p , e And leGIslAtIon: m n A CAmpAIGn p oF stAte-buIldInG, 1934-1940 · 152 Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 23, No 2 (Spring 2009) issued prohibitive legislation for the

Pierce, Mexico’s National Anti-Alcohol Campaign and State-Building 151

pArAdes, epIstles And prohIbItIve leGIslAtIon: mexICo’s nAtIonAl AntI-AlCohol CAmpAIGn And the proCess

oF stAte-buIldInG, 1934-19401

GretChen pIerCe

Gretchen Pierce is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Shippens-burg University, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania

SHAD (Spring 2009): 151-80

Abstract. The State-building process during the Mexican Revolution in many ways determined the course of the anti-alcohol campaign. President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-40) desired to lead an ideologically active State: he believed it was the executive branch’s right and responsibility to engage the country in socio-economic reform. Like previous presidents, he car-ried out the anti-alcohol campaign, hoping that sober citizens would help to create a “modern” society, a powerful government, and an enhanced economy. Due to the State’s increased administrative strength under Cárdenas, he could use a variety of tools to carry out these reforms, in-cluding the temperance movement. He wrote epistles to an unprecedented extent, demanding that politicians obey state and municipal alcohol laws, and passed prohibitive legislation nationally that restricted the sale of in-toxicating beverages. His government still retained some weaknesses, so Cárdenas, like his predecessors, relied heavily on cultural weapons, such as parades, to convince people of the dangers of alcoholism. This propa-ganda could reach illiterate citizens, but also had the benefit of being inex-pensive and being organized by loyal bureaucrats, rather than potentially corrupt governors or mayors.

In July 1937, indigenous men from Sonora, Mexico petitioned President Lázaro Cárdenas, soliciting the closure of a cantina on their ejido, a parcel of land granted to them during the Revolution. The bar’s existence was in direct violation of the Constitution of 1917, which stated that cantinas and casinos could not be located in workplaces with over two hundred inhabitants.2 Un-like many of his predecessors, this executive responded to the request in a quick and direct manner. Within days, the president’s personal assistant, Igna-cio García Téllez, wrote to Governor Román Yocupicio’s secretary and asked that the bar be closed. Two months later, the ejiditarios (owners of the ejido) complained again about this cantina, and the president’s office sent another request to the governor to shut it down. When that did not work, Cárdenas wrote the governor himself, demanding that the issue be resolved quickly.3 Perhaps tired of writing these epistles so frequently, in June 1939, Cárdenas

Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 23, No 2 (Spring 2009)152

issued prohibitive legislation for the entire nation. He required that governors oversee the closing of all alcohol dispensaries in their states in ejidos, mining towns, petroleum regions, and all other workplaces.4 Additionally, throughout his presidency, Cárdenas authorized several anti-alcohol parades, replete with marching students carrying signs and singing temperance hymns.

These examples demonstrate the intimate connection between the anti-al-cohol campaign and the State-building process during the Mexican Revolu-tion.5 In fact, the nature of their governments influenced the tools that presi-dents used in the hopes of achieving a sober nation. For example, President Cárdenas (1934-40) was a proponent of an ideologically active State – he fully endorsed his heading of the national government to direct socio-economic change, including ridding the country of the perceived problem of alcohol abuse. Thanks to the growing administrative strength of his regime, he was able to fight vice in a variety of ways. These included prohibitive legislation that demonstrated the president’s increased desire to exert his authority over the populace and state governments, and epistles, which demanded that gov-ernors, mayors and policemen adhere to the law. Cárdenas’s administration had not achieved absolute power, so he also relied on cultural methods such as parades, which reached a large, diverse audience and were relatively inex-pensive. In other words, the State-building process in many ways determined the course of the anti-alcohol campaign.

the AntI-AlCohol CAmpAIGn And stAte-buIldInG In mexICo

The Mexican Revolution was launched on November 20, 1910 to overthrow the thirty-five year dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz that had centered on foreign investment and economic development at the expense of the majority of the country. As individuals from diverse social and geographical backgrounds flocked to join the rebellion, it quickly grew into a social revolution whose ad-herents called not only for “Effective Suffrage and No Re-election,” but also for “Land and Liberty.”6 For the next thirty years, revolutionary presidents, beginning with Francisco Madero and culminating with Lázaro Cárdenas, sought to redistribute land more equitably, expand education, and strengthen the economy.

To advance these projects, leaders needed to create “modern” citizens. In-tellectuals such as Moisés Sáenz, José Manuel Puig Casauranc, and Dr. Ber-nardo Gastélum, who were employed in various governmental departments, defined these New Men and Women as sober, healthy, and rational individu-als. These experts, along with other political officials, worried that alcohol consumption challenged their goals. They claimed that alcoholic intoxication caused a variety of problems for the individual, the family, and the nation. The immediate effects of inebriation included domestic violence, crime, and the multiplication of poverty as savings purportedly were spent at the local bar. Additionally, they argued that drunken individuals performed poorly at work and could not be trusted to participate in politics. These experts often


linked alcohol abuse with Catholicism as well. Rabidly anti-clerical, they ac-cused priests of encouraging drunkenness by facilitating numerous religious festivals, which often just became excuses to imbibe.7 Finally, experts be-lieved that chronic inebriation would make the drinker more susceptible to tu-berculosis and mental and venereal diseases, afflictions which could be spread to spouses and children. Within a few generations, they feared the results would be disastrous, leading to the deterioration of the entire race. Certainly, drunkards could not be categorized as New Men and Women.

Education and public health bureaucrats worked with politicians in launch-ing myriad social reform programs, including the anti-alcohol campaign (which tended to focus on moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages), to mold the hearts and minds of citizens during the Revolution. Their projects focused on men, urban laborers, peasants and indigenous people, groups con-sidered to be particularly prone to alcohol abuse and other activities labeled as vices, such as gambling, drug use, and prostitution. Children also were targeted so that they would learn healthy habits from a young age. Political leaders and other reformers hoped that these measures would create “modern” citizens, and in turn, a stronger government and a more efficient economy.8

To add to experts’ worries, scientific studies found excessive alcohol con-sumption to be a particularly acute problem. The journal Estadística Nacional reported that in 1923, 70 percent of men and 80 percent of women between the ages of fifteen and eighty drank alcohol.9 These people drank, experts argued, because cantinas abounded. Several reformers claimed that the country had more bars than it had schools, hospitals, or libraries.10 Many bureaucrats, including Luis G. Franco, director of the national anti-alcohol campaign be-tween 1932 and 1940, noted that their compatriots spent more on inebriants than they did on grain or milk.11 These figures became even more alarming to them when compared with those of other countries. Studies suggested that Mexicans drank more than Germans, Dutch, French, and other peoples.12

It is difficult to assess whether alcohol abuse was a real or only a perceived problem. A reliable set of statistics that indicated that Mexicans actually con-sumed more alcohol than people of other nationalities did has not been found. In fact, the journalist Adolfo Camacho in 1936 employed scientific data to show that Mexicans drank less than people from other countries.13 In addi-tion, cultural biases likely colored many of these evaluations. As scholars have shown, the definition of alcoholism is a relative one, varying according to nationality, ethnicity, class, and other factors. During the Revolution, up-per-middle and middle-class mestizos, or people of mixed European and in-digenous ancestry, believed that intoxicating beverages ought to be consumed in moderation, so that one never reached the point of public drunkenness. If one did not follow these guidelines, his or her behavior could be labeled as vice or seen as indicative of alcoholism, terms reformers used frequently. Some indigenous groups, on the other hand, valued alcohol for its transcen-dental qualities. They drank precisely to become inebriated and have a reli-


gious experience. Some impoverished peoples consumed intoxicants for their medicinal properties or to replace potable water and sufficient food. They did not see their drinking as problematic or an illness.14 Although it is difficult to ascertain whether or not alcohol abuse was truly a problem, the available statistics, scientifically reliable or not, make useful historical sources because they indicate the mindset of reformers. Political leaders, experts, and tem-perance advocates believed that alcoholism plagued the nation and thus they worked diligently to cure it. As such, this article will not question whether an abnormal number of people abused intoxicating beverages, nor whether this behavior ought to be considered a vice or symptomatic of a disease. Rather, it will take reformers’ belief that a problem existed as its starting point.

Concern with alcohol abuse did not begin in 1910. Since the formation of the colony of New Spain in 1521, social elites and political and religious leaders lamented the lower classes’ and indigenous peoples’ supposedly ex-cessive consumption of intoxicating beverages. Spaniards worried that since these drinks were no longer regulated by the indigenous nobility, and had lost their religious and social significance, poor indios drank with abandon, leading to violent crime and rebellion. Throughout the colonial period, and especially the late eighteenth century, priests tried to link drunkenness with sin, while municipal authorities, viceroys, and administrators of the royal to-bacco manufactory taxed beverages, placed limits on where and when they could be consumed, and restricted tobacco workers from drinking on the job. These measures were largely unsuccessful because native peoples lacked a complete understanding of the concepts of afterlife and sin, officials were not willing to pass stricter legislation restricting alcohol consumption and lose tax revenue, and ordinary people resisted the laws in a variety of ways.15 Concern for chronic intoxication continued during the age of Independence rebellions (early 1800s), as authorities worried that drunkenness would encourage more violence. Throughout the nineteenth century, political leaders, intellectuals, and the wealthy decried alcohol abuse (which they still associated with the lower classes), arguing that it held back the nation’s attainment of economic and social progress. Municipal and national governments thus regulated the hours and locations of alcoholic dispensaries and required that beverages maintain a standard of salubriousness. Regular citizens as well as elite own-ers of bars broke the law frequently, challenging again the success of this project.16 In other words, the revolutionary anti-alcohol campaign, although more extensive than those carried out previously, was certainly not new.

Nor were Mexicans during the Revolution alone in their desire to rid their nation of alcohol. Not surprisingly, they were influenced by their neighbors to the north, where a strong temperance movement had existed since the be-ginning of the nineteenth century, and where a national prohibition of alcohol was achieved from 1919 to 1933. Some reformers admired their American counterparts’ success in combating vice and others hoped to mobilize groups of women, much like the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.17 It would


be a mistake, however, to claim that Mexicans were merely parroting U.S. reforms, especially given their colonial and nineteenth-century ancestors’ concern with the same issues. Mexico never had a national prohibition, and indeed, many experts did not desire one, claiming that it would infringe on individual rights, threaten the economy, and be too difficult to enforce. By the 1920s, these observers could also point to the failures of the U.S. Volstead Act (as well as a few of their own country’s state-level experiments with pro-hibition).18 The revolutionary anti-alcohol campaign ought to be seen instead as an answer to national problems and as shaped by the form of domestic governments. Additionally, this crusade to eradicate the vice of drinking fit into a larger global trend, for temperance movements sprung up in dozens of countries during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.19 Bureaucrats maintained ties with temperance leagues around the world and participated in a number of international anti-alcohol congresses, including ones in Switzer-land in 1935 and Poland in 1937. These reformers also attempted to promote a pan-American effort to eradicate alcoholism, and they hoped to position their country, not the United States, as the movement’s leader.20

National leaders agreed that alcoholism was a problem, but they differed in the ways they dealt with it, according to the type of State they headed. States can be differentiated by several factors, the first of these being whether the president wanted to lead a passive or an active government. In Mexico, heads of ideologically passive States relied on the nineteenth-century, Liberal, lais-sez-faire model of government. For the most part, they did not believe it was the president’s right or responsibility to engage in the socio-economic recon-struction of society. They were also typically federalists: they thought that if it was necessary to reform society, it ought to be left up to national legislators or state and municipal governments. On the other hand, leaders of ideologically active States strove to employ the national government, led by the executive branch, in social reform. As centralists, they usually also demanded that local authorities comply with their directives. Of course, presidents’ beliefs about the role of the executive office might change based on their audience, the issue at stake, or as they and the nation evolved. Furthermore, it is important to note that “passive” and “active” merely refer to a president’s desire to lead a certain kind of government, not his ability to do so. Nor do these terms correlate to “conservative” or “progressive,” labels which can rarely be applied so neatly to revolutionaries. In other words, both a “conservative” and a “progressive” official might preside over an active State, they would just disagree over how to reconstruct the nation.21

Presidents Madero (1911-13) and Venustiano Carranza (1914-20) most of-ten led passive regimes. Termed a “reluctant revolutionary” by historian James Wilkie, Madero began the Revolution mainly for political reasons: to topple President Díaz and to plant the seeds of democracy.22 He further believed that it was not the national government’s duty to foment socio-economic change, arguing that the dispossessed should petition their local leaders for restitution


instead. Carranza continued this hands-off approach by proposing that the country’s new constitution maintain a Liberal, laissez-faire State. When the actual document called for a much more active role for the government, he refused to ratify it. His budget further reflected his desire to lead a passive State: he allocated 82.7 percent of federal funds to administrative expenses like military costs or bureaucratic salaries, while he only planned to spend the remaining 17.3 percent on social or economic expenditures such as educa-tion, irrigation, or public health projects. Granted, the two leaders occasion-ally flirted with activism: Madero created a labor department, while Carranza began land redistribution and worked to limit the power of the Church. In general, however, they most frequently called for a passive State.23

