ABSTRACT
At the turn of the century, while the Porfirian elite celebrated “order and progress,” other Mexicans spoke loudly and clearly of the uneven distribution of the benefits and costs of this so-called progress. Through labor organizing, political mobilization, and an opposition press, a liberal movement emerged, prominent among which were the three Flores Magón brothers—Ricardo, Jesús, and Enrique. The Flores Magón brothers arrived in Mexico City from Oaxaca at the turn of the century and, along with Antonio Horcasitas, founded the newspaper Regeneracíon. The title of the newspaper came from the concept of biological regeneration—the capacity of an organism to reconstruct and repair itself. In this spirit, the editors sought to describe the path toward the regeneration of Mexico. The newspaper went through a process of evolution, which is partly reflected in the newspaper’s slogan. Originally it read “Independent Legal Periodical”; four months later, it was changed to “Independent Periodical of Combat.” The Flores Magón brothers suffered repeated imprisonment 265for their work on the newspaper and for their involvement in other activities. In 1904, Ricardo Flores Magón was forced to leave Mexico and moved to the United States, where he continued to suffer persecution for his political activities. The newspaper came to serve as a voice for the Mexican Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Mexicano, PLM, established in 1906) organizing committee. Secret police hired by President Díaz and aided by the U.S. government destroyed the printing press and suspended the committee’s right to publish the paper. By 1910 the newspaper was published in Los Angeles, California, and the slogan had become “Revolutionary Periodical.” With the outbreak of armed insurrection in Mexico, the PLM split: one group returned to Mexico City to support Francisco Madero; the other group remained in Los Angeles and continued to promote anarchist ideals. In what way was the Liberal Party program a continuation of Liberal ideals in Mexico? How might we understand the long-held demands that were so central to the Liberal cause as revolutionary in 1910? How might the position of Mexico in the world economy have contributed to the conditions described in these documents?
“Valle Nacional,” Regeneración , 1904
In all the time of Mexico’s memory, slavery today will be linked with the name of the demon that makes its existence possible. His name is Porfirio Díaz. And the most beastly of his works is in Valle Nacional. *
Fellow Mexican citizens: take note that there are only two methods by which to carry off the innocents to this purgatory. One is by means of a political boss, who operates directly; the other, by means of an enganchador [labor boss]. This latter operates with the willing cooperation of a political boss. This latter, as unfortunately you well know, is named by the State governor. Responsible to no-one, except the governor, who pays him an annual tribute, and never asks for account of his work.
And there you have the despicable political boss from Pachuca, for example!
He grabs whomever he wants in the streets. He takes him to jail. He accuses him of some imaginary crime, but the victims never appear. When the devil fills the jail, he sends them off to Valle Nacional. Naturally, after he is paid he has the pleasure of giving a part of this blood-money to his distinguished patron, his excellency Don Pedro A. Rodríguez, governor of the State of Hidalgo.
Fellow citizens: you might know of a friend who was not sent directly to Valle Nacional by a political boss. This is how it is, you see, for the majority work for an enganchador. Why? Because to traffic in human beings is illegal. Those most responsible hide behind enganchadores, the latter of whom carry out their business under the aegis of the former. This way they laugh at the idea of being prosecuted.
How does the enganchador spin his web? He advertises that he seeks workers. They will receive high wages, three pesos a day, good food, lodging in good housing, 266without having to pay rent. The poor worker, who receives perhaps fifty cents a day, falls in the trap. He signs the contract. He receives an advance of five pesos, which he is encouraged to spend. A few days later, corralled with others, gullible like himself, he arrives in Valle Nacional. There, he and his companions of misfortune are sold to the tobacco plantations owners.
And how, fellow citizens, do government representatives rationalize their participation in the business of slavery? “What”—they proclaim indignantly—“did not said individual receive an advance of five pesos? This is a debt that he rightly must repay…. ” These venal hypocrites throw up their hands at the constitutional rights of the worker. Indeed, when, under Porfirio Díaz, has the majority enjoyed their constitutional rights?
