Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 23, 1909
Tucson, Arizona – Mexican Patriots Arrive in Shackles
From the Appeal to Reason of March 20, 1909:
Uncivilized Methods of Treatment.
From Los Angeles Herald, News Report.
[-of March 4, 1909]
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With expressions of appreciation for even the temporary enjoyment of God’s sunlight, three patriots, Ricardo Flores Magon, Antonio Villarreal and Librado Rivera, yesterday left the iron confines of the county jail, which has been their home for eighteen months. The three men were charged with breaches of the neutrality laws of the United States, and strongly guarded and shackled like the most dangerous of criminals, apparently to give a color of desperation to their inoffensive, characters, they were started on the journey to Arizona to stand trial.
Friends of the men declare it was an insult to their law abiding spirit to effect the removal with such secrecy and circulate the report that an attempt would be made to rescue them from the hands of their guards. None was made, and the only impression created by the strong protection against “attack” was one of amusement.
Loaded into an automobile at 8:00 o’clock the men were whirled quickly to the Arcade depot and boarded the train leaving for the east at 8:05. They arrived in Tucson early this morning [March 4th] and were immediately turned over to the United States marshal for Arizona.The trial probably will take place in Tombstone at the next term of the United States court.
The three men, with Manuel Sarabia, were arrested in September, 1907. Efforts to extradite them failed. Sarabia finally agreed to return to Arizona to stand trial. He is now at liberty on bond. Magon, Villarreal and Rivera began habeas corpus proceedings for their release. These were carried to the supreme court of the United States.
Placed Incommunicado.
The peculiar and uncivilized method of treating prisoners in vogue in Mexico was put into effect in Los Angeles when it was ordered that the men be held incommunicado. Unable to communicate with their friends or relatives and to appeal for assistance, funds so badly needed to carry on the proceedings in Washington were not forthcoming, and the appeal was dismissed January 4.
Since then the men have been anxious to leave their miserable quarters in Los Angeles and risk the danger which they believe is ever present, in Arizona of being rushed across the line into Mexico and executed without legal formality.
Job Harriman, 1902
Job Harriman, attorney for the prisoners, expresses himself as much astonished at the course pursued by the authorities, as he claims to have had positive assurance from United States District Attorney Lawler that he should be given six days’ clear notice of any such move, whereas he was left in complete ignorance that the step taken was even contemplated.
Friends of the accused men voice the greatest anxiety as to their fate, holding that there is danger of their being kidnaped, taken across the border and handed over to the Mexican authorities, which, it is maintained, would be equivalent to a death sentence.
The prosecution of the men has been regarded in many parts of the country, and also in Europe, as more persecution than an effort to effect the ends of justice. Societies are interesting themselves in behalf of the liberators and a defense fund to be used in their behalf is now being raised. The National Political Defense league of Chicago, having for its purpose the protection from persecution of political refugees in the United States, is working earnestly for their liberation and has sent copies of a petition in their behalf to Los Angeles and other cities. This petition reads:
Diaz Bitterly Denounced.
In Los Angeles three Mexican patriots are held incommunicado in the county jail. These imprisoned Mexicans fled to this country from the persecutions and tyrannies practiced by the dictator of Mexico, President Porfirio Diaz.
Diaz has destroyed all constitutional liberty in Mexico. He has filled the jails with a multitude of his countrymen who dared oppose his political will and shot to death hundreds of their leaders without trial. Not satisfied with pursuing these patriots through Mexica, the dictator has his hired agents traversing the United States, and, with the assistance of American officials, is placing his enemies in American jails. Against this we most earnestly protest, demanding that the American constitutional right of asylum be maintained and that all political refugees in this country be given their freedom.
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[Photographs and emphasis added.]
[Note: Italics in original.]
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SOURCES
Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon, ed, Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914
https://isreview.org/issue/101/intervention-and-prisoners-texas
(search: “lift a piece of bread”) https://books.google.com/books?id=JHOd18yUxrAC
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