DOES the hand lose its cunning? I had practically given up all forms of rapid journalism, when, on November 24th, 1910, I was suffering from a cold (which had, by the way, prevented my seeing my own tableaux got up for a charity at the Court Theatre). The telephone buzzed and fumed.
“Will you speak to the editor of the Daily Mail, please, ma’am, at once?” asked the parlourmaid. Down I went to the ’phone in my dressing-gown.
“There is a report that Diaz is assassinated.”
“Don’t believe it,” I replied.
“But the telegram is lying before me,” he continued.
“Sorry, but I don’t believe it. I know Diaz. I know his home, and I know the Mexican people.”
“Would I write fourteen hundred words at once?”
After some persuasion I promised to write something for the next day’s publication, although stoutly refusing to write an obituary. It so chanced my secretary was not at hand, so without looking up anything, I wrote those fourteen hundred words by hand in fifty minutes. The boy came up from the Daily Mail office to fetch it an hour after my conversation with the editor, and bore it off, to be telegraphed to Paris and Manchester.
Then I had some Cambridge friends to luncheon, followed by my “At Home” day. That night I dined at the “Criterion,” a Society of Authors’ Dinner, went on to a reception, given by the Chairman of the County Council, Mr. Whitaker Thompson, at the Hotel Cecil, and then to bed.
Of course the cold was worse, but inhaling creosote (of all sweet scents!) soon improved it again; and I slept peacefully until early tea began another strenuous day, and brought the following column of type to my bedside.
Here it is, just as it was scribbled:
PORFIRIO DIAZ.
THE MAN WHO MADE MEXICO.
By MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE,
Author of “Seven Times President of Mexico.”
That General Diaz was the greatest man the nineteenth century produced is a bold assertion—and yet I have no hesitation in making it. The statement is especially bold of a century that recognised so many great men. But then Diaz rose from humble origin, and became a dictator, a very Czar and Pope in one, and not only did he attain such a position, but he has kept it. For over thirty years he has governed the country he once roamed as a shoeless boy, and now, as he announced yesterday in a special cable to the Daily Mail, he has suppressed yet another revolt and has established his rule yet more firmly.
Diaz is a democratic ruler. Without a middle class a successful democracy is impossible, and Diaz, alive to all such facts, set himself the task, during the last ten or fifteen years, of building up a middle class in Mexico. Diaz remains as firm a believer in a democracy as ever, although his own Republic has practically become an autocracy. He believes in an Opposition Party; but it is only now an Opposition Party has actually risen against him. During long and interesting visits to Mexico I was unceasingly impressed by the love of the people for their ruler. They revered and esteemed him as a man, they admired and appreciated his capacity to govern, and even his political enemies threw party feelings aside and realised that in him they had an ideal ruler. The Conservatives—who naturally ought to have opposed him—were tranquilly content to let the man who had held the helm for over thirty years continue to steer their bark.
A YOUTHFUL VETERAN
Old in years, Diaz has ever been young in spirit. Those nostrils quiver and dilate as he speaks, those deep-set eyes seem to penetrate his listener’s soul. In personality this short, thick-set Mexican appears a giant of physical strength, while his broad brows denote the thinker. He is a youthful veteran.
Two months ago (Sept., 1910) this great President assisted at two celebrations. He stood on the balcony of the Municipal Palace and rang the bell that clanged forth the centenary of the Independence of Mexico. Only two months ago he kept his eightieth birthday. Last night I had the pleasure of sitting next Lord Strathcona, one of the most remarkable men of his age, and some ten years older than General Diaz; but then those ten years count for nought in a hardy Scotsman when pitted against a man of Southern climes. Longevity is an asset of the North. Diaz is of the South, and that he should still be strong and vigorous and able to pull the ropes of public affairs after fourscore years is a remarkable achievement for any man, and the more remarkable for a man with Indian blood in his veins. Not only that, but one must remember Diaz had an extraordinarily hard life until a few years ago.
His father was a little innkeeper in a little town in Southern Mexico. He died of cholera when the boy was only three years old. There were five other children. The mother’s daily struggle to provide food and clothing for them was great. Diaz went to the village school. At fourteen he joined the Roman Catholic seminary with the intention of entering the Church. It was his mother’s dearest wish. Education in those early days was free in Mexico where even military students pay no fees to-day, and education is on a high standard generally.