And what about the plantation owners? They cynically protest that theirs is not a system of slavery. By no means. It is a purely contractual agreement. Yes Sir, the worker signed the contract. And for this reason, he is obliged to the circumstances in which he finds himself…. What the upright plantation owners do not say is that instead of the three pesos a day promised by the enganchador, the salary stipulated in the contract, which the illiterate worker signed with the mark of an X, was only later filled in by either the enganchador or the plantation owner. Wages are customarily set at fifty cents a day.
And now imagine, fellow citizens, what happens next:
The trapped worker is rarely paid in cash. He receives credit in the company store, which belongs to the plantation owner. The prices charged there, for clothing and other necessities, are up to ten times higher that in towns outside of Valle Nacional. But that is not all. The slave is required to repay the price of his own purchases. It is impossible to work enough to pay off his debt.
The slave dies, generally within a year!
Why, you might ask, horrified with admiration, perhaps, does a healthy man die after eight to ten months in Valle Nacional? Because the wretched creature is required to work from sun up, throughout the long, cruel, humid hours of the day underneath the burning sun, and when the sun goes down because it sinks beneath the continuous and merciless beatings meted out by the overseer, who forces him to withstand such conditions to the limits of his strength; because the poor nourishment and the filthy living conditions turn him into easy prey for malaria or other tropical diseases….
And because of the terrifying knowledge that he will never be able to regain his freedom!
But you could say: “Díaz himself does not directly benefit from this terrible business!” Fine. We will give him the benefit of the doubt. However, what of the governors of Veracruz, Oaxaca, Hidalgo—his underlings—who do benefit from it? Who named these governors? Porfirio Díaz. They in turn designate their associates. If Díaz wanted, he could get rid of slavery tomorrow. And not only in Valle Nacional, but in the henequen plantations of Yucatán; in the wood and fruit industries of Tabasco, Oaxaca, Morelos, and almost half the states of Mexico.
267Why doesn’t he do it? Because he needs these human hyenas. Pale imitations of he himself, he needs them to uphold his authoritarian power. But the day of liberation is near. Prepare yourselves for it, my fellow citizens!
—Enrique Flores Magón, Regeneración, 1904
Mexican Liberal Party Program
1. Reduction of presidential terms to four years.
2. Termination of the re-election of Presidents and State Governors. These officials will not be eligible for re-election until two terms after they have served.
3. Disqualification of the Vice President from performing legislative duties, or any other office of popular election; authorization of the same to hold offices conferred by the Executive branch.
4. Ban on obligatory military service and foundation of a National Guard. Those who offer their services to the regular Army will do so of their own free will. Military ordinance will be revised to eliminate any part of it that could be construed as oppressive and humiliating to the dignity of man; and, the wages of those who serve in the National Militia will be improved.
5. Reform and regularize Articles 6 and 7 of the Constitution, eliminating restrictions imposed upon freedom of speech by res privada or public peace, declaring punishable in this regard only the absence of truthfulness entailing libel, blackmail, and moral violations of the law.
6. Abolition of the death penalty, with the exception of traitors to the Fatherland.
7. Expand the accountability of public officials, imposing severe prison terms upon delinquents.
8. Restitution of the territory of Quintana Roo to Yucatán.
9. Elimination of military courts in peacetime.
10. Increase the number of primary schools to the degree that all places of learning that are cloistered, because they pertain to the Clergy, may be replaced advantageously.
11. Obligation to provide wholly non-religious instruction in all schools of the Republic, whether they are government-run or private, holding accountable all directors who fail to readjust themselves to this precept.
12. Declare education obligatory up until the age of fourteen, it being the duty of the Government to convey protection by any means possible to poor children whose destitution could cause them to lose the benefits of instruction.
13. Pay elementary schoolteachers a living wage.
14. Require the teaching of rudimentary arts and crafts and military instruction, preferably with a focus on civic instruction, at present so sorely neglected in all schools of the Republic.
15. Dictate that foreigners, by the act of purchasing real estate, lose their primary nationality and become Mexican citizens.
26816. Prohibit Chinese immigration.
17. Churches are to be considered as places of business and, as such, obligated to keep accounts and pay corresponding taxes.
18. Nationalization, in keeping with the Law, of all real estate held by members of the Clergy by means of front men.
19. Expand punishment as specified under the Laws of Reform against those who violate said Law.
20. Abolition of schools controlled by the Clergy.
21. Establish a maximum eight-hour workday, with a minimum wage of the following proportions: $1.00 for the general populace, where the average salary is lower than that specified here, and more than one peso for those regions in which living expenses are higher, where this salary would be insufficient to keep the worker out of poverty.
