[Footnote 3: See _Opening of the Panama Canal_, page 374.]

[Footnote 4: See _The Fall of Diaz_, page 96.]

Then came a counter-revolution. Madero was betrayed and slain, and the
savage and bloody Indian general, Huerta, seized the power.[1] The
antagonism of the United States Government against Huerta was so marked
that at length the anxious South American Powers urged that they be
allowed to mediate between the two; and the United States readily
accepted this happy method of proving her real devotion to arbitration
and of reestablishing the harmony of the Americas.

[Footnote 1: See _Mexico Plunged into Anarchy_, page 300.]

In itself the entire Mexican movement may be regarded as another great,
though confused, step in the world-wide progress of Democracy. The
upheaval has been repeatedly compared to the French Revolution. The
rule of Diaz was really like that of King Louis XVI in France, a
government by a narrow and wealthy aristocracy who had reduced the
ignorant Mexican peasants or "peons" to a state of slavery. The bloody
battles of all the recent warfare have been fought by these peons in a
blind groping for freedom. They have disgraced their cause by excesses
as barbarous as those perpetrated by the French peasantry; but they
have also fought for their ideal with a heroism unsurpassed by that of
any French revolutionist.

DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD

Equally notable as forming part of this unceasing march of Democracy
was the progress of both Socialism and Woman Suffrage. But with these