Abstract
When Theodore Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency in 1901, Porfirio Diaz had almost completed the first year of his sixth term as President of the Republic of Mexico. Roosevelt took the oath of office on September 14th; Diaz celebrated his seventy-first birthday on the 15th. |At this time the relations of the United States and Mexico were most cordial. In commenting upon his inauguration the African Monthly Review of Reviews stated that Mexico "has had the good fortune to let well enough alone in political affairs, and to continue in office, from term to term, a president who has known how to maintain order and keep out of foreign complications." The United States had good reason to look with favor upon the stem rule of Diaz: Realizing that foreign capital was necessary if Mexico were to be developed and modernized, the Mexican President had insured the safety of investments by effectively suppressing revolution and internal' disorder. Prior to the inauguration of his rule, Mexico had been continually torn by civil strife. It had been estimated that in the forty-five years prior to his first election there had been|two hundred revolutions and about forty different rulers in that country. Now, in 1901, thanks to a quarter century of Diaz's stern dictatorial rule, Mexico could no longer be characterized as "a land where peace breaks out every once in a while."