Porfirio Diaz possessed and exercised both.

He was, in fact, just the man for the times.

An able administrator, stern and severe but just, rather reserved in manner and guarded in utterance, shrewd in the selection of associates, and singularly successful in his dealings with foreigners, he entered upon a "presidential reign" of thirty-five years broken by but one intermission of four--which brought Mexico out upon the highway to new national life.
Under the stable and efficient rulership of Diaz, "plans," "pronunciamentos," "revolutions," and similar devices of professional trouble makers, had short shrift.

Whenever an uprising started, it was promptly quelled, either by a well-disciplined army or by the rurales, a mounted police made up to some extent of former bandits to whom the President gave the choice of police service or of sharp punishment for their crimes.

Order, in fact, was not always maintained, nor was justice always meted out, by recourse to judges and courts.