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322 he considers illiteracy a condition of the greatest possible happiness for a people? Can he believe that a state of chronic starvation contributes to the welfare of a nation? He is an old man—eighty years old. Why does he not make some provision against political chaos after his death? Is it possible that he believes it to be best for his people never to attempt to govern themselves, and for this reason is wrecking his nation so as to prepare it for easy possession by foreigners?

It is impossible to believe these things of Diaz. It is eminently more reasonable to judge that whatever desire for the welfare of his country he possesses is overshadowed, wiped off the slate, by a personal ambition to maintain his rule for life.

This, in my judgment, is a key to the character and the public acts of Porfirio Diaz—to stay there—''to stay there! ''

"How will this move affect the security of my position? I believe this question has been the one test for the acts of Porfirio Diaz in all those thirty-four years. This question has always been before him. With it he has eaten, drank, slept. With it before him he was married. With it he built a machine, enriched his friends and disposed of his enemies, buying some and killing others; with it he has flattered and gifted the foreigner, favored the church, kept temperance in his body and learned a martial carriage; with it he set one friend against another, fostered prejudice between his people and other peoples, paid the printer, cried in the sight of the multitude when there was no sorrow in his soul and—wrecked his country!

Upon what thread hangs the good fame of Porfirio Diaz with Americans? Upon that one fact, that he has wrecked his country—and prepared it for easy