Editing History of Mexico (section)

===Order, progress, and dictatorship===
[[File:Mexico City street market 1885.jpg|thumb|right|Mexico City street market]]

Díaz reduced the Army from 30,000 to under 20,000 men, which resulted in a smaller percentage of the national budget being committed to the military. The army was modernized, well-trained, and equipped with the latest technology. The Army was top-heavy with 5,000 officers, many of them elderly but politically well-connected veterans of the wars of the 1860s.<ref>{{cite book|author=Philip S. Jowett|title=The Mexican Revolution 1910–20|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8RYRRYEufokC&pg=PA27|year=2006|publisher=Osprey Publishing|pages=27–31|isbn=978-1-84176-989-9}}</ref>

The political skills that Díaz used so effectively before 1900 faded, as he and his closest advisers were less open to negotiations with younger leaders. His announcement in 1908 that he would retire in 1911 unleashed a widespread feeling that Díaz was on the way out and that new coalitions had to be built. He nevertheless ran for reelection and in a show of U.S. support, Díaz and [[William Howard Taft|William Taft]] planned a summit in [[El Paso, Texas]], and [[Ciudad Juárez]], Mexico, for October 16, 1909, a historic first meeting between a Mexican and a U.S. president and also the first time an American president would cross the border into Mexico.<ref name="Harris2009">{{cite book |last1=Harris|first1=Charles H. III|last2=Sadler|first2=Louis R.|title=The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906–1920 |year=2009|publisher=University of New Mexico Press|location=Albuquerque, New Mexico|pages=1–17, 213|isbn=978-0-8263-4652-0}}</ref> The meeting focused attention on the disputed [[Chamizal dispute|Chamizal strip]] and resulted in assassination threats and other serious security concerns.<ref name="Harris2009"/> At the meeting, Díaz told [[John Hays Hammond]], "Since I am responsible for bringing several billion dollars in foreign investments into my country, I think I should continue in my position until a competent successor is found."<ref>{{cite book | last = Obrador| first = Andrés Manuel López| title = Neoporfirismo: Hoy como ayer | publisher=Grijalbo | year = 2014 | location = Berkeley, CA | isbn = 978-607-31-2326-6}}</ref> Díaz was re-elected after a highly controversial election, but he was overthrown in 1911 and forced into exile in France after Army units rebelled.