Tag: Mexican Revolutionaries

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

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 6, 1909
John Murray on the Horrors of the Private Prisons of Diaz, Part III

From the International Socialist Review of April 1909:

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

[Part III, Conclusion]

[John Murray’s interview with the escaped prisoner, Antonio, continues:]

The sick man’s pauses in this narrative were frequent. At times the old lady give him water to drink, and then again he would take two puffs at a cigarette rolled by the president, all of which kept him going to the end of his story.

We were accused of participating in the rebellion started in September, 1906, by the Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana in Jimenez, and in Acayucan. Chained in gangs with two hundred others, we were brought to the fortress and political prison of San Juan de Ulua.

Some of us were betrayed by that Judas, Captain Adolfo Jimenez Castro, an officer of the post at Cuidad Juarez, while others were betrayed by Trinidad Vasquez at Cananea.

Among the number were persons entirely innocent of any participation in the rebellion, but they received neither consideration nor mercy, and, like many of us, saw their homes burnt by the soldiery and their families left to starve.

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

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

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 5, 1909
John Murray on the Horrors of the Private Prisons of Diaz, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of April 1909:

Mex Rev, Diaz Prison by Murray, ISR p737, ISR Apr 1909[Part II]

[John Murray at San Juan de Ulua Prison, continues speaking with the sympathetic soldier…]

Without a word the soldier turned and walked towards the archway. I followed at his heels and we made our way around outside the walls, entered the arsenal and climbed an inner staircase to the battlements of the fortress.

Pointing out to sea, my guide showed me a small man-of-war coming into the harbor.

“That’s the ‘General Bravo’—look at it. Keep looking at it, senor, and while we are here alone I will stand behind your back and tell you all I know of the martyrs imprisoned in Ulua.

“The friends of Magon in the army are many. Here, in Ulua, all would be glad to see a way out of this hell—but will it ever come?”

I answered as I believed, in all sincerity, “It will come,” and with a look of encouragement the young soldier went on:

Six months ago I came to Ulua from Sonora, and never once have I seen the political prisoners. But this I saw with my own eyes:

Late on a Sunday afternoon, a boat with two occupants came rowing towards the guardhouse of the west side landing. I saw it before the others, being far-sighted, and this my first day of guard duty on the island. As the boat touched the pier, a white-haired lady wrapped in a black shawl, and trembling with age, was just able to mount from the rocking gunnel to the first stone step, where she sank down, panting and exhausted. The oarsman was a small, black Indian from the mountain tribes near Orizaba. Martin Jose Pico, our hook-nosed, thief-of-a-sergeant—ration-robbing is his trade-roughly demanded her pass, but she had none.

This was such a strange occurrence—a white-haired woman of over eighty years trying to gain entrance to the prison without credentials—that the officer of the day was summoned.

Captain Garcia likes not old women, and to the black figure seated at his feet on the stone step, his words were short and sharp:

“Speak! What do you want?”

“To see a boy who is imprisoned here,” replied the trembling, low-toned voice of the old lady.

“A boy? We have no boys. Who is he?” testily demanded the officer.

“Juan Sarabia,” replied the white-haired woman.

At this name the captain took a sudden step back, for of all the prisoners most strictly kept “incommunicado” is this famous revolutionist, Juan Sarabia. Even to mention his name is forbidden the soldiers of Ulua.

White-faced, the officer gripped the old lady by her arm and stuttered a rasping question:

“Fool! who are you?”

“His mother,” came the answer.

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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: From the Appeal to Reason: Report from Luella Twining on Arrival of Mexican Patriots in Tucson

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

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 24, 1909
Tucson, Arizona – Mexican Patriots “Chained Together Like Wild Beasts”

From the Appeal to Reason of March 13, 1909:

CHAINED TOGETHER LIKE WILD BEASTS
—–
Magon, Villarreal and Rivera are Delivered in Tucson Jail
Under Heavily Armed Escort
-Appeal to Reason Trampled Upon By Guard.
—–
Latest Developments in the Mexican-Washington Conspiracy
-The Inauguration of Taft Was Signalized by an Event
Not Chronicled in the Daily Papers.
—–

BY LUELLA TWINING
Special Correspondence Appeal to Reason
—–

Tucson, Ariz., March 4.

I have just come from the train that brought Magon, Villarreal and Rivera from the Los Angeles jail, in shackles, to be locked up in the jail at Tucson. At three o’clock in the morning a large party was there to greet them and let them know they are remembered.

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

It was difficult for them to alight, chained together as they were. Mrs. Sarabia ran up to speak to them and give them some sweet peas, but a deputy threw them down with, “You can’t give them any flowers.” Flowers are not for patriots-only chains and jails. I offered Mr. Magon a copy of the Liberty Edition of the Appeal, which had just come, but a deputy took it and would not allow him to have it.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mexican Patriots Transported from Los Angeles to Tucson Shackled and Heavily Guarded

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

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]

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

—–

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.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: Araujo Addresses American People from His Leavenworth Prison Cell

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Antonio Araujo, Human Brotherhood, AtR p1, Mar 20, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 22, 1909
Antonio de Pio Araujo, An Innocent Man Imprisoned in a Strange Country

From the Appeal to Reason of March 20, 1909:

Araujo’s Address from His Prison Cell.
—–

TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE:

Mex Rev, Mass Mtg Protest, edt, Evl IN Prs p3, Mar 20, 1909
Evansville Press, Indiana
March 20, 1909

It is hard to be sentenced as an innocent man to a long term of imprisonment in a strange country. It is in this unfortunate position that I find myself. But I have no regret and I address you in no spirit of despair. I have felt from the first that if the American people knew the truth about my case I would not now be in a convict’s cell. But the American people do not know the truth. In fact but few of them know anything at all about my conviction. The silence of the press was a part of the conspiracy to destroy my activity by sending me to prison.

