From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship: The Conservative Rebellion through Service Clubs in Monterrey, 1920s-1960s - UC Press Journals
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From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship:
The Conservative Rebellion through Service
Clubs in Monterrey, 1920s–1960s
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David Tamayo
University of Michigan
This article examines the political activism of conservative civil society in
postrevolutionary Mexico through the lens of American service clubs. It
focuses on the case of the Rotary Club of Monterrey, which gathered the city’s
industrial elites and some of the most vocal opponents of the Mexican state,
particularly the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40). Monterrey is
significant because of its economic and political clout; by the 1930s, it was
the powerhouse of heavy industry and in the 1940s a key center of support
for the Partido Acción Nacional. After Monterrey Rotarians dissolved their club
in 1936, following a disagreement with Rotary International’s policy against
political involvement, they regrouped and established throughout Mexico the
only service club that blended pro-business goals with right-wing hispanidad
ideology: the Club Sembradores de Amistad. This story illustrates how
conservative civil society in Mexico adopted seemingly contradictory transna-
tional influences (Catholic Hispanist thought and American service clubs) to
challenge the postrevolutionary state in a less confrontational way.
Keywords: Catholic conservatism, Club Sembradores de Amistad, hispa-
nidad, Knights of Columbus, Lázaro Cárdenas, Monterrey employers, Rotary
Club, Rotary International, Sowers of Friendship Club, transnational
conservatism.
Este artı́culo examina el activismo polı́tico de la sociedad civil conservadora en
el México posrevolucionario a través del desempeño de los clubes de servicio
de procedencia estadounidense. Se enfoca en el caso del Club Rotario de
Monterrey donde se agrupaba la élite industrial regiomontana, crı́tica acérrima
del Estado, especialmente durante el sexenio de Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40).
La ciudad de Monterrey es importante por su influencia económica y polı́tica:
Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos Vol. 36, Issue 1-2, Winter/Summer 2020, pages 68–96. issn
0742-9797, electronic issn 1533-8320. ©2020 by The Regents of the University of California. All
rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content
through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.
ucpress.edu/journals/reprints-permissions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/msem.2020.36.1-2.68.
68Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 69
en la década de 1930, ya era un centro clave de industria pesada y para los años
cuarenta se habı́a convertido en foco de apoyo para el Partido Acción Nacional.
Después que los Rotarios de Monterrey disolvieron su club en 1936, a raı́z
de un conflicto con Rotary International y sus principios de no intervención
en asuntos polı́ticos, se reagruparon para establecer en México el Club
Sembradores de Amistad, el único club de servicio que fusionó propósitos
empresariales con la ideologı́a de derecha hispanidad. Este artı́culo
demuestra cómo la sociedad civil conservadora en México se apropió de
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influencias transnacionales, aparentemente contradictorias (la hispanidad
católica y los clubes de servicio estadounidenses) para oponerse al Estado
posrevolucionario de una manera menos directa.
Palabras clave: Caballeros de Colón, Club Rotario, Club Sembradores de
Amistad, conservadurismo católico, conservadurismo transnacional,
empresarios de Monterrey, hispanidad, Lázaro Cárdenas, Rotary
International.
Since the early twentieth century, the Rotary Club has been a feature of
the North American landscape.1 In the United States, the Rotary Club is
generally associated with sales-training seminars, student-exchange
programs, donation drives, and cogwheel signs on highway shoulders.
Few would ever associate this international charitable club for busi-
nessmen with street protests, boycotts, and other forms of political
activism. South of the United States (US)-Mexico border, however,
beginning with Rotary International’s (RI) arrival in the 1920s, US-
founded service clubs played a key role in politicizing conservative
elite and middle-class Mexicans against the radicalism of the postrev-
olutionary state. As a result of the church-state violence that erupted in
the center-west of Mexico (1926–29) and the reformist presidency of
Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40), service clubs across Mexico became
deeply immersed in movements challenging the anticlerical assaults
and pro-labor policies of the postrevolutionary state. How did this
quintessentially American—supposedly apolitical and secular—service
1. This article is drawn from the author’s book-length manuscript in progress,
tentatively titled “Remaking the Right: Mexico’s Middle Classes, American Service
Clubs, and the Rise of Transnational Conservatism.” He would like to thank the many
people who offered invaluable comments and suggestions to improve this article.
Included among these are the members of the 2017 Berkeley Latin American History
working group at the University of California, Berkeley, and the 2018 Department of
History Colloquium at Santa Clara University. Deep gratitude is also owed to Margaret
Chowning, Ben Fallaw, Benjamin Smith, Germán Vergara, Nancy Unger, Gustavo
Buenrostro, and the anonymous reviewers at Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos.
Research for this article was supported by the University of California Institute for
Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) and the Institute of International Studies
(IIS) at the University of California, Berkeley.70 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
club evolve from an institution for charity to an influential vehicle for
conservative political activism?
This article explores the question of conservative civil society and
its opposition to the Mexican state, from the 1920s to the 1960s,
through the lens of the Rotary Club and its later reincarnation, the
Club Sembradores de Amistad (Sowers of Friendship) in Monterrey—
Mexico’s center of heavy industry and political conservatism.2 The
first part discusses the establishment of Rotary in Monterrey on the
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eve of the 1920s church-state conflict (known as the Cristero
Rebellion) and the club’s appeal to conservative employers, many
of whom were affiliated with anti-postrevolutionary state Catholic
groups, including the Knights of Columbus. The next section briefly
sketches the confrontation between Monterrey’s employer class,
which organized to oppose the pro-labor policies of the Cardenista
state in 1936, and highlights the role of the local Rotary Club during
that chaotic period. The club’s disbandment is then discussed as
a result of a disagreement with RI policy, which bars members from
engaging in politicking. The last part delves into the emergence of the
Sowers of Friendship, the only autonomous and pro-Catholic service
club in Mexico. By 1960, the Sowers had expanded into dozens of
Mexican cities, preaching a peculiar blend of anti-postrevolutionary,
capitalist-development, and Catholic-centered Hispanic identity.
