It is to be hoped that the newly formed administration of Madero will bring peace and prosperity to the people of Mexico. However, at the present time, the writer has some doubts as to the fulfillment of this hope.
While the arrest and capture of Ricardo Flores Magon and his associates at Los Angeles, California, on the 23rd of August, 1907, may not interest the American reader very much, I want to say that by reason of the shrewdness of Ricardo Magon and the secrecy that he engendered into his followers, the fact that none of them spoke English, and each and every one of them had many aliases, and did all of their important corresponding in various systems of cipher, and the further fact that the Magon brothers continually kept their Mexican followers from getting to know them personally, and from the secret methods employed by them on all occasions, I consider the final location and capture of these parties, under all of the foregoing circumstances, the most difficult, as well as one of the most important, cases I have ever handled.
As a matter of course, after these people had been arrested and had had various hearings in the courts of Los Angeles while they were fighting extradition to Arizona, the officers of this country, as well as of Mexico, had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with their faces and their methods, and, therefore, before they were extradited from Los Angeles, many of the police officers and others in that city and all along the Mexican border would tell people all about Magon and his followers, and have been known to say that they knew all about them and their methods; that their capture had been a very easy proposition, and that had I not succeeded in capturing them just when I did that they were about to have made the capture themselves, when as a matter of fact these officers did not have the slightest idea as to the whereabouts of this party, nor were any of these people known to any of the officers on either side of the line, nor their methods, until after the capture and the subsequent development in the courts.
A DALLAS MURDER AVENGED.
PROMPT ARREST AND CONVICTION OF THE MURDERER AND SUI-
CIDE OF THE INSTIGATOR OF THE CRIME
WHILE AWAITING TRIAL.
Early in the '90s, I received a telegram from James Arnold, Chief of Police of Dallas, Texas, and Ben Cabel, County Sheriff of Dallas, requesting me to come to Dallas immediately for consultation in a murder case. Knowing both gentlemen well, having done business with them before, I answered that I would start for Dallas the following day, which I did.
I arrived in Dallas late on Wednesday evening. I found Chief Arnold and Sheriff Cabel waiting for me at the depot. We went to my hotel immediately where we could have a quiet conference. For obvious reasons I will not give the true names of the principals connected with this dastardly crime, but will state the actual facts which led to the arrest and conviction of the murderer, and to the suicide of the real principal.
The Chief and Sheriff told me the nature of the case for which I had been summoned. They said that on Sunday night, preceding, a prominent citizen of Dallas (whom I will call Temple) had boarded a heavily loaded electric car, downtown, in front of one of the principal churches, for his home. The car had at least forty or fifty passengers, most of whom were returning home from the evening services, which Temple had attended. Temple lived on the outer edge of the city in the better residence portion. When the car reached his home he got off and started towards his front gate. There were a number of shade trees in front of his home; the street at this point was well lighted by arc lights, one of which was suspended above the point where he had left the car. As he stepped from the street to the edge of the side-walk, a colored man, who had been concealed behind a shade tree, sprang out and was seen by a number of passengers who were on the rear end of the car to strike Temple a powerful blow on the head with something like a baseball bat. After striking the blow, the negro dropped his weapon and his hat, and fled into an alley, disappearing in the darkness. The people who had witnessed the assault, hastened to Temple, who lay unconscious on the sidewalk, picked him up and carried him into his house. Doctors were summoned, and found that Temple's head had been split from the crown to the level of the eyes. He was still breathing, but only lived a few moments, never regaining consciousness. The Chief and Sheriff were sent for and found that the weapon was a piece of 1½-inch gas pipe, near four feet long. The blow was so powerful that it bent the pipe, midway, to almost an L-shape. They also found the hat, which the murderer dropped, to be a new, cheap, broad-brimmed, black hat and was of unusually large size. It was too large for any ordinary sized head and indicated to me that it was probably too large for the man who had worn it, and for that reason had fallen off with the first violent move the wearer had made. The witnesses to the crime had all had a plain view of the slayer, and described him as a young negro, very black, about five feet eight inches tall, well built, and apparently well dressed. They all agreed that he had the features of a white man, thin lips, straight nose and regular features. In fact, a number believed him to be a white man who had blackened his face.