The herald., 1898-05-02
! AWAKENING A NATION
+ + + + + + + r. + + + + + + fri

not De the one specially selected for admi-
ration in American understanding or 9TH
erwise-when his book 1.-The Awakening of
a Nation" came out. If he had known he
might not have been so illogically insistent
upon doing Justice to a nation to whom
Justice would be humiliation, and mercy
oblivion.
The nation of whose awakening" Mr..
Lummis treats in his book is Mexico, and
he gives much information that is start
ling and valuable on the subject of the
miraculous progress that country has
made in the last twenty years-that is to
say. under the presidency of Diaz.
Now. there is no possible objection to Civ
ing Diaz or Spain or the devil or anybody
else his due, but there is decided revul-
sion against not only crowded and full
| some panegyric of a human being, re-
peated and intensified ad nauseam, but
the constant laudation of Spanish traits
and the disparagement of our own at the
same time. And Mr.. Lummis loses no OPP
portunity of implying that 1t is the Span
ish in Diaz that has effected so much;
of stating boldly that 1t is Spain's i'm.
print on Mexico that is the most durable,
and that her characteristics are far more
vital" than ours. His might not be praise,
for the good are often meek, but he means
1t to be the highest need in his power
to bestow.
The Spaniards were expelled from Mex
leo in 1929, but Mr.. Lummis from that time
on to twenty years ago finds no improve
ment In the country. Then, when Diaz
was made president, miracles began to be
performed-which is doubtless true. The
two things that have impressed him most
he says are 1.-The fever of municipal i'm
provement and the sheer epidemic of pub
lie schools" These are "but logical fea-
lures of the Diaz administration, which
in twenty yaais has wiped out the entire
race of brigands, SO that Mexico, from
being the most unsafe country in the world
for travellers, is now the safest; which has
started and brought to perfection a sys-
tenn Of railroad and telegraph, where
twenty years ago was no trace of either,
and which has performed hundreds of
other political and scientific miracles"
In 2S6 years Mexico had sixty-two vice.
roys, which Mr.. Lummis thinks was doing
pretty well. 1t has had fifty-two presi-
dents, emperors and other heads in fifty
nine years. (This was after Spanish rule
went out.) ut has now enjoyed one pres
ident for twenty years" If you say that
this is not republican you are mistaken,
according to Mr. Lummis. ut is not even
dictatorship by which Mexico is gov
erned. 1t is logical paternalism. scheme
frightfully dangerous under bad father.
intellectually beneficial under a good one"
AS, however, there Is no direct line of
good fathers guaranteeable, logical pater-
nalism may turn out bitter curse when
the good father is obliged to depart, so that
1t can hardly be deemed permanently re-
liable system.
Diaz is probably all that his eulogist
claims for him-he could not well be more
but he can be claimed as American for
his grand qualities with as good reason as
Spanish. There are many flowing pages
of praise which the president may de-
serve; he does not deserve them on account
of his Spanish blood, but in spite of it.
Rorfirio DiaZ was born in the city Of
Oaxaca on the eve of the anniversary
of the birth of Mexican independence,
September Is, 1880. His father, Cap
tain Jose Faustino Diaz, was of Astu-
rian stock, which came to Mexico In the
first days of the conquest. Dona Pc
trona Mory, Porfirio's forceful mother,
brought him the drop of aboriginal
blood, her grandmother having been
Mixteca.
Why not give the Mixteca her share?
From this union there sprang phenome-
non, full-armed. Hero of hundred fights,
he conquered the hearts of his country
men, too. Not only the brilliancy of his
career but its patriotism kindled hero
worship to blaze.
His people, his government and his foes
all came to recognize him as the first SOL
der of Mexico. Upon the head of this he
has earned a still rarer distinction. The
greatest general in Mexican history, he
has also proved himself the greatest
statesman.
Whether 1t is because we are not in
the mood to hear even a part Spaniard
praised, or whether Mr.. Lummis lays on
the eulogy too thick, or because he ap-
pears to sneer at Americans all through
his book, certain it is that the panegyric
Of which these few sentences are but the
opening-palls. After the subject appears
to be ended 1t is taken UP again. In many
connections 1t is the same song: Diaz the
soldier, Diaz the reformer, Diaz the lover
of his people, Diaz the idol. His wife is
as beloved as he; she, too, is "the idol of
the nation" 1t is too much.
Mexico 10 to remain neutral in the pres
emit difficulty. She has had enough of
Spain. And If, as Mr.. Lummis repeatedly
declares, the Spanish power is stronger in
dividually than that of the Saxon, Spain
has not succeeded in rousing sympathy
in those whom she has stamped with her
seal. This is what Mr.. Lummis says:
o O O
history are more striking than this vi
tai individuality of the Spaniard. What
ever page he opened in the new world
he wrote across it his racial auto
graph in hand so virile and so char
acteristic that neither time nor change
can efface 1t.
1t may happen that another and more
vital racial autograph may be traced in a
hand still more virile and more charac-
teristic, but this is not the spirit in which
book should be handled. It would be a
pity, would 1t not, to infuse war spirit
into a simple book notice? And yet a few
more such praises Of the Spaniard-and
especially at the expense of the American
would be more than could be borne. And
lest the provocation has not seemed strong
enough so far, few more lines may be
quoted.
HE Ohe Spaniard mastered every land
between us and Patagonia, and there is no
land in which he for Instance 10 of hiS