Porfirio Diaz, the Grand Old Man of Mexico

PORFIRIO DIAZ, THE GRAND OLD MAN OF MEXICO. BY ELIZABETH K. CANNON, FORMERLY OF THE JUAREZ STAKE ACADEMY. Mexico City, Feb. 8. — An organization has been started in this city for the purpose of enlisting delegates from every state of the republic to call on Gen. Porfirio Diaz, April 2, and ask him to remain at the head of the nation for another term. — Telegraphic News Item. In days to come the man who arose out of the ashes of revolution and made Mexico what she is today, will be counted one of the greatest — if not the greatest — men of the 19th century. Born in the direst poverty, like Abraham Lincoln, like Bismarck he has built an empire. Porfirio Diaz, one of seven children of an innkeeper, was born in Oaxaca, in the southern tropics of Mexico. The mother was early left a widow, and struggled hard to bring up her family. The mischievous boy ran among the giant cactus, stole rides on clumsy ore carts drawn by oxen, and helped the turkey vender drive his live wares through the town. All his centavas he saved in order to shoot a pistol from the roof of the house on feast days. Yielding to his mother's entreaties, Porfirio studied for the church, 'but he soon .made up his mind that he would rather be a Prest. Porfirio Diaz, Mexico.

PORFIRIO DIAZ, THE GRAND OLD MAN OF MEXICO. 339 colonel than a priest, and flatly refused to go any further. He taught school and studied at the same time. When he was seventeen, he heard about the fighting of General Santa Anna, up in Texas, so started on foot, (he was too poor to ride) to Mexico City, to join the national guard; but when he reached there, the peace treaty was signed, so he retraced his way through the gorgeous canyons to Oaxaca. Diaz practiced law and received his first training in the military schools. He effected the escape of one of his teachers who was imprisoned for political reasons, by letting himself down by a rope from a tower, and communicating with him. At an assembly called to vote for Santa Anna as Dictator, Diaz refused to vote. "You are afraid!" shouted one of the men. Diaz, aflame with wrath, strode up to the front and cast his vote for a revolutionary general, Santa Anna's opponent. This created an uproar in which the young insurgent voter escaped. He jumped on a horse, and though officers were sent to arrest him, he succeeded in reaching Mixteca, where the peasants were in revolt. He placed himself at the head of laborers armed with axes and machetes, (sword-like knives) and sallied out to meet the troops. He placed his men on the cliffs above a deep ravine, and when the Republican soldiers stopped to drink in the creek below, toppled great boulders crashing down on them. The cavalry rode on, but the infantry was destroyed. That was his first engagement, and Diaz was twenty-four years old. When Juarez, the full-blooded Zapotec Indian, who proved the George Washington of Mexico, became president, he appointed Diaz Captain of Grenadiers. The clergy, who did not like the liberal measures of the new government, rebelled. In the first battle Diaz led the bayonet charge. He was struck by a ball in the side, but stuffed his red cap into the wound and went on. He drove the enemy into a swiftly flowing stream, where most of them were drowned. For one year and eight months the young captain bore that bullet in his body. He was borne on a bamboo litter, sometimes scorched by the tropical

340 IMPROVEMEN7 ERA. sun, or drenched by the rains. One day it was dropped to the ground. After that he rode a horse. He had not yet recovered when his native town was besieged, and in defending it, the invalid reopened his wound. From there he went as governor to Tehuantepec on the Isthmus — "the land of pretty women." On hearing that Oaxaca was again taken by the enemy, he marched upon it. He won battle after battle, suffered only one defeat, and by replacing a trick of his enemy by one of his own, he finally took the town, himself being wounded in the leg. So he was made colonel, and his childhood's dream was realized; but the next two battles — one fought on a dark night— made him a general and brought the war to a close. Napoleon III, the ambitious dreamer of dreams, intoxicated with victory, conceived the idea of establishing a French monarchy in this romantic land, to show the extent of his power, and be an object lesson to two continents. So he landed thirty thousand French soldiers at Vera Cruz. They marched against Puebla which the Mexicans yielded inch by inch. After a month of terrible slaughtering, and street fighting, the town succumbed, and Diaz, with other officers, was taken prisoner. The night before the melancholy little band started for Vera Cruz, he escaped. Doffing his uniform, he wrapped himself in a blanket, saluted the guard as any shivering Indian camp straggler might have done, and walked out. Napoleon offered the throne of Mexico to Maximilian, Duke of Austria, and Carlota, his beautiful young wife. The young, handsome, unlucky pair, arrived in Mexico and established a magnificent court. Still the old Indian Juarez maintained that he was president, and Diaz fought stubbornly in the mountains against the foreign invaders, refusing all their bribes to join the army of the so-called Emperor Maximilian. The French besieged his native town and he rushed to its defense, only to deliver it, after a sickening siege, into the hands of the French marshal, Bazaine. Diaz, a prisoner a second time, was incarcerated in an ex-convent prison. Here he began to dig a subterranean passage underneath his bed, but was transfered to another jail where he was allowed more freedom, before it was

