order to attract capital from abroad as the best means of exploiting the
vast resources of the country, he was willing to go to any length, it
would seem, in guaranteeing protection. Small wonder, therefore, that
the people who shared in none of the immediate advantages from that
source should have muttered that Mexico was the "mother of foreigners
and the stepmother of Mexicans." And, since so much of the capital came
from the United States, the antiforeign sentiment singled Americans out
for its particular dislike.

If Diaz appeared unable to appreciate the significance of the
educational and industrial awakening, he was no less oblivious of the
political outcome. He knew, of course, that the Mexican constitution
made impossible demands upon the political capacity of the people. He
was himself mainly of Indian blood and he believed that he understood
the temperament and limitations of most Mexicans. Knowing how
tenaciously they clung to political notions, he believed that it was
safer and wiser to forego, at least for a time, real popular government
and to concentrate power in the hands of a strong man who could maintain
order.

Accordingly, backed by his political adherents, known as cientificos
(doctrinaires), some of whom had acquired a sinister ascendancy over
him, and also by the Church, the landed proprietors, and the foreign
capitalists, Diaz centered the entire administration more and more in
himself. Elections became mere farces. Not only the federal officials
themselves but the state governors, the members of the state
legislatures, and all others in authority during the later years of his
rule owed their selection primarily to him and held their positions only
if personally loyal to him. Confident of his support and certain that
protests against misgovernment would be regarded by the President as
seditious, many of them abused their power at will. Notable among them
were the local officials, called jefes politicos, whose control of the
police force enabled them to indulge in practices of intimidation and
extortion which ultimately became unendurable.

Though symptoms of popular wrath against the Diaz regime, or diazpotism
as the Mexicans termed it, were apparent as early as 1908, it was not
until January, 1911, that the actual revolution came. It was headed by
Francisco I. Madero, a member of a wealthy and distinguished family
of landed proprietors in one of the northern States. What the
revolutionists