The Fall Of Madero.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 15, 1913:
    The relief which the collapse of Madero's Government brings to the Government of the United States can be surpassed only by the rejoicing of the people or the City of Mexico at their deliverance from the perils of war carried on in the very streets and public buildings of that capital.
    With the politics or the partisan interests in the strife we have had no concern, and we could have no special preference in the matter. Madero was unfit for his office, a weak, nerveless man, incapable of governing. Felix Diaz is perhaps an adventurer, equally incapable of taking into his own hands the power he sought to wrest from the hands of Madero. But the conflict between the two, leading to a battle of artillery in the city streets, actual warfare carried on in complete disregard of the consequences to non-combatants and to citizens of our own and of other countries there residing, brought us very near to our duty and a responsibility from which we had abundant reason to wish for deliverance. Had the barbarous struggle continued, we should soon have been compelled to intervene, a contingency which we have regarded with a feeling akin to horror. Madero's resignation ends, for the time at least, Mexico's trouble and our apprehension.
    Mr. de la Barra, for whose assumption of the Presidency, according to our dispatches, arrangements are making, is one of the sanest and safest of Mexico's public men. His installation, it is to be hoped, will bring peace. The source of danger is to be found, not in the Mexican people, who appear to be somewhat indifferent, but in the reckless ambitions of rival partisan leaders. In such a land no Madero can hold the reins. It is a Porfirio Diaz or a Roosevelt that Mexico needs.