BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

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BARBAROUS MEXICO
at little or no cost, and who succeeded in forming such
intimate relations with Ramon Corral and other high
Mexican officials that the municipal government established
upon his property was entirely under his control,
while the government of the Mexican town close beside
it was exceedingl y friendly to him and practically under
his orders. The American consul at Cananea, a man
named Galbraith, was also an employe of Greene, so
that both the Mexican and United States governments,
as far as Cananea and its vicinity was concerned, were
—W. C. Greene.
Greene, having since fallen into disrepute with the
powers that be in Mexico, has lost most of his holdings
and the Greene-Cananea Copper Company is now the
property of the Cole-Ryan mining combination, one of
the parties in the Morgan-Guggenheim copper merger.
In the copper mines of Cananea were employed six
thousand Mexican miners and about six hundred American
miners. Greene paid the Mexican miners just half
as much as he paid the American miners, not because
they performed only half as much labor, but because
he was able to secure them for that price. The Mexicans
were getting big pay, for Mexicans—three pesos a (lay,
most of them. But naturally they were dissatisfied and
formed an organization for the purpose of forcing a
better bargain out of Greene.
As to what precipitated the strike there is some dispute.
Some say that it was due to an announcement
by a mine boss that the company had decided to supersede
the system of wage labor with the system of contract
labor. Others say it was precipitated by Greenes
telegraphing to Diaz for troops, following a demand of
the miners for five pesos a day.
But whatever the immediate cause, the walko u t was