The acordada is an organization of secret assassins, a sort of secret police, attached to the government of each of the Mexican states. It consists of a jefe de acordada and anywhere from a half dozen to a half hundred subordinates. Personal enemies of the governor or of the jefes politicos, political suspects and highwaymen or others suspected of crime but against whom there is no evidence, are frequently put out of the way by the acordada. The names of the marked men are furnished by the officials and the members of the society are sent about the state with orders to kill quietly and without noise. Two notable cases where the acordada are reported as having killed extensively are those of the days following the strikes at Cananea and Rio Blanco. Personally I am acquainted with a Mexican whose brother was killed by the acordada for doing no more than shouting "Viva Ricardo Flores Magon." I know also of a son of a general high up in the councils of the Mexican government who became a sub-jefe de acordada in the state of Coahuila. He was a wild young fellow who had been put out of the army for acts of insubordination toward a superior officer. But his father was a friend of Diaz and Diaz himself appointed the youth to the acordada job, which paid a salary of three hundred pesos a month. This man was given two assistants and was sent out with orders to "kill quietly along the border" any and all persons whom he might suspect of connection with the Liberal Party. No check whatever was placed upon him. He was to kill at his own discretion.
The acordada at times work extensively even in the Mexican capital, which more nearly approaches the modern in its police methods than probably any other