Presidents Álvaro Obregón (1920-24), Plutarco Elías Calles (1924-28), Emilio Portes Gil (1928-30), Pascual Ortiz Rubio (1930-32), Abelardo Ro-dríguez (1932-34), and Cárdenas headed active governments. These lead-ers believed that federal politicians, especially the president, ought to initiate socio-economic reform. Ortiz Rubio and his mentor Calles agreed that “to construct is the magic word of our epoch.”24 From 1920 on, presidents did indeed work to construct a new nation: they created a Department of Public Education that transferred the control of instruction from the municipal to the federal level and worked to forge a unified, national culture, began linking the country together with a network of roads, enacted the Federal Labor Law that established maximum work hours, safety regulations, and superceded state labor codes, and launched anti-clerical programs that attempted to weaken the institutional power and moral authority of the Church. Cárdenas went the farthest in using the State to make change. He dedicated a significantly higher percentage of the federal budget to social and economic concerns than his predecessors had. This money went to fund an unprecedented level of land distribution as well as the nationalization of large swaths of commercial agricultural property, railroads, and the entire petroleum industry.25

Another way to differentiate States is by national officials’ ability to achieve their goals. This administrative strength revolves around two factors, auton-omy and institutionalization. Autonomy can be defined as the government’s capacity to carry out policies that threaten the interests of the dominant class and foreign countries without fear of reprisal.26 To do this, the executive must have enough resources that he does not have to rely on the support of domestic or foreign capitalists, who must be sufficiently weakened so that even if they wanted to react to a perceived threat, they could not. Presidents must prevent the military and other politicians from sidelining governmental projects, as well. The active support of non-dominant classes often aids in this process.27 Institutionalization, on the other hand, is the transformation of political bod-ies from personalistic regimes to governments based on neutral institutions.28 Only when both autonomy and institutionalization have been achieved can the State be considered administratively strong.

Based on these qualifications, no Mexican revolutionary government earned


such a designation. Leaders worked to achieve autonomy and institutionaliza-tion by reducing the size of the military and professionalizing it, limiting the power of the Church, and enacting the Constitution of 1917 that ended martial law, established three distinct branches of government, and created a bureau-cracy. The success of these projects was challenged by a variety of problems, including political assassinations and rebellions, economic, diplomatic, and military interference by foreign countries, and the machinations of Calles, who acted as a puppet master after he left office, essentially selecting four presidents personally, dictating policy, and holding a number of important po-litical positions himself. Presidents Rodríguez and Cárdenas led governments that came the closest to gaining administrative strength. Although the Great Depression strained the country’s economy beginning in 1930, it also weak-ened the power of foreign nations to manipulate Mexican politics. Cárdenas achieved one of the most significant steps toward autonomy in exiling the increasingly reactionary Calles, which allowed the president to carry out his notable social reforms. But Cárdenas continued to face challenges from a growing number of conservative politicians and businessmen, and with a gov-ernmental bankruptcy looming in 1938, he was forced to move his administra-tion back to the right and abandon his earlier, more radical stance.29

Presidents who took an ideologically passive outlook and led an adminis-tratively weak State – Madero and Carranza– controlled the Mexican govern-ment between 1910 and 1920. These Liberal, laissez-faire leaders shared a desire to have a sober nation, but they believed that vices could only be over-come when people chose not to be controlled by them. For instance, Presi-dent Madero claimed in 1911 that the executive branch could not improve the country’s social structure quickly, since, according to him, that could not be legislated. Rather, he advised, “you will find your happiness in yourselves, in the domination of your passions and the repression of your vices.”30 As this quote demonstrates, these early presidents felt that they did not have any business legislating morality. After 1917, the constitution actually prevented it, relegating the decision on whether the sale and consumption of intoxicat-ing beverages ought to be restricted to state governments. It also granted the federal legislature the power to pass laws on public health and to oversee an anti-alcohol campaign along with the Department of Public Health.31 There-fore, these leaders’ solution to the problem of chronic inebriation was indirect: they encouraged governors and mayors to adopt anti-vice regulations or ap-pointed experts to the Departments of Public Health and Education to teach people of all ages about the dangers of alcohol abuse. For instance, Sonoran Governor Plutarco Elías Calles (the same man who was later president) and Governor Salvador Alvarado of Yucatán carried out full and partial prohibi-tions in their states, respectively.32 These strategies had the added benefit of being relatively inexpensive for fledgling, weak States with severe budgetary restrictions.

Obregón, Calles, Portes Gil, and Ortiz Rubio wanted to lead an ideologi-


cally active government between the years 1920 and 1932, but they were still fairly limited by its administratively weak nature. These officials believed that the president ought to take a stronger role in heading a vigorous anti-alco-hol campaign, and they began to do so. The most significant achievement was the creation in 1929 of the Comité Nacional de Lucha Contra el Alcoholismo [National Committee for the Struggle Against Alcoholism] (CNLCA). This organization, which consisted of representatives from various governmental departments, workers and peasant leagues, and private groups with an inter-est in temperance, consolidated the various campaigns which had previously been waged by separate governmental bodies.33 Because of a lack of admin-istrative strength, though, nationally-directed reform was not always possible, and the CNLCA suffered frequent budget cuts, departmental transfers, and name changes.34 Therefore, leaders continued to fight alcohol consumption indirectly. In 1925, Calles raised taxes on beer and liquors in the hopes that the cost would be prohibitive. Similarly, in 1927 and 1928, the Department of Public Health mandated that pulque, a fermented beverage made from the agave plant, be sold only in closed, clean containers and that the drink arrive at dispensaries refrigerated. The idea was that if people had to consume alco-hol, it ought to be at least sanitary. Officials from a multitude of departments also launched extensive cultural campaigns that blanketed the nation with fly-ers, radio programs, and parades. They began a temperance program in all of the nation’s schools, but especially those at the primary level.35 The use of cultural methods made sense because in addition to the constitutional restric-tions they faced, these administratively weak States had strapped budgets and lacked true autonomy. Propaganda cost relatively little and was an effective tool to reach the illiterate and non-Spanish speakers. The president also could leave the planning of festivals to bureaucrats, which was essential as he was still busy with more directly threatening issues such as political and religious rebellions. Because he appointed these administrators, and they were usually individuals loyal to him, he could count on them to carry out his cultural poli-cies, unlike governors and mayors who were frequently corrupt, apathetic, or openly hostile, and might not enforce anti-alcohol legislation.

Two presidents, Rodríguez and Cárdenas, led ideologically active and ad-ministratively stronger governments from 1932 to 1940. These men wanted to tackle alcohol abuse using the power of the executive branch, and as the State had grown in administrative strength, they could wage this war on a variety of fronts. The presidents, and the bureaucrats they appointed, for the first time began investigating violations of national, state and municipal al-cohol legislation and strongly encouraged other authorities to enforce these laws. They also created corps of inspectors to ensure that health codes that regulated the hours and locations of cantinas, as well as the content of the beverages sold in these establishments, were being followed. Finally, they even began to decree new measures that restricted alcohol from workplaces and indigenous regions. Because Rodríguez and Cárdenas still faced certain


limitations to their authority, and because much of the population remained illiterate, reformers continued to rely heavily on cultural tools such as visual and written propaganda as well as educational programs to deliver the mes-sage of sobriety.

“FInAlly on Its Feet”: the AntI-AlCohol CAmpAIGn under lázAro CárdenAs, 1934-40Lázaro Cárdenas already had a reputation as a temperance advocate when he became president in 1934. As the governor of Michoacán from 1928 to 1932, he had encouraged teachers to combat vice by promoting sports. In these four years, state legislators had adopted Cárdenas’s reformist zeal and began plac-ing more restrictions on the sale of pulque.36 Furthermore, when Cárdenas started campaigning for the presidency in 1933 and 1934, he claimed that extirpating alcoholism was one of his foremost goals, saying that if he were elected president, he would prohibit the sale and production of intoxicants in the entire Republic.37 Throughout his presidency, many observers believed – some hoped, some feared – that Cárdenas would indeed outlaw all types of alcoholic beverages.38 Although such a law was never passed, unlike previous governments, the Cárdenas administration fought alcohol abuse in a multitude of other manners. It did so in part because by the mid-1930s, the State had grown administratively stronger.

In spite of Cárdenas’s interest in the temperance movement, the State re-tained some weaknesses, and thus the central organizing committee of the anti-alcohol campaign faced instability, as it had since its inception. On Janu-ary 1, 1935, the CNLCA was renamed (for the fourth time) to the Dirección Antialcohólica [Anti-Alcohol Bureau] (DAA), and moved back to the Depart-ment of Public Health.39 Although the DAA saw its strongest years of activity in late 1935 and 1936, the committee’s activities drastically declined in 1937 and 1938.40 Economic problems and social tensions in the late 1930s caused Cárdenas to abandon several of his projects, including land redistribution and the construction of public works, and they probably affected this program, as well.41 The DAA’s funds were so low, members claimed that they often had to turn down requests to print propaganda for state temperance leagues, and the group had to have one of its debts with the national graphics workshop pardoned by the president.42

In part because of some of these problems, the DAA, as in years past, relied primarily on educational strategies.43 The group tirelessly organized confer-ences, hosted cultural events, and gave speeches to prisoners, workers, peas-ants, soldiers, students, postal employees, political leaders, and scientific and cultural societies, as well as the general public. Many of these events were broadcast on the radio. In fact, one representative claimed that the DAA put on festivals twice a month and did other cultural programs every week.44 The DAA, along with several other affiliated departments, also continued to send out printed propaganda to be distributed to schools, local temperance commit-


tees, and worker and peasant groups, while slogans promoting sobriety were published in a variety of national newspapers and magazines.45 Addition-ally, the Department of Public Health released the anti-alcohol films Abismo [Abyss] and Dragón Hambriento [Starving Dragon] and began showing them in towns around the country.46 The DAA even organized Anti-Alcohol Days on April 9, 1936, 1937, and 1940, as well as Hygiene Weeks in October 1937 and August 1938, with parades, lectures, music, and the dramatic and public pouring out of adulterated alcohol. All homes and businesses in support of the campaign were asked to fly white flags and no intoxicating beverages could be sold on these days.47

During the Cárdenas presidency, the DAA hosted three particularly large cultural events: two temperance conferences for children and one for adults. The First Children’s Anti-alcohol Assembly took place from September 28 to October 3, 1936 in Mexico City. Students between the ages of eight and fif-teen from across the country were invited in advance to submit essays, stories, poetry, drawings, and oaths on the subject of sobriety. At the opening cer-emony, thousands of sign-carrying children from the capital attended. They were treated to a variety of musical performances, and after attending a series of panels, some of them with student presenters, the children created a list of proposals that they submitted to the DAA.48 The second of the children’s assemblies took place on October 21 to 26, 1940 in the capital. This event was even bigger than its predecessor had been, for it was seen as a way for Cárdenas to emphasize the successes of his administration, which would end that November. For two months, a variety of means, including posters, radio speeches, and parades, advertised the conference.49 At the assembly, student leaders of school temperance leagues, ten to sixteen years in age, were joined by officials or businessmen from at least fourteen nations. On the first day of the event, the delegates learned that they would be able to sign a White Book where they pledged to remain sober. They requested that President Cárdenas’s six-year old son, Cuauhtémoc, be the first to sign the book.50

The First National Anti-alcohol Conference was held from October 24 to 31, 1936 in the city of Puebla, 130 kilometers to the southeast of Mexico City. The magnitude of this assembly can be seen in the fact that to advertise it, two parades were planned: one of 5000 school children in front of an audience of 10,000 people and the other was to consist of 50,000 workers and peasants. At the first event, the students and the Chief of the Department of Public Health took an anti-alcohol pledge, while the second one culminated with an artistic festival and temperance-related speeches.51 In celebration of the opening of the conference, the president asked that all cantinas in the country remain closed for the day. Three hundred and fifteen adults, including experts in the field of alcoholism, representatives of private organizations that promoted so-briety, and governmental officials from across Mexico and ten other European and American nations attended the conference. They listened to a variety of lectures and at the end of the meeting, the delegates put together a list of


goals that the DAA should work toward. Indeed, in the following year, DAA committees began trying to implement the recommendations. Additionally, the DAA offered free transcripts of the conference to temperance leagues, schools, and worker and peasant organizations so that they could benefit from all of these ideas.52

The cultural work of the DAA was supplemented by, and in fact overlapped with, that of the Department of Public Education. High-level bureaucrats, as they had in years past, insisted that the anti-alcohol campaign was one of the most important components of the educational system, for if future gen-erations were to be sober, they must learn healthy habits from an early age. Therefore, they evaluated teachers and inspectors not only on how well they taught reading, writing, and math, but also on how extensively they promoted temperance.53 They mandated that lessons include scientific explanations of the dangers of alcohol consumption as well as explorations as to why drunk-ards did not make ideal citizens. This information was to be reinforced by having students recite a temperance salute every day. One such pledge had students chorus, “Never will we go to cantinas. Never will we drink aguardi-ente [a type of rum]. Aguardiente poisons. Aguardiente sickens.” Textbooks were to be plastered with an anti-alcohol decalogue as well.54 Pedagologi-cal experts claimed that the facts should be supplemented by cultural teach-ing tools in the classroom. The winners of student contests often created this material. These plays, music, art, and slogans that praised sobriety were then published in teachers’ magazines or exhibited around the country so that they could be appreciated by a wider audience.55 Experts further hoped that courses in physical education and the creation of sports teams would serve as a reminder that leisure time ought to be spent in healthy pursuits, not ca-rousing.56 The cultural education would continue outside of the schoolhouse, and into the larger community, with anti-alcohol conferences, festivals, and parades.57 Printed materials, such as flyers, posters, and magazines, as well as radio programs aimed at students and their parents, would further the message of temperance by reinforcing the notion that a modern, civilized society was a sober one.