22. Regulation of domestic service and of those who work in private homes.
23. Adopt measures so that bosses who pay by the hour do not evade the enforcement of maximum hours or minimum wage.
24. Completely prohibit the employment of all children under age fourteen.
25. Require the owners of mines, factories, workshops, etc. to maintain the best hygienic conditions possible on their premises, keeping all hazardous areas in a state that will not endanger workers’ lives.
26. Require bosses or rural landowners to provide workers with hygienic lodgings when the nature of their work demands that they receive shelter from said bosses or landowners.
27. Require bosses to pay indemnities for work-related accidents.
28. Nullify all current debts owed by field workers to their masters.
29. Adopt measures preventing landowner abuse of sharecroppers.
30. Require those who lease homes and properties to indemnify those renting their lands for any necessary improvements they have made.
31. Prohibit bosses, under severe penalty of law, to pay workers in any way other than cash money; prohibit and punish those who impose fines on workers, or dock their wages, or delay the payment of their earnings for more than one week, or deny those being terminated from work the immediate payment of what they have earned; ban of company stores.
32. Prevent all businesses or negotiations from hiring as employees and workers more than a minority percentage of foreigners. Prohibiting, without exception, Mexicans from being paid less than foreigners among workers of the same class, or that Mexicans be paid differently from foreigners by the same establishment.
33. Declare Sunday an obligatory day of rest.
34. Landowners are obliged to render productive all that they possess; any extension of land left fallow by the owner will be recovered by the State and used in keeping with the following Articles:
35. Mexicans who reside abroad will, upon request, be repatriated by the Government, which will pay their travel expenses and provide them with land for cultivation.
26936. The State will give land to anyone who so requests, under no other condition than having them use it for agricultural production, not sale. The maximum extension of land the State can award a person will be established.
37. So that this benefit cannot be used solely to the advantage of the few who have the wherewithal to cultivate land, but also by the poor who lack the tools to do so, the State will create or support an Agricultural Bank that will extend low-interest loans to poor farmers, redeemable in installments.
38. Abolition of head and poll taxes, * leaving in Government hands the analysis of the best way to lower the Stamp tax until its full abolition becomes feasible.
39. Ban all assessments on capital lower than $100.00, exempting from this privilege churches and other businesses that are considered hazardous and which should have no right to the guarantees extended to useful businesses.
40. Stockpiles, luxury items, and vices are to be taxed, while assessments will be lightened on articles of basic need. The rich will not be allowed to adjust their retainers with the government in order to pay fewer taxes than those imposed by law.
41. Legal protection proceedings are to be made more practical by simplifying the necessary procedures.
42. Restitution of the Free Zone.
43. Establish civil equality for all children fathered by the same man, eliminating differences established under current Law between legitimacy and illegitimacy.
44. Establish, whenever possible, penal rehabilitation colonies instead of the jails and penitentiaries where delinquents suffer sentences today.
45. Elimination of political bosses.
46. Reorganization of municipalities that have been suppressed; fortification of municipal power.
47. Measures to suppress or restrict stockpiling, pauperism, and shortages of basic goods.
48. Protection of the indigenous race.
49. Establish bonds of union with other Latin American countries.
50. Upon the triumph of the Liberal Party, the goods of those officials enriched under the current Dictatorship will be confiscated, and implementation of the Chapter of Lands will be applied to all that is produced thereby—especially restitution to the Yaquis, Mayas, and other tribes, communities, or other individuals from lands that were taken away from them—and towards paying down the National Debt.
51. The first National Congress to meet following the downfall of the Dictatorship will annul all reforms made to our Constitution by the Government of Porfirio Díaz; our Magna Carta will be reformed as soon as possible in order to put this Program into effect; laws will be created as needed to attain the same objective; articles of the Constitution will be regularized as well as those of other laws that so require; and all issues will be studied that are considered to be of interest to the Fatherland, whether or not they are proclaimed in the present Program; and the items that constitute it here will be reinforced, especially in the areas of Labor and Land.
