Rolland and Structural Development under the Constitutionalists: Part of a piece I am writing about wireless development in Mexico

This is a small part of an article I am currently working on titled "Radio before Broadcasting: Wireless Communications in Porfirian and Revolutionary Mexico, 1900-1920." I use Rolland to exemplify Constitutionalist polices on structural development.  What do you think?

Radio was an integral component of the Constitutionalists larger plan to gain control over, and to restructure the Mexican nation-state. Once new territory had come under Carrancista control, SCOP employees and engineers started an enthusiastic campaign to repair and expand communications and public works, including “the completion of public buildings, port and harbor works, irrigation projects and the construction of railroads that were under way and upon which work was suspended at the time the late President Porfirio Díaz was ousted from office.”^[1]  From 1914 to 1920, a number of Carranza engineers, military leaders, and intellectuals acted on ideas they had developed during the revolution or the preceding Porfiriato. Indeed, the Constitutionalists not only began rebuilding Mexico’s infrastructure but also revitalizing attempts to incorporate fringe territories into the national fold.

The works of engineer Modesto C. Rolland, a native of the Southern District of Baja California, provide a good example of Constitutionalist designs for structural development, including in wireless technology. Having fled from persecution during the Huerta regime, he joined Carranza’s cause after meeting the First Chief in 1914 in Ciudad Juarez. According to Rolland, Carranza already “looked ahead to prepare the era of reconstruction.” ^[2] With an eye on the future, Carranza sent Rolland to New York to study municipal and education systems and to direct Constitutionalist propaganda in the United States. Later that year, Carranza called him back to Veracruz to work in his cabinet as the Oficial Mayor of Communications. In this capacity he oversaw the construction of a wireless system between Saltillo and Veracruz.^[3] During the following six years of Carranza leadership, Rolland headed a number of nationalist projects. Among other things, he headed the Petroleum Technical Commission, the construction of the first concrete pier at the oil terminal in Progresso, the State Agrarian Commission of Yucatán, and investigations into the social, economic, and structural conditions in Yucatán and the Territory of Baja California.^[4] Rolland also wrote a number of brief books and pamphlets on these subjects in addition to others on women’s rights, education, tax policies, and the development of a national transportation and communications system. He later went on to write the first broadcasting regulations during the Álvaro Obregón administration in 1923.^[5] About radio he wrote that “The wireless service has been improved to such an extent that we are able to make the assertion that the entire Republic is covered by stations that control the country in a far more efficient manner, proportionately, than the same service does in the United States.” ^[6] Although a bold statement, the Constitutionalists had indeed made significant headway in expanding wireless communications across the nation.

 

[Following this section I go into the specifics about radio development under Carranza. I plan to mention Rolland's work once again when I address Constitutionalist designs to further incorporate Baja California--which in many ways had remained largely autonomus--into the national fold.]

J. Justin Castro

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[1] “Mexico Plans Many Big Improvements,” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 1917, I9.

[2] M. C. Rolland, “Investigation Work into the Municipal City Governments and the Rural School System, Factories and Industrial Centers in the United States,” in Carlo de Fornaro, I. C. Enriquez, Charles Ferguson, and M. C. Rolland, Carranza and Mexico (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1915),  109-110.

[3] “Three Capitals Neutral,” New York Times, December 23, 1914, 20.

[4] Jorge M. Rolland C., “Ingeniero Modesto C. Rolland Mejia,” unpublished manuscript, author’s personal collection, 5; Modesto C. Rolland, Carta a mis conciudadnos (New York: Latin-American News Association, 1917), 25-29; Jorge M. Rolland C., “Modesto C. Rolland: Summary,” unpublished manuscript, author’s personal collection, 2; Modesto C. Rolland, Informe sobre el Distrito Norte de la Baja California de la Baja California (Mexicali: Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, 1993).

[5] Modesto C. Rolland to Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City,  May 9, 1923, Obregón-Calles Papers, c. 51, exp. 121-C-R-4, Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City, further stated as AGN; Modesto C. Rolland to Álvaro Obregón, Mexico City, June 5, 1923, Obregón-Calles Papers, c. 51, exp. 121-C-R-4, AGN; Álvaro Obregón to Modesto C. Rolland, Mexico,  June 8, 1923, c. 51, exp. 121-C-R-4, AGN; “Los permisos para las estación es de radiotelefónia,” El Universal, September 1, 1923, 3.

[6] M. C. Rolland, A Reconstructive Policy in Mexico (New York:: Latin-American News Association, 1917), 7.