The Great Events by Famous Historians

In contemplating the present situation in Mexico there is a tendency of late to deplore the Madero revolution and the overthrow of Diaz, and to overlook the fact that the Diaz regime itself not only made and forced, by its political abuses, the revolution that overthrew it, but, by its economic abuses, prepared the country for the anarchy now rife in it; and also that it is the very same ring of men who surrounded Diaz and finally rendered his rule unbearable who are now financing and fomenting the present rebellion against a Government not in sympathy with them nor subservient to their interests.

Porfirio Diaz attained the presidency of Mexico thirty-five years ago by overthrowing Lerdo de Tejada. He put an end to brigandage, which was at that time wide-spread. Such bandits as he could not buy he exterminated. His political opponents he also bought or exterminated, so that without the slightest disturbance to the national peace he could be unanimously reelected whenever his term expired. Out of bankruptcy he established credit; he put up schools; he invited foreign capital into his country and made it possible for foreign capital to go in; and so he gradually built up a material progress which won him the name of "nation-builder." There were railroads and telegraphs; the cities were graced with beautiful edifices, with theaters and parks, with electricity and asphalt. There was the appearance of a civilization and progress, which, considering the time in which it was compassed, was indeed marvelous.

But all this was only a shell and a semblance. The economic condition of the Mexican lower classes was not touched—the process of "nation-building" seemed not to include them. In the shadow of a modern civilization stalked poverty and ignorance worthy of the Middle Ages. And it was notorious that in the capital city itself, under the very eyes of the central Government, was where the very worst conditions and the most glaring extremes of poverty and wealth were to be seen. On the one hand, splendid

paseos

lined with magnificent palaces, where, in their automobiles, the pleasure-seeking women of the rich displayed their raiment worth thousands of dollars; and, on the other, streets filled with beggars, their clothes literally dropping off them in filthy rags, reeking with the typhus which for years has been endemic in the City of Mexico.

Let it be said to Diaz's credit that he did try, in a measure, at first to better those conditions. Hence the public schools which, though inadequate for the scattered rural population, have accomplished much in the cities. He also attempted years ago a division of the lands, but dropped it when he saw that the great landowners were stronger than he and that to persist might cost him the Presidency.

It was natural and inevitable that a Government in which there was never any change or movement should stagnate and become corrupt. Porfirio Diaz was not a President, but, in all save the name, an absolute monarch, and inevitably there formed about his throne a cordon of men as unpatriotic and self-interested as he may have been patriotic and disinterested—as to a great extent he undeniably was. These men were the Cientificos.

The term is, of course, not their own. It was applied to them by the Anti-reelectionists, meaning that they were scientific grafters and exploiters. The full-fledged Cientifico was at once a tremendous landholder and high government official. To illustrate, the land of the State of Chihuahua is almost entirely owned by the Terrazas family. In the days of Diaz, Don Luis Terrazas was always the governor, being further reenforced by his relative, Enrique C. Creel, high in the Diaz ministry. In Sonora the land was held by Ramon Corral, Luis Torres, and Rafael Izabal. These three gentlemen, who were called "The Trinity," used to rotate in the government of the state until Corral was made vice-president, when Torres and Izabal took turn about until the death of the latter shortly before the Madero revolution. In every state there was either one perpetual governor or a combine of them.