The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 75, July 1971 - April, 1972 Page: 304

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Committee of Bankers on Mexico and initiated the discussions which
brought about an equitable settlement.?
The pressure on Mexico began with the ouster and death of Car-
ranza in May, 192o. The United States withdrew recognition from
Mexico until certain conditions were met and certain guarantees
extended. Thus, from late May, ag2o, until early September, 1923,
Mexico and the United States maintained their diplomatic intercourse
through informal and unofficial channels. Most of the problems the
two countries had to solve revolved around Article 27 of the Mexican
Constitution of 1917. Article 27 changed the conditions of the owner-
ship of subsoil products (including hydrocarbons), made the State
the owner of all natural resources from the subsoil, and allowed na-
tionalization of industries for the public good. United States pe-
troleum interests which operated oilfields in Mexico were seriously
perturbed. From May, 1921, until the Bucareli Conferences of May-
August, 1923, a diplomatic impasse existed. Mexico, sensitive about
her national sovereignty, refused to make concessions to the United
States. At the same time, Harding and his secretary of state, Charles
Evans Hughes, faced pressures from petroleum interests to withhold
recognition of the new Mexican government until specific guarantees
for the protection of vested interests were obtained. In addition, the
return to "normalcy" in the United States militated against a ready
reception for the seemingly radical programs which Mexico's revo-
lutionary chieftains undertook."
"An excellent analysis of Mexico's foreign debt can be found in Jan Bazant, Historia
de la deuda exterior de Mdxico, 1823-1946 (Mexico City, 1968), especially pp. 17-200oo.
In addition, Edgar W. Thrlington, Mexico and Her Foreign Creditors (New York, 193o0),
263-317, presents a reasonably clear picture despite the short time which elapsed between
the events of the 192o's and his study.
3The following works should be consulted for the period of the Obreg6n administra-
tion that led to the De la Huerta rebellion: John W. F. Dulles, Yesterday in Mexico:
A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-z936 (Austin, 1961), passim; Maria Eugenia L6pez
de Roux, "Relaciones mexicano-norteamericanas (1917-1918)," Historia mexicana, XIV
(January-March, 1965), 445-468; Edwin Lieuwen, Mexican Militarism: The Political
Rise and Fall of the Revolutionary Army, zgio-i94o (Albuquerque, 1968), 57-79.
Robert Freeman Smith, "The Formation and Development of the International Bankers
Committee on Mexico," Journal of Economic History, XXIII (December, 1963), 574-
586, ably demonstrates some of the organized pressures on the Harding administration.
Background to the dispute in the 192o's can be obtained from two works by Lorenzo
Meyer Cosfo, "El conflicto petrolero entre M6xico y los Estados Unidos (1917-1920),"
Foro internacional, VI (April-June, 1966), 425-465; and Mdxico y los Estados Unidos
en el conflicto petrolero (Mexico City, 1966). In addition, Manuel A. Machado, Jr.,
and James T. Judge, "Tempest in a Teapot? The Mexican-United States Intervention
Crisis of 1919," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LXXIV (July, 1970), 1-23, provides
a general diplomatic background for the problems in the 1920's.

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