Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 30, 1912 Los Angeles, California – Mexican Comrades Sentence to Nearly Two Years -Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón, Librado Rivera, and Anselmo L. Figueroa
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 21, 1922 Ricardo Flores Magón Denied Clemency, Remains at Leavenworth
Editorial from the Oklahoma Leader of June 15, 1922:
TO OUR EVERLASTING SHAME ———-
Ricardo Flores Magon, was transferred from McNeil Prison to Leavenworth, arriving there on November 3, 1919
The breadth and depth of the ever-widening and deepening gulf which separates this government from the lofty ideals which glorified the minds of the lovers of human liberty who founded it, was never so clearly illustrated than by the recent refusal of the so-called department of justice to extended clemency to Ricardo Flores Magon.
Magon, Mexican patriot, poet and idealist, fled from Mexico when the tyrant and usurper Porfirio Diaz, always popular in this country, sought to take his life because he raised his voice and pen in behalf of his oppressed countrymen. Across the Rio Grande, safe, as he thought, from the power of his persecutor, and in a country which in times past had offered asylum to those who were exiled by liberty hating tyrants, Magon sought to arouse his countrymen to rebel and repudiate the government which was traducing the spirit of liberty and trampling the Mexican constitution in the mire.
Because of his activity in this respect, and at the instance of the secret service agents of Diaz, Magon was arrested and indicted in federal courts for inciting revolution against a friendly nation, and was convicted and given a long sentence twenty years in Leavenworth. Meantime the little flame he had fearlessly kindled burst into a refining conflagration Diaz, the bloody tyrant and usurper, abdicated his throne and escaped to a foreign land, never daring to return to the country he had impoverished and betrayed.
But notwithstanding the goal for which Magon yielded his liberty was won, the usurper removed and his regime destroyed, a servant of the people placed in office, order restored and constitutional government instituted Ricardo Flores Magon is still a poor and miserable prisoner in a stone cell in a penitentiary, the property of the United States, a nation conceived in justice and born in the name of Liberty. More than that, Magon is going blind and unless he is shortly released will never see the result of his humble labor, so fearlessly performed, to achieve his country’s redemption.
The Mexican ambassador, the legislatures of the states of Yucatan and Coahuila de Zeragoza and the Mexican Federation of Labor have memorialized the alleged department of justice at Washington for clemency for Magon, and for his fellow prisoner, Libraro Rivera, all to no avail. The capitalist government at Washington is taking sweet revenge upon the man, who was most responsible for the exile of Diaz, the dear friend of the capitalists of this country.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 3, 1910 Los Angeles, California – Mexican Revolutionaries to Start Newspaper
From the International Socialist Review of October 1910:
A. I. Villarreal
To fight Diaz. A. I. Villarreal writes us that the Mexican refugees-recently liberated from prison, are about to start a newspaper as “a vehicle of our agitation, as a hub of the fighting organization that we propose to build.” Comrade Villarreal advises us that the Mexican comrades desire very earnestly to start with a circulation of 10,000 subscriptions. The paper will be printed in Spanish, at Los Angeles. Subscription rates will be $2.00 a year; $1.10 for six months.
A. I. Villarreal. Address 420 W. 4th. St., Los Angeles, Calif.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 15, 1910
Los Angeles, California – Mexican Political Refugees Arrive after Release
From the Appeal to Reason of August 13, 1910:
Refugees Released–Their Persecution.
[-by John Kenneth Turner.]
Story of the Release.
By Telegraph to Appeal to Reason.
Los Angles, August 5.-Magon, Villarreal and Rivera, the refugee leaders of the Mexican Liberal party, are free at last, free and resting with friends in this city preparatory to reassembling their forces and launching again upon their campaign against the “Perpetual President” Diaz.
In order to meet them as they came out of prison, to be present if they were rearrested, so that through the Appeal to Reason the story of the latest crime against these men might be given to the world, I undertook the journey into that human bake oven, Arizona. I found the sweltering town of Florence, and that walled institution wherein some five hundred unfortunates pant and fight flies throughout the burning summer days and nights, bunked like sardines four or more in a cell. The trip nearly finished me. What long drawn agony it must have been to these persecuted men!
