with thousands of peons attached to the estates. One hacienda controls twenty thousand peons, an army in themselves. The owners of these great estates, like all owners of special privileges, cling to their inheritance with the grip of death, and they will do anything rather than yield one jot or one tittle of the prerogatives which have been in their families for generations. Some seven thousand families, out of a population of fifteen million, own the entire landed surface of Mexico, according to the best reports that I am able to find. This shows that it has never been a land of homesteaders, such as we have in the United States, for had the land been parceled out as it has been with us, with tens of thousands of families who have an actual interest in the soil, the political conditions in Mexico would never have reached or remained in the state that they have. Mexico has never had the advantage of foreign immigration, and there are very few non-Spanish speaking whites in Mexico, with the exception of English, Americans, and Germans, who have gone there not for the purpose of making homes for themselves and their families, but for the purpose of exploiting some one or another of the natural resources of the country, and doing it frequently at the expense of the Mexicans themselves. This condition can be blamed upon Spain, for she forbade people of other nations to come to the country. The official corruption which has been criticised a great deal, and for which there is undoubtedly considerable reason, was the result of Spanish misrule, for it was the Spanish overlords who introduced and developed this system of government. When you know that there are districts in Spain today where scarcely 10 per cent of the inhabitants have mastered the art of reading and writing, it is not surprising to learn that after three centuries of the rule of Spanish governors and viceroys, 95 per cent of the people in Mexico still remained in profound ignorance. Learning for the masses was regarded as prejudicial by those representatives and misrepresentatives of the home government. Although conditions are not ideal yet, the percentage of ignorance has been greatly reduced. Mexico likewise had the good fortune, as well as misfor tune, to have a large indigenous population. This native population furnished the labor necessary to develop the country which the Conquistadores were unwilling to do themselves. They were reduced to a condition of practical slavery. When slavery was abolished, peonage was established. The nature of these peons, who constitute almost 80 per cent of the entire population of Mexico, is such that they have formed a compact and inert mass. They have been non-resisting as a rule, and are content when their simple bodily wants are supplied. It has been an easier matter for the hacendados to get up a body of followers who would fight for them from the ranks of their peons. The peon is one of the greatest problems of Mexico, and it will take a long time to develop the best that is in him. For the future of Mexico, I have great hopes. Conditions are better today than they were a half century ago. Just when the turn of the balance will come, I would not venture to predict, but I do feel safe in saying that it will come eventually. The inherited misfortunes of the Mexico of today will sooner or later pass away. Europe at one time went through similar conditions. Out of the troublous times of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, nations emerged which had been strengthened by the lessons of adversity learned in the internecine struggles of that period. This is probably the final transition-the dawn of a new era. The paroxysms now shaking the country in rebellions and treacheries, which have so shocked the world, mean the recovery of Mexico ultimately to peace and prosperity. Unrest and change are conditions in every country today, and with both sexes. These conditions have but added to those elements of unrest peculiar to our neighbor across the Rio Grande. A strong man must arise, perhaps another Diaz, at least a leader of enough force of character to draw the people to him and awe any opposing chieftains who may wish to create trouble for his own personal aggrandisement. Intervention should not even be thought of by the United States. From a standpoint of dollars and cents it would be cheaper for Uncle Sam to reimburse all losses sustained by Americans and American interests than to incur the expense that intervention would involve. I like the Mexican people, and I am a great admirer of the Spanish-American and Portuguese-American races. They are not inferior to the Anglo-American. They have many inherent good qualities; they possess some splendid traits of character, which are difficult to find in the North Americans. Instead of brusqueness they have courtesy; in financial honor they are the equal of our own people. They are perhaps bound more to the influence of tradition than we are, and this has been, I believe, one of their misfortunes. Were they less influenced by tradition, these inherited traits which I have mentioned in this paper, which are not found in nearly all, or not even in a majority of the Mexicans, but which are found in enough to cause the troubles that we find in making a historical study of the country, would have disappeared ere this. I have great faith even in the peon who constitutes such an important element in Mexico. Some people think of the peon of Mexico, the coolie of China, and the peasant of Russia as inferior beings, but I do not believe that there is such a thing as inferior humanity, There is, however, a great deal of undeveloped humanity, and it is in this class that we must place the Mexican peon. He is almost wholly an undeveloped creature. There are a few isolated examples which show that he is on a par with others of a fairer skin. Juarez was a full blooded Mexican Indio, and he is one of the greatest men that Mexico has produced. Diaz himself had one-eighth of the peon blood in his veins. Many other examples might be given. I only hope that the time will come, and come soon, when turmoil and revolution will cease, and Mexico will take her place by the side of the great nations not only of the New World, but the Old World as well. THE MEXICAN SITUATION By S. W. Reynolds, formerly President of the Mexican It is with a great deal of diffidence that I appear before you today to address you on a subject which, at the present time, is of such world-wide importance, and which seems likely at any moment to involve our country in a contest with our neighboring republic of Mexico; a contest which, if ever entered into, would no doubt in the end prove successful, but which would cost a great number of lives and a vast amount of treasure. This success will come in part from the fact that Mexico has not the men or the money to spend in such a conflict that we have, and, consequently, will not have the endurance to carry through a defensive contest. In considering the present situation, it is well to look at the past and see what Mexico has been in the more recent years of her history, and what has been accomplished in the development of the country. You are all too familiar with the early history of Mexico to make it necessary for me to go into that part of her national life. You will be more interested in taking up her course since what might be termed the beginning of a peaceful and progressive term of government in that country. Her greatest and most material advance began when Gen. Porfirio Diaz became her President. General Diaz was born September 15, 1830, in Oaxaca. He was the son of an inn-keeper, and of mixed Indian and Spanish decent, his mother having belonged to the Mixteca tribe. He was one of six children. His father died when he was three years old. He was originally intended for the church, but his temperament not tending in that direction, he afterward studied law in the office of Benito Juarez, who afterward became President of the Republic. Later on, he entered the army and took a very active and important part in military life. General Diaz's first wife died in 1880, leaving a son and two daughters. Three years later he married Carmen Romero Rubio, the daughter of Romero Rubio, who was a member of the cabinet for many years, and until his death. She was a woman of great beauty and refinement, and was affectionately called "Carmelita" by the people and was much loved by them. She was of great assistance to General Diaz in his work. I will not go into the detail of his life up to the time he became President. He assumed the executive power on November 24, 1876. At that time the constitution of the Republic provided that a man could not succeed himself as President, therefore, at the end of his term he was succeeded by Gen. Manuel Gonzalez, who served his term, and in turn was succeeded by General Diaz. In 1884, the provision in the Constitution was altered so that a man might succeed himself, and thereafter General Diaz continued as constitutional President. With the advent of General Diaz began the important development of the country. In 1876, the Republic was bankrupt, a prey to civil war, brigandage, etc. In 1886, the credit of Mexico abroad was firmly established through a proper and satisfactory adjustment of the foreign debt, and this condition continued until the latter part of the Madero government. When General Diaz became President the treasury was bankrupt, when he left it he left $62,000,000 in it. One of General Diaz's early methods of restoring peace was to organize the bandits, who had previously preyed upon the country and made travel through it dangerous, into what is known as the "Corps of Rurales," which afterwards became one of the most reliable and efficient arms of the government's service. He also made it much more to the advantage of his enemies to become his friends, and in that way pacified the contending elements. General Diaz's greatest move toward development came through the promotion of railroad construction in the |