Governments. The peace arranged by President
Diaz had brought foreign capital by the billion to aid the internal
development of the country, and of this money more had come from the
United States than from any other nation. Nor was it financial aid
alone which had gone across the border. There was but little American
colonization, it is true, but business managers, engineers, mine
foremen, and ranch superintendents formed thousands of links binding the
nations together. The climax of intimacy seemed reached when, in 1910,
a general treaty of arbitration was made after President Taft and
President Diaz had met at El Paso on the Mexican border in a personal
conference. A personal interview between the President of the United
States and the chief of a foreign state was almost unique in American
history, owing to the convention that the President should not depart
from the national territory.

It was, therefore, with a bitter sense of disappointment that Americans
heard of the revolution inaugurated in 1910 by Francisco Madero. In
common with France, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany, the United States
was disturbed for the safety of the investments and persons of its
citizens. The Government was also concerned because the points of first
and most persistent fighting were where the various railroads crossed
the American boundary. This circumstance brought the whole border within
the range of disturbance. The Government was apprehensive, too, as to
the effect of long-continued war upon territories within the circle of
its chief interest, the Caribbean area. Yet, when the first surprise
caused by the revolution had passed and the reason for the outbreak was
perceived,--the fact that the order and apparent prosperity of the Diaz
regime had been founded upon the oppression and exploitation of the
masses,--public sympathy in the United States went out to Madero and his
supporters.

The Diaz Government collapsed with surprising suddenness. The
resignation of President Diaz in May, 1911, was accepted as a proof of
the popular character and the success of the revolution, and Madero,
who was elected president in October, was promptly recognized as the
constitutional head of the Mexican Government. The revolution, however,
aroused the United States to the fact that there still persisted the
era of disturbance which it had hoped was drawing to a close in Latin
America. With this disturbing revelation in mind, Congress took another