Historians attribute regiomontano (locals of Monterrey) conser-
vatism to state interference in labor issues and, to a lesser extent, in
local elections. In this view, employers in Mexico’s industrial hub
were concerned primarily with business affairs, suppressing radical
labor, and blocking the influence of state-backed unions. They were
pragmatic, influenced by American ideas of progress, and driven
chiefly by the desire to accumulate capital.3 Some scholars have
suggested that religious concerns figured little into employers’
2. This study engages with broader discussions on conservatism in Europe and
the Americas. Notable in this vast field are Roger Eatwell and Noel O’Sullivan, The
Nature of the Right: European and American Politics and Political Thought since
1789 (London: Pinter, 1992); Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New
American Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Sandra McGee
Deutsch, Las Derechas: The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890–1939
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); M. Durham and Margaret Power, New
Perspectives on the Transnational Right (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010);
Clarisse Berthezène and Jean-Christian Vinel, Postwar Conservatism, A Transnational
Investigation: Britain, France, and the United States, 1930–1990 (Cham, Switzerland:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
3. Alex Saragoza writes that, by the 1920s, regiomontanos had developed into
“the standard-bearers of a capitalist opposition to the state.” Implicit in this view is that
accumulation of wealth was at the core of regiomontano struggle against with the state.Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 71
calculations. Unlike the traditionally Catholic cities, such as
Guadalajara or Puebla, Monterrey was essentially secular. In their
colossal factories filled daily by rivers of blue-collar workers, pater-
nalistic bosses adopted modern managing approaches from their
American neighbors rather than from the teachings of Catholic social
action. Religion, in the words of one historian, “played little discern-
able part in the locals’ sense of regional identity.” Once imple-
mented, the anticlerical policies under President Plutarco Elı́as
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Calles (1924–28) that wreaked havoc in the center-west of Mexico
“barely caused a ripple in more secular Monterrey.”4 To the extent
that Monterrey is identified with Catholicism, it was only after the
1940s that employers began “promoting it as an ideological antidote”
to lure popular support against postrevolutionary state policies.5
The emergence of the pro-hispanidad Sowers of Friendship in
the 1930s, however, makes it clear that this instrumentalist view of
Catholicism in Monterrey is inadequate. Instead, it reveals the north-
eastern industrial city as a stronghold of Catholic conservative politics
from before the postrevolutionary period.6 Through this lens, the
foundation of the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, staffed by
-
The Monterrey Elite and the Mexican State, 1880–1940 (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1990), 206.
4. Michael Snodgrass, Deference and Defiance in Monterrey: Workers, Pater-
nalism, and Revolution in Mexico, 1890–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), 131.
5. Snodgrass, 56–57; Susan Gauss makes similar observations in Made in Mexico:
Regions, Nation, and the State in the Rise of Mexican Industrialism, 1920s–1940s
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 215.
6. Conservatism in postrevolutionary Monterrey represented a number of posi-
tions that countered the politics of the state. First, conservatives opposed the state’s
anticlericalism. Second, they rejected the central government’s intervention in orga-
nized labor and regional politics. Third, conservatives chafed at the state’s promotion
of indigenismo as the official national identity. While these were objections to specific
policies, they also had ideological and cultural foundations. As advocates of the
Catholic faith and of hispanidad—key factors overlooked by historians—conservatives
in Monterrey repudiated the state’s secularizing impetus, a conflict rooted in the
nineteenth century but revived with the state’s flirtations with socialist ideas after the
revolution. Studies on the diverse manifestations of conservatism in twentieth-century
Mexico include Benjamin T. Smith, The Roots of Conservatism in Mexico: Catholicism,
Society, and Politics in the Mixteca Baja, 1750–1962 (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2012); Erika Pani, ed., Conservadurismo y derechas en la historia de
México, 2 vols. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2009); Marı́a del Carmen
Collado, ed., Las derechas en el México contemporáneo (Mexico City: Instituto de
Investigaciones Dr. José Marı́a Luis Mora, 2015); John W. Sherman, The Mexican Right:
The End of Revolutionary Reform, 1929–1940 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997); Ricardo
Pérez Montfort, “Por la patria y por la raza”: La derecha secular en el sexenio de
Lázaro Cárdenas (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1993).72 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
Jesuit university educators in the 1940s, and the city’s role as a crucial
center of support for the right-of-center Partido Acción Nacional
(PAN; National Action Party) in 1939 can be seen as part of a broader,
effervescent pro-Catholic conservative movement in Monterrey.
Uncovering this story demonstrates that regiomontano businessmen
and the middle classes in general fundamentally disagreed with the
state’s anticlerical policies; at least as much as objectionable labor
policies did, this cultural divide galvanized their opposition to the
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government. Far more than most historians have suggested,
Catholicism figured in employers’ calculations and informed their
views on politics and civic engagement—a framework, akin to what
Carlos Forment described for nineteenth-century Mexico, called
“Civic Catholicism.”7
Examining the case of the Rotary Club and later the Sowers of
Friendship also casts new light on the nature of conservative activism
and of civil society more broadly during the postrevolutionary
period.8 While the topic of conservatism has received considerable
scholarly attention, most of it has focused on the Catholic Church and
affiliated lay organizations, as well as on political parties such as the
PAN and the Unión Nacional Sinarquista (UNS; National Synarchist
Union) using a national perspective.9 Relatively less is known about
7. Exceptions to this include Juan Mora-Torres, The Making of the Mexican
Border: The State, Capitalism, and Society in Nuevo León, 1848–1910 (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2001); Abraham Nuncio, El Grupo Monterrey (Mexico City:
Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1982); and José Fuentes Mares, Monterrey, una ciudad
creadora y sus capitanes (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1976). On the concept of “Civic
Catholicism,” see Carlos A. Forment, Democracy in Latin America, 1760–1900: Civic
Selfhood and Public Life in Mexico and Peru (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2003).
8. Civil society is used here in the Tocquevillian sense, meaning a domain rela-
tively independent from the state and the market. Within this sphere are numerous
manifestations of uncoerced associative sociability, including civic associations such as
Rotary and Sowers of Friendship clubs, on which this study focuses. This definition is
based on Michael Walzer, “The Concept of Civil Society,” in Toward a Global Civil
Society, ed. Michael Walzer (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), 7–28; and Michael
Edwards, ed., “Civil Society and the Geometry of Human Relations,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Civil Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 7–8.
