# Mexico and its reconstruction/Chapter 5

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CHAPTER V
THE GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO: THE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
The constitutions of Mexico have attempted to set up states with a sphere of action in large degree similar to that of the states in the United States but the system has never taken root. There has never been a vigorous system of local self-government. Public opinion, here as in the central government, has been inactive and unorganized. The absorption of functions by the central government left the localities little to do. The choice of local officials in the elections was seldom more free from the influence of the central executive power than was the selection of members of Congress and the same influence exerted after the elections made the deliberations of local bodies trivial. They did not have sufficient freedom of action, nor sufficient command of funds to put through the legislation needed by their localities or to arouse public interest in their proceedings.
Most of the state legislatures consisted of a single house of from 12 to 30 members. Their sessions under the old régime were normally two per year, each lasting nominally three months. On the days when the houses met, the sessions were ordinarily limited to two hours. Their proceedings were often brilliant, and the members were often exceptionally able parliamentarians. When ​the legislature was not in session, it was represented by a permanent deputation whose announced function was to protect the rights of the legislature from encroachment by the executive.
Public revenues could be increased only with great difficulty in most of the states. The central government monopolized the customs duties as a matter of course. Since the industrial development of the country was small, the states had in their power to tax local developments, a less valuable resource than in better developed lands. The desire of the states and that of the national government would naturally be to burden enterprise as little as possible in order to encourage the entry of capital. Thus they hoped to create greater local wealth, raise the national standard of life and increase the ability of the government to collect greater amounts in taxes without checking the advance of the country.
The taxing system actually in use had its origin in the system developed in Latin countries long before the period of independence. With some exceptions the rate of levy was low. There was in all the states, except Yucatan, a general tax on property, usually reckoned on a percentage of value officially determined for different classes of real estate. Taxes on industry and commerce were general throughout the republic. Both these levies are alleged to be based on practice introduced into Spain through the Roman law. There was a tax on professions, called the patente, drawn on the model of a French tax instituted in 1791. Consumption taxes on various articles were collected, familiar in ​the colonial period as the alcabala. When formally abolished, these were, in later Mexican history, substituted by municipal duties and an increase in the quotas of other state taxes. Some states had poll taxes or taxes on all persons over 14 years of age. They were not an important source of income. Besides these there were a large number of other sources of revenue, few of which gave important yields, many of which were survivals, and some of which were merely curious. How weak the state governments were financially may be illustrated by the fact that for the government of the great area of the State of Chihuahua there was collected even as late as 1907 only $1,307,489 Mexican, an amount that was even less than it appears, for the services performed by the municipalities in many other countries are largely performed by the state in Mexico.
Weak as the state governments were, they were much stronger than those of the municipalities. In fact just as the central government absorbed the functions of the states, these in turn took over municipal services. No feature of Mexican public life shows more clearly the lack of real self-government in the republic than the condition of the cities and towns during the Diaz régime. It is almost axiomatic that where a vigorous local public life is found there is good soil for the growth of self-governing institutions, the foundation ​upon which a strong and effective public opinion and public authority may be raised. Mexico has never enjoyed that blessing.
Local government, as a result, lacked reality and seriousness; it was not a vital part of the life of the community. Democracy was dead at the root. Town feeling became sentimental not fundamental. The most evident and often the most important work done by the local government was the furnishing of entertainments, such as band concerts and the maintenance of a municipal theater. Financial difficulties brought it about that the water supplies of the larger towns, with the exception of that of the capital, as a rule, were put in by the state governments which kept a control over the rental charges so as to be able to pay for the expenditure. In some cases the apathy of the local population toward their own interests forced the adoption of control by the larger units if certain services were to be performed in more than a farcical manner. In Jalisco, for example, the state government found itself under the necessity of administering the schools and poor relief because the local government was too weak to do so. The states of ​Durango and Michoacan, at the end of the first century of independence, did not collect any municipal taxes.
There was little freedom of action allowed the cities. Their small budgets had to be submitted to state authorities for approval before they could go into effect. In most states the same was true of all the more important municipal decisions even if not of a fiscal nature.
There were some variations in local government but the municipality had no wide range of organization such as we are familiar with in the United States. The ayuntamiento, or town council, was elected by an indirect system. The people voted for electors who in turn chose the councilmen. The powers of the council were largely deliberative. The real executive officers were not under its direction or control. The municipalities regularly had but small power to raise money. They could not undertake important public works.
