Newspaper Page Text
the JEFFERSONIAN
Vol. 111. No. 30
Perhaps the most interesting' question
raised by the insurrectionary outbreaks along'
Mexico’s Texan borders is, “What will happen
when the iron hand of President Diaz —now
in his seventy-ninth year—is at last relaxed?”
When he dies, predicts the New York Evening
Mail, “there will be a clash of factions which
will be highly important to the United States,
for it will very likely end in an appeal of the
industrial interests of the Mexican Republic
for American intervention.” According to the
Chicago Tribune, Americans have invested
$100,000,000 in Mexican mines, railroads, and
plantations, and they have done it “because
they have had faith in the ability of Presi
dent Diaz to maintain a stable government
and thus guarantee them against loss.” There
is a prevailing confidence among editorial
observers that while Diaz lives no promoter
of rebellion will be able seriously to menace
the stability of the present Government. But
as the New York Tribune remarks, a serious
feature of the so-called revolutionary move
ment in Mexico is. the fact that it occurs
along the northern border, and thereby “be
comes something like an international affair.”
The same paper suggests that the scene of
the disturbances was probably chosen by the
insurgents “with malice aforethought,” their
hope being “that they would be able to em
broil the two countries, in which ease they
might find some such gain as the hyena finds
in the conflicts of nobler brutes, or else that
along the border they would be able to use
one country as a base of operations against
the other or find in it asylum from the other’s
pursuit.” If this was a part of their plan,
however, it has conspicuously miscarried, as
at the request of the Mexican Government
United States marshals and troops of United
States calvary are patrolling the Texan
border on the lookout alike for fugitives and
filibusters.
According to the Mexican authorities the
insurgents are merely bandits using alleged
political grievances as an excuse for pillage
revolutionists “for revenue only.” While
these guerrilla bands have looted one or two
small towns and have been routed in several
encounters with rurales, they have failed to
evoke any great evidence of that popular
sympathy by which their champions claim
they are supported. Moreover, the movement
seems to have no commanding personality at
its head. Its organizers—in so far as it may
be said to be organized—appear to be certain
expatriated Mexicans now resident in the
United States. * According to a dispatch from
San Antonio, Tex., “a number of prominent
American business men and capitalists are
A Weekly Paper Edited by THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON.
Meaning of the Me Outbreak
Atlanta, Ga., Thursd-; z '<<. Uy 23, 1908.
suspected of having supplied funds and equip
ment to the insurgents,” and “a millionaire
stockman and mine-owner, who is known to
be in disfavor with the Diaz Government, is
said to be implicated in the plot.” That a
plot or conspiracy existed seems to be proved
by the seizure of certain papers from the
supposed headquarters of the “revolutionary
party” in San Antonio.
The “revolutionist’s” side of the case is
set forth in a dispatch from Eagle Pass to the
New York Herald. The words quoted are
those of a member of the junta which is re
sponsible for the outbreak. We read:
“The idea that the attacks on Las Vacas
and Viesca were the acts of bandits is not true
These towns are more than a hundred miles
apart and the attacks were made the same
day. You will note that no home was sacked,
no pillaging done, no personal outrages com
mitted. The objective point in these attacks
was, as it will be hereafter for a time, the
banks and rich mercantile houses that have
money. Money is needed to buy arms. That
is the first thing to be obtained. With a
good treasury, the. revolution would become
very serious at once. If put down it will break
out again very soon, because the people are
determined not to live longer under existing
conditions. To the world at large Mexico is
a republic. To us this is far from being true.
It is true that Mexico has grown wealthy, has
been developed, ranks all other Southern
republics, and has had peace for many years,
but at what cost only the people of Mexico
know.
“There is no voting there, no choice of
candidates.
“There is never but one ticket —the Govern
ment's ticket. Vole that or stay away from
the polls. No nomination against the Govern
ment ’s candidate for any office is allowed
under pain of imprisonment or death. It is
true the people in cities are taught to read
and write —some of them —but in the interior
districts there are no schools and the people
cry for them. There is no freedom of the
press. There is no ownership of land for the
poor man; it is held in vast estates, the own
ers of which pay him from eighteen to twenty
five cents a day for hard work. They get
him into such debt that it is handed down from
one generation to another and never wiped
out. And that no man can lift this yoke
except by the sword has become the belief
in Mexico.
“The people that have risen are in a farm
ing community whore the wrongs I have
mentioned have banded agricultural people
together. The laborers, particularly those
the railroad shops, tried to organize lab J®
unions, but the Government, owning the
roads, told them to break them up or leave .
the country. The unions dissolved, but
Socialism took the place of unionism, and its
members are ready to join a revolution if it
looks promising. . . . The loudly proclaimed
fact that Mexico has an army of fifty thousand
well-drilled, well-equipped soldiers holds no
terrors for them. They know that army is
entirely recruited from the jails and prisons.
Murderers and thieves are given the choice
of service or death or imprisonment. There
are no enlistments from the free people. Can
such an army withstand them when, with a
just cause, they become aroused? Mexicans
like myself do not think so. We await,
therefore, the growth of the revolution”
The sources of Mexican outbreak are thus
reviewed from a non-partizan standpoint by
the Detroit News:
“For several years past politicians who have
failed to command the confidence of the Gov
ernment have been fomenting revolutionary
sentiment. It will be remembered that they
had a. bureau established in St. Louis, Mo.,
until the Mexican Government gave us warn
ing of the fact and, like good neighbors we
compelled the agitators of discontent to move
on
“Diaz for more than a quarter of a century
has been the genius of the Republic. How he
supprest the innumerable banditti and trans
formed public enemies who preyed upon so
ciety into government militia very much after
the fashion of the Turkish Bashi-Bazouks is
an old story. That element has always been
like a can of gasoline in the house of Mexico.
These rm ales, who were once bandits, are men
of the wild aboriginal blood, inclined to live
by roving and adverse to work. Ignorant,
illiterate, and very poor, they offer the best
possible soil for demagogs and apostles of
discontent to plant their seeds of sedition.
Armed with carbines of the date of 1850, a
pair of antique Colt revolvers of 45 caliber,
a couple of swords, and a few bowie-knives
tucked away about their fluttering garments,
they regard themselves as terrible fellows, to
whom the Government and the people ought
to be very nice indeed, for fear they might
shift from their occupation as guardians of
the peoce to an army of banditti . ...
“During his long tenn in power the Presi
dent has made many enemies, for the simple
reason that he could not satisfy all the politi
cal ambitions in the Republic. It was merely
a question of time and conditions when
(Continued on Page Thirteen.)
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