On July 17, 1928, President-elect ObregOn was assassinated by a fanatic, Jose de Leon Toral. At the special session of the Mexican Congress, on Sept. 1, President Calles declared that he would not again seek election. The Congress elected Emilio Portes Gil, secretary of the interior, provisional president, who took office on Dec. I, 1928.
On Mar. 3, 1929 a concerted revolutionary coup d' etat broke out in Vera Cruz and in the northern States, engineered by mili tary and civil leaders, professing themselves loyal to the memory of Obregon but not in sympathy with Calles or Portes Gil. Calles was immediately appointed Secretary of War and took control of operations. Within a week the revolt in Vera Cruz collapsed and, the rebel power was broken at the battles of Jimenez and La Reforma. Pascual Ortiz Rubio was elected President of Mexico in Nov. 1929, and visited the United States just before his inaugu ration in the following February. Mexico took an important diplo matic step when it joined the League of Nations in Sept. 1931. Almost at the same time the Pope, claiming that the States were not permitting all priests to register, and protesting against inter ference with religious education, broke off the truce between Church and State that had been Patched up in June 1929. The National Revolutionary party retaliated by voting to expel the foreign religious hierarchy and to suppress the four leading church papers. A political crisis within the party occasioned the resigna tion of the entire cabinet in Oct. 1931, but the intervention of General Calles made possible a peaceful reorganization. A year later President Rubio himself resigned, due to disagreement with Calles, and Congress elected Gen. A. L. Rodriguez for the uncom pleted term.
In 1933, at the suggestion of Calles, the National Revolutionary party formulated a Six-Year Plan designed to establish a "co operative economic system tending towards socialism." The plan included an extensive public-works programme, a labour code fix ing minimum wages and regulating hours and other standards, a renewed attempt to distribute the land and to aid local coopera tives to purchase machinery and stock, and a programme of socialist education. In 1934 Gen. Lazaro Cardenas, nominated by the National Revolutionary party, was elected President, and the Six-Year Plan was actively pushed forward. Dissension appeared within the party when Calles publicly criticized Cardenas, provok ing the President to dismiss the former's friends from the cabinet and to attempt to carry on the revolution without the advice of Mexico's strong man.
English readers the standard work is still H. H. Bancroft, History of Mexico, 1516-1887 (San Francisco, 1883-88), and supplementary histories. The best one-volume history of Mexico in English is H. I. Priestley, The Mexican Nation, A History (New York, 1923). Standard Mexican authorities are: Lucas Alaman, Historia de Mejico (Mexico, 1849-52) I. Alvarez, Estudios sobre la
historia general de Mexico . . . (Zacatecas, 1875-77) ; • V. Riva Palacio, ed., Mexico a traves de los siglos (Barcelona, 2888-89) ; N. de Zamacois, Historia de Mejico desde sus tiempos mas remotos . . . (Mexico, 1876-82). Important documents relating to the Colonial period, the struggle for independence and the French intervention are found in Documentos ineditos 6 muy raros Para la historia de Mexico . . . (Mexico, 19o5-11), published under the editorship of Genaro Garcia and Carlos Pereyra.
H. G. Ward's Mexico (London, 1829) is excellent for the history and description of Mexico during the first decade after independence. For Mexico just before the war with the United States, see Mme. Calderon de la Barca, Life in Mexico (Boston, 1843) ; and W. Thompson, Recol lections of Mexico (New York, 1847). For the war with the United States the standard authority is J. H. Smith, The War with Mexico (New York, 1919). A valuable study of the liberal movement during its early stages is W. H. Callcott, Church and State in Mexico, 1822 18.57 (Durham, 1926).
For the background of the socio-economic upheaval that began in 1910 see H. Phipps, Some Aspects of the Agrarian Question in Mexico (Austin, 1925) ; G. M. McBride, The Land Systems of Mexico (New York, 1923) ; A. Molina Enriquez, Los grandes problemas nacionales (Mexico, 1909) ; F. Gonzalez Roa, Las cuestiones fundamentales de actualidad en Mexico (Mexico, 1927). For the upheaval: C. Beals, Mexico—an Interpretation (New York, 1923) ; E. A. Ross, The Social Revolution in Mexico (New York, 1923) ; M. Sa.enz and H. I. Priestley, Some Mexican Problems (Chicago, 1926).
For the early Constitutions of the republic see I. A. Montiel y Duarte, Derecho ptiblico mexicano . . . (Mexico, 1871-82). A study of the Constitution of 1857 by B. Moses is in the Annals of the Amen can Academy of Political Science II., i. (1891). An English translation of the Constitution of 1917 by H. N. Branch, published in parallel columns with that of 1857, is in a supplement to the Annals of the same academy, published in Philadelphia (May, 1917). For diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States see W. R. Manning, Early Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Mexico (Baltimore, 1916) ; G. L. Rives, The United States and Mexico, 1821— .1'848 (New York, 1926) ; J. F. Rippy, The United States and Mexico (New York, 1926) ; C. W. Hackett, The Mexican Revolution and the United States, 1910-1926 (Boston, 1926 ; World Peace Foundation Pamphlet, vol. ix., no. 5) ; W. Lippman, "Vested Rights and National ism in Latin America," Foreign Affairs (New York, April 1927) ; J. P. Bullington, "Problems of International Law in the Mexican Constitu tion of 1917," American Journal of International Law (Oct. 1927) and "The Land and Petroleum Laws of Mexico," (ibid., Jan. 1928) ; Ernest Gruening, Mexico and Its Heritage (1928). (C. W. H.)