BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

238 BARBAROUS MEXICO
reason for it? Is it because the system of Diaz is beyond
reproach? Or is it because by some mysterious
power that personage is able to control the press in his
favor?
Look about you. Is there any other statesman or politician
of the present day, American or foreign, who has
been accorded a larger proportion of praise and a
smaller proportion of blame by prominent American
publishers than President Diaz?
I say that I do not know of one prominent magazine
that has prosecuted a criticism of Diaz. Then how about
The American Magazine? The American Magazine
began a criticism, truly. And it planned to carry it out.
Repeatedly it promised its readers that it would deal
with the political conditions behind the slavery of Mexico.
It hinted that Diaz would be shown in a new light.
It had the material in its hands—most of the material
of this book—and it was very bold and unequivocal in
its announcements. And then—
The American Magazine proved the point that I am
making more convincingly than any other instance than
I can cite. Suddenly my articles were stopped. The political
investigation was stopped. Other articles were
substituted, milder articles, good as corroborations of
the exposures of slavery, but in each and every one of
these articles there was contained a suggestion that
President Diaz was not personally to blame for the barbarous
conditions that had been held up to the light.
"Diaz controls all sources of news and the means of transmitting
it. Papers are suppressed or subsidized at the pleasure
of the government. We know of some of the subsidies paid
even to important Mexican papers printed in English. The
real news of Mexico does not get across the border. Books
that truly describe the present state of things are suppressed
or bought up even when published in the United States. A