Waterbury Democrat., 1901-02-16
MEXICO'S SECRET SERVICE

"President Portiro Diaz has the greatest secret service system in the World,' declared an American business man who resided q number Of years at the Mexican capital, and who was chatting about peculiar features of life over the Rio GranGe frontier, to a re- porter of the New Orleans Times Dem ocrat. '1 say President Diaz has the system,' he continued. ''because it is the direct outgrowth of his personal genus; he built 1t up himself. has al- ways kept it rigidly in hand and has undeniaDly made 1t an executive in Strument of extraordinary power The best proof of it's efficiency is to be found in the simple fact that during all these years of his administration dealing with people who are natura! porn plotters and revolutionists, not one conspiracy worth talking about has ever gained headway. They have cropped up by the score, but have all been nipped in the bud, and, what is more, the nipping was usually ,ione in fashion that left it clearly apparent that Diaz knew all about it from t;c beginning-something calculated tC send cold chills gallopirg Up and down conSpira tors backhone-or at least, so l have been assured by gentlemen of experience in that business. Of course. any outsider who assumes to be familiar with the private workings of such q bureau is merely talking through his hat but at the same time a man in active life in the city is quite apt now and then, to stumble over some startling evidences of it's exist ence. To illustrate the point I'll tell you little story: l launched out in Mexico years ago as q representative of several big American manufactur- CTS, and opened very handsome suite of offices at the capital. My janitor. errand runner and general factotum was an old man named Luis Some thing brother I've really forgotten the name, who came to me with so many greasy letters of reference, and was so humble, polite and eager to get job, that I engaged him on the spot. My idea was to make the offices a pleas ant lounging place for wealthy plant CTS and others with whom I might do some future business in machinery, and to that end found old Luis inval- uable. He was continually buStling about in the service of my visitors. and before long he was easily the most popular person on the premises. That went on for fully year; then Luis suddenly threw up the job and soon afterward 1 obtained irrefutable evi- dence that the fellow was a govern ment spy. There was a good deal of drawing room conspiracy in the air at the time, and no doubt some of my planter friends were foolish enough to entangle themselves in its meshes. At any rate, Luis had entered my service with the evident idea that the offices had been opened as q rendezvous for upper class revolutionists, and the fact | that he stuck to dead trail for an en-
 tire year shows how thoroughly every suspected point was covered When arrests came they came like thunder claps out of clear skies, and evidence was secured by ways and means ut terly incomprehensible to the victims. In my own case this poor doddering, white haired old serving man was as suredly the very last person on the premises whom anybody dreamed of associating with police spy. I would have come under suspicion myself firSt.''