tional government, and nothing else will be mentioned but the re-establishment of the Constitution. reform of the division and the political organi- to uphold the rule of Porfirio Diaz as ideally suited to the needs of Mexico. In many subsequent conversations with the chairman of the Mexican Joint Commission it has been borne home that however much the travail essential to the regeneration of the republic, the underlying idealism is the only real foundation for a government that is to last. That is the reason why Mexicans actuated by the highest sense of loyalty to their land refuse to accept make-shift policies bound to be but for the moment. It is for this reason that President Wilson's "watchful waiting" has proved to be in accord with what is best under the existing circumstances. Mistakes there have been made. on both sides of the border in regard, not so much to motives, as to methods. But, high above parleys and discussions floats. the standard that means America for the Americans. Mexico has subscribed to this despite all that may be said regarding internal strife. To make known some of the chief agencies making for the greater Mexico is the purpose of this article. CARRANZA AS A SYMBOL The least understood personality in all Mexico is General Venustiano Carranza, the de facto head of the Mexican government. Why is this so? Has not General Carranza been plentifully in the public eye? Have not friends and foes admired and hated him according to their conceptions of the man? Have not his public acts marked him for what he is, viewed as he has been from this or that angle? All this is true. But the leadership vested in the First Chief of the Constitutionalists is more like an authoritative interpretation of all that the nation. has suffered and hoped for long before even Porfirio Diaz let go his iron rule. It is not in Carranza to be a master of men in the ordinary sense of that term. If he is today a disciplinarian it is because that is the necessary means to a certain end. If there are those who consider the de facto head unapproachable, it is not because Carranza is not most kindly disposed towards all. As a matter of fact, Venustiano Carranza's personality and characteristics have nothing whatever to do with the principle for which he stands before the world. He merely symbolizes a great ideal. Restoration of the land to the natives; improved school facilities; elevating the position of the women of Mexico; utilizing the national wealth as bound up in the soil; establishing harmonious relations with her neighbors, these are some of the chief aims of the country, and Carranza unquestionably understands better than anyone else that the charge imposed on him is a privilege to be guarded most zealously without personal reward. Those misled by superficial judgment or impatient because of what they considered a too slow progress, have been prone to say that the establishment of complete peace in Mexico depends only on the energy with which the country is governed. Let us hear how Mr. Cabrera met these assertions at the Worcester gathering on that memorable day in November three years ago. "All foreigners in Mexico," Mr. Cabrera said, "look for a strong government, an iron hand or iron fist, and the only thing they discuss is whether a certain man is sufficiently strong or energetic to govern the country. And when they find a man with such qualities, foreigners always have believed that it was their duty to help that man to come into power and support him. It is necessary to rectify foreign opinion about strong governments in Mexico. A strong government is not the one able to maintain peace by the mere force of arms, but the one which can obtain the support of the majority of the country. Any peace obtained by the system of the iron fist is only a temporary peace. Permanent peace in Mexico must be based on certain economic, political and social conditions which would produce a stable equilibrium between the higher and the lower classes of the nation." The idea of impersonal leadership among Latin Americans is a thought so new that few realize that it is scarcely less revolutionary than the effort of the people themselves to become free in all that the word imports. The Man on Horseback has always been the dominant figure in any uplift movement among the republics of South and Central America. President Diaz was the personification of such a type. Democratic as he was to a fault, Francisco Madero held brief power through an emotionalism that, well meaning as it was, failed utterly to weigh the "pros" and "cons" where suddenly a nation, held in virtual bondage, felt the first exhiliration of new found freedom. Carranza, on the other hand, came upon the scene when reaction threatened to undo everything that Madero had aspired to achieve. There was no thought of leadership when the former governor of Coahuila left his pleasant farmstead to stay the hand of the usurper, Huerta. How can it be forgotten with what scorn Carranza spurned the offer of Huerta to join issues with him! No, whoever avers that the First Chief has personal ambitions beyond what is necessary to advance the good of Mexico, fails utterly to comprehend his motive. His very sincerity of purpose, in fact, his enemies have falsely interpreted as meaning disrespect to the neighbor with whom above all others he desires