CONDITIONS IN MEXICO DURING DIAZ’ RÉGIME
It would appear after all that has been written in the United States
and Europe concerning Mexico, that the people ought to possess a
clearer conception of the conditions which brought about the Madero
and the Constitutionalist revolutions, especially when the latter is
nothing more than a continuation of the former. But the words of the
late Joseph Pulitzer, when he said that to instil facts into the minds
of the people there must be constant repetition, seem undeniably true.
It is not sufficient to reiterate certain facts; the correlation of
these facts must be understood and explained.
People heard about the peonage system in Mexico, about the great
power of Porfirio Diaz, about the abuses of this power, but it was
not realized how vital, how deep, how intimate the solution of the
political problems was to the Mexicans themselves. To foreigners the
Mexican problem was only interesting in so far as it affected their
interests,--no more.
After all the cruelties perpetrated by the Diaz-Huerta régimes, I
have heard intelligent Americans exclaim that the Mexicans needed a
strong man like Huerta, and that Diaz after all had brought railroads,
schools, higher wages, money, improvements and progress. It makes one
almost despair of human intelligence to hear such superficial prattle,
but it proves the axiom of Joseph Pulitzer to be very profound and that
Porfirio Diaz had used it to its fullest extent.
Known by few people, Porfirio Diaz used for years a secret fund
amounting to millions solely for the purpose of advertising to the
world that Diaz was the creator of modern Mexico, that “peace” and
“progress” were his two watchwords, with which he had put Mexico on a
permanent basis of greatness. Many small newspapers near the border
as far as San Antonio were paid as much as $5,000 a year to speak in
good terms about Diaz and never to mention any trouble or agitation
which might be started along the border by anarchists who might call
themselves Mexican revolutionists.
Great newspaper proprietors in the United States were given
concessions, others were offered special inducements to publish
special Mexican numbers, which brought from $25,000 to $30,000 worth
of advertising; well-known individuals, such as judges, congressmen
and senators, were invited in an indirect way to visit Mexico, were
received like princes, fêted, dined and were offered mining or other
concessions as one gives cigars to a guest after dinner. When the
concessions were not needed or available, Don Porfirio took particular
care to impress his famous visitor with a set of well chosen phrases
most apt to impress him favorably as to his greatness, his patriotism
and his democracy.
One incident, which was related to me, illustrates the Machiavellian
talent of Diaz. A nationally famous librarian paid his visit to
General Diaz, who received him very graciously. No concessions were
asked or wanted and the President did not mention the great battles he
had fought, which were unknown to the gentle librarian, but he spoke
at great length of the extensive school system in vogue since his
ascension to the presidency, and ended the conversation by declaring:
“It is my greatest ambition to be known as the great schoolmaster of
Mexico.” The phrase impressed the scholar and many people heard the
phrase, and many newspapers repeated it until everybody believed it.
_Pearson’s Magazine_ printed six years ago a fulsome life of Diaz. What
General Diaz thought of it is told in an interview between Ireneo Paz,
a Mexican newspaperman and the President who were friends for more than
sixty years. Don Ireneo Paz asked the President: “I have been wanting
to ask you if that interview which the papers published a few months
ago was authentic; that one which is said to have taken place between
yourself and one Creelman, an American journalist?”
“What surprises me is that sagacious men like you should have been
capable of giving credit to such folly (à semejante paparrucha),”
replied Diaz.
“Because I did not believe it, I asked you if it was authentic.”
