part of which represented money actually paid into the treasury or spent for any public purpose; and agricultural, grazing, and forest land, water rights, ore and oil fields, and railway franchises were given away or sold for a song to combinations of native and foreign capitalists, the governing clique always sharing the spoils. There was a forced development of industrial production in certain regions, which yielded huge profits, chiefly to American owners. Peasants driven from the soil had to become wage-workers under most miserable conditions, and with the connivance of the authorities superintendents of mines, factories, and plantations in many cases kept these workers in subjection by the use of whip and revolver. An incidental feature of the Diaz regime was that even members of the more fortunate classes often suffered spoliation and outrage, so that discontent became rife among such proprietors and business men as were not in favor with the "Cientificos"-the dominant party or, more properly speaking, the official ring. Yet all dissatisfied elements were long held in check by fear that the outbreak of civil war would be the signal for “intervention" by the United States.

In the early nineties was formed the "Junta Revolucionaria del Partido Liberal," which strove for the revival of the Constitution of 1857 and the agrarian policy. Some years later, when many of its original members had been killed or had died in prison, it made its headquarters at St. Louis, Mo., where it published a weekly paper called "Regeneracion," in Spanish and English, to enlighten American public opinion and combat intervention, and to arouse the spirit of the Mexican masses by copies smuggled across the border. Among its leading members at this time were several Socialists-L. Gutierrez de Lara, Ricardo Flores Magon, Manuel Sarabia, and others who welcomed the beginnings of a labor movement in the mining and manufacturing centers of Mexico, and were able to enlist the sympathy of the Socialist Party, the Western Federation of Miners, and other workingclass organizations in this country. In 1906-07 occurred a strike of 40,000 workers in the cotton mills of Orizaba and another of 10,000 copper miners at Cananea. Both were crushed by the slaughter of hundreds of strikers, but the spirit of revolt still spread. This new phase of the situation alarmed powerful capitalist groups in the United States, and yielding to their desires the Roosevelt Administration harried the members of the Junta with incessant searches, arrests, and prosecutions. Three were imprisoned for "breach of neutrality," though it was notorious that armed agents of capitalist interests could cross the frontier with impunity.

The Revolutionary Outbreak.

In 1910 armed revolt broke out simultaneously in the North and the South. Within a few months the whole country was ablaze. The insurgents were mostly peons, with some wage-workers; but certain propertied elements also took a prominent part in the movement, though by no means fully sharing its purposes. The situation was further complicated by the participation of military adventurers, of the type familiar throughout Latin America, each playing his own hand or fighting for whatever native or foreign interest paid him best, and by the rivalry of various exploiting groups, who backed this or that faction as suited their purpose for the moment. It is not yet historically possible altogether to explain the tangled developments of the last six years. Only a few leading events are here mentioned:

May, 1911, Diaz resigns and flees; October, Francisco Madero becomes provisional president, but soon disappoints the hopes of the masses and fails to pacify the country; February, 1913, Victoriano Huerta, commander of the army, seizes the capital, murders Madero, proclaims himself provisional president, and proceeds to copy and even surpass the abuses of the Diaz period; new revolts at once break out and rapidly gain ground; most of the insurgents recognize Venustiano Carranza as Liberal or Constitutionalist leader, with Francisco Villa as his principal military chief in the North; most European governments recognize Huerta, but United States refuses; April, 1914, Huerta's forces insult American marines at Tampico and refuse apology; war seems imminent; American naval and military forces occupy Vera Cruz for several months; conference of Argentine, Brazilian, and Chilean diplomats at Niagara Falls tries to adjust affairs, but fails; July, Huerta, resigns and flees; in the following months Villa and other chiefs break with Carranza and civil war continues; October, 1915, United States recognizes Carranza as de facto head of Mexican government.

Support from American Labor.

Throughout this period the Socialist and Socialist-Labor parties and many other labor and radical organizations in this country had taken an ever keener interest in Mexican affairs, sympathizing with the democratic elements, though not always able at the time clearly to distinguish the genuine from the treacherous ones. The Socialist party convention of 1908 denounced the arrest of Magon, Rivera, Sarabia, and Villareal, and pledged them support, a pledge which was made good by vigorous agitation especially in the Southwest. The convention of 1910 adopted a resolution demanding "that

the government of this country shall not interfere in the affairs of Mexico and other Latin American republics" and declaring that the party was "unalterably opposed to the powers of this nation being used to buttress any foreign despotism." In the spring of 1911 President Taft massed troops on the frontier and seemed to be preparing to come to the rescue of Diaz. In March the Socialist National Executive Committee issued a manifesto headed "Withdraw the Troops!" reviewing the situation and calling for a popular protest against intervention. Many unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, as well as more radical labor organizations, joined in distributing copies of this manifesto, holding mass meetings, and sending addresses to the President and Congress. In April Representative Berger submitted a petition for the recall of the troops, with 87,600 signatures, and introduced a joint resolution to the same effect-the first Socialist resolution ever presented in the United States Congress. The party convention of 1912 reaffirmed the demand for non-interference. Early in 1914 the Tampico affair was the pretext for a very strenuous effort through the capitalist press to create enthusiasm for a Mexican war, but this attempt was defeated through vigorous Socialist and Labor agitation, which was made more effective by the fact that the Ludlow Massacre had roused intense feeling against the military. In the meantime, the publication of "Barbarous Mexico" by John Kenneth Turner, of "The Mexican People: Their Struggle for Freedom" by De Lara and Edgcumb Pinchon, and of numerous articles by Sarabia, John Murray, Carlo de Fornaro, and others had done much to educate American public opinion.