9. Influential studies on the activism of the Catholic Church and affiliated orga-
nizations include Marı́a Luisa Aspe Armella, La formación social y polı́tica de los
católicos mexicanos: La Acción Católica Mexicana y la Unión Nacional de
Estudiantes Católicos, 1929–1958 (Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 2008);
Ben Fallaw, Religion and State Formation in Postrevolutionary Mexico (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2013); Stephen J. C. Andes, The Vatican and Catholic Activism
in Mexico and Chile: The Politics of Transnational Catholicism, 1920–1940 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2014); David Espinosa, Jesuit Student Groups, theTamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 73
how conservative civil society engaged the state outside of these
religious and political organizations. Drawing primarily on service
club and state archives in Mexico and the US, this article contributes
to these discussions by illustrating how conservative Mexicans used
seemingly apolitical and secular voluntary associations with transna-
tional ties to advance their conservative politics and cultural values in
a more covert way.
Finally, the story of RI in Monterrey engages with debates about
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the influence of American nonstate actors in foreign contexts and of
American empire building more broadly. Scholars in these fields have
viewed the global expansion of Rotary as evidence of American impe-
rialism and of transnational civil society groups projecting Western
economic, cultural, and political agendas onto developing coun-
tries.10 The fate of Monterrey’s Rotary Club and the creation of the
Sowers of Friendship, however, challenge this interpretation by high-
lighting the limits of this American organization’s ability to shape club
policy and ideology abroad. Rather, it shows that Mexicans adopted
and/or rejected outside influences to suit their own goals.
Captains of Industry, Knights of Columbus
To understand the importance of the Rotary Club and later of the
Sowers of Friendship in Monterrey, it is crucial to comprehend the
place of Catholicism and the lay association Knights of Columbus
(KOC) with middle-class and elite culture. Since the late nineteenth
century, regiomontano elites and regional clergy established close
ties—evidenced by the former’s participation in church-related activ-
ities—from hosting visiting prelates to leading Easter processions, as
well as supporting lay groups such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
-
Universidad Iberoamericana, and Political Resistance in Mexico: 1913–1979
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014). On the PAN, see Soledad
Loaeza, El Partido Acción Nacional: La larga marcha, 1939–1994; Oposición leal y
partido de protesta (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999); and on the
UNS, see Daniel Newcomer, Reconciling Modernity: Urban State Formation in 1940s
León, Mexico (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).
10. This interpretation is perhaps most evident in Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible
Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2005); and also in Brendan Goff, The Heartland Abroad:
Rotary International and the Globalizing of Main Street (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, forthcoming). One exception is Jonathan Wiesen, whose study reveals
how Germans embraced Rotary in order to reconcile consumerism, global business,
and racist ideology under National Socialism. Creating the Nazi Marketplace:
Commerce and Consumption in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), ch. 4.74 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
Certainly, as historian Alex Saragoza notes, these public displays were
important in further cementing the social prominence of industrial-
ists.11 However, elite involvement also reflected their personal
commitment to the Catholic faith. Perhaps the most compelling
evidence of employer-Catholic ties is the participation of key indus-
trialists and businessmen in lay associations, especially the KOC, at
the height of the state-led anticlerical assault.
Before the Rotary Club of Monterrey was founded in 1922,
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several future Rotarians were members of the KOC for reasons that
drew them later to the service club, including career advancement
and charity.12 As scholars examining other large urban centers,
including Puebla and Mexico City, have noted, the KOC functioned
as a semi-exclusive networking club for businessmen—a somewhat
different dynamic compared to its American counterpart (see fig. 1).13
11. Saragoza, Monterrey Elite, 79–80. During the 1923 Easter celebrations in
Monterrey, the exceedingly wealthy Isaac Garza Garza, Francisco G. Sada, José A.
Muguerza, and José Calderón led the Way of the Cross procession, carrying a canopy
covering the image of Christ the Redeemer—a task fit for men of their status. See
Aureliano Tapia Méndez, Pablo Cervantes: Un sacerdote de su tiempo (Monterrey:
Editorial Jus, 1971), 14–15; José Ortiz Bernal, Juan José Hinojosa Cantú: Siervo de
Dios (Monterrey: Gobierno del Estado de Nuevo León, 1994), 14–15.
12. Evidence of the Monterrey employer-class ties with the KOC is drawn from
Notice of Institution, Council no. 3212, 15 October 1921, Knights of Columbus-
Supreme Council Archives (KOC-SCA); Actividades sediciosas en Monterrey, NL, 15
June 1926, fojas 56–57, exp. 69, caja 296, Fondo Dirección General de Investigaciones
Polı́ticas y Sociales, Archivo General de la Nación (DGIPS-AGN); Information on
Roberto Riveroll is from a newspaper clipping from Excelsior de México, 25 May 1925,
exp. 69, caja 296, DGIPS-AGN; “Iniciación de nuevos Caballeros de Colón,” “La
Prensa”, 30 March 1922, 4; Agustı́n Basave and Federico Gómez, Quién es cada quién
en Monterrey: Diccionario biográfico de los actuales y más destacados profesionistas
y hombres de negocios de Monterrey (Monterrey: Impr. Monterrey, 1948); Oscar
Flores Torres, Monterrey en la Revolución, 1909–1923 (San Nicolás de los Garza,
Nuevo León: Universidad de Monterrey, 2010), 17; Javier Rojas Sandoval, “Pioneros de
la industria del cemento en el Estado de Nuevo León, México: Cementos Mexicanos, S.
A.,” Ingenierı́as 14, no. 50 (2011): 3.
13. Saragoza noted the penchant among businessmen to join the KOC.
Monterrey Elite, 171. For a similar pattern in Mexico City, see Randall Scott Hanson,
“The Day of Ideals: Catholic Social Action in the Age of the Mexican Revolution, 1867–
1929” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1994), 150–51; for Puebla, see José Luis Sánchez
Gavi, El espı́ritu renovado: La iglesia católica en México: De la nueva tolerancia al
Concilio Vaticano II. 1940–1968; Puebla: Un escenario regional (Mexico City: Plaza y
Valdés, 2012), 82–83. In the US, the KOC were originally populated by working-class
Catholic Americans. However, as Paula M. Kane found in early twentieth-century
Boston, the development of the highest honor in the KOC, the Fourth Degree,
mirrored the brotherhood’s “class stratification that accompanied the emergence of
a Catholic middle class.” Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900–1920
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 98.Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 75
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Figure 1. Occupational profile of Guadalajara Knights of Columbus Councila
Note: Of the 80 founding Knights of Columbus in Guadalajara (another vital
center of industry), 22 were what I describe as dependents, which include
students (4), teachers (4), farmers (8), and employees (6). Under
professionals & employers were 48, including lawyers (13), doctors (4),
dentist (1), engineers (7), artist (1), industrialists (5), merchants (13), and
rentiers (4). The total number of clerics were 10.
a
Source: Notice of Institution, Council no. 1979, 12 December 1919, KOC-SCA.
