Tag: Mexican Revolution

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: John Murray on the Prisons of Diaz, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD Mex Revolutionairies, AtR p2, Oct 10, 1908———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 4, 1909
John Murray on the Horrors of the Private Prisons of Diaz, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of April 1909:

Mex Rev, Diaz Prison by Murray, ISR p737, ISR Apr 1909
—–

[Part I]

Mex Rev, Diaz Prison by Murray, A, ISR p737, ISR Apr 1909S soon as we were alone at the end of the pier breasting the Vera Cruz harbor, the little, pock-marked secretary of the revolutionary group pulled from his pockets a piece of grey stone and held up before my eyes.

“Look at that!”

I took the fragment from his slim, brown fingers and turned it over curiously. It was a piece of coarse, grey coral.

“See! It’s porous. Now do you understand? The whole prison’s built of it.”

With an upward jerk of his hand he leveled an accusing finger at the white-washed walls of the fortress-prison shining in the sun across the waters of the blue bay.

“There it stands! On that island, yonder! San Juan de Ulua! The foulest spot in all Mexico—Diaz’ private prison for his political enemies!”

The corners of the man’s mouth drew down into a snarl and his eyes narrowed to burning slits of hate as he gazed in the direction of the fortress.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on Journey with Fred Warren to Leavenworth Prison for Visit with Comrade Araujo

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote RF Magon, no AtR in jail, p1, Mar 13, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 15, 1909
Eugene Debs and Fred Warren Travel to Leavenworth, Visit Mexican Comrade

From the Appeal to Reason of March 13, 1909:

With Araujo in Prison

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.

Quote Tomas Paine, ed Receive the Fugitive, AtR p1, Mar 13, 1909

Returning from Texas whither he had hastened to ascertain the true facts in the Araujo case, the managing editor of the Appeal, Fred D. Warren, was up in arms, declaring the affair a monstrous injustice and his determination to aid the convicted Mexican by all the means in his power. This determination was made stronger by the connection he discerned between the case and the cases pending in Arizona with which Appeal readers are familiar and by its important bearing upon the whole question of the war in Mexico.

For, be it understood, the war in Mexico has begun. The despotism of assassination has done its worst and at last the people have revolted, for which thank God!

In this Mexican war the working class of the United States is deeply and vitally interested, whether it knows it or not.

In Mexico fourteen million working people are in peon slavery. Their wages, in American money, will not average 25 cents a day.

American capitalists virtually own these millions of slaves and grind out their lives to amass fortunes to squander upon syphilitic parasites. These American capitalists, in collusion with Diaz, the despot, have taken possession of Mexico. Millions upon millions of wealth are in sight. Diaz and his government-government by assassination-keep down the slaves. No labor leaders there. They are shot. Strikers are hanged and agitators waylaid and assassinated.

The Mexican government is the slave herder of the American capitalists. Diaz is the chief herder in the service of Rockefeller, Morgan, Harriman and other American plutocrats who own Mexico.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution” by John Murray, Part III: the Mexican Revolutionaries

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon, Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 3, 1909
Mexico City -John Murray Meets with Mexican Revolutionaries

John Murray recently returned from Mexico and has written an article about that experience for this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review. Below we offer the conclusion of that article in which Mr. Murray meets with a group of Mexican Revolutionaries.

Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution

BY JOHN MURRAY
[Part IIII]
—–

Mex Rev, Sarabia, R Magon, Rivera, Villarreal, ISR p642, Mar 1919

We turned into the mouth of a narrow street, cobbled from wall to wall. Herbierto knocked at a door. A window swung open above our heads and a voice called out, “Is that the doctor?”

“It is,” answered Senora Moreno. “Is the child still sick?”

“Yes, come in quickly,” replied the watcher, closing the window.

“A sick child?” I questioned, as the door opened and we stumbled through the dark passageway.

“No,” meaningly answered Herbierto. “A sick country, with the revolution as the only medicine.”

And the woman added: “That was the pass word.”

Around an oblong table in the room we entered sat two dozen men, as dissimilar in their appearance as their native land is varied, Mexico is half desert and half tropics and breeds its people small, light-skinned and still-tongued, or swarthy, heavy-boned and voluble, as unlike each other as sand and sage brush are to mountain torrents and black jungle-land.

“A friend from Los Angeles,” explained Herbierto to the group watching me in surprised silence, but as he read my credentials from Magon their faces changed and when the signature was reached, a slim, black-eyed boy warmly grasped my hand, asking the question which seems to echo through Mexico:

“How is Ricardo?”

I gave them greetings from their imprisoned leader. He was their hero, their master-mind, whose years of unflinching struggle against the crushing powers of the Dictator had kept hope in Mexico alive; and in return I heard the news of the revolutionary movement.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution” by John Murray, Part II: The Rio Blanco Massacre

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 2, 1909
At Mexico City – John Murray Learns Details of Rio Blanco Massacre

John Murray recently returned from Mexico and has written an article about that experience for this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review. Below we offer part two of that article in which Mr. Murray arrives in Mexico City and hears the story of the Rio Blanco Massacre.

Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution

BY JOHN MURRAY
[Part II]
—–

Mex Rev, Sarabia, R Magon, Rivera, Villarreal, ISR p642, Mar 1919—–

Black clouds gathered against the mountains and as the City of Mexico was reached the deluge broke.

A sandal-footed, brass-tagged “cargador” seized my bags and carried them from the Pullman’s steps to a blue-flagged coach.

I kept my face glued to the carriage window and asked myself this question: “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico is—what?” The answer seemed to rise from the passing throng of bent-backed, human burden bearers, “Mexico is a land of cargadores.”

With leather thongs passed across their foreheads and around their heads, cargadores carrying as much as three hundred pounds, trotted by without a stumble. And in the steps of these men followed the women and children likewise loaded.

In no other country in the world does the human back so stagger under a dead weight as here in Mexico.

Arriving at the hotel in front of the Alameda, I went immediately to my room, locked the door and got out my list of addresses in cipher. It was a wearisome task to figure them out, one by one, but I dared not run the risk of being taken by the police and having them find names of Mexican revolutionists given me by the Junta in Los Angeles—that would mean prison for all. One person in Mexico in particular had been recommended to me by Magon. I would see him first.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution” by John Murray, Part I: Train Ride to Mexico City

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Quote R Magon re John Murray, ISR p643, Mar 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 1, 1909
From Juarez to Mexico City – John Murray Talks with an American Cane-Grower

John Murray recently returned from Mexico and has written an article about that experience for this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review. Below we offer part one of that article in which Mr. Murray travels from Ciudad Juarez to Mexico City and speaks with an American cane-grower along the way.

Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution

BY JOHN MURRAY
[Part I]
—–

The third uprising of the Liberal Party failed but another is preparing in Mexico that will not be so easily snuffed out by President Diaz and his “partners,” so asserts the writer of this article, John Murray, who saw Mexico a few months ago in the fever-heat of revolt. With credentials from the revolutionary leaders he traveled from one Liberal Party group to another and was shown by them the underside of Mexico-the Mexico that President Diaz hides from view and guards with guns in hourly fear that it may rise and end his dictatorship.—Editor.

Mex Rev, Sarabia, R Magon, Rivera, Villarreal, ISR p642, Mar 1919

Letter T, ISR p641, Mar 1909HE warm clasp of Tom’s hand tempted me to talk—in a moment, and my loose tongue let slip enough to give hint of my errand to Mexico. Now Tom Hart was the last man that I should have supposed would show the white feather—a bear hunter, mind you, and grizzlies at that.

“Look here, Bud,” he spoke with a down-drop of his eyes that was new to me, “don’t be so foolish as to rub the President’s hair the wrong way. You don’t know Mexico—it’s prison or death down here. You’re fooled if you think for a moment that this is the United States. Why, I have seen a bunch of rurales ride into a village before sun-up, where things were not going to suit the Diaz government, and call out the whole population, line ’em up and shoot down every tenth man. No trials. Nothing. That’s Mexico. And don’t you go for to stand on your dignity as an American citizen, thinking that you’re safer than a native to speak your mind free. I’ve seen Americans—yes, and there’s three of ’em right now in the prison of San Juan de Ulua—who might just as well be Esquimaux for all the protection that their nationality gives ’em. For God’s sake, old man”—Tom’s pleading startled me, for if he were possessed of such a crushing fear of Diaz what chance had I to escape contagion?—”don’t do anything to offend the Mexican government.”

“It’s too late, Tom, I’m into it now—up to my neck. You never held back when we were after the big-footed grizzly that killed our cattle in the pines back of the Loma Pelon ranch. The game I am after now is news—the true story of Mexico’s sandaled-footed burden-bearers and their nearness to revolt.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Staff Writer for Appeal to Reason Interviews Mexican Revolutionaries in Los Angeles Jail

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Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon, Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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:

Mex Rev, Shoaf Interviews in LA Jail, Dec 30, 1908, AtR p1, Jan 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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Hellraisers Journal: Save Our Mexican Comrades is Message from Mother Jones & Big Bill Haywood in Appeal to Reason

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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[The Mexican Patriots] appeal to us
from their prison cells.
We hear their cry and, by the eternal,
we are with them and the dogs of Diaz
shall not tear their flesh.
-J. A. Wayland

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 10, 1909
Big Bill Haywood & Mother Jones Rally Support for Mexican Patriots

From the Appeal to Reason of January 9, 1909:

Mex Rev, BBH Wants Action to Save, AtR p1, Jan 9, 1909

———-

CHAPTER OF HORRORS

THE Appeal is in the fight to thwart the conspiracy of the United States and Mexican governments to have the Mexican patriots now lying in jail at Los Angeles surrendered to the cannibal Diaz to be shot for treason. It is a burning disgrace that they are in jail at all. They are men and that is their crime in Mexico. The bloody butcheries of Diaz shocked and horrified them and they took up the cause of their mutilated and agonizing countrymen and hurled their defiance at the monster who posed as president. From that time to this they have been hunted like beasts. They have suffered everything and sacrificed every thing in the cause of freedom.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs: “Plot Must Be Foiled..Conspiracy to Murder Mexican Comrades..by Order of Diaz”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Mex Revolutionairies, AtR p2, Oct 10, 1908
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 10, 1908
Eugene V. Debs Urges Working Men and Women to Save Mexican Comrades

From the Appeal to Reason:

THIS PLOT MUST BE FOILED
—–
Conspiracy to Murder Mexican Comrades
Now Imprisoned in This Country
by Order of Díaz
—–

by EUGENE V. DEBS.

