54
MEXICO AND ITS RECONSTRUCTION
their unanimity. No nation of 15,000,000 people voting under normal conditions shows such community of opinion. There was not before the revolution and there is not now in Mexico a vigorous party organization that brings a clear-cut clash on candidates and policies. The test of the Mexican people as a voting body lies not in the elections of 1917 and 1920 but in the elections to come, when the personal ambitions and differences of opinion of the various leaders have free play. There may then arise the old personalism that has been the fatal element in Mexican politics. The mutterings of discontent already beginning to be heard may make applicable again the lament of a member of the Supreme Court who, over a generation ago, declared: [1]
We have frequently asked ourselves what the divisions of the Liberal party in Mexico signify. Proclaiming the same principles, entertaining the same aspirations, united in the same history of abnegation and sacrifices. . . the numerous members of this great family have separated. . . when they should . . . combine their efforts and unitedly advance to the attainment of a great object, the progress and prosperity of the country. . . .
Many times, we have asked ourselves, is reconciliation among the different members of the republican family possible?. . . And in case of the absence of sufficient abnegation for the consummation of so meritorious a work, what Is the fate which awaits, not merely a certain political organization, but the country disunited, debilitated, impotent to control the disorder which consumes it. . .? If the contentions of personal fac-
- ↑ I. M. Vigil in Monitor Republicano, August 7, 1878, article quoted in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1878, p. 571.
