The revolution had achieved an important goal. Men and women were free to live in a more congenial environment: Rurales (police) would no longer pursue them. The four-century-old illusion of a patrón (master) had vanished; in its place the workers found themselves unshackled. They were hungry but no longer whipped. Mexico began to say goodbye to the culture of poverty.
President Cárdenas, traveling from village to village, from hacienda to hacienda, crisscrossing his country throughout his term in office, listened to the little man, and the little man believed what the presidente said, as he promised roads, bridges, schools, clinics, water, and land. Millions of peasants thanked him for a home and independence.