CHAPTER XIII
THE REVOLUTION
At the end of our historical sketch we stated that even when all looked fair for Mexico on the great day of her centenary as a Republic, the dark clouds of revolution were gathering above her. Diaz, who had ruled Mexico for a generation, had been elected to the Presidency in April, 1910, for the eighth consecutive time. But when Señor Francisco Madero placed himself at the head of the revolutionary movement which began in November, 1910, it was at once apparent that the Government had lost the confidence of the people. A change of Cabinet brought no accession of popular trust. Europe and America were amazed. For what reason had Mexico turned upon Diaz, its saviour, its popular idol, the man who had "made" it?
Since the enforced resignation of Diaz, evidence has accumulated that his régime was in large measure responsible for the unhappy conditions now prevailing. Here we have a system of government outwardly peaceable, prosperous, winning the approval and support of foreign powers, and notably of the United States; inwardly pursuing a policy of repression and cruelty worthy of mediaeval serfdom at its worst.
At the head of this Government, President Porfirio Diaz presents a curious study. Hailed—by outsiders—as a peace-maker, a wise and diplomatic ruler governing a refractory people with firmness and tolerance, he set himself with deliberate intent to crush every spark of patriotic feeling in the country, to bend the neck of the peasantry to his yoke, and finally to sell the nation into slavery. The "peace-maker" throughout his long years of office was waging a deadly war—a war of bitter oppression against his own