Additionally, the brotherhood in Monterrey also earned a reputation
for its involvement in local charitable work. For instance, in the early
1920s, the KOC gave gifts to underprivileged children and built
public parks, all of which were widely advertised in local dailies.
This level of public presence by a Catholic organization would have
been unimaginable during the Cristero Rebellion.14
After the state implemented a series of anticlerical laws—which,
among others, included compulsory secular education, banning
public worship, and nationalizing church property—chapters of the
KOC throughout Mexico joined the Catholic resistance, becoming
enemies of the state. Even before the outbreak of the Cristero
Rebellion, Knights were already the target of attacks by politicians
and citizens. During the presidencies of Álvaro Obregón (1920–24)
and Calles, it was not unusual for bureaucracies to terminate
employees for suspected affiliations with the KOC. The government
also began surveilling the activities of the KOC and other “religious
14. For examples of charitable activities by the KOC in Monterrey, see “Árboles de
Navidad, dulces y juguetes para los niños pobres,” El Porvenir, 19 October 1924, 5; “Se
fundará la Casa de la Infancia, anexa al Colegio Eucarı́stico,” El Porvenir, 4 February
1926, 4.76 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
fanatics” out of concern that they might incite a Catholic rebellion. In
Nuevo León, the politician and general Aarón Sáenz openly referred
to the association in 1923 as an “enemy of the state.” Reports from
Monterrey also stated that unidentified individuals were distributing
propaganda condemning the KOC.15
Once Catholic rebels, known as cristeros, took up arms, the KOC
chapters in Mexico collaborated with the resistance in a variety of
ways, from trafficking weapons to hiding priests. Although there were
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no episodes of violence in the northeast—unlike the war-torn center-
west of Mexico—the KOC in Monterrey did participate in the early
stages of rebellion. In March 1926, local observers reported that “the
religious question, which had not led to any problems” in the state of
Nuevo León, had caused the first incident.16
Shortly after President Calles prohibited schools from holding
religious services, the governor of Nuevo León, Jerónimo Siller,
dispatched police to the Colegio de las Damas del Corazón
Sagrado, where the daughters of the city’s most affluent families
attended school.17 Prior to the police’s arrival on Sunday, 7 March,
the mother superior called Roberto Riveroll (banker and KOC) and
Virgilio Garza Jr. (a Cuauhtémoc Brewery board member) for assis-
tance.18 Accounts differ on what exactly took place outside the
school’s chapel. (One source states that Riveroll barricaded himself
in the chapel, refusing entrance to the police, while another denies
it.) What is certain is that by day’s end both Riveroll and Garza were
arrested—though the charges were later dropped.19
15. For blacklisted federal and state employees, see Adición a la lista de Caballeros
de Colón del Gobierno del Distrito, c. 1926, foja 127, exp. 69, caja 296, DGIPS-AGN; also
“Serán cesados del Caballeros de Colón en los cargos públicos,” El Porvenir, 18 January
1923, 1; and “Fue designado nuevo sub-secretario de hacienda,” El Porvenir, 20 January
1923, 1. For an example involving the CROM (Confederación Regional Obrera Mexiana),
see El Sol de México, 29 November 1925, foja 18, exp. 69, caja 296, DGIPS-AGN. On anti-
KOC pamphlets in Monterrey, see “Hojas sueltas contra los Caballeros de Colón,” El
Porvenir, 22 November 1921, 5. On Sáenz’s attacks on the Knights, see “Esa candidatura
será sangrienta, le dicen al Gral. Aarón Sáenz,” E´poca, 25 March 1923, 1. All translations
from Spanish to English are my own, unless otherwise noted.
16. “La polı́tica anti-católica ocasionó un choque en la ciudad de Monterrey,” La
Prensa, 8 March 1926, 1, 8.
17. Significantly, this Catholic school was built on land that was donated by the
family of Isaac Garza, founder of the Cuauhtémoc Brewery.
18. While it is unclear whether Garza Jr. was a Knight in 1926, evidence suggests
that he may have joined the Catholic brotherhood later in his life. See “Don Andrés
Chapa es agasajado por los Caballeros de Colón,” El Norte, 6 December 1958, 7.
19. On the reactions in Nuevo León to some of Calles’s anticlerical laws, see
Juana Idalia Garza Cavazos, La educación socialista en Nuevo León, 1934–1940: La
atmósfera regiomontana (Monterrey: Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2010),Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 77
Following the incident at the school, local authorities vowed to
enforce the anticlerical law; yet this seems to have been more rhetoric
than actual policy. Catholic schools in the state of Nuevo León
continued to instruct their students in accordance with their
religious-centered programs. Authorities likely chose to overlook
these offenses rather than provoke further incidents. Days later, the
governor explained that it was not his intention to “offend the reli-
gious sentiments” of Monterrey; “after all,” he stated, “the govern-
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ment is not made up of heretics.”20 The mayor of Monterrey,
however, singled out the KOC as “traitors to the nation” and pledged
to crack down on the order.21
Despite the controversy over Riveroll and Garza, throughout
1926 the Monterrey KOC continued to hold meetings in secret, which
were surveilled by the state. While federal agents became aware of the
Knights’ plans to distribute anti-state propaganda and procure
weapons from across the US-Mexico border, they also uncovered the
deep connections between the Catholic brotherhood and
Monterrey’s powerful employer class. In fact, several industrial lumi-
naries were members of the order (see table 1). Among its ranks were
Adolfo Zambrano, his son Adolfo Jr. (a prominent family in mining),
and Eugenio and Isaac Garza Sada, sons of Isaac Garza Garza, founder
of the Cuauhtémoc Brewery conglomerate and Monterrey’s most
famous patriarch.
Not all those who attended these gatherings were Knights.
