BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

FMR MEXICAN STRIKES 211
a month the strike had been going on, and though 600
cotton mill operatives were involved and Tizapan was
only a score of miles from the palace of Chapultepec,
not a daily newspaper in the capital, as far as I have
learned, mentioned the fact that there was a strike.
I first heard of the Tizapan strike from Paulino Martinez,
the editor, who is now a political refugee in the
United States. Martinez cautioned me against saying
that he told me, since, though lie had not heard of the
strike himself until after it had been called, lie thought
the telling might result in his arrest. The next (lay I
took a run out to Tizapan, viewed the silent mill, visited
the strikers in their squalid homes, and finally had a talk
with the strike committee.
Except for Valle Nacional, I never saw so many
people—men, women and children—with the mark of
acute starvation on their faces, as at Tizapan. True,
there was no fever among them, their eyes were not
glazing with complete exhaustion from overwork and
insufficient sleep, but their cheeks were pale, they
breathed feebly and they walked unsteadily from lack of
food.
These people had been working eleven hours a day for
wages running from fifty cents to three dollars a week
in our money. Doubtless they would have continued to
work for it if they were really paid it, but the bosses
were always devising new means to rob them of what
little they were entitled to. Dirt spots on the calico
meant a loss of one, two and sometimes even three pesos.
Petty fines were innumerable. Finally, each worker was
taxed three centavos per week to pay for the food of
the (logs belonging to the factory. That was the last
straw. The toilers refused to accept partial wages, the
mill was closed and the period of starvation began.