State Reform during the Provisional Presidency: Chihuahua, 1911

The anti-reelectionist movement of Francisco I. Madero won political power in 1911 by defeating the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz in the first of a series of rebellions and civil wars collectively known as the Mexican Revolution. Beyond seizing national authority, Madero’s achievements were limited. After his victory he turned over political authority to a caretaker government until national presidential elections could be held which would give him a constitutional basis for power. This decision handicapped the accomplishment of his modest political reforms. During the interim presidency of Francisco León de la Barra Madero’s revolutionary movement began to come apart, while the previous Porfirian bureaucracy remained unchallenged. Upon assuming the presidency Madero was unable to cope with conservative hostility and revolutionary disaffection, which finally brought about the collapse of his government and his assassination in February 1913. Lack of perspicacity and unpolitic decisions characterized his national administration. But while national developments may account for his failure, they tend to obscure the dynamics of the Madero Revolution. By reasserting the federalist structure of the Constitution of 1857 and temporarily withdrawing from national authority, Madero provided an opportunity for state administrations to initiate reform programs during the provisional presidency.

As a case study, the gubernatorial regime in Chihuahua illustrates the dramatic developments of the revolutionary movement in one state from the resignation of Porfirio Díaz until the inauguration of Madero as president. In November 1911 Madero appointed Abraham González provisional governor of his native state.¹ González had been an early supporter of the rebel leader, and prior to the insurrection he served as an organizer and coordinator of the anti-reelectionists in Chihuahua. During the revolution he served first as a gunrunner and then during the early months of 1911 organized local governments in the rebel-held sectors of Chihuahua. After Díaz resigned, the Porfirian state legislature ratified González’ appointment as interim governor, and his position was solidified by election to a full four-year term in August 1911.² The first phase of his governorship coincided exactly with the interim presidency; in November 1911 he went to Mexico City with Madero for the inauguration and remained as a member of the national cabinet. During the five months from June through November, González directed a deliberate program that went far beyond the political reforms sought by Madero; in fact, González’ reliance on fiat rule contradicted his leader’s democratic intentions. Nevertheless, while deviating from Madero’s political designs González remained personally loyal to him—indeed, his fidelity was so well known that it led to his assassination within days of Madero’s murder.³

The comprehensive nature of González’ program in Chihuahua indicated a deliberate policy of social and economic reform, which he believed consistent with anti-reelectionist ideals. The best-known statement of the Madero movement, the Plan of San Luis Potosí, was little more than a justification for rebellion against the Díaz government. A lengthy preamble explained that all political alternatives had been denied the anti-reelectionists, leaving no recourse but revolution. Other sections provided for the organization of a revolutionary force, outlined the provisional governments, and called for the democratic election of the national administration. An attempt to attract supporters of all political hues probably motivated the absence of any but the most limited reform statements.

Yet the anti-reelectionists did have a specific reform program which included social and economic provisions. The convention of the Anti-reelectionist Party had met in April 1910 to nominate Francisco Madero as their presidential candidate and to write a party platform.⁴ This statement reaffirmed a belief in the Constitution of 1857, particularly the provisions for effective suffrage and no reelection, and listed provisions for the general improvement of Mexican society. The anti-reelectionists projected the upgrading and expansion of public instruction, more secure freedom of the press, and comprehensive legislation to improve the lot of Mexican workers and small agriculturists, including Indians. The platform sought expanded development of natural resources with equal opportunity for exploitation by all. The delegates who wrote the policy had elected Abraham González as one of the vice-presidents of the convention; he knew the principles of the program, and from his policies as governor, it appears that he intended to make them effective in Chihuahua. The Plan of San Luis Potosí was a program to get the anti-reelectionists into power. Once they achieved authority, González adopted the more positive tenets of the party platform.

In Chihuahua conditions were all the more favorable for reform experiments because the members of the old Porfirian state administration made little attempt to obstruct the interim governor’s program.⁵ Although the Díaz legislature continued in office until July 31, 1911, and men of known Porfirian views were elected to the revolutionary assembly which convened in September, deputies in both bodies rubber-stamped reforms which required their approval. To be sure, González removed many decisions from the legislators when he assumed his predecessor’s authorization to rule by decree, but his fiat actions do not explain the deputies’ easy compliance with the rest of his program. The lack of reactionary obstruction probably resulted from the absence of immediate Porfirian leadership and from a complicated strategy of defeating the Maderistas through their own political reforms. The leaders of the state’s oligarchy, including Luis Terrazas and Enrique C. Creel, remained out of the state during the González administration, leaving the appointees without their accustomed direction. It appears that even from outside Chihuahua the former rulers encouraged followers to comply with reforms which might later be turned against the new administration. A particularly instructive example was the decision to make Francisco León de la Barra provisional president so that Madero could run for president without violating the “no re-election” tenet of the rebel program. If González remained in office he would seem to exclude himself from an immediate four-year term. Apparently with that possibility in mind, the Porfiristas began courting Pascual Orozco, Jr., seeking some accommodation with the hero of the revolution most likely to succeed González. Violating the rebel program, however, González was nominated and elected to a regular term as governor in July 1911.

