When Benito Juárez, president of Mexico, died in 1872, he was succeeded by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, who acted as interim president until he was elected by popular vote that same year. He was reelected in 1876, but Gen. Porfirio Díaz revolted and forced Lerdo to abandon the presidency and the country. In New York, where Lerdo had established his residence, and where he later died in 1889, the deposed president gave daily receptions and was visited by his followers, as well as by those in exile who opposed Díaz. Among Lerdo's daily visitors was the newspaperman Adolfo Carrillo, one of the many Mexican writers and politicians who took refuge in the United States in order to escape persecution by the Díz dictatorship. Carrillo's exile was due to his ceaseless fight for freedom of...