“I guess it’s just some fellow with a jag on,” said I. I gave it no further thought.
“I went to my hotel and sat with a dozen or so of those poor, unfortunate wretches in the smelters, discussing the meeting, when the editor of ‘El Industrio’ burst into the room very excited. He said, ‘Oh Mother, they have kidnapped Sarabia, our young revolutionist.’
“Kidnapping seemed to be in the air just about that time. The Idaho affair was on. He was flushed and almost incoherent. I said, ‘Sit down a moment and get cool, then tell me your story.’
“He told me while I was addressing the crowd and the back streets were empty, an automobile had driven out of the jail, had driven to the office of the paper on which Sarabia worked and he had been kidnapped; that his cries for help had been smothered, and that he was held incommunicado in the jail.
“I said to him, ‘Get all the facts you can. Get them as correct as you can and immediately telegraph to the governor. Telegraph to Washington. Don’t stop a moment because if you do they will murder him.’
“We telegraphed the governor and Washington that night.
“The next day I met the editor of ‘El Industrio’—the paper which has since been suppressed—and he told me the horrible details. Sarabia had incurred the hatred of Diaz and the forty thieves that exploited the Mexican peons because he had called Diaz a dictator. For this he had served a year in Mexican jails. He came to the United States and continued to wage the fight for Mexico’s liberation. Diaz’s hate followed him across the border and finally he had been kidnapped and taken across the Mexican border at the request of the tyrant.
“I said, ‘That’s got to stop. The idea of any blood-thirsty pirate on a throne reaching across these lines and stamping under his feet the constitution of our United States, which our forefathers fought and bled for! If this is allowed to go on, Mexican pirates can come over the border and kidnap any one who opposes tyranny.’
“We got up a protest meeting that night. We had a hard time getting the meeting announced, for the papers all belonged to the Southern Pacific Railway or to the Copper Queen mine, and their sympathies were of course with the pirates. But we managed to circulate the news of the meeting through the town. I spoke.
“I am not very choice, you know, when the constitution of my country is violated and the liberties of the people are tramped on. I do not go into the classics. I am not praying. I told the audience that the kidnapping of Manuel Sarabia by Mexican police with the connivance of American authorities was an incident in the struggle for liberty. I put it strong.