In spite of some economic difficulties, the Cárdenas government had sig-nificantly more administrative strength than its predecessors. For this reason, bureaucrats such as those at the Department of Public Education could pair cultural instructional strategies with an emphasis on more active measures to counteract social vices. Pedagogical experts believed that only teaching children about the dangers of alcohol consumption, no matter how creatively it was done, would not be enough to counteract bad habits. Educators’ hard work could easily be undone by the multitude of negative influences that con-stantly surrounded students and their families.58 They argued that the first step to make sure that the anti-alcohol campaign had a long-term influence was for teachers to observe their community or to take a survey, noting areas of weak-ness in regard to vice. Such knowledge would help them to address better the


needs of their particular region.59 Second, they expected teachers and school inspectors to organize student, parent, and community temperance leagues that would be able to help instructors in planning festivals or distributing pro-paganda.60 These anti-alcohol committees also could aid municipal govern-ments in closing cantinas that were located too close to schools, that sold adul-terated beverages, or that operated on days and times when the law required that they be closed.61 Finally, educators were asked to set a good example by preferably abstaining completely from intoxicating beverages or at least drinking only moderately. Gains in the fight for sobriety could suffer a serious setback if students observed one of their role models under the influences of alcohol.62 Engaging in these types of actions, claimed Roberto Reyes Pérez, Chief of the Department of Worker Education in 1937, would ensure that the campaign was more than just a good idea.63 Although the Department’s more direct strategies were not entirely new in the mid- to late-1930s, they were certainly practiced more extensively than they had been previously.64

The sustained, active measures to fight vice in the Department of Public Education were mirrored in the larger temperance movement. In fact, the DAA’s director Franco claimed that in late 1936, the anti-alcohol campaign had moved out of its first phase, which had been aimed at raising people’s consciousness about chronic alcohol abuse. This stage, which began with the founding of the CNLCA in 1929, had relied on “social” or “cultural” tactics, such as sponsoring festivals or distributing propaganda. Now, in its second phase, the movement would employ more “concrete actions,” such as pros-ecuting those who violated the nation’s liquor laws and finding other jobs for cantina employees. These changes led him to conclude that the anti-alcohol campaign was finally “on its feet.”65

The DAA’s ability to take concrete actions came in part because Cárde-nas strove to lead an ideologically active regime, and in part because the in-crease in the administrative strength of the State made it possible to adopt these techniques. Unlike previous presidents, Cárdenas passed a number of measures himself that were directly aimed at combating the alcohol prob-lem and that had been unfulfilled goals of temperance reformers for years. In fact, he announced in April 1937 that the anti-alcohol campaign would continue to use cultural and economic means to combat vice, but that he was going to supplement these measures with “administrative sanctions and penal punishments.”66 Cárdenas’s first decree in this spirit had come on October 7, 1935, when he prohibited the sale of hard alcohol onboard trains and in station restaurants.67 In 1937, he restricted the sale of beverages containing more than 5 percent alcohol on the weekends and holidays. This measure tried to prevent people from spending their entire paychecks on intoxicating drinks, to make festivals and markets more orderly, and to keep children, who would be out of school on these days, from being exposed to vice. Without alcohol, it was hoped that people would read, play sports, or engage in other “honest endeavors.”68 On January 1, 1938, Cárdenas strove to regulate the


toxicity of alcohol. All beverages sold commercially had to be inspected by the Department of Public Health to ensure their salubriousness. This meant that popular alcoholic fruit punches, which the DAA identified as particularly noxious because of their high alcohol content, were banned.69 This legislation seems to have been combined with the promotion of beer, which was seen by some temperance advocates as being less harmful since it had a substantially lower percentage of alcohol and was produced in a regulated environment.70 Finally, as the example in the introduction showed, Cárdenas demanded that a long-neglected provision of the constitution, as well as the Federal Labor Law of 1931, be honored. He ordered that governors oversee the closing of all alcohol dispensaries in their states in ejidos, mining towns, the petroleum region, and all other workplaces. The president hoped that such a provision would help to increase the wealth of these regions, improve the wellbeing of the families living there, and would cause crime, gambling, and prostitution to decline.71 These measures, taken together, demonstrated a great change in strategy from the more passive techniques of earlier executives.

Cárdenas did not just pass laws to combat alcohol abuse, he also created new corps of inspectors beginning in 1935 or 1936 to ensure that they were followed. These agents came from the Department of Public Health, the mu-nicipal government of Mexico City, the army, and the Attorney General’s of-fice.72 They made sure that cantinas, restaurants and other establishments that sold alcoholic beverages had registered with the proper authorities. Later, they also ensured that only legal and non-adulterated beverages were dispensed and that they be in closed and properly-labeled containers. Clandestine locations were shut down immediately, their owners fined, and bottles were destroyed so they could not be reused. It seems that these inspectors never lacked for work: Franco noted that his men collected over 81,000 pesos in fines in one year alone, closed thousands of establishments, and found beverages so adul-terated that some even contained rats and lizards. The DAA also took credit for the significant decline in the number of locations that dispensed alcoholic beverages.73 Agents did their work in as public a manner as possible so as to send a message that the nation’s alcohol laws ought to be obeyed. They poured out unsanitary drinks in the gutter, an event that newspapers frequently reported. In fact, these theatrical spectacles seemed to have attracted a large number of observers.74 Sometimes inspectors even had ordinary men, wom-en, and schoolchildren participate in the destruction of adulterated alcohol.75 These demonstrations were certainly meant to impress upon both the partici-pants and the observers that alcoholic beverages were dangerous and that the government had the ability to monitor illegal behavior.

In addition to their cultural measures, the DAA and a variety of other con-cerned governmental departments also engaged in more active strategies to combat social vices, often with the help of Cárdenas. For instance, temper-ance advocates looked for ways to transform the alcohol industry into some-thing more beneficial to the nation without damaging the economy. Some of


the suggestions included encouraging factories to produce things such as soap, industrial alcohol, and other useful items, converting ground where maguey plants had grown into grazing land, and compensating businesses for adopt-ing such measures.76 Although these had been goals of reformers for years, in 1936 they began to be achieved. The president created a Sociedad Nacional de Productores de Alcohol [National Society of Producers of Alcohol] to help collect taxes, prevent the sale of clandestine or adulterated alcohol, and limit the production of intoxicants.77 Furthermore, a series of meetings took place in the summer of 1937 which included the DAA, the Departments of Public Health and the Treasury, some senators, and representatives of the alcoholic beverage industry.78 During these conversations, members on all sides of the debate agreed that when drinks were made, either in Mexico or abroad, they ought to be sanitary and subject to inspection. Retailers approved of Franco’s suggestion to support domestic, as opposed to foreign, alcohol, and agreed to sell drinks only in closed, labeled containers.79 It seems that their goal of drafting a law solidifying these informal agreements never materialized, and it is unclear the role that these meetings played in Cárdenas’s decision to pass his decrees that sought the purification and restriction of alcohol. Regardless, the national government’s increased capacity to elicit the cooperation of busi-ness was a milestone for the anti-alcohol campaign.

Another of these more active strategies involved the promotion and organi-zation of auxiliary anti-alcohol leagues. Although overseeing the formation of these organizations had been one of the DAA’s goals since its inception as the CNLCA in 1929, in the mid-to late-1930s, the focus on popular mobiliza-tion increased dramatically under Cárdenas. Spurred on by the president him-self, the DAA hoped to create hundreds of popular leagues, and encouraged affiliated departments to do so as well.80 Similarly, the Agrarian and Forestry and the Hunting and Fishing Departments, in addition to the Department of Public Health, asked their traveling employees to organize individuals that they came into contact with as they worked.81 Cárdenas, along with former President Portes Gil, further encouraged female governmental employees as well as members of the sub-branches of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR), the official revolutionary political party, to form anti-alcohol leagues. Several organizations of this nature did develop.82 The push for popular mo-bilization was part of a larger trend within the Cárdenas presidency and helped to create the administrative strength of the regime.83

The DAA and other groups were involved in a number of smaller projects as well. First, throughout the Cárdenas presidency, the Secretary of the Treasury, with the help of the president, raised taxes on the production, importation, transport, and sale of alcoholic beverages. It was hoped that these fees would keep the price of inebriants prohibitively high, although temperance advocates constantly requested that they be increased even further.84 Next, beginning in 1936, the PNR formally banned the introduction of intoxicating beverages at all party meetings or celebrations. Its leaders further warned that alcohol


ought not to be used in political campaigns. To reinforce this message, can-tinas were to be closed on election days, and the right to vote could be denied to anyone who was drunk.85 Expanding upon a trend begun under President Rodríguez in 1932, both Cárdenas and the DAA attempted to be involved in state and municipal politics. The group’s leaders requested copies of states’ alcohol regulations, so as to gain ideas for what might be feasible to pass at the national level, to make suggestions for tougher state legislation when they felt it was necessary, and to thank the appropriate authorities for passing laws designed to combat vice.86 The president and his temperance advocates also followed up on popular requests to close cantinas. As the example that began this article demonstrates, Cárdenas and his assistants contacted governors on behalf of letter writers who decried the spread of vice in their communities.87 Finally, the DAA also worked to ensure that public employees remain sober. The group suggested that white collar workers be fired if it was found that they had an “alcoholic habit” and that political officials be forbidden from having any contact with the alcohol industry whatsoever. They also wanted to designate government buildings as workplaces so that cantinas could not be located nearby.88 These ideas never became law, but many of the DAA’s affiliates did adopt similar measures within their proper departments. For in-stance, the Department of Public Education, as shown above, asked all teach-ers, school directors, and inspectors to abstain from alcohol. The Department of Communication and Public Works took a harsher stance – all mail carriers and telegraph operators were forbidden from drinking while working – and nine employees from the Department of Statistics were, in fact, fired for being intoxicated in 1939.89

results And the end oF the AntI-AlCohol CAmpAIGn

The revolutionary anti-alcohol campaign came to an end under Cárdenas’s successor, Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940-46). When Ávila Camacho began campaigning for president in 1940, he claimed he would support the temper-ance movement. He was a prominent participant at the Second Children’s Anti-alcohol Assembly in that same year, where Luis Franco reported that the president-elect had agreed to work with the DAA and support the campaign once he got into office.90 During his presidency, Ávila Camacho passed a few laws to this end. In 1941, he raised the taxes on the sale of alcoholic bever-ages in Mexico City to increase its budget as well as to eradicate alcoholism. In 1943 he prohibited the sale of alcohol in towns on the northern and south-ern borders of the country, and the island of Cozumel.91 However, the DAA was dissolved in these years and all complaints about the increasing number of cantinas and drunkards were directed to the Office of Labor and Social Welfare. Few of the individuals associated with this department in the 1940s had previously participated in the anti-alcohol campaign.92 Luis Franco, for instance, left the Department of Public Health in December 1940.93 The Of-fice of Labor and Social Welfare, unlike its predecessor the DAA (and its


many earlier manifestations), seems to have responded infrequently to com-plaints, which Congressman Jacinto López said showed a lack of respect for Cárdenas’s decrees.94 Nor does the office appear to have engaged in any cul-tural work.95 Even the Department of Public Education took less interest in the anti-vice movement. The new director, Raúl Reyes Cepeda, claimed that under his predecessor, the department had focused 70 percent of its energies on cultural activities (such as the temperance movement) and only 10 percent on academics. He asked that these percentages be changed to 10 percent and 60 percent, respectively.96 Indeed, the references to the anti-alcohol campaign in teachers’ and inspectors’ reports dropped precipitously, although they did not disappear altogether.97

These changes can be explained in several, interrelated ways. Ávila Cama-cho made a definitive move to the right politically and brought an end to the Revolution.98 In doing so, he abandoned many of Cárdenas’s projects, includ-ing the anti-alcohol campaign, and began new ones such as a literacy drive. He also replaced government officials, from high-level cabinet members to lower-level bureaucrats, with loyal individuals who shared his political ideol-ogy and who may not have been overly concerned with the issue of temper-ance. Indeed, in the 1940s, the anti-alcohol campaign may have seemed less relevant than it was to revolutionary presidents. Considerably weakened, the Church was no longer considered a threat to the government and anti-clerical-ism was rejected. Urbanization, industrialization, and a reorganized Depart-ment of Public Health slowly helped to improve the country’s work ethic and level of hygiene. More than a decade had passed since the last major rebel-lion against the government, and in fact, during World War II, the new enemy was external.99 Rather than being a source of concern, alcohol consumption, specifically tequila, could now be repackaged as a source of national identity that nostalgically harkened back to a simpler, albeit invented, rural life that contrasted with the spread of modernity.100

One other factor in the abandonment of this project may have been the perception that the anti-alcohol campaign had failed, in spite of Cárdenas’s in-creased interest in the movement and his ability to diversify the tactics used to fight vice. In 1939, Mónico Neck, a columnist from the official newspaper El Nacional, remarked that on any given street in the capital, one could find three cantinas, but only one school. Where two factories existed, there were also three pulquerías (dispensaries of pulque) and one wine shop selling “licores venenosos” [venomous liquors].101 Neck used these figures to urge readers to work harder in the struggle to curtail vice, but after nearly three decades of the anti-alcohol campaign and just a year before it was abandoned altogether, the data also suggest that this movement largely failed.

