BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

DIAZ HIMSELF 301
but when they, his best friends, begin to specify, to point
out their reasons for selecting him for a high niche in
the hail of good fame, is it not found that they themselves
become, instead of his advocates, his prosecutors?
Out of even their mouths is he not convicted and by
those our ideals of statesmanship and our concepts of
criminality will we not judge him, not a statesman, but
a criminal, and because there is no individual man in the
world who wields so much power over so many human
beings, will we not judge him the most colossal criminal
of our time?
It is curious, this almost universal feeling—in this
country—that Porfirio Diaz is a very good fellow. But
it can be explained. For one thing, individuals who
have not had the opportunity to judge a particular man
or thing for themselves, though they be college presidents
and congressmen, are apt to accept the word of
others as to that man or thing. Porfirio Diaz, knowing
this and valuing the good opinions of men who do not
know, has spent millions for printer's ink in this country.
For another thing, most men are susceptible to
flattery and Diaz is a good flatterer. As prominent Catholics
journeying to Rome seek an audience with the Pope,
so Americans traveling to Mexico seek an audience with
General Diaz; they usually get it and are flattered. Still
again, to paraphrase an old proverb, men not only do
not look a gift horse in the mouth, but they do not
look the giver in the mouth. Despite the ancient warning,
men do not usually beware of the Greeks when they
bring gifts; and Diaz is free with gifts to men whose
good opinion is influential with others. Finally, there
is nothing that succeeds like success, and Diaz has succeeded.
Power dazzles the strong as well as the weak
and Diaz's power has dazzled men and cowed them until