huila and Guanajuato, respectively, for about fifteen years.
Diaz's system of government is very simple, once it is explained. The president, the governor, the jefe politico—these three names represent all the power in the country. In Mexico there is but one governmental power—the executive. The other two departments exist in name only. Not one elective office remains in the country. All are appointive. And through the appointive power the three executives mentioned control the entire situation. The word of these three officials in his particular sphere—the president in the twenty-seven states and two territories, the governor in his state, the jefe politico in his district—is the law of the land. Not one of the three is required to answer to the people for his acts. The governor must answer to the president and the jefe politico to the governor and the president. It is the most perfect one-man system on earth.
Of course such conditions were not established without a struggle. Neither can they be maintained without continued struggle. Autocracy cannot be created by fiat. Slavery cannot exist merely by decree of a ruler. There must be an organization and a policy to compel such things. There must be a military organization armed to the teeth. There must be police-and police spies. There must be expropriations and imprisonments for political purposes. And there must be murder—murder all the time. No autocracy can exist without murder. Autocracy feeds upon murder. It has never been otherwise, and, thanks to human nature as we find it, never can be.
The succeeding two chapters are to be devoted to sketching the extirpation of political movements having for their purpose the re-establishment of republican institutions in Mexico. But first it seems well to define the
