GOOD COLUMN ABOUT OIL Avilez people's response Jaime Avilés
Someone had to lead by example, show the way. After the dramatic appeal of Lazaro Cardenas to the people, demanding "moral and material support," the university, the rector of the UNAM, teachers and students, improvise a show of support for government Monday 21 March, ahead of the trade unions have been cited for Wednesday 23 and that will be "retired" for the oil expropriation.
telegrams, speeches, made in newspapers, radio interviews and statements, the revolutionary political class does not spare his "moral support" but no news material. Cárdenas's best friend, the general also Michoacan, Francisco J. Mugica, decides to set the example.
Mugica had been a deputy to the constituent congress of Querétaro in 1917, and coauthor of article 27 of the Constitution, which defines everything about the ownership of the nation on earth, water, el cielo y el subsuelo de México. Además, había redactado el mensaje que Cárdenas leyó la noche de 18 de marzo y, con mucho, es el más decidido partidario de la nacionalización.
Con ese entusiasmo hace un donativo de 6 mil pesos, en un acto público. el martes 22 de marzo. Y su gesto provoca un efecto inmediato. El día 23, El Nacional informa a ocho columnas: "Espontáneas Aportaciones para Pagar el Rescate del Petróleo". Y en un sumario más abajo abunda: "Funcionarios, soldados, industriales, campesinos, estadistas y mujeres ponen a disposición de la Presidencia sus economías". En esa misma edición, dentro de un recuadro en primera plana, el diario inicia así the list of donors:
• General Francisco J. Mujica offered $ 6000.00.
• The lawyer Raul Castilian $ 500.00.
The sr. Geoffrey Beltran $ 200.00
• The sr. $ 100.00
Leñero Augustine
• Ignacio Coronel M. $ 100.00
Beteta
Hemuda • Commercial House and Co. 1 / 2 hour of extra work per day.
• Employees of the Fourth Civil Court $ 350.00
• Alfonso González Ramírez de Anahuac Machinery one month's salary.
From Thursday 24 March, a headband in the bottom of the cover of El Nacional repeated over the following weeks, "Oil Companies Pay is to save the honor of the Nation." And inside, in a box: "The financial contribution is a patriotic duty." On the front page, for a second day, you see the "Transfer of amounts to sr. President", along with the chronicle of the progress of the MLC, in which "200 000 people marched, and notes about" acts the capital and in the States. "
The headlines on Friday, 25 governors will take them in these terms: "Local Leaders shall cooperate in the liberation of our country." And there is the first note of color, the paper ruling because it does not seek is within walking distance: "An alien named Enrique Himmelman left the sum of $ 50.00 (fifty dollars) in the drafting of this newspaper and asked that the same will be delivered to the government."
On Saturday 26, a first balance apoto estimated to have collected "over 260 thousand pesos, equivalent to 72 thousand dollars, the exchange rate of 3.60, the Bank of Mexico may not hold much longer . In the oil fields, free from foreign supervisors, but also of specialists in the management of plants, Mexican workers-that they knew the machines, as living with them, and hundreds of teachers chemical and mechanical that left everyone in the cities to serve the warrant for Cardenas to put up again in the industry, hardly get to resume production.
But the companies had led to tanker oil-exporting and trucks, rail tank that gasoline distributed and therefore the government must draw on all freight trains had , that often leave them without a locomotive on a convoy of passengers so as not to stop the supply of fuel. Front
gas stations abandoned by their owners, the system takes, and private traders sell everything what they need cars for work. Presently vending pumps are replaced by buckets and hoses and funnels black. Despite the difficulties the country is not paralyzed.
While Cardenas men negotiate with the governments in Washington and London that have assumed the representation of the oil companies, they decreed a worldwide boycott for anyone to buy a single barrel of Mexican crude. In turn, the U.S. Treasury Department stopped the acquisition of Mexican silver. Is a temporary measure, rather fleeting, but many pressures inevitably impact together financial stocks and the peso, which in early April falls to 4.50 per dollar and end the year at 4.99.
But the dramatic situation further exacerbates the patriotic feelings of the people. On Friday 25 March, the Banco de Mexico opens "a special account for espontánteas referrals." On the same date, the miners of Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, donated 85 thousand pesos, the Agricultural Department employees, 160 thousand employees of the UNAM. 12 000, the National Railways "a day after", and with them members of the Syrian Nationalist Party of Mexico 500 pesos and General Rafael Sánchez Tapia, a thousand 286.
To expand the collection of donations in a structure organized, the government created the National Committee for Oil Debt Redemption and this is replicated in all executive branch agencies, in chambers, in state governments and municipalities, and in many instances policies more: "sectors" of the NRP, agrarian and proletarian power, trade unions, etc.
the morning of April 2, along with 200 students at his school, the son of the president, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, nearly four years, reaching the National Palace and break your piggy bank mud to donate their content. His mother, Amalia Solórzano de Cárdenas, extends a letter authorizing the government to dispose of those currencies. This is not the first case in which children are compelled by their parents and teachers to embrace the cause of redemption.
