CHAPTER X
THE EIGHTH UNANIMOUS ELECTION OF DIAZ
In order that the reader may entirely appreciate the fact that the political reign of terror established by Diaz thirty-four years ago continues in full bloom to the present day I shall devote this chapter to a record of the presidential campaign, so called, which ended June 26, 1910, with the eighth "unanimous election" of President Diaz.
To the end that the authenticity of this record may be beyond question, I have excluded from it all information that has come to me by means of rumor, gossip, letters and personal reports—everything except what has already been printed in newspapers as common news. In hardly an instance, moreover, was one of these newspapers opposed to the regime of General Diaz; nearly all were favorable to him. Therefore, if there are any errors in these reports, it is safe to assume that the truth has been minimized rather than overstated. It is safe to assume, also, that since the newspapers from which the reports were taken are published in Mexico where they are under the censorship of the police, that numerous other incidents of a similar, as well as of a worse, character, occurred which were never permitted to appear in print.
Before proceeding to these records I may be pardoned for restating the fact that President Diaz has held his position at the head of the Mexican government for more than a generation. In the latter part of 1876, nearly thirty-four years ago, heading a personal revolution, he led an army into the Mexican capital and proclaimed himself provisional president. Soon afterwards, he held what is called an election, and announced that the people had chosen him constitutional president—unanimously. In 1880 he turned the government over to a friend, Manuel Gonzalez, who was also elected unanimously. In 1884 Gonzalez reinstalled Diaz after a third unanimous election. Following 1884 Diaz was re-elected unanimously every four years for twenty years, until 1904, when the presidential term was lengthened to six years, and for the seventh time he was elected unanimously. Finally, July 10, 1910, Diaz was unanimously elected president of Mexico for the eighth time.
The Mexican presidential campaign just closed, if I may so denominate it, properly dates from the month of March, 1908. At that time, through James Creelman and Pearson's Magazine, President Diaz announced to the world, first, that under no circumstances would he consent to enter upon an eighth term, and, second, that he would be glad to assist in the transference of the governmental power from himself personally to a democratic organization of citizens. According to Mr. Creelman, his words were:
"I have waited patiently for the day when the people of the Mexican Republic would be prepared to choose and change their government at every election without danger of armed revolutions and without injury to the national credit or interference with national progress. I believe that day has come.
"I welcome an opposition party in the Mexican Republic. If it appears, I will regard it as a blessing, not an evil. And if it can develop power, not to exploit but to govern, I will stand by it, support it, advise it and forget myself in the successful inauguration of complete democratic government in the country,"But at the height of this discussion the word was passed quietly about that the president's promise to retire at the end of the term was not final. To show how thoroughly the government had public speech and the press under control at this time it is only necessary to say that at once, upon the foregoing announcement being made, the discussion of presidential candidates for 1910 stopped.
Diaz was so thoroughly entrenched in power that there seemed little use of opposing him directly, but the people remembered the other statement that he had made and that he had not yet retracted—that he would welcome an opposition movement in Mexico. The declaration that he would support an opposition movement seemed paradoxical, and so the bright heads of the progressive element were laid together to devise a movement that, while not being in direct opposition to Diaz, would at the same time be able to work an opening wedge into the log of democracy.
The plan hit upon was to urge President Diaz to retain his seat and in the same voice to ask that the country be permitted freely to choose a vice-president, so that in case Diaz should die during his next term his successor might be more or less in line with the desires and ambitions of the people.
The silence with which President Diaz received the publication of this plan was taken for consent, whereupon there began a widespread agitation, an organization of clubs, the holding of public discussions, newspaper debates, all of which might very well be taken as proof that President Diaz was right when he declared the Mexican people fit at last to enjoy the blessings of a real republic.
According to Mr. Barron, in an interview published in the New York World, within a short time no fewer than five hundred clubs were organized in Mexico. In January, 1909, these clubs held a convention in the capital, formed a central organization known as the Central Democratic Club, elected officers and adopted a platform, the main points of which were as follows:
Abolition of the jefes politicos and the transference of their power to municipal boards of aldermen.
