File No. 812.00/14669.
The Brazilian Minister to Mexico to the Secretary of State.
Mexico City, March 22, 1915—5 p.m.
451. International Committee requests me to transmit the following:
Four years of almost continuous fighting throughout the various parts of the Republic has produced a condition of affairs in the food supply situation so serious as to threaten a famine of such proportions as to necessitate worldwide aid. The fact that farm hands have everywhere been drawn into so-called armies; that farm animals have been utilized for like purposes; that leaders of roving bands of marauders under banners containing fantastic legends about “liberty and the rights of man” which they use as a blind to facilitate robbery, pillage, murder, has so reduced the crop acreage that by November, 1915, there will be an estimated shortage of thirty-nine million bushels of corn alone, not to mention the other absolutely necessary cereals, are now well known to those investigators who have made a careful study of this phase of Mexico’s ills.
That the effects of this wanton destruction are only just beginning to be felt is due to the great general richness of Mexico’s agricultural regions where it is said that the farmer has but to scratch the soil and drop his seed while God and sunshine do the rest. But selfseeking and self-appointed military leaders have for so long a time prevented the farmer from even scratching the soil over so great an acreage that Mexico is about to reap the whirlwind she has sown.
Corn is the staff of life of Mexico as is wheat or its products in other countries. The harvest of this cereal for the present year should be ready about the first of November, that is eight months from the date of the printing of this report. Upon investigation we find that but five States of Mexico’s twenty-seven have a sufficient supply to carry them over this. Oaxaca, Morelos, Tabasco and Chiapas probably have enough corn to last them eight months if the strictest economy is employed in using that stored. This will take care of a population of 1,700,000. Yucatan with a population of 350,000 produces no corn but has the money to buy it in the United States. This leaves the rest of Mexico, with a population of approximately 13,500,000 with a visible supply of approximately 675,000 tons, enough to last but three months, about next July. Then the real pinch of hunger will be felt throughout the length and breadth of Mexico.
[Page 675]What will then be necessary to relieve the consequent distress and prevent, perhaps, the death of thousands from starvation? In normal times it requires 1,800,000 tons of corn to feed these 13,500,000 over eight months. With the visible supply but 675,000 tons, this leaves a shortage of 1,125,000 tons or 39,375,000 bushels. This corn must be purchased from the United States. The present market price laid down at points along the northern frontier is 90 cents a bushel. If we allow 15 cents gold a bushel for distribution costs throughout the various ports of the Republic, we have a charge of $1.05 gold per bushel, which will necessitate an expenditure of approximately one million dollars gold to prevent a devastating famine. By that time the purchasing power of the Mexican peso will have dropped to 10 cents gold. So, due to the unconscionable, ignorant and selfish attitude of the military elements of all factions, Mexico will find herself called upon to expend some 413,000.000 pesos to prevent the larger part of her population from starving to death. Where is this money to come from? With a bottom-scraped treasury and a white-bled country, Mexico must throw herself upon the charity of the world at a time when the world’s supply will be short.
Not only has the taking away of the man and the farm animal from the land produced these dire conditions but many instances have been reported where the different military commanders have actually permitted their horses and mules to feed on the young and growing corn in some sections where it may have been planted, while droughts in the north and east have completed the work of ruin inaugurated by these men. Stored grain has also been burned in considerable quantities by these vandals and the records show that in the face of all this some selfish military leaders have actually exploited exported grain to enrich themselves. Due to the paralysis of means of communication throughout a larger part of the Republic such stores of corn and grain as were raised and saved could not be transported from the regions of production to those of consumption, causing a waste of the too small stock on hand.
That these conditions are the direct result of the wanton and selfish attitude of the military leaders of different factions who claim to be fighting for the liberty of the people has been made most plain of late by the conduct of General Alvaro Obregon acting under the direct orders of General Carranza. General Obregon entered the City of Mexico on January 29 last. On the following day the water supply of the city was cut. The price of foodstuffs, already very high due to the depreciation in the purchasing power of Mexican currency, rose to exorbitant figures because General Obregon acting under the direct orders of Carranza endeavored in every way to prevent the introduction of food into Mexico City. Not only did he refuse the City Council railway cars for transporting such stocks as were available in regions contiguous to the capital and controlled by his troops, but he ordered his outposts to confiscate such as were brought in from neighboring regions on the backs of animals. There is an abundance of evidence pointing to the fact that this inhuman conduct was part of a deliberate campaign to starve the populace into enlisting in his army.
When the inevitable consequences of the plan began to evince themselves and the people cried for food General Obregon addressed them through the press and by means of printed matter informing them that the shortage was due to speculators and to the selfishness of the rich classes. He immediately decreed a special tax levy of twenty millions to relieve what he had the effrontery to characterize the desperate situation of the city’s poor. When the merchants refused to pay this tax he invited the rabble to take what they could get by looting, informing them over his signature that if this general looting began he would march out of the city with his troops, not firing a single shot to prevent the mob from taking what they wished. But the people were not deceived. They refused to be his tools and the merchants of the foreign colonies raised a relief fund of more than a half million in a few days’ time by voluntary subscription and the acute stage of the crisis passed.
Prices of food in Mexico City are two and three hundred per cent higher than in normal times and still rising due to the very machinations of military leaders of the type of Obregon, which, unfortunately, includes practically all. What is true of the food situation applies also to the fuel situation. The spirit which will starve a people for personal gain or selfish military ambition does not make for liberty or democracy. Mexico must reap as she has sown, and unless the anarchy, chaos and desolation which prevail in all parts of the Republic under the guise of liberating armies is remedied the world will witness [Page 676] a spectacle which will be as a page torn from the history of the middle ages.