Why Obregon Is Great

Until twelve years ago, when wild-eyed Madero unhoused the venerable Diaz, Mexico was just a place for foreign money to go and make more money. Madero started a series of rattling revolutions which lasted until the assassination of Carranza in 1920.

Then in stepped Alvaro Obregon, one-armed fighter, idealist. He found a " Constitution" which had been evolved during the revolutionary period, and it was his intention to make the Constitution work.

The purpose of the Constitution was to make Mexico a free country in which most Mexicans would be able to live as citizens instead of existing as serfs. All the odds were against Obregon. The State Department at Washington, withholding official recognition, refused to bet on him. And Washington told London and Paris not to bet on him.

In Mexico, Obregon was threatened from front and rear. There were the "reactionaries"--old Spanish landlords who resented the new ideas of liberty, corrupt officials, the rich Catholic Church. On the other side were red radicals so drunk with revolution that there seemed to be no chance of getting them sober before they set the house on fire.

In three years Obregon has established his Constitution. Mexico is rapidly becoming a happy home for Mexicans. The great haciendas have been split up into small farms. Schools are increasing in numbers and merit. The railroads are beginning to function at a profit. And, for the first time since Madero's wild plunge, the Government of Mexico has produced a budget which fulfills the constitutional requirements. It is by this budget that the first payments are being made to the landlords who were deprived of their land, and also the first payments on the international debt. The Army and Navy is decreased, while expenditures on education move up to 15 per cent of the total budget.

In achieving all this, Obregon has had capable coadjutators. First of all there is Huerta, the finance minister who arranged with Thomas W. Lament of J. P. Morgan & Co. for the refunding of the Mexican debt. Descended from Yaqui Indians, Spaniards and Polish Jews, Huerta is everything but a soldier. Whatsoever things are practical, he thinks on those things. Then there is General Calles, head of the cabinet. A dreamer, a radical, once a school teacher, he has lived for "land and freedom." An unofficial helper has been Morones, labor leader. He wears check suits, silk shirts, and a heavy revolver; and from his one good eye watches the machinations of foreign capitalists.

The parliament is gradually learning how to behave. It has been two years since, by Obregon's orders, the fire-hose was turned on the assembled members.