Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-21

w WHATEVER comes Of the revolt
~ in Mexico started by Aguirre,
wv Escobar and other military
chiefs, it is important to dis
tinguish it from the real"
Mexican revolution. which began with
Francisco ]. Madero, in 1919; was con-
tinued, in one sort or another, by Car
rama, Obregon and Gales, and, in the
sense that its social and economic re-
forms are still partially realized. is still
going on A'day.
(Under the best of conditions it could
not have been expected satisfactorily to
work itself out short of many years
the present military uprising sets every
thing back indefinitely
BY real" revolution I mean one Of
those upheavals-political. social. eco
nomic, or any mixture Of the three
which express the passionate conyic-
tons .or aspirations of revolving
people. Not palace" revolutions, how
ever successful; nor those threats or
uses of armed force which act as sort
of substitute for elections in some OF
the less grown-up republics OF South
America; but upheavals which nave
something Of the inevitability OF vol
canic eruptions or earthquakes, which
submerge or destroy the face OF things
as IIley are dItu cStdUlAoA oAiOVASA Qua
face and new order.
Other Revolutions Cited.
The French revolution was such
one. The Russian revolution another.
And no excuses of the Bolsheviks, no
amount Of unSoundnesS in their eco
nomic theories of crookedness or crimi-
nality of individuals here and there,
can change the fact that the imperial
order fell because it was rotten and
because the Russian people-in their
different ways-wanted 1t cnangeo'
however they may have ol1ereo as 70
the direction the change was 10 TAKE
and the distance it was to go:
On its smaller stage and with its less
developed masses (although the SUI
periority of the peasant masses OF RUS
STA to the peon masses of Mexico may
be open to some discusSion) the Mexican
revolution of the last two decades had
similar reality, and it, too, has been
guilty. of all sorts of violence and In
Justice. This or that leader may nave
been as little the preux chevalier as
Stain or Zinoviev, or Robespierre or
Marat.
But, taken in the aggregate. and
looked at objectivelv, the perfect begin
ming with the publication Of Madero's
la Succession Presidential en- 1910" and
extending down to the peaceful election
of PorteS Gil represented very genu-
inc thrust on the part Of more or less
backward people toward social. political
and economic independence: toward
better education for the masses, a fairer
distribution of the land, and. in gen.
eral, something more like square deal
for the average man.
The writer saw something OF the
fighting along the border in the early
days of the revolt against Porflrio Diaz
and later he Travelled with the Inflated
Francisco Madero during one of his
campaigning tours, beginning at Vera
Cruz and going on up into the principal
cities of the plateau country. Madero
has been described as an "idealist," a
visionary" and even as half crazy by
those who diSliked him most. Certainly
he was no routine strong man." no
Hispano- American Napoleon settling all
controversies with his "whiff of grape
shot" Had he been harder boiled and
less squeamish. he might have gone
farther, perhaps.
Hero Of the Masses.
But he was the hero of the brown
mass In those days. They packed the
streets and surged up underneath the
iron balconies from which he spoke,
/ f1inging of their sombreros and fiinging
up their hands, with quivering fingers
! outspread-he could have said almost
: anything he wanted to, then, and got
| away with it. But, instead of talking
about glory and hearts and flowers,
! Viva Mexico! and the revolution for
ever, he told those alf-frenzied mobs
| to go home and work, to save their CEN
! tavos and send their children to school
and that that was the way, and the
only way, that Mexico was going to get
! ahead
They murdered Madero before he