placing of considerable bodies of men in the army, but as a rule the jefe politico is the drafting officer and upon him there is no check. He has no system other than to follow his own sweet will. He drafts laborers who dare to strike, editors who criticize the government, farmers who resist exorbitant taxation, and any other ordinary citizens who may present opportunities for graft.
As a dumping ground for the politically undesirable, the conditions within the army are ideal, from the point of view of the government. The men are prisoners rather than soldiers and they are treated as such. For this reason the Mexican army has gained the title of "The National Chain-gang." While in Diaz-land I visited a number of army barracks. The barracks at Rio Blanco are typical. Here, ever since the Rio Blanco strike, 600 soldiers and 200 rurales have been quartered within the shadow of the great mill, in barracks and upon ground furnished by the company, an hourly menace to the miserably exploited workers there.
At Rio Blanco a little captain showed us about—De Lara and I—at the behest of an officer of the manufacturing company. El Senor Capitan informed us that the pay of the Mexican soldier, with rations, is $1.90 per month in American money and that the soldier is always expected to spend the major portion of this for extra food, as the food furnished is of too small a variety and too scarce a quantity to satisfy any human being. The captain confirmed the reports that I had often heard to the effect that the soldier, in all his five years service, never has an hour to himself away from the eye of an officer, that he is as much a prisoner in his barracks as is the life-termer in a penitentiary.
The proportion of involuntary soldiers the captain estimated at 98 per cent. Often, said he, the soldiers, crazy
