United States Involvement in The Mexican Revolution - Non-Political Motivations For American Involvement

Non-Political Motivations For American Involvement

News of the Mexican Revolution was met with alarm in the United States. While many researchers have debated how the US became embroiled in the revolution, it is less often elaborated on its motivations for doing so, beyond the political ones. Two main motives were employed to rationalize potential intervention, revealingly denoted through political cartoons of the time. These included a pervasive anti-Hispanic ideology to justify militarily imposing order on the ‘chaos’, and pressure by American corporations who feared their interests would be jeopardized with Mexico’s restructuring.

Simply put, Chineas people believed Catholic Mexicans were the antithesis of all they represented; lazy to their industrialness, sluggish to their progress, violent to their peaceful, and genetically debased to their Protestant righteousness. Much of this impression originated from 1700 English beliefs of the Spanish “Black Legend” and discontent with the Roman Church. Spaniards were believed to be intrinsically immoral as attested by the Inquisition, and dangerously misguided with their “anti-Christ” Pope. Contestation for colonialism led to tension between the powers, and with its Spanish heritage, Mexico was believed to be similarly debased. US press during the Revolution revealed impressions that former Spanish colonies were only able to advance as they had, due to American intervention (see John T. McCutcheon cartoon at right).

Mexicans were believed to be innately violent and consistently missing opportunities for advancement, as denoted by a 1913 San Francisco Examiner cartoon (see Image 2). Rather than acknowledging the Revolution as a legitimate means for procuring change, it served to merely reinforce the perception of lawless Mexicans. Many contended it was only through dictator Porfirio Díaz that Mexico had previously been kept out of chaos. Land redistributions undertaken by Mexican hero, Pancho Villa, were condemned as “offer evidence...of the barbarity of Mexican politics” to which President Woodrow Wilson replied, “the revolution was out of control and...only U.S military intervention could stabilize ”.

With the discovery that Mexico was mostly mestizo, racist impressions were reinforced, leading reporters to “condemn Mexico to a fate of foreign domination” who was “in need of discipline by Uncle Sam”. This proposal of constant overseeing is effectively denoted in a cartoon where watchful American cannon ‘eyes’ are directed on the morally depraved Mexico (see illustration at right).

These ideas led to the belief that the United States ought to militarily resolve the situation, reinforced by the second motivating factor of industrial interests in Mexico. Indeed, eighty percent of all investment linked to the railroads were attributed to the US, leading many to conclude, “by the dawn of the new century, the United States controlled the Mexican economy”. The railroads, mining and consolidated cash-crop farms were all designed to maximize American interests.

US corporations were thus alarmed at the possibility of equitable resource distribution and elimination of the status quo previously maintained by Diaz, and demanded that their interests be secured. This fear was fanned with the discovery that under Mexico’s new constitution, the national government would be able to regulate foreign-owned operations. Many deemed that “Mexico...was the doorway to all of Latin America’s riches, but only if the neighbor remained under U.S economic tutelage”. An American intervention would merely be safeguarding its interests and continuing its “informal imperialism” whereby threats of military involvement and economic pressures were used to manipulate Mexico for US advancement.