The original Francisco I. Madero, said to be of Jewish descent, as a young man lived near Matamoras, when General Taylor crossed the Rio Grande for Monterey. The army was unable to procure wagon transportation, and Madero suggested pack animal transportation to General Taylor as more feasible because of difficult sandy roads. Our Government gave Madero large contracts to transport the baggage and supplies of Taylor's army to Monterey and Saltillo, by which he accumulated a considerable fortune. After the war he received large concessions from the Mexican Government.
The family was very prolific, Francisco I having twelve or thirteen children, Francisco II about the same number, and Francisco III, presidential candidate, having many, as did nearly all his brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts. When the revolution against Diaz broke out, the Madero family embraced four or five hundred souls, nearly all more or less wealthy. Madero II was a Diaz supporter, as were about half his brothers. The rest were adherents of Madero III. The family is now dispersed and many have died.
I was personally acquainted with Francisco Madero III, and his father, Madero, Jr., was an extreme agitator similar to our Debs. The greatest qualification friends in each case claimed for their candidates for the presidency was that they had been confined in jail by their two countries for violations of laws!
Mr. Madero stated in all sincerity that he hoped to be to his country what Washington was to mine. I never met Mr. Debs, but I dare say he had similar ambitions and with about the same reason! Debs received relatively as many American votes when candidate for president as Madero did when he claimed election.
Our assistance given to such men as Madero, Orosco, and Villa in driving Diaz, the greatest ruler Mexico ever had, from his tranquil government to exile, set back for fifty years the advancement that Diaz had given in his twenty-seven years of authority. Until Mexico discovers another such noble man as Diaz, it will never have the tranquil and stable government it had. Some day Mexico will erect a monument to his memory as resplendent as that of Guatemozin or Montezuma. Were it not that our country is now so absorbed in the greater war in Europe, our jingoes might ere this have caused another war of conquest, subjugation and exploitation in Mexico.
I also knew Huerta personally. A graduate of their military academy, an officer of forty years' service in the army, I do not believe it possible that he had guilty knowledge of Madero's murder.
Equitable Distribution of the Waters of the Rio Grande
Because settlements in Colorado and New Mexico appropriated so much water from the Rio Grande in the flood season the river ran dry before it passed through the arid region around El Paso. Thus grapevines and fruit trees perished, and because it was impossible to cultivate vegetables, wheat, corn and other cereals, the settlers on both sides of the river were abandoning the country. In 1888, the city council of El Paso asked me to devise some remedy for their distress.