Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 18, 1910
Washington D. C. – Mother Jones Before House Rules Committee, Part II
Washington D. C., June 14, 1910-During the morning session of the Hearings before the House Rules Committee on H.J. Res. 201, “Providing for a Joint Committee To Investigate Alleged Persecutions of Mexican Citizens by the Government of Mexico,” Mother Jones continued her testimony as follow:
STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY JONES
[Part II of II.]
Lebanon Daily News June 15, 1910
I left there [Arizona] then, but in 1908, immediately after the campaign. I learned from those men in jail at Los Angeles their condition [Ricardo Flores Magon, Librado Rivera, and Antonio I. Villareal]. They were without money, without aid, and I felt that they were just like Kosciuszko, Carl Schurz, Kossuth, and Garibaldi, and men of that kind, who received protection in our country from the tyrannical governments which they fled from, and I felt they were entitled to some protection, and that if they were without money, but were in the fight for liberty, a fight against the most bloody tyrant that has been produced, I would protect them; and so, although I was not in very good health, I went out and raised $4,000. I sent it West to get stenographers, hire attorneys, and bring witnesses to Tombstone, Arizona, where they were to be tried. I did not expect any great amount of mercy from the court at Tombstone, because Judge Doan is not very humane man. People who are feasting and eating and drinking with those who own the fleshpots of Egypt are not generally very humane characters. But I still felt that probably through the efforts we were making, and the publicity we were giving it, they would not be turned over to be murdered, and if they could be saved from being murdered that would satisfy me, knowing that some day we would get them out of the clutches of the tyrant. And so they were tried and sentenced to eighteen days in Yuma. From there they were moved to the new prison.
Now, then, to finish my part of it. After I had raised that money and sent it west and they were tried and sentenced, there were four then in the penitentiary in Leavenworth. I went up to the penitentiary to see them, and saw the warden, and I went to see this Sylva [Prisciliano Silva], who was dying at that time, apparently. He was sick, and he appealed to me. To think that in an institution like that a patriot should perish and we should stand by and see him. So I immediately came to see the president [President Taft] about him, and I put the matter before the president, and the president gave me a very nice audience, and he said, “Mother, if you will bring me the evidence, I will read it over.” I went back to the penitentiary, got a notary public, got a man who spoke the language, and I took him up there, and I asked the warden to give me permission to speak with those prisoners, and the warden very graciously brought them in, and they sat there and I took the evidence. When they were about going out of the room I looked at these men and thought, how sad it is that our Constitution must be buried underfoot in the interest of the tyrant across the line. So I looked at the poor fellows, and I said, “Boys, be good boys and some day you will get out,” and the warden turned and he said, “Mother, they are always good; they have never given us any trouble.”
I came here and brought the documents to the president in Washington again, and the president said, “Mother Jones, I am very much afraid if I put the pardoning power in your hands there would not be anyone left in the penitentiaries.” [Laughter.] I said, “Mr. President, if this nation devoted half the money and half the energy to give men an opportunity to get out of the penitentiaries-the men who are forced into them-we would not need any penitentiaries in the country.”
Now, that was my part of it. I then went into Texas. We agitated the question there along the line and drew the attention of the people of Texas to the crimes of our officers. We pay, I believe, over $8,000,000 a year to hire secret service men. They must hold their jobs, and someone has got to be made a criminal in order that reports can be sent to the government.
[Mrs. Wilson asks how long from time Sarabia was kidnaped until he was returned.]
Eight days. Captain Wheeler went to …
[Mr. Clark asks who sent Captain Wheeler to bring Sarabia back from Mexico-President or Governor.]
That I did not inquire into, so long as they made an attempt to bring him back.
[Mr. Clark asks if Mother knows where they were keeping Sarabia.] Yes; they were keeping him in the Hermosillo Penitentiary. I felt that it was our duty as citizens of the United States to look into these things. I do not think, gentlemen, that this country should run penitentiaries in the interest of the Mexican government. From all I can learn and from all I have seen along the line, and even in Mexico itself, I think the conditions are almost appalling and it ought to be investigated to the very end, no matter who has to suffer. I believe that justice should come first, and I believe that the blood that our forefathers spilled should not have been spilled in vain, and that these wretches who have some interest in human freedom and liberty should not be arrested, threatened, and hounded.
Now, the document that I brought to the president was evidence from [Calixto] Guerra that this secret-service man, Priestly, when he took him to the court, talked to him and told him, “You must swear so and so,” and the wretch did not understand the English language and simply expressed what the secret-service man told him to. He made that statement, I think, in the presence of the warden of the federal penitentiary.
I have been interested in these cases from the humane point of view, and also from the patriotic point. I believe that this country is the cradle of liberty. My forefathers came here. I came here under the shelter of this flag, and when we say that we can not start an expedition to suppress these wrongs, we say something that is unjust and contrary to precedent. The Irish Fenians started it in Canada and carried it into this country. All the money that supplied Parnell in the effort to overthrow English rule in Ireland came from this country, and it is not long ago since $50,000 was sent from Boston over there to Ireland.
We have only sent to these men the little money we can collect; and, gentlemen, in the name of our heroes, in the name of those unborn, and in the name of those whose statues stand in Statuary Hall, I beg that this body of Representatives will probe down to this evil and protect these wretches from the tyranny and oppression of that bloody pirate [Porfirio Diaz]. I would like to get a chance at it. [Laughter.]
Mr. Wilson: I simply want to state, Mr. Chairman, that we have in our possession, or Mr. Turner and Mr. Murrayhave in their possession, a mass of additional evidence along the same line that has been presented. Out of deference to the wishes of the committee we have boiled it down as much as we could, and we feel that we have demonstrated the necessity of an investigation of the entire question.
(Thereupon, at 12:15 o’clock p. m., the hearings were concluded.)
———-