The extension of primary education.
Suffrage laws to be enacted and enforced placing the franchise on a mixed educational and property basis.
Greater freedom for the press.
Stricter enforcement of the laws of reform (against monastic orders, etc.).
Greater respect for human life and liberty and a more effective administration of justice.
Legislation making it possible for workingmen to secure financial indemnity from their employers in case of accidents and to enable the public to sue transportation companies and other like corporations on the same ground.
Agrarian laws for the encouragement of agriculture.president; Manuel Calero, vice-president; Diodoro Batalla, secretary; Jesus Urueta, treasurer.
April 2nd the Re-electionist Club, an organization consisting wholly of office-holders, appointees of Diaz, met and duly nominated General Diaz and his vice-president, Ramon Corral, for re-election. Shortly afterwards, in accordance with its original plan, the Democratic Party also named President Diaz for re-election. For vice-president it named General Bernardo Reyes, governor of Nuevo Leon.
Take a look at the general situation for a moment. Here was a party of men, consisting of the best educated, most intelligent and most progressive element in the country. Their platform shows their demands to have been excessively moderate. The party had sprung into existence through the published promise of General Diaz to permit it to function. In order to assure itself of safety at his hands, the party had placed General Diaz at the head of its ticket. Finally, the campaign which it launched was marvelously temperate and self-restrained. There was no call to arms. There was no hint of rebellion or revolution in any form. What criticism as was offered of existing institutions was offered with studious calmness and care. General Diaz was even praised. The people were asked to vote for him, but—to vote for Reyes for vice-president.
It required only a few days to develop the fact that in the event of an election Reyes would triumph over Corral by a large majority. Former enemies of Reyes were for him, not because they loved him, but because the movement behind him held out a promise of a little self-government for Mexico. As soon as the popularity of the Democratic Party became evident, despite the order that prevailed at its meetings, despite the temperance of its press, despite the fact that the laws were studiously observed, instead of supporting and advising, as he had promised to do, General Diaz moved to destroy it.
Diaz's first open move against the Democratic Party was to nip the propaganda for Reyes that was beginning in the army. This he did by banishing to remote parts of the country a dozen army officers who had subscribed themselves as favorable to the candidacy of Reyes.
This action of Diaz has been defended on the ground that he had a perfect right to prohibit members of the army from exercising political functions. But inasmuch as the president of the Re-electionist Club was an officer in the army, inasmuch as numerous army officers engaged openly and actively in the Corral campaign, it would seem that these men were proceeded against rather because they were for Reyes than because they were members of the army.
Captain Reuben Morales, one of the punished officers, had accepted the vice-presidency of a Reyist club. He was ordered to resign from the club or to resign from the army. He resigned from the army, or attempted to do so, but his resignation was not accepted and he was sent away to the territory of Quintana Roo. Eight of the offending officers were sent to Sonora to be placed in the field against the Yaqui Indians.
The banishment of the army officers took place at the end of May. Following close upon the incident came action against some Democratic leaders who occupied positions in the government. Congressmen Urueta and Lerdo de Tejada, Jr., and Senator Jose Lopez Portillo were among the first to be deposed from their positions. Some students of the national schools of jurisprudence, mines, medicine and the preparatory school of Mexico City, were encouraged in forming a club to further the candidacy of Corral. But when the students of the Jalisco state schools of law and medicine formed a club to further the candidacy of Reyes the government ordered them either to abandon their political activity or to leave school. They sent a committee to Diaz to appeal for fair play. But he gave them no satisfaction, the threat of expulsion was renewed with the result that so many students were expelled from the Jalisco schools that the schools actually closed for lack of pupils.
In July, a committee of re-electionists from Mexico City held a public meeting in favor of Corral in the Delgado theatre, Guadalajara, capital of Jalisco. The audience, composed largely of democratic students, hissed one of the speakers. Whereupon companies of police, which had been held in readiness, were ordered to clear the building and square.
