atch the Mexican frontier. From that time events developed rapidly
till the end of the Diaz regime in May. One thing became clear, that
the revolution was rapidly making its way to victory, and that Diaz,
prostrate with an agonizing disease, an abscess of the jaw, was in no
condition to rally his disheartened followers in person. He saved his
honor, as the phrase goes, by a declaration that he would not retire
from office until peace was declared, and he kept his word. He was too
ill to leave his simple home in one of the chief streets of the city,
where he lived less ostentatiously than many of his fellow citizens,
but this did not prevent the mob from firing upon his home. On the
afternoon of May 25, 1911, he resigned, and Senor De La Barra, formerly
Minister at Washington, became provisional President until the next
election, fixed for October.

Madero was the hero of the hour. He entered Mexico City in triumphal
procession, June 7, 1911. His entrance was preceded by the most severe
earthquake the capital had known in years. Many buildings were wrecked
and some hundreds of people killed. An arch of the National Palace
fell, one beneath which Diaz had often passed.

Three days after signing his abdication, General Diaz was well enough
to leave Mexico City. In the early hours of the morning three trains
drew up filled with his own solders and friends, in the middle one of
which the ex-President, his wife, the clever and beautiful Carmelita,
Colonel Porfirio Diaz, his son, with his young wife, several children,
and their ten-days-old baby, were seated. Along the route the train
came upon a force of seven hundred rebels. A sharp encounter ensued.
The revolutionists left thirty dead upon the field; the escort, which
numbered but three hundred, lost only three men. The old fighting
spirit returned to the old lion, and, unarmed, the ex-President
descended from his car and took part in the engagement. He entered
Mexico City fighting, and he has left her shores with bullets ringing
in the air. This was but the second time that Diaz had left the land of
his birth.

His work is now imperishable. Mexicans, I am sure, will regret the
pitiful circumstances under which his fall has come about, and he will
live long in the hearts of his countrymen. Nothing can alter the fact
that he made modern Mexico. It was no easy task; the Mexicans are a
cross-breed of Spaniards and countless Indian tribes. There are still
half a million Azte