to remain at peace. No character study of this man will aid in deciphering his psychological makeup. For Carranza is Mexico incarnate; Mexico, not as it has been for years and years, but the Mexico of the future. Yes, may come the answer to this; but if Carranza is so little a prey to personal ambition, why does he not obliterate himself, instead of running the risk of being charged with ambitious designs? Let it be understood once for all that Venustiano Carranza is no coward. To let go the leadership in the face of intrigue within and without the land would have stamped him as unworthy of the great task resting upon his shoulders. The Char tional government, and nothing else will be mentioned but the re-establishment of the Constitution. But you know t been in contact w are conscious of tl which possess so : of the villages an autonomy of the 1 in large letters in be any liberty. Y to be, the champi is a Municipal pc cipal autonomy, I should be other r in a position to c suffering all the h When there w ment, you will hav you possess a tru the sovereignty o the government o. upon, as it came Madero, they will of the state as th reform of the division and the political organization of the states, is absolutely necessary. Washington administration realizes this. It is not for nothing that President Wilson looks compassionately across the Rio Grande and views with all the anxiety of a parent the newer republic of Mexico trying to find itself. Is it not a fact that the re-election of Woodrow Wilson emphasizes that after all the American people wants Mexico to shape her own destiny? What better evidence that the ties are being strengthened be'tween the two countries than that the commonwealths nearest the Mexican border gave consent to the President's Mexican policies through a vote of confidence? Let be that Carranza is not well versed in the usages of diplomacy as practised frequently to the detriment of the nations represented by suave statesmen. But he is honest with himself, and no other man could have done half as well as he under circumstances similar to those that have confronted him. SOLVING THE LAND QUESTION While interest in the Mexican situation, from the American point of view, has centered on the Joint High Commission and its work at Atlantic City, it may not be without value to take a look across the border and see what is being done apart from the military exigencies. A monumental work is under way in the state of Yucatan, where Governor Salvador Alvarado has been superintending the distribution of land to the Indians. It is, of course, true that by reason of its location Yucatan escaped largely the depredations of the bands that sprung into existence at the instance of Villa's defection. But this merely clinches the argument that when it is possible for Yucatan to do justice to the peons, the same can be done elsewhere throughout the republic when normal conditions are once fully restored. The New York Times, in a recent interview with Modesto C. Rolland, who is doing a constructive work in the United States through familiarizing Americans with the Educational movement now under way in his native Mexico, said pointedly: "Many preconceived, commonly held, matter of course notions about Mexico melt away under the spell of Modesto C. Rolland's faith and optimism. You go to him with that superior feeling of the citizen of a great, prosperous, peaceful, well-governed country toward the savage, but nevertheless determined to be kind and considerate, almost apologetic, while asking him why, if he knows, his country is such a Dark Age disgrace to the American hemisphere and if it will ever be any different." Then follows Mr. Rolland's answer. He tells in simple words that the world at large judges his country solely by those accidents incident to the revolution itself. But to Mr. Rolland the revolution has been a great promise. Here and there through the republic, he affirms, there has already been fulfillment. A new national life has been created under the social, political and economic conditions which the Mexican people have been terview in Mr. Rolland's own words regarding the land question: "Of course, the great piece of reconstruction work has been the redistribution of the land, and this too, has been done without confiscation. In the first place, we took away from the former holders all the land that they held by fraud. That amounted to many thousands of acres. Then we bought from them as much more as was needed to give to the head of every family a tract of about forty acres. For this we paid in fifty-year gold bonds at 4 per cent. Although we have only just now given title to the small holdings to the farmers we know that the plan is going to work because of the results of two years of experimenting. These small farms were first lent to the people for the two-year period to see what they would do with them and to give all the people the opportunity to find out how they wanted things adjusted before making anything final. The forty-acre experiment was a success. No land was awarded except to a man who agreed to work it to the best of his ability for the benefit of his family. No holding was thrust upon anybody whether or no. But of the 50,000 family heads in the state, 40,000 came forward and applied for the farms, and in the two years of probation practically all