The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1916-08-04
BY EDGAR ILIFF.

Since 1924 Mexico has had more
than fifty presidents In this time the
country enjoyed thirty years of peace
and the fruits Of an able and wise ad-
minsitration under the great master of
craftsmanship President Proferio
Diaz. For thirty years this man of
iron kept his people in the paths of
law, order and honesty and made life
and property secure everywhere. The
story of his rise from poverty and OBJ
security to the mastership of one Of
the richest countries on the western
continent reads like a dream. His
presidential predecessor. Bennito
Juarez. was an honest, incorruptib]e
man Of intense democratic ideals But
he dealt. with an ignorant people I'M
able to govern themselves. He said
that respect for the rights Of others
makes for peace" True. but he could
not enforce his ideal Daz came to
the presidency and said, less politics
and more administration" He made
his people respect the rights of others
at home and abroad. He defended
with vigor the rights of others at
home and abroad He defended with
vigor the rights of rich and poor He
defended property whether It was
poems modest home or a ranchman's
vast estates. He stood for order first,
then law and justice.
Mogan Causes Overthrow.
The fall and over throw Of Diaz was
caused by the sowing of Socialist pam
pnlets in Mexico. Ricardo Flores
Mogan had his headquarters in San
Antonio. Texas; in St. Louis; and fin
ally In Los Angeles, California. From
these American cities he sent by post
and afterward by hand a great flood
of literature against Diaz and good
government. These pamphlets de-
nounced capital, stirred up hatred for
the successful and well-to-do, preach
ed confiscation of all property and the
looting of the banks. This man Mogan
was finally arrested in the United
States and sent to prison. His crime
was that of conspiring to invade
Mexico. 1t was discovered that thou
sands Of poor Mexicans were sending
him their pennies or pesos weekly to
keep going this campaign against the
government which protected them
The struggle of President Diaz with
this form of Socialism is the saddest
picture in his career. He was attack
ed with venom on every side by that
most contemplate of all creatures in
a republic, the demagogue. The re-
public of Mexico had adopted a con-
stitution modelled after our own. Our
government is not pure democracy
but constitutionally limited repre-
sentative government. So was Mex
leo. We have the three coordinate
branches of government, legislative,
judicial and executive, each balancing
and choking the other. Ours was the
first attempt in the history of the
world to found republic based upon
universal suffrage. Our fathers, as
suspicious of the mob as they were of
the tyranny of kings, provided certain
constitutional emergency brakes.
Such provisions or brakes were in the
Mexican constitution as we'll.
Poems are Influenced.
The whole force of the Mexican
demagogues attacked the constitution.
They demanded the abolition of the
supreme court, the sweeping away of
the senate, the taking away of the
veto power of the president, and the
elimination of interest, rent and
profit. Their demands appealed pow
erfully to the ignorant and poor poems
of Mexico. Aided by the clamoring of
the Socialists of the United States
they overthrow Diaz, and the once
peaceful and stable government of
government of Mexico became a hell
of anarchy, outlawry, plumber and
assassination. The Mexican people
were plunged into class war, the
most dreadful of all wars. Make war
upon the rich and then who are the
rich? Every man who has by his in
dustry and thrift mounted to a place
a little above the idle and the thrift
less. Such is the history of class
warfare.
1t is being preached by the organ
Of American Socialism, The Appeal
to Reason that capitalism is the