Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1901 — DIAZ REPORTED INSANE. [ARTICLE]

DIAZ REPORTED INSANE.

Soldier and Statesman Kept In Seclusion. HE FEARS ASSASSINATION. Meatal Malady Partly Daa to Arrayef* Attempt on Hta Ufa and Sebeeqoent Dtoaorai-y of a PoUUcl Plot —Nature <rf Malady. "President Dias will never rule Mexico again,” said a prominent army officer and a close friend of the president, the other day, “for he la insane and the doctors have no hope of his recovery.” Rumors of a like nature have been rife in the city ever since the president hurriedly left the capital two months ago without giving any official notice of his departure. It is now pretty generally believed he was hurried out of the city by those close to him to keep from the public the fact that his mind was badly affected. The president’s malady takes the form of a great dread that some one is going to kill him, and he believes that assassins are hidden in his winter residence here, the castle of Chapul tepee. One of the doctors attendant upon General Diaz said a few days ago that the old man appears quite childish, and that the strong will that made a nation out of a disorganized conglomeration of states peopled by robbers, cut-throats and political intriguers, baa completely broken down and left the old man as helpless as a child. All there is left of his former strong self is his obstinate refusal to come back to Chapultepec castle. A member of the legislature and a man who has been in close touch with the president for years, said this week: "The present malady of General Diaz commenced to show itself in slight eccentricities some three or four years ago when an attempt was made upon his life by a drunken tailor named Arroyo. At the time the general public attached no great importance to this incident, nor did they think the president did. But the event had a significance which the public did not see, for Arroyo was but the tool in the hands of others who wished to get Dias out of the way so that another prominent official might become president”