yer and congressman, an agent provocateur, who had been commissioned by the government to destroy the organization.
At a given moment, according to Librado Rivera, who was vice-secretary of the club, the agent provocateur jumped to his feet to protest against the work of the club, and at the signal the disguised soldiers and gendarmes feigned to join in the protest, smashing the chairs to pieces against the floor. Their leader fired some shots into the air, but the genuine audience and the members of the club did not make the least move lest they give some pretext for an attack, for they knew that the agent provocateur and his assistants were but staging a comedy in order to invite violence to themselves from some members of the club. Nevertheless, hardly were the shots fired when a crowd of policemen invaded the hall, striking right and left with their clubs. Camilo Arriaga, president of the club; Juan Sarabia, secretary; Professor Librado Rivera, vice-secretary, as well as twenty-five other members, were arrested and accused of fictitious crimes, such as resisting the police, sedition, and so on. The result was that they were all imprisoned for nearly a year and the club was dissolved.
Thus were dissolved the majority of the other clubs in the Liberal federation. The Liberal newspapers, public spokesmen of the clubs, were put out of business by the imprisonment of their editors and the destruction or confiscation of the printing plants. How many men and women lost their lives in the hunt of the Liberals which extended over the succeeding years will never be known. The jails, penitentiaries and military prisons were filled with them, thousands were impressed into the army and sent away to death in far Quintana Roo, while the ley fuga was called into requisition to get rid
