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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 11, 1909
Manuel Sarabia Tells Story of Illegal Arrest and Deportation
During the month of July 1907, Mexican Patriot Manuel Sarabia was arrested without warrant from off the streets of Douglas, Arizona, driven across the border, and handed over to Mexican rurales. We offer Part I of his telling of that event below, and will complete the story of his ordeal tomorrow.
From the International Socialist Review of May 1909:
—–How I Was Kidnaped
STORY OF MY ESCAPE FROM THE RURALES AND
HERMOSILLO PENITENTIARY
—–BY MANUEL SARABIA
—–The kidnaping of Manuel Sarabia from the jail at Douglas, Arizona, by the orders of the Mexican Consul, Antonio Maza, caused a furor of popular indignation in Southern Arizona. Public meetings were held, telegrams were sent to Washington, and finally the Mexican government was forced to release its prey. More than all else, has this kidnaping opened the eyes of Americans to the astonishing power of President Porfirio Diaz on this side of the line. Apparently, he can open and close the doors of United States jails at will, give orders to United States officials, and finally protect his secret service system now operating in this country from being punished for its misdeeds. (Manuel Sarabia is to be tried May 5th at Tombstone, Arizona.)
N Mexico, the rurales ride like the Cossacks of Russia, threatening, capturing and killing all who oppose the will of their master, the Dictator.
Mexico is accustomed to a military rule that strikes in the dark and gives no reason. To be taken from one’s home suddenly and without warrant, imprisoned with out having committed a crime, held “incommunicado” because your political opinions differ from those of the ruling power, all this Mexican citizens expect as part of their daily life.
But in the United States, everything is different, and so, when the long arm of President Porfirio Diaz stretches across the border line into this country and kidnaps those whom he fears and hates, it is time for American citizens to be on guard. For this reason, I write the account of my kidnaping.
It began with the red-faced man, who had been watching me from the opposite side of the street, crossing and intercepting my efforts to catch the train leaving Douglas, Arizona, for El Paso. I had a letter to drop into the mailcar and the locomotive was just then making a noise which meant “hurry up,” so I motioned to the man that he should wait and I would return. But my strange interceptor would have none of it, and striding in front of me, attempted to catch me by the shoulder.
I stopped, suddenly, facing him, amazed at the affront. Then he questioned me in a menacing voice:
“Can you speak English?”
I replied curtly, “Certainly—but what business have you with me?”
“You’re under arrest—that’s all,” was his harsh answer.
This made me indignant, for I was not then in Mexico, where people are caught up suddenly by the police and hurried away to jail because of their political opinions—this was the United States, and I demanded his warrant.
“Warrant! I need no warrant for you—look at this, hold up your hands!” And drawing a big, blue-barreled revolver from his hip pocket, he placed the muzzle against my breast.
All this violence on the part of a man who wore neither star nor uniform made me angry and suspicious. I refused to either hold up my hands or go with him until, finally, he caught me roughly by the shoulder and forced me along the sidewalk. I went, protesting, but what could one hundred and fifteen pounds do against two hundred? But my small frame against his great bulk still made him uneasy, and thinking that his revolver and himself needed help, my captor called to a workman in a neighboring lumber yard to come to his assistance “in the name of the law,” and between them, I was soon standing before the prison door.
You can imagine how help less I felt and how my indignation increased when the jailor, a big, black-browed fellow, said laughingly, as he turned the key of my cell door, “two millions of money couldn’t get you out.” And to further add to my trouble, he refused to allow me to communicate with friends, lawyer, or even tell what charges had caused my arrest. “You’re to be held incommunicado, that’s all,” he said with a parting grin.
These two men I shall never forget. At that time, they were nameless and unknown to me but now I know them well—greetings to you, Sam Hayhurst, ranger, and Lee Thompson, jailor of the Douglas Bastile.
You, my reader, have never been man-handled. And therefore you cannot imagine how the quick blood rushes through one’s veins when the officer’s hands search your pockets, piling upon the jailor’s desk private papers, letters, or possibly a photograph that should be kept from all but friendly eyes. All that day, I was in a fever of anger at the injustice of my arrest, and at night, I lay down upon the jail floor to rest. I could not sleep. In front of my jail door was an armed guard who peered in continuously as he paced back and forth in the white glare of the electric light.
