, and nothing more. It was not until he was
actually President, when nearing fifty, that his gifts for government
asserted themselves. Such late developments are rare, although Cromwell
was forty before he made any mark. Chatham, again, was fifty before he
was heard outside his own circle, and yet a few years, barely months,
later, the world was at his feet.

It is rather the cry nowadays that men's best work is done before
forty; and even their good work no later than sixty; but among endless
exceptions General Diaz must take high rank.

His real career began at forty-six. Up to that time he had been an
officer in a somewhat disorganized army, and his ambition at the outset
never soared beyond a colonelcy.

He was nearly fifty when he entered Mexico City at the head of a
revolutionary force. Romance and adventure were behind him, although
personal peril still dogged his steps. He had to forget that he was a
soldier, and to be born again as leader and politician, a maker and not
a destroyer. In that capacity he had absolutely no experience of public
affairs, but such as he had gained in a smaller way in early years
spent in Oaxaca. Yet Diaz became a ruler, and a diplomat, and assumed
the courtly manners of a prince.

Paradoxical as it may seem, his overthrow is the result of a revolution
mainly pacific in its nature, and in substance a revolt of public
feeling against abuses that have become stereotyped in the system of
government by the too long domination of one masterful will. The
military rising was but its head, spitting fire. Behind was an immense
body of opinion, in favor of effecting the retirement of the President
by peaceful means, and with all honor to one who had served his country
well.

In 1908 General Diaz had stated frankly, in an interview granted to an
American journalist, that he was enjoying his last term of office, and
at its expiration would spend his remaining years in private life.
There is no reason to doubt that this assurance represented his settled
intention. The announcement was extensively published in the Mexican
Press, and was never contradicted by the President himself. Then rumors
gained currency that Diaz was not unprepared to accept nomination for
the Presidency for an eighth term. The statement was at first
discredited, then repeated without contradiction in a manner that could
hardly have failed to excite alarm. At length came the fatal
announcement that the President would st