Journal de Genève
- Mexico Against the Church
- The Movement Is Spreading
- Passing Remarks
The front page of the Journal de Genève on 24 October 1926 carried an editorial signed W. M. on Mexico's conflict with the Catholic Church. It argued that circumstances had pushed President Calles onto the offensive, dated the hostilities to February, just after the land laws, and judged the July religious law blameworthy in spirit yet partly necessary; that law barred foreigners from clerical office. It described the interdict and the Catholic economic boycott in force since 31 July. A note signed J. M. reported that a popular movement against Robert Grimm's election as president of the National Council was spreading through every region of Switzerland. A column signed Cd. thanked the Studio for praising Swiss pictorial advertising for tourists.
Translation
Mexico Against the Church
Such are the circumstances that, in a sense, compelled President Calles to take the offensive. It was in February, right after the land laws were promulgated, that hostilities began. That date sheds light on the whole debate. On July 3, the president promulgated a law whose spirit one can only condemn, but whose necessity one must, to a certain extent, acknowledge. This law, which bars foreigners from ecclesiastical functions, also appreciably restricts the freedom of ministers of religion in the exercise of their priesthood. It came into force on July 31. It is since that day that the interdict has weighed on the country, and that Catholics have been trying, through the boycott, to ruin the State economically.
The Movement Is Spreading
The popular movement against the election of Mr. Grimm to the presidency of the National Council is spreading rapidly in all circles and in all regions of Switzerland. One after another, the newspapers are taking up the matter.
Passing Remarks
In the interesting study that opens this issue, the Studio pays a special tribute, for which we thank it, to the Swiss effort, whose great value it recognizes. "In Switzerland," it writes, "applications in the art of advertising have made rapid progress," and it adds that "Switzerland has gained a great deal through the use of pictorial advertising designed to recall the various winter and summer attractions offered to tourists."
Context
The Calles Law of 1926 and what followed
The law the editorial condemns in spirit but partly excuses was the measure known as the Calles Law, formally the Law for Reforming the Penal Code, which Calles signed in June 1926; the editorial itself dates its promulgation to 3 July and its entry into force to 31 July. The law laid down specific penalties for priests and others who violated Article 130 of the 1917 Constitution. To enforce it, Calles seized Church properties, expelled foreign priests and closed monasteries, convents and religious schools, which matches the editorial's remark that the law barred foreigners from ecclesiastical functions. Writing in October 1926, W. M. presents the Catholic boycott as the main resistance. Later the conflict widened: Catholic peasants in central Mexico rose against the federal government in what became the Cristero War, and the Calles Law stayed on the books until it was repealed under President Lázaro Cárdenas in 1938.
Land laws, Article 27 and the editorial's chronology
The editorial's central argument rests on a date: it says hostilities began in February 1926, right after the land laws were promulgated, and that this date explains the whole debate. The writer thereby casts the religious conflict as an outgrowth of Calles's policy on property, above all foreign property. That policy stood on Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution, which gave the Mexican government permanent and complete rights to all subsoil resources, and it had hardened in 1925, when Calles decreed that foreign oil companies must register their titles and limited their concessions to fifty years. The dispute over Article 27 with foreign oil interests is well documented; the claim that the land laws triggered the clash with the Church is the editorial writer's own reading of events.
Why Robert Grimm's election stirred opposition
Robert Grimm, editor of the socialist newspaper Berner Tagwacht and a member of the National Council, had led the Olten Action Committee, the body that called the Swiss general strike of November 1918. In April 1919 a military tribunal sentenced him to six months in prison for calling on soldiers to refuse orders to fire on strikers. That record helps explain why the prospect of his election to the presidency of the National Council in 1926 could set off the movement J. M. describes as spreading through every circle and region. The Journal de Genève wrote from French-speaking Switzerland, where during the war French speakers had leaned toward the Allies and some had suspected Grimm of sympathy for the Germans. Grimm became President of the National Council only in 1946, two decades after this campaign.
Swiss tourist posters behind the Studio's praise
The praise Cd. quotes from the Studio for Swiss pictorial advertising aimed at tourists rested on a poster tradition built up since 1908, when the Bern artist Emil Cardinaux designed a poster for Zermatt. Cardinaux went on to make travel posters such as a 1921 design promoting summer holidays in Switzerland for the Swiss Tourism Office, the kind of seasonal attraction the column mentions. Together with contemporaries including Augusto Giacometti, Otto Morach, Carl Moos, Burkhard Mangold, Walther Koch and Otto Baumberger, Cardinaux helped lay the groundwork for a productive Swiss poster scene, and his work drew international attention to Swiss graphic design. By the time the column appeared in the mid-1920s, a new generation of poster artists was taking over the lead from him.
Original
Le Mexique contre l'Église
Telles sont les circonstances qui ont en quelque sorte contraint le président Calles à prendre l'offensive. C'est en février, au lendemain de la promulgation des lois foncières, que les hostilités s'engagèrent. Cette date éclaire tout le débat. Le 3 juillet, le président promulgua une loi dont on ne peut que blâmer l'esprit, mais dont on doit reconnaître, dans une certaine mesure, la nécessité. Cette loi, qui interdit les fonctions ecclésiastiques aux étrangers, limite en outre sensiblement la liberté des ministres des cultes dans l'exercice de leur sacerdoce. Elle est entrée en vigueur le 31 juillet. C'est depuis ce jour-là que l'interdit pèse sur le pays, et que les catholiques essaient, par le boycott, de ruiner économiquement l'Etat.
Le mouvement s'étend
Le mouvement populaire contre l'élection de M. Grimm à la présidence du Conseil national s'étend rapidement dans tous les milieux et dans toutes les régions de la Suisse. Les uns après les autres les journaux s'en occupent.
Menus propos
Dans l'intéressante étude qui ouvre ce fascicule, le Studio rend un hommage particulier, dont nous le remercions, à l'effort suisse, dont il reconnaît la grande valeur. «En Suisse, écrit-il, les applications à l'art de la publicité ont marqué une rapide avance», et il ajoute que «la Suisse a beaucoup gagné par l'usage de la publicité picturale destinée à rappeler les diverses attractions d'hiver et d'été offertes aux touristes».