commerce grew, tax receipts were higher than under Diaz and metallic currency was in use. The educational system had been left largely in the hands of the states and municipalities, and only in a few places did it receive adequate financing and attention. The courts of justice were in deplorable condition; the jails were crowded with untried prisoners. Congress broke with the Pres- ident in so far as it could, refusing to pass his initiatives and withdrawing many of his extraordinary powers. The city of Mexico, given rein as a " free municipality," was remiss in police regulation, sanitation, education, administration of justice and control of public morals. The President violated the ballot, imposing governors on many states and using them to further his intention to designate his successor. He arrested the parti- sans of Gen. Obregon, and imprisoned members of Congress who opposed him. In external affairs the non-payment of the interest on the national debt, doubtful neutrality, and nationalization of oil lands, with retroactive enforcement as it affected foreign investors, combined with indifference toward violence committed upon foreigners, cast odium upon the party in power. These attitudes and conditions are not entirely chargeable to Carranza or his party. Many of them typify inveterate evils. There had been improvement in many respects since the revolution began, and it seemed that continued betterment depended chiefly upon the peaceful transmission of the presidential power. The presidential campaign was waged for a year and a half; by the beginning of 1920 it was plain that Gen. Obregon had the sup- port of the army, the people, especially of the radical groups, and of foreign investors. His rivals, Gen. Pablo Gonzalez and Ignacio Bonillas, were then really eliminated, though they con- tinued their campaigns.
The Sonora Revolt. The President's determination to defeat Obregon led him in March to attempt to control the Government of Sonora, the candidate's home. The state officials, friends of Obregon, prepared to prevent this. To this end, a railway strike on the Southern Pacific of Mexico was planned and called. When Carranza threatened to operate the road with soldiers, to invade the state with his army though it was at peace, the state antici- pated him on April 8, operating the road with strikers, whose terms were conceded. It also seized the public offices at Aguas Prietas, while the state Legislature voted (April 9) to secede until assured that the sovereignty of the state would not be infringed. Troops were raised to repel Federal invasion. General Obregon, summoned to Mexico City to answer charges of fomenting re- bellion, escaped to the south-west and took the field. By the middle of April all the west coast was in revolt, and most of the northern states were disaffected. By the end of the month Mexico City was cut off from telegraphic communication with the world. The Liberal Constitutionalist party, as the insur- gents called themselves, now demanded Carranza's resignation and set up Adolfo de la Huerta, Governor of Sonora, as provisional president under the terms of the Plan de Aguas Prietas, dated April 9 1920, which promised protection to foreigners, enforce- ment of legal rights, and development of commerce and industry. On the last day of April it was evident that Carranza was plan- ning to desert the capital. More than 50,000 troops were against him, many of them at the gates of the city. Pablo Gonzalez then joined the revolt, and his command of the south-east practically ended the power of the Government. On May 6 the exodus of the Federal Government for Vera Cruz began. Twenty-one trains were to carry 20,000 troops, carloads of records, and millions of treasure. The employees of the State, including the Cabinet, the Supreme Court and the Permanent Commission of Congress, were included. Misfortune attended every step. Attacks on the convoy began at once. On May 12 Gen. Guadalupe Sanchez, in control of the way to Vera Cruz, went over to Obregon; Candido Aguilar, the President's son-in-law, in command at Orizaba, thus deserted, fled. Finally, after his trains were useless and his forces had been defeated at Aljibes, Carranza set out on horse- back with a small remnant of_followers for the Puebla mountains, in an attempt to escape to a Gulf port. While on his way he was betrayed and shot dead at night on May 21 in a mountain cabin at Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla.
The New Government. Obreg6n, who had entered Mexico City May 8, had endeavoured to capture Carranza under re- iterated assurances of personal guarantees. It was evidently the intention to spare his life. The dead chief and the wrecked ex- pedition were brought back to the capital. On May 25 Adolfo de la Huerta was made substitute president by the reassembled Congress. As the active ally of Obregon, he initiated the policies of the new regime in company with radicals, who evinced attitudes toward foreign interests antithetical to the Carranza policies. Obregon was opposed in the Sept. elections only nominally by a Catholic candidate. His inauguration on Dec. i was attended by large delegations from the United States, including several governors of states, and by many American and European diplo- mats. During the closing months of 1920 there were occasional minor actions against rebels and bandits. Radical agitation among industrial workers seriously affected the country. The sympathy of the Provisional Government with labour unrest presaged difficulties accentuated by falling markets in Mexican staple products. Recognition by the Great Powers was still pend- ing in Jan. 1922. Delay was due to the non-solution of the petroleum controversy and to Obregon's refusal to negotiate a treaty, demanded by the U.S. Government, guaranteeing pro- tection to American lives and property. (H. I. P.)
MEYER, GEORGE VON LENGERKE (1858-1918), American diplomatist, was born in Boston, Mass., June 24 1858. After graduating from Harvard in 1879 he was engaged in business for 20 years. He entered public life in 1889 as a member of the Boston Common Council and two years later became a member of the Board of Aldermen. From 1892 to 1897 he was a member of the Mass. House of Representatives, being speaker for the last three years. In 1898 he was appointed by Governor Wol- cott as chairman of the Mass. Paris Exposition Managers. From 1900 to 1904 he was a member of the Republican National Committee. In 1900 he was appointed ambassador to Italy by President McKinley, and five years later was transferred by President Roosevelt to Russia. In 1907 he was recalled by Roosevelt and made Postmaster-General in his Cabinet. From 1909 to 1913 he was Secretary of the Navy in President Taft's Cabinet. On the outbreak of the World War he urged prepared- ness and criticised America's naval administration. He was actively associated with the National Security League and the Navy League. He was a director in many organizations, includ- ing the Amoskeag Manufacturing Co., Old Colony Trust Co., Puget Sound Light & Power Co., Walter Baker Co., and Ames Plow Co. He died in Boston March 9 1918.
See M. A. De Wolfe Howe, George von Lengerke Meyer: His Life and Services (1920).
MEYER, [MARIE] PAUL HYACINTHS (1840-1917), French philologist (see 18.349), died at St. Mande, near Paris, Sept. 8 1917.
MIALL, LOUIS COMPTON (1842-1921), English biologist, was born at Bradford Sept. 12 1842, the son of a Congregational minister. At the age of 15 he became a junior teacher in a Bradford school, and there began the study of natural history, subsequently attending the Leeds School of Medicine for more systematic biological training. His connexion with the discovery of a new labyrinthodont from the coal-seams near Bradford introduced him to Huxley, from whom he had much assistance. In 1871 he became curator of the museum of the Leeds Philosophical Society, of which he was already secretary, and in 1876 he was appointed the first professor of biology in the Yorkshire College, afterwards the university of Leeds. This post he held until 1907. In 1892 he was elected F.R.S. He was Fullerian professor of physiology in the Royal Institution in 1904-5. He presided over the zoological section of the British Association (1897) and the education section (1908). Though his earlier work was mainly geological and palaeontological, he eventually paid special attention to entomology (see 9.656, 13.429), laying much stress on the observation of living insects. He wrote a monograph (with Prof. A. Denny) on the cockroach in 1886, and also Object Lessons from Nature (1891); Natural History of Aquatic Insects (1895); Round the Year (1896); Injurious and