Mex Rev, Juan Sarabia, St L P-D p53, Apr 5, 1908

There is no longer the least doubt, if there ever was any, that the United States government, through its present administration, has entered into a conspiracy with the bloody and barbarous government to foully murder the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican people. The visit of Secretary of State Root to the Mexican capital, the pomp and display with which he was received, and the continuous ovation that was tendered him, are well remembered, as is also the fact, by Socialists at least, that the object of that love feast was to pave the way for the exploitation of this undeveloped country by American and Mexican capitalists. The entente cordiale was established between the House of Roosevelt and the House of Díaz, and since then there has been perfect understanding and harmonious cooperation in carrying out the international program.

When the Mexican revolutionists established their junta at St. Louis and were followed by the bloodhounds of Díaz the latter were reinforced by Furlong’s detectives and the junta was finally destroyed by the joint persecution of the minions of the American and Mexican governments.

The Mexican revolutionists, whose only crime was their opposition to Díaz, the bloody butcher of the so-called Mexican Republic, are men of heart and brain and conscience who could not endure witnessing the atrocities perpetrated upon the ignorant masses; they were animated by the same passion for freedom as were the American revolutionists a century and a half ago and with far greater justification for resisting tyranny and oppression

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Hellraisers Journal: “Open Letter” from Los Angeles County Jail by Comrades Magón, Rivera, and Villarreal

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We are free, truly free, when we don’t need to rent
our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift
a piece of bread to our mouths.
―Ricardo Flores Magón
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday July 25, 1908
From Los Angeles County Jail: “Open Letter” by Mexican Revolutionaries

From the Montana News of July 23, 1908:

MEXICAN REVOLUTIONISTS
APPEAL TO ROOSEVELT.
—–

MX Revs, Magon, Rivera, Villareal, El Paso Hld, Aug 30, 1907

—–

The “open letter”, of which this is a copy, was mailed to President Roosevelt, upon May 28, by Messrs. Magon, Villarreal, and River, the three Mexican political prisoners who are still in Los Angeles county jail. They have now been in prison over nine months without trial. If their case goes to the supreme court, they m ay be without trial for another year to come. So far, release under bond has been denied them, though it is at times granted even to persons accused of murder.

These men have violated no law. Their crime is that of working for the oppressed of their own country, agitating in behalf of education, improvement in the conditions of labor (throughout Mexico, men, women and children alike, work from 16 to 18 hours per day for wages of from 15 cents to 75 cents), and a more liberal government such as would permit freedom of speech and of the press, as well as election of public officials by the people. Such measures as these are contrary to the policy of the Mexican government. Therefore Magon, Villarreal, Rivera, and their associates are “wanted in Mexico.”

Newspapers and individuals are requested to help these men by giving all possible publicity to this letter.

The letter to President Roosevelt follows:

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Hellraisers Journal: Kidnapping of Mexican Revolutionaries, “Another Moyer-Haywood Case”

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We are free, truly free, when we don’t need to rent
our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift
a piece of bread to our mouths.
―Ricardo Flores Magón

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 27, 1907
Los Angeles, California – Mexican Revolutionaries Under Arrest

From the Appeal to Reason of October 26, 1907:

ANOTHER MOYER-HAYWOOD CASE
—–

BY W. A. COREY.
—–

Mexican Revolution, Ricardo Flores Magon, SF Call p21, Sept 29, 1907
Ricardo Flores Magón

Probably most readers of the Appeal have received some inkling through the capitalist press of the case of the four Mexican revolutionists now in jail in Los Angeles and fighting extradition to Mexico.

It is another Moyer-Haywood case; another attempt on the part of capitalist tyranny to put men out of the way who have become dangerous to it; another instance of capitalism’s cowardly Black Hand methods. As usual, the capitalist press has acted its part either by blackening the characters of the men or by refusing the case the space its importance warrants.

Three of the men-Magon, Villarreal and Rivera were arrested August 23, in the office of their publication, “La Revolucion,” in Los Angeles, while the fourth, De Lara, was arrested at his lodging September 27th. The first arrests were made without warrants or any show of authority whatever by officers of the Los Angeles police department, acting in conjunction with the Mexican authorities. The three Mexicans, who are powerful men, put up a stiff fight and were overcome with the greatest difficulty.

It was the evident intention of the police to hurry the men to a train and get them over into Mexico before legal steps could be taken to protect them. Once across the Mexican line they would be lined up against a brick wall and summarily shot. It was a case of kidnaping pure and simple; though not as simple as the kidnapers hoped, for they did not reckon with the Socialists, whose lawyers, Job Harriman and A. F. Holston, instantly took up the fight for the prisoners and forced the “persecution” to show their hand in the courts.

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