Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/528

 522 is it for the impartial chronicler, much less the youthful reader, to comprehend who was in the right in this political labyrinth. It does not seem difficult to the impartial reader of another nation to decide. On the side of law and order was Lerdo, the constitutionally elected President of the Republic; against him was the usurper, Diaz, at the head of a revolutionary army; and the former president of the Supreme Court of Justice, José Iglesias, who was vainly endeavoring to have himself recognized as supreme ruler.

It does not seem possible that President Lerdo could have had any intention of abandoning the trust committed in him by the people. When we remember his noble bearing during the trying times when in the persecuted cabinet of Juarez, and his firmness in dealing with the foreign invaders, we cannot but wonder at his pusillanimity in deserting the capital without offering resistance to Diaz. It is probable that prudence prevailed over ambition, and that, unwilling to involve his fellow-citizens in bloodshed, he retired until some peaceable solution of the question might present itself. Not meeting with that reception in the interior which he may have reasonably expected— a reaction having set in amongst his own adherents of the military class—he sadly turned his footsteps to the western coast, and taking steamer at Acapulco sought refuge in the United States.

We now see Diaz, who had pronounced, not only against Juarez—owing to not having been the object of military preferment—but against Lerdo upon equally trivial pretext—in possession of supreme power in the capital. With a large army at his disposal—for the native Mexican will fight equally well under any leader, and Lerdo's most faithful troops were now most ardent Porfiristas—Diaz soon