Mexico-1921. III. Restoring the Land to the People.

Morelos, Mexico state is small in area, rich of soil and lies close to Mexico City. In the days of Porfirio Diaz it had a population of 172,000, of whom thirty-two families owned three-fourths of the land and lived sumptuously in foreign parts on the income from rich harvests of sugar, rice, coffee, and orchard crops. Then came the Zapata brothers, Mexican revolutionary leader calling the peons to revolt. Since then so many have been killed in or have fled from the struggle that Morelos has only 60,000 inhabitants. In many parts of Mexico the peon lost his land because he loved it too much. That is, the peon would rather toil for a pittance on his own or the common village land than go to work for a larger reward in wages on the great private estates which came to adjoin the native pueblos.