Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/201

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE CRUSHING OF OPPOSITION PARTIES
169

ing home from the theatre one night with his newly wedded wife he was set upon by several men, who killed him with daggers. In Tampico in 1902 Vincente Rivero Echeagarey, a newspaper man, dared to criticize the acts of the president. He was shot down at night while in the act of opening his own door. Jesus Olmos y Contreras, a newspaper man of the state of Puebla, about the same time published articles exposing an alleged licentious act of Governor Martinez. Two friends of the governor invited Contreras to supper. In the street the three walked arm in arm, the writer in the middle. Suddenly thugs fell upon him from behind. The false friends held Contreras tight until he had been struck down, when a heavy rock was used to beat the head of the victim into a pulp so that his identification might be impossible.

In Merida, Yucatan, in December, 1905, the writer, Abalardo Ancona, protested against the "re-election" of Governor Olegario Molina. Ancona was thrown into jail, where he was shot and stabbed to death.

In 1907 the writer, Augustin y Tovao, died of poison administered in Belem prison. Jesus Martinez Carrion, a noted newspaper artist, and Alberto Arans, a writer, left Belem to die in a hospital. Dr. Juan de la Pena, editor of a Liberal newspaper, died in the military prison of San Juan de Ulua. Juan Sarabia, another well known editor, was also imprisoned there and for a long time was supposed to be dead, until recently, when his friends got word of him. Daniel Cabrera, one of the oldest Liberal editors, was a cripple, and many times he was carried to jail on a stretcher.

Professor Luis Toro, an editor of San Luis Potosi, was imprisoned and beaten in prison so severely that he died. In the same prison Primo Feliciano Velasquez,