AGRARIANISM IN MEXICO 81 



proposed his constitution which was to supersede 

 that of 1857. The original document was found to 

 be quite reactionary, but the liberal forces in the 

 convention were sufficiently strong to force its modi- 

 fication. "The constitution finally adopted/' says 

 Carleton Beals, "though it proved a hodgepodge of 

 theory and practice, clipped from the legal systems 

 of all nations, and lacking, in many ways, a truly 

 organic relation to Mexican traditions, is ideally 

 more enlightened than any similar document in 

 existence. Its weakness resides in the very fact 

 that it attempts to correct four hundred years of 

 misrule in one blow without creating an organized 

 people to make that achievement possible." 4 



It is significant, however, that this constitution 

 authorized the return, to their original owners, of all 

 communal lands enclosed since 1857. It fixed the 

 maximum number of acres that one person or cor- 

 poration might own. The section of this constitu- 

 tion that aroused foreign opposition was the one 

 which defined the conditions under which aliens 

 might acquire ownership of land, waters, mines, and 

 oil fields. 



But land reform was not pushed energetically by 

 Carranza. The agrarian forces throughout the nation 

 were greatly disappointed. His failure to fulfill the 

 promises of the government for social and economic 

 reform was one of the causes of his downfall. 



* Mexico, An Interpretation, by Carleton Beals (1923), Chap. V, 

 p. 55. 



