|
|
|
 Editorials | Issues | March 2008 
And Just Who Was Porfirio Díaz?
 Leon Metz - El Paso Times
go to original
| | Porfirio Díaz: The "Lion of Mexico" | | |
We've all heard of the Mexican Revolution, and most of us have heard of Mexican President Porfirio Díaz. But who was he?
The "Lion of Mexico," as he loved to be called, was born in Oaxaca in 1830. At an early age, he trained for the priesthood, but rose through military ranks and achieved national prominence and leadership during Mexico's struggle against French intervention during the 1880s.
After studying law, Díaz broke with President Benito Juárez in 1871, then led an unsuccessful revolt against Mexican President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada in 1876. Soundly beaten, Díaz fled to Cuba and then to the United States, returning six months later to recruit an army which defeated Mexican government forces.Ê
Then in May 1877, Díaz became president of Mexico, believing the best way to develop national resources was to support the establishment of large business enterprises as well as the formation of giant corporations to which special advantages would be offered. So to foreign investors, Díaz granted concessions in mines, land, railroads, industrial and banking institutions, creating monopolies, but also accentuating the contrast between the rich and laboring classes.
But despite his initial popularity, most historians today consider Díaz as corrupt as the government he led. Elections became little more than rituals. Power spiraled downward from the president to governors, congress, the Church, landowners, politicians, federal, state and local administrations, and military leaders - many owing their lives and careers to Díaz.
But little economic improvement filtered down to the masses.
In 1910-11, Mexico celebrated its centennial of independence, Díaz inviting the world's most powerful and wealthy to the capital, plying them with imported delicacies and pageantry. This man, whose own blood was predominantly Indian, ordered other Indians off the streets "less their poverty offend visitors."
His small army (roughly 28,000) became the strong right arm, as well as the bleeding sore of the Porfiriato.Ê
But Díaz had his supporters, one being the El Paso Morning Times. In late 1910, this newspaper agreed that Díaz was a despot, but a strong ruler who gave his country what he thought it should have, rather than what it needed. In mid-October 1909, when presidents Díaz and Taft visited in El Paso, their conference was described in the Times as, "The Most Eventful Diplomatic Event in the History of the Two Nations."
El Pasoan Samuel J. Freudenthal described Díaz as having "a fine, intelligent face, while Taft looked like a jolly good fellow." Each visited the other's country, Taft's trip being the first time any sitting American president had left the United States.
Taft wrote his wife on Oct. 15: "I am glad to aid Díaz for the reason that we have two billion in American capital in Mexico that will be endangered if Díaz were to die, or his country go to pieces. I pray his demise does not come until I am out of office."
Conditions seemed peaceful in El Paso and Juárez during this presidential visit, a quiet conference made possible by thousands of soldiers from Forts Bliss, Clark and Sam Houston. But up in Chihuahua, Mexican revolutionary developments had already passed the point of no return.
Leon Metz, an El Paso historian, writes often for the El Paso Times. Email: cmetz48888(at)aol.com |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us