We Die for GodThe Mexican Revolution and La Cristiada

Third in the Series

By Christopher Zehnder

Chaos Returns

he provisional president of the revolutionary government, Francisco de la Barra was anything but a revolutionary. This man, who had been Díaz’s ambassador to the United States, had strong connections with the wealthy families of Mexico and the científicos. He was hardly the man to carry out the only

radical provision of Madero’s Plan de San Luis Potosí -- agrarian reform, the redistribution of land to the poor from whom it had been taken. Emiliano Zapata, for one, was not pleased with de la Barra and had become disillusioned with Madero. In August, Zapata and Madero had met in Cuernevaca, the capitol of Morelos. Zapata left the meeting convinced that Madero was not committed to agrarian reform.

TZapata was not alone in distrusting Madero; some of the Mexican bishops were wary of him, though

not for the same reasons as the Morelos revolutionary. In a May 28, 1911 letter to the archbishop of Mexico City, José de Jesús Ortizy y Rodriguez, the archbishop of Guadalajara, lamented that “we will no longer be able to depend on the tolerance and the spirit of conciliatory supervision of the illustrious General Díaz, who has been until now our only defense under God.” But Archbishop Ortiz did not express the sentiments of the many clergy who supported Madero and of the Catholic people, who rejoiced over Díaz's overthrow.

The Catholic ResponseEven before Díaz's overthrew, some Catholics who were dissatisfied with the state of things in Mexico were seeking greater involvement in social change. In Mexico City, a group of socially prominent and politically well-connected Catholics formed the Circulo Católico Nacional (CCN, National Catholic Circle) to discuss how and when to establish a specifically Catholic political party.

Many socially concerned Catholics, however, were wary of the CCN; they feared the well-placed, economic elite of Mexico would come to dominate it. Many of these social Catholics joined a group formed by a medical doctor, José Refugio Galindo – the Operarios Guadalupanos (OG -- Guadalupan Workers). Between 1909

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© 2003 Christopher Zehnder

Francisco Madero (number 5) and his advisors, 1911. Pascual Orozco (number 10) sits in the same row at the extreme right.

and the end of 1911, over 100 OG groups, with hundreds of members, were founded in 20 states and federal territories, mostly in central and western Mexico. These groups, formed of small member cells, were not under

centralized control; but, rooted as they were in local parish structures, they were able to form a network that allowed them to take concerted action. Parish OG organizations provided study groups on social problems, artisan and worker circles, and health care services. Some cells promoted public morality through theater, while others published newspapers. In 1909, the OG opened two rural credit and savings establishments to provide affordable credit to the poor.

Guadalajara became the intellectual center of the OG movement. Among the intellectual lights of the Guadalajara OG were Canon Miguel de la Mora (who would soon become bishop of Zacatecas) and Miguel Palomar y Vizcarra, considered to be the leading Catholic intellectual in Mexico. In 1909, with the blessing of Mexico City's archbishop, José Mora y del Rio, Palomar founded a journal, Restauración Social (Social Restoration), which discussed social justice issues such as what constitutes a just family wage. Indeed, such social questions dominated the OG. Members studied the social encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII, and published newsletters analyzing Mexico's social problems in light of Catholic social justice teaching. Some

proposed solutions proposed were radical; for instance, in June 1914, an OG leader, José Encarnación Preciado, suggested that social Catholics espouse an agrarian reform that would divide large haciendas among workers, who would contribute to bonds that would reimburse former owners. As for how it would organize the state, the OG did not call for the overthrow of the republic or for direct clergy involvement in government. Rather, the OG hoped for a more democratic state structure, resting on universal manhood suffrage. It hoped for a government, controlled by Catholic laity, that would respect the institutional Catholic Church in Mexico as a freely operating body in the greater society. In a word, the OG favored what has been called “Christian democracy” --- a form of society where the Church and state have clearly defined spheres but are united in mutual cooperation, and recognition.

