A War Hero, a Legal Scholar, and a Historic Presidential Summit

Presidents Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, 1909. Public Domain

The executive experiences of President William Howard Taft and Mexican President Porfirio Díaz were strikingly different. Taft had yet to complete his first year in office, while Díaz was shoring up his third decade. Their rises to power were also strikingly different.

Díaz was a war hero in the fight against the French in 1867, as well as in his rebellion beginning in 1871 against what he proclaimed a fraudulent government. By 1876, his revolt succeeded, landing him in the country’s highest office. He served as president from 1876 until 1880, but returned in 1884 and remained until 1911.

While Díaz was taking power by revolt, Taft was earning his degree at Yale University. The American president’s rise through the political ranks came by way of the judiciary. His eye had been on the Supreme Court, but his wife Helen convinced him to postpone this judicial pursuit. Additionally, two presidents assisted in the postponement. President William McKinley appointed Taft as the civilian governor of the Philippines, a job he performed admirably. When Theodore Roosevelt became president after McKinley’s assassination, he chose Taft as his secretary of War during his reelection year. Taft held the position from 1904 to 1908, and was selected as Roosevelt’s heir apparent. Díaz and Taft may have taken two very different paths to the presidency, but their paths were about to make a historic connection.

Yale College photograph of Howard Taft, circa 1878. Public Domain

The Dichotomy of America and Mexico

Interestingly, the paths that both America and Mexico took toward independence were similar. The people of both nations had risen in rebellion against empires: America with the British and Mexico with the Spanish. Mexico’s Constitution of 1824 closely resembled America’s form of government and the promises found in the Bill of Rights, although Mexico’s religious ties were more binding.

Unfortunately, when Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna was elected president in 1833, he shortly thereafter dispensed with the constitution and declared himself dictator. Among the Mexican states that rebelled against Santa Anna was Texas, resulting in the Texas Revolution of 1835. Texas won its revolution in 1836, became its own republic for a decade, then joined the United States in 1845.

Mexico wanted Texas back. This wish was quickly squashed after the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848, in which Mexico lost not only any chance of regaining Texas, but also more than half of its country after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

Aside from the Civil War of 1861 to 1865, America maintained its political stability through the decades, choosing its executive every four years by way of election. Mexico was a different story, as it remained a hotbed of rebellion and revolution well into the 20th century. Díaz, contrastingly, was at least a semblance of political stability, even if his political methods were at times unseemly. During his administration, he promoted the country’s industrial progression, which often resulted in Mexican elites and foreign nationals acquiring land from poor locals. While Mexico witnessed its industrial growth, the disparity between the wealthy and the poor grew.

Portrait of President Porfirio Díaz wearing the presidential sash. Public Domain

Díaz’s push for industrial progression was right in line with Taft’s foreign policy agenda called “dollar diplomacy.” This agenda, formulated by Taft and his secretary of state, Philander Knox, was based on American commercial interests in international spots as close as the Caribbean and Latin America to as far as away as China. The idea was that America’s economic interests would benefit both the host country and the United States.

An Upcoming Meeting

In June of 1909, Taft wrote to Díaz informing him of his upcoming two-month tour of America. His tour would cover 33 states and approximately 13,000 miles, making, at least up to that time, “the longest journey through the length and breadth of the United States ever undertaken by an American executive while in office.” The primary purpose of Taft’s visit was to reinforce his support of Díaz and the American commercial interests connected with him.

Taft traveled by rail through the country in a specially made Pullman car called the Mayflower. The two governments, headed by the United States Department of State and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, prepared for the executives’ planned mid-October arrivals. The two presidents were scheduled to initially arrive at separate border towns: Díaz in Ciudad Juárez and Taft in El Paso. Interestingly, the area in which the two presidents were to meet was called Chamizal. The location was the center of a U.S.-Mexico territorial dispute, primarily due to natural changes in the Rio Grande’s route caused by flooding. Nonetheless, the area was labeled neutral ground, and, when the two presidents met, neither national flag was hoisted.

