Mexico is what she is it seems this "situation" will be with us for a long, long time. In truth, it has become more of a condition than a situation. It has bested our worst diplomats and baffled our best. In all probability not even armed force could ever solve it-permanently and satisfactorily.

Though neighbors for a century, we still have little in common with Mexicans except a hellward frontier. Our difference in race, speech, and manners, in mental and moral habits, is in truth one basic reason for the "Mexican situation." Ours is a Nordic and theirs an imposed civilization of Latin origin.

Fundamentally, it is the ham-andegg versus the chile-con-carne complex. We invent engines. They write poetry. We worship the Fords, they the Napoleons. We build sky-scrapers, and they paint pictures of ruined Aztec temples. They prefer oratory to the rattle of adding-machines. Ours is a baseball and theirs a bull-fight mind. Their humor is grim. Yet you hear

Copyright, 1927, by THE Century Co. All rights reserved.

641

a lot of music and hilarity below the Rio Grande, despite all the fiction writers say about the "melancholy peon." We like to make money and keep some of it. But flush or flat, the Mexican is happier than we, especially if there is a guitar to strum or a tenor to sing "La Golondrina." The American spurns his poor relations; but the more of his the Mexican can support, the happier he is. I have a Mexican friend who earns twelve thousand dollars a year. He is married but has no children or near relatives. His wife, however, has one of the largest assortments of poor kin in Mexico which is saying a lot. Seven of them live at my friend's home, and all are idle. Why work, they reason, when Juan earns twelve thousand dollars a year? Juan's wife's deceased sister's husband is the last arrival. When he breezed in, my friend Juan and his wife had to move into the basement. They sleep now next to the laundryroom, amid lawn-mowers, rat-traps, and junk. But they are happy. It is their way of being hospitable.

22

To see what started our stubborn diplomatic feud with Mexico, and to grasp the factors in her own hard problem, let us look back a few years.

Once we warred with Mexico. Santa Anna lost his wooden leg, and Scott took Chapultepec. Later, to force out the French, we threw an army along the Rio Grande. A puppet emperor-left helpless-was shot to death.

With Diaz dawned Mexico's amazing industrial day. By thousands Americans went swarming there in quest of adventure-of fortunes in lands, mines, railways, and oil.

Yankee investments increased enormously. Here in mously. Here in Mexico was staged the first act in our great drama of Latin-American economic conquest; and a new foreign policy called Imperialism was born. By it capitalistic governments seek to protect the money of their nationals invested in foreign lands. Often such investments modify foreign policies; capitalistic nations behave thus.

By 1911, when Diaz was deposed, Americans had penetrated every nook and cranny of Mexico where big profits beckoned. Our share of capital invested was greater than that of any other nation. Till then, our people and the things they owned in Mexico had been safe. Our ministers and consuls still had influence enough to obtain protection for the lives and property of their nationals.

But, after Diaz, came rabble rule. There was no justice. From 1912 to 1918 hundreds of Americans were robbed, imprisoned, killed. For such crimes few offenders were ever even arrested.

Yet, even during these turbulent years, our investments in Mexico actually increased, despite the wabbling course of our weak diplomacy. In fact, in those troubled times the most stabilizing social and economic internal forces in Mexico were the big foreign-owned mining, railway, oil, and plantation industries. Many of these by the courage of their officials and loyalty of Mexican workers were able to continue operations even when local battles were being fought. They paid daily wages to thousands when money was scarce. To one government after another they paid taxes, duties, fines, and other imposts; they kept

transport open, bringing food to factory lands of Europe, is to get rid hungry communities.

In any study of Mexico's future economic growth, a large and increasing factor will be these foreignowned enterprises, whose influence is measured by the number of Mexicans they support, and the amount of taxes and contributions they pay to the government.

After Carranza, order improved. Life was safer. But the favorite fruit of the revolution was the new policy, Mexico for Mexicans. Back of all the so-called anti-foreign laws lurks a sort of economic fear. Mexico feels it keenly. She fears she may be unduly exploited for the benefit of foreign stockholders in alien lands. Though foreign-owned enterprises pay her millions in taxes, she complains that all the Mexican people get from the yield of oil-fields and mines is a daily wage. So, although primarily an agricultural country, she seeks now-by antiforeign laws, by fostering technical education and erecting tariff walls— to build up home industries, to conserve more of what nature gave her. It is sheer economic self-defense.

She is alarmed at being obliged to trade oil, minerals, hides, timber, for machine-made goods-even for certain articles of food.

She sees foreign nations in rivalry over her markets, seeking to trade their own surplus manufactures to Mexico for such of her raw materials as they lack. Trade history shows that in similar exchanges it is always the industrial nation which gets rich. Mexico knows this. Her economists also know that especially since the World War the greatest economic problem of the United States, and the

of their surplus shop output-and that Latin-American markets form the big battle-ground.

The United States, for example, trading its machine-made goods for Mexico's crude things, can pay for the crudes and still have profits enough left to invest more heavily in Mexican natural resources. Should Mexico permit this to continue indefinitely-say those Mexicans who ponder it eventually foreigners will own most or all of that country's natural riches; and then, more even than to-day, the whole nation will live in the sweat of its brow.

All Mexicans do not object to foreign capital per se. On the contrary, many proclaim its usefulness. Without it, they admit, development must lag. But somehow-and they hope it can be by some magic of anti-foreign laws-they strive to bring industry more under native control, and to keep a greater share of the profits at home.

To-day European capital is more welcome than ours. This is because Mexico-like every other LatinAmerican nation-fears economic conquest by the Colossus of the North. From Mexico to the Argentine, almost daily, speeches are made and editorials printed urging Central and South American countries to unite in some form of political and economic solidarity to combat our Pan-Americanism. In Central America, Mexican political and cultural influence leads this movement.

In Mexico to-day, while the bulk of the farm land is owned by the natives, industry and big business are held by foreigners. Our own holdings in Mexico, it is said, are

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