Through the medium of the Appeal I have been given the opportunity of addressing myself to the American people, and I gladly avail myself of this privilege. Readers of the Appeal know that for some time there has been trouble in Mexico growing out of the awful condition of the people. For this the administration of Diaz, backed by American capitalists, is responsible. Myself and comrades of the liberal party were opposed to the administration. We were persecuted, spied upon and hunted down until we had to leave the country. When we landed on this side of the Rio Grande we felt ourselves secure under the stars and stripes of the American republic. But alas, we soon realized that the same power which had driven us from our native land also ruled the American states. Our papers were suppressed and we were tracked from place to place by the spies of the Mexican government, reinforced by American detectives, also in its employ. In due time we were arrested upon baseless charges. Some of my comrades have been in jail almost two years. This seems very strange in a land of freedom. Why is trial denied them? I do not know and no one can tell me.

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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: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1909, Part II; Found in Chicago and in Denver

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Great Church upon Bodies of Girls, Dnv Rck Mt Ns p2, Feb 28, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 8, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1909, Part II:
-Found in Denver, Colorado; Scheduled to Speak at Protest Meeting

At the end of February, Mother Jones arrived in Denver, Colorado, where she was scheduled to speak at a “Gompers Protest Meeting” on March 1st. According to the Rocky Mountain News of February 28th, Mother made the following statements:

Mother Jones w edit, Dnv Rck Mt Ns p2, Feb 28, 1909

There is an industrial panic in the United States today, and it is not confined to any particular locality. The steel trust is now engaged in stamping out the independent steel concerns, and God have pity on the iron and steel workers when this happens and the rest of the people, too. In Illinois the coal miners are having their trouble, some working only one day a week, and some three days a week. The shoemakers all over the country are struggling against similiar conditions, and everywhere you turn you find this industrial stagnation…..

How can you expect labor to make very much headway with 10,000 judges ruled by the capitalists? Where can they get justice? Where can justice be had with Wall Street dictating the policies of the president, congress and the governors of the states?

Even religion is mixed up in the conditions. I saw in an Eastern city a $2,000,000 church built with the subscriptions of men whose daughters work in factories and stores for $3 and $4 per week. Oh, the farce of it all! Dare you tell me that a girl can work for $3 a week and be respectable? The idea of building a great church upon the sold bodies of girls!…..

I tell you that there is a limit to all things-and the limit will come in the present economic conditions of this country, and people will arise and take the industries into their own hands and right the wrongs that are making of this nation the most grasping in the world today.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1909, Part I; Found Praising the Appeal to Reason

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Wall Street Knows Fears, AtR p1, Feb 13, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 7, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1909, Part I:
-Found Praising the “Appeal to Reason”

From the Appeal to Reason of February 13, 1909:

“WALL STREET KNOWS AND FEARS.”

Mother Jones, Ipls UMWC with Her Boys detail, Ipl Str p7, Jan 29, 1909

The Appeal feels a pardonable pride in the compliment paid to it by that grand old agitator, Mother Jones. She has been with the Appeal from the day of its first issue and she knows its record as few others do. She knows its trials and its struggles, its privations and reverses, it’s mistakes and defeats, and she also knows what its motive and purpose has been through all its career. She knows that while the Appeal, like every other paper, has its shortcomings and has committed its follies its one unflinching purpose has been to serve and strengthen the Socialist movement in the struggle for industrial emancipation.

It is gratifying therefore to have one who so well knows the Appeal and who is so well known for her own spotless integrity and courage to write us that the Appeal

is the one Socialist paper that Wall street knows and fears!

The Appeal values this appreciative expression from Mother Jones sufficiently to move it to exert all its effort to increase the fear of Wall Street and the confidence and good will of all who are helping to overthrow capitalism and usher in the reign of the people.

———-

[Photograph added.]

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Elizabeth Trowbridge Sarabia on the Conviction and Sentencing of Antonio de Pío Araujo

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Save Our Mexican Comrades, AtR p3, Feb 20, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 5, 1909
Antonio de Pío Araujo Sentenced to More Than Two Years at Leavenworth

From the Appeal to Reason of February 27, 1909:

LETTER FROM MRS. SARABIA
—–

Antonio de Pío Araujo, Prison 1908
Antonio de Pío Araujo

As we go to press we are in receipt of a letter from Elizabeth Trowbridge Sarabia, wife of Manuel Sarabia, one of the Mexican patriots awaiting trial. The following excerpts will be of interest to our readers:

One of the worst features of these Mexican cases is that so many of them come and go and the public seem to take no interest, regardless of the atrocities committed and of the precedents set to use later against the American workers. One of the worst of all has taken place recently in San Antonio, Tex., where on the 21st of January, a young man named Antonio de P. Araujo, was sentenced to two years and six months in the penitentiary at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., for the awful crime of being an associate editor of a Mexican Liberal paper published in the United States. There certainly is “liberty of the press” in this “free republic!”

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