THE MEXICAN STRUGGLE

November 20 celebrates not the finality of a successful revolution, but the beginning steps which would liberate Mexico from the iron rule of President turned Dictator Porfirio Diaz. Sitting continuously as the president, or the power behind the president, Diaz manipulated the Mexican populace for 35 years before the revolt of 1910 forced his resignation.

Strangely, Diaz campaigned as a liberal who believed in municipal government and limited terms of office. An Indian man of 45 years when elected, he had earned the recognition and respect of the citizenry through past honesty in government and bravery in battle, participating in the 1854 revolt against Santa Anna and later the Reform War which fought to separate church and government.

When he took over the presidency in 1876, Mexico was sorely in need of a stable government with dedicated leadership. The people had endured two bloody wars following which they suffered from an endless stream of bandits looting the countryside at will. In clever manipulation, Diaz molded the banditos into his personal police force which eliminated the wide spread thievery while it also paid the meanest men in town to protect Diaz from peasant revolt.

Under his tutelage Mexico's doors were opened to foreign investors interested in mining Guggenheim), cattle raising (Hearst), and petroleum production (Standard Oil). Diaz in his eagerness to obtain those foreign dollars ruthlessly ignored the individual needs of his people, concentrating instead on the boys with the bucks beyond his borders. He even allowed investors to pay foreign employees on a higher scale than they were paying Mexican workers.

So while Diaz did much to bring Mexico into a competitive position as regards world economy, the price for this advancement was unbelievably steep for the citizenry. The common man, under his rule, had a life expectancy of 30 years or less because of deprivation and poor health care. A 1910 census report classified a full 50 percent of housing unfit for humans and 16 percent of the population had no home at all. With his near-sighted greed, Diaz had primed the public for revolt.

In rode Francisco Madero, who history proved too trusting and too merciful to endure political battle. Nevertheless, he is today honored as the liberator of Mexico.

Madero was born to one of the richest families in Mexico yet campaigned passionately for peasant rights and freedoms. His popularity rose so rapidly that Diaz, who had scorned him as the "little madman", grew concerned and decided to have him arrested rather than meet him at the polls. Bailed by his family, Madero joined the revolutionaries who rallied against the 80 year old dictator and eventually forced his resignation. In what was at the time probably the most honest election in Mexican history Madero was elected president to replace Diaz in November of 1911. Sadly, he was ousted from office 16 months later by internal rivals. On February 22, 1913, Francisco Madero was shot and killed by these same political enemies. .

With his demise Mexico was once again in turmoil until the ascension of Venustiano Carranza in 1917. Carranza organized a gathering to draft a new constitution which he hoped would permanently protect the liberation Madero had achieved. Still the back bone of today's civil rights in Mexico, land reform was an important part of that constitution. It resulted in the ejido, or farm cooperative program that redistributed much of the country's land from the wealthy landholders to the peasants. The ejidos are still in place today and comprise nearly half of all the farmland in Mexico.

Though Madero's time was short, Mexican memory is long. Streets named in his honor are scattered across Mexico with statues in his likeness gracing hundreds of town squares. Honored annually, November 20 brings parades and speeches reminding all of his spunk and sacrifice on behalf of the people of Mexico.

Research by Loralie Cecotti