TEN DAYS IN MEXICO AS A GUEST OF THE NATIONAL
GOVERNMENT, WITH ALL EXPENSES PAID
(SEPTEMBER 1-10, 1997)
By
Dr. Malcolm D. McLean
206 Golden Oaks Drive
Georgetown, TX 78628-3320
My. son, John Robertson McLean, and I have just returned from spending
ten days in Mexico as official guests of the National Government, and I
am so pleased and proud that I feel that, out of gratitude for this splendid
manifestation of International cultural cooperation, I should tell
somebody about it.
Don José‚ Luis Martínez, President of the Organizing
Committee, extended the invitation for us to attend the ten programs which
had been planned to recognize Guillermo Prieto, Mexico's most distinguished
poet-statesman, on the centennial of his death (March 2, 1997), because
they wanted to honor me, officially, as "the Discoverer of Guillermo Prieto."
I had begun my research about Prieto 60 years earlier, in 1937, when
I received an E. D. Farmer International Fellowship from The University
of Texas at Austin, to spend two years doing graduate research in the National
Autonomous University of Mexico. For my Master's thesis I chose to
make a study of "The Literary Content of EL SIGLO DIEZ Y NUEVE," the Mexican
newspaper which had been published for the longest period of time (from
1841 to 1896). I published that thesis in 1938, under the title of
EL CONTENIDO LITERARIO DE "El SIGLO DIEZ Y NUEVE" (México,
D. F.: Imprenta Mundial, 1938). 100 copies.
Later I had a request from Dr. A. Curtis Wilgus, President, Inter-
American Bibliographical and Library Association, to supply him with
enough copies so that the book could be distributed as their annual publication
for all their members, so I brought out a second printing (Houston:
The Standish Company, 1940).
When I summarized my findings concerning EL
SIGLO DIEZ Y NUEVE, it turned out that the most prolific contributor had
been Guillermo Prieto, so I used him for my doctoral dissertation at The
University of Texas at Austin, which I completed in 1951, under the title
of "THE LIFE AND WORKS OF GUILLERMO PRIETO (1818-1897)."
This study was published in 1960 under the title of VIDA Y OBRA DE GUILLERMO
PRIETO (México, D. F.: El Colegio de M‚xico, 1960).
Eighteen years later Lic. Carlos J. Sierra
published my 400-page bibliography on Prieto under the title of NOTAS PARA
UNA BIBLIOGRAFÍA SOBRE GUILLERMO PRIETO [NOTES FOR A BIBLIOGRAPHY
ON GUILLERMO PRIETO] (México, D. F.: Secretaría de
Hacienda y Crédito Público, 1968). It contained more
than 2,668 entries..
Then Boris Rosen Jélomer took this bibliography, added
several thousand more entries, and persuaded the Consejo Nacional para
la Cultura y las Artes, in 1992, to start publishing the OBRAS COMPLETAS
DE GUILLERMO PRIETO (COMPLETE WORKS OF GUILLERMO PRIETO), hoping to have
the series completed by March 2, 1997, the Centennial of Prieto's death,
and the Mexican Government proclaimed this year as "El Año de Guillermo
Prieto." However, so much new material was discovered that they had
to postpone the formal celebration until September, by which time they
had published 25 volumes, but there were still more to come, eventually
reaching 35 volumes, including a volume of cumulative indexes. They also
plan to publish.all the speeches made upon these various ccasions, and
to reprint my 1960 volume on Prieto.
Nevertheless they started celebrating by printing Prieto's picture
on all the tickets for the National Lottery drawing which took place on
August 31, 1997.
Monday, September 1, 1997. John and I flew by American
Airlines from Austin to Dallas, and then from Dallas to Mexico City.
We were met at the Mexico City Airport by:
1. Don José
Luis Martínez, President of the Academia Mexicana de la lengua correspondiente
de la Española, the most prestigious literary rganization in Mexico.
2. By
Marta Guillermoprieto, a great-great-granddaughter of Prieto.
3. By Boris
Rosen, the moving spirit behind the entire celebration.
