EDITORIALS FROM THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, and other mishmash
DRIFTS AND CROSSCUTS THE MINING JOURNAL 2 28 1931
“What is the most important thing in an engineer’s report? The “By-Line”, states an observing reader.
=-=-=-=
Owen D. Young, in a very thoughtful and interesting address recently said: “The world does not owe a man a living, but business, if it is to fulfill its ideal, owes man an opportunity to earn a living.
=-=-=-=
The most successful way to keep capital out of a state is for its legislators or voters to pass experimental’ or “class” tax laws. Such laws work on the principle that one type of property can be “relieved” of its tax burden by shifting it to another type. Tax shifting and new methods of taxation are merely used to obscure the sad truth that there is but one way to achieve real tax reduction—to spend less money.
=-=-=-=
One of the big problems of the copper producers, is to handle the situation in a manner to cultivate the good will of the consumers, and encourage confidence in prices and price policies, so that the fabricators here and abroad, can devote their energies to developing new outlets for the metal, instead of putting in their time trying to guess what the prices will be in an erratic price muddle. They have not been too successful so far. [rehab notes: Applies to any fabricated product as well.]
=-=-=-=
There may be some stable industries, but there are no stable markets. If markets were stable, there would be no profit nor gamble in them. Production of industrial commodities may continue unchanged on the wildest fluctuation of chalk marks- On the exchange.
=-=-=-
On the other hand, many industries are affected by dull times and poor business. Dividends may be reduced or even discontinued. Gold mining dividends, dug from the ground, come alike in winter and summer, hard times and good, but in hard times the purchasing power is more.
=-=-=-=-=
In a study of silver production as related to the value of the ores from which metal is secured, the bureau of mines states that “considering the production of silver from a geographical point of view it is interesting to note that North America produces three-fourths of the world’s total.
“In 1928 world production amounted to 257,000,000 ounces, of which Mexico produced 42 percent, the United States 23 percent, Canada 9 percent.
=-=-=-=
rehab
MEXICAN HISTORY- BOOK REVIEW
May 14, 1921 MINING AND SCIENTIFIC PRESS 685
Book Reviews
Intimate Pages of Mexican History. By Edith O’Shaughnessy. 351 pages.
George H. Doran Company, New York.
The author, is the wife of Mr. Nelson O’Shaughnessy, who was attached to the American embassy at Mexico City, first as Secretary of Legation, and then as Chargé d’affaires, from 1911 to 1914. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy is a clever and observant woman; she has made the most of her opportunities to study men and events; and while in Mexico, she collected a large fund of information, which her literary skill has enabled her to put into attractive form. Five years ago, she issued her first book, ‘A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico’, which was well received, as It deserved to be. It consisted of the letters written by her to her mother, and described in a delightfully personal way, her own experiences during the turbulent period that followed the enforced resignation of Diaz.
The present book is more ambitious; it is a history of Mexico during the last fifty years, the story being told by means of an appreciative description of the careers of the successive Presidents, from Diaz to Carranza. With ‘El Pomposo’ she has no patience; on the other hand, Porfirio Diaz is to her, “one of the greatest statesmen and empire-builders of all time”. De La Barra, Francisco Madero, and Victoriano Huerta are the other heroes of this story. It is a sad story, for it is written in a vein of sympathy with Mexico, and the Mexican people, who have suffered greatly since the day when Diaz was driven out of office, by the insurrection instigated by Madero. General Diaz, after making a brilliant military record in the war against the French, became President in 1877 (at the age of 47), and served four years; in 1884 he was again made President., retaining his hold as the Chief of State until he abdicated, and went into exile on May 25. 1911, at which time he was 81 years of age. He died in Paris on July 2, 1915.
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy admires Diaz greatly; she draws his picture in warm colors, and emphasizes the splendid work he did for Mexico during his long presidency. A man of fine physical presence, “his whole bearing stamped with an indomitable will, and an unfaltering courage”, a soldier and a statesman, was Porfirio Diaz. The keynote of his rule was “Poca politica, mucha administracion [Less politics, and a lot of Ministering]”.