P0RFIR10 DIAZ, THE GRAND OLD MAN OF. MEXICO. 341 completed. Again he made his plans. He bought a horse and trappings and had it ready. Two of the prisoners who were in his confidence invited the guards to play cards one night. Porfirio rolled three ropes into a ball, took his dagger, and went out on the roof balcony where the prisoners took their airings. He crawled along the roofs, keeping in the shadow of the chimneys to avoid the eye of the sentinel, nearly fell through a skylight, and finally reached a corner of the house, where he hoped to descend to the street. He fastened his rope to a statue of a saint and swung loose. But instead of reaching the sidewalk, he fell on the garden side of the wall, and when he cut the rope, landed in a pig sty. The pigs squealed, and Diaz' heart sank, but as no one bothered himself to investigate the noises, he slipped over the wall and left the town. He swam a flooded river, pulling his horse by the bridle, and escaped sharp shooters by his horsemanship. Maximilian issued his "Decree of Huitzilopochtli" — so called after the Aztec gods of war, who could only be propitiated by human sacrifices, — branding all Mexicans who opposed the empire as traitors and ordering them to be shot. As a result of this, Maximilian was himself shot by the order of Juarez, at Queretaro, less than two years later, after his beautiful wife had gone to Europe to plead at the feet of kings for help, only *to be spurned. Carlota went insane. Juarez remained president, and Diaz at the head of the victorious Republican armies entered the city of Mexico in triumph and took possession. During the siege of Mexico City, Diaz had found time to marry. During the presidency of Juarez, and Lerdo, who succeeded him, he lived very happily on his sugar plantation at Oaxaca. He was as good an agriculturist as a soldier. Here his three children were born, and his wife died. When Lerdo, after a corrupt administration, stood for re-election against the Constitution, the people rose in revolt, Diaz went north to the prairie land, and gathered the vaqueros (cowboys) from the haciendas, but when Lerdo sent six thousand soldiers to meet him, he disbanded his force and fled to New Orleans. The story of his return to Mexico to take supreme command

342 IMPROVEMENT ERA. of the Army of the Revolution, reads more like a boy's favorite book of adventure, than a passage from the life of the president of a great republic. New Orleans was then swarming with exiles from Mexico, but so perfect was his disguise that he moved among them unrecognized. A few days after his arrival, a "Dr. Torres" embarked at New Orleans on board the steamship City of Havana. This medical gentleman of Cuban nationality, was on his way to Vera Cruz. At Tampico, Mexican troops that had been prisoners in the hands of I>iaz, were crowded on board. It needed only some whispering and meaning glances cast in his direction to convince the Cuban doctor that his identity had been discovered. He knew that if he remained on board he would be made prisoner. With characteristic boldness he made a desperate resolve. The ship was far out from the shore. That night he came on deck, slipped overboard, and struck out for land. Sharks infest the gulf and his blood ran cold at the thought of the long and exhausting struggle that lay before him. But his flight had been discovered. A boat was lowered. He swam desperately, but was overtaken and dragged back to the ship. The foe of the Lerdists was made prisoner, and would probably be shot. He claimed protection under the flag of the United States. It was granted. He was free — until he arrived at Vera Cruz. The next day Diaz bribed the purser, secured a life-buoy, and asked his connivance in escaping. That officer understood the dangers of getting to the shore better than the general, and proposed a counterplan. Late that night a splash was heard, commotion ensued; the prisoner could nowhere be found. The captain believed that he had gone overboard and drew up a formal report to that effect. The life buoy was found later washed up on the shore. On the arrival of the steamer at Vera Cruz, the commandante ordered a thorough inspection of the ship and guards placed on it. No one thought of prying open a sofa seat in the purser's cabin, within which, for seven days and nights, Diaz had been cooped up and half stifled. The Lerdist officers had actually sat upon him

P0RF1RI0 DIAZ, THE GRAND OLD MAN OF MEXICO. 343 when they played cards. In the disguise of a sailor he reached shore. After his death had been duly mourned, he turned up at Oaxaca, fired the troops with enthusiasm, and led them on to victory. There had been fifty-two rulers in fifty-nine years, when Diaz, straight and handsome, leading his victorous troops, marched past our Lady of Guadalupe into Mexico City, to assume the role of president. It was a new one for this rough soldier of fortune. For thirty peaceful years (since May 1879) he has ruled his people, and Mexico today shows how well he has done it. He was forty-six years old when he set to work with an iron hand to make a prosperous country out of bandit-infested, poverty-ridden, debt- swamped Mexico. He disbanded the enormous army, paid the chief debts, by peace encouraged industry in the people, built up commerce, drained Mexico City, built a network of railroads with invested American capital, discharged dishonest officials, made the English language compulsory in the public schools, cut off all union of church and state, and made religion free throughout the land. As prosperity dawned, this stern old warrior was softened by beautiful Carmelita Rubio, whom he married after he became president. This brilliant, queenly woman worshiped the old warrior when she was a little girl, and loved the modest, kindly man when she became a woman. Madame Diaz, — who speaks all languages, dresses perfectly, and manages his home like the lovely, domestic woman she is — has supplied the social eclat that he needed. This man of seventy-nine (he was born Sept. 15, 1830) treats his wife like a lover, and she hovers around him with the look on her face born of a great love. Their home-life is happy. The other side of the stern president is seen when he rollicks on the floor with his grandchildren and good-naturedly kisses a doll held up by a little girl, the daughter of his son, Captain Diaz. After all, the life of Diaz is the history of Mexico during the last half century, and so firmly has he welded his work, it will never be undone. The first part of his life was given to

344 IMPROVEMENT ERA. bloodshed, and the last part to preventing it, for there have been no more revolutions. When he goes down to the grave, it will be with a record for nation-making that has not been -equaled in modern times. President Diaz, in conformity with his liberal principles, has encouraged the Latter-day Saints to settle in Mexico. He has offered them a vast tract of land down in his tropical native state, Oaxaca, in the extreme southern part of the country. Salt Lake City, Utah.