Following González’ election the reactionaries still had more to gain by a policy of watchful waiting than by overt hostility to the governor. The gubernatorial election had aggravated relations between Orozco and the rebels in power, and the Chihuahua revolutionaries were further divided by Madero’s decision to reorganize his national political party and replace Francisco Vázquez Gómez with José María Pino Suárez as his vice-presidential nominee in the October elections. When González’ personal secretary, Braulio Hernández, left the state administration to support the Vázquez Gómez wing of the national movement, it appeared that the revolutionary administration would simply collapse from internal disagreements. Politics during the provisional presidency thus encouraged Chihuahua’s old regime to await an opportune moment for reasserting their authority—tactics which gave the governor a chance to institute a reform program free of obstruction by the former oligarchy.

Immediately on assuming office, González began to implement his program, even before the military pacification of the state was completed. He developed a two-part policy to attack the remnants of the Porfirian regime and to improve conditions among the rest of society. Although the banner of the rebel movement was political democracy, González emphasized a social and economic reform program. To accomplish his goals, he relied primarily on grants of extraordinary power to rule by decree and resorted to the legislature only for those measures which required amendments to the state constitution.

The governor initiated the new regime by developing a revised financial code to encourage redevelopment of commerce and industry interrupted by the revolution and to equalize taxation by giving relief to the middle and lower classes, while increasing the burden of the upper class. Keporting that the revolution had been particularly hard on the smaller merchants and agriculturists, González asked the state deputies to help them by approving his decision to remit the unpaid state and municipal taxes for the first six months of 1911. The proposed exemption would not extend to mining and smelting companies, controlled primarily by United States corporations, or to “merchants, industrialists, ranchers, or landholders, whose tax evaluation exceeded 25,000 pesos.”⁶ The legislators authorized his request. Using the power to rule by decree in the area of finance, González then ordered all taxes remitted, July 1, 1911, for the period of the revolution, from November 20, 1910, to May 31, 1911.⁷ The conditions for remission were based on assessed property values and excluded agricultural land belonging to one person exceeding 5,000 pesos and urban property exceeding 6,000 pesos. No mining or smelting companies, no liquor stores or cantinas were eligible for tax relief.⁸ Blatantly favorable to the middle-class businessman and small farmer, the decree shifted the financial burden of government to the wealthier classes and foreign companies. One contemporary estimated that the Terrazas family alone owed some $750,000 in taxes for the period of exemption.⁹

González intended the revision of the state’s financial laws to favor the merchant and the farmer permanently. He directed tax assessors to revalue all property in Chihuahua after November 15, 1911, so as to create a more equitable assignment of taxes. Their decisions would become the tax base, beginning in January 1912. González also altered the financial laws to provide property reassessment every four years and codified minimum rates for large holdings. Previously hacendados had paid from five centavos to one peso per hectare on their property, which they had described as poor pasture land or unused forests.¹⁰ The new program stated that agricultural property over 8,776 hectares in size would be charged between one and four pesos per hectare, depending on its use. The attack on the hacendados was accentuated by favoritism to the small householder. Urban property lived on by its owner and his family and valued at 2,500 pesos or less was assessed an annual charge amounting to only .5 percent of its value.¹¹

The governor explained in an official report to the deputies of the legislature that his guiding philosophy had been to favor the poorer classes at the expense of the hacendados. He contended that the taxation might force the subdivision of large haciendas and that at least it would compel the owners to share proportionally in the cost of government.¹² The governor shifted even more of the tax burden away from the poorer classes in rural districts when he revoked the monthly district tax of one to ten pesos paid by small farmers and agricultural workers.¹³ The program to equalize the obligations for the cost of government extended beyond tax reform; in addition, the governor limited the oligarchy’s economic preeminence by restricting their opportunities to expand landholdings and corporate enterprises. The accumulation of large tracts of land by surveying companies and tax-exempt corporations had been a hallmark of the Porfirian era in Chihuahua, and their operations continued during even the most trying months of the revolution.¹⁴ Gonzílez halted the practice by directing all jefes políticos to suspend alienation of state land, because he wished to “follow the spirit of the Plan of San Luis Potosí, to divide the lands for the workers and proletariat of the city.”¹⁵

