Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/185

Rh soul without appeal, and grasping the purse, it will be at once seen what a powerful element of influence such an institution must become when directed by a single head. If the masses would prey upon the church, it was the policy of the church to support the army; if the people desired to destroy the army, it was the interest of the army to support a church which could control by conscience or bribe by money the miscalled representatives of the people. With force and superstition, thus welded together by interest, the representative system can expect but little favor from these two important divisions of the white race.

Is there hopeful reliance, then, upon another power which is controlled by a portion of the educated whites? The Liberty of the Press, in Mexico has disappointed its warmest advocates. An instrument which should ever be used for the enlightenment of the multitude has been employed only to demoralize and deceive it. Instead of attacking bravely all abuses of administration and all international prejudices, or weaknesses; instead of holding the executive departments to strict accountability before the chambers and the people; instead of displaying frankly the vital interests and materials of social reorganization, and thus contributing to the common prosperity and peace of the country, the periodical press of Mexico, with few honorable exceptions, has fostered the meanest passions and hatreds of the ignorant masses and has betrayed public opinion by trafficking with or truckling to the men or the classes who live by public abuses and disorder. Instead of checking and thwarting the interference of the church in civil affairs, it has stood mute or appalled before the ecclesiastical power. If there is no reliance, therefore, on the press,what available trust may be reposed in the pure, civil patriots, men of letters, professional characters, merchants and proprietors? The slender numbers of this class, compared with the army, church, Empleados or government employées, and intriguing civilians connected either with the state in its various departments of finance, or with the press, at once deprive it of equality in influence. In all the turns of fortune in Mexico, these men have, hitherto, never been able to command the country for any length of time so as to give a permanent beneficial direction to public affairs, and we may, therefore, readily agree with Lerdo in believing that his country possesses no elements of nationality. He might have gone further in his analysis, and declared