I 
 
 CARRANZA 
 
 The Man and His Work 
 
 By george McPherson hunter 
 
 Mexican-American Leagu< 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/carranzarnanhiswo00hunt_0 
 
There is no certainty about Villa:—whether he is 
 dead or alive, who can say? He has been reported 
 dead in so many places we might be pardoned for 
 assuming that, personally, he is a myth. 
 
 Venustiano Carranza is not a myth, he is in Mex¬ 
 ico, the de facto head of that nation. 
 
 In appearance, he is a tall, grey-haired man, car¬ 
 rying easily his fifty-nine years. When walking, 
 he strides ahead as if he had business on his mind. 
 Seated at his desk, he talks in quiet tones about the 
 Revolution and the remaking of Mexico in a calm, 
 matter-of-fact way. 
 
 There is nothing of the swashbuckler, or the melo¬ 
 dramatic hero, about him. A farmer, a “ranchero” 
 by taste and inclination, a lawyer by profession, 
 naturally a student and an idealist, compulsion and 
 patriotism have made him a man of action. He 
 is moderately wealthy, and has spent nearly a life¬ 
 time in public service, so he is removed from the 
 charge of being a political adventurer. 
 
 Political offices are acid tests of men’s characters. 
 Carranza has been tried by his country in various 
 offices. His apprenticeship was served in Municipal 
 and State Government. Now he is the first chief 
 of Mexico. Fire is the last test of a man. 
 
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Latin-Americans are temperamental volcanoes. 
 Carranza suggests a glacier, in his advance. Slowly 
 and irresistibly, he has moved upwards. Perhaps 
 by reason of the ideas he represents and the strength 
 of his convictions, for even his enemies have been 
 impressed by his character. Opponents like Alva¬ 
 rado, Gonzalez and Brigon have been won to his 
 support by his moderate policy and constructive 
 aims. Carranza wields the big idea in preference to 
 the big stick. . , 
 
 In the days of the Diaz regime he was a senator 
 and as recently as Madero’s ill-starred reign, he was 
 governor of Coahuila. 
 
 Politically, he has always been an independent 
 permeated with socialistic ideas. American Repub¬ 
 licans and Democrats may not agree with some of 
 his political theories, and think they are chimerical 
 and utopian, but you can always feel sure he is dis¬ 
 interested and has the unity and the prosperity of 
 Mexico at heart. The present Mexican chaos does 
 not obscure his vision of a distant ideal Mexico. 
 
 Carranza has the first requisite of a natural 
 leader: faith. He believes in his country and its 
 future. 
 
 The First Chief of Mexico is an idealist, and 
 some of his speeches have a Cromwellian ring about 
 them. They breathe the same passion for justice. 
 We are not saying he is a Latin-American Crom¬ 
 well, only that he has a resemblance to him in 
 speech and task . 
 
 Cromwell had enemies and he slew some of them. 
 Carranza has them in prison and he spares them. 
 
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His clemency angers his friends and encourages his 
 enemies. 
 
 Kipling has some jungling lines in which he de¬ 
 picts St. Peter asking a trembling petitioner at the 
 celestial gates: 
 
 “By the soul in your body, 
 what have you done? 
 
 What has Carranza done? 
 
 His last act was the abolition of bull-fighting, and 
 his first, the restoration of land to the Indians. 
 
 His practical common sense told him liberty was 
 a vain dream in Mexico if it rested on a substratum 
 of ignorance, so he opened schools and met the op¬ 
 position of the clerical party. Mexico abounds in 
 monopolies. A few natives monopolize the land, 
 foreigners the minerals and the oil, and the Church, 
 education. He is trying to break the monopoly in 
 schools. He is revaluating the land. It is only five 
 years since Lloyd George, against fierce opposition, 
 started to revalue the lands of England. General 
 Carranza is finding it no easy task, to revalue the 
 land in Mexico. 
 
 The free municipality or the township system he 
 is seeking to establish. A bigger task than appears 
 on the surface, for it will shift the political em¬ 
 phasis, in Mexico from personalities to parties and 
 principles, and educate the people in co-operation. 
 
 In military affairs he is making the troops a fed¬ 
 eral force, when state troops are eliminated, the 
 temptation of the State governors to use them for 
 their own political ambitions will be removed. 
 
Mexico is paying the price of despotism; bad gov¬ 
 ernment, devastation, high taxes and general im¬ 
 poverishment, has followed the years when the 
 country was drained of its wealth, and its riches 
 given to foreigners. 
 
 The lack of money and credit is a legacy Carranza 
 received from the old regime, and it will take time 
 to adjust the finances of Mexico. 
 
 As a country, it is as large as Great Britain, France, 
 Germany and Austria-Hungary combined. Sparsely 
 populated, but possessing great resources, and its 
 financial salvation should come from within its own 
 borders. 
 
 Carranza has banked the fires of revolution and 
 he is trying to make Mexico support the Mexicans. 
 
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