Mexican Revolution Dbq

Porfirio Diaz by Paul H. Garner

1. Diaz gradually consolidated his power by first legitimizing consecutive re-election in 1887 to the Constitution of 1867 and then removing all restriction on future re-election to public office which gave him legal endorsement to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seven re-election until 1910 (98).

The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940 by Michael J. Gonzales

1. Diaz adopted high tariffs and restrictive labor policies that favored the interests of hancendados, the large landowners who kept people work on the land in debt. (10)

2. Capital flowed into the country without institutional safeguards to protect national sovereignty which created discontent among provincial elites and workers. (2)

3. As William Randolph Hearst,

Rowe

1. Diaz offered foreign investors to start business in Mexico and encouraged utilization of the country’s natural resources through the investment of foreign capital (284).

2. The abundance of labor led to low standard of life for workers and the absence of organization (284).

3. Personal loyalty to the president became the sole test for selection of candidates who later abused their power, such as jefes politicos, officials in the local administrative district, controlled the police force to develop a system of intimidation and extortion which weighed heavily on the poorer classes and gave rise to widespread discontent (286).

4. The system of recruitment made the army a kind of penal colony rather than a real national fighting force (290).

Mexico as I Saw It by Alec

Madero called for retirement of Diaz in carefully chosen words, “General Diaz knows perfectly well that his retirement from the presidency would be a benefit to the country…that leaving it free to form a new government in accordance with its aspiration and its needs” (21).

Mexico: A History by Robert R. Miller

1. Diaz performed pan o palo policy in which he rewarded those who conformed to the regime and punished those who opposed it. The corps of federal rural police, the ruales, maintained order in the countryside and eventually became an enforcement tool of executive policy (260-261).

2. The urban and industrial progress were not shared by rural population which was consisted three-fourth of the nation’s population (271).

3. The hacienda system gave sense of prestige and power to hacendados, so they felt no need to utilize all the land which caused prices of staple food and other necessities had doubled or tripled (275-276).

4. Factory workers worked twelve to fifteen hours a day in hazardous condition. There were no protective rules for women and children and no insurances for job-related accidents or industrial illness. The workers were obliged to trade at company store