PORFIRIO DIAZ: SOLDIER AND STATESMAN

JOHN W. FOSTER

WASHINGTON

WHEN the political events of this hemisphere for the past fifty

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years are reviewed it must be conceded that the subject of this paper is the first of all living Americans. During this period others who have passed from the stage of action have borne a more prominent part in public affairs, but, of those now living, no one has had such a varied and distinguished career, or accomplished as much for the good of his country and race as Porfirio Diaz of Mexico.

His public services cover three important epochs in his country's history. In his early manhood he took an active part in what is known as the "War of the Reform," the struggle of the liberal republicans against the clerical party, which resulted in the absolute separation of the church and state and the establishment of complete religious freedom, in which course Mexico was the pioneer of the Latin-American States. He was a prominent leader in resisting the attempt of the emperor of the French to overthrow republican government and establish a monarchy in America, and he came out of that great contest as its most brilliant soldier. His mature years have been devoted to rehabilitating his country after half a century of strife and disorder, and pointing out the way to the other Spanish-American republics of orderly government and prosperity.

The youthful environment and education of one who has borne so conspicuous a part in the history of an important section of this hemisphere are interesting and instructive. Diaz was born in the city of Oaxaca, the capital of one of the southern states of Mexico, situated in a most beautiful and fertile upland valley in the midst of attractive scenery and historic associations. The great Andean range, coming up from the South American continent, is crowded in by the two oceans and somewhat depressed as it passes through the Isthmus of Panama, but as it emerges from the narrow neck of Tehuatepec into the wide expanse of North America, apparently glad of its escape from the ocean barriers, it again shoots up its peaks towards the sky, and branches off into two grand mountain chains, which like the brawny arms of a giant lift Mexico up on to those elevated table-lands formerly the seat of the Aztec Empire.

At the separation of these two arms, five thousand feet above the sea level, shut in by mountain ranges, lies the valley of Oaxaca. I well remember a journey made to that region twenty-five years ago, before the

Copyright, 1903, Frederick A. Richardson, all rights reserved.

era of railroads, when, after traveling for days on horseback across sierras and intervening valleys, I at last gained one of those high elevations which afforded a wide-spreading view, seemingly almost from one ocean to the other. In the midst of a wilderness of mountains, range followed range in apparently never ending succession, interspersed with valleys which might rival Alpine loveliness, with the added charm of tropical luxuriance. From such an elevation I had my first view of the far famed valley of Oaxaca, the birthplace of General Diaz. It was an inspiring scene. This was the home of the Zapotecan race which never was subdued by the Aztec emperors. Not far away from the city of Oaxaca lies the ruins of Mitla, among the most interesting and best preserved of the art wonders of a cultured race anterior to the Zapotecans. To these latter belonged Benito Juarez, the Indian president of Mexico, and this valley was the home of some of the most distinguished men in Mexican history. In the midst of such surroundings Porfirio Diaz spent his youth and early manhood.

He was born in 1830, of parentage mostly of Spanish origin, but with a tincture of Indian blood, his great-grandmother having been a pure Zapotecan. Mexico never was cursed with African slavery, and there is absolutely no race prejudice among its people. A pure Indian, Juarez, was their president and greatest hero, and that race has contributed a large contingent of the nation's ablest men to the church, to the state, to the learned professions as well as to literature. The trace of Indian blood in his veins gives a tinge to his physiognomy and character of which Diaz is not ashamed.

His father was a man in comfortable circumstances, but as he died soon after the birth of his son, the care and training fell upon the mother, a woman of strong character who exercised a powerful influence on her son's career. He early evinced that alertness of spirit and intellect which marked his later life, and it attracted the attention of the bishop. His mother, being a devout daughter of the church, readily consented to his dedication to its service, and he progressed nearly to the end of the priestly curriculum of study in the ecclesiastical seminary of his native city.

About that period an important event occurred in his life. Benito Juarez, who was destined to lead the nation in the great "War of Reform" and against the French intervention, was then governor of the state. In that capacity he met Diaz while attending the school examination. The brightness of the youth attracted the governor's attention and he became enlisted in his advancement. Even then Juarez had begun his contest against the clerical party, and feeling that the educa

tion of the youth should not be wholly in the hands of the church he had been instrumental in the establishment of a state institute. Young Diaz soon caught the liberal spirit of the governor and his party, and he abandoned the career in the clergy to which he had been dedicated, joined the state institute, and devoted himself to the study of the law.

Meanwhile the martial spirit ingrained in his nature had its first manifestation at the early age of seventeen while he was yet in school. The invading army of the United States had completely defeated the Mexican forces organized by Santa Anna, had occupied the capital, and the governor of Oaxaca had made a second call for troops to resist the invader. Diaz was one of the first to offer his services, and entered the ranks, but before the new levies could take the field peace had been made with the loss of half the territory of the nation. Diaz completed his law studies and entered the office of his patron, Juarez, who had retired from the post of governor and resumed the practice of his profession. And now a second event occurred to change the current of his life.