“It’s as true as a dead child. You know me too well to believe that
I could stroll for hours upon the terrace of Chapultepec, exhibiting
the white of my eyes and opening my nostrils excessively in order
that the Yankee reporter may be able to give wings to his fancy. What
happened was this: A friend of mine, a member of my cabinet, came to
read me the article which was already manufactured (confeccionado) for
an American publication. It didn’t seem bad to me, or rather it seemed
very good, because without compromising me much it lent a lustre to
my antecedents, and put me on a good footing for the future, so that
it gave me all the facilities which I desired, whether to continue
sacrificing myself for the Fatherland, or to shake off the dust thereof
(zafarme) in time if things should blow into a whirlwind (à ponerse
turbias). I acknowledge to you that I thought the writing was so well
dressed up, so much in conformity with what are not but should be my
profoundest thoughts, so seemly for our luckless proletariat, that I
accepted it unhesitatingly as if it had been inspired by myself, not
making more than a very few modifications on some entirely Yankee
points of view which would have put me in a very ridiculous position,
and I gave my consent to two things:--that it should be published in
English and Spanish, and that it should be amply paid for.”
“About how much was the cost of this work?”
“Some fifty thousand pesos.” (Como unos cincuenta mil pesos.)[3]
Toward the end of the Diaz régime and in an effort to refute the
attacks made in a book by the present writer called, “Diaz, Czar of
Mexico,” the cientificos inspired James Creelman to write “Diaz,
Master of Mexico”; whole chapters were also dedicated in an effort
to discredit the exposé by J. K. Turner in his “Barbarous Mexico.”
Several books published in the United States and England were bought
by Diaz. One was “Porfirio Diaz,” by R. de Zayas Enriquez, and the
other “Yucatan, the American Egypt,” by Tabor and Frost. The Mexican
government inspired their consul in Cuba, J. F. Godoy, to write a
book, “Porfirio Diaz,” which had “seventy pages of endorsements of
Diaz written by prominent Americans.” Here we have the case of a man,
Mr. Godoy, who actually went about--or sent about--among senators,
congressmen, diplomats and cabinet officers, soliciting kind words
for President Diaz.[4] Porfirio Diaz and his cientifico supporters
thought that they could keep the Mexicans, peons, and the middle class
workingmen down if public opinion in Europe and in the United States
was misinformed about the real conditions in Mexico.
The great reputation of General Diaz in America and Europe was
essentially manufactured through laudatory articles in the press,
magazines, weeklies and daily papers, by the publication of books,
interviews of prominent Americans who came back from a visit to the
“Great Old Man” in Chapultepec, who could have said as Macbeth, “And
I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.” Judges,
congressmen, senators, governors, members of cabinets, even presidents,
princes and kings spoke in reverence and admiration of Don Porfirio
Diaz.
What chance had any patriotic, democratic, and free loving Mexican
against the avalanche of lies, deliberate and unconscious falsehoods?
Whoever heard in the United States of the Massacre of Papantla where
20,000 Mexican peasants, men, women and children were shot down in
cold blood, and as a result half a dozen villages wiped off the map of
Mexico?
What newspaper in America published the story of the revolution of
Tomochic, when 15,000 mountaineer peasants in Chihuahua were destroyed
and only forty old men and women were left to tell the tale? And
the murder of 15,000 men, the whole male population of Juchitan,
State of Oaxaca, in revenge for the death of Diaz’s brother, and the
assassination of 750 workingmen of the Orizaba cotton mills?
Workingmen in Mexico were killed if they attempted to unionize or to
strike, the peasants were slaughtered to take away from them their
rights under the law; the Yaqui Indians were deported and sold into
slavery in Yucatan to permit the great landowners in Sonora to sell
their land to American syndicates. Anybody who protested orally or in
writing was thrown into jail, where imprisonment was worse than death.
We reproduce the description by a Mexican of a night passed in the
prison of Belem, Mexico City.
May 16.
I dare not credit the testimony of my senses. I cannot yet believe all
that I have suffered in that horrible night which has just passed;
a night of horrible dreams, a succession of repugnant nightmares,
terrific, phantastic, demoniacal, impossible, inconceivable and
nevertheless perfectly and completely real. I thought the night would
be endless. I fancied myself in the infernal regions, in a hell as the
heated phantasy of the poet of maniacal brain never conceived it.
