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All that day and all that night the celebrations lasted. Hundreds of coaches, filled with flowers and gay señoritas singing Mexican songs and throwing confetti, passed endlessly up and down the streets.
General Plutarco Elias Calles, "Tiger of the Sonora," is one of those men in whose eyes burn the revolutionary light; yet, of all men, he would probably deny such a contention; he would call it the light of reform.
Enemy of the large landowners, friend of the peons (laborers), socialist, nationalist, he passes among the elite of the "dis"-United Mexican States as a Radical. A Radical? "No," says President Calles, with a powerful, quivering Mexican negative. "Radical ? Nonsense! Radical ? Yes, if the term is clearly understood. I am frankly for giving the exploited Mexican masses a new deal. . . . Property? Of course property and Capital have rights—and rights which must be protected. But in Mexico's past it was considered that property rights were the only rights. . . . We know that Capital will not come unless assured of fair treatment. As far as I am concerned, it shall always have it."
Not only does the President champion the oppressed classes of the Nation with the sword of nationalism and win them with a popular land program, but he goes so far as to protect them against themselves. Here consideration of two points reveals two startling facts: The President, while personally "fond of the bottle," is a staunch prohibitionist and, while a large landowner, is a firm supporter of the land act, which aims at splitting up large estates and dividing them among the landless. In general, his policy is very largely that of his predecessor, ex-President Alvaro Obregon.
Forty-seven years have fled since Plutarco Elias Calles first squalled and puked in the nurse's arms; and at this age of maturity he is found to be a man of energetic action, resolute, ruthless. Well over average height, with the remains of youthful handsomeness still lurking in his face, Señor Calles is at once an imposing figure with an arresting personality. His head is large and his brow deep, usually puckered into, a frown; beneath, two dark eyes flash forth into the world to stir the hearts of men. The mustached mouth—once straight with cruel, thin lips—now droops at the ends, an unmistakable sign of the bodily ailment which has for some time affected him; but the chin—the chin of a fighter, of a leader—is still there.
The heights of the Presidency have not been scaled without difficulty by Señor Calles. And it is interesting to note that, during most of his political career, he has stood in the shadow of one-armed Alvaro Obregon whom many believe to be the greatest Mexican statesman since Benito Juarez, the President who overthrew the Empire in 1867 and ordered shot the unhappy Maximilian, brother of Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria.