"An Age of Trickery"

A Mexican Presidential election has been described as something which is done with the people, to the people, in spite of the people. For a little more than a century, Mexico has had various more or less democratic constitutions, but has experienced only a gun-toting, vote-buying, ballot-stuffing, blood-letting travesty of democracy itself. No Government has ever suffered an electoral defeat. Dictatorial Presidents have either prolonged their own terms by changing the constitution or elected their own straw men with straw votes--or been assassinated, overthrown, exiled or otherwise forcibly liquidated. In the last election the approved candidate, Lazaro Cardenas, received 1,090,000 votes, while his two opponents received 18,000 and 10,000 respectively.

This week Mexico had an election. The nation took it seriously; deadpanned the act, as if it really were enjoying all the blessings of democratic free choice, instead of a wide-open affair of pistoleros and cheats. As a matter of fact, it looked early in the week as if the election might come closer to democracy than anything Mexico ever had. There was the usual Government-sponsored, in-the-bag candidate. But there were also three other candidates, and one of them, though he had not a paisano's prayer of winning, nevertheless was conceded a chance to pile up a whopping sum of honest votes. In Mexico that was something. The candidates:

Manuel Avila Camacho, 43, was the Government candidate. Son of an obscure farmer in Puebla State, he was trained to be a bookkeeper but at the age of 17 rode away to a revolution. For the next 15 years, Camacho guessed right on every upheaval, said yes to every dictator, and so by the age of 32 was a major general.

Never a strategist, Avila Camacho won battle after battle with his tongue. In the Cristero rebellion of 1927, he walked unarmed into a saloon near Los Altos to meet the enemy chieftain. One hour later the pair walked out rubbing shoulders, the rebel cheerfully agreeing to lay down his arms. In Michoacan in 1929, he talked no less than twelve enemy generals into surrender.

He has served in the War, Navy and National Defense Ministries, and for leading the suppression of the bandit Cedillo two years ago was given the highest possible Army rank, divisional general. Stout, with piano legs and sofa shoulders, of medium height, he was shy until his certainty that he would win the campaign made him brash. His extracurricular passion is polo. His string of ponies has traveled all the way to Long Island.

Camacho's pre-election backing embraced every loaded political weapon in Mexico--notably President Cardenas and his junta, the Partida de la Revolucion Mexicana, the only nation-wide party, and the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Mexico, the federation of labor unions which boasts 1,000,000 members.

Juan Andreu Almazan, 49, had no visible organized support. But beneath the works of the Cardenas machine he had a submerged popular following which, if the elections had been properly democratic, could have easily elected him.

Almazan's father was a wealthy landowner in the mountains south of Mexico City. Juan deserted medical school for revolution at 19, and at 29 was already a divisional general. Since 1921, when he was put in charge of the Seventh Military Zone, around Monterrey, he has built a spectacular model military city for his troops. It has long been a Mexican Government practice to buy off influential generals of doubtful loyalty; and General Almazan has gallantly availed himself of this tradition. From Cardenas he got lucrative concessions to build railroads, hotels, villages, roads (among them sections of the great Pan American Highway). He opened up slack Acapulco as a tourist resort. While his rival Camacho was suppressing Cedillo, Almazan took a handsome cut of the bandit's swag. Now a very rich man who lives in a flashy, gringo-haunted eyrie high above Monterrey, Almazan is tall, heavy but trim from swimming and riding. With his hazel eyes, ruddy cheeks, reddish mustache, and wavy greying hair, he fancies himself as something of a lady-killer. But he is not a mankiller of the old-fashioned Mexican type, and last week cautioned his followers against violence.

Also running last week were two political freaks: Ramon de la Paz, a gay druggist of Mexicali, Lower California, whose only political asset was his name, which means "peace"; and General Sanchez Tapia, whose only expectation from the campaign seemed to be to get some advertising for his Jersey dairy farm near Mexico City.

To elect anyone besides Camacho required a miracle many times more awesome than the triumph of Wendell Willkie at Philadelphia, not only because of the Cardenas machine but because of deep-grained habits of chicanery which come from the last four centuries of Mexico's history.