Carranza's Reforms.

By the spring of 1916 the Carranza government appeared to be fairly well established, and had given evidence of a serious intention to carry out a program of social reform. Among the important federal decrees was one compelling oil companies to report fully on their operations; one for testing the titles to great landed estates; one providing for public free schools throughout the republic; and one regulating the liquor trade—which, in fact, was prohibited in fourteen states. In several states still more radical measures were taken. In Sonora all concessions granted by Huerta and Villa were declared void, and the state took charge of the operation of certain disputed mines; the right of labor organization was recognized and a minimum wage decreed. In Vera Cruz the formation of trade unions was authorized under legal regulation; and a commission was set up with power to enforce maximum prices for necessaries of life. In Yucatan

large estates were repurchased at a valuation fixed by the state, and the land so acquired was divided into small tråcts, given to peons in use, subject to an annual tax, the title remaining in the state and possession being conditioned on actual cultivation; a co-operative society of sisal growers was formed, with state backing, to free them from their dependence on the American fibre trust; the old "cuentas" or standing accounts against peons were cancelled, the law forbidding them to leave an employer while in debt to him was repealed, and a new labor law was put in force, providing for a maximum workday and minimum wage, for accident compensation and maternity protection, and encouraging the formation of trade unions. The first convention of women ever held in Mexico took place early in 1916, and a woman's paper, "La Mujer Mexicana," sprang up at the capital.

As is natural in view of its youth, the Mexican labor movement is still in a somewhat unstable condition, and neither its policies nor its forms of organization are yet clearly defined. In some cases it appears to be only tolerated by the government, in others to be patronized and even perhaps controlled. In Yucatan there are unions of bakers, cooks and waiters, carpenters, clerks, dockers, electricians, hackmen, masons, machinists and boiler makers, railway workers, sailors, and smeltermen; their organ is "La Voz de la Revolucion," at Merida, edited by Baltasar Pages; the chief of the state department of labor is Carlos Loveira. In the city of Mexico Dr. Atl edits "Accion Mundial," the chief organ of the "Casa del Obrero Mundial" (literally, the House of Labor of the World), one of the two national labor federations. The other is the "Confederacion de Sindicatos Obreros" or Federation of Labor Unions, which has its headquarters at Vera Cruz, with Ursulo Galvan and Joaquin Mendizal as its secretaries. The former of these two bodies seems to represent the syndicalist tendency, the latter to be modeled after the A. F. of L. It is not yet possible to give any statistics as to membership.

Averting War.

The Villista raid into New Mexico renewed the danger of war, as it was obviously meant to do. When American troops were sent across the border, and still more in June when they were pushed far into the interior and mobilization of the militia was begun, a very critical situation was created. The Socialists of the United States again rose to the occasion, and this time they were much less than in the earlier crises. The Pacifist organizations, which had gained strength in consequence of the European war, took vigorous action.

Still more important, Organized Labor in the United States, recognizing the growing menace of militarism at home, and wishing well to the young labor movement in Mexico, bestirred itself to maintain peace. Pressure was brought to bear on the Wilson Administration, and at the same time President Gompers formally asked Carranza to ease the situation by freeing his American prisoners, which he instantly did. Great labor-peace meetings were held in both countries, fraternal greetings were exchanged, and proclamations published declaring that only the enemies of labor desired war. In the first days of July there was held at Washington the first international conference between accredited representatives of the American Federation of Labor and of the two Mexican national organizations named above. It seems certain that this action had much to do with averting actual war, and it will probably have still more far-reaching effects. Loveira and Pages immediately sailed for South America, bearing credentials from both the American and the Mexican federations, and stating that their mission was to promote closer relations among the organized workingmen of the whole Western Hemisphere, corresponding to the development of a Pan-American capitalism.

PORTO RICO.

In Porto Rico a Socialist movement, led by Santiago Iglesias and Eduardo Conde, appeared immediately after annexation, and was represented in the first convention of the Socialist Party of America, at Indianapolis in 1901. This attempt seems to have been premature. Its definitely socialistic character soon faded away, leaving a small but fairly vigorous trade-union movement, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. In 1908, however, a Workers' Party, accepting the principles of Socialism, was formed in Arecibo. It polled 702 votes that year; by 1914 it had extended its activities to the whole island and polled 4,398 votes, threefourths of them in Arecibo, where it won a majority in the city council. In March, 1915, the first convention was held at Cayey, with fourteen local sections represented. It was decided to affiliate with the Socialist Party of America, and Esteban Padilla was elected as president and Manuel Rojas as secretary of the organization. Early in 1916 some 20,000 workers on the sugar plantations struck for the eight-hour day and an increase of wages, the existing rate being only 50 or 60 cents for a twelve-hour day. Great indignation was caused by the conduct of the island police, who attacked the strikers' parades and hall meetings at several places, killing