As with the statistics used to “prove” that alcoholism was a problem in 1910, there are few clear indicators that it remained a problem in 1940. Research-ers’ social and cultural perceptions about acceptable levels of intoxication and public behavior continued to taint their conclusions. However, there were a


few signs that the number of the country’s problem drinkers, howsoever de-fined, in fact had not declined. First, several observers continued to note the preponderance of liquor dispensaries throughout the nation. Others claimed that the amount of drunkenness had actually increased.102 Second, in the late 1930s, an increasing number of editorialists, intellectuals, and other observers labeled the anti-alcohol campaign’s techniques as ineffective or said that the movement had failed entirely.103 Third, by 1947, Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization promoting self-help to overcome alcoholism rather than govern-mental intervention, was established in Mexico.104

If the anti-alcohol campaign failed, it did so for a number of reasons. Early presidents lacked both the will and the means to combat alcohol abuse.105 Their successors, especially Cárdenas, did use the resources of the national government to fight vice, but these resources remained constrained, even in the late 1930s.106 The temperance movement was also challenged by the dis-interest, disobedience, and weakness of state and municipal authorities, as well as the active resistance of many citizens.107 This resistance may have occurred because reformers advocated change in a way that alienated those they tried to assist. Social workers’ outdated notions of ethnicity, class, and gender, and their insistence on equating intoxication with moral laxity, limited their ability to recognize the cultural and religious significance of alcohol for a number of communities as well as its more practical uses for families with-out access to potable water or a steady supply of food. Additionally, while theoretically temperance might have helped poor families save money, laws that heavily taxed or restricted the production and sale of alcohol reduced the income of small producers and store owners, actually costing these families in the long run.108

Of course, the anti-alcohol campaign did not fail in every way. In fact, when political leaders worked with local communities, or better still, when the impetus for change came from ordinary Mexicans, the movement had more success. Dozens of teachers and popular reformers reported with satisfaction that they had cantinas closed in their communities, providing at least tempo-rary relief from scandalous public behavior or familial hunger.109 Perhaps a more significant and longer-lasting result was the creation of a new identity for these unofficial temperance advocates. Many men, and especially women, without previous political experience joined anti-alcohol leagues or wrote let-ters with other members of their community simply to solve a local problem. As they began to run up against corruption and bureaucratic inefficiencies, though, many began to see their fight as part of a larger political struggle. Some of these new activists then joined anti-clerical, agrarian reform, and female suffrage movements, as well.110 Whether ordinary people became im-mersed in further political struggles or “simply” advocated temperance, they participated in the State-building process. They demanded that their officials live up to their anti-vice rhetoric, obey the constitution, and uphold the ideals of the Revolution and in doing so, they helped to shape the eventual form of


the nation.

As this article has argued, the way the national anti-alcohol campaign was conducted mirrored the overall nature of the government as officials engaged in State-building during the Mexican Revolution. The regime of Lázaro Cárdenas can be categorized as ideologically active and administratively stronger than its predecessors. He used the increased power of the presidency to conduct the temperance movement by passing decrees mandating sobriety in certain places and at certain times, demanding that these laws be followed in every state, and using appointed agents to monitor business owners’ as well as officials’ adherence to these policies. Cárdenas did come closer than any of his predecessors to achieving administrative strength, but he was never completely free of the intrigues of industry and the growing political Right, nor was his government ever fully economically solvent. Thus, this president and the men he selected to head the anti-alcohol campaign continued to find cultural techniques ideal in educating vast numbers of people, especially the illiterate and non-Spanish speakers, in the dangers of chronic alcohol abuse. In 1940, a new regime dismantled the anti-alcohol campaign, because many of the factors that made it seem necessary to the State-building revolutionaries no longer existed.

Shippensburg [email protected].

endnotesThis article has been drawn from Gretchen Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution: Mexico’s

Anti-Alcohol Campaigns and the Process of State-Building, 1910-1940,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 2008). For brevity’s sake, the endnotes have also been shortened. For full references, see the same source.

Seudónimo Rocamadour, “El discurso sobre el alcoholismo en el Congreso Constituyente de 1916-1917,” paper presented at Génesis, actualidad y perspectives de la Constitución Políti-ca de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Mexico City, June 1992; Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, Biblioteca de la Revolución Mexicana, 3, 112; Constitu-tion of the United States of Mexico, Signed January 31, 1917 and Promulgated February 5, 1917 (Washington, DC: Columbian Printing Company, 1926), 11-12, 17, 28.

Adolfo Zamora and Mariano A. Velarde to Lázaro Cárdenas, July 14, 1937, Archivo Gen-eral de la Nación, Fondo Administración Pública Lázaro Cárdenas del Rio, (AGN-FAP-LC), Expediente (Exp.) 553.1/15; Carlos B. Maldonado to Secretary of Government, July 31, 1937, Archivo General de la Nación, Dirección General de Gobierno (AGN-DGG), Series 2.015.4(22)-26813, Caja 9, Exp. 7; Zamora and Velarde to Cárdenas, September 25, 1937, AGN-DGG, Series 2.015.4(22)-26813, Caja 9, Exp. 7; Román Yocupicio to Ignacio García Téllez, September 30, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553.1/15; Cárdenas to Yocupicio, December 13, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553.1/15.

Cárdenas to Yocupicio, June 16, 1939, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/34; Cárdenas, June 23, 1939, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 533.11/1; “Opinión editorial,” El Nacional (Mexico City), (EN), June 24, 1939; “Los últimos 67 días de jira presidencial,” EN, August 6, 1939, sec. 1, p. 1; “Acción contra los centros de vicio en núcleos de labor,” EN, August 28, 1939, sec. 1, p. 1.

This work considers the State, with a capital “S,” to be a sovereign body consisting of the national government (executive, legislative, and judicial branches), the ideological and repressive

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apparatuses it employs to stay in power (schools, the media, police, and the military), and the bu-reaucracies that carry out governmental projects. On the other hand, this article refers to a smaller political territory within a nation, such as Sonora, as a “state” with a lower-case “s.” Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation, trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), 2; Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1969), 49-53; Nora Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 6-7; David Miller, Janet Coleman, William Connolly, and Alan Ryan, ed., The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1987), s.v. “state;” Philip Abrams, “Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State (1977),” Journal of Histori-cal Sociology 1, no. 1 (1988): 71, 75; The New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language. Deluxe Edition (New York: Lexicon Publications, 1989), s.v. “government;” The New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “state.”

John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969; New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 55, 398, 401.

Alan Knight, “Revolutionary Project, Recalcitrant People: Mexico, 1910-1940,” in The Revolutionary Process in Mexico: Essays on Political and Social Change, 1880-1940, ed. Jaime E. Rodríguez O. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 230, 243-45; Alan Knight, “Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910-1940,” Hispanic American His-torical Review 74 (1994): 394-96; Mary Kay Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teach-ers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930-1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997); Adrian Bantjes, As if Jesus Walked on Earth: Cardenismo, Sonora, and the Mexican Revolution, (Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1998), 7-10; Guillermo Palacios, La pluma y el arado: Los intelec-tuales pedagogos y la construcción sociocultural del “problema campesino” en México, 1932-1934 (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1999); Katherine Elaine Bliss, Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health, and Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico City (University Park: Penn State Press, 2001); Beatriz Urías Horcasitas, “Eugenesia e ideas sobre las razas en México, 1930-1950,” Historia y grafía 17 (2001): 182-83; Alexander S. Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004); Jocelyn Olcott, Revolution-ary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 9; Mary Kay Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis, “Introduction,” in The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cul-tural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940, ed. Mary Kay Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).

For more on the use of the anti-alcohol campaign to create New Men and Women out of pri-marily the working-class and the indigenous, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Chapter 3.

“N.t.,” Estadística Nacional (Mexico City) (ESN), (February 15, 1925), Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Archivos Economicos (BMLT-AE), Ø03314, Alcoholismo, México.

“En México hay una cantina por cada cuarenta hombres,” El Observador (Hermosillo) (EO), June 23, 1923, 11; “N.t.,” ESN, (February 15, 1925); Luis G. Franco, Los hijos de la intem-perancía alcohólica y el presidio (Monterrey, Mexico: Talleres Linotipográficos del Gobierno del Estado de Nuevo León, 1932), 13-14, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Salubridad y Asis-tencia, Fondo Salubridad Pública I, Sección Servicio Jurídico (AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ), Caja 41, Exp. 6; “El alcoholismo, azote social,” El Maestro Rural, (EMR) 5, no. 5 (September 1, 1934), 18; “Justificación de la guerra contra el alcoholismo,” EN, September 24, 1935; José A. Granados, “Boceto de cooperación antialcohólica,” May 1, 1936, 12, 16, 18, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “La lucha en contra del alcoholismo,” El Universal (Mexico City) (EU), October 17, 1936.

Franco, “La elevación del obrero venciendo los obstaculos del alcoholismo: Homenaje a las masas obreras mexicanas,” November 28, 1930, 5-7, BMLT-AE, Ø03314; “Acta de la sesión celebrada por el Consejo Consultivo de la ciudad de México, el jueves 7 de septiembre de 1933,” Actas y versiones del consejo consultivo del 11. de agosto al 13 de enero de 1934 (Mexico City: n.p., n.d.), 5-1, Biblioteca del Archivo Histórico del Distrito Federal, (BAHDF); “Distribución de alimentos,” EN, February 8, 1936.

Congreso Constituyente 1916-1917: Diario de debates, vol. 2 (Mexico City: Instituto Na-cional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1985), 619-22; “N.t.,” ESN (February 15, 1925); “El alcoholismo en México según la estadística,” EU, April 22, 1929, 1; Octavio Hernández R., “La campaña antialcohólica,” Crisol: Revista de Crítica (Mexico City), (October

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15, 1930), 304-05, BMLT-AE, Ø03314; “El alcoholismo, azote social,” EMR 5, no. 5 (September 1, 1934), 18.

Adolfo Camacho, “El pueblo mexicano y el alcoholismo,” EU, May 21, 1936; Camacho, “México y el alcoholismo,” EN, March 8, 1937.

“Una nueva actitud obrerista,” La Prensa (San Antonio, Texas), November 23, 1931, BMLT-AE, Ø02079, Cerveza, México; Manuel Velázquez Andrade, “La voz del maestro,” EMR 5, no. 9 (November 1, 1934), 11; minutes, Dirección Antialcohólica (DAA), June 24, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 42, Exp. 1; Jesús Díaz Barriga, “Ponencias del Congreso Nacional An-tialcohólico,” EN, November 11 and 12, 1936; “Medidas profilacticas contra el alcoholismo,” May 8, 1939, Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Archivo Particular, Emilio Portes Gil, (AGN-FArP-EPG), Caja 194, Exp. 1-F-39; Bantjes, As if Jesus Walked on Earth, 216-17, 224-25; Tim Mitchell, Intoxicated Identities: Alcohol’s Power in Mexican History and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2004), 4, 13; Stephen E. Lewis, The Ambivalent Revolution: Forging State and Nation in Chiapas, 1910-1945 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 106.

William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stan-ford: Stanford University Press, 1979); Michael C. Scardaville, “Alcohol Abuse and Tavern Re-form in Late Colonial Mexico City,” Hispanic American Historical Review 60 (1980): 643-71; Pamela Voekel, “Peeing on the Palace: Bodily Resistance to Bourbon Reforms in Mexico City,” Journal of Historical Sociology 5 (1992): 183-208; Susan Deans-Smith, “The Working Poor and the Eighteenth-Century Colonial State: Gender, Public Order, and Work Discipline,” in Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico, ed. William H. Beezley, Cheryl English Martin, and William E. French (Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1994), 47-75; Steve J. Stern, The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colo-nial Mexico (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Sonia Corcuera, “Pulque y evangelización. El caso de Fray Manuel Pérez (1713),” in Consecuencias del encuentro de dos mundos, ed. Janet Long (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996), 411-20; Juan Pablo Viqueira Albán, Propriety and Permissiveness in Bourbon Mexico (Wilmington, Del: SR Books, 1999).

