The Washington critic., 1888-02-18
AFFAIRS In MEXICO.
How Presidential Campaigns Are
Run in Our Sister Republic.
PRESIDENT DIAZ'S STRENGTH
The Rival Candidates and Esti-
mates of Their Comparative
Strength.

from the City of Mexico, the follow
ing interesting particulars in regard
to political and social affairs in the
Mexican Republic:
Here in Mexico we are in the midst
of q Presidential campaign, but no
American would realize the, fact. A
Presidential campaign sans process
sions, meetings, nominating conven-
tions, newspapers filed with sensa-
tional lies about candidates, roor-
backs, denials, stories that
the candidates were once con-
cerned in jobs, or are no better
than they ought to bo--that is the sort
of Presidential campaign that many Of
you at home are asking to have
adopted in the great Republic. All
this is quiet and serene as Quaker
village of a sunny September day. No
business man complains that the cam
paign is running trade, for it has not
the slightest effect on mercantile
transactions.
40 PUBLIC MEETINGS.
There are, as have said, no public
meetings. The public meeting on the
American and English plan, with a
chairman or president, with row of
vice-presidents on u platform, brass
band pounding and footing in gal
lery, with newspaper reporters scrib-
bling for dear life on rough wooden
tables-this sort of thing ! have never
seen in Mexico. 1t does not exist,
and is foreign to the genius of the
race. In times of intense popular agi-
tation somebody may harangue
crowd from u curbstone till the police
carry him off, but this is about
all the public meeting there is.
When a newspaper man has been in
the thick of American presidential
campaigns, has rushed on lightning
expresses to distant cities where great
conventions, in the presence of vast
audiences, have put men in nomina-
tion for the Chief Magistracy of the
republic, has spent wearv davs in
interviewing Senator This and the
Honorable Mr. That, TO elicit their
guesses and opinions, it is curious
enough to be q foreign witness of
campaign in another republic.
THE CHIEF CANDIDATE
for the election next June is General
Porfrio Diaz, President of Mexico,
who is up for reelection. The con-
stitution article prohibiting reelection
has been amended so that q president
may take second term (but not an
immediate third terml, and, conse-
| quently, President Diaz is eligible.
The strength of this remarkable man,
| who began life poor lad in Oaxaca
years ago, lies with the industrious
classes of Mexico. He is strong with
| everybody who has an in
terest in maintaining the peace,
so that honest work may be
done. Minor points of his policy
are freely criticised here in Mexico,
but almost universally he is felt to be
the man for the epoch, and confidence
is entertained in his ability to keep
the county quiet and give men a
] chance ITO 90 about their business
ithU,ft feeling that they are perhDu0
9nilding their structures of p
on TOP of ayNlcano. The pl
q bigger acreage under Cuit~U1m -
cause he believes that Poririo Diaz
| will maintain. public order, the manu-
! facturer builds new mill because, as
he says, "Diaz can give MS repose;"
the merchant lays in a heavy stock
because he foresces quiet years
of trading while Dia2 sits in the pal
ace. In word, Porhrio Diaz is strong
in Mexico because men have that
same confidence in him that our
| Northern peoplecame to have during
the latter days OF the war, in "old
| Grant." DiRz resembles Grant in his
being man of few words, and of de-
| cisive action when 1t comes to putting
his ideas into execution. lie is a
man of greater tact than Grant, be-
cause he selects friends and advisers
without making blunders.
1t is often superRoially asserted that
any MeXicln President, with the
army well in hand and thoroughly
loyal TO him, may continue to hold
Office. But all Mexican history goes
to prove that
THE ARMY is A POOR RELIANCE
for President. Lerdo thought he
had the army, and yet he was forced
to fee the country. There is much
more needed than the army; it is the
support of public sentiment, Outside
OF the clerical party, otherwise called
the conservative, General Diaa is very
| btlOhBj dilu, uo iiuNC SdiOWilt iiuo u
moral support from citizens who pre-.
fer the activities of peace to civil
strife and useless gunpowder. If all
| the President had to rely on was the
army, his chances of reelection would
be small indeed. 1t is because the
majority Of Mexicans regard Porflrio
Diaz as animated by something higher
than mere ambition and selfshness
that he holds his strength among the
people.
The only candidates that have SO
far been named in the papers to dis.
pute the Presidential success with
General Diaz are General Escobedo,
General Gonzalez, and ex-Chief Jus.
tice Vallgrta, formerly Governor OF
Jalisco. General Escohedo was the
general who took Queretaro. lie is q
good soldier, but not believed to be
politically ambitious, and his oandi.
daey has dropped out of the news
papers.
GENERAL GONZALEZ,
after retiring from the Presidency g
little over three years ago, was made
Governor Of the State of Gupnajuato
through which runs the trunk line ol
the Mexican Central Railway, He has
made good governor has encour'
aged agricultural ana stoGk,raising in
terests, and attended we'll to his
duties. Ills name has appeared from
time to time in various newspapers In
the state Of Vera Cruz and over in
Sinaloa, and one daily paper here at
the Capital is for Gonzalez; but
shrewd politicians say that he has
never seriously harbored any ambi,
ton tomake a campaign. His organs
occasionally reply to the attacks ofthe