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13 To provide a context for Wilson’s later actions, it is necessary to briefly discuss Mexico’s course before Wilson first became the U.S. president in 1913. The course of the Mexican Revolution during this time would have serious ramifications for Wilson, not only in his policy making but also in how he would interpret events in Mexico. Porfirio Díaz had controlled Mexico since 1876, when he seized power in a coup. Except for the 1880–84 term, Díaz ensured his own official reelection to Mexico’s presidency every four years in rigged contests. Popular in the United States because he encouraged foreign investment, Díaz also won the approval of foreign businesses by quelling the violence that had plagued Mexico for decades. He did so by establishing a strong political system capable of maintaining order through a mixture of coercion and rewards. As William Taft noted to his secretary of state, Philander Knox, “I cannot conceive a situation in which President Díaz would not act with a strong hand in defense of just American interests.”1 By 1910 the aging Díaz’s thirty-odd-year regime was weakening and he was challenged by Francisco Madero, a liberal landowner from a wealthy family in Coahuila. While attending school in France and the United States during the 1880s and early 1890s, Madero had grown disillusioned by the lack of democracy in Mexico. By 1908 he was heavily immersed in politics. He published opposition newspapers and wrote a book—La sucesión presidencial en 1910—decrying the stultifying presence of Díaz as head of state. Madero’s position was relatively moderate. He did not support the radical revamping of the existing political system urged by the more militant opposition members. Instead, he merely called for implementing the laws already proclaimed in the Constitution of 1857. He advocated limited political reforms and 2 The Mexican Revolution and the United States Setting the Stage for Wilson, 1910–1913 14 Leading them to the Promised Land improved access to education, believing that necessary economic reform would follow in due course. Madero’s book struck a chord among the anti-Díaz opposition and propelled its author to the forefront of the fractious opposition movement.2 As the 1910 elections approached, many of Díaz’s opponents backed Madero as the candidate for the presidential election scheduled for June 26, 1910. On June 5, however, Díaz had Madero arrested and imprisoned, charging him with sedition. To the surprise of no one, Díaz was reelected in a contest marred—also to no one’s surprise—by substantial voting fraud. As popular uprisings erupted against Díaz, Madero escaped from prison and fled to the United States. He proclaimed himself president of a revolutionary junta and began working toward removing Díaz from power.3 While Mexico moved toward revolution, the American president, William Howard Taft, maintained a generally neutral policy. Taft favored Díaz’s government and referred to his rule as Díaz’s “grand work.” Taft believed that benevolent dictatorship was the best possible form of government for Mexico. Moreover, Díaz had further endeared his government to Washington by protecting American businesses and investments south of the Rio Grande.4 Nevertheless, several factors precluded the U.S. government from intervening in Mexico to protect Díaz from Madero’s revolution. In 1911, the Department of State asked U.S. consuls in Mexico to report on anti-Americanism in their districts. The reports showed a widespread hatred of Americans throughout much of the country. Secretary of State Knox worried that U.S. intervention would provoke an outburst of anti-American sentiment among Mexicans, likely to further endanger Americans. This concern remained a major deterrent to armed U.S. intervention throughout Taft’s presidency.5 Díaz’s government pressed Taft to take action against Madero. In November 1910, the Mexican ambassador to the United States sent Knox a note informing him that two of Madero’s agents were in Texas “stirring up trouble and consequently violating the neutrality laws of the United States.” “Since no state of war exists in Mexico,” Knox answered, “nor as the Department has been given to understand is any such situation imminent, it can scarcely be regarded that the parties named, no matter what their actions may be, are violating the rules of international law regarding neutrality in time of international conflict or armed rebellion.”6 The same strict adherence to...

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