Madero, a saint? Spiritist liberal hagiography in a letter of Rogelio Fernandez Guell, 1911

Abstract

This article shows how the Costa Rican poet and journalist Rogelio Fernández Güell constructs an hagiography of Francisco I. Madero at a key moment in History: elected President of Mexico will assume the Head of State in November of 1911, and critical voices lack against his supposed missing "gift of command" and his “disability” to govern the nation after the Mexican Revolution. Through persuasive rhetorical strategies, as in the past centuries they were used to tell  life of saints, the author pushes to convince and to guide future governed people. He also defends Madero, the first President of Mexico elected by popular vote in the 20th Century, and for this purpose he summarizes his origins, his providential obedience, his spirituality, visions and revelations he had and the great miracle that means overthrowing Porfirio Díaz’s long dictatorship. Liberal leader’s “study of personality" is finished, after explaining the way Madero was illuminated from Heaven to lead Mexican nation into a new route.