Virginia Guedea, “México en 1812: Control político y bebidas prohibidas,” Estudios de historia moderna y contemporánea de México 8 (1980), 23-65; Anne Staples, “Policía y Buen Gobierno: Municipal Efforts to Regulate Public Behavior, 1821-1857,” in Rituals of Rule, Ritu-als of Resistance: 115-26; Pablo Piccato, “‘El Paso de Venus por el disco del Sol’: Criminality and Alcoholism in the Late Porfiriato,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 11 (1995): 203-41; Áurea Toxqui, “Identity and Power in Pulquerías in Mexico City during the Liberal Republic, 1857-1910,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 2008).

“¡Se acabo el whiskey!” Orientación (Hermosillo) (O), September 13, 1917; George T. Summerlin to U.S. Secretary of State, August 26, 1922, Records of the Department of State Relat-ing to the Internal Affairs of Mexico, 1910-1929 (RDS), 812.114 Liquors/36; Franco, “La lucha de la mujer contra el vicio del alcohol,” April 25, 1930, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 18, Exp. 10; Carlos Macías Richard, Vida y temperamento: Plutarco Elías Calles, 1877-1920 (Mexico City: Instituto Sonorense de Cultura, Gobierno del Estado de Sonora, Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco Elías Calles y Fernando Torreblanca, Fondo de Cúltura Económica, 1995), 191-92.

Fernando Torreblanca to Jack Starr Hunt, September 22, 1923, Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Administración Pública, Obregón-Calles (AGN-FAP-O-C), Exp. 104-E-23; “El estado seco no da resultado y si ocasiona muchos daños,” El Pueblo (Hermosillo) (EP), Decem-ber 12, 1929, 1; José Mesa Gutiérrez, El alcoholismo como plaga social (Mexico City: Comité Nacional de Lucha Contra el Alcoholismo, 1930), 16, AHSEP-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 18, Exp. 10; “Ide-ario breve,” La Patria: Semanario Doctrinal y de Variedades (Mexico City), March 3, 1930, 1; José Salomón Osorio, “Hacia un prohibicionismo salvador,” EN, May 8, 1932; proposal, Dr. Castañares, March 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; Jorge Labra, “El refugio diabólico de la embriaguez,” Excélsior (Mexico City) (EX), August 19, 1935; “La estéril campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EU, November 15, 1935; speech, Dr. Rafael Martínez Montes, program, Primer Congreso Nacional Antialcohólico, October 24-31, 1936, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Los ob-staculos de la ‘Ley Seca,’” EX, April 7, 1937; “Editorial,” EN, April 8, 1937.

“Medida antialcohólica,” O, January 4, 1917, 2; “El estado seco en Turquia,” El Sol (Her-

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19.


mosillo), April 8, 1923, 2; “El gobierno de Rumania restringe la venta de licores,” EP, April 3, 1929; “Russia and Mexico in Similar Wars on Liquor; Soviet Children Active in Fight Against Alcohol,” New York Times (NYT), June 2, 1929; “En El Salvador hay intensa campaña antial-cohólica,” EP, June 21, 1929, 2; “Va a establecerse el estado seco en Hungria,” EP, February 20, 1930, 2; Dr. Jesús Díaz Barriga to the chief of the Judicial Service, Department of Public Health (SP), August 22, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; Franco to the chief of the Judicial Service, SP, September 10, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; poster, “Discurso pronun-ciado por el jefe del Departamiento de Salubridad Pública, Dr. y Gral. José Siurob, en la asamblea previa de la Segunda Conferencia Antialcohólica Infantil dedicado a la niñez mexicana,” August 30, 1940, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11.

“¿Se implantará el estado seco?” EO, October 21, 1922, 1; “La acción conjunta de los países indo-latinos contra la embriaguez,” EO, May 5, 1923, 7; “Rumorase que el estado seco será declarado en México,” EO, December 27, 1924, 7; “Uruguay y la campaña antialcohólica,” EP, November 23, 1929, 1; Dr. Mario Quiñones to the Department of Public Education (SEP), 20 December 1929, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, Departamento de Escuelas Rurales, Dirección General, Caja 3, Exp. 3; Josephus Daniels to U.S. Secretary of State, August 17, 1934, Records of the Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Mexico, 1930-1939, (RDS), 812.114 Liquors/102; Instructivo #1, “Organización y funcionamiento de co-mités y subcomités antialcohólicos en la república,” December 1, 1934, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733“35”/21; Cárdenas to Maxwell J. Welch, n.d., [after August 9, 1935], AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/34; “Difusión a la campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EN, August 28, 1935; “Estados Unidos y México luchan de común acuerdo en contra del alcoholismo,” El Día (Mexico City) (ED), January 24, 1936; “Labor social y de un Congreso Infantil,” EU, February 15, 1936; “Congreso Infantil Antialcohólico,” EN, October 10, 1936; Rafael Méndez Aguirre to directors and inspectors of federal schools, February 2, 1937, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Edu-cación Pública, Sección Subsecretaría de Educación Pública (AHSEP-SSEP), Caja 12, Exp. 7; N.t.,” Comino: El periódico de los niños (Mexico City), (C) 6, no. 11 (November 1940): 7-8. AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11: speech, Martínez Montes, October 24-31, 1936; Dr. José Siurob y Ramírez, chief of the SP, to Cárdenas, October 27, 1936.

James W. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910, Second edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970).

Ibid, 41.For a more detailed explanation of the ideological nature of these presidencies, see Pierce,

“Sobering the Revolution,” Introduction. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution; Douglas W. Rich-mond, Venustiano Carranza’s Nationalist Struggle, 1893-1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983); Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. 1, Porfirians, Liberals, and Peasants (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990); Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, vol. 2, Counter-Revolution and Reconstruction (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990); Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810-1996, trans. Hank Heifetz (New York: Harper Perennial, 1997); Colin M. MacLachlan and William H. Beezley, El Gran Pueblo: A History of Greater Mexico, Second edition (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999).

Tzvi Medin, El minimato presidencial: Historia política del maximato (1928-1935) (Mex-ico City: Ediciones Era, 1982), 117.

For a more detailed explanation of the ideological nature of these presidencies, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Introduction. Robert Hammond Murray, editor and translator, Mex-ico Before the World: Public Documents and Addresses of Plutarco Elías Calles (New York: The Academy Press, 1927); Narciso Bassols Batalla, El pensamiento politico de Álvaro Obregón (Mexico City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1967); Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution; Lorenzo Mey-er, Rafael Segovia, and Alejandra Lajous, Historia de la Revolución mexicana, vol. 12, Periodo 1928-1934. Los inicios de la institucionalización. La política del maximato (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1978); Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy; Medin, El minimato presi-dencial; Krauze, Mexico; Alan Knight, “Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?” Journal of Latin American Studies 26 (1994): 73-79, 82, 84-88, 90-91; Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution; MacLachlan and Beezley, El Gran Pueblo; Thomas Benjamin, “Rebuilding the Nation,” in The

20.

21.

22.23.

24.

25.


Oxford History of Mexico, ed. Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley (Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 2000).

Friedrich Engels, “Excerpts from The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,” in Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. Lewis S. Feuer (Garden City, N.Y.: An-chor Books, 1959), 392; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, 33; Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, 55-59, 63; Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 30; Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire: (Post)modern Interpretations, ed. Mark Cowling and James Martin (London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2002), 19-112; Paul Wetherly, “Making Sense of the ‘Relative Autonomy’ of the State,” in Marx’s Eighteenth Bru-maire, 196, 198-99.

Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions; Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy.Weber, Politics as a Vocation; Knight, “Cardenismo,” 98; Eric Selbin, Modern Latin Amer-

ican Revolutions, Second edition. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999).For a more detailed explanation of the administrative strength of these presidencies, see

Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Introduction. Wilkie, The Mexican Revolution; Meyer, Sego-via, and Lajous, Historia de la Revolución Mexicana, vol. 12; Hamilton, The Limits of State Au-tonomy; Medin, El minimato presidencial; Knight, The Mexican Revolution, Vols. 1 & 2; Knight, “Cardenismo”; Krauze, Mexico; Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution; Bantjes, As if Jesus Walked on Earth; MacLachlan and Beezley, El Gran Pueblo; Benjamin, “Rebuilding the Na-tion.”

Francisco Madero, June 24, 1911, quoted in John Lear, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 143.

Rocamadour, “El discurso sobre el alcoholismo en el Congreso Constituyente de 1916-1917,” 3, 11-12; Constitution of the United States of Mexico, 27.

For more on the anti-alcohol campaign in Sonora from 1915-1939, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Chapter 4. For Yucatán, see: Ben Fallaw, “Dry Law, Wet Politics: Drinking and Prohibition in Post-Revolutionary Yucatán, 1915-1935,” Latin American Research Review 37, no. 2 (2001).

“E. Portes Gil Avowed Dry,” EX, April 17, 1929; “Reform in Mexico,” San Antonio Light, April 18, 1929; “La campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EU, April 18, 1929; circular, Felipe Cana-les to governors, April 22, 1929, Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Administración Pública, Emilio Portes Gil, Exp. 3/669, Legajo (Leg.) 2; “Acuerdos a los secretarías de estado y departa-mentos dependientes del ejecutivo de la unión,” Boletín de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, (BSEP) 8, no. 4 (1929): 141-42, 144.

The Comité Nacional de Lucha contra el Alcoholismo (CNLCA) was dissolved on Janu-ary 1, 1932. In May 1932 the group transferred to the Department of Industry, Commerce, and Labor as the Dirección Antialcohólica de Educación Obrera. On January 1, 1933, the DAEO was disbanded and the following month transferred to the municipal government of Mexico City. It was renamed the Dirección de Educación Antialcohólica (DEA). Antonio Pérez Alcocer to the Secretary General of the SP, August 28, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 42, Exp. 1.

Information collected for the 1924 annual report, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencía, Fondo Salubridad Pública II, Sección Presidencia, Serie Secretaria, Caja 9, Exp. 5; “La cerveza nacional y las cuotas que pagará,” EO, January 31, 1925, 4; “Se prohibe la venta de pulque en vaso,” EO, August 27, 1927, 2; “La Sría de Industría prohibió las bebidas fabricadas a base de aguardiente de maíz,” EO, September 24, 1927, 5; Acuerdo 1026, Adición al reglamento para la produción, introducción, transporte, y venta del pulque, September 13, 1928, AGN-FAP-O-C, Acuerdo 1026-1928; “Acuerdos a los secretarías de estado y departamen-tos dependientes del ejecutivo de la unión,” BSEP, 8, no. 4 (1929): 143-44; “Un patente para una substancia alimenticia del jugo del maguey,” EP, November 7, 1929; radio announcement, November 27, 1929, Archivo Histórico de la Secretería de Educación Pública, Sección Oficina Cultural Radiotelefónica, Caja 9474, Exp. 12; Andrés Osuna, El alcoholismo. Manual de ense-ñanza antialcohólica. Para uso de profesores de educación primaria y estudiantes de escuelas secundarias (Mexico City: Sociedad de Edición y Librería Franco Americana, 1929); Manuel

26.

27.28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.


Flores A., Alcoholismo: Silabarios de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, (Mexico City: n.p., n.d.), 1-3, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, Sección Departamento de Psicopedagogía e Higiene, Caja 5123, Exp. 79; Enrique C. Chalico to the Oficial Mayor of the Department of Government, January 15, 1930, AGN-DGG, Series 2.015.3(29)-6, Caja 2, Exp. 6; “El pulque debe venderse refrigerado,” EP, January 31, 1930; “Aumentarán el impuesto a los alcoholes,” EP, March 11, 1930, 1; speech, “El concepto de la moral del niño frente al vicio del alcohol,” March 28, 1930, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 18, Exp. 10; “La lucha de la mujer contra el vicio del alcohol,” AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 18, Exp. 10; Franco, “La elevación del obrero ven-ciendo los obstaculos del alcoholismo,” November 28, 1930, BMLT-AE, Ø03314; Los efectos del alcoholismo en la milicia munidal: Homenaje al ejército nacional (Mexico City: Secretaría de Industria, Comercio y Trabajo, 1931), 3-4; “Nuestra responsibilidad histórica ante la niñez de hoy,” EN, November 22, 1931; Rafael Mallén to Dr. Rafael Pascacio Gamboa, October 13, 1947, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencia, Fondo Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencia, Sección Subsecretaría Asistencia, Caja 17, Exp. 2.

