Ci6 
 
L'JjjjARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 016 241 832 4 
 
F 1234 
 .C26 
 Copy 1 
 
 OPEN LETTER 
 
 to the 
 
 Editor of the Chicago Tribune 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 ^"^ 
 
 ^ r- p \ o 
 
 INDEPENDENCE MONUMENT IN MEXICO CITT 
 
 Built with millions that should have been used to solve 
 
 the agrarian problem. 
 

 Dear Sir: 
 
 Allow me to make a few comments on your last 
 Sunday's (Oct. 15) editorial, in which you assert that 
 Mexico is the exposed flank of the United States. 
 
 The belicose attitute which a large number of pub- 
 lications in the United States have assumed is based 
 on a conception of the Mexican people which cannot 
 be more incorrect. 
 
 You have been assuming that you possess conclu- 
 sive facts on Mexican sociology, as derived from ob- 
 servations made by people who have been able to 
 study certain economic phenomena, certain political 
 features that have been evident in different periods 
 of the Mexican history; but who do not possess the 
 ability to understand that there is a great human 
 cause of justice in the endeavors of the Mexican mas- 
 ses. 
 
 You speak, with more frequency than is necessary, 
 of the wealth which foreigners have amassed in Mex- 
 ican soil, and you concentrate the obligations which 
 this nation and other advanced countries of the 
 world have toward Mexico, in the single fact that 
 such nations must impose their authority on the 
 Mexican people, and compel respect towards that 
 wealth. 
 
 The pity of it all is that you seem to firmly believe 
 that such doctrine is bound to succeed, and that 
 sooner or later, the United States of America will 
 dictate to Mexico and to all the Latin-American 
 race. 
 
 You seem to be blind to the gigantic movement 
 that is going on everywhere, but particularly in 
 Mexico, against the long-lived rule of "special in- 
 terests." 
 
And the more you think of the military power of 
 this nation imposing itself upon Mexican life, the 
 more prejudiced you become. 
 
 There is no other interpretation possible, of the 
 ideas you expound and support in the Tribune, 
 which seem the chorus part of the tragic-comedy of 
 Hearstian megalomania. 
 
 Not only is this form of thought wrong, but it en- 
 tails the perdition of America. For America is now 
 tired of the "iron" hand and needs — ^Imore urgently 
 than can be imagined — a sane current of under- 
 standing between the peoples that inhabit this con- 
 tinent. 
 
 The CONQUEST of Mexico is an impossible un- 
 dertaking. The Mexican people have been tried in 
 this hideous experiment of CONQUEST, time after 
 time; but all of the conquerors have failed miser- 
 ably. 
 
 Spain employed all the methods that could be de- 
 vised, and applied them with the most ingenious 
 perversity. But they failed. The Inquisition failed. 
 The policy of the "closed door:" the policy of cate- 
 chism, that of paternalism, and of hypocricy: they 
 all failed. 
 
 There is something in the blood of the Mexicans, 
 whether you believe it or not, which makes them 
 feel with the utmost certainty, that their lands, their 
 endeavors, their loyalty, their ingenuity, have in- 
 variably been imposed upon, plundered and abused 
 by every one who came, shielding themselves with 
 the threat of intervention, occupation, conquest. 
 
 Elena de Montijo, a Spaniard, astute and charm- 
 ing, caused the ruin of Napoleon III, by making him 
 believe that it was possible to conquer Mexico. 
 Napoleon failed and paid the price for his mistake, 
 at Sedan. 
 
 The United States took a large part of Mexican 
 territory by force of arms. Mexico lost, and the 
 
United States were wise to stop there at tliat time, 
 for, had they attempted the wholesale conquest of 
 Mexico, encouraged by the success of its first at- 
 tempt, the results might have been disastrous for 
 the future of America. 
 
 Modern capitalists and modern adventurers of 
 all sorts, many of them Americans, obtained num- 
 erous concessions from Porfirio Diaz; the majority 
 of those concessions CANNOT bear the light of day; 
 but the grantees, always thinking that inasmuch as 
 the dictator gave them the lands, the oil, the timber, 
 the mines, the waters of the rivers, the control of 
 certain commodities which the Mexicans believe be- 
 long by right to the people of Mexico, and which 
 right they are absolutely decided to support and de- 
 fend with their lives. But those grantees boast that 
 such enormous wealth, such immeasurable natural 
 resources, ARE THEIR PRIVATE PROPERTY! 
 
