Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/251

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FOUR MEXICAN STRIKES
219

went back to work on more unsatisfactory conditions than before.

Such is the fate the Czar of Mexico metes out to workingmen who dare demand a larger share of the products of their labor in his country. One thing more remains to be said. Colonel Greene refused to grant the demand of the miners for more wages, and he claimed to have a good excuse for it.

"President Diaz," said Greene, "has ordered me not to raise wages, and I dare not disobey him.”

It is an excuse that is being offered by employers of labor all over Mexico. Doubtless President Diaz did issue some such an order, and employers of Mexican labor, Americans with the rest of them, are glad to take advantage of it. American capitalists support Diaz with a great deal more unanimity than they support Taft. American capitalists support Diaz because they are looking to Diaz to keep Mexican labor always cheap. And they are looking to Mexican cheap labor to help them break the back of organized labor in the United States, both by transferring a part of their capital to Mexico and by importing a part of Mexico's laborers into this country.