Diaz

“ In this chapter I have attempted to give the reader an idea of the means which General Diaz employed to attract support to his government. To sum up, by means of a careful placing of public offices, public contracts and special privileges of multitudinous sorts, Diaz absorbed all of the more powerful men and interests within his sphere and made them a part of his machine. Gradually the country passed into the hands of his officeholders, their friends, and foreigners. And for this the people paid, not only with their lands, but with their flesh and blood. They paid in peonage and slavery. ”

“ I say the "system of Diaz" rather than Diaz personally because, though he is the keystone of the arch, though he is the government of Mexico more completely than is any other individual the government of any large country on the planet, yet no one man can stand alone in his iniquity. Diaz is the central prop of the slavery, but there are other props without which the system could not continue upright for a single day. ”

“ Is Diaz patriotic? Has he the welfare of Mexico at heart? The flatterers of Diaz swear by his patriotism, but the facts demand a negative answer. Diaz helped depose the foreign prince, but immediately afterwards he plunged a peaceful country into war to feed his own ambition. Perhaps it will be said that Diaz imagined that he could order the destinies of Mexico more for the benefit of Mexico than could anyone else. Doubtless, but why has he not given his country progress? Is it possible that he believes that autocracy is better for a people than democracy? ”

“ A sudden choking blotted Diaz's speech, and his eyes showed tears. "And now, my soldiers—last of the army of Porfirio Diaz—I say farewell. You have guarded me to the ultimate moment—you have been loyal. My soldiers, blessing—take the blessing of your old commander! More—more I cannot—say!" ”

“ To us of to-day Bernal Diaz del Castillo is not "vulgar." Profounder sentiments strengthen our vision. To our thinking Diaz' work is that of a writer of notable stature—of a spirit as sincere as his body was enduring, who, fifty years after he had had no mean part in one of the greatest expeditions known to mankind, himself wrote with astounding vizualizing power of what he and his comrades did and suffered. ”

“ With Bernal Diaz we live the daily life and share the dangers and toils of the Conquistadores. No mere eulogy of Cortés is this chronicle, for the stout old soldier allows no valiant man to miss his due meed. ”

“ The latter part of his strenuous life he has devoted to a desk and diplomacy, has thrown aside the soldier’s cloak for the frock-coat and tall hat of civilisation.
For thirty years President Diaz has been teaching men to govern. He has made many men. He has modelled a nation. Diaz has always been a patriot, whether old or young. He has established thirty years of peace, and made a Presidency famous for its political rule. Not only do Mexicans love him, but Europeans who have filled their purses with Mexican gold must honour and respect so remarkable a man. ”

“ David Starr Jordan of Stanford University, in recent speeches, has echoed Creelman's assertion that Diaz is the greatest man in the western hemisphere. And hundreds of our most distinguished citizens have expressed themselves in a similar vein. On the part of prominent Americans traveling in Mexico, it has become a custom, a sort of formality of the trip, to banquet at Chapultepec castle—the lesser lights at Chapultepec cafe—and to raise the after-dinner voice in most extravagant praise, loudly to attribute to Porfirio Diaz the virtues of a superman, even of a demi-god. ”

“ And though from out this hotbed of misgovernment, Diaz turned a complacent face on the outside world, remaining through it all the peacemaker, the kindly ruler who had taken in hand the governing of an ungrateful people, as his clever propagandists took care to make out, yet from the Mexicans, suffering under his yoke, the mask could scarcely serve to conceal his real character. Having once alienated the sympathies of the population, he had no choice but to govern by military and repressive methods. As an autocrat, he must use the great weapon of autocracy— force. ”

“ Do you know whether or not we have the right to demand from him, whom you doubtless know only as Don Estevan, a terrible account of the past? Reply honestly to the questions that I shall put to you, and then decide on which side justice lies.”
Astonished at these words, Diaz listened in silence, and Fabian went on:
“If you had been born in a privileged class, heir to a great fortune; if a man had taken from you your fortune and your name, and reduced you to the rank of those who have to work for their daily bread, should you be the friend of that man?” ”

“ In all these Bernal Diaz displayed the old Castilian valour, and a loyalty which made him proof against the mutinous spirit that too often disturbed the harmony of the camp. On every occasion he was found true to his commander and to the cause in which he was embarked. And his fidelity is attested not only by his own report, but by the emphatic commendations of his general; who selected him on this account for offices of trust and responsibility, which furnished the future chronicler with access to the best means of information in respect of the Conquest. ”

“ John Diaz had been the second captain to double Bojador; Diniz Diaz, in 1445, had been the discoverer of Senegal and of Cape Verde; now, forty years later, Bartholomew Diaz achieved the greatest feat of discovery in all history, before Columbus; for the Northmen's finding America was an unknown and transitory good fortune, while the voyage of 1486 changed directly or indirectly the knowledge, the trade, the whole face of the world at once and forever. ”

“ Well, along came Diaz, a great man. He said to the bandits: 'How much do you make a year at your trade?' They told him.
"'Then,' said he, 'I'll give you as much a month and clothe you. You'll furnish your own horses and keep them, and hold the country in order. Put down the banditti, be my boundary-riders, my gentlemen guards, and we will all love you and cherish you.' And 'it was so,' as Scripture says. And this Gerado can serve our good compadre here, and the Little Red Peg in the wall keeps tally."
"What shall you do with Bernal the boy when he grows up?" added Sherry presently. ”

“ It is impossible to believe these things of Diaz. It is eminently more reasonable to judge that whatever desire for the welfare of his country he possesses is overshadowed, wiped off the slate, by a personal ambition to maintain his rule for life. ”