Among those listed were the heads of the glassworks factory
(Vidriera), Roberto G. Sada and his brother Luis G. Sada, who sat
on the board of the brewery and later cofounded the powerful
Confederación Patronal de la República Mexicana (COPARMEX;
Employers Confederation). Additionally, the two most important
men in journalism also were present: Alfonso Junco, conservative
intellectual and editor of El Sol de Monterrey and later of the
Catholic right-wing journal A´bside; and Federico Gómez Garcı́a,
-
82. The incident involving Riveroll and Garza is from “Espéranse instrucciones de la
secretarı́a de gobernación,” El Porvenir, 9 March 1926, 4; “La polı́tica anti-católica,” 1,
8; “El gran diputado de los Caballeros de Colón de Monterrey, aprehendido,” La
Prensa, 9 March 1926, 1; “Roberto Riveroll fue puesto en libertad por falta de méritos,”
La Prensa, 13 March 1926, 1; “Se calmó la agitación religiosa en Monterrey,” La
Prensa, 14 March 1926, 6.
20. Juana Idalia Garza Cavazos, “En defensa de la religión: Los artificios del
‘Colegio de Las Damas’” (presentation, IV Coloquio de Humanidades, Facultad de
Filosofı́a y Letras de la UANL, Monterrey, Mexico, 2010); Governor Siller’s quote from
“Espéranse instrucciones,” 4.
21. “El gran diputado.”78 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
Table 1. Businessmen’s affiliation to Catholic lay organizations and service
clubs in Monterreya
Service Service
Catholic club club
Names Profession associationb 1922–36 1936–60s
Andrés Chapa store owner KOC Rotary Sowers
Ricardo Chapa store owner UCM Rotary Sowers
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Raúl Chapa unknown UCM none none
Bernardo Elosúa factory owner ACM none Sowers
Octavio Garcı́a Corral upper KOC Rotary Sowers
Padilla management
Virgilio Garza Jr. brewery none Rotary Sowers
Eugenio Garza Sada brewery KOC none Sowers
Isaac Garza Sada brewery KOC none Sowers
Ricardo González middle CMEES Rotary Sowers
Quijano management
José Gustavo Martı́nez physician CMEES Rotary Sowers
Lozano
Carlos Pérez accountant OSLJ Rotary Sowers
Maldonado
José Pı́o Lagüera steelworks & KOC none none
brewery
Roberto Riveroll banking KOC Rotary Lions
Pablo Salas y López upper KOC Rotary Sowers
management
Benjamı́n Salinas retailer firm none none Sowers
Westrup
Joel Rocha retailer firm none Rotary Sowers
Constantino de coal mining KOC none none
Tárnava
Miguel Vera physician CMEES Rotary Sowers
Adolfo Zambrano steelworks & KOC none none
mining
Adolfo Zambrano Jr. steelworks & KOC Rotary Sowers
mining
a
Sources: Notice of Institution, Council no. 3212, 15 October 1921 KOC-SCA;
Sembradores de Amistad, file 800; US Consulate, Monterrey; Classified General
Records, 1936-58, box 5, record group 84, National Archives College Park; Club
Sembradores de Amistad Archives, Monterrey; Aureliano Tapia Méndez, Pablo
Cervantes: Un sacerdote de su tiempo (Monterrey: Editorial Jus, 1971); Agustı́n
Basave and Federico Gómez, Quién es cada quién en Monterrey: Diccionario
biográfico de los actuales y más destacados profesionistas y hombres de negocios
de Monterrey (Monterrey: Impr. Monterrey, 1948); Juan René Vega Garcı́a, Quién es
quién en Monterrey (Monterrey: Editorial Revesa, 1976).
b
KOC (Knights of Columbus); ACM (Acción Católica Mexicana); UCM (Unión de
Católicos n Mexicanos); OSLJ (Orden de San Lázaro de Jerusalén); CMEES (Circulo
Médico de Estudios Ético-Sociales).Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 79
director of El Porvenir—a fact that made state agents suspect that
anti-government propaganda was printed on the newspapers’ rotary
presses. Despite their eagerness to aid the Cristero cause, by the end
of 1926 the Monterrey Knights—almost certainly fearing persecu-
tion—remained inactive until the early 1940s.22
Significantly, during the Cristero Rebellion several Knights were
either already members of the Rotary Club or joined in the 1930s.
With the advent of the Cárdenas presidency, individuals once linked
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to the KOC and their close associates continued to oppose the state’s
anticlericalism and pro-labor policies. By then, their strategies had
become more complex, involving mass demonstrations, boycotts,
and the formation of civic associations. Judging from the member-
ship overlap, the political involvement of the KOC compelled
members to regroup after the late 1920s in seemingly secular and
apolitical organizations, particularly Rotary and later Lions clubs.23
American Service Clubs in Monterrey
Beginning in the 1910s, Rotary and later Lions International sought
to expand globally. Although these were officially nondenomina-
tional and apolitical clubs, part of their mission was to export
a message of procapitalism, democracy, and US-led international
cooperation.24 As a growing, dynamic industrial hub less than 150
miles to the US-Mexico border, Monterrey was an obvious target for
both organizations. Rotary of Monterrey was established in 1922,
becoming the second club chartered in the country after the club
in Mexico City.25 However, in order not to appear as a new tentacle
of American imperialism abroad, the legitimacy of Rotary (and later
22. A list of Knights attending meetings is found in fojas 47 and 56–57, exp. 69,
caja 296, DGIPS-AGN. On funds going into the US, see Informando sobre remisiones,
26 July 1926, foja 58, exp. 69, caja 296, DGIPS-AGN; Report on Francisco R. Canseco,
1927, fojas 1–6, exp. 9, caja 226, DGIPS-AGN; Report on Juan Ochoa Ramos, August
1927, fojas 1–7, exp. 22, caja 231, DGIPS-AGN; Report on Apartado Postal 404, S.
Antonio Tex., 1927, fojas 1–4, exp. 40, caja 231, DGIPS-AGN.
23. This tension between Catholic lay activism and political involvement through
the KOC is part of a broader pattern of the early twentieth century best explained in
Andes, Vatican and Catholic Activism.
24. See Brendan M. Goff, “The Heartland Abroad: The Rotary Club’s Mission of
Civic Internationalism” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2008).
25. Indicative of the cross-border ties, Rotarians from Texas granted the charter
to the Monterrey Rotary Club. See “McAllen Rotarians Deliver Charter to Monterrey
Club,” Mercedes Tribune (Mercedes, Texas), 20 December 1922, 9. The Lions Club of
Monterrey was founded in 1934, after the founding of the chapters in Nuevo Laredo
(1927), Mexico City (1933), and Ciudad Juárez (1934).80 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
Lions) as an international nongovernmental organization rested
upon locals leading and populating clubs. In Monterrey, this was
certainly the case.
