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Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 14, 1909
Tombstone, Arizona – Citizens Protest Conviction of Mexican Revolutionaries
From the Appeal to Reason of June 12, 1909:
CITIZENS’ PROTEST.
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Monster Mass Meeting in Tombstone, Ariz.,
Petitions Taft for Pardon for Mexican Patriots.
Had it not been for the corporation influences in Arizona it is very unlikely that Magon, Villarreal and Rivera would have been convicted of the charge of conspiring to violate the neutrality laws of the United States. The organized miners and the unprejudiced farmers and stockmen were quite certain that the neutrality laws had not been violated by anybody-not even by Mexican peons who occasionally crossed the line into the United States for the purpose of buying arms and ammunition with which to prosecute the revolution against Dictator Diaz-and clearly not by the leaders of the junta of the Mexican liberal party, who admittedly were in Canada when the conspiracy was alleged to have been made. With the exception of mine managers, superintendents, shift bosses and corporation hirelings, including Pinkerton and Furlong detectives, virtually every persons in Arizona was in sympathy more or less pronounced with the cause for which Magon and his associates stood.
In Tombstone at the beginning of the trial there was some division of public sentiment, though the majority of those who expressed themselves were convinced of the innocence of the prisoners. As the trial progressed and the weakness of the prosecution became manifest expressions of sympathy for the Mexican prisoners were more frequent. The last day of the trial virtually every person in Tombstone declared the Magon, Villarreal and Rivera were innocent and that the jury ought not to have to leave the box to make up a verdict of acquittal. There were no bets made the last day, as there were no takers. The detectives, Mexican consuls, spies, thugs and gunmen employed by the United States government in its prosecution of the defendants kept together and stayed close around their headquarters; these were the only fellows who desired the conviction of the Mexicans.
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F 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.
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