Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/168

142 public powers and institutions which are employed in this unholy work. These consist of:

The army. The rurale forces. The police. The acordada. The Ley Fuga. Quintana Roo, the "Mexican Siberia." The prisons. The jefes politicos.

In a published interview issued during the Liberal rebellion in 1908, Vice-President Corral announced that the government had more than 50,000 soldiers who were ready to take the field at an hour's notice. In these figures he must have included the rurale forces, for employes of the War Department have since assured me that the regular army numbered less, almost an exact 40,000, in fact. On paper the Mexican army is, then, smaller than ours, but, according to estimates of the actual size of our army published by American experts during the past three years, it is larger, and in proportion to the population it is at least five times larger. General Diaz's excuse for the maintenance of such a large army has always been a hint that the country might at any time find itself in danger of invasion by the United States. That his purpose was not so much to prepare against invasion as against internal revolution is evidenced by the fact that, instead of fortifying the border, he fortified inland cities. Moreover, he keeps the bulk of the army concentrated near the large centers of population and his best and most extensive equipment consists of mountain batteries, recognized as specially well adapted to internal warfare.

Mexico is actually policed by the army and to this end