officially recognized the Mexican Government as able to legislate, and then addresses it as if it only governed in the City of Mexico.

'Without any pretense to unusual consideration the Mexican Government thought it right to expect from a friendly government that the latter would not, as stated in the note referred to, depart from courtesy toward Mexico and seem to deem it necessary to refer to the personnel of its Government, a form probably without precedent to this day in diplomatic courtesy and so at variance with the always just, serene and honest spirit of President Taft, a recognized friend of Mexico.

"The personnel of the present Government deplores the incident and forgets it, and as homage to its true friendship toward the American people and in consideration of the high esteem and respect it has for the American President and its Government it prefers not to give reply to that portion of the note in the terms in which it is written.”

The text of the American communication was never given to the press, so far as I know. The most extensive publication I have discovered was made by the New York World, February 24, 1913. It would appear that a copy of the American note was not in possession of the World, but that it had a full and intelligent abstract of Lascurain's reply, from which the essentials of the document to which he was responding could be inferred quite easily.

The withholding of the American note from the newspapers is much to be regretted. I know of nothing that would have been more influential in moderating the sentiments of Americans toward Mexico, in those last months when it was perhaps not yet too late for popular expression to effect some change in the policy of the administration at Washington, whereby the nation might have kept its hands clean in the tragedy which followed, if indeed that

tragedy could not have been averted. It is not impossible that by a proper course the term of a legitimate government in Mexico might have been prolonged with some resulting good, and even though its fall was inevitable, perhaps that event need not have been attended by the gratification of private vengeances through murder, nor have been followed by so much of loss in Mexico, so many humiliations to the United States.

It is necessary now to consider the causes which were actively operative against Madero, among them being the military conspiracy. Throughout the summer and fall, the corrupting of the Federal army, under the direction of General Mondragon and his associates, proceeded through a hundred subterranean channels. The results were widespread, and the control was loose, as is the rule with Mexican conspiracies. In them we read whole chapters of the Old Testament over again, seeing revolts so sentimentalized that they are as unstable as panics, cleaving along innumerable planes of personal desire; rashness and sudden spasms of timidity mingling in a manner incomprehensible to the colder Anglo Saxon; and always some impatient person trying to make hay of half-grown grass lest another should secure the harvest in the day of its natural maturity.

In the present instance the premature attempt was made under the banner of Felix Diaz, nephew of the ex-dictator. He had been an officer in the army, and chief of police of the Federal district in the days of his exalted uncle. Personally, he had little to commend him as a leader. It seems, however, to have been the plan of Mondragon to put him forward, tentatively at least. His vanity had been stimulated by this real leader of the conspiracy, and by Rodolfo Reyes, son of the lately revolting General Bernardo Reyes, who was then in prison. With a force barely strong enough

for his first move, Diaz seized Vera Cruz, the principal port of Mexico, on the 16th of October, hoping that his act would be a rising signal for disloyal officers and men throughout the country.

Preparations for concerted action on a broad scale had been grotesquely inadequate. No considerable number of the conspirators knew what to do, and even those that were well disposed toward the attempt did nothing of consequence. The revolt was a fiasco, scarcely more respectable than that of Bernardo Reyes in the north, a year earlier. Diaz surrendered to General Beltran of the Federal army. on October 23, and on the 27th was condemned to death by court martial. But Madero was unwilling to order the execution of Diaz, and he remained in the old Spanish prison of San Juan d' Ullua, in Vera Cruz harbor, till January, 1913, when he was brought to Mexico City.

It had been the hope of Rodolfo Reyes that his father's release would result from the revolt of Diaz. The Government was to be overthrown, Bernardo Reyes installed as provisional president, and Felix Diaz elected subsequently under that constitution which all the rebels profess to love so dearly. Many pitfalls were in the path of this ambitious project beyond the point where the disaster actually occurred. Some of them were revealed by later events; the others are of no importance now.

According to accepted Mexican standards Madero gravely erred in refusing to send Diaz and Bernardo Reyes to death. It is possible that his own life might have been prolonged even to this day, and many grievous incidents in his country's history averted. But Madero, as the sequel will abundantly prove, did not awake until the very last moment to the danger that was in the military conspiracy. He fancied that his clemency would win applause and be regarded as an evidence of strength. More influential in

his own thoughts than any considerations of policy, was a personal distaste for the alternative course, the cold blooded killing of two men.

In fact, he gained nothing by this moderation except the approval of a few private persons. The military conspiracy was considerably encouraged; the Cientificos cared no more for Madero's virtues, such as they were, than for the amiable nature of the President's white horse. These men wished him out of the way, and they continued to intrigue against him with a persistency which could not escape attention.

Madero was warned often, but in vain. He conducted his own fight very much in the open, and his enemies had no need of spies to find out what he was about. Even when Mondragon moved from Havana to Mexico City no steps were taken to interfere with his maneuvers, nor were any effective measures devised to check the various cabals, political and commercial, whose operations were so plainly visible to a disinterested observer.

Contrasts may profitably be drawn between Francisco Madero, plotted against on all sides and ignoring the plotters, and Porfirio Diaz arresting or mysteriously removing from the light of day those upon whom there fell suspicion of disloyalty. Madero, on his white steed, rode often unattended through the streets where those who wished him harm were the most numerous, while Diaz was always the center of an elaborate system of personal protection, his carriage strongly escorted by his outriding guards; or in the later days he would use two or even three closed automobiles, all driven at high speed, so that no stroke of vengeance could be aimed with certainty against the car that really bore him through his capital.

Possibly Madero was protected temporarily by his enemies' confidence that his downfall was at hand. They were playing a strong game and may have been content to wait.

B

CHAPTER XIII

Y December I the new Congress had developed an opposition which threatened to defeat the Govern

ment's plans of finance, and thus to disarrange the whole administrative program. As has been indicated the majority of the new Chamber of Deputies elected in July were Madero men, or Progresistas; the Senate was adverse to the Government by a small margin, and must be whipped into line on important measures. These conditions seemed to involve difficulties not essentially insurmountable, but the Government was not prepared for a minority in the Chamber so aggressive as that with which it soon found itself compelled to deal.

The most troublesome member of the minority was Querido Moheno, who a year later became Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Huerta. Moheno had been elected to the Madero Congress in 1912 as a Progresista or Administration man; but before his seat in the Chamber was fairly warm he abandoned Madero, flopped to the Independents, and vigorously attacked every Government meas

ure.

No one charged him with serving the interests of any man but himself: there was a strain of the Irish in Moheno's blood which gave him an hereditary right to be

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agin the Government." In fact, he was "agin everything" and he contributed so violent an opposition that on many occasions the sessions of the Chamber were stormy scenes in which orderly legislation could not be carried on, and the spirit of strife within communicated itself to the