Continual assaults on the vestiges of the old regime brought exacting regulation of the tax-exempt corporations and harassment of some members of the former privileged classes. The governor, for example, imposed state regulation of electric power companies in Chihuahua, with the veiled threat of public power ownership if the regulations were violated.¹⁶ Where possible, he cancelled concessions and tax exemptions to private companies¹⁷ and told mining corporations that their concessions were injurious to the hulk of the population. The intention was not only to limit corporate expansion, but also to give the Mexican and the foreigner of small means an opportunity equal to that of the large syndicates for exploiting the state’s mineral wealth.¹⁸

In a very popular decision, González reopened the question of the Banco Minero robbery of March 1, 1908, either to indict or to embarrass members of the Terrazas-Creel family who were popularly suspected. The robbery had brought a public reaction to the family’s predominance in 1908, and the pro forma investigation had convinced no one that the criminals were ever captured.¹⁹ The zealous inquiry forced Enrique C. Creel, son-in-law of Luis Terrazas, to request that Madero intercede for his family. Hoping to end the old irritation, Madero sent a special judge whose obstructionist tactics caused the investigation to die a lingering death. Moreover, Madero directed González to temper his investigation. The national leader’s letter was made public so that González would not receive public ire for not pursuing the case.²⁰

The governor’s assaults against the old regime culminated in stipulations that all pictures of living people be removed from governmental buildings and names of streets, schools, and parks that recognized the Terrazas-Creel regime be changed to honor heroes of the nation’s past.²¹ The attacks seemed so ubiquitous that José María Sánchez, former governor of the state, feared that he would be jailed by the González administration if he returned to Chihuahua. Before he did so, he requested guarantees against court proceedings. González petulantly answered that he would provide protection of civil rights but not his friendship.²²

The policy attacking monopolies and the old regime, although it favored the middle and lower classes through tax revision, was essentially negative in its goals. A more constructive program was developed from the governor’s intention to ameliorate the conditions of the working classes. New policies were based on proposals in the Anti-reelectionist Party program of 1910²³ and took on a sense of urgency from a series of strikes during the summer of 1911. Early in July, in the state capital, workers of the city’s streetcar company and the employees of local textile mills struck for higher wages and shorter working hours.²⁴ Later in the month workers throughout the state, with the exception of Ciudad Juárez, followed the example.²⁵ No organized union structure existed in the state; the strikes seemed to be spontaneous expressions of discontent with the economic remnants of the Díaz regime. The workers were encouraged by the propaganda of Lázaro Gutiérrez de Lara, former Liberal and rebel commander.²⁶

Though González supported the labor demands, in one instance he cautioned the workers in Madera (who refused to work in protest against company stores and a Chinese monopoly of grocery stores) that strikes should be the last recourse after all other methods had been exhausted.²⁷ To reduce the incidence of strikes, he used his extraordinary powers to create machinery for arbitration. Enterprises holding any concession from the state government were required to submit the demands of their employees to a panel of judges. The arbitration committee consisted of one person chosen by the governor, another by the workers, and a third by the company. The governor was empowered to make decisions in cases where companies refused to arbitrate.²⁸ González felt that the state had the power to intervene in the economy in behalf of the workers. His action was only a stopgap measure, he told the legislature, until the deputies could establish more comprehensive laws giving the workers some recourse short of violent strikes.²⁹

González’ policy for the workers extended beyond the relationship between labor and management. He tried to foster a better life for them by controlling what he considered the evil temptations that confronted the common man. His policies sought to extirpate gambling and to restrain alcoholism by regulating the sale of intoxicating beverages. The governor reported to the legislature that he had made a solemn resolution not to tolerate the terrible vice of gambling.³⁰ He made his most ambitious effort against it in Ciudad Juárez, but despite his intentions, the jefe político of the city allowed many gambling dens to operate there. They became so numerous that local officials could not cope with them, and finally González sent General Pascual Orozco with a force of rural militia to capture the gamblers and destroy their gambling machinery. The jefe político, Juan N. Medina, was among those jailed.³¹ Following the Juárez episode, the governor clarified his position on gambling by notifying the public of the games that could be legally played—a comprehensive list that included chess, cockfights, horse, foot or vehicular races, raffles, lotteries, poker, and whist. Other games, including those which required machinery, might be approved for use during fairs and holidays if they did not remain in any one town longer than fifteen days. No gaming was allowed on the streets or in public plazas except during fiestas.³² Though much opposed to lotteries, González allowed them to continue. But he controlled the rates charged for tickets.³³

