Tag: Barbarous Mexico

Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason Correspondent, John Kenneth Turner, Begins Series on “Government by Gunmen”

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 14, 1914
Mother Jones Praises John Kenneth Turner’s Series, “Government by Gunmen”

From the Appeal to Reason of May 9, 1914:

John Kenneth Turner Opens Fire
On Government by Gunmen

WV Mother Jones w John Kenneth Turner 1913, AtR p1, Apr 11, 1914

Here follows the introductory article of the “Government by Gunmen” series. In investigating these facts John Kenneth Turner risked his life, as it required his association with gunmen, detectives and the riff-raff of capitalist society. Several times he was warned by friends to drop his investigations. A reformed gunman has written the Appeal urging us to suppress this series if we valued Turner’s life. But the author of “Barbarous Mexico” and the investigator of West Virginia and other recent labor wars, laughs at this threat. He believes that the publicity given to this series will not only protect him but all who are today in danger of being “eliminated” by the murderous detective agencies. Here then is the beginning of the “Government by Gunmen” series. And every week for nearly half a year we shall bring before the public bar the strongest indictment of Capitalism’s Invisible Army that was ever attempted in this country. The Appeal feels that our first and most important duty is to abolish Government by Gunmen. It must be done-it will be done. 

By JOHN KENNETH TURNER
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.

Gunthug Gun n Booze, AtR p1, May 9, 1914

In the county jail at Marysville, Cal., a short time ago I talked with two young workingmen who were on trial for murder. A jury of twelve men-not working men-has since declared them guilty and a judge has sentenced them to imprisonment at hard labor for the rest of their natural lives.

Yet these two workingmen had not killed anybody. Nor had they planned or attempted to kill anybody.

One, Richard Ford, is ruined for life-torn from his wife and two little children forever-solely because he became the spokesman for 2,300 hop-pickers who went on strike against intolerable conditions.

The career of the other, Herman Suhr, is blasted-he too, is unfortunate enough to possess a wife and two children-solely because he signed a number of telegrams asking that organizers be sent to the hop-fields to enroll the 2,300 pickers in a labor union.

The arrest, the trial and the conviction of Ford and Suhr was a deliberate frame-up of a ring of capitalists, in which a private detective agency took a necessary and criminal part…..

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “The Mexican Revolution is at an end.” -Ancient Tyrant Diaz Resigns

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Jack London, Comrades of Mexican Revolution, Sac Str p1, Feb 6, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 28, 1911
“The Mexican Revolution is at an end. Diaz has resigned.”

From the Appeal to Reason of May 27, 1911:

Diaz Has Resigned
————

Taft Diaz Meet, El Regidor p1, Oct 21, 1909
Taft Meets with Diaz
El Regidor of October 21, 1909

The Mexican revolution is at an end. Diaz has resigned. Sick almost to the point of death, with the entire nation in revolt against him, with an army marching on Mexico City, and with his own advisers presenting a resignation asking his signature, the ancient tyrant finally called: “Bring the resignation; I’ll sign now. You are traitors all.” The resignation was brought, he affixed his signature and the Diaz dynasty was at an end. DeLa Bara was proclaimed provisional president. Madero officially declared the revolution at an end and disbanded his army, and then went to Mexico City to act as advisor to the new president.

This is one story as sent out from Mexico. Others says that Diaz has not yet resigned, but will do so soon. The one fact is clear that he has already lost.

Thus ends a remarkable historical event that was practically inaugurated by the APPEAL TO REASON. When three years ago, the APPEAL began its expose of the Mexican situation, Diaz was deemed impregnable, and almost every capitalist paper in America loudly denounced the Appeal for calling him a tyrant. But the exposure, once began, would not end. An eastern magazine supplemented it, and though it discontinued its expose for some mysterious reason, the light did not fail.

