BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

194 BARBAROUS MEXICO
accorded the party's candidates as they traveled through
the country.
So severe was this persecution that, May 21st, Attorney
Roque Estrada, one of the most prominent of the
Anti-Re-electionist speakers, addressed an open letter to
Diaz, begging him to interfere in behalf of constitutional
rights. This was followed by a letter from Madero himself,
couched in a similar vein. In recounting some of
the outrages which had been heaped upon his friends,
Estrada said in part:
"When the delegate of Cananea, Sonora, returned to his
home, he was imprisoned, just as were some presidents of clubs;
in Alamos, Sonora, independent citizens were arrested, and a
journalist and his family were martyred; in Torreon, Coahuila,
in Monterey, and in Orizaba the rights of association and
reunion have been impudently violated; finally, in the tormented
City of Puebla, immediately after the visit which the candidates
of the people made on the 14th and 15th of the current month,
an epoch of terror was begun, capable of destroying the reputation
of the most sane and solid administration. In the City
of Zaragoza many independent citizens were confined in prison,
others were consigned to the army, as in the case of Senor
Diaz Duran, president of an Anti-Re-electionist club; and others
have felt the necessity of abandoning their homes in order to
escape the fury of authority."
Some of the outrages recounted in Iadero's letter
follow:
"At Coahuila the public officials have arbitrarily forbidden
demonstrations in our honor, preventing also the spread of our
principles. The same has happened in the states of Nuevo Leon,
Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosi. * * * In the States of
Sonora and Puebla the conditions are serious. In the former
state an independent journalist, Mr. Caesar del Vando, was
thrown into jail. * * * At Cananea the prosecutions are
extreme against the members of my party, and according to late
news received therefrom more than thirty individuals have been
imprisoned, among them the full board of directors of the