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n o t e s Introduction 1. “Sister of the sun and the dark night, / With space and time at war, / The hills pressing on the earth, / It advances majestically across the plain. / Amongst the incense of the vapor it gleams / Rays of light, and with the rocks it closes upon, / It sinks into the heart of the mountains, / Seeking there a path or a grave. / Today it parts from the western coasts, / Tomorrow the Indian Ocean in its grasp / It will go to temper the red horizon. / On its wings it carries the fertile seeds / Of industry, of art, of progress. . . . / Make way for the breath of God that drives the world!” The original read: “Del sol hermana, y de la noche oscura, / Con el espacio y con el tiempo en guerra, / Los lomos oprimiendo de la tierra, / Avanza majestuosa en la llanura . / Entre el incienso del vapor fulgura / Haces de luz, y con las rocas cierra , / Y se hunde en las entrañas de la sierra, / Buscando allí camino ó sepultura . / Hoy parte de las costas de Occidente, / Mañana del mar Índico en el beso / Irá á templar la enrojecida frente. / Sobre sus alas va el gérmen fecundo / De la industria, del arte, del progreso. . . . / Paso al soplo de Dios que empuja el mundo!” El Mundo (Semanario Ilustrado), December 2, 1894. 2. “If a desperate person wants / To have his baptism ruined / Travel in a rail-cataclysm [railway], / As that will surely be the result; / It is true that certain machine-nihilists [engineers] / Tighten their grip so well [shake hands], / You pay in Mexican / And they’ll kill you in English. / We no longer fear typhus, / Neither cholera, nor the fever; / That is a swindle / And backward you get your fears: / The real scare is had / In a train, plain and simple, / You pay in Mexican / And they’ll kill you in English / The manager of the joke / Of dispatching the traveler, / Tends to be a son of a bitch / Thick as a cow, / Is as strong as a brute, / And begging him is so useless, / You pay in Mexican / And they’ll kill you in English / —Mr. Yankee (he pleads) / Do not break our rib. / —Me no understand Spanish / He says, looking at him sideways; / But when it comes to savagery / He is such a doyen, / You not es to pages 3–5 260 will pay in Mexican / And they’ll kill you in English.” The original read: “Si quiere un desesperado / Que le estrellen el bautismo, / Viaje en ferro-cataclismo , / Que el efecto seguro es; / Pues ciertos maqui-nihilistas / Tan bien aprietan la mano, / Que paga usté en mexicano / Y lo matan en inglés. / Ya no tememos al tifo, / Ni al cólera, ni á la fiebre; / Eso es dar gato por liebre / Y sustitos al revés: / El sustazo se recibe / En un tren, y tan de plano, / Que paga usté en mexicano / Y lo matan en inglés. . . . / El encargado del chiste / De despachar al viajero, / Suele ser un majadero / Macizo como una res, / Es tan fuerte como bruto, / Y suplicarle es tan vano, / Que paga usté en mexicano / Y lo matan en inglés. / —Señor yankee, (se le ruega), / No nos rompa una costilla. / —Mi non tende de castilla, / Dice él, viendo de través; / Mas en punto á salvajada / Es de tal modo un decano, / Que paga usté en mexicano / Y lo matan en inglés. . . .” El Hijo del Ahuizote, March 17, 1895. 3. Tenenbaum, Politics of Penury; Stevens, Origins of Instability in Early Republican Mexico; and Costeloe, Central Republic in Mexico. 4. Santoni, Mexicans at Arms; and Vázquez, “War and Peace with the United States.” 5. J. Bazant, “From Independence to the Liberal Republic”; Costeloe, Central Republic in Mexico; Anna, Forging Mexico: 1821–1835. 6. Dabbs, French Army in Mexico. 7. Knapp, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada; Cosío Villegas, ed., Historia moderna de México, vol. 1–3; Scholes, Mexican Politics during the Juárez Regime, 1855–1872; J. Bazant, Alienation of Church Wealth in Mexico; Sinkin, The Mexican Reform, 1855–1876. 8. Haber, Industry and Underdevelopment, 15. 9. Calderón, “Los ferrocarriles.” 10. Calderón, “Los ferrocarriles”; Pletcher, Rails, Mines, and Progress ; Ortiz Hernán, Los ferrocarriles de México; Coatsworth, Growth against Development; Coatsworth, “Indispensable Railways in a Backward Economy.” 11. Coatsworth, “Railroads, Landholding, and Agrarian Protest in the Early Porfiriato.” While not concerned solely with railway development, many studies stressed the negative consequences of railway...

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