 This Mr. Editor, is the enormity, the lie, the as- 
 tounding vicious principle which you, perhaps un- 
 consciously, are supporting in your warlike editori- 
 als. This is the error on which all your reasoning 
 is wrecked. 
 
 This is the far-reaching propaganda which you 
 are endeavoring to foster, by means of your edi- 
 torials in order to convince this peaceful, industri- 
 ous people of the United States that it is their duty 
 to fill their minds with contempt for the unfortun- 
 ate but often heroic, and frequently abused people 
 of Mexico. 
 
 How is it that all your culture, all your experience 
 and all your ability as a publisher has been of no 
 avail to enlighten you in regard to the Mexican prob- 
 lem in its manifold relations with your very ex- 
 istence as a nation, and to make you appreciate that 
 it is more than anything else, a psychological prob- 
 lem? 
 
How is it that you are ignorant of the fact that 
 the United States of America has not, as yet, begun 
 its wonderful task, its ONLY MERITORIOUS task, 
 that of becolming the moral leader and the friendly 
 teacher of all the Indo-Latin peoples south of the 
 Rio Grande? 
 
 These peoples have known only your junkers, 
 your fortune seekers, your slave-drivers, your get- 
 rich-quick schemers of all sorts and varieties, many 
 of them NOT WANTED here because they were 
 crooked or because they played politics in the way 
 in which your crooks usually play that game. These 
 peoples south of the Rio Grande, Mr. Editor, know 
 very few indeed of your upright, honest, sound 
 business men; and you can be sure, as all of us 
 Mexicans are, that such men are honored and re- 
 spected there as here, and that they have always 
 been honored and respected by the Mexicans. 
 
 It is distressing that you do not understand these 
 truths, and it is appalling that you should think 
 it easier to create fear in the bosom of the great 
 number of Mexicans by means of a display of force, 
 than to inspire respect and friendship by means of 
 the invaluable assistance of your good moral qual- 
 ities. 
 
 It is sad that you cannot see the facility with 
 which you could protect the Mexican flank (your 
 weak flank), with the assistance and determined 
 co-operation of millions of Mexicans against any 
 possible foe; the good will with which your armies 
 would be permitted to enter Mexico acclaimed by 
 the Mexican people en masse, as the soldiers of 
 liberty and justice, and heartily supported by the 
 valiant Mexican army, against any or many Euro- 
 pean crowned heads, IF only you could be cured 
 of your piteous blindness; IF only you knew sofme- 
 thing about the things of which you are most ab- 
 surdly ignorant: MEXICAN SOCIOLOGY. 
 
Your friendship toward all of the Indo-Latin pop- 
 ulation of America and not your feverish ambition 
 for the possession of the natural resources of Mex- 
 ico and South America, means the salvation of Amer- 
 ica and the EDUCATION OF AMERICA, 
 
 Your tongue is almost tired of repeating those ap- 
 parently very convincing words which we hear you 
 utter every day, namely; bandits, outlaws, assassins, 
 greasers, treacherous chieftains, etc. You use these 
 epithets to designate Mexico and her nationals. Your 
 pride feels satisfied at the energy of your contempt; 
 your vanity rejoices in the conclusiveness of the as- 
 sertions which you support with what you consider 
 convincing proofs, and you then permit the weight 
 of your haughty judgment to crush a people whom 
 you consider helpless and destitute of hope. 
 
 You say PEON and the rictus of your mouth is the 
 same which distorted the face of the Spaniard of the 
 eighteenth century, who considered himself as the 
 divinely appointed master of the Indian. 
 
 You say AMERICAN PROPERTY, and the nasal 
 sound of these imperious words seems to invite the 
 swelling of chests and to lead autolmatically to think 
 of guns and dreadnoughts. You say MEXICAN 
 PEOPLE, and all the mistakes and misery of this 
 groping human nature of ours appear enlarged be- 
 fore your eyes, which contract with an expression 
 of unutterable contempt. 
 