Santa Anna, that turbulent character, who had borne such a prominent and baleful part in the revolutionary period of Mexican history, had for the last time usurped power and was ruling the country with a high hand. Juarez, who had shown his opposition to this evil spirit in the past, was seized while arguing a case in court, imprisoned, and finally banished from the country. Young Diaz warmly resented this outrage and having to flee the capital for his life, he at once took up arms and entered into the revolutionary movement which drove Santa Anna from power. He attained such prominence in this movement that he was made Jefe Politico, or civil chief, of one of the districts of the state of Oaxaca. But the peace of the country was soon broken again by the pronunciamento of the "Plan of Ayutla," which was the beginning of the liberal contest for the separation of the church from the state.

The War of the Reform began in 1857. It continued for three years and was waged on both sides with the most relentless bitterness and cruelty. Never before in all its bloody history had the nation been so stirred up or witnessed such scenes of carnage. It pervaded every section of the country and all classes of society, and there was hardly a village or neighborhood in the entire republic that was not made the theatre of some conflict or had not its story of violence and disorder. It is a dreary narrative which need not be repeated here. Diaz then in the full flush of his young manhood did not hesitate to rank himself on the side of the patron of his school days, Juarez, and the liberal party, and to throw himself with all his energies into the armed contest. His part in the campaign was mainly in his native state, and the adjoining district of

Tehuantipec. When the triumph came in 1860, with the entrance of the liberal forces and government into the City of Mexico, he had so distinguished himself as to reach the rank of colonel.

With the success of the cause for which he had battled, Diaz returned to private life and resumed the practice of the law, but he was not permitted by his fellow citizens to carry out his plans for he was elected a member of the national congress and sent to the City of Mexico. The task before him and the liberal leaders now seemed to be simply to reconstruct by peaceful methods of civil administration the various departments of government, to put in practice the liberal principles which had triumphed, and to carry out the "Laws of Reform." But this proved to be only the first chapter in the narrative of the reform movement in Mexico. Much as the people had endured, and great and costly as the price had been, which the nation had paid to attain its constitutional privileges, it is sad to know that another campaign of blood and suffering against even a more formidable foe was almost immediately to be entered upon.

From the beginning of the Mexican war of independence there had existed in that country a monarchical party. It had always been in the minority, and was generally composed of malcontents, but it also embraced a considerable portion of the higher clergy and landed proprietors, who remembered the (to them) golden days of Spanish rule with its class privileges, and who looked upon the liberal tendencies of the republican party with suspicion and dread. It is true that the transient empire of Iturbide was scarcely less than a ridiculous farce, established through perjury and hypocrisy, and that its brief existence was an evidence that the great body of the Mexicans are thorough republicans; still its existence was an indication of a certain monarchical sentiment. As early as 1840 Gutierez Estrada, a well known Mexican statesman, prominent afterwards in securing the acceptance of the crown by Maximilian, proclaimed at home and in Europe the incapacity of the Mexicans for self-government, and advocated the establishment of a monarchy and the placing of a European prince on the throne; in 1854 Santa Anna authorized such a project, and at various other times it was proposed to the Spanish and French rulers by disappointed and exiled Mexicans.

After the overthrow of the church party in 1860 a concerted movement was made to carry out this long projected measure. The archbishop of Mexico had been banished; Miramon, the chief of the clerical party, had fled to Spain and was received with consideration at the court of Queen Isabella; Almonte, one of the ablest and most experienced of the conservative politicians, was in Paris. These and a number of

other Mexican refugees, foiled in the arena of politics and defeated on the field of battle, had appealed the question of Mexican government and independence to the courts of European sovereigns. They proclaimed everywhere the incapacity of their countrymen for self-government; they narrated with holy horror the sacriligious confiscation of the property of the church; they exaggerated the disorders and lawlessness; and, to fill the cup of their country's calamities, they cited the fact that a pure Indian had usurped the government of a people once ruled by the proud Castilians.

These refugees appeared at a time when it well suited the purposes of Louis Napoleon to listen to their story. His empire was at the height of its power and prestige, and after the happy results of his Italian campaign he was looking for some field in which to employ a part of his large army and keep the attention of the French people diverted from internal politics by military adventure abroad. Hence his scheme for a Latin empire on the American continent which was to be a bulwark of the Catholic faith and a check to the spirit of American republicanism.

Under the pretext that Mexico had repudiated its just obligations to various foreign creditors, and that there was no government capable of affording proper protection to foreign residents, Napoleon was able to secure the coöperation of Great Britain and Spain in what is known as the tripartite expedition in 1861 for the avowed purpose of restoring order and enforcing the just claims of their respective subjects. But the real designs of Napoleon were soon apparent to his two allies, and they, unwilling to be made the dupes of his ambition, withdrew their forces and left him to pursue his schemes with the aid of his Mexican adherents in the clerical party.

For a second time Diaz laid aside his professional duties of the law and again buckled on his sword in defence of his party and his country. He was commissioned by Juarez, the president, as a general, assigned to the command of a brigade, and sent forward to resist the advance of the French on the capital of the nation. Their general had been led to believe that the Mexican people were only waiting his advance to throw off the hated yoke of the liberal party, and that they would rise "en masse" to welcome him as their liberator. Diaz and others were able to retard his advance upon Puebla until that place, under the command of General Zaragosa, had been put in a good state of defence. On May 5, 1862, the French general made his attack with great confidence of success, but he met with a most gallant resistance, and after repeated assaults, was repelled at all points with great slaughter, and was compelled to retreat to Orizaba. In this engagement Diaz held one of the most exposed points of attack and acquitted himself with great credit.