When Wednesday morning the three refugees stepped out through the iron gates into the open air, they looked about them for a man with a star and handcuffs, and could hardly believe their eyes when they saw none.
Arriving down town, they looked again for such a man, and at the station they looked for him again. As the train pulled into Phoenix Magon leaned back, resigning himself as it were, to the inevitable. Villarreal bent toward me and said: “He can’t believe that we are to be free, he cannot believe it. I could not believe it myself.”
But the man with the star and the handcuffs did not appear, nor has he yet appeared. As we disembarked at Los Angeles we heard a cheer, then the three Liberals were surrounded by scores of men and women. Americans and Mexicans, who shook their hands, patted them on-the back, and hugged them…..
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 19, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1910, Part I:
-Found in the Thick of the Fight on Behalf of Working Class Men and Women
From the Mt. Vernon, Ohio, Democratic Banner of April 5, 1910:
DROP THEIR PICKS AT STROKE OF TWELVE.
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Coal Miners’ Strike Is a Reality.
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200,000 MEN ARE IDLE
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D. H. Sullivan Falls Heir
to Ohio Situation.
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THINKS SETTLEMENT IN SIGHT
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General Belief Is That Suspension
Will Be of Short Duration and That
Country Will Experience No
Serious Result From Shutdown
-Pittsburg Operators Anxious to Sign.
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Columbus, O., April 1- Dennis H. Sullivan of Coshocton today assumed his duties as president of the Ohio miners’ union, and made the announcement that nearly every union miner in the state is now idle, work at all mines having been suspended in response to the general order to quit work until new agreements are signed between the operators and officials of the union, in accordance with the 5-cent increase demanded as an ultimatum by the miners present at the Cincinnati conference.
Mr. Sullivan said:
The miners of Ohio stopped work at midnight, but this is in accord with an understanding with the operators. Every miner in the state went out, with the exception of cases in which there has been special permission granted for them to run.
Some mines are run to furnish coal for some specific purpose. For instance, there will be a mine whose entire output is taken by certain locomotives or by a furnace. Here is a contract [picking one from his desk] signed by an eastern Ohio operating company. A furnace is absolutely dependent on these mines, and if they were closed the business would so to some other mine, outside the state, or the furnace would close. We’re not driving business from the state; we’re for Ohio. So in all these cases privilege is given to continue work, pending adjustment of local differences at some later time.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 17, 1910
Mother Jones Calls on Men and Women of America to Defend Mexican Comrades
From the Appeal to Reason of April 16, 1910:
To men and women of the United State I stand pleading. There are in our federal prisons some eight or ten Mexican revolutionists who have been silently railroaded to the American bastiles at the behest of the worst tyrant which ever cursed God’s earth-Diaz of Mexico. He can reach across the line, handle our courts and force them to do anything he wants to.
Some humane congressmen have introduced a bill of inquiry asking the attorney general to explain why as revolutionists these men are held. The American nation was founded on revolution. I beg of you in the name of freedom to flood Congress with letters demanding that this investigation be pushed to the end. No pigeonholing. Don’t loose any time, or your hands will be red with the blood of martyrs, as are the hands of Diaz.
Don’t fail, the cause of justice falls on you to hear the pleading of our brothers from behind the bars of the capitalist bastiles.
Oh men, and women, move at once and save these brave revolutionists!
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 22, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part II:
-Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro
From the New York Sun of November 29, 1909:
DEMAND DE FORNARO’S PARDON
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Protest Against the Cartoonist’s Imprisonment
Voiced at the Berkeley Theatre.
A meeting to protest against the imprisonment of Carlo de Fornaro, a cartoonist, for libeling a Mexican editor was held at the Berkeley Theatre last night. This resolution was adopted:
We the citizens of New York city in mass meeting assembled, herewith resolve that we regard the conviction of Carlo de Fornaro of libel and his sentence of one year’s imprisonment at hard labor as an unprecedented and unconstitutional attack upon free speech and the freedom of the press. We demand that our Legislature repeal that part of the libel laws which gave an excuse for the action of the court and we call upon the governor of New York for the immediate and unconditional pardon of Carlo de Fornaro.