This the police did after the manner of Mexico—with sabre, club and pistol. The figures on the killed, wounded and imprisoned were suppressed by the authorities, but all newspaper reports at the time agree that there were persons killed and wounded, as well as imprisoned. The highest estimate that I have seen placed the killed at twelve, the seriously wounded at thirty-five and the arrested at one thousand. Following the occurrence, Guadalajara was filled with state and national troops. General Ignacio Bravo, notorious as the most ruthless officer in the Mexican army, was hurried from Quintana Roo temporarily to replace the existing head of the military zone; and, finally, all political expression of the Democrats was put down with an iron hand.
Among the prominent leaders of the Democratic movement in Guadalajara who were made to suffer at this time was Ambrosio Ulloa, an engineer and lawyer, founder of a school for engineers, and head of the Corona Flour Milling Company. Ulloa happened to be president of the Reyes club of Guadalajara, and, on the theory that the club was in some way responsible for the so-called student riot, Ulloa, a week after the occurrence, was taken to jail and imprisoned under a charge of "sedition."
During the putting down of the student movement in Guadalajara at least one case of the ley fuga was reported from that city. The victim was William de la Pena, a former student of Christian Brothers' College, St. Louis, Mo., also of the Ohio State University. The case was reported in the St. Louis papers, from which place a dispatch was sent out through the Associated Press. Relating the occurrence, the press dispatch said:
September 7th Congressman Heriberto Barron, who had mildly criticized Diaz in an open letter, fled from the country and took up his residence in New York. One Mexican paper has it that agents of the Diaz secret police forced Barron upon a Ward liner at Veracruz and compelled him to leave the country. In New York newspapers Barron declared that he had fled to escape imprisonment. A few months later he begged to be allowed to return home, but was told that he must remain an exile until the death of the president of Mexico. The heinousness of Barron's crime may be gathered from the following paragraphs, the most uncomplimentary in his open letter to Diaz:
"At the velada to which I have alluded, when your name was pronounced by the orators, it was received with unanimous hisses and marks of disapproval.
"On the night of the performance given at the Principal theatre in aid of the Guerrero victims, the entire audience maintained a sinister silence on your arrival. The same silence prevailed when you departed.
"If you had occasion, as I have, to mingle with the gatherings and groups of people of different classes, not all Reyists, you would hear, Mr. President, expressions of indignation against you spoken openly on all sides."Within ten days after the banishment of Barron, a foreign resident, Frederick Palmer by name, an Englishman, was lodged in Belem prison, denied bail, held incommunicado for some days, and finally was sentenced to one month's imprisonment—for doing nothing worse than remarking that he thought Diaz had been president of Mexico long enough.
July 28th Celso Cortez, vice-president of the Central Club Reyista of Mexico City, was lodged in Belem prison for making a speech at the club rooms criticizing members of the Diaz cabinet.
Following came a long list of arrests of members of the Democratic movement throughout the country. Usually the charge was "sedition," but never was any evidence produced to prove sedition as Americans understand that term. In this movement there was never any hint of armed rebellion or any concerted violation of existing laws. In all of these cases I have yet to learn of any in which reasonable ground for the arrest existed. In many cases the victims were kept in jail for months, and in some cases they were sentenced to long terms in prison. The number persecuted in this way is problematical, as reports of only the more prominent cases got into the Mexican press. The following are a few of those recorded:
In August Jose Ignacio Rebollar, secretary of the Club Reyista of Torreon, with several others, was arrested for appearing at a serenade given to the governor of the state and attempting to proselyte for Reyes.
On August 1, 1909, a company of rurales broke up a meeting of Reyistas in Silao and placed a number of them in jail.
In November, 1909, Manuel Martinez de Arrendodo, a wealthy planter; his nephew, Francisco de Arrendodo; four attorneys, Pedro Reguera, Antonio Juarez, Enrique Recio and Juan Barrera, also Marcos Valencia, Amado Cardenas, Francisco Vidal and other were sent to jail for attempting to hold a Reyist meeting in Merida, Yucatan. Several of the number were kept in jail for more than six months.
In January, 1910, Attorney Francisco Perera Escobar, a member of the legislature in the state of Campeche, was arrested for distributing bills announcing a meeting of Reyists.
