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Rh police had dogged their steps, their lives had been threatened, and countless methods had been used to prevent them from carrying on their work. Finally, hunted as outlaws beyond the national boundaries, denied the rights of free speech, press and assembly, denied the right peaceably to organize to bring about political changes, they had resorted to the only alternative—arms. Why had they wished to overturn their government? Because it had set aside the constitution, because it had abolished those civic rights which all enlightened men agree are necessary for the unfolding of a nation, because it had dispossessed the common people of their lands, because it had converted free laborers into serfs, peons, and some of them even into—slaves.

"Slavery? Do you mean to tell me that there is any real slavery left in the western hemisphere?" I scoffed. "Bah! You are talking like an American socialist. You mean 'wage slavery,' or slavery to miserable conditions of livelihood. You don't mean chattel slavery."

But those four Mexican exiles refused to give ground. "Yes, slavery," they said, "chattel slavery. Men, women and children bought and sold like mules—just like mules—and like mules they belong to their masters. They are slaves."

"Human beings bought and sold like mules in America! And in the twentieth century. Well," I told myself, "if it's true, I'm going to see it."

So it was that early in September, 1908, I crossed the Rio Grande bound for my first trip through the back yards of Old Mexico.

Upon this first trip I was accompanied by L. Gutierrez De Lara, a Mexican of distinguished family, whose acquaintance I had made also in Los Angeles. De Lara was opposed to the existing government in Mexico,