The Mathews journal. (Mathews C.H. [Court House]) 1903-1937, 1912-10-31
lillSh MA.lCAh MI &c
NEEDS 6.lTHER PRESIDENT DlAz|
Juarez. october 5. lsls.

Juarez. October s. 1912. \
He who Is ignorant OF Mexicos
past cannot understand its present,
much less foreten its future. A hun
dred years ago il slumbered on the
knees OF Spanish paternalism rather
than groaned on the rack Of Iberian
tyranny. until awakened into life and
revolt by the echoes of the French
Revolution. Then came inoepend-
ence. at once followed by more than
fifty years OF ceaSeless Internal con-
tests. varied but not always inter
rupted, by foreign wars and French
intervention. Its President of today
succeeded the President whom he de-
posed yesterday and perhaps shot at
sunrise, only him-elf TO meet tomor-
row the fate of the fallen ruler. Dur
ing that time more than fifty shad-
owy. Presidents, dictators or emperOrS
grasped for moment the helm of
state. With the exception of Itur-
bide, Santa Anna and Juarez their
very names are empty sounds TO even
Mexican ears. Except in the So
called war OF reform, sixty years ago,
there was no principle involved in any
of these domestic conflicts. They were
military reVolts, not popular upris-
ings, and the masses remained Quies-
cent and even Indifferent. There was
no credit to be shaken, no industry
to be paralyzed and no commerce TO
be destroyed.
Eeudal System Rampant.
Nine-tenths OF the people were
wholly illiterate and. under the name
of poems, the virtual slaves of the
great land owners. who, in all things,
except in marital activities. repeated
there the most pronounced features
OF the feudal system. The wealthy
took no part in public life or in the
frequent revolutions.
BY their quiescence they hoped to
escape the notice and the rapacity of
the military despot of the hour. So
far as lip worship goes, no country
had or has as much national spirit
as Mexico. but the educated and
wealthy have mingled little of their
blood with the sanguine streams that
have furrowed all the slopes of the
land they profess to idolize.
Thirty-five years ago General Diaz.
one of the greatest men of our times.
perhaps of all time, became Presi-
dent in name, autocrat in fact His
reign lasted until yesterday, and he
endowed his country with most of the
material evidences of prosperity and
civilization, and even with a school
system that has already greatly de-
creased its illiteracy. Factories, har-
bors, railroads sprang up like the
vegetation on the plains of AnahuaC
during the season of the rains He
maintained order and what his subor-
dinates called law, but which men
knew was naught but the will of a
master. His tyranny was not capri
ciouS or meddlesome, seldom unjust
except in the sense that all despotism
is unjust, but relentleSSly severe and
sleeplessly vigilant.
Elections were held only to elect
the candidates nominated by him. Sell
few who dared to enter the race were
arrested and confined until they sub
mitted to the dictator's will. Every
officer In Mexico, civil or military.
from the highest to the lowest, held
his post at the will of Diaz.
Subservient 90 Interests.
As the master grew older and less
able to supervise the administration
he fell more and more under the in
fuence of the representatives of the
great material interests he had Gre
ated- These men, called "Cientificos,"
were not unlike copy" translated
into Spanish, of the American trust"
, Those 'Nof small property envied the
dazzling prosperity of the favored and
arrogant magnateS-" The poems, at
tracted by the tens of thousand from
rural labors TO those of the shops and
factories, were filled with a dull
hatred when they compared their
scanty wages with the salaries of
their American foreman, and with
those paid for labor similar to their
own in the United States.
The few men of education, who
longed for better things for the ma
ZION ana not Tor mere personal ad-
vantage, were mere doctrinaires, and
writhing in secret, attributed their
own lack of influence and the ma
tional degradation to the character OF
the ruler and not to that of the ruled.
When the Madero revolt came, that
ruler had not a friend outside of the
army. the cienuflcos and the office
holders. The army was diminutive,
poorly paid. enduring. pathetically
loyal, laughably inefficient bur
lesque as fighting force. not from a
lack of courage. but from an utter
want of intelligence, motive, enter
prise, initiative. Without resistance,
the seeming pyramid on whose sum-
NIT the figure of Diaz had lowered in
more than human magnitude, crum-
bled and disappeared among the cor
roding waters Of universal discomfort.
Chaos Follows Downfall
The fall of Diaz was not the tri-
umph OF any definite party principle
or chieftain. 1t was but the inevitable