Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 30, 1912 Los Angeles, California – Mexican Comrades Sentence to Nearly Two Years -Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón, Librado Rivera, and Anselmo L. Figueroa
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 18, 1912 San Diego, California – The Death of Fellow Worker Joseph Mikolasek
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 16, 1912:
San Diego, Calif., May 9, 1912-The climax in the free speech fight came Tuesday, May 7. as a result one unarmed worker [Joseph Mikolasek] was murdered by the police, the town was practically under martial law, workers were clubbed on the streets, and over one hundred deported.
Tuesday morning it was reported that 84 members of the Industrial Workers of the World who were coming to participate in the free speech campaign, had arrived in the city on a freight train and were at Old Town, about three miles from the heart of the city. The police excitedly sent out all the reserves and special police men, who held up the train and took from a box car 84 free speech fighters on their way to battle. The men were lined up and herded into an old schoolhouse.
At 2 o’clock it became apparent that the vigilante outrages would be repeated for the business men were hurriedly arming themselves with rifles and shot guns. At 3 o’clock Attorney Moore of the free Speech League applied for a writ requesting the sheriff to take possession of the 84 prisoners. He also presented to the court an affidavit charging that it was the intention of the police to hand the men over to the “Vigilantes.” The writ was refused, the judge stating later in the evening he might grant a writ of habeas corpus. This was done at 8:45 p. m., too late to serve it.
Late that night, under cover of darkness, the police and the Vigilance Committee escorted the 84 Socialists and Industrial Workers out to the county line, and after tying them to trees, horsewhipping them and otherwise brutally treating them, they were told to “March north and keep going.”
Among the men thus deported were several members of the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist party.
At 7 o’clock Tuesday evening the men in town decided to make another attempt to speak on the streets. Accordingly 70 men went to the corner of Fifth and E streets and started to speak. The fifth man had mounted the rostrum when the reserve squad of the police charged the crowd which had gathered, clubbing indiscriminately. One small man named Catallon was knocked down and jumped on by a vigilante. Several citizens were injured and many speakers were arrested.
During the melee on the street some policemen were heard to say that the I. W. W. hall would be raided that night, and word was sent by sympathizers to vacate the hall, which was done, and at 7:30 p. m. when four policemen appeared at the hall it was empty. The policemen came to the doors and without demanding entrance, they poured a volley of shots into the building. They then broke into the hall and finding no one present they approached a group of I. W. W. men standing on the sidewalk around the corner. These men they proceeded to “beat up” but did not arrest them.
They then went back to the hall and saw Joe Mickolasek [Mikolasek] an I. W. W. who had just entered the building. According to Mickolasek’s dying statement the police immediately opened fire on him without any provocation.Mickolasek thereupon picked up an axe and although mortally wounded, attempted to defend himself. He wounded a policeman with the axe. The policeman who was hit with the axe was named Heddon. Thereupon Policeman Stevens opened fire upon Mickolasek. Nine shots took effect in Mickolasek’s body. During the excitement Policeman Stevens was shot in the shoulder it is supposed that this was an accident, but Woodford Hubbard, a socialist organizer, was charged with attempting to murder, although he was not in the crowd at the time of the shooting.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 15, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1911, Part I Found Involved in Conflict Between Madero and Magón
From the Appeal to Reason of November 4, 1911:
Mexico.-The history of the Mexican revolution is too well known to need discussion here. Following the successful overthrow of Diaz there have appeared two tendencies of the working class movement in our sister republic. One of these, lead by [Ricardo Flores] Magon, is semi-anarchistic, while the other is socialistic. The Socialists have established a labor paper at the city of Mexico and both the Western Federation of Miners and the United Mine Workers have gone into the republic to organize the miners. Mother Jones is now there for that purpose, as is also Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners. Madero has promised his protection. It is too early to make predictions as to the result.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From Regeneración of November 4, 1911 -Page 4, English Section:
…..Our readers must pardon us for piling up, week after week, the evidence of Madero’s complete subjection to the money power, and we ourselves feel that every mind open to conviction must have become persuaded long ago of the truthfulness of the charges we have been making for the last eight months. Unfortunately such women as “Mother Jones” apparently can be still won over by a handshake from Wall Street’s president-elect, and communications from men who are intriguing day and night for Madero are still played up in Socialist publications. For the most part, however, the Socialist press has dropped the Mexican revolution like a hot potato, it will have to take it up again, and, it is to be hoped, from an amended standpoint…..
Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 20, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1911, Part II
Mother Writes From Mexico City; Is Denounced by Regeneración
From the Appeal to Reason of October 21, 1911:
Mother Jones In Mexico ———-
Mexico City, Oct. 4.-Just a line to let you know I have just returned from the palace where I have had a long audience with President De La Barra. At the close of my interview the Mexican guaranteed me protection and my right to organize the miners of Mexico. This is the first time that any one has ever been granted that privilege in the history of the Mexican nation. It is the greatest concession ever granted to any one representing the laboring class of any nation.
I also spent an hour with President-elect Madero and he granted me the protection and aid from the government that I called for. I am the first person who has been permitted to carry the banner of industrial freedom to the long suffering peons of this nation.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 8, 1911 Second Battle of Tijuana Ends in Defeat for Rebel Forces
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 6, 1911:
REBELS ARE DEFEATED BUT NOT CONQUERED —————
The liberal campaign in Lower California was practically ended with the defeat of the hundred men under General Jack Mosby at Tijuana, Mexico, on June 22nd, although there is yet two bands of armed rebel Mexicans, one near Santa Rosalia, in the southern end of the peninsula and another of about twenty-five men in the mountains between Tijuana and Mexicali in the north
[…..]
The rebels who surrendered were held at Fort Rosecrans for three days and then released with the exception of thirteenwho were deserters from the army and navyand Mosby and [Adjutant Bert] Laflin, whom the Madero government is trying to extradite to torture and murder in Mexico. Boys, will we stand for it? I’ll leave it to your actions. Will you act?
About the same time the battle took place the Liberal Junta in Los Angeles were arrested. They have already served three years in our vile American prisons and we must not let them serve any more years.
Subscribe for “Regeneracion” (address 519½ East Fourth street, Los Angeles) and learn the facts of the case.
Remember although the little campaign in Lower California has been smashed the Mexican people are not through revolting. Madero did not start the revolution NOR WILL HE END IT.
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 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 3, 1910 Los Angeles, California – Mexican Revolutionaries to Start Newspaper
From the International Socialist Review of October 1910:
A. I. Villarreal
To fight Diaz. A. I. Villarreal writes us that the Mexican refugees-recently liberated from prison, are about to start a newspaper as “a vehicle of our agitation, as a hub of the fighting organization that we propose to build.” Comrade Villarreal advises us that the Mexican comrades desire very earnestly to start with a circulation of 10,000 subscriptions. The paper will be printed in Spanish, at Los Angeles. Subscription rates will be $2.00 a year; $1.10 for six months.
A. I. Villarreal. Address 420 W. 4th. St., Los Angeles, Calif.
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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