Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-25
HORRORS OF MEXICO

OtOCIAIs conditions in Mexico fill with
horror every sensitive American
~ "tenderfoot" who visits the South
ern republic. The American Magazine
is performing a public service-or we
might even say duty-by giving us the
information about Mexico which the
consuls and consular agents of the
United States, for reasons best known
to themselves and the government,
make practice of Withholding from
the public, although the consuls must
be familiar with them.
It is a striking illustration of the
notorious general ineficiency of the
co .sular Service that a popular mag
azine is able to promise in a series of
articles more genuine information as
to the condition of Mexico than the
United States have enjoyed since the
conquest Of California.
J. x. Turner, who obtained the infor-
nation and wrote the articles, says
human slavery exists in Mexico no; in
a few instances, but in hundreds OF
thousands. Men, women and children
are bought and sold, overworked, beaten
and abused. He writes:
Most of us picture Mexico vaguely
as a republic in reality much like our
own, inhabited by people little differ
ent in temperament! A little poorer
and a little less advanced, but still en-
ioying the protection of republican
laws-a free people in the sense that we
are free Mexico is a country without
political freedom, without freedom of
speech, without a free press, without a
free ballot, without jury system
without political parties, without any
of our cherished guarantees of life, nb-
erty and the pursuit of happiness. Ii
is a land where there has been nc con
test for the office of president for more
than a generation. where the executive
rules all things by means of standing
army. where political offices are sold
for a fixed price, whcce the public
school system in vast country districts
is abolished because a governor needs
the money I found Mexico to be a
land where the people are poor because
they have no rights, where peonage is
the rule for the great mass and where
actual chattel slavery obtains for nun
dreds Of thousands.
This information is aptly supple
mented in a letter received yesterday
from a Los Angeles man who is trav-
cling in Mexico, who says:
But the natives! Twelve millions
of the 15.000,00O are poems, ignorant
poor, miserable, living in unutterable
filth and with instincts below those OF
the dumb brutes of our country. Tne
death rate here is something frightful,
due to the manner in which these MeXi-
cans live. Take the worst part OF
Sonoratown in Los Angeles, multiply
it by a hundred and you haven't then
a condition such as exists in Mexico
City and throughout the republic. They
are absolutely without mercy toward
each other or toward beasts, and their
treatment of horses and mules is the
most brutal l ever saw. There seems
to be no hope for them; they are de-
generates, weakened by a blood dis
ease, leprosy. smallpox, etc, and, what
makes it bad for foreigners here, these
sick and crippled, some of them fright
fully mutilated are allowed to run at
large and beg on the streets. Ere
ouently one sees a person with small
pox on the street, and lepers are COM
mon. So l say, the filth and diseased
condition of the MeXicans, and the, ,hor-
ror of their existence renders a person
with humanitarian instincts absolutely
unhappy. I have frequently passed
Belem prison. No place with the pOssi-
BILE exception of the "Black Hole of
Calcutta" it is declared, can be COM
pared to Belem.
In view Of the conditions described in
this letter, and Of the general barbarity
of Diaz-land, the monstrous and cruel
atrocity of a betrayal into the hands
of Mexico of political prisoners who
may at any time seek refuge under the
Stars and Stripes from oppression and
tyranny becomes more apparent than
ever, and surely it behooves our gov
ernment to exercise keenest vigilance
with regard to charges preferred
against Mexican refugees in the United
States lest at any time Uncle Sam be
betrayed into acting as a special police
man for the nation that maintains a
Black Hole of Calcutta as part of the
habitual economy of its civil life.