A LIFE OF ADVENTURE
Then the boy earned a small sum by teaching, which he spent in acquiring Latin grammar, logic, and philosophy. He found the tenets of the Church unacceptable. Mexico was at that time seething with revolution. Troops were continually passing through Oaxaca. The youth used to slip off in the evening to join the camp fires and listen to tales of valour and strife that made the blood tingle in his veins. The call of the bugle fired his soul. One has only to look at the man to see he was a born soldier beneath the guise of the politician of to-day. His life is one long story of romance and adventure, of serious difficulties ably overcome.
In the course of fifty-five years there had been sixty-eight dictators, presidents, and rulers in Mexico. This all ended in 1876, when General Diaz, then but a rough soldier, rode up to the City of Mexico at the head of the revolutionary army and declared himself President.
With the exception of four years he has reigned ever since. He fought hand to hand for Mexico and liberty. He saw the overthrow of the Church. He lived to see his beloved country rise from the lowest to one of the highest rungs of the world’s ladder. It is impossible here even to hint at the narrow escapes from death he had as a soldier, to mention the strange and sad story of the Emperor Maxmilian and his misguided and beautiful wife Carlotta. It is not possible to dwell on the courtly manners and charming grace of the elder Diaz as compared with the rough soldier of sixty years ago. One cannot even mention his ideally happy home life, his love of sport, or his interest in science and the great questions of this great world. Diaz can only be summed up here as a man of many parts and many interests.
AN ERA OF PROSPERITY
What have been the results of General Diaz’s long administrations? That terrible poverty which sapped the life’s blood from the country during three-fourths of last century has turned to affluence. Peace is the outcome of revolution. The country, jibed and jeered at abroad, now holds a position among the leading nations. Lawlessness has given place to wise jurisdiction. The Mexicans are better governed, they can afford to pay the taxes imposed for the benefits they receive, and are yet more wealthy. Instead of money pouring out to repay old debts, foreign capital is pouring into the country, so secure has Mexican credit become in the world’s markets.
More important than all, Diaz has taught the Mexicans the benefit of lasting peace, has set before them an ideal of honest public life which will survive him as a great monument to a great man. Diaz made modern Mexico. Roughly dividing his life into three parts, hunger and struggle were dominant in the earlier years. During the next span he was helping to make history in one of the wildest and most beautiful countries of God’s earth. 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. It will be an evil day when anything happens to General Diaz; but his work will live. The nation he has moulded and made is too well impressed with the benefits received to wander from the path of good government or throw aside his able laws for long. Mexico is no longer a country in the making. Mexico is made, and it was Porfirio Diaz who made it.
Apropos of the book itself, the late Major Martin Hume wrote some months before, in a review on the work of some other author:
“Any book that truly and attractively sets forth the life-story of such a man as Diaz should be worth reading. Mrs. Alec Tweedie, a few years ago, produced in England an excellent biography and appreciation of the President, and the book now before us will certainly not displace it as the standard work in English on the subject.”
President Diaz himself selected it as his authentic biography.
The following letter from my publisher is, perhaps, therefore, of interest:
“Cranes Park, Surbiton,
“Feb. 25, ’09.
“Dear Mrs. Tweedie,
“I am very glad to hear that the President of Mexico appreciates your Life of him so highly that he wishes the book brought up to date, and that it should be translated into Spanish for sale in Mexico. I remember the day I took the book for the first time round the trade. No one seemed to take the slightest interest in Porfirio Diaz, in fact, very few seemed to know that he existed, and it was only when I mentioned the fact that you were the author, and that the matter for the Life had been supplied to you by the President himself, and that they would be bound to use copies, as they all know you have a public of your own, they gave me orders.
“I was surprised myself at the interest the book created, as repeat orders from both booksellers and libraries commenced almost at once, and continued to come in.
“I had always an idea that the book had something to do with the tardy recognition of the President by the English Government.
“Yours very truly,
“Herbert Blackett.”
Diaz was hurled from power in his eighty-first year. It is one of the saddest episodes in the history of great rulers, and at the same time one of the most important in the history of a country. His remaining in office for an eighth term was a fatal mistake, and shrouded in gloom the close of a career of unexampled brilliancy, both in war and statesmanship.
Diaz left Mexico in May, 1911, and for fifteen months after that country did not know one moment’s peace.
His life was verily a moving spectacle of romance.
And so here end snatches of remembrance of thirteen busy years.
No—not quite—see next page.