This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE DIAZ RECORD
75

brought so near to modern civilization under Diaz; then an explosion and a political and social catastrophe, the like of which no man in or out of Mexico had ever dreamed! Yet I don't believe there were ever two hundred thousand men under arms in Mexico. As to any invasion by the Gringos, there were never fifty thousand Americans in the whole of Mexico, and to-day there are only about five thousand.

THE DIAZ RECORD

I first met Porfirio Diaz nearly forty years ago when he was inviting New England capital into the railroad development of Mexico. He ruled Mexico with an iron hand and invited the capital of the world into its development. His policy never varied. It was to promote in Mexico every enterprise that would give his people opportunity for work, wages, and education. I have talked with all interests that ever had to deal with him and I have never heard a charge that he had the taint of graft or personal ambition. Every business interest that ever appealed to him for support found him fair and forceful for the right.

I was pleased to learn on this trip to Mexico that when he died, an exile in France, he was not