The prison is a sort of a room of 50 yards in length by 6 broad and 5
in height, that is to say 1500 cubic yards. Within its walls sleep 800
individuals according to my calculation. The hygienists claim that 12
by 14 cubic yards of air are necessary in a dwelling for each person:
in that space we did not even have 2 cubic yards each.
All the ventilation consists in an iron grating at the entrance at one
extremity and a window at the other end.
How could 800 persons stay in that small space? It is a mystery to me;
I have seen it and still I cannot explain it, and I am almost willing
to admit the penetrability of the bodies.
The men lie down in two rows, feet to feet and the head against the
wall. Those who arrive first or the strongest lie on the ground,
those who follow do as best they can by lying between two bodies
cradle-wise. Everybody must perforce sleep sideways. For this reason
quarrels and fights are frequent and occasionally they end in wounds
and sometimes in death.
In this prison there are some revolting W. C.’s. They are cleaned
in the morning, but as the night advances they are used constantly
and as there is no running water, the fecal matter and the urine run
over onto the ground soaking those who sleep near them. Some wretches
even sleep seated on those barrels, and bitter fights take place when
somebody wants to use them and for that purpose they are forced to
disturb the sleepers on top of the barrels. Others prefer to commit
nuisance where they happen to be, against the companions who happen to
be near them and that occasions new fights.
The atmosphere is so fetid that it almost chokes and asphyxiates you.
It is so dense that you can almost cut it with a knife.
This dungeon is lighted by some electric lamps whose rays can barely
penetrate the atmosphere. Eight hundred men habitually dirty, clad in
pestilential rags, the respiration of all those lungs, the emanations
of all these bodies, the filth of those barrels.... I am horrified at
the remembrance of it all and I am wondering that I am still alive.
Soon after the prisoners have settled to sleep, from the different
walls there starts a downward immigration of myriads of parasitical
insects. One cannot possibly conceive the innumerable number of
bed-bugs, some of enormous size, lice of all classes, fleas,
mosquitoes and cock-roaches. They assure me that the prisoners become
accustomed to all these parasites and they do not heed them. The truth
is that besides myself I did not notice anybody paying any attention
to them.
Only three persons were privileged to use cots; the head keeper and
two head men. I could not find a place to lie down. The head keeper
saw me standing and understood the reason of my perplexity and
authorized me to sleep under his cot. At first I took this offer as an
insult; later I understood the full value of that concession which was
not gratis but cost me 25 cents.
It had just struck nine at the prison clock when suddenly and
accidentally all the electric lights went out. The darkness was
absolute. Immediately a formidable roar arose from that mob and a
fearful struggle began. There were heard shouts of hatred, fearsome
lamentations, blasphemies, the voices of the head men trying to impose
order and shouting to the prisoners to keep silent, but without avail.
It was undescribable uproar.
Soon afterwards footsteps of soldiers were heard nearing the door.
An employé arrived with the escort bringing a lantern along. He
opened the grated door with a great deal of noise and gave order to
the soldiers to fire in case of further disorder. Then everything
was silent as if by incantation. The turnkey asked for the oil lamps
hanging on the walls, lighted them and distributed them to the head
men to place them in their corresponding places. From time to time the
silence was interrupted by some stifled groans.
The turnkey ordered the formation of rows to make ready for the roll
call. They brought the register and the prisoners going into the
corridor after their names being called. Some did not appear, others
answered in a dying voice. All the prisoners able to do so went back
to rest. There were three dead and seventeen wounded. Who are the
authors of these crimes? They have so far not discovered them, and
those who know the way of the prison claim that they never will be
found. The prisoners no matter how strict the vigilance and how often
they search them succeed in hiding pieces of bones which form part of
the meat rations, and these bones they sharpen against the stones of
the floor until they become as sharp and pointed as daggers. Those
are the weapons used in their fights. They also employ scissors, and
spoons and other instruments which are used in their different trades
and which they manage to steal.
