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BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

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162 BARBAROUS MEXICO<br />

my position and my influential friends, yet hourly I am<br />

expecting the tap on the arm that will tell me to go."<br />

The case of most extreme fear which I observed was<br />

that of a wealthy and beautiful woman, wife of an official<br />

of the Rio Blanco mills, with whom De Lara and<br />

I took dinner one day. The official drank deeply of<br />

wine, and as the meal was near an end his tongue<br />

loosened and he spoke of matters which, for the sake<br />

of his own safety, he should have guarded. The wife<br />

sat opposite him, and as he spoke of government murders<br />

of which he knew her face blanched and with her<br />

eyes she tried to warn him to be more careful. Finally<br />

I turned my face away, and, glancing sidewise, saw her<br />

take the opportunity to bend forward over the table<br />

and shake a trembling, jeweled finger in his face. Again<br />

and again she tried skilfully to turn the conversation,<br />

but without success, until finall y, unable to control herself<br />

longer, she sprang forward, and, clapping a hand<br />

over her husband's lips, tried to dam back the fearsome<br />

words he was saying. The animal terror on that woman's<br />

face I can never forget.<br />

Fear so widespread and so extreme as I met with<br />

cannot be the result of imagined dangers. There must<br />

be something behind it, and there is. Secret killing<br />

is constantly going on in Mexico, but to what extent<br />

no one will ever know. It is asserted in some quarters<br />

that there are more political executions going on right<br />

now than ever before, but that they are more cleverly<br />

and secretly (lone than ever before. Whether that is<br />

true or not I do not know. Certainly the press is better<br />

controlled than ever before. The apparent quiescence<br />

of Mexico is entirely forced by means of club, pistol and<br />

knife.<br />

Mexico has never really enjoyed political freedom.

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