The general character of their income may be illustrated by the list of taxes levied in the municipalities of the State of Aguascalientes at the end of the first century of Mexican independence. It comprised levies on irrigation, public amusements, slaughterhouses, stables, vehicles, professional licenses, weights and measures, rentals, on fattening hogs, bandstands, pawnshops, buildings in construction, restaurants, stands or chests in the portals of churches, gambling places, warehouses, saloons, lotteries, firearms, traveling salesmen, checks, and certain classes of peddlers. Some of these branches ​in a country better developed might have been made important sources of revenue. They were not in Mexico.
The most important link between state and municipal governments and the chief means by which the former came to control the latter was the jefe politico, the political chief, appointed in each municipality by the governor and responsible to him alone. In some cases, as in Morelos, these officers came to be formally recognized as the presidents of the municipal councils. In their hands rested the execution both of the general law and of regulations passed by the municipal councils. They were thus Janus-faced officers who had duties in two directions but who in practice could be held responsible only by the state functionaries.
Their double position and the very wide and largely unwritten powers which they came to exercise made them one of the chief reliances of the Diaz system of actual government. An able and benevolent official could do much to assure order, contentment, and progress in his district. Unfortunately a bad one who, through the inertia of the higher officials or corrupt influences could count on the support of the state and national military forces, might become an oppressor very difficult to call to account or remove.
In the later years of the Diaz régime the jefes politicos became the subject of widespread criticism. How great the abuses came to be it is hard to determine. That there were many instances of wrongdoing sheltered by these officials is beyond doubt. They seem to have been in some districts the chief stay of the peonage ​system. It was to be expected that when the old régime came to be called to account the office of the men who governed in the locality but were not subject to its will would be one of the points of attack. The revolution promised to do away with the jefe politico and to set up the free municipality.
The new system of local government that it is sought to introduce starts out under far from favorable conditions. The political inertia of the local population in the great majority of municipalities is a heavy handicap. Centralization is such a well established tradition, acquiescence in a government imposed from above has gone on so long, that it will be difficult to arouse the cities and towns into a vigorous life. A steady and uniform advance in municipal government is too much to expect.
No one who walks through the streets of a Mexican town off the line of the great trunk railroads can be enthusiastic as to the prospects of success of real local government in the immediate future. There will probably be many backslidings and the standard, which the enthusiasts of the present reforming government speak for, will not be achieved in their day nor in that of their grandchildren. But, whatever their errors in other directions, there will be little doubt in the minds of most of Mexico's friends that the revolutionary statesmen are standing on bed rock when they insist upon the importance of creating a keen interest in local government and the problems associated therewith.
The municipalities are the first school of government. Within these units, involving such simple problems as ​will be dealt with by the average Mexican city, mistakes can be made with comparatively small harm while political experience is being gained. Through experience in self-government in the towns there may be built gradually the foundation of a new Republic of Mexico, a republic of greater stability and strength than the one that rested on economic advance alone. Whether Mexico can build such a state from its present population may be doubted even by the friends of Mexico but there can be little doubt that if it can be built, the foundation stones must be laid in the municipalities.
* ↑ Memoria de hacienda y crédito público. . . 1 de Julio de 1910 a 30 de Junio de 1911, tomo 2, Mexico, 1912, p. 657 et seq.
* ↑ Memoria de hacienda y crédito público. . . 1 de Julio de 1909 a 30 de Junio de 1910, Mexico, 1910, p. 719. This document contains an excellent analysis showing the various sources of state funds.
* ↑ A good criticism of Mexican local government is found in L. S. Rowe, "Notes on Municipal Government," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 21, p. 532, December, 1903. See also C. W. Dabney, "A Star of Hope for Mexico," New York, Latin American News Association (pamphlet). The reasons for the decay of the municipal government system introduced by the Spaniards and of the local government that the Indian communities had developed are outlined in T. Esquivel Obregón, Influencia de España y los Estados Unidos sobre Mexico, Madrid 1918, pp. 213-226.
* ↑ Memoria de hacienda y crédito público. . . 1 de Julio de 1910 a 30 de Julio de 1911, tomo 2, Mexico, 1912, pp. 216-23.
* ↑ Ibid., p. 221 et seq.