DIAZ, JOSE DE LA CRUZ PORFIRIO Mexican soldier and statesman, born in the city of Oaxaca, State of Oaxaca, Sept. 15, 183o. His family was poor, and his mother was part Indian. He was educated for the church, then the only career open to a youth without wealth. At the age of fifteen he entered the Seminario Pontifical in Oaxaca, but in 1849, falling under the influence of Benito Juarez, rector of the uni versity, he relinquished his clerical ambitions to undertake the study of law with Juarez in the Institute of Arts and Sciences, where he passed his examinations in civil and canon law in 1853. But he was pre-eminently a man of action. During the war with the United States (1847-48) he left home to serve in the army. In the plebiscite of 1855 he repudiated the dictatorship of Santa Anna. When the anti-clerical measures of the Constitution of 1857 resulted in the War of Reform (1858-61), Diaz supported Juarez, now president of the country, and aided materially in the overthrow of the clerical revolution and the final establish ment of the Reform Laws. He was one of the first to oppose the French invasion of 1862, and after the establishment of Maxi milian in Mexico in 1864, he was the most prominent figure in the struggle against the empire. He defeated a French attack upon Puebla in 1862, and in 1865, when the republican fortunes seemed at their nadir, he formed the "army of the east," recap tured Puebla in the spring of 1867, and on June 21, 1867, two days after the execution of Maximilian at Queretaro, re-entered the capital. Placing the city under martial law he maintained order until he was able to hand over his command to Juarez. Then he resigned his position in the army and retired to Oaxaca. He took no part in the Government until 1871. Dissatisfied with Juarez's policy, he appeared as a candidate for the presi dency against Juarez and Lerdo de Tejada, and when congress proclaimed the re-election of Juarez, led an unsuccessful revolt in protest. In 1872 Lerdo succeeded as president in an adminis tration which brought discord and disorder, and when he at tempted to be re-elected in 1876, Diaz took the leadership of a revolution, proclaimed the principle of non-re-election, and de feated the Government forces in the battle of Tecoac, on Nov. 16, 1876. He was elected president in May 1877, and at once forged ahead with financial and political reform, the centraliza tion of the Government, the re-establishment of public security, the scrupulous settlement of all national debts, and the building of railroads and telegraphs. His rule was stern, his methods sometimes brutal, but he achieved amazing results. In 188o he was succeeded by Manuel Gonzalez, the former minister of war, in whose cabinet he sat for some time as minister of Fomento, but in 1884 was unanimously re-elected to the presidency. Con tinuing his programme of political reorganization and economic reform, he opened the nation's natural resources to the world, succeeded in attracting great quantities of foreign capital, and won for Mexico, for the first time in her history, a position of respect among the nations. Political crises which arose with Guatemala, Austria and the United States he handled to the advantage of Mexico. In 1887 and 1892 the Constitution was amended to permit his re-election and from 1884 until 1911 he was continuously in office. But material prosperity was achieved at the cost of repression and increasing discontent. The land problem became acute, education was inadequate, and agitators fomented wide-spread dissatisfaction at the alleged con trol of the country by foreign capitalists. An incipient revolt headed by Gen. Bernardo Reyes in 1903 was quickly crushed, but in 191 o the standard of agrarian revolt was raised; the movement spread swiftly over the country; the Government was unable to control the army, and on May 4, 1911, Diaz resigned his post and left for Europe. He died in Paris on July 2, 1915, having seen destroyed most of the stability which he had brought to his country.
See Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Porfirio Diaz, Seven Times President of Mexico (1906) and Mexico as I saw it (19o1) ; Dr. Noll, From Empire to Republic (189o) ; Lieut. Seaton Schroeder, Fall of Maximilian's Empire (New York, 1887) ; R. de Z. Enriquez, P. Diaz (1908) ; David Hannay, Diaz (1917) ; and an article by Percy Martin in Quarterly Review (Oct. 1909). Porfirio Diaz, Memorias, i83o—r867 (2 vol., 1922 23) ; H. H. Bancroft, Vida de Porfirio Diaz (1887) ; F. Bulnes, El verdadero Diaz y la revolucion (192o) ; J. H. Cornym, Diaz y Mexico (1911) ; J. Creelman, Diaz, Master of Mexico (1911) ; F. de la Colina, Madero y el Gral. Diaz (1913) ; L. Lara y Prado, De Porfirio Diaz a Francisco Madero (1912) ; F. Madero, La sucesidn presidencial en 1910 (1909) ; J. Lopez-Portillo y Rojas, Elevaci6n y caida de Porfirio Diaz (1921) ; S. Quevedo y Zubieta, Porfirio Diaz, septiembre r83o—septiem bre 1865 (1906) , and El caudillo (1909) ; J. Sesto, A Travis de America (1909) ; A. L. Velasco, Porfirio Diaz (1892) ; and Porfirio Diaz y su gabinete (1889) ; E. Zayas, Porfirio Diaz (1908) ; C. de Fornaro, Diaz Czar of Mexico, an Arraignment (19o9) ; J. F. Godoy, Porfirio Diaz (1910: Eng. trans. also 191o) ; A. Gonzalez-Blanco, Un despota y un libertador (1916) ; G. Garcia, Porfirio Diaz, sus padres, ninez y juventud (1908) ; R. Rodriguez, Historia autentica de la administracion del Sr. Gral. Porfirio Diaz (2 vol. 1904) , which contains the presiden tial messages of Diaz.