Evening star., 1934-12-02
BY GASTON NERVAL.

A NEW government was inaug-
~ urated last Friday in Mexico.
~ In years gone by this an
nouncement would have been
expected to include a descrip-
ton of the successful revolution, the
seizure of the capital. the selection of
the strongest "caudillo" among the
victorS to head the new regime. Mex
leo used to be the country invariably
associated in the mind of the average
newspaper reader with revolutions,
political plots. and almost continuous
external friction resulting from the
former.
The presidential Inauguration which
Mexicars witnessed last week. how
ever was peaceful, orderly. and COM
piled with the best of all known DEM
ocratic standards. 1t followed a gen.
eral election which both winners and
losers admitted to have been free and
fair Moreover, it came after several
years of uninterrupted internal peace,
years crowded with violent upsetS and
restlessness for most of the other
Latin American republics. South
Americans used to point to Mexico
as the example to be avoided: Disorder,
personal ambition, instability. Today
the picture is reversed. There are but
two or three countries south of the
Rio Grande which can match the
record of internal stability which
Mexico has established in these years
of economic depression and political
discomfort.
The reason for this is that Mexico
is the only Latin American country
which has had a real revolution. The
so-called revolutions in other south
ern countries, of which Americans
hear so much, are merely coups d'etat,
"cuartelazos," personal attempts
sometimes successful, sometimes not
to substitute group of men for an
other, with little alteration in the So
community But in Mexico the move
ment which began in 1910 with the
overthrow of the feudal Diaz regime.
and still is going on, has not stopped
at the simple change of personnel in
the administration of the country. 1t
has definitely removed from power a
CLIQUE of aristocrats and wealthy land
owners who for centuries had exploited
the natural resources and the largest
part of the population. 1t has liber-
ated the masses. It has articulated
their aspirations It has outlined an
economic system adapted to their Pc
culiar needs and genius. 1t has awak-
ened national consciousness. 1t Is,
slowly but certainly, manufacturing
a new Mexico.
Phases of Revolution.
The several changes Of government
by violence which distinguished the
first decade following the fall of DiaZ
were not isolated, meaningless evi-
dences of chaos, as outside observers
thought. They were phases, stages of
the greater revolution; they were the
inevitable and painful steps in the
march of that movement which was
recreating Mexico. They were, pre-
cisely, the result of popular uprisings
against officials who had deviated
from the original principles of the 1910
revolution.
But "the revolution" Itself went
ahead. Its principles subsisted. They
survived all the violent upsets un-
avoidable in a period of change and
among people of the psychological
characteristics of the Mexican. The
spirit of "the revolution" marched on,
until, out of the struggle, new order
came to being and a more settled
and more constructive stage wak
reached.
It is this stage of construction that
Mexico has been going through fol
the past few years. Naturally, just
as the period of transition was
marked by short-lived, rather color
less regimes, experimenting with new
theories, the constructive period ne
cessitated a strong government. Ano
a strong government the Mexicani