Every time that there is a riot as happens when the lights go out
then some of the most hardened prisoners take advantage of this fact
to revenge themselves or to wound those nearest to them, without any
provocation, and it is very difficult to discover the author of the
crime as many are spattered with blood owing to the crowded conditions
of the dormitory.
Many of the wounds result from the indiscriminate use of the stick in
the confusion and darkness by the head men, who do so in self-defence
or in fear.
After the dead and wounded had been taken to the hospital they locked
us up again calling the names anew and leaving two guards at the gate
to fire at the first sign of disorder. I went back to my place under
the cot of the head keeper thinking to myself that the solitary cell
in spite of the “incommunicacion” was preferable to this dangerous and
filthy galley. I did not sleep a wink all night long. At 6 o’clock in
the morning they opened the gate and all this sickening lee contained
was vomited forth.
I was one of the first ones to go out and I nearly fainted when I
felt the fresh air of the morning. Mr. H.... was waiting for me and
he invited me to breakfast with him in the department of distinction.
Later he asked to see the warden so as to get me a permit to go over
to his department.
Meanwhile I jotted down those notes although I did not know how I
managed to do so as my head seems to be a vacuum. I think I have a
beginning of fever.
Not only were Mexicans persecuted in their own country, but when
Mexican liberals fled across the border into the United States,
thinking that they could tell the truth and publish it in the American
press, they were persecuted and imprisoned through the orders of
the Mexican Ambassador in Washington to the Attorney Generals under
Theodore Roosevelt, and William H. Taft. Some of the liberals were even
kidnapped across the Mexican border and sent to rot in the fortress of
San Juan de Ulloa in Vera Cruz. Manuel Sarabia, F. Flores Magon, L.
Rivera and Antonio I. Villareal were the pioneers of Mexican agitation
against Diaz. “Mother” Jones by suggestion of the writer before his
imprisonment for libel against a Diaz official, induced Congressman
W. B. Wilson of Pennsylvania (Secretary of Labor in the Cabinet of
Wilson), to investigate the persecution of Mexican liberals in the
United States by American officials in 1910. The result was a cessation
of these persecutions and a renewal of agitation in the southwest and
along the border.
The agitation against the blood and iron rule of Porfirio Diaz
was begun over six years before the Madero revolution; it was the
preliminary work of untold numbers of martyrs who died unknown, crushed
by the ruthless hand of the half-breed Czar.
In every State governors, jefes politicos, and cientificos robbed the
Indians of the land in their possession. By the year 1892 all the great
bodies of agricultural land had passed from the possession of more than
a million small farmers into the hands of less than fifty rich families
and corporations of the Diaz clique.
The State of Morelos (2,734 square miles) and a population of 179,614
inhabitants, became practically the property of half a dozen families.
In the State of Chihuahua one family alone, the Terrazas, owned as
much land as the combined territory of Switzerland, Belgium and
Holland. Towards the end of the Diaz régime nearly 3,000,000 Indians
had been despoiled of their native land and General Diaz had sold over
83,000,000 acres for the paltry sum of $3,000,000.
The policy of General Diaz was to eliminate the Mexican Indian peons
from valuable land and from an independent economic life into peonage
in great haciendas, in great mines and factories where they could
be more easily controlled by the rurales and the soldiers. At the
height of Diaz’s rule, in 1908, when all the world was singing the
pæans to the glory of Porfirio Diaz, the writer found out by personal
investigation that the average salary for unskilled labor in the mines
near the city of Pachuca (inh. 40,000) was three cents gold a day, and
in the haciendas six cents gold.
What was the result of this policy of despoliation and oppression?
Simply that wages in the great haciendas, mines, and factories were
kept as low as possible, while prices of food stuffs and necessities
went up by the help of a rigid system of high tariff. The great
haciendados, the foreign owners of mines and industrial concerns, the
same ones who were reaping a golden harvest and singing the praise of
Diaz’s rule were buying labor in Mexico at a very low Mexican silver
rate and were selling the result of this labor at a gold rate.