4. and
by Fabiola Juárez J., representing the Instituto Nacional de Bellas
Artes, which was paying for our plane tickets and for our hotel bill and
breakfast during the first part of our visit. The National University paid
for the second part. Then Fabiola gave John and me 1,440 pesos each,
in cash, for "viáticos" (travel allowance), but we found it hard
to spend any of that money, since they always had somebody waiting on us,
day and night, providing official vehicles for our transportation
and paying for our meals. We were lodged in the Hotel Ritz
(Four Star Best Western). When we reached our room, we found awaiting
us an elegant package from Daniel Leyva, Director of the Centro Nacional
de Informacón y Promoción de la Literatura. It contained
a collection of the various volumes published by the Centro.
Tuesday, September 2, 1997, at 1:00 p.m. Lic. Emma Ramírez
Gastélum, acting as attorney for Dr. Andrés Luis González,
President of El Colegio de México, came by our room and had me to
sign two contracts for the reprinting of my 1960 Prieto volume later this
year, I to receive ten percent of the sales, including radio and TV rights.
Then they launched a series of ten formal programs or exhibits,
as follows:
1. Wednesday, September 3, 1997, 11:00
a.m.Ceremony at The Rotunda of Illustrious Men, where Prieto is buried..
We laid a wreath upon his grave, which is marked by a stately pillar, surmounted
by his bust. Students from an elementary school, and from a high
school, both named for Prieto, attended in uniform.
2. Wednesday, September 3, 1997, at
7:30 p.m. in the Sala Manuel M. Ponce, of the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
A. A formal ceremony featuring the cancellation
of the first postage stamp of the special issue honoring Prieto.
B. Presentation
of the OBRAS COMPLETAS DE GUILLERMO PRIETO. Six orators spoke upon
this occasion. I talked for 18 minutes, in Spanish, outlining
the history of my attempts to make Prieto better known among the reading
public, both in the United States and in Mexico.
3. Thursday, September 4, 1997, at 7:30
p.m. in the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana. A program honoring Prieto in
which three orators spoke. Highlighting the event was a special orchestra
which had been brought in from the University of Puebla to play typical
music of the nineteenth century. During the social hour which
followed, a modest figure came up and introduced himself as Alberto Beltrán
García, who had been doing lithographs for forty years, specializing
in the Benito Juárez Era. Next morning he came to our
hotel and brought me a specially autographed copy of his masterpiece showing
the triumphal entry of Juárez into Mexico City at the close of the
War of Reform, after he had driven the French out of Mexico. He also
gave me a copy of a newspaper he had founded for the special purpose of
educating the young people of Mexico.
4. Monday, September 8, 1997, at 10:30
a.m. in the Auditorium of the Institute for Bibliographical research at
my Alma Mater, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, now housed
in its beautiful campus to the south of Mexico City. This session
was honoring Prieto for his NATIONAL BALLAD CYCLE describing Mexico's struggle
for its independence from Spain. I talked for 12 minutes, in Spanish,
about "Guillermo Prieto and Texas," pointing out that he lived in San Antonio,
Texas, during 1866, 1867, and 1877, highlighting the contribution he made
by helping to smuggle 7,000 rifles into Mexico for Juárez to use
in driving the French out of Mexico.
5. Monday, September 8, 1997, following
the program described above. We were invited into the National Library
(now an integral part of the University), where I and Marta Guillermoprieto
were asked to cut the ribbons opening their special exhibit of Prieto's
works. Also I found that my books about Prieto were on display in
special cases. Then the Librarian asked me to go with her into their
Rare Book Room, where they had a special book that they wanted me to autograph.
It turned out to be the original 600-page thesis which I had submitted
for my M. A. Degree in 1938. I had typed it on Chinese rice paper
because, at that particular time, there was an an embargo against importing
paper from the United States.
6. Tuesday, September 9, 1997, at 11:00
a.m. in the First Patio of the National Palace I was photographed, along
with all the other dignitaries, at the unveiling of the special plaque
honoring Prieto for his four terms as Secretary of the Treasury.
While we were at the National Palace, my son John also photographed the
picture of Prieto where he appears as part of the Diego Rivera murals on
the entrance stairway, and the bust of Prieto in the Recinto de Ju rez,
and another bust of Prieto which we found upstairs in the area formerly
occupied by the Ministry of the Treasury. He also got a picture of
the plaque marking the place where Prieto delivered his lectures on the
history of Mexico, to the cadets in the Mexican Military Academy.