Francisco Madero, Venustiano Carranza, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Emilio Portes Gil also were interested in temperance prior to their presidencies. However, as mentioned above, these earlier presidents’ effectiveness was limited by their view of the ideal nature of the State as well as their governments’ strength. For Cárdenas, see: Krauze, Mexico; Christopher R. Boyer, Be-coming Campesinos: Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Struggle in Postrevolutionary Michoacán, 1920-1935 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).

Partido Nacional Revolucionario, Plan Sexeñal del P.N.R. (Mexico City: n. p., 1934), 92-93; governing body of the DEA to President-elect Cárdenas, November 23, 1934, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 568/1; “Homenaje al soldado,” (Mexico City: Secretaría de Guerra y Marina, 1935), AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 135.2/74.

“Mexico Opens Campaign Against Drinking,” NYT, January 7, 1935; “Reformas al regla-mento de bebidas,” EN, April 14, 1936; “No habrá estado seco en la nación,” EN, October 31, 1936; “Editorial,” EN, April 8, 1937; “La lucha contra el alcoholismo,” EN, July 22, 1937; “La campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EN, July 27, 1937; “La ley antialcohólica es contra la bebida de pésima calidad,” La Prensa (Mexico City) (LP), September 7, 1937; “Durante el actual régimen se han clausurado 1,600 cantinas,” EN, October 18, 1937; Preguntón, “La encuesta relámpago,” LP, November 22, 1937; “Restricciones provechosas,” EX, June 26, 1939; “Un comité especial para la obra antialcohólica,” EN, June 27, 1939.

Villanueva to the Secretary General of the SP, January 17, 1934, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 39, Exp. 17; Franco to the Secretary General of the SP, July 3, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; DAA to Cárdenas, August 1, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; Margaret H. Sawyer to Cárdenas, August 6, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/34; Pérez Alcocer to the Secretary General of the SP, August 28, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 42, Exp. 1.

Beteta to Cárdenas, November 16, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “En el mes de abril de 1938 se hará la 2a. Asamblea Escolar Antialcohólica,” EN, December 6, 1937; Franco to García Téllez, December 10, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Un congreso femenil antialco-hólico,” EN, January 2, 1938, sec. 2, p. 3; “Preparativos para el congreso infantil en contra del alcohol,” EN, January 14, 1938, sec. 1, p. 4; “Notas cortas de Salubridad,” EN, January 28, 1938, sec. 1, p. 6.

Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy, 226-27, 231-32, 236.Governing body of the DEA to Cárdenas, November 23, 1934, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 568/1;

minutes, DAA meeting, June 24, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 42, Exp. 1; Franco to the Secre-tary General of the SP, July 3, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; memorandum, Siurob to Cárdenas, July 5, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 43, Exp. 11; “Campaña al alcoholismo en el país,” EN, September 18, 1937.

Between 1920 and 1934, anti-alcohol bureaucrats worked closely with educators to spread their message of temperance. Teachers taught lessons about alcohol and its dangers, distributed flyers in their communities, and orgranized anti-alcohol parades, festivals, and plays. For more, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution.”

Díaz Barriga to Emiliano Corella M., July 25, 1935, Archivo Histórico del Estado de Sono-ra, Ramo Ejecutivo (AHES-RE)-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733“35”/21; program for the National

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.42.

43.

44.


Anti-Alcohol Serenade, August 25, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/34; “Campaña en contra del alcoholismo,” EN, September 19, 1935; “La campaña contra el alcoholismo en el Congreso de Higiene Rural,” EU, October 26, 1935; “La labor de la unificación de trabajadores,” EN, Novem-ber 5, 1935; Enriqueta de Parodi to Jesús Gutiérrez Cázares, January 31, 1936, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733”35”/21; “Cruzada en contra del alcoholismo,” EN, March 9, 1936; “Ser-vicio de educación higiénica,” Salubridad: Organo del Departamento de Salubridad (S) 6 (Janu-ary-December 1935, January-June 1936), 102; “La cruzada contra el alcoholismo se hace en toda la república,” El Porvenir (Monterrey, Mex.) (EPM), n.d., AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “La lucha antituberculosa y la campaña antialcohólica,” speech, Dr. Severino Herrera, August 23, 1936, AHSSA-FSPII-SPSS, Caja 13, Exp. 11; “Medidas profilactas contra el alcoholismo,” speech, Franco to the Congress of Attorneys, May 8, 1939, AGN-FArP-EPG, Caja 194, Exp. 1-F-39.

Instructivo #1, December 1, 1934, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733”35”/21; Ca-simiro Tecisteo to Franco, January 19, 1935, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733“35”/4-20; CNLCA, EMR 6, no. 3 (February 1, 1935): 20; “Los obreros en contra del alcoholismo,” EN, August 29, 1935; “N.t.,” EN, April 26, 1936.

Díaz Barriga to Gutiérrez Cázares, March 10, 1936, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 21, Tomo 23, 741“34”/16.

“Mañana no habrá venta de licores,” EX, April 8, 1936; “Anti-Alcohol Day in Mexico Marked by Curb on Saloon,” Christian Science Monitor, April 10, 1936, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “La lucha contra el alcoholismo,” EU, April 10, 1936; Daniels to U.S. Secretary of State, April 21, 1936, RDS, 812.114 Liquors/108; program for the “Mosaico Musical,” April 9, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Durante el actual régimen se han clausurado 1,600 cantinas,” EN, October 18, 1937; “Campaña antialcohólica,” LP, October 20, 1937; “Dos mil niños en la mani-festación antialcohólica de la semana de higiene organizada por Salubridad,” EU, August 17, 1938; memorandum, Franco, February 26, 1940, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 54, Exp. 9; Siurob to Cárdenas, April 2, 1940, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “El deporte contra el alcohol,” EN, April 10, 1940.

“El primer congreso infantil antialcohólico de México,” LP, February 18, 1936; pre-pro-gram and program, Primera Asamblea Infantil Antialcohólica, September 28-October 3, 1936, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Un aspecto de la inauguración del congreso infantil antialcohólico que se efectuó ayer en el Palacio de Bellas Artes,” EU, September 29, 1936; “Humanitaria la-bor social,” EN, October 2, 1936; Siurob to Cárdenas, December 19, 1936, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/34.

“Discurso pronunciado por el Jefe del Departamento de Salubridad Pública,” poster, Au-gust 30, 1940; Siurob to Cárdenas, September 11 and 14 and October 8 and 16, 1940, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; Bernardino Mena Brito to Cárdenas, n.d., AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Una campaña ineficaz,” EU, October 10, 1940; “Magno desfile de pequeños,” EN, October 10, 1940.

Siurob to Cárdenas, August 9 and October 22 and 24, 1940, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; pre-program, Segunda Asamblea Escolar Antialcohólica, October 21-26, 1940, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Clausura de una reunión,” EN, October 27, 1940; “N.t.,” C 6, no. 11 (November 1940): 7-8; list of panel recommendations, n.d., AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11.

“Un congreso contra el alcoholismo,” EN, August 25, 1936; General and Dr. José Siurob y Ramírez, “La campaña antialcohólica,” EN, September 8, 1936; Siurob to Cárdenas, September 14, 1936, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11.

“Campaña al alcoholismo en el país,” EN, August 30, 1936; “Temas para el congreso contra el alcoholismo han sido seleccionados debidamente por las dependencias oficiales,” EX, September 11, 1936; Siurob to Cárdenas, September 14 and October 27, 1936 and September 25, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Adhesiones al congreso contra el alcoholismo,” EN, September 25, 1936; “El 24 no abrirán los expendios de licor en el país,” LP, October 15, 1936; pre-program and program, Primer Congreso Antialcohólico, October 24-31, 1936, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Distribución de la memoria antialcohólica,” EN, June 7, 1940.

Keys for bi-monthly graphs of schools’ progress, November-December 1934, Archivo Histórico de la Secretería de Educación Pública, Departamento de Escuelas Rurales, Sonora, (AHSEP-DERS), Caja 8447 (25), Exp. 4; Circular #3, J. Lamberto Moreno to inspectors and teachers of federal schools, February 25, 1935, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8447 (25), Exp. 3; J. L.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.


Moreno, June 12, 1935, Archivo Histórico de la Secretería de Educación Pública, Dirección Gen-eral de Educación Primaria en los Estados y Territorios, Dirección de Educacion Federal, Sonora, (AHSEP-DEFS), Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 13; Rafael Ramírez, “México y su educación rural,” EMR 7, no. 6 (September 15, 1935): 10; Méndez Aguirre to directors and inspectors of federal schools, February 2, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 7.

Luis Villarreal, “Programa de educación higiénica para las escuelas rurales,” EMR 7, no. 11 (December 1, 1935): 8; J. L. Moreno, Programa de Acción, n.d. [1935?], AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 13; report, José Bernal Rodríguez, March 19, 1936, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 8447, Referencia (Ref.) 319, Exp. 9; “La cooperación infantil en la campaña antialcohólica,” EN, April 11, 1936; “La labor antialcohólica en esceulas primarias del D.F.,” EN, August 11, 1936; Méndez Aguirre to directors and inspectors of federal schools, February 2, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 7; presidential decree, September 23, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 13, Exp. 11; report, Feliz-ardo Olivares T., October 31, 1937, Archivo Histórico de la Secretería de Educación Pública, Articulo 123 Escuelas, Sonora, (AHSEP-A123ES), Caja 70 (20), Exp. 12; Tercero Año, Serie S.E.P. Lectura Oral (Mexico City: Comisión Editora Popular de la Secretaría de Educación Pública and Departamento Autónomo de Prensa y Publicidad, 1938), 88-89; “Decálogo antial-cohólico,” EMR 11, no. 9 (September 1938): 33-34. Questionnaires, June 1939, AHSEP-DERS: Caja 829, Ref. 19218, Exp. 37; Caja 5585, Refs. 19432, 19473; Caja 5719, Ref. 19272, Exp. 68; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19422, Exp. 56; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19468, Exp. 71; Caja 8347 (9), Exps. 36, 50, 59.

Mariana Frenk, “Muchos somos muchísimos,” EMR 7, no. 3 (August 1, 1935): 35-38; “Un decálogo de alumnos,” EN, October 30, 1935; Villarreal, “Programa de educación higiénica para las escuelas rurales,” EMR 7, no. 11 (December 1, 1935): 8; “Pensamientos en contra del alcoholismo,” EN, March 31, 1936; “La cooperación infantil en la campaña antialcohólica,” EN, April 11, 1936; “Estimulo a los niños en la lucha contra el alcoholismo,” El Gráfico (Mexico City) (EG), April 13, 1936; “La campaña en contra del alcohol,” EN, July 16, 1936; “La labor antialcohólica en esceulas primarias del D.F.,” EN, August 11, 1936; report, Vicente F. Padilla, March 27, 1937, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8438 (14), Ref. 708, Exp. 12; “Estrecha cooperación en la labor antialcohólica,” EN, July 20, 1937; “Campaña al alcoholismo en el país,” EN, September 18, 1937; Roberto Reyes Pérez to inspectors, directors, and teachers of night schools, December 6, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 12; “Labor antialcohólica por medio de las escuelas al servicio de los obreros,” EN, December 11, 1937; plan for the 1938-1939 school year, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8347 (9), Exp. 36. Questionnaires, June 1939, AHSEP-DERS: Caja 1673, Refs. 5876, 11184; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19422, Exp. 56; Caja 8347 (9), Exp. 58.

Méndez Aguirre to directors and inspectors of federal schools, February 2, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 7; “Una función moralizadora del maestro rural,” EN, September 10 ,1937; presidential decree, September 23, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 13, Exp. 11. Questionnaires, May and June 1939, AHSEP-DERS: Caja 829, Ref. 19193, Exp. 44; Caja 5585, Ref. 19480; Caja 5719, Ref. 19281, Exp. 27; Caja 5719, Ref. 19297, Exp. 32; Caja 5719, Ref. 19312, Exp. 87; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19217, Exp. 10; Caja 8347 (9), Exp. 48; Caja 8440, Ref. 19446.

Questionnaires, April-June 1939, AHSEP-DERS: Caja 829, Ref. 19193, Exp. 44; Caja 829 (5), Ref. 19231, Exp. 74; Caja 829 (5), Ref. 19249, Exp. 34; Caja 829 (5), Ref. 19262, Exp. 73; Caja 829 (5), Ref. 19295, Exp. 48; Caja 829 (5), Ref. 19464, Exp. 62; Caja 829 (8), Ref. 19630, Exp. 64; Caja 1673, Refs. 5876, 6373, 6491; Caja 1673 (5), Ref. 19508, Exp. 42; Caja 1673 (5), Ref. 19539, Exp. 43; Caja 1673 (9), Ref. 19655, Exp. 73; Caja 5585, Refs. 19275, 19277, 19433, 19483, 19499, 19537; Caja 5719, Ref. 19297, Exp. 32; Caja 5719, Ref. 19310, Exp. 88; Caja 5719, Ref. 19311, Exp. 86; Caja 5719, Ref. 19593, Exp. 71; Caja 5719, Ref. 19609, Exp. 62; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19217, Exp. 10; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19229, Exp. 4; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19323, Exp. 46; Caja 8440, Refs. 19439, 19460; Caja 8440 (5), Ref. 19531, Exp. 24; Caja 8440 (5), Ref. 19230, Exp. 70; Caja 8440 (8), Exp. 66. J. L. Moreno, Programa de Acción, n.d., AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 13; “La cooperación infantil en la campaña antialcohólica,” EN, April 11, 1936; “La labor antialcohólica en esceulas primarias del D.F.,” EN, August 11, 1936; plan for the 1936-1937 school year, Elpidio López, January 15, 1937, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 602, Exp. 22; Méndez Aguirre to directors and inspectors of federal schools, February 2, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 7; report, Rodolfo G. Velazquez, May 12, 1937, AHSEP-A123ES,

54.

