Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/318

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
282
BARBAROUS MEXICO

against many of the refugees, that of setting on foot a military expedition against a foreign power. On March 22, 1876, Diaz crossed the Rio Grande at Brownsville, Texas, with forty armed followers for the purpose of waging war upon President Lerdo de Tejada. He was driven back and, though all America knew of his exploit, no effort was made to imprison him.

But now the policy has been changed to accommodate President Diaz. Action has been taken against political refugees of just one other country, Russia, and it is safe to assume that those cases were undertaken merely that the authorities might defend themselves against the charge of using the machinery of government with partiality against Mexicans,

Magon and a small group of followers, including his brother Enrique and the Sarabias, crossed the Rio Grande in January, 1904, and soon afterwards established their paper "Regeneracion" in San Antonio. The paper had been going but a few weeks when a Mexican, a supposed hireling of the Mexican government, called at the office and tried to reach the Liberal leader with a dirk-knife. Enrique Magon grappled with the fellow, and in another moment four city detectives rushed in and placed Enrique under arrest. The next day he was fined $30 in the police court, while the supposed thug was not even arrested.

The exiles looked upon this incident as a part of a conspiracy to get them into trouble. They moved to St. Louis, where they re-established their paper. They had hardly got into their new quarters when they began to be annoyed by the Furlong Detective Agency. They claim that the Furlong Detective Agency put an "operative" into the office of "Regeneracion" in the role of an advertising solicitor, put "operatives" into the St. Louis