Perfidy and avarice have been the two dominating forces ever since Hernando Cortes beached his boat at Veracruz in 1519, planted his cross in the sand and pronounced his classic demand of the natives: "Gold! For we suffer of a disease in the heart that only gold can cure."

Cortes tricked the Aztec Montezuma by posing as Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god, and then methodically subdued the Indians with blunderbuss and broadsword. For the next 200-odd years New Spain, ruled from Mexico City but extending for a time as far as South Carolina, experienced what some historians have called a Golden Age. The Spaniards brought with them horses (but used the Indians as men of burden), wheat (the Indians still eat maize tortillas), such things as woolen blankets, armchairs, caps (for which the Indians exchanged jewels, silver, gold). The only things the Spaniards gave the Indians were smallpox, influenza and tuberculosis.

In 1810 a humble priest named Hidalgo, taking advantage of Napoleon's recent triumph over Spain, began a revolution on behalf of the Indians which was climaxed eleven years later by the achievement of independence. For half a century Mexico tried to become Republican, became instead something like a musical comedy plot. There were in that period two regencies, two emperors, and no less than 74 presidents and acting presidents.

Mexican history began to assume the monotony of a Biblical genealogy-Guerrero deposed Pedraza, Bustamante overthrew Guerrero, Santa Anna undid Bustamante, and so forth, ad infinitum. Constitutions were made and broken as carelessly as New Year's resolutions. One disturbance achieved the dignity of civil war. From this struggle a Oaxaca Indian named Juarez emerged as a hero of the masses, which he still is. Mexico even had a Habsburg Emperor, Maximilian. He was slipped in by the French while the U. S. was embroiled in its own Civil War, and his decline, betrayal and execution were brought about in 1867 by Juarez, who was followed by the amazing Diaz. What made Diaz remarkable was that with a break of only four years, this patient, cynical man kept the Presidency from 1877 to 1911.

In the last 100 years, Mexico has experienced 100 revolutions. There have been at least a score in the last three decades. But THE Revolution, so far as any living Mexican is concerned, took place in 1910 and is still going on.

This began as a revolt of the masses against the landed aristocracy. All Mexicans have joined it, as if it were a club. Possession of land and pretension to aristocracy are no bar. Some believe that the way to accomplish it is to give the land to the peons; others think it ought to be given to the landed aristocrats. But all believe in THE Revolution. The NEW Revolution, however, is a very different, a more serious matter. It had been accomplished in the last six years. It is the doing of Lazaro Cardenas. And if there was an issue at stake in last week's election, that was it. Mexicans are not unanimous on the NEW Revolution.

El Trompudo. Lazaro Cardenas rode to the Presidency on the favor of onetime President Plutarco Elias Calles. Before long he turned on Calles and forced him into exile. Then began a series of radical reforms borrowed here & there from the democracies and Russia. Education was divorced from the Church. Some 56,000,000 acres of land were expropriated and divided among the peons. Railroads were nationalised. In 1938 $400,000,000 of foreign oil holdings were seized. All along the line the little man was supposed to be favored. Cardenas was often to be seen on horseback far in the hinterland inquiring personally after poor men's wants.

But the NEW Revolution did not conjure a Utopia. Strictly non-Utopian became the railroad service-trains two hours late came to be considered pretty much on time. The workers were given the roads. The oil expropriations led to serious complications abroad, as well as lower production and wages. Mexico's 16,000,000 Catholics fumed at restrictions on the Church. Worst of all, the great majority of the population--the peasants--were neglected in favor of union laborers in the towns. The plain fact was that the Administration did not have the means or the ability to put across its dreamy program, in spite of all the good wishes of its visiting radical friends. The personal popularity of Cardenas fell away, and people began calling him El Trompudo, "Loud Mouth."

