SIR: The national press has lately startled thoughtful men with the most unusual of announcements. We are told we may shortly expect to witness the meeting of the popularly elected President of this great Republic with the uncrowned Czar of Mexico. Calculated to inspire enthusiasm in the minds of the ignorant or the falsely informed, this piece of news brings dismay to those who know the truth and honor American traditions. For the last thirty years the world has only heard unchallenged reports of the genius, the equity and the kindness of Porfirio Diaz. All this being true, it would only be fitting and proper that the two neighboring chiefs should exchange international courtesies. But as a matter of history Porfirio Diaz represents in Mexico what Abdul Hamid was to Turkey. On his white head rests the responsibility for the massacres of over 50,000 Mexican Christians; the slavery of thousands of Yaqui and Maya Indians who escaped fire and sword; the destruction of all liberties, personal as well as public; the corruption of the judiciary; the creation of a financial system which has mortgaged Mexico to European and American bankers; for the persecution of all the Mexican liberals in the United States, which reached a climax of brazenness and impudence when a Mexican liberal was kidnapped across the Rio Grande from an American jail by the help of American detectives in the payroll of the Czar. Therefore, I protest in the name of humanity, common decency and national dignity as distinguished from political expediency and international courtesy against such an exchange between the deeply trusted and patriotic President of the United States and the treacherous, unpopular and bloody-handed Nero of Mexico. You might retort that it is no business of mine to couple your name with an attack seemingly so unwarranted. My answer is that I speak no more than truth and not otherwise than I have spoken in a recent book on the real political conditions in Mexico. I am moved to repeat these truthful characterizations of Mexico’s president and the rule he stands for, because this pamphlet has been suppressed by an indictment against me in an American court brought about by the Mexican Government, which used your own brother, Henry W. Taft, as their lawyer against me, transparently to gain for their case the weight of an implied connection between it and the Administration. You might reply that the American Government cares nothing about the internal policy of the Mexican government as long as it behaves and protects American interests. I answer that if a neighbor be a good neighbor it might be sufficient unto you; but if your neighbor should torture or attempt to kill his children would it not be your duty to protest?