tacles to the material
advancement of the country, and reduced the national debt. He did much
also to improve the sanitary conditions at La Guaira, and he promoted
education, especially the teaching of foreign languages.

Gomez nevertheless had to keep a watchful eye on the partisans of
Castro, who broke out in revolt whenever they had an opportunity. The
United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Cuba,
and Colombia eyed the movements of the ex-dictator nervously, as
European powers long ago were wont to do in the case of a certain Man
of Destiny, and barred him out of both their possessions and Venezuela
itself. International patience, never Job-like, had been too sorely
vexed to permit his return. Nevertheless, after the manner of the
ancient persecutor of the Biblical martyr, Castro did not refrain from
going to and fro in the earth. In fact he still "walketh about" seeking
to recover his hold upon Venezuela!

CHAPTER X. MEXICO IN REVOLUTION

When, in 1910, like several of its sister republics, Mexico celebrated
the centennial anniversary of its independence, the era of peace
and progress inaugurated by Porfirio Diaz seemed likely to last
indefinitely, for he was entering upon his eighth term as President.
Brilliant as his career had been, however, and greatly as Mexico had
prospered under his rigid rule, a sullen discontent had been brewing.
The country that had had but one continuous President in twenty-six
years was destined to have some fourteen chief magistrates in less than
a quarter of that time, and to surpass all its previous records for
rapidity in presidential succession, by having one executive who is said
to have held office for precisely fifty-six minutes!

It has often been asserted that the reason for the downfall of Diaz
and the lapse of Mexico into the unhappy conditions of a half century
earlier was that he had grown too old to keep a firm grip on the
situation. It has also been declared that his insistence upon reelection
and upon the elevation of his own personal candidate to the vice
presidency, as a successor in case of his retirement, occasioned his
overthrow. The truth of the matter is that these circumstances were only
incidental to his downfall; the real causes of revolution lay deeprooted
in the history of these twenty-six years. The most significant feature
of the revolt was its civilian character. A widespread public opinion
had been created; a national consc