Trading with Mexico — Inside the Classic

A Deliberately Narrow Focus

Thompson states he has “told but little of the famous resources of Mexico” and “little of the labor of Mexico,” because those topics are covered elsewhere. Instead, he sets down “those phases of Mexican life to-day which are the background of Mexican business.” He warns that he will “set forth honestly the truth about Mexicans of to-day, the secrets of Mexican government, the facts of Mexican ‘bolshevism,’ the horrors of Mexico’s degeneration under the rule of her predatory caciques.” This framing reveals a political and cultural argument embedded in what is ostensibly a trade manual. The catalog subjects list “Mexico — Economic conditions” and “Mexico — Politics and government — 1910-1946,” but the excerpts show that Thompson treats political instability and social conditions as the primary determinants of commerce, not market data or infrastructure.

Evidence from Accident Reports and Worker Attitudes

Thompson cites a 1918 bulletin recording 6,424 accidents in 278 industrial establishments with 292,364 employees. Of these, 5,165 were attributed to “carelessness of workmen,” only 195 to management fault, and 1,064 to unavoidable causes. He uses this statistic to argue that labor reforms have not produced contented workers. In Tampico oil fields and Vera Cruz, he reports “a sullen hatred of the foreigner” and “ugly self-assertion.” He describes workers as “convinced of an unappreciated importance which they knew but by rote.” These observations are specific and traceable to the text, but they reflect Thompson’s interpretive lens rather than neutral reporting. The excerpts do not include countervailing evidence or alternative perspectives.

The Land Question and Revolutionary Disruption

Thompson contrasts the Díaz-era “slow, constructive work toward the creation of arable land for small farms” with the post-1910 revolutions that he likens to “the child who pulled up the stalks to see how the seeds were growing.” He asserts that “the alleged land hunger of the Mexican Indians and peons has been at once the rallying cry for each succeeding revolution and the one appeal of all of them for foreign sympathy.” The passage questions whether land hunger is genuine or a political tool. The catalog subject “Mexico — Politics and government — 1910-1946” is clearly relevant, but the excerpts show Thompson’s analysis is explicitly skeptical of revolutionary motives. Readers should note that the text is a contemporary argument, not a retrospective history.

Thompson’s preface and selected passages reveal a work that blends commercial advice with political commentary. The book’s value to modern readers lies not in its trade data—which is over a century old—but in its documentation of how an American observer framed Mexico’s challenges for a business audience. Readers should approach the text as a primary source on early 20th-century U.S. attitudes toward Mexican development, rather than as an objective economic survey.

There’s something humbling about reading Wallace Thompson’s 1921 observations on Mexico—how little the fundamentals of labor and trust have shifted under the surface. It reminded me of an old friend’s quiet copy of The History of England - a Study in Political Evolution — Story, Setting & Ideas, which sat untouched for years, patient as a porch swing. Some books wait for the right decade to find you.