The age-herald., 1900-03-16
PRESIDE MI DIAZ
His Great Work in Development of Mexico
 in a Few Years

From the City of Mexico Herald.
 It is astonishing what pulling power a locomotive has. In sixffteen years it has hauled Mexico, plunged in creole provin- cfalism, it's dream interrupted by occasional cannon shot. up to the higher plane of wide international activities. Mexico, the pre- historic Mexico that Porflrio Diaz found has gone forever. Old men and some cler-' fcal newspapers humble their protest, and lament the past which was picturesque but incredibly backward. On the whole, the change is better for Mexico. which is now part of the great family of nations.
 Mexico now has a national credit and an addition to its legitimate stock of self-re. spect. This statesman, Porfirio Diaz, Is something of a compound locomotive him. self. We have seen him tugging at the inertia of Ia Mexico welded to the past, trying to pull 1t over a steep upgrade. That was back in 1885. when the credit of the nation was nil, when the treasury was empty and employees were lucky if they got their pay at postponed dates. We heard men standing idly in their counting rooms predicting that the big Diaz loco motive would blow up, plunge down an em- bankment of revolution, etc.
 Mighty few were the capitalists here who then, in dark days, stood by the president of Mexico. He knows that he can count over the roll of the pessimists, of the hid- den critics, of the prophets of despair. But he kept on pulling for all we can attest. He worked sixteen, eighteen, twenty-four hours a day; his courage never failed him, and lucky was it for Mexico that he had a constitution hardened in many campaigns, man of iron and fire.
 Porfirio Diaz believed in steam and iron: his creed was a locomotive: he was ready to give charters for railways, he welcomed with the glad hand men of positive force. He surrounded himself with big-braaned hearty, resolute men. And they all pulled together. So this statesman of locomo- tives, this keen-eyed, undaunted believer in what they could do for Mexico is vindi- cated. He sees Mexico prosperous and progressive; men everywhere believe dn him; he is going to be president four years more, and he looks over the broad land, and, discerning everywhere factory, chim- neys, and noting the trailing white banners of hundreds hundreds of locomotives, he feels sure Shat his work has been for his country's good.
 Some petty critics affect to depreciate the Mexican president; they would criticise a Napoleon reconstructing French institu- tions, Bismarck making an empire out of petty duchies and principalities. If we had known Porfirio Diaz when the skies were all black, when he was, in poverty making a nation, when malignGty buzzed about him, and he toiled like another Hercules, we might believe some of the talk of the little critics. But having regarded the work of the man who let locomotives loose over the face of Mexico, we have no patience left to listen to weddings who could not live here and make money if the president had not transformed Mexico and made it a place for healthful activity
 The hoarse and cheerful shout of the To- conceive makes up the sufficient hymn to Mexico's progress. The transformer of Mexico is at work. Mexico will endure as a nation because she is alive, modern, and progressive.