Shortly after Díaz's fall from power, members of the OG and CCN formed what has been called Mexico's first modern political party --- the Partido Católico Nacional (PCN) --- the National Catholic Party. During the brief period of its existence (1910-1913), the PCN was able to take advantage of the OG's parish-based network to form an effective political movement. At its first convention, the PCN decided not to run its own presidential candidate in the October 1911 election but to throw its support to Madero. But, despite Madero's urging, the party did not support his vice-presidential candidate, José Maria Pino Suárez, because they thought him opposed to Catholic principles. Instead, for vice president, the PCN nominated

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Francisco de la Barra, left, with Madero, right

Emiliano Zapata

Francisco de la Barra. Madero and Suárez triumphed in the election, held in October 1911. But while PCN candidates won important elections in some states, the party lost in most of the national races. Only in Jalisco did the PCN's de la Barra win more votes than Suárez.

“A Wicked Despotism has Fallen!”Though he had sparked a revolution, Madero was no radical. He was committed to a restoration of the freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution of 1857 --- freedom of the press, of conscience, of assembly, etc. – and he wanted all Mexicans to exercise full voting rights. That he wanted to prune back severely the privileges of foreign capitalists was not radical; his family, like the rich Mexican capitalist class to which they belonged, wanted a larger share of the wealth of Mexico than they had gotten under Díaz, and measures against foreign capitalists would provide it to them.

Madero was heavily influenced by his family, for many of his kindred had come to live with him in the National Palace. Especially influential was the president’s brother, Gustavo. Though President Madero’s gentle, vegetarian soul shrank from executing enemies, Gustavo used heavy-handed tactics worthy of Don Porfirio himself against the regime's foes. Gustavo Madero gathered his own gang of thugs and interfered in elections. Other Madero relatives ensconced themselves in the government, where they carried on the científico policies from the days of Díaz.

Yet, the freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed by Madero encouraged more radical elements to organize. Trade unions again appeared. In the capitol, the House of the World Worker became a center for intellectuals who promoted socialist and Marxist ideas. The toleration of such radicalism alarmed wealthy Mexicans and foreign investors. When the radical lawyer Luis Cabrera openly promoted a plan to break up large estates, one began to hear talk among the wealthy and powerful of overthrowing Madero. To the wealthy and well-heeled, both Mexican and foreign, it seemed that the mild Madero could not keep order in the country.

Emiliano Zapata, who, since the resignation of Díaz, had been living in retirement in the village of Ayala in Morelos, decided it was time to re-ignite the revolution. On November 25, 1911, Zapata published the Plan de Ayala as the standard of the renewed struggle. After listing Madero’s various “tyrannical” acts, the Plan demanded the president’s resignation. The Plan recognized the Chihuahuan Pascual Orozco as chief of the revolution; and if he should not “accept this delicate post,” it said that “recognition as Chief of the Revolution will go to General Don Emiliano Zapata.”

It was the Plan de Ayala’s radical provisions for land redistribution that were of chief interest to the revolutionaries. Since “the immense majority of Mexican pueblos and citizens are owners of no more than the land they walk on, suffering the horrors of poverty without being able to improve their social condition in any way,” the plan called for the redistribution of one-third of lands, timber, and water to the landless, with

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Pascual Orozco, at left

compensation to the owners. Those “landlords, cientificos, or bosses” who opposed the plan in any way would lose all their lands, which would go to pensions for widows and orphans of those who died in the revolution. “We are not personalists,” declared the Plan, “we are partisans of principles and not of men! Mexican People, support this plan with arms in hand, and you will make the prosperity and well-being of the fatherland.”

Madero could not understand the significance of Zapata and his plan. To newspapers that wondered if they should publish the plan, Madero quipped: “Yes, print it, so everybody will know how crazy Zapata is.”