The same legalistic regulation imposed on gambling characterized his decrees against the liquor trade in the state. His hostility to the sale of alcoholic beverages first appeared in the remission of taxation measures which he proposed. The dismissal of back taxes had been an inducement to small merchants, but it excluded all liquor stores and cantinas.³⁴ The anti-alcohol campaign continued in September 1911, when González restricted the sale of open bottles and drinks in pastry and grocery stores and limited all sale of alcohol to hours and days specified by law.³⁵ The initial regulations apparently had little effect, and later, after González had returned from the national cabinet, he directed the municipal president of Chihuahua City to restrict the hours of cantinas and bars to between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The closing time was advanced to 2 p.m. on Sundays and fiesta days in the hope of reducing fights and other outbreaks that commonly followed all-day drinking bouts.³⁶ The anti-alcohol legislation was also directed at workers’ absenteeism attributed to hangovers on Mondays and the days after holidays.

González wanted not only to improve the conditions of labor but also to increase economic opportunities for the general population. Certainly he must have recognized that the idle and unemployed could be organized into a powerful force by political opponents. His methods of encouraging men to find gainful employment ranged from state contracts for public works to the demand that the state’s vagrancy laws be vigorously enforced.³⁷ González urged poorer citizens to go into business competition with former monopolies and intervened in the economy to aid small businesses. One of the best known illustrations of his policy was the suggestion that Pancho Villa open a butchering business in the capital city. Villa imported refrigeration equipment and technicians from the United States, and although he provided Chihuahua City’s first modern meat service, it was said that the police closed their eyes to the manner in which the former cattle thief obtained beef for slaughter.³⁸ The governor also let a number of contracts to challenge monopolies and offer business opportunities to men outside the Terrazas-Creel circle. State contracts authorized the transmission of electricity to the capital city and also an ice plant for the city. Both contracts provided stringent governmental control by stipulations for immediate revocation if the provisions regarding the amount of investment and the deadline for construction of buildings were not met. Moreover, the contract for the production of ice included a monthly tax of 30 pesos for a state ice inspector to be named by the governor.³⁹

In order to expand public works projects and social services and to establish a rationalized public financial system, González tried to consolidate and fund the public debts of the state. When a close friend and associate, Silvestre Terrazas, prepared to make a business trip to El Paso, Texas, González asked him to interview bankers about aiding the state’s finances. Terrazas undertook the task and wired back from the border city that the proposal had met a warm reception.⁴⁰ The absence of records makes it impossible to determine the results of any negotiations that may have followed, but probably the series of insurrections against the government in the last months of 1911 and the constant threat of revolt thereafter undermined the projected financial arrangement.

Reform programs extended to civil justice and education. The Plan of San Luis Potosí had announced the intention of bringing justice to political prisoners jailed by the Porfirian government. Prisoners in the state penitentiary petitioned the governor to examine their sentences;⁴¹ their request received a favorable hearing. At first, González looked into each case and then suggested, subject to legislative approval, pardons for those whom he considered wronged by the previous government. The dilatory process convinced him to request discretionary powers of pardon to make decisions more rapidly. Although the deputies approved his request, he used his authority sparingly and altered the sentences of only a few prisoners.⁴²

The anti-reelectionists had a special interest in public education and announced that educational reform would be a major aspect of the revolutionary program.⁴³ González was no exception; he reopened schools closed by the disruption of the revolution and began a construction program to increase the number of school rooms available. For more effective administration of the school system, the governor dismissed former officials and replaced the general director with directors of primary and secondary education.⁴⁴ State finances were expended to repair the Instituto Científico y Literario in Chihuahua City and to purchase furniture, books, and materials for schools throughout the state. Six delegates were chosen to represent Chihuahua at a national congress on education to discuss possible remedies for problems throughout the nation.⁴⁵ The educational program was a step in the right direction, but during González’ brief tenure as governor lie could accomplish little against the massive illiteracy.