December 7, 1909, Jose Lopez Portillo y Rojas, a prominent Reyist of the capital, was imprisoned in Belem on a trumped up charge. Some months later it was reported that he was still there and that he was to be sentenced to nine years' imprisonment.
January 26, 1910, some Democrats held a public meeting in the Alameda, Mexico City. Dr. Manuel Espinosa de Los Monteros, president of the Central Club Reyista, presided, and Don Enrique Garcia de la Cadena y Ancona delivered a patriotic address. The police broke up the meeting and arrested Cadena and Monteros, charging them with sedition. At this writing it is reported that both of them will be sent for long terms to the penal colony on the Tres Marias Islands in the Pacific.
During the months following the attempt to place a candidate in the field against Vice-President Corral the Democrats tried to strengthen their position by contesting some state and local "elections." As a result there were many arrests and several massacres by troops or local authorities.
At Petape, Oaxaca, the Twenty-fifth battalion of regulars fired on a crowd of the opposition, killing several. Seventy were jailed.
At Tepames, Colima, there were many shootings. After the jail was full, the authorities are reported as having taken out some of the prisoners, compelled them to dig their own graves, then shot them so that they fell into the trenches.
At Tehuitzingo, Puebla, in April, it was reported that sixteen citizens were executed without trial, and that many others had been condemned to twenty years' confinement in the fortress of San Juan de Ulua.
In Merida, Yucatan, federal troops were placed in the polling booths and large numbers of Democrats were arrested.
In the state of Morelos, in February, 1909, the Democrats attempted to elect Patricio Leyva in opposition to Pablo Escandon, a slave-holding Spaniard whom Diaz had selected for the place. For accepting the Democratic candidacy Leyva was dismissed from his government position as Inspector of Irrigation in the Department of Fomento. The president and vice-president of the Free Suffrage Club at Jojutia and the officers of a similar club at Tiaquiltenango, as well as many others, were jailed on charges of sedition, while the authorities were reported as having killed several. Police placed in possession of the polls prevented many from voting, and finally the vote as actually cast was falsified in favor of Escandon, who became governor.
In July, 1909, many arrests occurred at Puerte, Sinaloa, and the town was filled with federal rurales. In January, 1910, sixteen men arrested some time before on suspicion of being in a plot against the government at Viesca, were sentenced to be shot, the supreme court sitting at the capital pronouncing the decree.
While such incidents were going on the press situation was being manipulated, also. The government bought or subsidized newspapers, on the one hand, and suppressed them on the other. Some thirty or forty daily and weekly publications espoused the Democratic cause. I do not know of one of them which the government did not compel to suspend operations. Despite the fact that they were careful of their utterances, they were put out of business, the majority of them by imprisonment of their editors, seizure of their printing plants, or both.
April 16, 1909, Antonio Duch, editor of Tierra, of Merida, was escorted aboard a steamer at Veracruz by the Mexican secret police and compelled to leave the country under the charge of being a "pernicious foreigner." His paper was suppressed.
July 15, 1909, Francisco Navarro, editor of La Libertad, organ of the Club Democratico of Guadalajara, was jailed for criticizing the sabreing of Reyist students. His paper was stopped, his office closed, a gendarme was placed on guard and it was officially announced that were an attempt made to issue the paper from another shop, it, also, would be closed.
August 3, 1909, Feliz Vera, correspondent of democratic papers at Guadalajara, was taken to Belem prison, where he remains at this writing, though so far no formal charge has been filed against him.
In October, 1909, Manuel M. Oviedo, editor of La Hoja Suelta and president of the Anti-re-electionist Club of Torreon, was sent to prison and his paper was suppressed. Action was taken because Oviedo asked for a fair state election following the forced retirement of Governor Cardenas.
In November, 1909, Martin Stecker, a native of Germany, editor of El Trueno, Linares, Nuevo Leon, was jailed on a charge of "defamation" and his newspaper was suppressed. Stecker was only a very mild Reyist. The real reason for his arrest was that Linares is a good newspaper field and members of the Diaz machine wished the sole privilege of exploiting it. Just previous to the suppression of El Trueno Governor Reyes had been banished from the country and his friends put out of the municipal government at Linares.
