In the southern border state of Chiapas, the taxes in many places could
not be collected. Last week news items said that the present government
had sent General Paz there, with federal troops, to remedy that state of
affairs. In Tabasco, the peons refused to harvest the crops for their
masters; let us hope they have imitated their brothers in Morelos and
gathered them for themselves.
The Maderists have announced that a stiff repressive campaign will be
inaugurated at once; if we are to believe the papers, we are to believe
Madero guilty of the imbecility of saying, "Five days after my
inauguration the rebellion will be crushed." Just why the crushing has
to wait till five days after the inauguration does not appear. I
conceive there must have been some snickering among the reactionary
deputies if such an announcement was really made; and some astonished
query among his followers.
What are we to conclude from all these reports? That the Mexican people
are satisfied? That it's all good and settled? What should we think if
we read that the people, not of Lower but of Upper, California had
turned out the ranch owners, had started to gather in the field products
for themselves and that the Secretary of War had sent United States
troops to attack some thousands of armed men (Zapata has had 3,000 under
arms the whole summer and that force is now greatly increased) who were
defending that expropriation? if we read that in the state of Illinois
the farmers had driven off the tax collector? that the coast states were
talking of secession and forming an independent combination? that in
Pennsylvania a division of the federal army was to be dispatched to
overpower a rebel force of fifteen hundred armed men doing guerilla work
from the mountains? that the prison doors of Maryland, within hailing
distance of Washington City, were being thrown open by armed revoltees?
Should we call it a condition of peace? Regard it a proof that the
people were appeased? We would not: we would say that revolution was in
full swing. And the reason you have thought it was all over in Mexico,
from last May till now, is that the Chicago press, like the eastern,
northern, and central press in general, has said nothing about this
steady march of revolt. Even _The Socialist_ has been silent. Now that
the flame has shot up more spectacularly for the moment, they call it "a
new revolution."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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