As a reformer, González deplored the centralization of power in the hands of local jefes politicos. Opposition to the jefes had been a major tenet of the anti-reelectionist party since its inception,⁴⁶ and the governor evinced great concern over their elimination. Appointed by the governor, the jefes were open to corruption and responsible for most of the irregularities and abuses in local government. González proposed that they be suppressed, that local administration be returned to elected municipal presidents, and that the legislature make the decision permanent by altering the constitution.⁴⁷ The legislature approved the proposal, and, in accordance with the state constitution, the amendment was left for second consent from the new state deputies who took office in September 1911. González appealed at the opening session for quick action on his reform, because, he told the deputies, he considered the action “one of the indispensable means to guarantee democratic liberties and practices.”⁴⁸ Suppression of the jefes and reorganization of local government became law on October 28, 1911, and was decreed in force January 1, 1912.⁴⁹

The elimination of the jefes políticos was only one aspect of a policy to return local government to the citizenry. Providing local civil government for the state’s population also involved reducing the political and economic domination of corporations through their company towns. To curb the influence of private companies and to contribute to the independence of the Mexican worker, González proclaimed several company towns as municipal districts of the state. The action gave the residents civil government by putting them under state administration rather than under corporation managers.⁵⁰ The company towns of Madera, Naica, and Dolores were elevated to municipalities and the mining camps of Río de Plata, San Isidro, and La República to a lesser status.⁵¹

Throughout his administration, González attempted to develop empathy with the population by making himself accessible to the people and their problems. His emphasis on a close relationship between the governor and the people was a reaction against the exclusive nature of the previous oligarchical rule. He demonstrated his attitude in his warm reception of representatives from the Tarahumara Indians of the Sierra who called on him requesting state relief of their poverty.⁵² His congenial nature was also revealed at Pancho Villa’s wedding, when he reportedly took the part of the bride’s father during the ceremony.⁵³ Whether the story is true, it demonstrates the type of sentiment that González hoped to engender. His efforts extended also to foreigners and were best illustrated by González’ decision to attend a jubilee celebration at El Paso, Texas, in October 1911. Despite rumors that Mexican exiles would make an attempt on his life,⁵⁴ he went to the border city where he met an enthusiastic reception.⁵⁵ Before returning to Chihuahua City, he and Vice-Governor Gayou of Sonora held a banquet for the governors of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.⁵⁶ His visit to the United States was a great success; it demonstrated the moderate nature of the state revolutionary government to the people of El Paso and assured Chihuahuans of their governor’s popularity, even with foreigners.

Shortly after González returned from El Paso, he left for Mexico City to attend the inauguration of President-elect Madero. There he stayed as a member of the national cabinet until February 1912, and returned at that time only because of a threatened insurrection against his government in Chihuahua. Indeed, González’ acceptance of a cabinet post was unfortunate for reform policies in Chihuahua. Inspired by his party’s platform and the Plan of San Luis Potosí, he had zealously legislated a comprehensive reform program, but had little time in the months from June until November to implement it.

While the national government drifted, becalmed, under the provisional presidency, a definite program was instituted in Chihuahua. González’ policy accentuated the rising expectations of the population who wanted a comprehensive and effective program to improve social and economic conditions. At the same time his actions posed a greater threat to the entrenched remnants of the Díaz regime than elsewhere in Mexico, because he managed to get legislation unfavorable to their interest incorporated into state law, often as provisions of the state constitution. By the end of October increased popular aspirations on the one hand, and potential reactionary opposition on the other, demanded firm gubernatorial administration. At that critical juncture Abraham González went to Mexico City to serve in the national cabinet, his loyalty to Madero and his political inexperience blinding him to the critical need for his presence at home. After his departure, the history of the revolution in Chihuahua became a kaleidescope of threatened insurrection, González’ hurried return, the Orozco rebellion, reconquest by Victoriano Huerta, that general’s seizure of national power, and the rise of Villa’s military force. For several years rapid changes of authority through armed rebellions left little opportunity for reform.

During the brief period of the provisional presidency González demonstrated the intentions of the anti-reelectionists by using the state government of Chihuahua as an instrument of reform. In the process of establishing his program in law, he showed himself an astute opportunist by appropriating the powers once held by Porfirian governors. On assuming office as substitute governor, he took over the power to rule by decree in financial, military, and governmental affairs granted to his predecessor. In his revision of the taxation system, he also utilized the special powers assigned the governor in the Ley Hacienda Municipal de 1904.⁵⁷ No doubt it alarmed supporters of the old regime to see a revolutionary thus exploit the centralized authority which had made Porfirian governors nearly autonomous. González’ regime illustrates the dynamic quality of state government, and his social and economic policies form another facet of the anti-reelectionist movement. His use of the governorship reveals a continuity of institutions, even though utilized for revolutionary programs. Events in Chihuahua during 1911 suggest that investigations at the state level of government may provide another dimension to the first phase of the Mexican Revolution.

Author notes