General Calles's Rise to Power

• General Plutarco Elías Calles held power in Mexico for a full decade starting in 1924.
• Calles was born in Guaymas, Sonora, in 1877, to a family with declining fortunes.
• Calles attended normal school in Hermosillo, excelled in the classroom, and became a primary school teacher.
• Calles's political career started with the revolution, serving in minor political and military roles.
• In 1917, Calles became the provisional governor of his home state.
• Calles secured official endorsement for the presidency in 1924 because of his loyal support for Obregón over ten years.
• He won the election easily with backing from labor and agrarian sectors.

Calles's Domestic Program

• Conservative elements in Mexico were not pleased with Calles's win because he had a radical reputation.
• Landowners, both domestic and foreign, were concerned about potential property loss.
• Industrialists anticipated increased wages for their workers.
• Church leaders viewed the new president as a confirmed anticleric.
• Calles's domestic policy was not typified by the compromise and caution of his predecessor.
• Calles was willing to ride the swelling wave of social revolution.
• Calles believed that the course of social revolution was inevitable.
• Calles was considered the most strong-willed president since Díaz and he greatly trusted his political instinct.
• Calles was outspoken and eloquent and unbothered by morals when dealing with enemies.
• Calles became increasingly focused on controlling revolutionary factions as the years went on.
• Calles depended on the army to dispatch government opponents.
• Jails began to fill with political prisoners and there were alarming numbers of "committed suicides."
• Calles inherited a better financial situation than Obregón and improved it by creating the Banco de México, introducing tax reforms, and lowering public debt.
• Infrastructural projects such as rural electrification and road construction were carried out.
• To gain popular support among workers and campesinos, Calles more than doubled the amount of land distributed by Obregón.
• The majority of these 8 million acres became communal ejidos.
• Irrigation projects were started to improve productivity and new agricultural schools were founded.
• Agricultural credit began to be extended to the small farmer.
• Some Zapatistas in Morelos experienced benefits from these changes.
• Maya campesinos of the Caste War were lured into the national family when many rebellious villages accepted land titles from the government.
• He appointed Luis Morones, as secretary of labor, and Morones immediately became Calles's closest confidant.
• Other highly ranked CROM officials held state governorships, served in Congress, and in state legislatures.
• CROM united hundreds of independent unions under its organization and established numerous new unions.
• CROM's membership hit 1.8 million by 1928.
• The parent organization had affiliates in most states, its support of the government was blatant, and its influence became pervasive.
• The confederation even stopped printers from typesetting anti-Calles publications.
• Calles helped CROM against employees and other unions, namely communist unions and Calles suppressed a strike by communist railway workers in 1926.
• El Machete and El Libertador backed communist recruitment in Mexico.
• Wages rose approximately 30%.
• By 1928, several labor leaders were worried about Morones, who was believed to have acquired rings, vast holdings in urban real estate, and new automobiles through tax evasion and union funds.
• Calles inherited foundations for nation-building from Obregón and Vasconcelos in the area of education.
• Around 1,000 federally supported rural schools were in operation in 1924.
• Calles and his secretaries of education, José Manuel Puig Casauranc and Moises Sáenz, emphasized rural education and added 2,000 rural schools.
• To make it easier to acculturate the Indian population, there was a heavy emphasis on teaching Spanish and promoting nationalism.
• The muralist movement went on, serving as an educational tool for non-literate masses intended to teach Mexican history.
• Sanitation conditions improved following the revolution because they created a health and sanitation program.
• The recently established Department of Public Health oversaw a sanitary code for ensuring cleaner markets and purer milk.
• The government carried out large vaccination campaigns for the first time in Mexican history, inoculating approximately 5 Mexicans against smallpox in 1926.
• Regular inspections began under the Calles administration at butcher shops, dairies, bakeries, barber shops, and cantinas.
• Establishments that did not meet prescribed sanitary regulations were fined and closed down.