of them showed themselves fit for ownership." General Salvador Alvarado, already referred to as the Governor of Yucatan, is a military leader who perceives with all the force of conviction that the army is an expedient, at present necessary, but only in so far as it aids in restoring that order which must precede the fullest development of the republic. Governor Alvarado has but one hobby: education. The cultivation of the soil from a scientific standpoint, adequate school instruction, better homes and family environments, in the attaining of all this the Governor of Yucatan is a natural leader whose constructive example is spreading to other sections of Mexico. The Maya Indians certainly have come to call the name of Governor Alvarado blessed. The regenerative effects. of his land policy are seen everywhere in Yucatan. The situation there is now such that where prior to the revolution the 2,000 landowners paid toward the support of the state in taxes for their exclusive use and ownership of something over 70,000 square miles of land $50,000 a year, taxes from the same land paid on an equitable basis both by the 2,000 old landowners and the many thousand new owners of the forty-acre tracts now amount to $3,000,000 annually. Carrying into effect the new agrarian laws has been responsible for this momentous change. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, on a recent occasion expressed himself regarding the Mexican land question to the effect that the things that Mexico needs are few, but fundamental. He summarized as follows: "Mexico needs a landtax system which will make it impossible to hold great bodies of idle land for selfish reasons and which will make it unneces tional government, and nothing else will be mentioned but the re-establishment of the Constitution. But you know t been in contact w: are conscious of th which possess so 1 of the villages an autonomy of the 1 in large letters in be any liberty. Y torbe, the champi is a Municipal pc cipal autonomy, I should be other r in a position to c suffering all the h When there w ment, you will hav you possess a tru the sovereignty of the government o upon, as it came Madero, they will of the state as th M reform of the division and the political organization of the states, is absolutely necessary. sary for the Government to sell concessions in order to support itself. It also needs a school system by which popular education may be given to all the people as it is given in the United States. Along with the primary schools, should go agricultural schools in which modern methods of agriculture should be taught. The army might well be used as a sanitation corps so as to insure against the recurrence of those plagues which so affect trade relations with Mexico and the health of her people. Every one in Mexico is united upon the proposition that the present land system is based upon privilege and is unjust." Secretary Lane would be convinced that today Yucatan is making a practical effort to adjust the land problem, were he to visit that Mexican state and see Governor Alvarado at work. The Henry George theory is being applied with remarkable effect. "Tierras y libros"-land and books-is the cry that sounds far and wide through that eastern peninsula of the Mexican republic. The land problem and its solution are uppermost in the minds of all Mexicans with patriotic outlook regarding the future of the country. On this subject Mr. Cabrera said to the writer: "The 'porfirista' regime can be defined by saying that it consisted in putting the power in the hands of the large landowners, thus creating a feudal system. The local governments of the different states in Mexico and nearly all the important public offices were in the hands of, or controlled by, wealthy families owning large tracts of land, which of course were inclined to extend protection to all properties such as theirs. The political, social and economic influence exerted during General Diaz's administration was so advantageous to them that it hampered the development of the small agricultural property, which could otherwise have been formed from the division of ecclesiastical and communal lands." And Mr. Rolland drives home the complete truth of the situation when he says that "if small landed interest is not created, if the land is not given back to the people, if an equitable tax on the present landholders is not established, in order to make them relinquish their prey; if, in a word, the fortress of the Mexican family is not built by means of the communion of the peon with the land, it will be senseless to speak of 'government' in Mexico. But the present revolution, having been all this, appreciates its importance and is trying to help the people." Herein lies the hope of Mexico's future. The hour has struck for the return of the soil to its rightful owners. From Carranza down to the least of those identified with the Constitutionalist cause, the land problem is considered the most important matter before the nation at this time. Aside from what is being done toward proper division of land among the peons in districts where complete order has already been restored, plans are under way to allot a certain number of acres of cultivable soil to returning Constitutionalist soldiers after the country. is fully at peace. General Carranza and his advisers have not |