Ethel Brilliana Tweedie

“ DIAZ, PORFIRIO (1830–⁠) , president of the republic of Mexico (q.v.) , was born in the southern state of Oaxaca, on the 15th of September 1830. His father was an innkeeper in the little capital of that province, and died three years after the birth of Porfirio, leaving a family of seven children. The boy, who had Indian blood in his veins, was educated for the Catholic Church, a body having immense influence in the country at that time and ordering and controlling revolutions by the strength of their filled coffers. ”

“ There being no trains, and he being too poor to ride, he walked the greater part of the 250 m., but arrived there too late, as the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848) had been already signed, and Texas finally ceded to the United States. Thus his entering the army was for the time defeated. Thereupon he returned to his native town and began studying law. ”