The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-08

is judged in war and Statecraft by the
material with which he has to work
as well as by the gross result. In
relatively modern history the only
synonyms of Diaz' military career Gas
of the class where the ranks show for
numbers, indeed, but the leader is
really the army are Cortez and
Pizarro. Our own history has no fair
parallel, even among the Marions and
Clusters and Roosevelts; for the very
palpable reason that none of these, our
lions, were leaders of sheep. No men
have ever led a charge better; but some
as wild heroes have been worse fol-
lowed.
Superb Physical Courage.
This is not the side of Diaz L care
to dwell on. Splendid as personal
heroism is, it is also luckily for hui
manity) not uncommon. 1t is signifi-
cant here particularly, because without
it and the direct hero'-worship it
aroused, Diaz very certainly could not
have done his larger work. The man
who led so many forlorn hopes against
superior numbers, discipline and arms;
who was brevetted with so many scars;
who could not only plan a complicated
campaign but win it inch by inch at
the head of his DETERMINATIONS; who
spiked the enemys battery with his
own hands. in the heat of the melee;
who served his own guns when the
last gunner had fallen or run away;
who dazzled his men and his people as
well by his personal mitigating as by
the endless ingenuity and almost devil
iSh inspirations by which he befooled
or shattered the enemy-that sort of
man, among any sort of men who love
red blood and steady hand, can get
listeners after the fight when he speaks
quietly as to citizens, telling them of
national righteousness, mercy and a
judgment to come
What He Has Done For Mexico.
No one would be more grateful for
scientific demonstration that some
where else in human history so radical
a change has come over the political,
social and commercial circumstance of
nation in SO short a time as has
befallen Mexico since Diaz wound the
reins round his hands / have not
been able TO find it for myself, with a
fairly intimate knowledge of what
Mexico was and is, and considerable
attempt to learn something of other
history.
Fifteen years ago, Mexico was by
word among the nations; unsettled by
revolutions, moth-eaten politics, re-
mote, uneasy, 3 ignorant, inaccessible.
UllSdLC anu UGSSdIGQ. 1QQdN II is as
law-abiding, as safe, as clearly ad-
ministered, as any state in our nation,
bar none; as easily traversed as any
of our states west of the Missouri; as
compact and national in spirit, and in
fact as | could wish some better coun-
tries to be, of sound business prosper
ity in every line that ingenuity could
question, and of a mental awakening
as honorable as it is overwhelming.
L.
and the way TO crush is to crush-and
weeded out corruption in office, and
cured the thieves and brigands and
agitators who were durable and wiped
out those that were not He fetched
into Mexico the largest railroad
building that has been seen since our
transcontinental lines, and supple
mented them with the telegraph and a
very good postal service. He slaughter
ed the obstructive interstate and in
tertown tariffs. multiplied manufac-
lures, by an enormous figure, through
judicious legislation, turned the bal
ance of trade and changed revenue
from a cavity to an eminence. He set
limit to the church, and began to
make prisons we can justly envy. He
greatly empowered colleges: and from
the medieval suppression of women to
domestic ignorance subverted that
whole immemorial fabric and began
Cfor the first time on a large scale. ]
believe, in any Spanish-speaking coun-
try to provide literally for women's
real education. Long before he be-
came national figure he established
a girls school in OaXaca: and now any
bright girl in the republic can get a
modern and practical education if she
will.
The Father of the Public School.
Above all he is the father of the pub
lie school in Mexico; a system to which
he gives not only the due turn of the
reins, but his earnest personal care
There is not a village in Mexico. even
in the remote Indian districts, which
has not its free public school; and the
normal schools of the republic are turn
ing out yearly little army of earnest
and pretty well-equipped teachers for
these schools. Manual training schools
professional schools, all are taking a
rank in poor old Mexico" which no one
will disparage who fairly knows the
facts.
Peace. security, communication, COM
merce, education-these are in Mexico
the children of one patriot They are,
to speak generically, and only of pro-
portions large enough to count in his
tory, modern inventions there, and the
inventions Of Diaz. Mexico had taste
of all of them before, at times and by
unsatisfying bites. but now they are on
the regular bill of fare. ] do not deem
it too much to call the man who could
do this, so soon and from so little, one
of the worlds greatest figures, the man
who did do it, one of the great parrots.
And no one fully grounded in the
chronicles and in the visible facts of
the field, will call in question these
apparently large statements. There
sometimes are big men.
The Presidents Wife.
A factor not TO be forgotten in the
estimate of this great success is the
present Sonora Diaz. the presidents
young and lovely second wife. His
first died in his years of stress. leav-
ing him three good children. In 1888
he remarked. taking Carmen Rubio,
the daughter of an old opponent, then
not 90 but already a woman of the
rarest charms. Not one of ten in Mex
leo would know who ia Sonora Diaz"
might be; everyone in Mexico old
enough to talk, man. woman or child,
Indian or meStizo or don, knows and
reveres and loves "CaTmelita with a
Beautiful. gracious. highly educated, a
type of the very highest womanhood,
not alone the actual charities TO which
she devotes SO much time, money and
hard work, but her every relationship,
have endeared her to her nation. 1t
will be a fairly wise historian who
shall be able to say how much of
Mexican progress has bsen due to tins
lovely personality. winning hearts for
the strong man at the helm.
Maxico a Safe Country