Madero's Plan

Three Statements of Madero's Platform, Sept.-Nov. 1910

Platform of the Francisco I. Madero Party in Mexico

To re-establish the sovereignty of the constitution, making effective the duties and rights which it prescribes, making independent the entities of the federation and forcing the responsibility of the public office.
To procure the reform of the constitution, establishing the principle of non-election of a president or vice president; to procure equal reforms in the political constitutions of the States, making it obligatory that candidates for governor, senator or deputy reside in the district from which they are elected.
To procure the reformation of the electoral law, to the end that popular suffrage shall be made effective, and to abolish the political mayors and other appointees.
To regulate Article 7 of the Federal Constitution with the object of giving freedom to the Press.
To add to and increase public education, and to do away with the difficulties under which knowledge may now be acquired. To improve the material, moral and intellectual conditions of the workingmen, creating industrial schools, procuring more expedition in the workings of the pension laws and laws governing indemnities for injuries to laborers, and fighting traffic in intoxicants. Providing equal rights to the indigenous races, especially the Maya and Yaqui Indians, bringing back he expatriated citizens and founding agricultural colonies where they may work. Also accelerating the Mexicanization of the railroads in all branches, and instituting centers of education where they may learn their duties.
To favor the right of use of public wealth to see that taxes are levied with equity, to abolish the system of favoritism, and to combat monopolies and privilege; and, above all, to spend the public funds to the end that they may benefit all.
To increase agriculture and irrigation, which are destined to be of national importance. In like manner, to aid mining, commerce, and all the sources of public wealth.
To study and utilize the most practical and efficacious measures for bettering the condition of the armed forces, so that it may be more able to discharge the duties imposed on it, to be the guardians of the nation's institutions and defenders of the honor of the country, and the integrity of the republic. To effect this, one of the principal measures would be to make military training obligatory.
To favor more cordial relations between Mexico and all foreign nations, especially the Latin American nations, and to prudently direct the aims of the government to form a Central American Union.

The published Plan Plan of San Luis Potosi
To The Mexican Army
Fellow-citizens:

The long and infamous tyranny of General Porfirio Diaz, which the people have enjoyed in their anxiety to preserve the peace, has resulted in the calumnious statement that the people are servil and cowardly; and you, who wear the uniform, have also been slandered, considered as the scourge of the people, as the supporters of the Dictator.
But the day of freedom has arrived; on the 20th of this month all of the people and a larger part of the army, which is in sympathy, will arise in arms to overthrow the unlawful and tyrannical government of General Diaz.
The triumph of the revolution is certain, but with you it rests whether it shall be quickly or slowly gained, whether there shall be a greater or a less degree of blood shed, whether you yourselves will gain for us more quickly our liberty, for it in well known that you are those who suffer the most from the dictatorship; the soldiers because you are carried into military service against your will; the, officers and chiefs, because you find yourselves constantly kept down, for under an autocracy ouch as ours, merit is always placed below influence and in order to rise in the army it is necessary to know more of the handling of the incense cup than that of the sword. I therefore invite all the soldiers and all the chiefs and officers, deserting and patriotic, to unite with us in this movement. In this manner will you give the lie to the calumnies which you have borne that you are the scourge of the people, and you will prove that if yon are proud of belonging to the Mexican Army it is because the army is the child of the people, the defender of its institutions and the incarnation of its patriotic glory.
I know very well that on coming to our side in the defense of the cause of the people you are not actuated by any other motive than that of defending its institutions, but owing to the critical conditions now existing in our country, these carp represented by me, chosen as I am by the popular will to govern the Republic. Therefore as the revolution will require a large number of chiefs and offices, and as a recompense to those who join our ranks in order to more quickly triumph in the principles which we proclaim, all military chiefs who take command of greater forces than now if their rank there will be given the rank corresponding to the number of forces which they command.
To all other officials, whether they accompany these latter mentioned chiefs, or whether they pass into an independent command of their own free will, and before December 5th, there will be bestowed a rank immediately superior to that now held. To those officers who join the army of liberation after the mentioned date there will be recognized only their regular rank and place, as well as those who do so in the presence of superior independent forces. Upon the termination of the revolution those soldiers who have been induced to join against their will, and who wish to be discharged from the army, will be given a low grade. Soldiers of the Republic!
Remember that the mission of the army is to defend the institutions and not that of being the conscienceless supporter of tyranny! For this reason, listen! Either you will continue to support the tyrannical government of the usurper General Diaz which promises to the country an era of mourning, of sorrow and of ignominy, or you will join me, embodying as I do in this moment popular aspiration, who by the will of my fellow citizens would be your legitimate governor, and who sided by you and by all my fellow countrymen, and complying faithfully my political program, will most certainly obtain peace and happiness for our country and through the Constitution, through Liberty and Justice we will carry hex to the high place which she deserves among the civilized nations.
Soldiers! It is true that I do not belong to the noble military fraternity, but neither is Mr. Corral, a military man, who is in fact the Governor of Mexico at this time. Above all, be sure that, on the day set for the Mexican People to arise as one man against their oppressors, I will be among you and I will know how to prove that although I do not belong to your body, I admire your virtues, and I will know how to put into practice the ex-ample of those of our heroes who brought us independence and liberty, and, like them, I shall know how to fight bravely, if I am not destroyed by the bullets of the enemies of our people, and finally I shall know how to die-a glorious death, defending, at your side, the institutions of a Republic. Come then to our aide, enter the ranks of the revolution and turn your arms against our common enemy, against the tyrant of our nation, instead of making war upon your brothers, in place of continuing, against your will, to be scourges in the service of the Dictator. Remember that General Diaz has dishonored your flag, emblem of our country and symbol of military honor, causing it to be the emblem of tyranny and the symbol of oppression of our people, for which he has forced you to assassinate in Vera Cruz, Orizaba, Valladolid, Tlaxcala and so many other parts of the Republic! Take as your example the brilliant attitude of the Portuguese army, which, working faithfully with the people, was, able to drag down a decadent monarchy and to substitute for it a glorious republican regime.
The example You have at hand: You can see how with its admiration for the action of the Portuguese army, the entire world approves its conduct and demonstrates that above the military countersign are the noblest interests of a country. Follow, then, this worthy example, and remember that you are Mexicans, before you are soldiers:
EFFECTIVE SUFFRAGE. NO REELECTION.
SAN LUIS POTOSI, October 5, 1910 Francisco MADERO

