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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 11, 1909
Los Angeles, California – Against All Odds, Shoaf Meets with Mexican Patriots
From the Appeal to Reason of January 9, 1909:
[by George H. Shoaf]
Los Angeles, Dec. 30.
SOCIALISTS and trade unionists with whom I talked relative to seeing the revolutionists, who were in jail “incommunicado,” declared emphatically that United States District Attorney Oscar Lawler would never let me see them. Only once in six months, they said, had the “incommunicado” rule been broken, and that was when Mrs. Librado Rivera was permitted to hold a few minutes’ conversation with her husband, in the presence of the jailer. Local newspaper men also who had been denied the usual privileges of the press in regard to interviewing prisoners stated that the matter of my seeing Magon and his comrades was entirely out of the question. Even Attorneys Harriman and Holstan, the only persons who were permitted to see the men, seriously doubted whether District Attorney Lawler would grant my request….
The surprise of the jailer, when the marshal ordered him to let me see Magon et al., can better be imagined than described, and when he learned that I was merely the correspondent of a Socialist paper-the Appeal to Reason-he nearly fell off his seat. Socialists are rare visitors at the county jail, except when they are locked up for some crime alleged to have been committed against the government, and I was the object of much curiosity on the part of the mailer and his assistants. So unusual was the order that even the jailer would not be convinced until he verified it by telephoning direct to the district attorney himself. I was invited into a room adjoining the jailer’s office, in which were a number of chairs and a table. Ten minutes later the door was thrown open and, accompanied by their guards, Magon, Villarreal and Rivera walked in…..
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Los Angeles, Dec. 30.
ACCORDING to the indictment returned by the federal grand jury at Tombstone, Ariz., Dec. 28, 1907, Ricardo Flores Magon, Antonio I. Villarreal, Librado Rivera and Manuel Sarabia are charged with conspiring to violate the neutrality laws of the United States by unlawfully confederating with Abram Salcido, Jone Bruno Travenio, Gabriel Rubio, Thomas D. Espinosa, Ildefonsa R. Martinez and others, in St. Louis, Mo., on and prior to July 1, 1906, to begin a military expedition and enterprise in the dominions of the United States against the United States of Mexico, and that pursuant to this conspiracy Abram Salcido and others, on or about Aug. 11, 1906, in Douglas, Ariz., did begin a military expedition against Mexico. On this charge, if the government acts in good faith, the imprisoned revolutionists will be taken from Los Angeles, Cal., to Tombstone, Ariz., and tried, beginning first with Magon, against whom, according to United States District Attorney J. L. B. Alexander, of Arizona, the government has the strongest case. The defense will be represented by Attorneys W. B. Cleary, of Bisbee, Ariz.; A. A. Worsley, of Tucson, Ariz., and Attorneys Job Harriman and A. R. Holstan, of Los Angeles, Cal….
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon, Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914
https://isreview.org/issue/101/intervention-and-prisoners-texas
https://books.google.com/books?id=JHOd18yUxrAC
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Jan 9, 1909
Page 1: Articles by Staff Writer, George H. Shoaf
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587592/
Page 2: “Tragic Story” Continued + ACT NOW!
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587594
Page 3: “Prison Bars” Continued
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67587596
Note: These two articles took up two-thirds of page one and all of pages 2 and 3. Sadly, behind pay wall, but well worth the price. (I am not paid by newspapers.com to make this statement.)
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 10, 1909
Big Bill Haywood & Mother Jones Rally Support for Mexican Patriots
Save Our Mexican Comrades is Message from Mother Jones & Big Bill Haywood in Appeal to Reason
Tag: Mexican Revolutionaries
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mexican-revolutionaries/
Tag: George H Shoaf
https://weneverforget.org/tag/george-h-shoaf/
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Class Struggle by Ricardo Flores Magon
PAN, TIERRA Y LIBERTAD – GENTE DEL PUEBLO