PRESIDENT PORFIRIO DIAZ.
After a good deal of fighting all over the country, Congress declared him, in May 1877, to be Constitutional President for a term to last until November 30, 1880.
It was just after this successful general grasped the prize, that Santa Anna, forgotten, neglected, old, and blind, died close by, in his house in the Calle de Vergaza.
But little more remains to be said of the government of Mexico up to the present time. President Diaz was able to consolidate his power, and to retain his seat without civil war, although this has been imminent at times, especially towards the end of his term. In 1880 General Manuel Gonsalez was elected, and on the 1st of December of that year, for the second time only in the history of the Republic, the retiring President gave over his office to his legally elected successor. That this was possible, is proof of great improvement in stability and the growth of steadiness and good judgment among the Mexicans. The administration of Gonsalez passed through its four years without any important outbreak, in spite of the difficult questions there were to deal with, chief among them the huge debt to England, contracted in the early days of the Republic, and ever increasing by reason of unpaid interest.
At the end of that term, General Diaz was re-elected and became President December 1, 1884. The treasury of the country was empty, the Republic without credit, yet he has, by heroic measures, succeeded in placing his government upon a tolerably stable financial basis, and done much to restore the foreign credit of the Republic. President Diaz is disposed and able to serve his country by an advanced and liberal policy. The result of his firmness and judgment is already seen in the returning confidence of nations and foreigners alike in Mexican affairs, and with it the rapid development of the resources of the country.
President Diaz, with his handsome wife, the daughter of his Minister of the Interior, Manuel Romero Rubio, has not been able to resist the charm of Chapultepec, in spite of the melancholy associations hanging about the spot Carlotta loved and Maximilian adorned for her enjoyment. The Pompeiian apartments are restored, and the hanging gardens bloom with roses all the year, while fountains sparkle in the sunlight. From the broad terrace gleam in the distance the cold peaks of the volcanoes, while Mexico spreads wide in the valley its rectangular lines, every year stretching out farther in all directions, a practical proof to the wise chief of the administration, as he looks down upon them from the now peaceful height of his terrace, of the success of his schemes of improvement and progress.
Let us hope that the tranquillity is permanent and that a long season of peace and prosperity has come to settle upon the long tormented, much enduring valley of Mexico, and the broad plateau of Anahuac.
Now, at last, may the Indians, descendants of the Aztec chief, look up and hope for the development of their race. For the first time in history they have a chance to show whether they are capable of taking a leading place among the races of the earth. Poor fugitives, hiding among the rushes of the lake, some centuries ago, their leaders knew how to build up a powerful, warlike nation, but the people were oppressed by the horrors of a bloody religion, degraded and kept down by the practice of human sacrifice. The Spanish conquest brought them other rulers, and priests who gave to them a kindlier faith; but their minds were little cared for, and they were still oppressed, like slaves, by the new race which came to govern them.