did not dissolve. It did not nominate
Corral. Instead it struck Porfirio Diaz's name from its ticket and
tendered to Francisco Madero, Jr., not the vice-presidential but the
presidential nomination. The bare fact that he accepted it speaks
volumes for his courage.

Francisco Madero was born October 4, 1873. He was educated from
childhood in the United States and Europe; and upon returning to his
country, imbued with the advanced ideas of the most broad-minded men of
the most enlightened countries in the world, it was perhaps only
natural that he should resent the conditions which he saw in his own
country. The Madero family owns great tracts of land in Coahuila,
besides properties in other states. Madero introduced modern methods
and modern machinery in the management of his estates. Already a
millionaire, he made more millions, at the same time doing much toward
the betterment of conditions for his own immediate dependents among the
lower class.

Madero first attracted attention by writing _The Presidential
Succession in 1910_. The Cientifico clique laughed at him as a
visionary. Suddenly they awoke to the fact that his book, with its
calm, dispassionate logic and democratic tone, was doing them more harm
than a thousand soldiers, and they suppressed its publication. It was
the writing of this book that led to Madero's nomination for President
by the Anti-reelectionist party when every one else had failed it.

Madero took the attitude that he was a presidential candidate in a free
republic and began what he called his democratic campaign. He went from
city to city, delivering speeches and laying his platform before the
people. He was called "the apostle of democracy," and the multitudes
followed him like an apostle indeed. But he did not carry out his
democratic campaign without sacrifice and risk. When he passed through
Hermosillo, Sonora, the hotel-keepers closed their-doors to him.
Torres, feudal lord of the state, had given out the necessary hint and
Madero, for all his millions, could find no apartments for himself and
his wife until a Spaniard--relying upon the fact of being a foreigner--
offered them lodgings, "not wishing to lend himself to so ignoble an
intrigue." This was but one city of many. In all places he had the most
tremendous difficulty in renting halls for his addresses. Frequently he
was reduced to speaking in tumble-down sheds or mule-yards or vacant
lots, the local authorities often hiring row