MADERO 



3579 



MADISON 



Amazon River. It is formed by the union of 

 several smaller rivers on the boundary between 

 Brazil and Bolivia, and its general direction is 

 northeast. Its principal tributary is the Rio 

 Teodoro, formerly the Rio Duvida (River of 

 Doubt), which was made known to the world 

 by the Roosevelt-Rondon scientific expedition 

 in 1914. This latter stream, 1,000 miles long, 

 had previously been known to the' natives, but 

 Theodore Roosevelt was the first white man to 

 explore it. The Madeira River is about 2,000 

 miles long, and at its mouth is nearly two 

 miles wide and sixty-five feet deep. It is navi- 

 gable up to a point about 480 miles from its 

 mouth, where magnificent cataracts occur; be- 

 yond this point navigation is again resumed. 

 It is named Madeira, which is Portuguese for 

 wood, because of the quantity of driftwood sent 

 down by the current. * 



MADERO, mah da'ro, FRANCISCO (1873-1913), 

 a President of Mexico following his leadership 

 of the revolutionary movement which deposed 

 Porfirio Diaz, who had been at the head of the 

 government for more than a generation. Ma- 

 dero was born in San Pedro, of a wealthy fam- 

 ily which gave him a good education. He was 

 a liberal in politics and always an idealist. 

 Having become interested in politics as a re- 

 sult of fraudulent elections in 1903 and in 1908, 

 he published a book in which he attacked the 



policy and administration of President Diaz. 

 The book was immediately suppressed, but his 

 open attack made him the only possible candi- 

 date against Diaz in 1910, and the supporters of 

 the president promptly had him arrested on 

 absurd charges, on June 27, 1910. He was re- 

 leased too late to take part in the election, but 

 immediately issued The Plan of San Luis Po- 

 tosi, advocating effective suffrage and no reelec- 

 tion, but appealing for an uprising. He was 

 forced to flee to the United States, but his ad- 

 herents opened the revolution and Madero re- 

 turned to direct the campaign. He was suc- 

 cessful, and Diaz, seeing the futility of further 

 resistance, finally made peace in May, 1911. 



In October Madero was unanimously elected 

 President, but throughout his administration he 

 was harassed by revolutions. General Huerta, 

 commander of the government troops, deserted 

 him, and in 1912 Madero and the Vice-Presi- 

 dent were arrested and forced to resign. On 

 February 23, 1913, while being transferred from 

 one prison to another, they were both mur- 

 dered. No satisfactory explanation of this out- 

 rage was offered, but it is generally understood 

 that Huerta instigated the act. 



. Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 



the following articles in these volumes 



Diaz, Porfirio Mexico, 



Huerta, Victoriano subtitle History 



ADISON, JAMES (1751-1836), an 

 American statesman, one of the ablest of the 

 younger men who were conspicuous during the 

 Revolutionary War and the period following 

 it, one of the contributors to the Federalist, 

 "Father of the Constitution," author of the Vir- 

 ginia Resolutions, Secretary of State for the 

 eight years of Jefferson's Presidency, and finally 

 himself President of the United States. Madi- 

 son is not one of America's popular heroes. 

 Even in his own lifetime, although his ability 

 won cordial recognition and confidence, he did 

 not win the affections of the people to the de- 

 gree, for example, to which Jefferson did. His 

 reputation suffered, moreover, from the misfor- 



tunes which befell American arms in the War 

 of 1812, and it has never fully recovered. Yet 

 Madison's career is one of the brightest in the 

 early years of the United States, and his fame 

 wilt never perish, if for no other reason than 

 that he was the "Father of the Constitution." 

 He was not an intrepid statesman, but "his calm 

 good sense," as the historian Ticknor says, "and 

 the tact with which he could adapt theory to 

 practice were among his prominent character- 

 istics." Jefferson said of him that "with con- 

 summate powers was united a pure and spotless 

 virtue." In practice he sometimes fell a vic- 

 tim to party politics, but in theory he was just 

 and keen. He was a clever diplomat, a graceful 