He did not believe in talk; his first task was to “discourage” banditry, and give peace to his country by means of martial law. “Knowing the physical and moral conformation of Mexico as no other man has ever known it, the potential of his people, the spirit and variety of their national qualities, he proceeded first to give them the essential gift of peace, leaving that of liberty for a more profitable moment.” He endeavored to develop the natural resources of the country, and to establish new industries. “He proceeded to make it not only safe, but pleasant and profitable, for foreigners to invest their brains and money in Mexico.”
Under his rule, the railroad system of Mexico came into existence, and during his time, the mining industry grew into an importance it had not enjoyed since the days of Spanish domination. Before he was expelled from office, he had established the credit of Mexico on a firm foundation. In 1910, Mexican bonds were selling at a premium of 51% on the exchanges of London and Paris, and just before the Madero revolution, an arrangement was made for converting the foreign debt to a 4% security. The Diaz administration left 72,000,000 pesos in hard coin for the incoming government of Madero. Mrs. OShaughnessy mentions a charming characteristic of Diaz: “His treatment of his inferiors, of servants, was marked by an extreme kindness, and to those of long service he displayed a simple affection, preserving at the same time, respect for his position”. He loved his people, for he was of them. His father was of Spanish parentage; his mother was half Asturian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturias)- the NW province in Spain, with two languages and several diaiects), and half Mixtec; so he was one-quarter Indian.
After Diaz, Madero. It is related that these two met once. Madero is reported to have stated that Mexico was now ready for a democracy, and that it was time for Diaz to relinquish his power into the bands of an honest man—himself. “Señor” said Diaz, “a man must be more than honest to govern Mexico.” That will serve for Madero’s epitaph. He was honest, but a fool in government. “Had he been a bad man, but a clever one, with his feet on the earth, and some knowledge of statecraft, according to Machiavelli, the history of Mexico would have been different. His very virtues, so multiple, so apparent, so confounding even, meant her ruin and his own, and that incompetent, short, squarish hand of his, so freely used in gesture, was the predestined instrument of catastrophe.” Madero was elected by popular clamor, not by the ballot.
The French Secretary of Legation believed in “La democratie integrale”; “he was unmoved”, says Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, “by jokes concerning the famous unopened sacks of votes we had seen at the Chamber of Deputies that morning, in the Protocol office—corded, sealed, bearing naively the evidence of their origin, ‘Colegio Electoral de Torreon’, ‘de Guadalajara’, ‘de Chihuahua’, etc., whose numbers were to forever remain a secret. He did allow, with an unavoidable smile, that it would have been wiser to remove the bales, or at least their tickets, from the cold foreign eye”. Again: “Of Madero’s initial sincerity no one has ever raised a doubt. His honesty was apparent to every one who approached him; his lack of preparation for government was proven immediately he came to power,” He was “rash in all his promises, indiscreet in all he said, vacillating in all his acts, and passionately unreflecting in all his judgments. On the face of it, had the nation been sane, it would have been known that he was not the man to govern Mexico.”
But the Mexican nation was not sane; it was drunk with dreams, and hypnotized by a visionary; it was bemused by words such as ‘Liberty, ‘Reform’, ‘Justice’, and ‘Independence’. “These words are known to every Indian equally with ‘siesta’ and ‘maiz’. Of their origin and attributes, he has no clearer idea than we, of the great First Cause. Doubtless, when his corn has been trampled by soldiers in the name of ‘Independencia’, his wife (or wives) and daughters outraged in the name of ‘Libertad’, his land taken from him in the name of ‘Reformat and he himself is up against a wall looking with deer-like eyes into the muzzle of a gun in the name of ‘Justicia’, he has a vague though necessarily brief and profitless perception of their meaning.”
