n all such cases preference was to be shown Mexicans over foreigners.
Ecclesiastical corporations were forbidden to own real property. No
primary school and no charitable institution could be conducted by
any religious mission or denomination, and religious publications must
refrain from commenting on public affairs. The presidential term was
reduced from six years to four; reelection was prohibited; and the
office of Vice President was abolished.

When, on the 1st of May, Venustiano Carranza was chosen President,
Mexico had its first constitutional executive in four years. After
a cruel and obstinately intolerant struggle that had occasioned
indescribable suffering from disease and starvation, as well as the
usual slaughter and destruction incident to war, the country began to
enjoy once more a measure of peace. Financial exhaustion, however, had
to be overcome before recuperation was possible. Industrial progress had
become almost paralyzed; vast quantities of depreciated paper money had
to be withdrawn from circulation; and an enormous array of claims for
the loss of foreign life and property had rolled up.

CHAPTER XI. THE REPUBLICS OF THE CARIBBEAN

The course of events in certain of the republics in and around the
Caribbean Sea warned the Hispanic nations that independence was a
relative condition and that it might vary in direct ratio with nearness
to the United States. After 1906 this powerful northern neighbor showed
an unmistakable tendency to extend its influence in various ways. Here
fiscal and police control was established; there official recognition
was withheld from a President who had secured office by unconstitutional
methods. Nonrecognition promised to be an effective way of maintaining
a regime of law and order, as the United States understood those terms.
Assurances from the United States of the full political equality of all
republics, big or little, in the western hemisphere did not always carry
conviction to Spanish American ears. The smaller countries in and around
the Caribbean Sea, at least, seemed likely to become virtually American
protectorates.

Like their Hispanic neighbor on the north, the little republics of
Central America were also scenes of political disturbance. None of them
except Panama escaped revolutionary uprisings, though the loss of life
and property was insignificant. On the other hand, in these early years
of the century the five countries north of Panama made substa