7. Tuesday, September 9, 1997, at 7:00
p.m. in the Lerdo de Tejada Library of the National Treasury Department.
Four speakers read papers about Prieto's textbooks on political economy
and his contributions to the development of financial institu- tions in
Mexico, one of his principal contributions being the introduction of the
double-entry system of bookkeeping. Since we had to return to the States
on September 10, we did not get to attend these next two programs:
8. Thursday, September 18, 1997, at 7:30
p.m. in the Capilla Alfonsina. A lecture on Prieto as a teacher of Mexican
history and economics.
9. Tuesday, September 23, 1997, at 7:00
p.m. in the Casa del Poeta, the home which was purchased by funds
raised by popular subscription, and presented to Prieto, after he had been
elected Mexico's most popular poet, and crowned with a silver crown of
laurel leaves. Three speakers talked about his volume entitled
the MUSA CALLEJERA, a collection of his folk poetry.
10. During the time that we were in
Mexico City, there was also another Prieto exhibit that was open to the
public, in the National Archives, which have been moved from the
National Palace out to the extreme edge of Mexico City, where they are
housed in the buildings that formerly served as the National Penitentiary,
but the hours that this exhibit was open, and the extreme distance that
existed between our hotel and that exhibit was so great, Mexico City being
the largest city in the world, that we were never able to get out there
to see it. We were told that it contained more than a score of
heretofore unpublished Prieto letters, and a similar number of family
photographs, which had not been previously available to researchers.
In conclusion, I wish to express my deepest
appreciation to my son John, who, fearing that his 84-year-old father might
fall flat on his face and create an international cultural incident,
took time off from his administrative duties at I.B.M. in Austin and, taking
along his highly sophisticated Sony camera, with its zoom lens and tripod,
he took care of me during the entire trip, carrying luggage, piloting us
through customs, getting money changed, hailing taxis, and, above
all, setting up his camera and recording every speech of every program
which we attended. He got a total of 12 hours of recordings in all.
He performed an even more important service,
however, when El Colegio de México wanted a copy of my biography
and a list of all my publications, but I had already given away all my
available copies, to radio and TV reporters at the Airport, and to other
interested parties, on the day that we arrived, so John rounded up
the Manager of the Hotel Ritz, got access to his Internet computer room,
and transferred all that information from John's home page, on his ranch
two miles south of Jarrell, Texas, and had all 21 pages printed out in
Mexico City in a matter of minutes.
He did the same thing on Sunday at noon, when I had an appointment
for an interview with Guadalupe Appendini in her office at EXCÉLSIOR,
one of the largest newspapers in Mexico City. While she was interviewing
me and her photographer was snapping mug shots, John slipped out, found
the computer room, and came back with a complete set ready to hand to her
before she finished the interview. She gazed at the handful of pages
in disbelief and exclaimed: "It's just like Black Magic!"
John also made a complete recording
of the Ballet Folklórico, for which we had been given complimentary
tickets by the daughter-in-law of Don Jos‚ Luis Martínez,
who is the director of those performances.
Last of all, I should mention my younger grandson,
Douglas Duncan McLean, who surprised us by flying in, straight from Madrid,
late on Saturday night, so that he could be present to hear me speak at
the National University.
From the foregoing notes you can seen why
I consider this to have been the most important cultural event, or
series of events, that has ever occurred in the Western Hemisphere.
For instance, the works of Mark Twain, the most outstanding writer in the
United States, edited in Austin, Texas, for THE OXFORD MARK
TWAIN, fill only 29 volumes, but the works of Prieto will fill at
least 35, with more to come!
P. S. From a telephone call from Marta Guillermoprieto on October
4, 1997, I learned that the number of programs presented in honor
of Guillermo Prieto has already increased to 15, and there
are still more scheduled for his month!
M. D. M.
--
Dr. Malcolm D. McLean, Ph.D. and Margaret S. McLean
206 Golden Oaks Drive
Georgetown, Texas 78628-3320
voice: (512) 869-0166 fax: (512) 869-7048
mdmclean@texas.net http://lonestar.texas.net/~mdmclean