Madero, in Mrs. O’Shaughnessy’s opinion—and that of many others— was purely destructive; he did nothing to upbuild; his sentimental anarchism simply destroyed the political structure that had become enfeebled, as Diaz grew old. Madero agrarian reforms were frustrated by his unscrupulous followers. He mistook his early popularity for national prosperity. He was a Mexican Pied Piper, and he led his people into the abyss. “To the very edge he preserved his illusions.” The Madero family is said to have numbered 232, and a horde of them obtained office. Of these, his uncle, Ernesto Madero, was made Secretary of the Treasury. Another was his brother Gustavo, a cynical profiteer, who remarked that “of a family of clever men the only fool was President’. Madero did not know how to punish, neither did he know how to reward. This was a fatal defect in a country such as Mexico, where men stand or fall upon the strength of their personal following. He had frustrated the ‘cientificos’; he had thwarted the reactionaries; he had intimidated the holders of property; he had aroused the malicious wit of the press.
Meanwhile he failed to make good his promises to the people; he was frustrated in his dream of reforming the institution of Mexico, and became open to attack by insurrection, On June 7, 1911, he had become President; in the March following, his military genius, Pascual Orozco, announced that “he would shortly be in Mexico City and would hang Madero to the largest tree in the Plaza Mayor”. In October 1912, Felix Diaz, the nephew of the ex-President, started a revolt at Vera Cruz. Early in February 1913, the City of Mexico was in full revolution under the leadership of Felix Diaz and General Reyes.
The Government forces were under the command of General Huerta. On February 15, the Senate passed a resolution demanding the resignation of President Madero, and the Vice President, Pino Suarez. Three days later Madero and Suarez surrendered, and were incarcerated in the Palacio Nacional. Huerta assumed the executive power. In the night of February 22, 1913, Madero and Juarez were killed under circumstances never clearly disclosed. Then Mexico went from bad to worse. The United States refused to recognize Huerta as President, and his authority thereby was gradually undermined.
The sympathies of the author are with Huerta and his people. The ‘esprit militare’ of the Mexican president was entirely opposed to the ‘esprit universitaire’ of President Wilson. They could not understand each other. The manner of Huerta’s accession to power was technically “according to the Mexican constitution, by which it must be judged”, she says. “There are no doubts about its completed legality.” Thus: “Madero’s resignation, given three days before his death, was accepted by Lascurain, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who became President ‘ipso facto’. Lasçurain appointed Huerta, Minister of the Interior, and then himself resigned, whereupon the executive power passed legally into Huerta’s hands.
It was all according to Hoyle—in this case the Constitution of the country. President Wilson judged Huerta by the standards of the United States, and refused to recognize him. Meanwhile Mr. Wilson thought that Villa “was perhaps the safest man to tie to” and Mr. Bryan pronounced that bloody ruffian an “idealist”. These notions led naturally to the lifting of the embargo on the exportation of arms and ammunition from the United States, into Mexico and the consequent arming of Huerta’s enemies. That was on February 3, 1914. In the following April, came the Tampico affair, which led to the capture of Vera Cruz by American marines. Mr. Josephus Daniels has explained that the Tampico affair was different from all other insults to our flag, notably those offered by Carranza, “in that then the purpose was to force Huerta out of Mexico”. It succeeded.
The old Indian was beaten. He fled from the country. In July 1915, he was arrested when about to re-enter Mexico to start a revolution. On January 13, 1916, he died at El Paso. The author quotes Mr. Dooley’s description of conditions in Mexico, and it is intensely funny, but to quote it here would mar the sentiment of the book, which is sad, simply because it is sympathetic to the misfortunes of the Mexican people.
It is good book for all of us to read because it gives us the point of view of the Mexicans, who, after all, are most to be considered in any adjustment of their own domestic affairs.
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy says of the Huerta tragedy: “He was an Indian from the State of Jalisco, in control of the supreme power, and he acted with his usual fidelity to type. To demand of him that he be something that he was not, of Mexico, something that she is not, was quite simply to invite the most evitable political disaster of modern history.” He said of Wilson: “He has not understood.” Neither did Huerta understand the apostle of ‘The New Freedom’. We commend the book to those desiring to understand Mexico and to those looking for intellectual pleasure in reading. T. A. H.
