Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/220

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188
BARBAROUS MEXICO
This being the case, there were many reasons to suppose that Peniche, in publishing the accusation, was working in the public interest and was not committing any crime. Instead of this, he is convicted of defamation, an even more serious offense than libel.

El Diario del Hogar, an old and conservative daily paper of the capital, which has espoused the cause of the Democrats, printed an account of Peniche's banishment also, the article appearing under the caption "Newspaper Men Watch Out." The authorities at once forced the suspension of the paper. The owner, Filomena Mata, an aged man who had retired from active life; Filomena Mata, Jr., managing editor, and the mechanical foreman, were taken to prison. A month afterwards it was reported that father and son were still in jail and that Mata, Sr., was dying of ill treatment received from the jailers.

Some time later, in March, 1910, the government forced the suspension of Mexico Nuevo. It was revived later, however, and is the only Democratic paper which survived the Reyes campaign.

Paulino Martinez was one of the oldest and best known newspaper men in Mexico. His papers were the only ones in opposition to the policy of the administration which succeeded in weathering the storm of press persecutions of past years. For several years his papers, La Voz de Juarez and EI Insurgente. were the only opposition papers in Mexico. Martinez kept them alive, so he told me himself, by refraining always from making direct criticisms of high officials or acts of General Diaz.

But with the campaign against the Democratic movement Martinez's papers went with the rest. When the government began action against him his papers num-