Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/214

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182
BARBAROUS MEXICO

ered from the following paragraphs, the most uncomplimentary in his open letter to Diaz:

"At the velada to which I have alluded, when your name was pronounced by the orators, it was received with unanimous hisses and marks of disapproval.

"On the night of the performance given at the Principal theatre in aid of the Guerrero victims, the entire audience maintained a sinister silence on your arrival. The same silence prevailed when you departed.

"If you had occasion, as I have, to mingle with the gatherings and groups of people of different classes, not all Reyists, you would hear, Mr. President, expressions of indignation against you spoken openly on all sides."

Within ten days after the banishment of Barron, a foreign resident, Frederick Palmer by name, an Englishman, was lodged in Belem prison, denied bail, held incommunicado for some days, and finally was sentenced to one month's imprisonment—for doing nothing worse than remarking that he thought Diaz had been president of Mexico long enough.

July 28th Celso Cortez, vice-president of the Central Club Reyista of Mexico City, was lodged in Belem prison for making a speech at the club rooms criticizing members of the Diaz cabinet.

Following came a long list of arrests of members of the Democratic movement throughout the country. Usually the charge was "sedition," but never was any evidence produced to prove sedition as Americans understand that term. In this movement there was never any hint of armed rebellion or any concerted violation of existing laws. In all of these cases I have yet to learn of any in which reasonable ground for the arrest existed. In many cases the victims were kept in jail for months, and in some cases they were sentenced to long terms in prison. The number persecuted in this