Omaha daily bee., 1899-10-08

schools. Manual training schools, profess
sional schools, all are taking a rank in
poor old Mexico" which no one will dis
parage who fairly knows the facts.
Peace, security, communication, commerce,
education-these are in Mexico the children
OF one patriot They are, to speak generic
ally, and only of proportions large enough
to count in history, 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 net deem 1t
too much to call the man who could do this,
so soon and from SO little, one OF the worlds
great figures, the man who did do 1t one OF
the great patriots 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 some
times are big men.
The Presidents wife.
A factor not to be forgotten In the esti-
mate OF this great success is the present
Sonora Dlaz, the presidents young and
lovely second WIFE His first wife died in
his years OF stress leaving him three good
children. In 1883 he remarked, taking Car
men Rublo, the daughter of an old opponent,
then not 20, but already a woman OF the rar-
est charms. Not one of ten in Mexico would
know who "la Sonora Diaz' might be; every
one in Mexico old enough to talk, man,
woman or child, Indian or mestizo or don,
knows and reveres and loves "Carmelita" :"
with devotion as deep as 1t is patriarchal.
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 the
nation. 1t will be fairly wise historian
who shall be able to say how much OF Mex
dean progress has been due to this lovely
personality, winning hearts for the strong
man at the helm.
Mexico n Safe Country.
Mexico today is as unemotional as New
England. The most offensive tourist can 90
anywhere with as perfect safety as is found
in this mortal sphere. He can say things
that would get him knocked down in any
New England village, and wear manners
such as we never saw 1t is quietly anus
ing to those who have any real knowledge
of the country when he ascribes his safety
to the fact" that Mexico is a despotsm
that Daz is a czar, and the little polcias
at the corner his spies, and that no one dares
be bad. The great secret is now that no one
could go out any morning in any Mexican
| town under 10000 and strangle all the
soldiers in it., for constitutional. He would
not have prolonged need OF constitution, It
| is true; for there is law in Mexico, and 1t
goes" But the idea that the country is a
| military camp, or close corporation Of the
| despot, or nursery Of spies and passports
| is SO grotesquely false and foolish that those
who entertain it are proper forwarders of our
gaiety. Mexico Is pretty thoroughly gov
| erned. but absolutely without trace of
| Caesarism. The hard hand" land those are
| his own words to mel was used when need
was to throttle brigandage and revolution
and uplift wilful wallowing. But the
machinery is astonishingly simple and
small and untyrannous, as great minds
| DEVISE And, strangest of all, it Is not so
much to carry deadheads and make places
! as it is to get effective public service. The
service rs not perfect, Mexico being still
populous with human beings and not much
invaded by angels lin spite of much i'm
migration from the north).
Not Governed by the Machine.
But there is no machine" no aggrega-
ton for purposes of plunder; and the civil
service of Mexico, by and large, is not any
thing we can fully afford to sneeze at
Despite our proper distrust Of everything we
do not know, the time has come when to
despise Mexico is to confess scant enlight-
enment And for what he has done for re-
public which took its inspiration from us
after ours drew Its models i'll as it long
followed them; we'll as for his gallant
figure a man such as brave men love
everywhere and every when, President Diaz
, is likely to receive at our hands memora-
BILE welcome.