The press agents of Diaz spoke of the perfect school system inaugurated
at the beginning of his rule. General Diaz never could have crushed
Mexico in the iron grip of his hand if education had been as general
as was claimed. The percentage of illiteracy in the thirty-five years
of the czar’s rule was lowered from ninety to eighty-six per cent.
but only in the cities. The rural school system was almost completely
neglected, or was turned over to the care of priests and nuns.
It was this fourteen per cent. of the people who could read and write,
which organized the agitation in Mexico under tremendous difficulties
and by unheard-of sacrifices.
The political advisers of Diaz never dreamed that every Indian who was
expatriated, every workingman who saw the murders of his companions,
every Mexican who suffered from an unjust imprisonment, became an
incipient rebel, only awaiting the time that a leader would show them
their strength and the way to break the chains of their economic and
political slavery.
It could never be imagined by the rich foreign investors in Mexico
who had observed the patient and ignorant peons, that no matter how
pacific, how miserable and subdued a race, the day would come when they
must rebel and evolve into a daring and independent race.
The same happened in France through the revolution. Read the
description written by Mirabeau’s father of the savage-looking,
long-haired, barefoot peasants who came down from the mountains, and
the older Mirabeau’s prophetic reflections on the subject.
The worst offenders and the greatest enemies to Mexican political
and economic freedom were the foreigners; they always stood by the
oppressors with their financial and moral influence in Mexico, in
the United States and in Europe. Without this powerful help Diaz
would never have lasted thirty-five years. Foreigners in Mexico were
treated with a deference and were allowed privileges unknown to the
average Mexican. Porfirio Diaz always raised the spectre of American
intervention when he wanted to frighten restless Mexicans.
The only friends of liberal Mexico were the Socialists and the
organized workingmen in Europe and especially in the United States
who understood from the beginning the danger of an enslaved, ill-paid
proletariat across the border. The great agitation which exposed the
iron rule of Diaz was helped by Socialists and the proletariat in the
United States, and made it easy for Madero and his friends to plot and
organize a revolution across the border.
The foreign bankers, concessionaires, “friends of the friends” of
General Diaz, wanted a continuation of peace at any price, even at the
price of subjugation of all Mexican liberties, or if that failed, by
American intervention, and as a result of it either American conquest
or of American police rule as in Cuba.
The successor of Diaz had been chosen by the invisible rulers of Diaz,
everything about it was cut and dried, and even the list of members
of the Cabinet of the successor had been drawn up. When a foreigner
was asked about the economic and political rights of the Mexicans, he
shrugged his shoulders and answered that Indians and niggers were not
fit to rule themselves. The self-same Americans who would have started
a revolution in their own country if political conditions had been as
oppressive as in Mexico, spoke contemptuously of the valiant struggle
of the middle class Mexicans. To my utter amazement I heard an American
clergyman inform me after he had listened to a lecture of mine in favor
of the Constitutionalists and the prophecy of a speedy downfall of
Huerta, that he nevertheless believed Mexico needed strong men like
Huerta and Diaz.
Americans who invest money in Mexico cannot be blamed for being
ignorant of Mexican conditions, but how about foreigners who live years
in Mexico and come in daily contact with the people? Is it a wonder
that Mexicans are suspicious of foreigners?
Porfirio Diaz sold out his country to foreigners for a pittance, he
made them rich and prosperous, and he used Mexican labor, freedom,
and their suffering to raise himself on a pinnacle of fame unheard of
to any other man of his times. Mexico was only Mexico, but Diaz was
its prophet, its savior, its creator, its superman, and demi-god. The
Mexicans were an unknown, negligible quantity and quality, and the
fatal pseudo-greatness of Diaz was trumpeted across the world by an
army corps of foreign concessionaries, exploiters and grafters. But the
great Diaz myth like a monstrous Frankenstein destroyed itself in time.