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238 reason for it? Is it because the system of Diaz is beyond reproach? Or is it because by some mysterious power that personage is able to control the press in his favor?

Look about you. Is there any other statesman or politician of the present day, American or foreign, who has been accorded a larger proportion of praise and a smaller proportion of blame by prominent American publishers than President Diaz?

I say that I do not know of one prominent magazine that has prosecuted a criticism of Diaz. Then how about The American Magazine? The American Magazine began a criticism, truly. And it planned to carry it out. Repeatedly it promised its readers that it would deal with the political conditions behind the slavery of Mexico. It hinted that Diaz would be shown in a new light. It had the material in its hands—most of the material of this book—and it was very bold and unequivocal in its announcements. And then—

The American Magazine proved the point that I am making more convincingly than any other instance than I can cite. Suddenly my articles were stopped. The political investigation was stopped. Other articles were substituted, milder articles, good as corroborations of the exposures of slavery, but ''in each and every one of these articles there was contained a suggestion that President Diaz was not personally to blame for the barbarous conditions that had been held up to the light. ''

"Diaz controls all sources of news and the means of transmitting it. Papers are suppressed or subsidized at the pleasure of the government. We know of some of the subsidies paid even to important Mexican papers printed in English. The real news of Mexico does not get across the border. Books that truly describe the present state of things are suppressed or bought up even when published in the United States. A