MEXICO: 30% Complete

In the U. S. Congressmen are glad to get out of broiling Washington, go home in the summer. In Mexico, Congressmen are glad to escape from the broiling lowlands to cool Mexico City and go to work in the summer. Last week diplomats in gold braid, commercial attaches in morning clothes packed the balcony of Mexico City’s Chamber of Deputies to hear President Lazaro Cardenas open the regular session of Mexico’s 37th Congress. Senators, Deputies, who disdain formal dress as not in keeping with the nation’s “social revolution,” attended in street clothes.

When the legislators rose to take the oath, stood with arms pointed downward at a 22° angle, hands open, palms down, freshman diplomats were startled to observe pistol butts sticking from the rear pockets (Sof some Congressmen, who came ready for a turbulent four-month session. Up on the speaker’s stand, President Cardenas, flanked by symbols of the Army’s backing,

Generals in khaki, read a 40-minute paper on the State of the Nation.

Out in the main plazas of the capital hundreds of peons, laborers, jampacked before loudspeakers, cheered wildly when President Cardenas keynoted “We intend to go forward firmly and fearlessly” with the social changes on the industrial, agricultural fronts.

With the “revolution” admittedly only 30% complete, President Cardenas set out the accomplishments of the first three years of his six-year term: 1) the Government has nationalized 7,000 miles of railroad; 2) the National Petroleum Administration, in competition with foreign-owned companies, has strengthened the nation’s oil economy, may lead to eventual nationalization of the industry; 3) agricultural production has increased. The land-division among the peons will be pushed to a conclusion; 4) the Government now has 40 tons of gold in reserve, a coverage of almost 40% on outstanding banknotes. This was the first time in Mexico’s history that a President publicly computed the country’s gold supply.

Touching the labor situation, President Cardenas drew cheers from the legislators when, in the manner of Franklin Roosevelt’s “both your houses” remark (see p. 11), he attacked recent strikes caused by political squabbles, called inter-union conflicts “unjustified,” said they served to “give arms to our enemies.” With a warning to American, British, oil and mining interests, Rightist sympathizers, that the revolution would proceed despite “discontent at popular conquests,” the President sat down. As he did so a cameraman tumbled off the platform. Superstitious Congressmen muttered among themselves that this was a bad omen.

Few hours later a band of laborers, fired with their President’s pronouncements, raided a meeting of the antiSemitic, anti-Communist Mexican National Vanguard. Shots were fired, several were wounded, including Vanguard President Ruben Moreno Padres, who was knifed in the back. Rightist sympathizers blamed the CTM (Confederation of Mexican Workers) for the clash. Faced with the accusation, Confederation Secretary-General Vicente Lombardo Toledano coyly attributed the attack to “some people passing by who heard the Vanguard attacking the Government and rushed to its defense.”

This week genial U. S. Ambassador Josephus Daniels, fresh from a conference with President Roosevelt, informed the Mexican Government that “Washington is interested in the situation confronting the petroleum companies.” Fear that the U. S. $200,000,000 oil interests, the U. S. $500,000,000 mining interests will be squeezed out by taxation, higher wage demands, has been haunting American industrialists in Mexico during Cardenas’ term. Taking the first important formal step affecting U. S.-Mexican relations in four years, the Ambassador warned that “anything that would disturb the status quo and good relations would be regretted.”