demanded in substance was the retirement of the
President, Vice President, and Cabinet; a return to the principle of no
reelection to the chief magistracy; a guarantee of fair elections at
all times; the choice of capable, honest, and impartial judges, jefes
politicos, and other officials; and, in particular, a series of agrarian
and industrial reforms which would break up the great estates, create
peasant proprietorships, and better the conditions of the working
classes. Disposed at first to treat the insurrection lightly, Diaz soon
found that he had underestimated its strength. Grants of some of the
demands and promises of reform were met with a dogged insistence upon
his own resignation. Then, as the rebellion spread to the southward, the
masterful old man realized that his thirty-one years of rule were at an
end. On the 25th of May, therefore, he gave up his power and sailed for
Europe.

Madero was chosen President five months later, but the revolution soon
passed beyond his control. He was a sincere idealist, if not something
of a visionary, actuated by humane and kindly sentiments, but he lacked
resoluteness and the art of managing men. He was too prolific, also, of
promises which he must have known he could not keep. Yielding to family
influence, he let his followers get out of hand. Ambitious chieftains
and groups of Radicals blocked and thwarted him at every turn. When
he could find no means of carrying out his program without wholesale
confiscation and the disruption of business interests, he was accused of
abandoning his duty. One officer after another deserted him and turned
rebel. Brigandage and insurrection swept over the country and threatened
to involve it in ugly complications with the United States and European
powers. At length, in February, 1913, came the blow that put an end to
all of Madero's efforts and aspirations. A military uprising in the
city of Mexico made him prisoner, forced him to resign, and set up a
provisional government under the dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta,
one of his chief lieutenants. Two weeks later both Madero and the Vice
President were assassinated while on their way supposedly to a place of
safety.

Huerta was a rough soldier of Indian origin, possessed of unusual force
of character and strength of will, ruthless, cunning, and in bearing
alternately dignified and vulgar. A scientifico in political faith, he
was disposed to restore the Diaz regime, so far as an applicat