Judging this man at a distance, we, who live in a country where even a third term is a “bogie,” are inclined to smile at these successive elections to the presidency, and dismiss the matter with the charge of “dictator” and “republican despot,” with all the odium that those terms imply. President Diaz was both. But, above all, he was, I believe, a true patriot. Whatever may have been his original motives in seeking this high office his later actions prove the statement. Responsibility will often develop a man, and that may have been true with Diaz. In securing the control by driving out Lerdo, and assuming the provisional presidency over Iglesias, who was the official designated by the constitution in case of a vacancy, he only did what many had done before. Whether his retention of the office for so long was a good or bad thing for the country, the historian of the future will be a better judge.
The accomplishments of Diaz were many. It would require a long enumeration to give them in detail. The very fact that he succeeded to a government which had seen fifty-four different rulers, including two emperors and a number of avowed dictators, in the fifty-five years preceding his own accession, and ruled the country for more than a generation, is in itself sufficient to stamp him as an extraordinary man. Those were indeed troublous times in Mexico while we were celebrating the centennial of our independence. The strong spirit of Juarez had been broken by the long strain from 1857 to 1872, during which time he was nominally President. His successor was a weak, ambitious man who accomplished little. Disorder everywhere, the country overrun with bandits and a worse than empty treasury were the conditions when Diaz grasped the reins. It was not until nearly two years afterward that his government was formally recognized by the United States. Few men could have steered the country through such a state of affairs so successfully. He did it without repudiating any valid claims. He established credit by paying foreign obligations rather than the salaries of government employees. He surrounded himself with an able cabinet, and started the machinery of government in a business-like way.
I do not subscribe to the doctrine of Shakespeare that all the world is a stage, and that each person is a player, for that would take away sincerity. Porfirio Diaz has been accused of only acting a part. He could not always be acting, for his course was too consistent under many and diverse circumstances. As a young man he refused pay for military services because the government was so poor. He declined promotion over the heads of men older in the service for fear of jealousies. He refused remuneration after the close of the war of intervention, although not a rich man at that time. He turned a deaf ear to the emissaries of Maximilian, who wanted to place him in command of the Mexican army when that ruler abdicated, which would practically have made him President. He was a humane adversary, as is shown by his treatment of prisoners of war. He disregarded ceremony as much as is possible in a Latin country. He declined to live in the National Palace, but resided in a private house the most of the time, and at Chapultepec a part of the year.
It is not to be wondered at that the man who rules with a strong arm will make bitter enemies as well as warm partisans. Likewise such a policy will always have its defamers as well as its supporters. Opinion is still divided upon Napoleon, and whether his high-handed methods wrought more good than evil. Hence it is that some can see nothing in Diaz but a tyrant, an enslaver of his people, and a man unfit for even life itself. They forget that peonage was not originated by Diaz, but was inherited from the Spaniards and supported by the voters of the country. They do not look into the conditions faced by Diaz when he first became President, nor the bloody history of the republic before that time. I believe that Diaz would have been permitted to serve his term had it not been for his efforts to control the vice-presidency, and the fact that his choice fell upon a man who was very unpopular. Knowing that at his age the President’s span of life was uncertain, the politicians wanted to control this office because of the succession. For this reason discontent and jealousies had been growing for several years. Diaz had publicly declared his intention not to seek another term, so that those ambitious for that office took him at his word and began their wire-pulling. This was in February, 1908. Then, in the spring of 1910, he announced that yielding to importunity he would accept another term. This was the one great mistake in his political career. Had Diaz adhered to his previous declaration, he would have retired from the office of chief executive full of honours. As it is he resigned under pressure, and left the City of Mexico unannounced and accompanied only by his family and a few friends. He boarded a steamer in the harbour of Vera Cruz and sailed for Spain, where he has quietly resided since that time.
The personality of this dictator-president, who has filled such an important place in the world’s history, is most interesting. As I sat in the great salon of the National Palace, awaiting the appearance of President Diaz, I spent the intervening fifteen or twenty minutes in examining the room. On the high walls were pictures of General Washington, the father of liberty in the whole of the two Americas; of the patriot-priest Hidalgo, who first raised the standard of revolt in Mexico, and of Diaz himself. Then Diaz appeared—a man tall for a Mexican, solidly built, with white closely cropped hair and white moustache. He approached with an elastic, graceful and springy step entirely belying his almost eighty years. The Indian blood could easily be traced in his complexion and features. The most striking feature of this man is his eyes, which seem to look into the very soul of all he meets. It is probably this intuitive perception that has been one of the key-notes of his success. He has always been a democratic sort of man and easy of approach, and impresses his sincerity on all those who talk with him. Diaz was always a tireless worker and methodical in his habits. He is abstemious, and it is probably due to this characteristic and his methodical habits, that at eighty years of age he remained as active and energetic as the average man twenty years younger. He kept in touch with the most remote parts of the republic, even to the most distant village. His advisers were often surprised at the vast knowledge he displayed in all matters of state. The private life of Diaz has always been above reproach. He has been twice married. His first wife was Delfina Ortega y Reyes, who died in 1880 before sharing in the full greatness of her husband, leaving a son and two daughters, all of whom are still living. Three years later he was married to a daughter of Romero Rubio, whose full name is Señora Doña Carmen Romero Rubio de Diaz. She is a woman who by her sweetness of character, kindly disposition and charities won a warm place in the affections of the Mexican people.
The end of the political career of Diaz is not without a touch of pathos, as well as an element of personal dignity. Broken in health, and deserted by many of his former friends, he resigned the office of President in the following letter addressed to Congress:—
“Señores: The Mexican people, who have generously covered me with honours, who proclaimed me as their leader during the international war, who patriotically assisted me in all works undertaken to develop industry and the commerce of the republic, to establish its credit, gain for it the respect of the world and obtain for it an honourable position in the concert of the nations; that same people has revolted in armed military bands, stating that my presence in the exercise of the supreme executive power was the cause of this insurrection.
“I do not know of any facts imputable to me which could have caused this social phenomenon; but acknowledging as possible, though not admitting, that I may be unwittingly culpable, such a possibility makes me the least able to reason out and decide my own culpability.
“Therefore, respecting, as I always have respected, the will of the people and in accordance with Article 82 of the Federal Constitution, I come before the supreme representatives of the nation in order to resign, unreservedly, the office of Constitutional President of the republic with which the national vote honoured me, which I do with all the more reason, since in order to continue in office it would be necessary to shed Mexican blood, endangering the credit of the country, dissipating its wealth, exhausting its resources and exposing its policy to international complications.