The American government imprisoned refugees from the tyranny of Diaz, Taft visited Diaz and called “him friend ; but the truth could not longer be hidden. Finally the Mexican people summoned sufficient courage to rebel openly. The American army was sent to the border and talk of “American intervention” was rife; but the revolution went right on. It came to the point where the capitalist papers, deserting the old lion and liar, Diaz, told the truth about him. Every charge the APPEAL made has been fully substantiated. Finally the overthrow of the tyrant came. It is the most notable case in history of a newspaper, by its exposure, overthrowing one who had for more than twenty-five years, held dictatorial powers and whose reign was buttressed by the flattery of thousands of beneficiaries of his tyranny in America. The APPEAL Army really did more than Madero’s army.

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Mexico’s Díaz Regime Replies to Reporting from the Appeal to Reason

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Quote John Murray re Rio Blanco Martyrs, ISR p653, Mar 1909———–

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 2, 1910
“Mexico Replies to the Appeal to Reason” by C. M. Brooks

From the International Socialist Review of October 1910:

Mexico Dictator Diaz, ISR p211, Oct 1, 1910

Letter T, ISR p894, Apr 1910

HE exposures of the horrible conditions in Mexico by John Kenneth Turner, in the Appeal to Reason, are arousing a spirit of inquiry all over the United States that is going to prove increasingly embarrassing to the government on this side of the border line. Famous captains of industry who have invested heavily in Mexican industries are becoming alarmed. It is interesting to note the sudden bursts of enthusiasm experienced by some of the radical magazines and newspapers on matters Mexican these days. Evidently somebody’s palm has been crossed, or somebody’s pocket-book has been touched or somebody’s skin has been threatened. One grows curious to see just how far the epidemic will spread.

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Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Mother Jones before House Committee on Behalf of Persecuted Mexican Refugees, Part I

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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 17, 1910
Washington D. C. – Mother Jones Before House Rules Committee, Part I

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 was called to the stand by Congressman William B. Wilson of Pennsylvania. Mother testified as follow:

Mr. Wilson: Mr. Chairman, I would like to have Mother Jones speak.
The Chairman [Representative John Dalzell of Pennsylvania]:
Mother Jones, please give the stenographer your name and residence.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY JONES

[Part I of II.]

Mother Jones re Mex Rev, Lebanon PA Dly Ns p7, June 15, 1910
Lebanon Daily News
June 15, 1910

[Questioned by Chairman Dalzell:]

My name is Mary Jones. I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly in what place, because I am always in the fight against oppression, and wherever a fight is going on I have to jump there, and sometimes I am in Washington, sometimes in Pennsylvania, sometimes in Arizona, sometimes in Texas, and sometimes up in Minnesota, so that really I have no particular residence…No abiding place, but wherever a fight is on against wrong, I am always there. It is my pleasure to be in the fray.

[Mr. Wilson questions Mother about the kidnapping of Manual Sarabia from Douglas, Arizona, during summer of 1907:]

I was in Arizona at that time. We had a strike on there with the Philip Dodge copper interest. The smelters, the men, or the slaves, rather, working in the smelters, had not been organized, and I went down there in Douglas to help organize those workers.

[Wilson asks Mother if she would rather sit down] I am so accustomed to standing when I am talking that I am uncomfortable when sitting down. That is too easy. [Laughter.]

Well, I was holding a meeting on the streets of Douglas on Sunday night for the workers that were in the smelters. An automobile was run out from the jail, from what I learned afterwards and this young Sarabia was thrown into it.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones Calls for Action to Save Mexican Revolutionaries

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Quote Mother Jones re Mex Rev Fornaro, NYT p15, Nov 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 17, 1910
Mother Jones Calls on Men and Women of America to Defend Mexican Comrades

From the Appeal to Reason of April 16, 1910:

Mex Rev, Mother Jones Call to Action, AtR p2, Apr 16, 1910

Mex Rev, Sarabia Villarreal, Magon, Rivera, Barbarous MX p272, 1910

To men and women of the United State I stand pleading. There are in our federal prisons some eight or ten Mexican revolutionists who have been silently railroaded to the American bastiles at the behest of the worst tyrant which ever cursed God’s earth-Diaz of Mexico. He can reach across the line, handle our courts and force them to do anything he wants to.