 Still, there is hardly an American who has lived in 
 Mexico, even during this difficult period, Who is 
 blind and prejudiced and ignorant enough to deny 
 that he has been charmed by the beauty and gentle- 
 ness and unquestionable mental values of the Mexi- 
 can people as a whole, since the first moments of 
 his visit in that republic. 
 
 It takes but a few minutes for a well-meaning 
 American and a Mexican to talk to each other and 
 to become very good friends. 
 
 . 6 
 
There are friendships between Mexicans and Am- 
 ericans which have lasted a lifetime. At the present 
 time, there are Americans by the score who will not 
 leave Mexico, and who have nothing to fear from 
 the Mexicans, because those Americans CAN UN- 
 DERSTAND. 
 
 The Mexican social revolution against the brutal- 
 ity of the Catholic church, against the injustice of 
 special privileges, and of foreign monopolies, is a 
 revolution that no human power can stop. The vio- 
 lence employed and the atrocities committed are no 
 more grievous than those committed by any other 
 liberty-seeking people upon this earth, and looking 
 at it from an impartial point of view, it is an amaz- 
 ing fact that in the midst of the absolute disorgani- 
 zation which followed the downfall of Huerta and 
 the rebellion of Villa against Carranza, a govern- 
 ment could be evolved and all the services of civi- 
 lized life be quickly set afoot. 
 
 You seem unaware of the fact that, during the 
 darkest and most afflictive stages of the struggle, 
 when different factions were contending, when the 
 most absolute financial depression embarrassed the 
 whole of our national life, the plans for the reform 
 of the public schools of the country were formed and 
 carried out successfully. 
 
 You DO NOT KNOW that to-day there are 
 TWENTY TIMES as many SCHOOLS in Mexico as 
 there were in the times of the dictator, Porfirio Diaz. 
 
 You never refer to the tremendous difficulties that 
 the Mexican people have overcome in order to force 
 the old aristocrat, and the old, grouchy, libidinous, 
 fanatic "hacendado" into the necessity of working 
 with his own hands, in order to merit the respect of 
 his former slaves, to whom he can shout his orders 
 no longer, and whose daughters he no longer can 
 ruin without facing trial. 
 
 I say to you, Mr. Editor, of the Tribune: You know 
 
016 241 8'^9 
 
 nothing about Mexico, and Jie contem^ ..__ 
 
 you express yourself in regard to the right to inde- 
 pendence of that nation, is positively disappointing. 
 
 Mr. Hearst has succeeded in making his name 
 honestly, openly and heartily hated throughout 
 Mexico. The rich and the poor, the ignorant and 
 the educated, the big and the small, ALL OF THEM, 
 know Mr. Hearst as the moat noisy, extravagant and 
 gasconesque of American junkers. 
 
 You have started with a firm step to walk in Mr. 
 Hearst's path, and that is your own sacred privilege. 
 But allow me to tell you that there will be no such 
 a thing as the conquest of Mexico by the American 
 people, because the great majority of the American 
 people has nothing in coimmon with the Wall Street 
 money fiends; because the American people, as I 
 have been able to observe during the many years 
 it has been my privilege to live among them, is a 
 people which loves justice, despite the fact that the 
 modern fever for accumulating wealth possesses 
 the whole nation and despite the fact that the spirit 
 of gain which also has attacked you and me — per- 
 meates the most praiseworthy endeavors of this 
 country and many European nations, equally well- 
 intentioned. 
 
 I know that the American people is confronted at 
 the present time by problems almost as tremendous 
 and baffling as those which the Mexican people is 
 trying to solve. 
 
 I know that at the bottom of the popular feeling 
 in these two nations, there exists that hulman quality 
 of sympathy which will survive all the efforts to 
 smother it made by the junkers, those odious traf- 
 fickers on international hatreds. 
 
 And I know that the Mexican people is unconquer- 
 able, because the Mexican people forms one of the 
 most patriotic and liberty-loving nations of the 
 world. M. DEL Carpio,