As with Roosevelt's reforms in the U. S., many of the Cardenas reforms will stay. But how many, and in what form, was very much in the balance as Mexicans went to the polls. Even before the election, it was clear that either candidate would slow the NEW Revolution down. Almazan said so openly. Camacho, much more conservative than he looked when PRM picked him, pledged himself to "consolidate but not experiment." In fact, the candidates' aims were as much alike as a pair of pins. Both said that the Government should transfer title of the land to peasants who till it; favored slackening of restrictions on the Church; maintained that Mexico needs foreign capital, which should therefore be protected. And they both agreed that Mexico should play ball with the U. S.

There have been sordid and silly chapters in the story of U. S.-Mexican relations. On the tawdry side was the dabbling of Minister Joel Roberts Poinsett (who encouraged the rise to power of the secret York-Rite Masons after 1824), and particularly of Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson (who helped plan the downfall and murder of Francisco Madero in 1913). On several occasions the U. S. has intervened with armed force--as when the Navy seized Veracruz in 1914 because the Mexicans would not salute the Stars and Stripes, and when Pershing ineffectively chased wily Pancho Villa--that colorful bandit who boasted: "I'll use the whole ocean to gargle!" Both Camacho and Almazan had enough sense to realize that when the U. S. finally gets its collective mind made up about what to do about Mexico, the U. S. will probably tolerate no monkeyshines. Boss Jorge Ubico of Guatemala recently remarked to some Panama Canal officers that any time the U. S. wanted to take Mexico he was ready to move in with "300,000 picked men" from the South. Senor Ubico sounded funny when he said it, but many Mexicans are convinced that the U. S. might take the country in a defensive pinch.

"Fair" Election. Mexico's electoral law is characteristic of much that goes on south of the Rio Grande. The Government candidate practically cannot lose. Results are not announced for 60 days, and meanwhile the Government counts the votes. One incredible rule decrees that the first five voters arriving at each polling place on election day constitute themselves a committee in charge of voting. Before the election PRM organized early-rising "flying squadrons" to take over the polls. Almazan followers charged (and many of the charges were undeniably true) that only 5% of 185,000 Almazanistas in the Mexico City district had been given electoral registration cards; that the Camacho machine had bought brickbats, 6,000 rubber-encased steel clubs, 10,000 wooden clubs to keep Almazanistas from the polls; that several lots of already marked ballots were forwarded to PRM in Mexico City from Oaxaca, Durango, Guerrero, Tamaulipas. "In Mexico," sighed Candidate Almazan, "we live in an age of trickery."

Election day, Sunday, dawned bright, and church bells called the faithful to Mass. They prayed that Lazaro Cardenas' promise of a fair election might be fulfilled151;but their prayers were not even finished before the promise was shattered. The PRM flying squadrons took over polls, even flagrantly established some in their own headquarters. At ancient Convento Vizacaines, Camachistas seized the polls, Almazanistas drove them off, Government soldiers drove them off and restored the booth to the favorite son. Camachistas foisted Camacho ballots on illiterate Almazan followers and made them mark them.

Mockery of democracy was symbolized by what happened to President Cardenas himself. He could not even vote at his own polls in Mexico City because a Camachista general had closed the booth to prevent 800 Almazanistas from voting.

Blood always flows in Mexican elections, but not since the first days of THE Revolution had there been such violence on an election day. Heavy gunfire did not begin until nearly noon, when Almazanistas attacked the barricaded building of El Popular, CTM newspaper. Two were killed. Other clashes occurred near the Post Office (four dead) and in Santo Domingo Garden (two dead). So it went until 2 o'clock when, election or no election, Mexicans took their siestas. At 4:30 the shooting began again. Bombs, tear gas, machine guns were brought into play. Federal troops, cavalry, police did their share of killing. Early and decidedly incomplete return: 48 dead, 400 wounded.

Once during the bloody Sunday afternoon 2,000 students paraded with a giant banner: Almazan IS PRESIDENT--and sang the stirring Mexican national anthem (less favored under the NEW Revolution than the Communist Internationale). Sadly Juan Andreu Almazan said: "I am moved to see the action of the people. How I would like to help them." Maybe he will one day. Sunday's shootings may have louder echoes when the Government publishes its election returns.

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