55.

56.

57.


Caja 70 (20), Exp. 18; presidential decree, September 23, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 13, Exp. 11; “Durante el actual régimen se han clausurado 1,600 cantinas,” EN, October 18, 1937; Santa María, “La campaña antialcohólica en las escuelas del D. F.,” EN, March 1, 1938.

“Una función moralizadora del maestro rural,” EN, September 10, 1937; Rafael Ramírez, “Organizando el programa de salud de la escuela rural,” EMR 11, no. 11-12 (November-Decem-ber 1938): 11.

“El alcoholismo se combatirá en una forma más intensa,” EN, August 20, 1935; Otto Rühle, “El niño proletario en México,” EMR 8, no. 8 (April 15, 1936): 5-6; Celerino Cano, “Interpretación y manejo del programa,” EMR 11, no. 11-12 (November-December 1938): 30; questionnaire, June 10, 1939, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8440 (5), Ref. 19300, Exp. 47.

J. L. Moreno, Programa de Acción, n.d., AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 13; “Pro-grama de acción contra el alcohol,” EN, April 18, 1936; Fernando Ximello to Celso Flores Zamo-ra, May 13, 1936, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 8401, Ref. 297, Exp. 16; report, Pascual López, June 26, 1936, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5763, Ref. 319, Exp. 8; “La labor antialcohólica en esceulas primarias del D.F,” EN, August 11, 1936; “La campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EN, August 25, 1936; Mé-ndez Aguirre to inspectors and directors of Federal Education, February 2, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 7; Reyes Pérez to inspectors, directors, and teachers of night schools, December 6, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 12; presidential decree, September 23, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 13, Exp. 11; Rafael Ramírez, “Organizando el programa de salud de la escuela rural,” EMR 11, no. 11-12 (November-December 1938): 13; questionnaire, June 10, 1939, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 1673 (5), Ref. 19508, Exp. 42.

Questionnaires, May-July 1939, AHSEP-DERS: Caja 829 (8), Ref. 19229, Exp. 36; Caja 829 (8), Ref. 19603, Exp. 55; Caja 1673, Refs. 5880, 6376, 6389, 19644; Caja 1673, Ref. 19206, Exp. 16; Caja 1673 (6), Ref. 19222, Exp. 15; Caja 1673 (6), Ref. 19353; Caja 1673 (9), Ref. 5628, Exp. 44; Caja 5585, Refs. 19370, 19380, 19472, 19475; Caja 5719, Ref. 12879; Caja 5719, Ref. 19281, Exp. 27; Caja 5719, Ref. 19297, Exp. 32; Caja 5719, Ref. 19299, Exp. 82; Caja 5585, Ref. 19275; Caja 5719, Ref. 19560, Exp. 15; Caja 5748, Ref. 19294, Exp. 76; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19318, Exp. 38; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19319, Exp. 77; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19321, Exp. 78; Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19586, Exp. 22; Caja 8347 (9), Exps. 53, 69; Caja 8440 (5), Ref. 19531, Exp. 24; Caja 8440 (8), Ref. 19659, Exp. 68; Caja 8446 (6), Ref. 7054; Caja 8446 (6), Ref. 7097, Exp. 7; Caja 8446 (6), Ref. 19228, Exp. 3. Report, Bernal Rodríguez, February 28, 1935, AH-SEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 9; report, Leonardo Ramírez G., July 29, 1935, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 16; J. L. Moreno, Programa de Acción, n.d., AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 13; report, Felipe Madera M., May 26, 1936, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5763, Sin Exp.; Méndez Aguirre to inspectors and school directors, September 3, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 7; report, Ámparo de la Fuente, September 10, 1937, AHSEP-A123ES, Caja 70 (20), Exp. 18; Ramírez, “Organizando el programa de salud de la escuela rural,” EMR 11, no. 11-12 (November-Decem-ber 1938): 12; report, Crescencio Gámez A., October 31, 1939, AHSEP-DERS Caja 1673 (8), Ref. 19651, Exp. 67.

Report, Juan G. Oropeza, March 10, 1935, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 10; J. Raquel Velázquez, “Comportamiento del maestro,” Reforma escolar. Hoja mensual de propaganda edu-cative de los maestros rurales federales de la Primera Zona Escolar de Sonora (Magdalena) 1, no. 2 (December 1935); J. L. Moreno, Programa de Acción, n.d., AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 13; Investigations Commission, “Resumen del estudio sobre el alcoholismo en México,” September 6, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; Leonardo Magaña, October 2, 1939, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5518 (2989), Exp. 6.

Reyes Pérez, December 6, 1937, AHSEP-SSEP, Caja 12, Exp. 12.Temperance-minded political leaders and educators called for the creation of popular anti-

alcohol leagues and for teachers to work with mayors and police chiefs since 1929. Although some enthusiastic teachers did in fact engage in these practices, they were not widespread until 1935. See Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” 72, 85.

Pamphlet, attached to Daniels to U.S. Secretary of State, October 22, 1936, RDS, 812.114 Liquors/118; “Durante el actual régimen se han clausurado 1,600 cantinas,” EN, October 18, 1937.

Presidential decree, n.d. [April 1937?], AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11.

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59.

60.

61.

62.

63.64.

65.

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“El estado seco en los ferrocarriles,” EX, October 8, 1935; Franco to Siurob, October 14, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 34, Exp. 4; Siurob to Cárdenas, December 19, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Prohibición sobre bebidas,” EN, February 20, 1936.

“Tres días de la semana no habrá alcohol,” EX, April 6, 1937; “Los obstaculos de la ‘ley seca,’” EX, April 7, 1937; A. Cuenca Díaz to Cárdenas, April 19, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11.

“Desde enero no se expenderán más amargos,” LP, December 14, 1937; “Hasta mañana podrá libarse ajenjo,” LP, December 30, 1937.

It should be noted that not all members of the DAA agreed with the idea that beer ought to be promoted as an alternative to pulque or any other drink. Dr. Abraham Ayala González pointed out that it was still a stupefying substance. Minutes, DAA meeting, June 24, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 42, Exp. 1; Daniels to U.S. Secretary of State, April 21, 1936, RDS 812.114 Liquors/108; “Un triunfo de ‘El Nacional,’” EN, September 19, 1938; MacLachlan and Beezley, El Gran Pueblo, 355.

“1,500 comités contra el alcoholismo en el país,” EN, August 10, 1935; “Campaña en contra de los vicios,” EN, January 29, 1936; “Nuevos aspectos en la campaña en contra del vicio del alcoholismo,” EN, February 6, 1936; “Todos los antros de vicio cercanos a las escuelas se cerrarán,” LP, May 13, 1937; “Prohibición del alcohol en el ejido,” EN, September 24, 1937; “El reglamento de las cantinas restringe el vicio del alcohol,” EN, November 26, 1937; María Luisa M. Vda. de Naude, “Comentarios femeninos,” EG, August 23, 1938; Cárdenas to Yocupicio, June 16, 1939, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/34; Cárdenas to unknown, June 23, 1939, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 533.11/1; “Opinión editorial,” EN, June 24, 1939; “Los últimos 67 días de jira presidencial,” EN, August 6, 1939, sec. 1, p. 1; “Acción contra los centros de vicio en núcleos de labor,” EN, August 28, 1939, sec. 1, p. 1.

Siurob to Cárdenas, December 19, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; Plan General, Dan-iels to U.S. Secretary of State, April 21, 1936, RDS, 812.114 Liquors/108; “La campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EU, February 23, 1937; “Inspectores en servicio permanente,” EN, July 24, 1937; “Los soldados tirán barriles de malas bebidas a las coladeras,” LP, December 1, 1937; “Una me-dida de Salud Pública,” EX, May 22, 1939.

“Los resultados de la campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EG, June 16, 1936; “La campaña contra el alcoholismo,” EU, February 23, 1937; “N.t.,” EX, July 21, 1937; “Cuarentinueve cantin-as han sido cerradas,” EN, October 7, 1937; “Durante el actual régimen se han clausurado 1,600 cantinas,” EN, October 18, 1937; “Destrucción de alcoholes,” EN, June 14, 1938; “10,000 litros de licor adulterado fueron destruidos,” EN, July 2, 1938; “Contra los que violen las restricciones alcohólicas,” EN, July 4, 1938; “La vigilancia a las bebidas,” EN, July 12, 1938; “Advertencia sobre venta de bebidas,” EX, July 14, 1938. Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencía, Fondo Salubridad Pública II, Sección Oficiala Mayor (AHSSA-FSPII-SOM): Franco to the Legal Consultation office of the SP, March 15, 1940, Caja 3, Exp. 8; Ignacio Rico M., Fidencio Ramírez García, Alfonso Zubieta C., et al, to Franco, March 15, 1940, Caja 3, Exp. 8; Franco to Ramírez García and Carlos H. Nafarrate, March 15, 1940, Caja 3, Exp. 8; Franco to the chief of the Fine-Processing Office, several letters, April to December 1940, Caja 3, Exp. 16; Franco to the chief of the Fine-Processing Office, August 3, 1940, Caja 3, Exp. 9; memo, Franco, September 3, 1940, Caja 3, Exp. 8.

Photograph, SP memorandum to Cárdenas, January 7, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11.Photographs, Siurob to Cárdenas, July 9, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; photograph,

ca. 1930s, Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, Archivo Gráfico El Nacional, NT/12B/002.

“Mexico Opens Campaign Against Drinking,” NYT, January 7, 1935; minutes, DAA meet-ing, June 24, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 42, Exp. 1; Siurob to the Secretary of the National Treasury, June 29, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; “Enérgica campaña contra el al-coholismo,” EX, August 14, 1935, 10; Siurob to Cárdenas, December 19, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Pasturas en vez de aguardientes,” EX, February 9, 1936; “Habrá menos alcohol-ismo,” EN, March 27, 1936; “No habrá estado seco en la nación,” EN, October 31, 1936; “La lucha contra el alcoholismo,” EN, July 22, 1937.

“Producción restringida,” EU, April 3, 1936; Daniels to U.S. Secretary of State, April 21,

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68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.75.

76.

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1936, RDS, 812.114 Liquors/108.“Producción restringida,” EU, April 3, 1936; “N.t.,” EX, June 23, 1937; Siurob to García

Téllez, July 19, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Ya no se venderán bebidas por litro, solo botellas cerradas,” LP, July 28, 1937; “El alcoholismo será rudamente combatido,” EU, August 2, 1937; “La campaña al alcohol,” EN, August 30, 1937; “La ley antialcohólica es contra la bebida de pésima calidad,” LP, September 7, 1937.

“Estrecha cooperación en la labor antialcohólica,” EN, July 20, 1937; “Ya no se venderán bebidas por litro, solo botellas cerradas,” LP, July 28, 1937; “El expendio del alcohol es regu-lado,” EN, January 6, 1938, sec. 1, p. 1.

“1,500 comités contra el alcoholismo en el país,” EN, August 10, 1935; “En contra del alcoholismo,” EN, October 10, 1935; “10 mil comités informativos en contra del alcoholismo van a ser fundados este año,” EN, January 22, 1936; “La acción en contra del alcoholismo,” EN, March 19, 1936; “Informe de las actividades concretas,” S 6 (January-December 1935, January-June 1936): 77; “No habrá estado seco en la nación,” EN, October 31, 1936; Dr. Alfonso Priani to the chief of the Distrito Federal, December 15, 1936, AHSSA-FSPII-SPSS, Caja 13, Exp. 33; “Por que la mujer debe dar su cooperación eficaz a la campaña contra el alcohol,” EN, October 17, 1937; “Ruda campaña contra el alcoholismo en toda la república,” LP, July 5, 1938.

“La labor en contra del alcoholismo,” EN, June 4, 1936; “16 organizaciones de defensa social y antialcohólica,” EN, June 17, 1936.

