The System of tithe collection in operation in the Archbishopric of Mexico at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the result of a gradual process of change and development throughout the colonial period. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the responsibility for the collection and distribution of the tithes had rested both with the Church and the viceregal authorities. However, as soon as the yield was thought to be sufficient to maintain the diocese without royal subsidy, the Church was left to organize the collection. The territory covered by the see was divided into a number of areas and the right to levy tithes within these was auctioned to the highest bidder. This method was only allowed in respect of the tithes paid by the Spaniards and mestizos, for those of the Indians had to be collected directly. This latter collection was carried out on behalf of the Church by two canons who were given the title of Jueces Hacedores. Soon the Church began to extend the system of direct collection and the areas that were farmed out became fewer and fewer until finally the last one was abolished in 1782. As the revenue increased with the development of the colony, an administrative organization was evolved.

Few Countries have so consistently captured the interest of writers as Mexico; and in the writing of their reflections and observations, historians and literary people have accentuated their own opinions of what the religious crisis of 1926-1930 was. The purpose of this article is to present the attitude of the United States government toward that internal conflict in Mexico; and to stress the policy of unofficial intervention that resulted. The period that we have selected is one of explosive relations between church and state. The figures who dominate the Mexican scene are Plutarco Elias Calles who was president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928; and Emilio Portes Gil, who was interim president of Mexico from 1928 to February 4, 1930, and completely under the policy determination of Calles. During this period we have two Secretaries of State who fashioned United States policy: Frank B. Kellogg (1925-1929) and Henry L. Stimson (1929-1933); but the designers of policy in the field were James Rockwell Sheffield (1924-1927) and Dwight W. Morrow (1927-1930).

Juan Bautista Alberdi belonged to a generation of Argentines fervently dedicated to the ideal of lifting the Río de la Plata out of the internal chaos which had delayed national consolidation and economic growth since the time of independence. In his Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la república argentina, published in 1852, Alberdi asserted that only the railroad could effect the long awaited unification of the Argentine people. He stated: “Without the railroad political unity cannot be had in a country where distance makes central political power impossible.” “Political unity,” Alberdi added, “can only be begun through territorial unity, and only the railroad can make places separated by five hundred leagues a unified country.”

The Zimmermann telegram of 1917, the attempt of the German government to bring Mexico into World War I on the side of the Central Powers, is a well-known diplomatic episode because it is generally conceded to be one of the series of factors which convinced President Woodrow Wilson of the efficacy of abandoning his policy of neutrality. In return for her co-operation, and upon the successful conclusion of the war, Mexico was to “recover the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” On March 1, 1917, when the incident was recorded in the United States press and before either the State Department or the White House issued a confirmation or a denial, many congressmen and a good percentage of the United States public considered the note to be a brazen forgery and a great hoax. Had they realized that Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann’s proposal to Venustiano Carranza was not a bold and newly devised scheme but rather the climax of several years of intrigue with various Mexican officials and exile groups and had they been aware that the idea of restoring the territory lost in the middle of the nineteenth century was a Mexican rather than a German idea, there would have been but little reason to dispute the validity of the document in question.