It must have been about an hour before midnight that I heard the big key grate in the cell door. Raising my head from the floor I saw Shorpshire, the constable of Douglas, and a stranger (whom I afterwards learned was a Pinkerton detective) standing before the grating. The constable ordered me to get up and put on my coat—I had been using it for a pillow—adding “You’re going with us.”
I asked him where, but he refused to answer, and between the two men, I was marched through the jail and out into the night, the cool, sweet air being like a breath from heaven as compared with the foulness of my cell.
Standing close to the curb was an object that aroused my darkest suspicions. As the two yellow lights of the big-hooded automobile shot in parallel lines down the dark street, they seemed to go through and through me, and I shivered.
It was plain, I was to be kidnaped and hurried into Mexico by the means of this rubber-tired devil that stood puffing at the curb.
For fear that you may not yet understand why a man who is not a criminal should be handled as I was being handled, let me tell you that I am a member of the Junta of the Mexican Liberal Party, a political party that has dared to demand constitutional liberty, the right of free speech, a free press, and a free ballot in the Republic of Mexico. To-day all this is denied the citizens of my country—denied by the carbines of the Master of the Rurales—Porfirio Diaz.
My political faith had forced me to flee for my life from Mexico and now it looked as if I was to be hurried back into that unhappy country where waiting hands were ready to clutch me the moment I should set one foot across the border line.
Although I was handcuffed, and between two professional man-handlers, I determined to struggle to the utmost before I would willingly enter that waiting automobile. Ducking suddenly from under their arms, I dashed down the street. Like two dogs after a cat, they pursued me, and before a dozen yards were passed, I felt one’s hand upon my shoulder and with a jerk, I was lying upon the ground. I arose, panting and hatless, the two holding me firmly between them as I walked slowly back to the automobile. As my breath came back so did my determination to resist to the end this plain purpose of the kidnapers, and I began again to struggle, shouting out so that passersby might hear me, “Help, friends, I am being kidnaped—I have committed no crime. My name is Sarabia, Manuel Sarabia, help!”
With a few quick motions, the Pinkerton at my side pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, rolled it into a ball and, with a brutal thrust, pushed it into my mouth. I was gagged. My cries stopped. Between the two powerful men, I was lifted and pushed, struggling at every inch, into the open side of the big automobile.
“Pull down the curtains,” cried the Pinkerton to the constable, and then the chauffeur, “turn her loose—you know where—quick.”
The wheels began to grip the gravel and in a moment we were flying down the street out of the town.
The Pinkerton whipped a second handkerchief out of his pocket and bandaged it across my eyes. Gagged and blindfolded, I lay back upon the cushions exhausted. To struggle more was useless.
[Part I of II. Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones Save Our Mexican Comrades, AtR p3, Feb 20, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66981674
The International Socialist Review, Volume 9
(Chicago, Illinois)
July 1908-June 1909
Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1909
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z6o9AAAAYAAJ
May 1909 – ISR Vol IX, No 11
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Z6o9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA833
“How I was Kidnaped” by Manuel Sarabia
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Z6o9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA853
IMAGES
Manuel Sarabia, Rurales, ISR p352, May 1909
Letter I, ISR p352, May 1909
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Z6o9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA852
Porfirio Diaz, ISR p354, May 1909
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Z6o9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA854
Guard of Rurales, ISR p355, May 1909
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Z6o9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA855
See also:
Sacramento Union, Volume 113, Number 141, 13 July 1907
“AN OUTRAGE ON THE MEXICO
Manuel Sarabia Kidnaped by Three American Officers
and Passed Over to Mexican Rurales.”
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SU19070713.2.15&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones
for July 1907, Part II: Found in Speaking in Arizona
Barbarous Mexico
-by John Kenneth Turner
CH Kerr, 1910
Page 276:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=yU1-AKFDlrQC&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA276
Tag: Manuel Sarabia
https://weneverforget.org/tag/manuel-sarabia/
Tag: Mexican Revolutionaries
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mexican-revolutionaries/
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