The author has had the advantage of many extended conversations with President Diaz and the other leading men of the Mexican republic. Much has been drawn from the President's private memoirs. Many books and records have been searched and many parts of Mexico visited. All financial statements are to be understood as in Mexican currency. The object of this work is neither to attack nor to defend, but to explain, the most interesting man of the most misunderstood and misrepresented country in the world.