Pin Week

Big Pin Slips. Finance Minister Alberto J. Pani, said to be the only member of the Calles Cabinet whose word is trusted by U. S. financiers, had his resignation accepted last week. For months he has been urging the inexpediency of the Cabinet's confiscatory oil and land program and its suppressive religious policy. A state financier of high ability, Big Pin Pani is also a shrewd political chameleon. He has served under more Presidents than any other Mexican adjusting, himself to the political hue of each, but retaining his reputation as an able administrator. Therefore no surprise was felt last week when it was announced that he would succeed Alfonso Reyes as Mexican Ambassador at Paris, and would be succeeded by Montes de Oca at the Finance Ministry. The surprise came when Senor Pani was reported to have patched up again his longstanding differences with President Calles and withdrawn his resignation, slipping back into the post of Finance Minister.

King Pins Turn. To Mexicans it seemed last week that U. S. Secretary of State Kellogg reversed his Mexican policy twice and that President Coolidge gave his attitude toward Mexico a ponderous half-turn. The Secretary of State and the President began the week as exponents of the theory that there was a Bolshevist hobgoblin in Mexico and that the U. S. should say "BOO!" When the booing of this theory had subsided, Secretary Kellogg expressed himself upon a resolution introduced into the U. S. Senate by Senator Joseph T. Robinson calling for arbitration of the points at issue between the U. S. and Mexico. "I have examined this resolution," said Secretary Kellogg, "and I see nothing untimely in an expression of opinion on this subject by the United States Senate and I welcome it. . . . I have been giving very careful consideration to the question of the definite application of the principle of arbitration to the existing controversy with Mexico."

Thought Mexicans: "For Mr. Kellogg, this is a remarkably unequivocal statement. He evidently wants to arbitrate. He seems to have decided that we are not Bolsheviks, and so beyond the pale of lawful arbitration." Straightway the Mexican Foreign Office issued an official statement to the press: "The Mexican Government declares that it is ready to accept in principle that its difficulties with the United States should be decided by arbitration."

Meanwhile Secretary Kellogg visited the White House. Next day "The White House Spokesman," which even Mexicans know is Washington patois for "President Coolidge," spoke. He said something to the general effect that there had been a complete misunderstanding of the Administration's attitude toward Mexico. The President, it seemed, had turned once with the Secretary to the extent of experiencing a change of heart about Bolshevism in Mexico which was now beside the point instead of being the point. But President Coolidge had not turned with Mr. Kellogg to the extent of wanting to arbitrate. Mr. Kellogg must thus turn once again and stand with the President against arbitration. A silence at the State Department seemed (to Mexicans) to indicate that Mr. Kellogg might be adjusting his views in camera.

Meanwhile "the White House Spokesman" made everything as clear as day. Of course there had been only one question between the U. S. and Mexico all the time: was or was not the oil-bearing property of U. S. citizens in Mexico to be confiscated under present Mexican laws (TIME, Jan. 25, 1926)? That was the question. Surely anyone could see that nothing helpful, nothing constructive, could be gained by arbitrating whether U. S.-owned oil should be confiscated or not.

"Well," said Mexicans, trying to understand, "if the United States will not fight for its rights on the grounds that we are Bolsheviks, and will not arbitrate on any grounds, why then the only helpful, constructive thing to do is to seize some U. S.-owned oil property and see what the U. S. will do."

Since this was exactly the status quo three weeks ago (when the Bolshevists were sighted) the ensuing excitement has been harmless enough and may even have prevented the Mexican Government from seizing any U. S. oil in the meantime.

Last week a clause of the Mexican law putting land in the same liability of being seized as is oil came into effect and further embroiled the situation.

Papal Pin Found. Archbishop Diaz of Tabasco, pin, pole and prop of Roman Catholicism in Mexico, recently arrested and held in an unknown place of detention by the Mexican Government (TIME, Jan. 24) was released on the Guatemalan frontier last week but was refused admittance to that country. Philosophical, he put up comfortably at a hotel near the border, was admitted three days later to Guatemala by special order of President Lazaro Chacon.