Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XVIII MEXICO and the United States experienced a change of administration about the same time. On February 24, Madero, the unsuccessful progressive, went to his grave, and on March 4, Taft, the unsuccessful conservative, departed toward a college professorship and a round of lecturing upon pleasant commonplaces, expounded to the taste of the educated simple, and designed to reestablish popularity along safe and sane lines. Two strong and resourceful men had taken the highest seats in the two countries ? strong in different ways, contrasted rather than similar in their acumen, widely unlike in experience, and as far apart as possible in their morality. They have been the conspicuous actors in the drama, dwarfing all others in the popular view, except perhaps the comedian, Pancho Villa. The action of the piece has centered on the duel between Huerta and Wilson, a contest much more real than that of a military aspect in which the formidable Indian had recently been engaged ? the bombardment in Mexico City ? yet not quite what it seemed, as will hereafter be made plain. The minor characters ? Mondragon, Diaz, Calero, Vera Estanol, the survivors of the Madero party, etc.? had little set down for them but exits, which they made when their cues came. De la Barra had a quiet scene or two, and Henry Lane Wilson had the center of the stage for a moment. A new personage, Venustiano Carranza,
first chief of the constitutionalists, appeared conspicuously, then got word from Washington and retired for a time. Upon thewhole the performance, as I have already said, had very much the aspect of a duel between the two presidents. The world has been asked to believe that events in Mexico since the 4th of March, 1913, may be accounted for by two causes; the unsettling effect of …