In this article, written in 1921, shortly after the end of the Mexican Revolution, Emilio Rabasa reflects on proposed efforts to improve the living conditions of the indigenous population of the country. According to Rabasa, the white and Mestizo citizens of Mexico, themselves three-quarters illiterate and still recovering from many years of war, are incapable of lifting indigenous Mexicans from their poverty. Rabasa argues that Mexico’s energy must be focused on forming a government, administering order, and reviving industrial and agricultural production. He explains that indigenous Mexicans are not, by nature, inferior. However, he argues that laws that propose equal rights for indigenous people based on a “theoretical equality” among races are actually harmful for indigenous populations. Rabasa claims that when indigenous people were made citizens they were required to pay taxes and participate in the military despite their lack of a “capacity for activeness.” In 1875 universal suffrage in Mexico gave the “social masses” the right to vote, which, according to Rabasa, represented an error of judgment due to high levels of illiteracy among them. However, Rabasa explains, indigenous Mexicans could not be denied this right unless they were isolated on reservations. Rabasa argues that when inferior classes come into contact with superior classes, the inferior classes will eventually perish. However, the occurrence of this unification of classes and races in Mexico is, in Rabasa’s opinion, inevitable.