BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

CHAPTER XIII
THE DIAZ-AMERICAN PRESS CONSPIRACY
If there is any combination of Interests in the United
States that exercises so powerful an influence over the
press of this country as does President Diaz of Mexico
I should like to know its name.
In a previous chapter I asserted that no publication in
Mexico dares, no matter what the circumstances, to criticize
President Diaz directly. While the same thing
cannot, of course, be said of the United States, at least
this can be said, that there exists a strange, even an
uncanny, unwillingness on the part of powerful American
publishers to print anything derogatory to the ruler
of Mexico; that, also, there is manifested a remarkable
willingness to print matter flattering to the Mexican
dictator.
At this writing I do not know of a single book, regularly
published and circulated in the United States, which
seriously criticizes President Diaz, the man or his system;
while I could name at least ten which flatter him
most extravagantly. Indeed. I do not know of any book
that has ever been circulated in the United States—that
is, one put out by one of the regular publishing houses—
which attempted an extended criticism of President
Diaz.
And the situation with the magazines is exactly the
same. While the number of articles containing praise of
Diaz which have been published in magazines—not to
mention newspapers—during the past several years have
undoubtedly run into the hundreds, I (10 not know of one
prominent magazine that has prosecuted a criticism of
the Mexican dictator.
Is it not an astonishing situation? And what is the
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