antour, in particular.
Therefore, when Madero stood up as the chieftain of the revolution,
inscribing on his banner the redress of this grievance, with some
Utopias, the people followed him without stopping to measure his
capabilities. His promises were enough.

It is one of the saddest episodes in the history of great rulers, and
at the same time one of the most important in the history of a country.
Mexico, which has pushed so brilliantly ahead in finance, industry, and
agriculture, has still lagged behind in political development. The man
who made a great nation out of half-breeds and chaos was so sure of his
own position, his own strength, and I may say his own motives, that he
did not encourage antagonism at the polls, and "free voting" remained a
name only.

A German author has said that all rulers become obsessed with the
passion of rule. They lose their balance, clearness of sight, judgment,
and only desire to rule, rule, _rule!_ He was able to quote many
examples. I thought of him and his theory when following, as closely as
one is able to do six thousand miles away, the recent course of events
in Mexico. Would he in a new edition add General Diaz to his list?

Diaz has reached a great age. On the 15th September, 1910, he
celebrated his eightieth birthday. He has ruled Mexico, with one brief
interval of four years, since 1876. For thirty-five years, therefore,
with one short break, the country has known no other President; and
Madero, who has laid him low, was a man more or less put into office by
Diaz himself. A new generation of Mexicans has grown up under the rule
of Diaz. Time after time he has been reelected with unanimity, no other
candidate being nominated--nor even suggested. Is it to be wondered at
that, by the time his seventh term expired in 1910, he should have at
last come to regard himself as indispensable?

That he was so persuaded permits of no doubt. "He would remain in
office so long as he thought Mexico required his services," he said in
the course of the first abortive negotiations for peace--before the
capture of the town of Juarez by the insurrectionists, and the
surrender of the Republican troops under General Navarro took the
actual settlement out of his hand.

It was a fatal mistake, and it has shrouded in deep gloom the close of
a career of unexampled brilliancy, both in war and statesmanship. The
Spanish-American Republics have produced no man who will compare with
Porfirio Diaz