Orizaba, the latter being the chief town in that political district, we heard echoes of the strike, although its bloody story had been written nearly two years before our visit.
In Mexico there are no labor laws in-operation to protect the workers—no provision for factory inspection, no practical statutes against infant labor, no processes through which workmen may recover, damages for injuries sustained or death met in the mine or at the machine. Wage workers. literally have no-rights that the employers are bound to respect. Policy only determine, the degree of exploitation, and in Mexico that policy is such as might prevail in the driving of horses in a locality where horses are dirt cheap, where profits from their use are high, and where there exists no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Over against this absence of protection on the part of the governmental powers stands oppression on the part of the governmental powers, for the machinery of the Diaz state is wholly at the command of the employer to whip the worker into accepting his terms.
The six thousand laborers in the Rio Blanco mill were not content with thirteen hours daily in the company of that roaring machinery and in that choking atmosphere, especially since it brought to them only from twenty-five to thirty-seven and one-half cents. Nor were they content with paying out of such a sum the one American dollar a week that the company charged for the rental of the two-room, dirt floor hovels which they call their homes. Least of all were they content with the coin in which they were paid. This consisted of credit checks upon the company store, which finished the exploitation—took back for the company the final centavo that the company had paid out in wages. A few miles away, at Orizaba, the same goods could be purchased