In November, 1909, Revista de Merida, of Merida, Yucatan, was suppressed by the government. Editor Menendez and other writers were imprisoned on the charge of sedition.
About the same time two other Merida newspapers were suppressed. One was Yucatan Nuevo. Its editors, Fernando M. Estrada and Ramon Peovide, are at this writing still in jail. The other was La Defensa Nacional. Its editors, Calixto M. Maldonada and Caesar A. Gonzalez, were charged with "provocation of rebellion." The evidence produced in court against them consisted of copies of a circular sent out by the National Anti-re-electionist Club, which they were passing among their friends.
In February, 1910, Heriberto Frias, editor of El Correo de la Tarde, was driven out of Mazatlan because he published the statement that in the so-called election in Sinaloa boys of ten and twelve were permitted to vote the administration ticket, while men of forty and fifty of the opposition party were turned away on the ground that they were too young to vote.
In October, 1909, Alfonso B. Peniche, editor of La Redencion, Mexico City, was arrested for "defamation" of a minor employe of the government. Despite his imprisonment, Peniche succeeded in continuing his publication for a time, although in order to do so he was compelled to smuggle his copy through the bars of the prison. After remaining in Belem a short time he published an article asking for an investigation into the conditions of Belem, alleging that an instrument of torture called "the rattler" was used upon the prisoners. This undoubtedly had something to do with the extreme severity of the punishment that was meted out to Peniche, for after remaining five months in Belem he was sentenced to banishment to the penal colony on the Tres Marias Islands for four long years.
Undoubtedly the charge against Peniche was only a subterfuge to get him out of the way. The story of his "defamation," according to Mexico Nuevo, the most conservative democratic daily, was:
El Diario del Hogar, an old and conservative daily paper of the capital, which has espoused the cause of the Democrats, printed an account of Peniche's banishment also, the article appearing under the caption "Newspaper Men Watch Out." The authorities at once forced the suspension of the paper. The owner, Filomena Mata, an aged man who had retired from active life; Filomena Mata, Jr., managing editor, and the mechanical foreman, were taken to prison. A month afterwards it was reported that father and son were still in jail and that Mata, Sr., was dying of ill treatment received from the jailers.
Some time later, in March, 1910, the government forced the suspension of Mexico Nuevo. It was revived later, however, and is the only Democratic paper which survived the Reyes campaign.
Paulino Martinez was one of the oldest and best known newspaper men in Mexico. His papers were the only ones in opposition to the policy of the administration which succeeded in weathering the storm of press persecutions of past years. For several years his papers, La Voz de Juarez and EI Insurgente. were the only opposition papers in Mexico. Martinez kept them alive, so he told me himself, by refraining always from making direct criticisms of high officials or acts of General Diaz.
But with the campaign against the Democratic movement Martinez's papers went with the rest. When the government began action against him his papers numbered four, La Voz de Juarez, El Insurgente, El Chinaco, all weeklies, and El Anti-Re-electionista, a daily. All were published in the capital.
The first blow fell upon La Voz de Juarez (The Voice of Juarez). August 3, 1909, that paper was suppressed and the plant confiscated. "Slandering the army," was the charge. The police looked for Martinez, but failed to find him. All minor employes found about the shop were jailed, and it was announced that the plant would be sold.
September 3rd the secret police descended upon El Insurgente and El Chinaco, also upon El Paladin, a weekly paper published by Ramon Alvarez Soto. The type forms of all three publications were seized and taken to the offices of the secret police as "pieces de conviction." Soto, Joaquin Pina, Martinez's managing editor of El Chinaco, Joaquin Fernando Bustillos, another editor, five printers, two other employes and Mrs. Martinez, were taken to jail. After five days the reporters and printers were released. But Mrs. Martinez and Enrique Patino, a member of El Paladin staff, who had been apprehended later, were held on charges of sedition.
