The Civilizing Machine: A Cultural History of Mexican Railroads, 1876-1910

3. Festivals of Progress

t h r e e Festivals of Progress The Railroad Ceremony Hail to Progress! Hail to the powerful Century of Reason, which ignites and fills The cosmos with its brilliant breath! From the clean, blue, vast and calm Expanse of astral spaces, To the bed of sand Where the seas sleep in silent solitude. It floods everything with a divine flash, The omnipotent and sovereign power That has showered with laurels the path Of this century: human intelligence! Hail to the steep mountain ranges, And the deserts and the ocean deep, The word and the voice, there are no more boundaries! juan de dios peza, La inauguración del ferrocarril de San Luis Potosí On November 20, 1892, the polite society periodical México Gráfico covered President Díaz’s participation in the inaugural run of the Durango-Oaxaca Railway. The reporter declared that the recent inaugurations of several railway lines pumped new blood into the nation, incubating national strength through the development of commerce and industry. He detailed people’s sin- festivals of progr ess 104 cere, unbridled enthusiasm for the “festivals of progress” that proved the country’s civilization and bright future. This sort of exuberant sentiment expressed about the arrival of the locomotive was a common phenomenon during the Porfiriato. Railway expansion represented the most important infrastructural development to take place during the Porfiriato.1 As such, the inauguration of new lines generated great fanfare. National and local leaders took advantage of the ceremony, as well as other civic festivities that featured the locomotive, to celebrate the progress that their country had made.2 Railway inaugurations and other public celebrations provided elite groups with opportunities to use symbolic rituals in an attempt to secure and legitimate the rule of Porfirio Díaz and to impart didactic lessons on observers about the values and mores they believed individuals should cherish. Above all, event organizers, and the press that covered these festivities, celebrated the success of the government in making its mantra of “order and progress” a reality. Organizers typically ordered the inauguration ceremony into four parts employed to evoke popular enthusiasm: the arrival of the inaugural train, usually carrying the guests of honor; a civic procession across the city’s principal streets and to important buildings; a lavish banquet dedicated to the guests of honor ; and a gala ball that often carried on until the early morning hours. Ayuntamientos (town councils) often coupled these events with regional expositions that showcased local products and commodities. An essential aspect of the railway inauguration , as well as civic ceremonies that involved the locomotive in one way or another, was the invitation extended to the press. Reporters routinely rode on the inaugural train, covering the events for readers of the government-subsidized press and elite periodicals. These events allowed middle- and upper-class Porfirians to celebrate the values they believed had lifted their country out of the political turmoil and economic backwardness that had festivals of progr ess 105 characterized it since Independence in 1821. They presented and lauded ideals that they felt corresponded to a liberal, capitalistic , and progressive nation. The railway inauguration allowed the governing regime to disseminate these values through symbolic acts of pageantry and to justify the government’s growing authoritarianism and its violations of the Constitution of 1857, especially the article of no reelection. This considered, it is not surprising that railway inauguration ceremonies became more spectacular as well as more didactic after 1888, the year of Díaz’s first consecutive reelection. Public celebrations created a sacred aura around liberal, positivist values as well as around the regime itself. The railway inauguration represented a modern form of liturgy that extolled the virtues of material progress and social order.3 In the formulation of Mona Ozouf, a new order seeking to institute itself must make the very act of its institution sacred.4 Public rituals allowed rulers opportunities to reshape people’s basic beliefs and cultural values.5 During the Porfiriato, railway inauguration organizers coordinated processions and appropriated religious language and imagery as a way to secure this connection. The association of the civic ceremony with religious symbols and metaphors represented a transfer of sacrality to social and political values in a manner that leaders hoped would resonate with ordinary people who attended and participated in these events. While public festivals had long been used by dominant groups to...