The Presidential Dilemma in Mexico

Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

ON JULY sixth Mexico passed through the trying ordeal of another presidential election. The issues at stake in this election and the difficult task which awaits the coming president, whoever he may be, can best be understood by a brief review of the principal developments across the border during the past three years.

Alvaro Obregón, the retiring president, came into office on December I, 1920, as the result of a successful revolution and a thoroughly controlled election. Obregón's chief supporters in this revolution, and for nearly three years thereafter, were General Plutarco Elias Calles and Adolfo De la Huerta. Under Obregón's control, Mexico enjoyed a stability and peace she had been a stranger to for nearly a decade. Thanks very largely to the flush production of petroleum, moreover, the national treasury, presided over by De la Huerta, was able for two years to keep itself in funds--another novel experience for a Mexican government--and in the field of international relations the period witnessed three accomplishments of unusual significance.

The first of these accomplishments was the negotiation of the Lamont-De la Huerta agreement in June, 1922, under which Mexico found it possible to satisfy the long neglected demands of her foreign bondholders and to take the first step in the difficult process of restoring her national credit. The second was the adjustment of those outstanding difficulties between Mexico and the United States which had prevented Obregón from drawing upon the moral and financial aid of this country and which constituted a source of grave danger to the peace of the two nations. These matters, including the most important features of the agrarian and petroleum laws in so far as they related to American citizens, were dealt with in a statesmanlike manner by the General and Special Claims Conventions negotiated in Mexico City during the summer of 1923. Finally, as a result of Obregón's willingness to enter into the above agreements, the American Government extended him the recognition which, for perfectly valid reasons, the Wilson and Harding administrations had both withheld...