El Anti-Re-electionista, the last of the Martinez papers, succumbed September 28th. The office was closed, the plant seized and sealed with the seal of the court, and twenty-two employes found about the office were all taken prisoner and charged with sedition. The list consisted of three members of the office executive force, one reporter, fifteen typesetters and three bindery girls.
How long these twenty-two remained in prison is not recorded. Six months later I saw a report that at least one of the Martinez editors, D. Feliz Palavicini, was still in prison. Mrs. Martinez remained in jail for several months. Her husband succeeded in escaping to the United States, and when Mrs. Martinez joined him neither of them had a dollar. Mrs. Martinez, by the way, is a native of the United States.
Most remarkable of all was the treatment meted out to the nominee of the Democratic Party, General Bernardo Reyes, governor of the state of Nuevo Leon. Doubly, trebly remarkable was that treatment in view of the fact that General Reyes not only did not accept the nomination of the Democratic Party, but that he repudiated it. Four times he repudiated it. Not only that, but during the months in which calamities were being heaped upon him and his friends he never gave utterance to one word or raised his little finger in the most insignificant act that might be construed as an offense to President Diaz, to Vice-President Corral, or to any of the members of the Diaz government. By its military bluster the government tried to create the impression that Reyes was on the verge of an armed revolt, but of that there is not the slightest evidence.
As a candidate, General Reyes did not perfectly fit the ideal of the leaders of the Democratic movement, for he had never before appeared in any way as a champion of democratic principles. Doubtless the Democrats chose him, as a government organ charged, because of their belief in his "ability to face the music." Reyes was a strong figure, and it requires a strong figure to rally the people when their fears are strong. It was for this reason that the Democratic leaders pinned their faith to him, and they launched their campaign on the assumption that when he discovered that the people were, almost unanimous for him, he would accept the nomination.
In this the Democrats were mistaken. Reyes chose not to face the music. Four times he repudiated the nomination publicly. He retired to his mountain resort and there waited for the storm to blow over. He put himself out of touch with his partizans and with the world. He made no move that might give offense to the government.
And yet—what happened to Reyes?
Diaz deposed the head of the military zone, which includes the state of Monterey, and placed in command General Trevino, a personal enemy of Reyes. Trevino marched upon Reyes' state at the head of an army. He stopped on his way at Saltillo and, by a display of arms, compelled the resignation of Governor Cardenas of Coahuila merely because the latter was a friend of Reyes. He threw his army into Monterey and overturned the local government, as well as all the municipal governments in the entire state. Diaz ordered a fine of a third of a million dollars placed upon Reyes' financial associates, in order that they, as well as he, might be dealt a crushing blow financially. Trevino surrounded Reyes in his mountain resort and compelled him to return, a virtual prisoner, and to hand in his resignation. Finally, Reyes was sent out of the country, ostensibly on a “military mission" to Europe—actually, banished from his native country for two years, or longer, should the ruler so decide.
So perished Reyism, as the government papers derisively called the opposition. The Democratic movement was demoralized for the time being, and the government doubtless imagined that the end of Reyes meant the end of the Democratic movement.
But not so. The democratic ambitions of the people had been aroused to a high pitch, and they would not be denied. Instead of intimidating them, the banishment of Reyes and the high-handed acts that went before it only served to make the people bolder in their demands. From daring to nominate a candidate merely for vice-president, they passed to nominating a candidate for president. The pseudo opposition party became an opposition party indeed.
In Francisco I. Madero, the party found its new leader. Madero was a distinguished citizen of Coahuila, a member of one of the oldest and most respected families in Mexico. The Maderos had never involved themselves in Diaz politics; they were rich farmers, well educated, cultured and progressive. Madero's first notable interest in democracy was shown in his book, "La Sucesion Presidencial," which he published in 1908. It was a thoughtful but mild criticism of the Diaz regime, and in the end it urged the people to insist upon the right to engage in the elections of 1910.
Madero's book is said to have been suppressed in Mexico, but only after it had gained wide circulation, and its influence was no doubt considerable in prompting the launching of the Democratic Party. After the nomination of Reyes, Madero went about the country in his own private car, addressing public meetings, not campaigning for Reyes, but confining himself chiefly to the dissemination of the A, B, C's of popular government.
