a month the strike had been going on, and though 600 cotton mill operatives were involved and Tizapan was only a score of miles from the palace of Chapultepec, not a daily newspaper in the capital, as far as I have learned, mentioned the fact that there was a strike.
I first heard of the Tizapan strike from Paulino Martinez, the editor, who is now a political refugee in the United States. Martinez cautioned me against saying that he told me, since, though he had not heard of the strike himself until after it had been called, he thought the telling might result in his arrest. The next day I took a run out to Tizapan, viewed the silent mill, visited the strikers in their squalid homes, and finally had a talk with the strike committee.
Except for Valle Nacional, I never saw so many people—men, women and children—with the mark of acute starvation on their faces, as at Tizapan. True, there was no fever among them, their eyes were not glazing with complete exhaustion from overwork and insufficient sleep, but their cheeks were pale, they breathed feebly and they walked unsteadily from lack of food.
These people had been working eleven hours a day for wages running from fifty cents to three dollars a week in our money. Doubtless they would have continued to work for it if they were really paid it, but the bosses were always devising new means to rob them of what little they were entitled to. Dirt spots on the calico meant a loss of one, two and sometimes even three pesos. Petty fines were innumerable. Finally, each worker was taxed three centavos per week to pay for the food of the dogs belonging to the factory. That was the last straw. The toilers refused to accept partial wages, the mill was closed and the period of starvation began.
