them, so the author himself told me, was discerning enough to see that it was a book of criticism. "I wrote the book that way," the author said to me, "in the hope that it would be allowed to circulate in Mexico."
But the officials of the Mexican government were more discerning than the American book reviewers and the book was not allowed to circulate. Not only that, but quite suddenly and mysteriously it disappeared from the stores in this country and very soon was not to be had. Had the book disappeared because it was bought by the public, the publishers would be expected to print a second edition, but this they declined to do and, though flatly asserting that the work was not again to appear, they also declined to give the author or other inquirers further satisfaction. The book I refer to was the one entitled "Porfirio Diaz," written by Rafael DeZayas Enriquez and issued by D. Appleton & Co., in 1908.
Carlo de Fornaro, a Mexican newspaperman, or rather, a native of Italy who had spent two years in newspaper work in Mexico City, also wrote a book, "Diaz, Czar of Mexico," printing it himself because he could not find a regular publisher. It was refused circulation in Mexico and action for criminal libel was at once begun against Fornaro in the New York courts. To bring this suit, the editor of Diaz's leading newspaper, El Imparcial, with Joaquin Casasus, the most prominent lawyer of Mexico and former ambassador to the United States, hurried from the Mexican capital. Among the American lawyers employed as special prosecutors was Henry W. Taft, brother of the president and counsel of the National Railways of Mexico. Fornaro, being without the means to bring witnesses from Mexico to support the charges made in his book, was
