"To Arouse and Inform": The Knights of Columbus and United States-Mexican Relations, 1924–1937

Abstract

When Francisco I. Madero ousted the long-time Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1911, he set into motion a series of events that we have come to know collectively as the Mexican Revolution. This revolution, with its relatively small beginnings, would soon grow and shake the Mexican nation to its roots. The United States, Mexico's overbearing northern neighbor, was not immune to the tremors emanating from south of the Rio Grande. For a significant part of the population of the United States, this revolution presented a challenge to something at their very soul—their Catholicity. Most Catholics in the United States, from the hierarchy's leadership in the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC)1 to devout lay men and women, viewed the challenge that faced the Mexican Church as one that struck at the heart of some of their most deeply held assumptions as American Catholics, i.e., that the freedom of religious expression was an inalienable and universal liberty. To meet this challenge arising from the Mexican Revolution, activist American Catholics—particularly the Knights of Columbus— [End Page 489] struggled to force the United States government to alter its diplomatic relations with that country. This essay will examine the work of the Knights of Columbus to aid their Mexican co-religionists within the context of the Mexican Revolution's assault on the Catholic Church. In this effort, the Knights of Columbus assumed a leadership position within a special interest group comprised of American Catholic hierarchy and laymen, striving to exert some degree of influence over public policy.2