The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-12-28
AMERICANS SUFFER HORRIBLE TORTURE AT MEX|CANS' HANDS
John Roberts of San An tonic Tells of Fearful Conditions in Mexico.
 Texas Is Prosperous

John Roberts, formerly of Birmingham,
 but now engaged in business in San An
 tonic. Tex, returned. with Mrs. Roberts,
 last night to Texas. after spending the | holidays here with relatives.
 san Antonio, and all of Texas for that
 matter, is enjoying remarkable prosper ty," stated Mir Roberts san Antonio
 is the great cattle shipping town of
 Texas This industry is much larger
 than people outside the cattle country
 can even imagine. Hundreds of thou | sands of cattle are driven into San An- | tonic every year to be shipped In the
 shipping season 1t is impossible for the
 railroads to provide sufficient rolling | stock to move them out. I have known | close to half million head to be corralled | there during a congested period. The | railroads make up trains and run them
 all day and night as fast as they can get cars. but it is impossible to avoid congestion at the shipping season. A
 steer that sold last year for s45 brings S9o today so you can readily see pros- perity Is with the cattle country. ! san Antonio supplies a large and rich | territory. We do business 400 miles to the west, 150 to the north and to the
 Mexican border on the south In normal
 times we transact wonderfully large i business throughout all of northern
 Mexico. For the last two years, how
 ever. the Mexican trade has been sadly | curtailed
 1 'T believe Carranza will eventually
 bring about at least a semblance of
 order and peace in Mexico, know Car
 ranza quite we'll He is business man, stern, efficient and ld-blooded. He will always look out for Carranza--malSe
 money out of Nexico-but will bring
 about order. As an example of his cold
 bloodedness I cite this incident which is undoubtedly true. In a skirmish few I weeks ago, he directed one of his officers | to dislodge small machine gun the | opposing forces had installed in an ad- vantageous position and were using with isastrous effect on the Carranza forces The officer made half a dozen ineffective
 shots. Carranza rode up and asked him I if he could dislodge the gun. The officer replied that his shots seemed to fall
 
 | move them out. Carranza drew .45
 Colts and shot thim dead without a word l "The people in the state will never | know the horrors perpetrated in Mexico An American | talked with in San An l tonic told me that the Mexican soldiers i or bandits tied him to tree and hung | his four children to telephone wire be- 1 fore his eyes. Another American was forced to witness the mistreatment and mutiation Of his own wife. Her suffer ing was finally ended by ripping her body entirely open with butcher knife Re- ports-and they are pretty accurately substantiated, too, are quite frequent of Americans having their feet and hands burned off and other horrible tortures in- flicted by the bandits and soldiers. There is no such thing as court of law in Mexico today. The jails are cleared out every morning and this is the procedure All the inmates are l marched out in the yard against store wall and shot to death. An officer fre- 1 quently inspects the work of the firing squad and fires shot or two from his
 revolver Into the heads of the victims to make sure sentence is effectively exc cuted.
 The nature of a Mexican Is past under standing. Brother will shoot down brother without compunction on the | slightest pretext. A husband will like wise shoot his wife and when his time comes to die he will roll q cigarette as he walks to the wall and faces the rifles with grin on his countenance. You will naturally enough wonder why Americans will stay in Mexico. They are coming out as rapidly possible But take the problem home If you had in- vested sl0.00o, $20,Ooo or $sO.00O down there -all you possessed in the world. you l would likely take a long chance and stay with it, rather than come back to tho states pennless. Once you leave your property there it Is gone forever. Americans coming into San Antonio tell me they would sleep night after night with Winchester rifle at their side and the dread of arrest was with them night and day. and l have already told you what going to a Mexican jail means. Villa appears to have cashed in. so to speak. and I believe all of northern Mexico Is glad of it-not that they love Carranza, but because they hate and fear Villa more.
 Southern Mexico, understand is un- dergoing the most fearful sufferings and
 horrors the mind of man can imagine or the ingenuity of the devil himself could evolve"