BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

REPRESSIVE ELEMENTS OF THE DIAZ MACHINE 141
huila and Guanajuato, respectively, for about fifteen
years.
Diaz's system of government i very simple, once it
is explained. The president, the governor, the jefe
politico—these three names represent all the power in the
country. In Mexico there is but one governmental power
—the executive. The other two departments exist in
name only. Not one elective office remains in the country.
All are appointive. And through the appointive power
the three executives mentioned control the entire situation.
The word of these three officials in his particular
sphere—the president in the twenty-seven states and two
territories, the governor in his state, the jefe politico in
his district—is the law of the land. Not one of the three
is required to answer to the people for his acts. The
governor must answer to the president and the jeft
politico to the governor and the president. It is the most
perfect one-man system on earth.
Of course such conditions were not established without
a struggle. Neither can they be maintained without
continued struggle. Autocracy cannot be created by fiat.
Slavery cannot exist merely by decree of a ruler. There
must be an organization and a policy to compel such
things. There must he a military organization armed to
the teeth. There must be police and police spies. There
must be expropriations and imprisonments for political
purposes. And there must be murder—murder all the
time. No autocracy can exist without murder. Autocracy
feeds upon murder. It has never been otherwise,
and, thanks to human nature as we find it, never can be.
The succeeding two chapters are to he devoted to
sketching the extirpation of political movements having
for their purpose the re-establishment of republican institutions
in Mexico. But first it seems well to define the