Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-02-18
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY IS, 1913
MEXICO MUST HAVE NEW DEAL.

MEXICO MUST HAVE NEW DEAL.
The rebeIlions and counter-rebel-
lions which have followed each other
with such disastrous frequency i'll
Mexico in the past two years have
created an impossible situation there.
Never did the elder Diaz seem more
strongly intrcnched in power than he
was in September, 1910, at the hun
dredth anniversary Of the first rising
against Spain, yet Il few weeks later
sporadic Instructions were started
in various parts Of the country, and
one of them, that led by Madero,
seemed to have a backing which in
duced Diaz to abdicate, which he did
in May, 1911, to the surprise of the
world. Under what seemed at the mo
ment to have been a fair election, the
first Of which, so some of the Mexican
people said, had taken place in their
country in a quarter of a century,
Madero was elected, and he was in
power only a few months before Ia
pata, Orzoco and other popular lead
ers rose against him. With varying
fortunes the rebellions by those chief
tains have been under way ever since
but they are dwarfed by a rising in
the City OF Mexico under ATeliX DiaZ,
nephew OF the former president, which
for the moment, has ingulfed all the
other risings. In all of these sporadic
rebellions the principal purpose has
been simply to change one leader for
another. That is to say. the people
engaged in them have been inspired
not by any~truly patriotic motive, but
by personal devotion to an ambitious
commander seeking political power.
But il Madero goes, who will come
to the front with sufficient power ami
popular backing to be able to maintain
hismeslf through a single presidential
term? Not Felix Diaz, who is an arts
tocrat, like his uncle, and like Ma
dero, who has very little sincere sym
pathy with the desire of the masses
to break up vast landed estates and
to be able to buy a little land for
themselves. Unlike Felix Diaz and
Madcro, however. Poriirio Diaz. in his
earlier years, had the courage, the
prestige and the ability to crush re-
bellions before they attained cmbar-
RAISING proportions. and has, with the
peace which he enforced. he brought
his country a prosperity which it had
not previously known in a century.
II PortirO had been a little younger in
1910 he might have been able to for
see the storm which was rising against
the feudal system, and to have averted
1t by some or the concessions to the
populace which his friends in the
United States urged him 10 give. But
he disregarded the p~ortens. and relied
on a blood and iron policy after his
: eighty tempestLous years and his
wrecked health had at last deprived
him Of the physical yigor TO enforce
it.
What next in Mexico?' raises a;
question which arouses grea. interest
in the world in general, but especially
in the United States. A country which
has an area as great as that of the
United Safes east of the Mississippi,
which is as rich in natural resources
as any other land Of equal extent on
the globe, and which has as large a
population as the United States had
at Van Buren's election and larger
than any other Latin-American coun-
try except Brazil, can not be permit
ed to have a freedom in setting UP
anarchy which is allowed to such
feeble little states as Nicaragua and
Hayti. The United States has $1,OOO,-
100000 capital invested there, with
an equal amount for Great Britain.
Germany and the rest of the countries
of Europe combined. Fully $4,000
Americans reside in Mexico. Two
thirds of her foreign trade is with US.
In a humanitarian as well as an econ
omic n our stake in the order and
stability Of the Mexican Republic il
vast, and as a corallary of the Monroe
principle we must not only protect