Zapata was not alone in raising the standard of revolution. In Chihuahua, Pascual Orozco pronounced against Madero; but the president sent General Victoriano Huerta to deal with the rebel, and Orozco fled to the United States. Other rebels, though decidedly more conservative, also rose against Madero --- Bernardo Reyes and Felix Díaz (a kinsman of Don Porfirio.) Like Orozco’s, their uprising ended in defeat. Madero, however, did not execute Reyes and Díaz but, instead, gave them comfortable jail quarters in Mexico City.

Not only the revolutionaries were turning against Madero. Government manipulation of the election of 1912 finally turned the National Catholic Party against the president. PCN candidates had taken a large share of the vote in central and western Mexico, especially in Jalisco and Zacatecas. They won control of large cities, including Puebla and Toluca. Such success worried powerful liberals, who persuaded the Mexican government to annul the results of many of the elections where the PCN had prevailed; of the hundreds of seats

they had won, the PCN were able to maintain control of only 23. Such chicanery, of course angered party members; one of the PCN's most prominent journalists, Trinidad Sánchez Santos, even called for Madero's assassination. The bishops of Mexico, however, called for obedience to the government, and the PCN acquiesced.

Despite the discontent with him from revolutionaries and political Catholics, Madero might have weathered the swelling storm had he not earned the distrust and opposition of American capitalists and the U.S. government. The American ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, and his boss, President Taft, were highly displeased with Madero’s opposition to American capital. Ambassador Wilson (who was associated with American business interests opposed to the Madero family) told his government that Mexico was “seething with discontent” under Madero; and he advised American nationals that they were no longer safe in Mexico --- though most of the country was at peace. Wilson advised Washington to place American troops along the Mexico-U.S. border.

On February 9, 1913, troops from Tacubaya rose in rebellion against Madero. Led by Bernardo Reyes (who had been released from prison), they marched on the National Palace. Expecting no resistance, the rebels were surprised by machine gun fire spraying them from the palace. It was

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Henry Lane Wilson

Felipe Angeles

Sunday and hundreds of churchgoers were on their way to Mass. Gunfire cut dow 200 civilians, caught between the rebels and the palace. Reyes, too, was killed.

Since he had sent his most trusted general, Felipe Angeles, south to fight Zapata, President Madero was forced to rely again on the services of General Huerta, a man whom he had publicly humiliated. (Madero had dismissed Huerta, a notorious drunkard, after he refused to account for the one million pesos he was given to fight Orozco.) For nine days, February 9-18, Huerta, from the palace, and General Félix Díaz, from the citadel, lobbed shells at each other across Mexico City’s main business district. Few of the shells hit their intended targets but killed or maimed many civilians. When General Felipe Angeles, arriving from Morelos, proceeded to attack Félix Díaz from the west, Ambassador Wilson intervened; Angeles’ guns, he said, were too close to the American embassy. Angeles moved his forces north of Díaz’s position, only to discover that someone had removed the focus lenses of his guns.

On February 18, 1913, while Huerta was away from the palace, at lunch with Gustavo Madero, the palace guard arrested the president and his cabinet. When news reached Huerta that the coup d’etat had succeeded, he arrested Gustavo Madero, turning him over to Díaz, who had him tortured to death. The same day, Huerta, Felix Díaz, and Ambassador Wilson signed the “Compact of the Citadel” at the U.S. embassy. Huerta was provisional president, while Díaz was to succeed him in the next election. “A wicked despotism has fallen!” Wilson exulted to the U.S. state department.

But what to do with Francisco Madero? Huerta had promised to send Madero into exile but kept him confined in the palace. Though Wilson had protested that he as ambassador could not interfere in Mexico’s internal affairs, he counseled Huerta to do whatever he thought necessary for the good of the country. On February 22, Madero and Vice President Pino Suárez, enroute from the presidential palace to the prison, were forced out of the carriage which conveyed them. The official story was that they were shot while attempting to escape.

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Victoriano Huerta, left, with Félix Díaz