BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

314 BARBAROUS MEXICO
The inhuman methods used by Diaz to exterminate
the Yaqui Indians have been exploited in a previous
chapter. One of his famous Yaqui orders which, however,
I did not mention, not onl y exhibits his rude and
uncultured ideas of justice, but it paints his cruelty as
most diabolical. Several years ago, after various employers
of labor of the state of Sonora had protested
against the wholesale deportation of the Yaquis because
they needed the Yaquis as farm and mine laborers,
Diaz, in order to pacify the aforesaid employers, modified
his deportation decree to read substantially as follows:
"No more Yaquis are to be deported except in
case of offenses being committed by Yaquis. For every
offense hereafter committed by any Yaqui 500 Yaquis
are to be rounded up and deported to Yucatan."
This decree is attested to by no less a personage than
Francisco I. Madero, the distinguished citizen of the
state of Coahuila, who dared oppose Diaz in the presidential
campaign of 1910. The decree was carried out,
or at least the stream of Yaqui exiles kept on. Cruel
and revengeful is the Mexican president and bitterly
has his nation suffered as a result of it.
Is Diaz a brave man? In some quarters it has been
taken for granted that he is a man of courage, inasmuch
as he made a success as a soldier. But there are
many distinguished Mexicans who, having watched his
career, assert that he is not onl y not brave, but that
he is a shrinking, cringing coward. And they point to
numerous accepted facts to support their assertion.
When the news of the uprising at Las Vacas reached
him in the last days of Tune, 1908, Diaz was suddenly
taken sick and for five days he staid in his bed. In high
government circles it was whispered about—and the
fact is alleged to have come from one of his physicians