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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.) Price five Cents.