Regiomontano employers found Rotary appealing for a number
of reasons. The novel club afforded members with what one historian
calls a form of “global citizenship,” in which all men—regardless of
their race—theoretically could be part of a “parliament of busi-
nessmen” that promoted growth, democracy, and international
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cooperation.26 Mexicans considered Rotary a prestigious and cosmo-
politan institution because of its global reach, but its seemingly
apolitical and secular character also made it attractive compared to
other voluntary associations, such as the KOC or the Freemasons.27
Equally important, as employers of scores of factory workers, Rotary’s
mission of instilling harmonious relations between labor and capital
(a mission that circulated transnationally through official club litera-
ture and at yearly conferences) was also very appealing (see fig. 2).28
By the time the Lions Club of Monterrey was founded in 1934,
Rotary already gathered the city’s most powerful business leaders,
most of whom were Catholic conservatives, such as Roberto Garza
Sada, co-owner of the Cuauhtémoc Brewery, and Andrés Chapa,
owner of a retail chain. To be sure, the attraction of Rotary was such
that not all who joined were Catholics. For instance, within Rotary’s
ranks were Benjamı́n Salinas and Joel Rocha, of the furniture
manufacturing firm Salinas y Rocha.29 The Lions Club, however, had
a majority of professionals and employees in middle- and upper-
management positions.30
Much like their counterparts across the globe, Rotary and Lions
of Monterrey supported local Boy Scout troops, health clinics, and
a variety of other altruistic projects. Officially, both organizations’ by-
26. Goff, “Heartland Abroad,” 23.
27. On the one hand, the Freemasons were linked to the state and becoming
populated by working-class men, which would make lodges unappealing to elites and
upwardly mobile middle-class men. See Benjamin Smith, “Anticlericalism, Politics, and
Freemasonry in Mexico, 1920–1940,” The Americas 65, no. 4 (1 April 2009): 559–88.
On the other hand, the KOC became deeply involved in the church-state conflict.
Rotary and later Lions Clubs were conveniently secular organizations that forbade
members from politicking.
28. Jeffrey A. Charles, Service Clubs in American Society: Rotary, Kiwanis, and
Lions (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 74–75; Goff, “Heartland Abroad,” 75–76.
29. Both Salinas and Rocha were also descendants of leading Protestant
missionaries in Nuevo León. See Irma Salinas Rocha, Mi padre (Monterrey: Oficio
Ediciones, 1992), 224–25 and 232–34; Erasmo Lozano Rocha, Remembranzas-
opiniones y crı́ticas (Cananea, Sonora: E. Lozano Rocha, 1991), 39.
30. Directorio: Club de Leones de Monterrey (Monterrey, 1958–60).Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 81
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Figure 2. Active Knights of Columbus Councils and Rotary Clubs in Mexico
Sources: KOC-SCA and Annual Convention Proceedings of Rotary
International (Chicago: Rotary International 1917–37). Note the opposite
trends for KOC Councils and Rotary Clubs (decline and incline, respectively)
during the Cristero Revolt (1926–29).
laws prohibited members from using their clubs for political or reli-
gious ends—meaning clubs could not function as platforms for
supporting a party, a political initiative, or a religious denomination.
In practice, however, members in Mexico and elsewhere often bent
these rules. In the case of Monterrey, Rotary and Lions became
openly involved in anti-unionist rallies during the Cárdenas presi-
dency. As early as the late 1920s, however, the Rotary Club of
Monterrey occasionally intervened in mediating labor disputes.31
In 1927, workers from the Peñoles Smelting Company of
Monterrey went on strike after management ignored their health-
related complaints. Rather than upgrading the antipollutant devices
(as authorities had ordered), ownership dismissed the striking
workers. In protest, hundreds of residents from nearby working-
class neighborhoods signed petitions demanding the mayor’s inter-
vention. In June, the city heeded their requests and ordered the plant
to suspend operations. Seeking to end the stoppage, Rotarians Joel
Rocha and José Rivero, along with other business leaders, organized
31. For examples of charitable work by Rotary of Monterrey, see Letter from
Rotary Club of Monterrey to Regidores del R. Ayuntamiento, 2 August 1927, foja s/n,
exp. 8, vol. 519, Sección: Correspondencia, Monterrey Contemporáneo, Archivo
Histórico de Monterrey (MC-AHM); for clubs engaging in politicking in 1920s Cuba
and 1930s East Asia, see Goff, “Heartland Abroad,” 187, 240–41.82 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
talks between company officials and city hall. Their “sole objective,”
they argued, “was to procure a resolution to the conflict” and resume
activities at the foundry. As a result of these talks, management prom-
ised to reinstate the employees and make modifications to reduce the
pollutants in exchange for having the sanctions lifted.32
The Rotarians’ decision to intervene in the dispute, however,
was not made just out of an interest in the common good. One of
their club members (and Knight of Columbus), Adolfo Zambrano
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Jr., had a personal stake in the conflict since the Peñoles plant was
owned by his family.33 Not surprisingly, once conflict between
organized labor and employers erupted during the Cárdenas pres-
idency, both the Rotary and Lions clubs rallied in support of
management. To better understand this development, the
following pages will sketch out the tensions between employers,
labor, and the Cardenista state.
Cardenismo in Monterrey, 1936
The confrontation between Cárdenas and Monterrey employers in
1936 has been extensively studied by others. 34 To summarize,
Cárdenas’s support of labor unions infuriated Monterrey elites, who
in turn led massive demonstrations (some turning violent) and
factory lockouts. Employers pursued a variety of strategies to thwart
the state’s interference, from supporting a fascist, anti-unionist orga-
nization (the Camisas Doradas, or Golden Shirts) to forming their
own company unions. Historians have shown also that management
sought to marshal grass-roots opposition to Cárdenas through the
short-lived Acción Cı́vica Nacionalista (ACN; Nationalist Civic Action),
an organization considered to be a precursor to the PAN. Although all
of these approaches are well known, scholars have largely overlooked
the role of Monterrey’s service clubs during the confrontation and in
the aftermath.35
32. “La Fundición de Peñoles suspende sus trabajos,” La Prensa, 6 June 1927;
Convenio celebrado, 6 June 1927, fojas s/n, vol. 516, Sección: Industriales y Empresas,
MC-AHM.