Franco to Luis Rodríguez, September 21, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; “Se gen-eraliza la campaña al alcoholismo,” EN, September 22, 1935; Concrete Points of Immediate Action, October 29, 1935, AGN-DGG, Serie 2.015.4(29)-6046, Caja 14, Exp. 3; Augusto Fócil Díaz, “Combaten el alcoholismo las mujeres,” EN, October 30, 1935; Programa de la Secretaría de Acción Femenina del PNR, February 5, 1936, AGN-FArP-EPG, Caja 38, Exp. D-13; “Todos los candidatos del P.N.R. comprometidos para hacer obra antialcohólica,” EX, February 19, 1936; “La amplia labor contra el vicio de la embriaguez,” EX, July 13, 1936; leaders of the Primer Congreso to Cárdenas, October 31, 1936, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; act, witnessed by Fer-nando Álvarez, Flora R. de Garza Leal, Norberto Bedoya, and Rosario Maldonado, July 5, 1940, AHSSA-FSPII-SOM, Caja 3, Exp. 9.

For more on popular anti-alcohol organizations, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Chapter 5.

“Campaña contra el alcohol,” EPM, January 3, 1935; “Mexico Opens Campaign Against Drinking,” NYT, January 7, 1935; Mariano Muñoz, P. Luis Solorzano, Antonio González, P. Test, Juana Díaz Vda. de Arratia, Juan B. Ruiz, Luis Ortiz, and Miguel Díaz B. to Cárdenas, January 7, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 564.1/50; “Producción restringida,” EU, April 3, 1936; “Juventudes temperantes en acción,” EN, July 27, 1937.

“Todos los candidatos del P.N.R. comprometidos para hacer obra antialcohólica,” EX, Feb-ruary 19, 1936; Daniels to U.S. Secretary of State, April 21, 1936, RDS, 812.114 Liquors/108; “La cruzada contra el alcoholismo se hace en toda la república,” EPM, n.d., 8, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11.

Report, Martínez Montes and Dr. Jorge Muñoz, August 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; Díaz Barriga to Ramón Ramos, September 10, 1935, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733“35”/21; Díaz Barriga to all governors, October 29, 1935, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733“35”/21; Díaz Barriga to Gutiérrez Cázares, April 17, 1936, AHES-RE-1936, Caja 39, 512.1“36”/1; Franco to Gutiérrez Cázares, September 21, 1936, AHES-RE-1935, Caja 30, Tomo 56, 733“35”/21.

Yocupicio to García Téllez, September 30, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, 553.1/15; Cárdenas to Yocupicio, December 13, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, 553.1/15; Cárdenas to Lamberto Martínez, June 10, 1939, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553.1/15; Cárdenas to Felípe A. Saldívar, José Acosta, and Rafael Gil, June 16, 1939, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553.1/15; Florencio Padillo to General A. Macias Valen-zuela, March 20, 1940, AGN-DGG, Series 2.015.4(22)-1, Caja 8, Exp. 65.

Memorandum, Siurob to Cárdenas, July 1, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 41, Exp. 6; Si-urob to Cárdenas, July 22, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/34; Franco to Siurob, October 14, 1935, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 34, Exp. 4; “Prohibición a empleados del gobierno,” EN, October 6, 1937; “El reglamento de las cantinas restringe el vicio del alcohol,” EN, November 26, 1937;

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81.

82.

83.

84.

85.

86.

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SP memorandum, March 12, 1940, AHSSA-FSPI-SSJ, Caja 54, Exp. 12.“Será opuesto un valladar al vicio del alcoholismo,” EN, March 13, 1936; “Nueve emplea-

dos de Estadística fueron cesados por embriaguez,” EN, August 27, 1939, sec. 2, p. 1.Program, Segunda Asamblea Escolar Antialcohólica, October 21-26, 1940, AGN-FAP-LC,

Exp. 553/11; “Clausura de una reunión,” EN, October 27, 1940.Ley del Impuesto Sobre Compreventa de Alcoholes, Aguardientes, y Demás Bebidas Al-

cohólicas, Así Como Sobre Compreventas e Mieles Incristalizables en el DF, January 23, 1941, Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Administración Pública Manuel Ávila Camacho (AGN-FAP-MAC), Exp. 545.21/3-4; note, n.d., [1943?], AGN-FAP-MAC, Exp. 553/98.

The Secretary of this office, García Téllez, had served in a number of important offices during the Cárdenas administration, including Chief of the SEP (1934-1935), Attorney General (1936-1937), personal secretary of Cárdenas (1937), and Chief of the Department of Government (1938-1940). As such, he played a role in the anti-alcohol campaign, but it was only secondary.

Victor Requelme and others to President Manuel Ávila Camacho, December 7, 1940, AGN-FAP-MAC, Exp. 702.12/2-5; Franco to Ávila Camacho, April 21, and September 17, 1941, AGN-FAP-MAC, Exp. 710.11/15; Fanny Anitua and others to Ávila Camacho, October 27, 1941, AGN-FAP-MAC, Exp. 702.12/2-5; Franco to unknown, May 6, 1949, Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Administración Pública Miguel Alemán Valdes, (AGN-FAP-MAV), Exp. 544.4/8; Ortiz Rubio to President Miguel Alemán, November 14, 1949, AGN-FAP-MAV, Exp. 111/551.

Jacinto López to Ávila Camacho, May 6, 1941, AGN-FAP-MAC, Exp. 553/27; García Téllez to all governors, May 13, 1941, AGN-FAP-MAC, Exp. 553/15; AGN-FAP-MAC, Exps. 553/1, 553/4, 553/5, 553/18, 553/50, 553/55, 553/62, 553/66, 553/99, 553/123, and others.

A clippings file of newspaper articles related to the anti-alcohol campaign from 1937-1945 contains only 8 articles for the Ávila Camacho presidency. Only one mentions a cultural event, the National Assembly Against Vice. There is no mention of who organized this event. See: “Aterradores cifras sobre alcoholismo,” Novedades, February 17, 1944; and other articles in BMLT-AE, Ø03316, Alcoholismo, México.

Raúl Reyes Cepeda to inspectors of federal schools, April 12, 1941, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 602 (5507), Exp. 12.

AHSEP-DEFS: Caja 602, Exp. 28; Caja 602, Exp. 34; Caja 602 (5507), Exp. 7; Caja 602 (5507), Exp. 12; Caja 602 (5507), Exp. 16; Caja 5518, Exp. 4; Caja 5518, Exp. 17; Caja 5518 (5507), Exp. 10; Caja 5843 (1102), Exp. 24; Caja 5843 (1102), Exp. 39; Caja 8347, Exp. 5319/48; Caja 8407, Exp. 7/11; Caja 8407, Exp. 5315/5; Caja 8447, Exp. 5319/48.

Stephen R. Niblo, Mexico in the 1940s: Modernity, Politics, and Corruption (Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 1999), 75.

Knight, “Revolutionary Project, Recalcitrant People,” 254-56, 258; Knight, “Popular Cul-ture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico,” 441-42; Niblo, Mexico in the 1940s; MacLachlan and Beezley, El Gran Pueblo, 364-69; Gilbert M. Joseph, Anne Rubenstein, and Eric Zolov, “Assembling the Fragments: Writing a Cultural History of Mexico since 1940,” in Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico Since 1940, ed. Gilbert M. Joseph, Anne Ruben-stein, and Eric Zolov (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001), 3, 8-9; Mary Kay Vaughan, “Transnational Processes and the Rise and Fall of the Mexican Cultural State: Notes from the Past,” in Fragments of a Golden Age, 474-76.

Vaughan, “Transnational Processes and the Rise and Fall of the Mexican Cultural State,” 476; José Orozco, “Disgust and Creation of a Nationalist Tequila Discourse in Post-Revolution-ary Mexico,” (paper presented at the American Historical Association Annual Conference, At-lanta, Ga., 2007).

Mónico Neck, “Apuntes de actualidad,” EN, June 26, 1939.“Justificación de la guerra contra el alcoholismo,” EN, September 24, 1935; Díaz Barriga,

“Ponencias del Congreso Nacional Antialcohólico,” EN, November 12, 1936; Díaz Barriga and other members of Comisión de Estudios, “Resumen del estudio sobre el alcoholismo en México,” September 6, 1937, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 553/11; Arreola R., “Espantosos efectos de la embria-guez,” EG, December 30, 1937; “Dos pesas y dos medidas,” EX, August 16, 1940; Mitchell, Intoxicated Identities, 2.

Gonzálo Hernández M., “Campaña de temperancia en vez de campaña antialcohólica,”

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92.

93.

94.

95.

96.

97.

98.

99.

100.

101.102.

103.


EMR 3, no. 9 (October 1933), 15-16; “La lucha contra el alcoholismo,” EU, April 10, 1936; Pablo de Gongora, “Embriaguez y educación,” EU, August 20, 1936; Catalina D’Erzell, “No habrá ni-ños en México, digo yo como mujer,” La Defensa del Hogar: Salvemos a la Patria Salvando a la Niñez (Puebla), 19 (November 22, 1936), 1-2; Ballesteros Gil, “La campaña antialcohólica,” EG, February 6, 1937; “Congresos esteriles,” EU, July 18, 1938; Lucio Mendieta y Núñez, “Ensayos sobre el alcoholismo entre las razas indígenas de México,” in Antropología del alcoholismo en México: Los límites culturales de la economía política (1930-1979), ed. Eduardo L. Menéndez and Renée B. DiPardo (Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antro-pología Social, 1991), 126; “Sección editorial,” EG, June 26, 1939; “Una campaña ineficaz,” EU, October 10, 1940; Palacios, La pluma y el arado, 222.

Stanley H. Brandes, Staying Sober in Mexico City (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 26; Mitchell, Intoxicated Identities, 10; Orozco, “Disgust and Creation of a Nationalist Tequila Discourse in Post-Revolutionary Mexico.”

For more on the anti-alcohol campaign and the State-building process from 1910-1932, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Chapter 1.

For more on how Cárdenas’s predecessor, Rodríguez, carried out the temperance move-ment and the nation-building project, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Chapter 2.

For more on the anti-alcohol campaign and the State-buildings process in Sonora, and especially how state and municipal political leaders as well as people from all social backgrounds resisted these projects, see Pierce, “Sobering the Revolution,” Chapter 4.

Congreso Constituyente 1916-1917, vol. 2, 939; M. Luna y Menocal and José M. Mon-taño to Obregón, May 24, 1922, AGN-FAP-O-C, Exp. 802-D-9; Belén Camarero Vda. de Maza to Calles, April 29, 1925, AGN-FAP-O-C, Exp. 104-E-23; J. L. Moreno to E. López, April 30, 1933, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 5719, Ref. 19243, Exp. 47; M. Muñoz, Solorzano, A. González, Test, Díaz Vda. de Arratia, J. B. Ruíz, L. Ortíz, and Díaz B., to Cárdenas, January 7, 1935, AGN-FAP-LC, Exp. 564.1/50; “Mexico Opens Campaign Against Drinking,” NYT, January 7, 1935; report, J. G. Oropeza, March 1936, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5763, Ref. 319, Exp. 3; “Juventudes temperantes en acción,” EN, July 17, 1937; “Hablan los números,” EN, October 13, 1938; “Acertada medida en la campaña en contra del vicio,” EN, October 28, 1938; Boyer, Becoming Campesinos, 209; Mitchell, Intoxicated Identities, 101.

Report, José Alcazar Robledo, April 7, 1923, Archivo Histórico de la Secretería de Edu-cación Pública, Departamento de Educación y Cultura Indígena, Sonora, Caja 63, Exp. 38; re-port, Ramón G. Bonfil, March 5 and 15, 1930, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8447 (25), Exp. 1; report, J. Humberto Paniagua, 31 December 1931, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 1; report, Magdaleno Constantino, June 29 and July 31, 1932 and July 26, 1933, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 6; report, Ramón R. Reyes, August 1932, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 4; report, E. López, July 20 and September 10, 1932, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 8401, Exp. 20; report, E. López, February 16, April 15, and May 20, 1933, Caja 5843 (?). Exp. 21; report, Bernal Rodríguez, December 4, 1933 and February 28, 1935, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 9; report, E. López, October 10, 1934, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 20; report, Miguel Espinosa R., November 1, 1934, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 20; report, J. L. Moreno, May 22, 1935, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5507 (25), Exp. 20; report, Ramírez G., July 29, 1935, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 8443, Exp. 17; report, J. G. Oropeza, March 1936, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5763, Ref. 319, Exp. 3; “Los resultados de la campaña contra el alcoholismo,” El Universal Gráfico (Mexico City), June 16, 1936; “Menos al-coholismo en varios estados,” EX, July 9, 1936; “Cuarentinueve cantinas han sido cerradas,” EN, October 7, 1937; questionnaire, June 10, 1939, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 5748 (8429), Ref. 19286, Exp. 39; report, Crescencio Gámez A., June 10, 1939, AHSEP-DERS, Caja 1673 (8), Ref. 19651, Exp. 67; report, L. Magaña, July 10, 1940, AHSEP-DEFS, Caja 5518 Exp. 18.

Stephanie Mitchell, “Por la Liberación de la Mujer: Women and the Anti-Alcohol Cam-paign,” paper presented at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, New Haven, Conn., 2001; Olcott, Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico.

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110.