“ It is because Diaz, under the mask of a republic, actually played the role of a despot. During all the thirty years he held office he never devoted himself to the strengthening of the fundamental things of State, but diligently strengthened his own position. He massed an enormous number of troops for his own protection so that he might overawe the people. For fear that the troops might become arrogant and insubordinate, he provoked disagreement among them in order that he might play them round his fingers. He banished all those who opposed him, relying on force alone. ”

“ Diaz marched from the south, entered the City of Mexico, handed over the capital to his triumphant president, resigned his commission as commander-in-chief, and retired in deep contentment to manufacture sugar in Oaxaca.
For nine years the hero made sugar. Over an area in the north as large as France, the Apache Indians butchered every man, woman and child with fiendish tortures. The whole distracted nation cried in its agony for a leader, but every respectable man who tried to help was promptly denounced by the government, stripped of his possessions and driven into exile. ”

“ Even to the casual observer the difficulty of governing Mexico must seem inexpressibly great. President Diaz has succeeded not so much because he does not know what mercy means or because a rifle bullet is his only answer for those who question his authority, but because he is endowed with superhuman tact. The iron heel, like that of Achilles, has its vulnerable spot if pressed too hard upon a people's throat, and so he has little dodges by which he appears to his subjects to exercise a judicious clemency. ”

“ The ability to shed tears freely and on the slightest provocation has, indeed, been named by Diaz's enemies as his greatest asset as a statesman. When a distinguished visitor praises Diaz or his work Diaz cries—and the visitor is touched and drawn toward him. When the "Circulo de Amigos de General Diaz" pays its formal call to tell its creator that the country once more demands his re-election he weeps—and the foreign press remarks upon how that man does love his country. Once a year, on his birthday, the president of Mexico goes down into the street and shakes hands with his people. ”

“ Cruel and revengeful is the Mexican president and bitterly has his nation suffered as a result of it.
Is Diaz a brave man? In some quarters it has been taken for granted that he is a man of courage, inasmuch as he made a success as a soldier. But there are many distinguished Mexicans who, having watched his career, assert that he is not only not brave, but that he is a shrinking, cringing coward. ”

“ The democracy which, under his predecessor Benito Juarez, had bidden fair to come into its own, was crushed back into slavery, and progress in every branch of civilisation delayed in consequence. Small wonder, then, that the people, reluctant when he first assumed authority over them, found his rule ever more irksome, and hated their yoke of oppression with a hatred ever more sincere and justifiable! After the death of Juarez, Diaz succeeded in establishing himself in the capital. ”

“ We now see Diaz, who had pronounced, not only against Juarez—owing to not having been the object of military preferment—but against Lerdo upon equally trivial pretext—in possession of supreme power in the capital. With a large army at his disposal—for the native Mexican will fight equally well under any leader, and Lerdo's most faithful troops were now most ardent Porfiristas—Diaz soon put down all opposition, and intrenched himself in an impregnable position. ”

“ During this interval, Fabian and Bois-Rose had quitted the spot where the preceding scenes had so rapidly taken place. They had reached the base of the pyramid. It was there that the solemn assizes were to be held, in which Fabian and the Duke de Armada were about to act the parts of judge and criminal.
Pepé made a sign to Diaz; Don Estevan saw and understood it.
“It is not enough to have remained a prisoner,” said Diaz, “you must meet your fate; the conquered must obey the conqueror—come!” ”

“ And let us echo the wish of that good common soldier, Bernal Diaz, who, though having his grievances against Cortes, as all of the other Conquistadores thought they had, could yet, after watching every turn in the fortunes of the great Marquis, and knowing almost every sin {225} that he had committed, write most tenderly of the great captain whose plume he had so often followed to victory. ”

“ The president yielded in no point. Diaz was given to understand that no conventional agreement with him would be entertained, and that his submission would have to be made in accordance with the amnesty law. [8] By the end of September all the revolutionary forces, with the exception of those in Sinaloa and Chihuahua, had accepted the amnesty, and the fact that Diaz refused to do so caused some inquietude. No one could regard the revolution as completely terminated so long as he held aloof. ”

“ He is learned in political economy and has written ably upon the currency of Brazil. I have heard intelligent white men from that country speak of him in terms of high respect and admiration.
Henry Diaz, who is extolled in all the histories of Brazil, was a negro and slave. He became Colonel of a regiment of foot-soldiers, of his own color; and such was his reputation for sagacity and valor, that it was considered a distinction to be under his command. In the contest between the Portuguese and Hollanders, in 1637, Henry Diaz fought bravely against the latter. ”

“ Any fellow entitled to a linen collar in Europe wore a revolver in Mexico, as part of the dress of a gentleman, but in the wildest districts I never carried a cartridge. Diaz had made his country a land of peace and order, strong, respected, prosperous, with every outward sign of coming greatness. Excepting only Napoleon and the late Japanese emperor, he was both in war and peace the greatest leader our world has ever known. But the people proved unworthy of their chief; to-day he is a broken exile, and Mexico has lapsed back into anarchy. ”

“ Accomplished, and in personal intercourse agreeable, Diaz displays in his conversation decision and military abruptness. With dignity of deportment, he unites a manner marked by simplicity. His will is indomitable. When the rebellion against Lerdo broke out, Diaz was generally disliked by foreigners, who feared the revolutionary projects of a military leader. They would have preferred the unprogressive but quiet administration of Lerdo to the disturbance of a revolution which entailed risk to their private interests. But these feelings in time died out under his firm and progressive policy. ”

“ Diaz remained silent keeping himself out of this mysterious compromise. After a little, he rose from his seat, and under some pretext left the chamber.
“Well, then, gentlemen,” said Cuchillo, addressing himself to his two more facile comrades, “you are fully of the opinion that the man should be got rid of? Let me tell you, then, that this man is no other than Tiburcio Arellanos.” ”