33. Convenio celebrado; Snodgrass, Deference and Defiance, 110. For
Zambrano’s links to the smelting plant, see Basave and Gómez, Quién es cada quién
1948, 184; Mario Cerutti, Burguesı́a y capitalismo en Monterrey, 1850–1910
(Monterrey: Fondo Editorial de Nuevo León, 2006), 59.
34. Saragoza, Monterrey Elite, ch. 8; Snodgrass, ch. 8 and 9; Gauss, Made in
Mexico, ch. 6.
35. Snodgrass, 219; Gauss, 219.Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 83
After a violent incident with unionists in July 1936, close to six
hundred ACN sympathizers were arrested, and their organization was
disbanded.36 As historians have noted, the leaders of the ACN were
among Monterrey’s most renowned businessmen and staunch
opponents of Cárdenas. But they were also members of Rotary
and/or affiliated to a Catholic organization; such members
included Roberto Garza Sada (Rotary), Rocha (Rotary), Garza Jr.
(Rotary), Chapa (KOC and Rotary), Santiago Roel (Rotary), and
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Bernardo Elosúa (Mexican Catholic Action). 37 The literature
suggests that Monterrey opposition to the state continued after the
1936 confrontation via the backing of the PAN starting in 1939 and
the COPARMEX.38 However, conservative civil society also chal-
lenged Cárdenas through the apparently nonpolitical service clubs.
In early 1936, the Rotary and Lions clubs of Monterrey became
involved in the labor conflict. Both published insertions in local
newspapers, which denounced the alleged communist infiltration
and exhorted the public to join in mass marches scheduled in
February. The Lions, for instance, urged locals to “send a bold
message” to the rest of the nation: “Monterrey opposes communism,
wrecker of property and families.” The Rotary Club also issued a state-
ment: “Since peace and fraternity are the ideals of this Club, we
cannot remain indifferent to the fratricidal struggle, which dissolutive
36. The details of these events were gathered from “500 prominentes vecinos de
Monterrey aprehendidos,” La Prensa, 31 July 1936, 1–2; “Enérgica protesta al Gral.
Cárdenas,” La Prensa, 1 August 1936, 1–2; “Nada se hará en el asunto de los cı́vicos,”
La Prensa, 15 August 1936, 1–2; “500 Held in Mexico Jail,” Heraldo de Brownsville, 2
August 1936, 3; Report from Edward I. Nathan, American Consul General, 30 July 1936,
file 800/711, Foreign Service Post, Monterrey, Record Group 84; National Archives
College Park (RG 84, NACP); Report from Edward I. Nathan, American Consul General,
3 August 1936, file 800/714, RG 84, NACP. The incident is covered in detail in
Snodgrass, 219–21.
37. Names of ACN members and its goals are from “Acción Cı́vica Nacionalista en
Monterrey,” La Prensa, 25 February 1936, 8; Arturo Garcı́a Ramı́rez, “¿Qué pasa con
nosotros?,” La Prensa, 31 July 1936, 5; “10,000 personas en un mitı́n en Monterrey,” La
Prensa, 1 July 1936, 2; “500 prominentes vecinos”; “A los Neo-Leoneses residentes en
San Antonio y en el Edo. de Texas,” La Prensa, 22 April 1936, 5; Arturo Garcı́a Ramı́rez,
“Un comentario sincero,” La Prensa, 1 October 1936, 3–4; Report from Edward I.
Nathan, American Consul General, 30 July 1936, file 800/711, RG 84, NACP; Report
from Edward I. Nathan, American Consul General, 3 August 1936, file 800/714, RG 84,
NACP; Report from Edward I. Nathan, American Consul General, 4 August 1936, file
800/715, RG 84, NACP.
38. Snodgrass, Deference and Defiance, 219; Gauss, Made in Mexico, 219;
Gustavo Herón Pérez Daniel, Los primeros años del PAN en Nuevo León, 1939–1946:
Una historia del desarrollo organizativo (San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León:
Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 2002), 64–67, 123–24.84 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
elements attempt to provoke. United with the purpose of serving our
community, we will participate in the Demonstration on [February]
the 5th. WE INVITE YOU.”39
Days after the massive rally, however, the US ambassador to
Mexico and long-time Rotary member, Josephus Daniels, made
comments to the press that downplayed the communist threat.40 In
protest, the Monterrey Rotarians appealed to RI in Chicago,
requesting that it demand the recall of Daniels to the Department
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of State. The Rotary headquarters, however, declined, stating that
“political discussions or participation in political action was against
the principles of the organization.”41 The KOC in the US had previ-
ously condemned Daniels for appearing soft on communism.42
Given the membership overlap between Rotary and the KOC, it is
likely that Rotarians in Monterrey expected RI to respond similarly.
Disappointed by the denial, the Monterrey Rotarians submitted
a letter of renunciation, dissolving their Rotary Club in March of
1936.43
Though disillusioned, the former Rotarians considered that
service clubs could be useful forums for influencing businessmen
and their families—and not just in Monterrey but also nationwide.
Clubs could propagate cultural and political values in a subtle yet
effective way and avoid incidents such as those experienced by the
ACN or the Knights. The case with the RI headquarters showed that
the problem with Rotary was not its ideological content or its civic
purpose; rather, it was the club’s dependence on an office based in
the US that was unwilling to become involved in what regiomontanos
believed was an issue over good versus evil, not politicking.
39. “Invitación,” El Porvenir, 4 February 1936, 2; “El Club de Leones de
Monterrey,” El Porvenir, 4 February 1936, 8.
40. In 1934, Daniels praised the educational reform in Mexico and quoted
President Calles. See “Daniels Disclaims Hurting Catholics,” New York Times, 18
October 1934, 20; “Fight Rages on Daniels,” Los Angeles Times, 18 October 1934, 4;
“Mexico Charges Clerics Provoke Foreign Attacks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 28 October
1934, 12.
41. Report from Henry S. Waterman, American Consul General, 16 October 1945,
5, file 800, Sembradores de Amistad, Monterrey, General Records (GR) 1936–1958, box
5, RG 84, NACP.