The banishment of Reyes did not stop Madero's speech-making, and before the end of 1909 it was announced that the Democratic and Reyist clubs would reorganize as "Anti-Re-electionist" clubs, and that a national convention would be held at which the Anti-Re-electionist Party would be organized and nominations made for president and vice-president of the republic. The convention was held in the middle of April, 1910; Madero was named for president and Dr. Francisco Vasquez Gomez for vice-president. The scattered elements of the interrupted campaign were got together and Madero and such others of the Democratic leaders as were out of jail went on with their speech-making—careful, as ever, to criticize but sparingly and to encourage no breaches of the peace.
The result was instantaneous. The nation was again in a fervor of enthusiasm over the idea of actually exercising their constitutional right of franchise. Had the movement been small, it would have been allowed to go its way and spend itself. But the movement was tremendous. It put on a parade in the national capital such as Diaz, with all his powers of coercion and of hire, had never been able to equal in his own behalf. Every marcher in that parade knew that in walking with that throng he was laying himself liable to persecution, to ruin, perhaps to death, but yet so great was the throng that the government organs themselves were forced to admit that the parade was a triumph for the "Maderists," as the Democrats were now called.
Before the convention and during the convention the Diaz press pooh-poohed Madero, his program and his party as too insignificent to be noticed. But before the delegates had returned to their homes the movement had assumed such grave proportions that the government proceeded against it as it had proceeded against the "Reyists" before the banishment of Reyes. Everywhere members of Anti-Re-electionist clubs were thrown into jail; such progressive newspapers as remained and dared to espouse the Democratic cause were suppressed, and the police power was used to break up the clubs, stop public meetings and prevent receptions being accorded the party's candidates as they traveled through the country.
So severe was this persecution that, May 21st, Attorney Roque Estrada, one of the most prominent of the Anti-Re-electionist speakers, addressed an open letter to Diaz, begging him to interfere in behalf of constitutional rights. This was followed by a letter from Madero himself, couched in a similar vein. In recounting some of the outrages which had been heaped upon his friends, Estrada said in part:
Some of the outrages recounted in Madero's letter follow:
Club Anti-Re-electionista de Obreros (workers), three of whom were forcibly enlisted in the army.
"At Puebla, Atlixco and Tlaxcala, where untold outrages have been committed against my followers, reigns intense excitement. The last news received shows the conditions of the working classes to be desperate; that they may at any moment resort to violent means to have their rights respected."In June, the month of election, matters became very much worse. Estrada and Madero themselves were arrested. On the night of June 6 they were secretly taken and secretly held in the penitentiary at Monterey until the truth became noised about, when charges were formally preferred against them. Estrada was charged with "sedition." Madero was first accused of protecting Estrada from arrest, but soon afterwards this charge was dropped and he was accused of "insulting the nation." He was removed from the penitentiary of Nuevo Leon to the penitentiary of San Luis Potosi, and here he remained incommunicado until after "election."
The presidential campaign ended amid many reports of government persecutions. A reputable dispatch dated June 9th said that in breaking up a gathering at Saltillo, following the news of the arrest of Madero, the police rode down the crowds, injuring more than two hundred people. Another, dated June 14th, said that in the cities of Torreon, Saltillo and Monterey more than one hundred persons were arrested on the charge of "insulting" the government; that at Ciudad Porfirio Diaz "forty-seven prominent citizens were arrested in one day. and that a big exodus of citizens of the border towns, fearing arrest, was taking place to the United States. Still another dispatch, dated June 21st. said that more than four hundred arrests had been made in northern Mexico the previous day and that 1,000 political prisoners were being held incommunicado, where they would remain until after the election.
"Election day" found soldiers or rurales in every town and hamlet. Booths were actually put up here and there and a farce of an election was gone through with. Soldiers held the polls and every man who dared cast a ballot for any but the administration ticket knew that he was risking imprisonment, confiscation of property, even death, in doing so. Finally, the government went through the form of counting the vote, and in due course of time the world was told that the Mexican people had proved "practically unanimous" in their choice of Diaz and Corral.