BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

142 BARBAROUS MEXICO
public powers and institutions which are employed in this
unholy work. These consist of:
The army.
The rurale forces.
The police.
The acordada.
The Ley Fuga.
Quintana Roo, the "Mexican Siberia."
The prisons.
The je'fes politicos.
In a published interview issued during the Liberal rebellion
in 1908, Vice-President Corral announced that the
government had more than 50,000 soldiers who were
ready to take the field at an hour's notice. In these
figures he must have included the ruraic forces, for employes
of the War Department have since assured me
that the regular army numbered less, almost an exact
40,000, in fact. On paper the Mexican army is, then,
smaller than ours, but, according to estimates of the
actual size of our army published by American experts
during the past three years, it is larger. and in proportion
to the population it is at least five times larger.
General Diaz's excuse for the maintenance of such a
large army has always been a hint that the country might
at any time find itself in danger of invasion by the
United States. That his purpose was not so much to prepare
against invasion as against internal revolution is
evidenced by the fact that, instead of fortifying the border,
he fortified inland cities. Moreover, he keeps the
bulk of the army concentrated near the large centers of
population and his best and most extensive equipment
consists of mountain batteries, recognized as specially
well adapted to internal warfare.
Mexico is actually policed by the army and to this end