Extensive Preparations

Despite the neutrality, 4,000 American and Mexican troops were deployed to both cities as precautionary measures. In El Paso, security detail included troops, officers from the local police and sheriff’s department, Secret Service agents, as well as agents from the recently created FBI.

An exorbitant amount of money was spent on decorations, flags, banners, bands, and security by both city officials for the historic gathering. El Paso officials had exquisitely decorated the dining room of its St. Regis Hotel, while officials in Juárez had turned the Customs House into a replica of one of France’s salons at the Palace of Versailles.

According to historian Wilbert H. Timmons, inside the Customs House “there were rich red draperies, paintings of George Washington and [the father of Mexican independence] Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, three traincarloads of flowers brought from Guadalajara, a gold and silver service that had belonged to the emperor Maximilian and was valued at a million dollars, cut glass from Chapultepec Castle valued at $200,000, and fine linens from the presidential palace.”

While the federal and city officials were fully aware the meeting was historic, Taft understood it to be an absolute necessity. The day before he arrived in El Paso, he wrote to his wife, “I am glad to aid Díaz for the reason that we have two billion in American capital in Mexico that will be endangered if Díaz were to die, or his country go to pieces. I pray his demise does not come until I am out of office.”

Presidential Arrivals

Taft’s train arrived in El Paso a little past 9 a.m., where he was met by a throng of people, and then ushered into the St. Regis Hotel, where breakfast was served.

According to the El Paso Times, “As the president emerged from the St. Regis hotel after the banquet, in tuneful melody from four thousand little voices, came the strains ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty.’ The president took off his hat and bowed in acknowledgement of the efforts of the children and their teachers.”

Taft was then ushered to the Chamber of Commerce where he would await the arrival of Díaz.

Díaz, riding inside a carriage pulled by “splendid black matched horses” with “gold mounted harness,” was escorted by Mexican troops to Santa Fe Bridge. Upon reaching the bridge, Díaz was met by several carriages “bringing President Taft’s envoy, Secretary of War J.M. Dickinson, Gov. [Thomas] Campbell and Mayor [Joseph] Sweeney, and a party of other notables.” The Mexican president was greeted in Taft’s name, and escorted by American troops to the Chamber of Commerce.

Downtown El Paso, in 1908, where the Chamber of Commerce was located. Pubic Domain

It was during this week in history, on Oct. 16, 1909, in El Paso that the first meeting between an American president and a Mexican president was held. The two spent about 20 minutes alone in discussion. They were able to convene without interpreters because both were bilingual. Although officials stated nothing of significance was discussed during their meeting, there is speculation that the two may have discussed the Chamizal dispute, as the two countries signed the Chamizal Arbitration Treaty in June of 1910.

The event was a success with both presidents conveying great hope for their mutually beneficial relationship. After the historic meeting, the El Paso Times’s headline proclaimed it to be the “Most Eventful Diplomatic Event in the History of the Two Nations.”

An Overthrow and a Lost Election

A month later, on Nov. 21, Taft’s two-month tour of the United States came to an end. Although Taft had hoped that the Díaz regime would remain in power until his time in office was over, it was not meant to be. A year later, on Nov. 20, 1910, the Mexican Revolution began, which would last the decade and cost approximately 1 million lives, most of whom were civilians. For Taft’s administration, the “dollar diplomacy” proved a failure, and Taft lost his reelection bid, coming in third behind Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt’s independent Bull Moose ticket.

Four years after Díaz was officially overthrown on May 25, 1911, he died. Nearly a decade after losing the 1912 election, Taft was nominated by President Warren G. Harding to become chief justice of the Supreme Court on June 30, 1921. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate the same day, making him the only person to have served as both president and chief justice.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1925. Taft is seated, center. Public Domain

Never miss a This Week in History story! Sign up for the American History newsletter here.

What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to [email protected]