The National March 30 reproduces a letter from the Ignacio brothers, Abram (sic ), Noah and Samuel Flores Candia, from 11 to seven years old, originally from San Martín Texmelucan, Puebla, which tell Cardenas: "We received ten cents for fruit, our parents, but as our country must save it with this will allude you."
next day, on the same day, two children Bogota will state: "We sent everything we have saved of pennies that gives my dad. The wanted to buy a ball and play in the park, but send them best to complete the payment of oil. Are 371 cents. In another month wait more money we raise more safely. My brother Felipe is two years. "Adolfo Peña Marín and signing of four.
Wives of Cabinet secretaries agree to make a public collection in the Palace of Fine Arts from Thursday 12 to Sunday 15 April, on behalf of Committee Pro Women's National Petroleum Payment of Compensation, chaired by Amalia Solórzano. Despite his anti-government stance, the newspaper Novedades review the incident and that, on Friday 13 "A poor woman gave a pawn ticket from a sheet, and can not ignore that, 14, outside the big marble cake" stacked cages of rabbits, chickens, turkeys, birds and ornamental plants. "
In a more detailed description, El Nacional says: "The objects that were deposited are picturesque heterogeneity: gold watches and silver spoons, earrings, rings, earrings, chains, medallions, charms, pens, dolls, thimbles , coins ... and goats, rabbits, cats, chickens, pigeons, ducks, corn, beans and shoes. " To convert all this into real money, the ladies improvising an auction on the concourse of Fine Arts, leaving them about a hundred thousand pesos.
Dalevuelta James, a renowned journalist, cooperates with a ballot of the Monte de Piedad is worth a gold Elgin watch. A seamstress who identifies himself simply as Elvira gives her Singer sewing machine. And the reviews will follow in the footsteps of Mrs. Guadalupe Cardenas Peralvillo humble neighbor, the first day brings "two chickens" while the second, "four pots of azaleas covered with flowers" and the third, "a goldfinch and two ducks. " And in an interview with Excelsior, explains: "It's all good I had in my home. Now I will not return. Tomorrow I expect. I do not have nothing left to bring."
May 3, in an unusual gesture, while the banana cooperative Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, offers to give a penny for each cluster to sell, and Calpulalpan ejidatarios, Tlaxcala, sent 5000 dollars, the archbishop primate of Mexico, Luis María Martínez, urges Catholics to help pay for the oil debt and gives a fresh impetus to a political initiative was not intended seriously to cover the exorbitant sum which required foreign companies but to demonstrate the enormity of the popular base on which rested firmly on the government.
And in less than four years of governance, had destroyed that Lázaro Cárdenas sort of one-man dictatorship that was the maximato of Plutarco Elias Calles, to get rid of the old caudillo Sonora, was able to initiate land reform, fulfilling the dream of Emiliano Zapata was the deepest yearning of the revolution of 1910 also had expropriated Porfirio Díaz railroads leased out to British and Americans and that no one had ever touched, and thanks to the legions of rural teachers, grouped in the Union of Education Workers, was pushing socialist education throughout the national territory, which in castilla meant good combat illiteracy.
With the country mobilized at all levels, had not ceased to produce oil and gas despite the boycott of companies, and had not allowed the U.S. military intervention because it was preparing to face Germany when the time came, Cardenas mandates the collection of contributions spontaneous cessation from July first, two and half months after the expropriation.
Although the committees begin to dissolve, people are still giving money, animals and other objects for much longer. The "federal rural teacher, Higinio Vázquez Vera, the community of El Salitre, located in the municipality of Valle de Santiago, Guanajuato state, is presented July 23, 1938 at the offices of the National Committee of the Ministry of Public Education Pro-Debt Redemption Oil and unties the knots in a handkerchief to put forward a lot of coins.
return an employee gives you a letter size paper, typewritten and studded with stamps, letterheads and numbers with the following message: "I am pleased with the gift receipt No. 54 by the amount of $ 4.00 (FOUR PESOS) Treasury received this in my charge and with which you and the school contributes to its deserved position, for debt repayment oil. I protest to you my highest consideration. The Treasurer of the Committee. Francisco R. Garcia. "
How much was raised at last? Historians estimate some two million pesos. The companies wanted $ 440 million. Cardenas offered them 45. The dispute was resolved in 1940. When the six-year term is coming to an end, not a few people ask for the return of their donations, saying that suffer severe economic hardship. The government is willing to exchange receipts for bonds to fund support for the construction of roads, that pays interest, but to the popular rejection caused by this decision confirms that all the money will be applied to debt repayment oil. Zany
means: THE PEOPLE ARE NOT DUMB!