Excerpts of his message of November 20, 1910

The Mexican presidential election of 1910 was stolen when Porfirio Diaz - the longtime dictator, had his opponent Madero arrested and imprisoned. Madero took refuge infled to San Antonio, and issued the Plan of San Luis Potosi calling for the nullification of the elections and upon Mexicans to take up arms against the government. The date of its issue marks the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
Peoples, in their constant efforts for the triumph of the ideal of liberty and justice, are forced, at precise historical moments, to make their greatest sacrifices.
Our beloved country has reached one of those moments. A force of tyranny which we Mexicans were not accustomed to suffer after we won our independence oppresses us in such a manner that it has become intolerable. In exchange for that tyranny we are offered peace, but peace full of shame for the Mexican nation, because its basis is not law, but force; because its object is not the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, but to enrich a small group who, abusing their influence, have converted the public charges into fountains of exclusively personal benefit, unscrupulously exploiting the manner of lucrative concessions and contracts.
The legislative and judicial powers are completely subordinated to the executive; the division of powers, the sovereignty of the States, the liberty of the common councils, and the rights of the citizens exist only in writing in our great charter; but, as a fact, it may almost be said that martial law constantly exists in Mexico; the administration of justice, instead of imparting protection to the weak, merely serves to legalize the plunderings committed by the strong; the judges instead of being the representatives of justice, are the agents of the executive, whose interests they faithfully serve; the chambers of the union have no other will than that of the dictator; the governors of the States are designated by him and they in their turn designate and impose in like manner the municipal authorities.
From this it results that the whole administrative, judicial, and legislative machinery obeys a single will, the caprice of General Porfirio Diaz, who during his long administration has shown that the principal motive that guides him is to maintain himself in power and at any cost.
For many years profound discontent has been felt throughout the Republic, due to such a system of government, but General Diaz with great cunning and perseverance, has succeeded in annihilating all independent elements, so that it was not possible to organize any sort of movement to take from him the power of which he made such bad use. The evil constantly became worse, and the decided eagerness of General Diaz to impose a successor upon the nations in the person of Mr. Ramon Corral carried that evil to its limit and caused many of us Mexicans, although lacking recognized political standing, since it had been impossible to acquire it during the 36 years of dictatorship, to throw ourselves into the struggle to recover the sovereignty of the people and their rights on purely democratic grounds....
In Mexico, as a democratic Republic, the public power can have no other origin nor other basis than the will of the people, and the latter can not be subordinated to formulas to be executed in a fraudulent manner. . . .
For this reason the Mexican people have protested against the illegality of the last election and, desiring to use successively all the recourses offered by the laws of the Republic, in due form asked for the nullification of the election by the Chamber of Deputies, notwithstanding they recognized no legal origin in said body and knew beforehand that, as its members were not the representatives of the people, they would carry out the will of General Diaz, to whom exclusively they owe their investiture.
In such a state of affairs the people, who are the only sovereign, also protested energetically against the election in imposing manifestations in different parts of the Republic; and if the latter were not general throughout the national territory, It was due to the terrible pressure exercised by the Government, which always quenches in blood any democratic manifestation, as happened in Puebla, Vera Cruz, Tlaxcala, and in other places.
But this violent and illegal system can no longer subsist. I have very well realized that if the people have designated me as their candidate. for the Presidency it is not because they have had an opportunity to discover in me the qualities of a statesman or of a ruler, but the virility of the patriot determined to sacrifice himself, if need be, to obtain liberty and to help the people free themselves from the odious tyranny that oppresses them.
From the moment I threw myself into the democratic struggle I very well knew that General Diaz would not bow to the will of the nation, and the noble Mexican people, in following me to the polls, also knew perfectly the outrage that awaited them; but in spite of it, the people gave the cause of liberty a numerous contingent of martyrs when they were necessary and with wonderful stoicism went to the polls and received every sort of molestation.
But such conduct was indispensable to show to the whole world that the Mexican people are fit for democracy, that they are thirsty for liberty, and that their present rulers do not measure up to their aspirations. Besides, the attitude of the people before and during the election, as well as afterwards, shows clearly that they reject with energy the Government of General Diaz and that, if those electoral rights had been respected, I would have been elected for President of the Republic.
Therefore, and in echo of the national will, I declare the late election illegal and, the Republic being accordingly without rulers, provisionally assume the Presidency of the Republic until the people designate their rulers pursuant to the law. In order to attain this end, it is necessary to eject from power the audacious usurpers whose only title of legality involves a scandalous and immoral fraud.
With all honesty I declare that it would be a weakness on my part and treason to the people, who have placed their confidence in me, not to put myself at the front of my fellow citizens, who anxiously call me from all parts of the country, to compel General Diaz by force of arms, to respect the national will.