The Great Northern and the Northern Pacific had offered rewards for the arrest and conviction of the parties who had committed these depredations, which aggregate, I understand, $20,000.00; but, as I have always strictly adhered to a rule that I formed early in my career, never to work for or receive rewards that might be offered for the arrest and conviction of any person, I did not claim the rewards offered by the two railroads. My reason for not accepting rewards is fully explained in another portion of this book.
RUNNING DOWN THE REVOLUTIONISTS.
DIFFICULT PIECE OF DETECTIVE WORK PERFORMED FOR THE
MEXICAN GOVERNMENT—SENSATIONAL SCENES ATTENDING
THE ARREST OF THE LEADERS.
Early in the Twentieth Century a movement, which had for its object the overthrow of the Diaz government in Mexico, crystalized. The revolutionists went about this work very quietly at the beginning, but later became more bold, and finally the majority of the leaders in the movement were driven from that country. Headquarters were first established at Laredo, across the border, but afterwards at El Paso and at Tombstone, Arizona.
As this was a violation of the neutrality laws, at the instance of the Mexican government the El Paso and Tombstone junta were broken up, and its officers disappeared. Within a few months the Mexican government learned that the revolutionists had again gotten together, and were once more flooding that country with inflammable literature. I was employed in 1907 by Enrique C. Creel, at that time Governor of Chihuahua, to locate the new headquarters of the junta, and find out what was going on. I soon went to work on the case, and found that the new headquarters of the revolutionists had been established in St. Louis, in the 900 block on North Channing avenue. Ricardo Flores Magon was the president, Antonio I. Villerreal, Vice-President, and Labardo Rivera, Secretary, of the junta. I also learned that Ricardo Flores Magon was editing and publishing a scurrilous and inflammatory paper in St. Louis under a fictitious name. The paper was supposed to be published monthly, and was called the Mexican Regeneracion. Magon's staff consisted of his brother, Enrique Flores Magon, Antonio I. Villerreal, Labrado Rivera, and a number of lesser lights, among them Munwell Lo Pez, Manuel Sarabia, Tomaso Sarabia, and a number of women, two of whom were sisters of Villerreal.
Villerreal's father, who was a very old man, sold newspapers on the streets of St. Louis for a living. Villerreal's sisters were named Andrea, the elder, and Teresa, the younger.
Antonio de P. Araujo used the following aliases, German Riesco, Alberto M. Ricaurte, Joaquin P. Calvo, Luis F. Carlo, and A. G. Hermandez. Tomaso S. Labrado was a protege, a sort of a "man Friday" for Antonio de P. Araujo. Araujo made his headquarters at Austin, Texas, for quite a while, but finally established his permanent abode at McAlester, Oklahoma, and was a live wire.
Villerreal's sisters lived in a basement with their old father for a while. Their place of residence was East Convent street, St. Louis. It was the basement of a rickety old tenement house, and besides themselves and their father, there was a woman who represented herself to be the aunt of Ricardo Flores Magon, and gave her name as LoPaz. I never heard of her claiming any relationship with Enrique Flores Magon, who was Ricardo Flores Magon's brother. The old mother of Juan Sarabia, and the wife and two children of Labrado Rivera, also lived in the same place. Juan Sarabia was the cousin of Manuel and Tomaso Sarabia, who were brothers. The entire furnishings of this hovel could have been moved in two good wheel barrow loads. The whole outfit was very poor and lived in what appeared to be abject poverty and filth. None of the members of the junta were in any way connected with the first families of Mexico.
To write up the characteristics, ideas, habits and the practices of the members of the St. Louis junta, I have material enough to cover reams of foolscap, much of which would be uninteresting to the American people. I will, therefore, confine myself to the final locating of Magon, Villerreal and Labrado Rivera, the originators and the ringleaders of the conspiracy, their arrest in Los Angeles and their extradition to Tombstone, Arizona, after they had been in jail for nearly two years, during which time they exhausted all legal resources in attempting to avoid extradition to Arizona, where they stood charged with having violated the United States neutrality laws. A large sum of money was raised and contributed by sympathizing Mexicans who resided in and about Los Angeles, as well as by the different labor organizations, to assist them in their defense. The laboring classes in California and throughout the United States sympathized with these so-called revolutionists, Magon and his party, as much as though they had been respectable, honest working people. If the Magons, or any of his followers, mentioned heretofore, ever did a noble or patriotic act in their lives, either in the United States or Mexico, I have never succeeded in learning of the fact, and from the information I obtained I am satisfied that none of them ever attempted to earn a living by honest labor.