During the closing days of his administration, Mr. Taft was seriously beset by troubles with Mexico. Under the long and severe rule of General Porfirio Diaz in that country, order had been set up there (at whatever cost to humanity) and American capital had streamed into Mexican mines, railways, plantations, and other enterprises. In 1911, Diaz was overthrown by Francisco Madero and the latter was hardly installed in power before he was assassinated and a dictatorship set up under General Huerta, in February, 1913. After the overthrow of Diaz in 1911, Mexico was filled with revolutionary turmoil, and American lives and property were gravely menaced. In April, 1912, Mr. Taft solemnly warned the Mexican government that the United States would hold it responsible for the destruction of American property and the taking of American life, but this warning was treated with scant courtesy by President Madero. The disorders continued to increase, and demands for intervention on the part of the United States were heard from innumerable interested quarters, but Mr. Taft refused to be drawn into an armed conflict. The Mexican trouble he bequeathed to his successor. FOOTNOTES: [79] Congress by an act of 1907 forbade campaign contributions by corporations, in connection with Federal elections, and in 1910 and 1911 enacted laws providing for the publicity of expenses in connection with elections to Congress. [80] The Sixteenth Amendment was proclaimed in force on February 25, 1913. [81] See below, p. 332. [82] See above, p. 135. [83] United States _v._ Trans-Missouri Freight Assn., 166 U. S. 290. CHAPTER XIII THE CAMPAIGN OF 1912 Long before the opening of the campaign of 1912, the dissenters in the Republican party who had added the prefix of "Progressive" to the old title, began to draw together for the purpose of resisting the renomination of Mr. Taft and putting forward a candidate more nearly in accord with their principles. As early as January 21, 1911, a National Progressive Republican League was formed at the residence of Senator La Follette in Washington and a program set forth embracing the indorsement of direct primaries, direct elections, and direct government generally and a criticism of the recent failures to secure satisfactory legislation on the tariff, trusts, banking, and conservation. Only on the changes in our machinery of government did the League take a definite stand; on the deeper issues of political economy it was silent, at least as to positive proposals. Mr. Roosevelt was invited to join the new organization, but he declined to identify himself with it.