A burro, Porfirio Diaz, and a pyramid…

… but not Mexico.

Don Porfirio was in Egypt when Victoriano Huerta overthrew Francisco Madero and had the “apostle of democracy” shot (19 February 1913).

Don Porfirio sent a congratulatory telegram from Cairo :

The consideration you have shown me in my divorcement from public life is of inestimable satisfaction to me, and even more so is the delicate manner and kindly words in which you have been pleased to advise me of your elevation to the presidency ad interim of Mexico.

Accept this as an assurance of my deepest gratitude and as a hope that your self-effacement and patriotism may bring to the conscience of the people the realization that only in the shadow of peace can our country prosper and be happy and respected.

Boy, did he get that wrong.

Don Porfirio died in June 1915 peacefully… of old age it seems… but deeply disillusioned about the long shadow Huerta’s brief, but neither delicate nor kindly, regime had cast over Mexico. Huerta himself would follow Porfirio to the grave eight months later, a prisoner of the United States, his attemps to reinsert himself into the unhappy situation in Mexico neither self-effacing, nor … financed by the Imperial German Army… all that patriotic.

(photo: Mitofago.com.mx; telegram text:  San Francisco Call, Volume 113, Number 91, 1 March 1913)