Relations with the United States

• Relations with the United States remained centered on oil.
• US Ambassador James Sheffield continued to sought assurance that foreign property interests would be protected.
• Sheffield bombarded the U.S. State Department with red-scare dispatches when Calles refused to go beyond earlier promises.
• The Mexican and Bolshevik revolutions troubled US observers.
• Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg believed a Bolshevik plot was about to divest US citizens of property as convinced by Sheffield.
• In mid-1925 Secretary Kellogg released a statement arguing Mexico was on trial before the world.
• The Mexican government rejected the threat to Mexico's sovereignty.
• Calles directed the legislature to enact a new petroleum law in December 1925.
• The legislation would decide whether or not to grant confirmations, Mexico would apply the doctrine of "positive acts", and concessions would be granted only for fifty years.
• Relations worsened between Mexico City and Washington when Calles began to enforce the new petroleum law.
• President Calvin Coolidge replaced Ambassador Sheffield with Dwight Morrow in 1927.
• Morrow and Calles began having breakfast to work on the sticky diplomatic problems.
• Morrow did not believe Mexico was on trial before the world when the oil controversy came up.
• Morrow told Calles that the issue should be settled in Mexican courts and they would not give US citizens special consideration.
• The Supreme Court ruled that oil companies would apply for new concessions.
• Washington formally recognized Mexico's full legal sovereignty for the first time.

The Cristero Rebellion and the Assassination of Obregón

• Calles's most serious problem was with the Roman Catholic Church.
• Calles decided to enforce anticlerical articles of constitutions
• Tensions escalated between government and church after an interview with José Mora y del Río in February 1926.
• The archbishop reasoned that Roman Catholics could not accept the constitution.
• Calles banned religious processions before deporting nuns and priests and closing church schools, convents, and monasteries.
• Also, Calles decreed priests must register with civil authorities, which caused the archbishop to strike July 31, 1926.
• The strike lasted for three years.
• Calles's criticisms of the clergy and pope grew even more obscene.
• Groups from Jalisco began to resist the government under Anacleto González Flores, Rene Capistran Garza, and Enrique Gorostieta and would cry "¡Viva Cristo Rey!".
• Catholic guerrillas would murder teachers and burn schools.
• Government troops would encourage children to throw stained glass and loot churches.
• The military superiority would soon beat the rebellion down.
• During the conflict, many Catholics fled to the United States to raise money and propaganda against Calles.
• The constitution had recently been amended to allow reelection as for Obregón, but did not win again since he was soon assassinated.
• Two other opposition candidates rose up wanting to rebel against the government, but were both captured and executed shortly after.
• José de León Toral assassinated Obregón where he drew caricatures and went up to the head table July 17, 1928.
• The assassin refused to answer any questions unless they threatened his family.
• Toral's religious beliefs led him to mysticism by the time of the Cristero Rebellion.
• Sister Concepción Acevedo de la Llata guided and consulted him.
• Toral, in early July, would practice with a pistol borrowed from one of Conutita's friend.
• Finally, Conchinta and other's were arrested following Toral's confession.
• Toral got the death sentence, and Madre Conchita received a prison sentence of 20 years.

The Maximato and the Shift to the Right

• Only Calles had commanded sufficient respect to fill Obregón's asassination.
• Calles continued to control the nation's destiny as the power behind the scenes.
• Calles installed Emilio Portes Gil, Emilio would wind up being being the first of three Obregon's term.
• Calles shot the shots, and united revolutionary factions into the PNR or the Partido Nacional Revolucionario.
• The PNR would "style" their party myth around the father figure who came along with it.
• With special election occuring for election, they came up with Pascual Ortiz Rubio for president.
• Wasconcelos' election campaigns would rather be placed on Calles rather than Ortiz in terms of the campaign.
• Wasconcelos had won by the very unbelievable margine of 1,948,848 to 110,979 in the results.
• Before he had opposed to Calles, he picked up a morning newspaper saying he resigned.
• On this occasion, Jefe Maximo picked General Abelardo Rodríguez, who'd benefited from the situation in Baja California.
• Despite the musical chairs, the years from 1928-34 helped with depoliticizing the amry.
• Given the military voice, anti-government revolutions were reduced.

Reconciling the Church

• Ambassador Morrow oversaw meetings for the reconcilliation between the Catholic population.
• Catholic bishops would return to their positions.
• The Mexican leaders agreed that the exiled would be able make it back to their churches.
• The CATHOLIC bishops would have to register with the new government.
• The government has agreed that those churches wouldn't be prohibited.
• The Cristero would soon turn their guns in to restore the Religious services.
• Also, revolutionary pricinciples had become questionable in the movement.

The Great Depression

• The economy, stagnated ,shifted Right.
• 500,000 Mexican Americans ,were upauiaced by the U.S.'s government
• Governments had revenue drop by 25%.
• These new "millionaire socialists" capitalized on the country that had all happened.
• The Torres familys got land back from what Obregon had enforced them to sell in presidoeny.
• Luis turned into his excessed where corruptuin would then be prevalent.