First of all reporters were introduced to Heriberto Barrow, who says he’s the Democratic candidate for President of Mexico, running against President Dias. He was a member of the House of Representatives, he said, and about a year ago introduced to Mexico to the New Idea party of young men, or Democratic party. In September he fled, fearing persecution. He says posters announcing his candidacy in big red letters are being torn down by the police in Mexico and any one that dares to indorse him openly is being thrown into prison by Diaz.
[Then followed, as speakers, Gaylord Wilshire, chairman of the meeting, and George Edwin Joseph, attorney for De Fornaro.]
Mother Jones, the Socialist propagandist, then took the centre of the stage and scanning the audience shouted that she had no fear of any Pinkerton dogs who were present and worked for Diaz. She was as ready to die to-night as any time in her fight for liberty.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 14, 1909
Tombstone, Arizona – Citizens Protest Conviction of Mexican Revolutionaries
From the Appeal to Reason of June 12, 1909:
CITIZENS’ PROTEST.
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Monster Mass Meeting in Tombstone, Ariz.,
Petitions Taft for Pardon for Mexican Patriots.
Had it not been for the corporation influences in Arizona it is very unlikely that Magon, Villarreal and Rivera would have been convicted of the charge of conspiring to violate the neutrality laws of the United States. The organized miners and the unprejudiced farmers and stockmen were quite certain that the neutrality laws had not been violated by anybody-not even by Mexican peons who occasionally crossed the line into the United States for the purpose of buying arms and ammunition with which to prosecute the revolution against Dictator Diaz-and clearly not by the leaders of the junta of the Mexican liberal party, who admittedly were in Canada when the conspiracy was alleged to have been made. With the exception of mine managers, superintendents, shift bosses and corporation hirelings, including Pinkerton and Furlong detectives, virtually every persons in Arizona was in sympathy more or less pronounced with the cause for which Magon and his associates stood.
In Tombstone at the beginning of the trial there was some division of public sentiment, though the majority of those who expressed themselves were convinced of the innocence of the prisoners. As the trial progressed and the weakness of the prosecution became manifest expressions of sympathy for the Mexican prisoners were more frequent. The last day of the trial virtually every person in Tombstone declared the Magon, Villarreal and Rivera were innocent and that the jury ought not to have to leave the box to make up a verdict of acquittal. There were no bets made the last day, as there were no takers. The detectives, Mexican consuls, spies, thugs and gunmen employed by the United States government in its prosecution of the defendants kept together and stayed close around their headquarters; these were the only fellows who desired the conviction of the Mexicans.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 24, 1909
Tombstone, Arizona Territory – Mexican Revolutionaries Found Guilty
This week’s edition of the Appeal to Reason, page one, informs us that our Mexican Comrades were found guilty at trial in Tombstone on May 16th. Page three carries a report from the trial by George H. Shoaf and a statement from Comrade Ricardo Flores Magón, written before the trial.
From the Appeal to Reason of May 22, 1909:
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THE TRIAL AT TOMBSTONE.
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Opening of the Case Against the Mexican Patriots
at the Town of the Significant Name.
By Telegraph to Appeal to Reason.
Tombstone, Ariz., May 14.-Before a jury of nine republicans and three democrats the government began the evidence against Magon, Villarreal and Rivera. The selection of the jury occupied one day. Men who were members of labor unions, members of the Socialist party or readers of the Appeal to Reason were disqualified. As a result no one on the jury has any sympathy with the laboring class and its struggles. If this jury acquits the defendants it will be because of the absence of any evidence that could tend to point to conviction.
Evidence so far introduced is incompetent and immaterial and is regarded by the spectators as having no bearing on the case. All objections made by the defense have been overruled. In spite of the numerous witnesses examined, most of them Furlong detectives and Mexican spies, it is believed that the jury will be forced to acquit. The worst that is expected is a disagreement.
Duration of the trial cannot be determined at this time.-George H. Shoaf.
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