42. James J. Hennesey, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic
Community in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 271;
Matthew Redinger, American Catholics and the Mexican Revolution, 1924–1936
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 147.
43. There is no evidence of the Monterrey Lions doing something similar. Most
likely, the silence was due to the fact that the Lions Clubs of Mexico maintained a much
closer relationship with the postrevolutionary party than Mexican Rotary clubs.Tamayo, From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship 85
The former Rotarians decided to regroup and create their own
club that represented their values, independent of a foreign head-
quarters. After weeks of planning, on 17 July 1936, a group of busi-
nessmen met in the luxurious dining halls of the Casino de Monterrey
to formally establish the first “Mexican” service club, naming it the
Sembradores de Amistad (the Sowers of Friendship).44 The organiza-
tion’s overarching goals were to propagate hispanidad throughout
Mexico, rekindle a Catholic-inspired social harmony, and offer
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a strong critique of the postrevolutionary state. The name “Sowers”
was supposedly a reference to the apostle Paul’s warning to the
Galatians, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”45 In this view, immoral poli-
ticians (from Calles to Cárdenas) had imposed false ideologies
(socialism and indigenismo) on Mexican society, which in turn had
created discord—between labor and capital, and between the church
and the state.
Since the Sowers’ membership was based on the defunct Rotary
Club, it gathered some of the most influential businessmen of
Monterrey. Of the sixty-five founding members, close to a third were
ex-Rotarians. Five were former Lions, and the rest had never been
associated with a service club.46 The newly formed Sowers even
44. “La primera sesión del nuevo club,” El Porvenir, 17 July 1936, 4, 8; “La sesión
de ayer en el nuevo club,” El Porvenir, 24 July 1936, 2; Gerardo de León, Jornadas
regiomontanas: Pensamiento y acción de un esforzado provinciano (Monterrey:
Impresora Monterrey, 1978), 199–200. Although the Sowers were resentful of RI, they
certainly were not anti-American. Many had business interests and family across the
border, owned real estate in Texas, and several had graduated from American
universities.
45. Gal. 6:7 (King James Version).
46. The profiles of 116 members from 1936 to 1948 were drawn from a diverse
group of archival documents, printed, and secondary sources: Fundación y Socios
Fundadores, undated, Archivo de la Asociación Internacional de Clubes Sembradores de
Amistad; Estatutos de la Asociación de Sembradores de Amistad, 1942, enclosed in file
800, Sembradores de Amistad, Monterrey, GR 1936–1958, box 5, RG 84, NACP. Various
biographical dictionaries, directories, and local histories provided invaluable informa-
tion: Basave and Gómez, Quién es cada quién, 1948; Agustı́n Basave and Federico
Gómez, Quién es cada quién en Monterrey: Diccionario biográfico de los actuales y
más destacados profesionistas y hombres de negocio de Monterrey, 1956 (Monterrey:
Imprenta Graphos, 1956); Juan René Vega Garcı́a, Quién es quién en Monterrey
(Monterrey: Editorial Revesa, 1976); Juan René Vega Garcı́a, Personalidades de
Monterrey: Diccionario biográfico con microbiografı́as de los hombres más destacados
del Monterrey actual (Monterrey: Vega y Asociados, 1967); Salinas Rocha, Mi padre;
Lozano Rocha, Remembranzas-opiniones y crı́ticas; Agustı́n Basave, Constructores de
Monterrey (Monterrey: Editorial-Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de
Monterrey, 1945); José P Saldaña, ¿Y qué hicimos? Monterrey en el siglo XX (Monterrey:86 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
contacted Rotarians in other cities, hoping to convince them to
replace their club with a Sowers of Friendship chapter, but without
success. 47 Locally, the Sowers of Friendship also attempted to
convince the Lions Club to disband. According to the Lions Club of
Monterrey president, Joaquı́n Garza y Garza, for the next two years
the disgruntled Sowers levied “attacks” to discredit the Lions Club,
which affected its public image and membership numbers.48
Nevertheless, within a few years the Sowers of Monterrey had
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a large following, with a membership of over 140. About a quarter
of the members were university educated, with engineering being the
most common degree (nine of which obtained their degrees from
universities in the US, including the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology). Thirty-six were sole or partial business owners; nine-
teen were professionals (architects, doctors, or lawyers). Close to half
worked in management, making it the most common occupation.
Only two members had held public office; José P. Saldaña (interim
governor of Nuevo León) and Héctor Cortés González, who in
previous years had been the mayor of Monterrey. More importantly,
however, were the club’s close ties to the ownership of the
Cuauhtémoc Brewery—in particular, to the powerful Garza Sada
family.
Roughly a quarter of the Sowers of Friendship membership was
associated to either the local chamber of commerce or the
COPARMEX. Equally important were the religious and political affilia-
tions of the Sowers: at least twenty members were linked to Catholic
lay organizations, among whom ten were KOC. A few were militants
-
Producciones Al Voleo-El Troquel, 1988); Vı́ctor Alejandro Cavazos Pérez, Panteones de
El Carmen y Dolores: Patrimonio cultural de Nuevo León (Monterrey: Fondo Editorial
de Nuevo León, 2009); Carlos Pérez-Maldonado, El Casino de Monterrey: Bosquejo
histórico de la sociedad regiomontana (Monterrey: Impresora Monterrey, 1950); Mario
Cerutti, Propietarios, empresarios y empresa en el norte de México: Monterrey; De 1848
a la globalización (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2000); Jorge Pedraza Salinas, Monterrey
entre montañas y acero (Monterrey: Villacero, 1996); Rómulo Garza Garza, Rómulo
Garza: Impulsor de nuestro desarrollo industrial y del mejoramiento social
(Monterrey: Editorial Font, 2004); Tapia Méndez, Pablo Cervantes. Periodical sources
also provided key information, especially from El Porvenir (Monterrey) and La Prensa
(San Antonio, TX), which published a significant amount of information on Monterrey.
47. One possible reason is that Mexican Rotarians valued membership in an
international businessmen’s organization, perhaps because of its prestige or beneficial
professional connections. In later years, however, Sowers of Friendship clubs began to
expand in key urban areas.
48. Acta de la Junta Directiva de la Asociación Nacional de Clubes de Leones, 1
December 1937, fojas 1–2, vol. “Archivo Leones, 1935–1938,” Archivo del Club de
Leones de la Ciudad de México (ACLCM).You can also read