Some humane congressmen have introduced a bill of inquiry asking the attorney general to explain why as revolutionists these men are held. The American nation was founded on revolution. I beg of you in the name of freedom to flood Congress with letters demanding that this investigation be pushed to the end. No pigeonholing. Don’t loose any time, or your hands will be red with the blood of martyrs, as are the hands of Diaz.

Don’t fail, the cause of justice falls on you to hear the pleading of our brothers from behind the bars of the capitalist bastiles.

Oh men, and women, move at once and save these brave revolutionists!

[Photograph and paragraph breaks added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: “Mexico and Murder” by Mother Jones, Praises Article by John Kenneth Turner

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Wake fr Slumber, AtR p2, Oct 23, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 24, 1909
Mother Jones Praises Article by Turner on Brutality of Mexican Government

From the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1909:

Mexico and Murder
———-

BY MOTHER JONES

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

I RISE to ask the American people, have you read John K. Turner’s article in the American Magazine for October on the frightful brutality of the Mexican government towards its people? If not, read it at once. Then ask your Christian minister why they are silent in the face of this frightful tragedy at our very doors.

Why are they silent? Because they worship at the shrine of Mammon.

If the Revolutionary fathers could come back to earth, the first question they would ask would be what has become of the national pride? Did it die with the immortal Lincoln? Look at the frightful pictures in the American Magazine. Imagine these lashes falling on your flesh. See and feel the blood dripping from your body. Go down to Belem prison see the shocking pictures there. Then, men and women, ask yourselves, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Look at their lacerated bodies, their hopeless lives.

They ask you, does God sleep? No, he does not. He will wipe out injustice with suffering, wrong with blood, and sin with death. The disgraceful phase of it all is that we stand and see the public officials whom we pay, become bloodhounds and man-grabbers in the service of bloody Diaz.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Ricardo Flores Magón, from Prison: “Mexico-the Workers’ Hell”

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Quote Ricardo Flores Magon, Nothing But Death, AtR p2, May 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 31, 1909
From Tombstone, Arizona – Ricardo Flores Magón on Plight of Mexican Workers

From the Appeal to Reason of May 29, 1909:

Mex Rev, Mexico by Magon, AtR p2, May 29, 1909—–

Mex Rev, Sentenced to 18 Months, AtR p2, May 29, 1909—–

Written for the Appeal to Reason.

Letter I, AtR p2, May 29, 1909F MORE crimes are necessary to perpetuate slavery in the United States and Mexico, capitalism will perpetrate them. But capitalism holds a two edged sword, and even though it wound the working class it will mortally wound itself also. Our case exemplifies this. Before the Mexican revolutionists were the objects of persecution many American patriots beheld with rejoicing the power American capitalism was accumulating in Mexico. It was a matter of national pride for those sincere citizens that American plutocrats were acquiring the best mines, the richest lands and the most powerful industries in Mexico. The capitalist press has stimulated and nourished this sentiment in a masterly way and points with price to the fact that the capitalists of the great country of George Washington are aggrandizing themselves. They even feel great pride that ht creatures of wealth have eaten everything up. But this famous sword in hurting us has also wounded those who used it.

A spontaneous movement of protest is agitating the American people. It grows stronger day by day, extending from ocean to ocean, demanding the emancipation of the slaves of Mexico. Through our persecution the outrages existing in the southern republic have become known. Mexicans are miners in political matters, because they cannot vote. There, any one who dares to exercise his constitutional right of suffrage pays for it with his life.

A Land Without Freedom.

The right of freedom of speech, press and assemblage was buried thirty-three years ago, and each year the tyrant waters its grave with fresh blood. Porfirio Diaz appoints all officials, though the constitution provides for their election by the people, who are maltreated, exploited and assassinated. While surrounded by officials, rangers and soldiers one fears danger more than in a dense forest where wild beasts may be hidden behind any tree ready to spring on him any moment.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Canaea Riots Not a Revolution But Simply a Strike of Under-Paid Labor”

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday July 1, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: George Shoaf on Cananea Strike, Part I

James Kirwan WFM, Quoted in AtR of June 30, 1906
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Canaea Riots Not a Revolution But Simply a Strike of Under-Paid Labor”” →