govern it, they must prepare the common people of Mexico to discharge the duties of self-government, which a century of experience has shown they do not yet possess.
The failing of Mexican statesmen in the past has been the one that has beset Latin American countries generally from the day of their independence. They have not realized that true ability for self-government on the part of the people at large comes with the slow growth of national ideals and the gradual adjustment to more advanced standards of political thinking and action. The constitution makers have placed their faith in forms of government. They have overlooked the fact that high sounding phrases cannot at a stroke endow a people who have never enjoyed self-government, and who are without experience, therefore, in its exercise and without the critical public opinion on which it must rest, with the ability to cast off the past like a cloak and start anew.
This is the fundamental truth that makes all the detailed comparisons of the old and new constitutions carried on in and out of Mexico futile. The old constitution did not fit the facts. The new constitution does not do so. The people of Mexico will never truly rule themselves until the day when by evolution through education, industry, and habits of political association they fit themselves to do so.[1] Unfortunately the adop-
- ↑ The political organization considered practical by the advanced revolutionary leaders is discussed by V. Carranza in his "Report to Constitutional Congress at Querétaro," December 1, 1916, New York, Latin American News Association (pamphlet).
