ABSTRACT
In part, the coup and the constitutional changes that followed were an attempt to protect the military from the "ravages of traditional politics." If the 1963 coup temporarily ended Honduras's experiment with democracy and reform, economic modernization proceeded apace. US policy changed in the 1930s, and so did the pattern of Honduran politics. In 1954 the fruit companies would reap the whirlwind as years of pent-up frustration exploded in what is still the most important event in the history of the Honduran working class: the Great Banana Strike. By spring 1972 the government had isolated itself from all but the most conservative elements in the "living museum." The route ran through some of the richest banana lands in the world, however, and Cuyamel was in no hurry to give it up. The assumption had been that the bananas would bring the railways and the railways cohesion and peace. Simultaneously, labour started a program of "labor rationalization."
