Montana labor news., 1938-09-01
Hull Move Against
Mexico Is Seen As
Aid 10 the Fasdsis
By NATHANIEL WEYL

Wall Street groups are jubilant
over Sec. of State Hulrs lengthy note
to Mexico demanding prompt pay
ment for American landed estates
confiscated since 1915. 1t is believed
that the State Department has de-
cided to turn the heat" on Mexico,
and that the administration will
soon present demands for payments
covering the appropriated oil prop
critics, the defaulted railroad bonds,
and a series of other items-mount-
ing up to a grand total of hundreds
of millions of dollars.
It is obvious that the Cardenas
government, faced as it is by serious
economic difficulties, cannot hope to
pay a fraction of this sum for years
to come. According to Sec. HulTs
principle of no appropriation without
compensation, Mexico would be
obliged to turn back her oil, land
and railroads to the large American
corporate interests which exploited
them in the days of the odious Por-
firio Diaz dictatorship.
Hulrs fervent demand that Ameri-
cans who lost their shirts as a result
of Mexico's social reform program
be compensated in cash contrasts
with the State Departments failure
to attempt to collect the far more
important British wal debt. The
Hull note is believed to be the result
of continuous pressure on the adj
ministration by the oil corporations
and the group in the U. S. favorable
to British Premier Chamberlain,
which is headed by the publisher of
the New York Times. It is under
stood that the British ambassador in
Washington, who worked so success
fully to defeat the congressional
move to lift the embargo on loyalist
Spain, has brought pressure on the
administration on the Mexican ques-
ton.
Progressive Latin Americans fear
that the State Departments stand
will strengthen the hand of the anti
labor group in Mexico which is try
ing desperately to split the new
Party of the Mexican Revolution.
This conservative wing, composed of
army officers, landlords and pro-
fessional politicians, has already sue
ceeded in emasculating the bill Civ
ing government workers the right
to join trade unions and go on strike.
A group of officers in the Mexican
Chamber of Deputies recently made
a scurrilous attack on Mexico's great
labor leader, Lombardo Toledano,
limiting that he should be assassi-
mated. simultaneously, landlord
groups are working hard to capture
control over peasant organizations in
the most backward country regions
and use their position in congress to
attack Cardenas.
If the Roosevelt administration
embarks on a strong nti-Mexican
policy, involving economic reprisals
against the Cardenas government,
these pro-fascist groups may succeed
in starting a civil war supported by
the German Nazis. A victory of the
re~actionaries in Mexico would pos
sibly be a death blow to the New
Deal attempt to rebuild democracy
in South America and drive out
fascist influences.
One of the most despicable actions
Of the reactionary press in America
has been its campaign to play up
Mexican oil sales to fascist Germany
as an indication that the Cardenas
regime is turning pro-Nazi. The facts
of the matter are that Mexico has
made every effort to sell her oil to
democratic countries only. Faced by
the boycott of the big American oil
corporations and the embargo of the
Chamberlain government, Mexico
has contracted to sell 10 million
barrels of petroleum to an American
business man who is shipping the
oil to Germany.