Beschreibung:

TAFT, William H. (1857-1930). Typed letter signed ("Wm. H. Taft"), as President, to O. B. Colquitt, Washington, D. C., 21 November 1911. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery . THE YANQUI PRESIDENT AND THE TEXAS RANGERS INTERVENE IN MEXICO'S POLITICS. Taft tells Texas Governor Colquitt "I have your note of November 17th, in respect to your doubling the membership of the Texas Ranger force. I shall be very glad to invite attention to the fact that you do this at my insistence, and to the extent which your ranger force acted to reduce the expenses of the Army. We have arrested Reyes, and I hope that will end the present movement toward a revolution." Bernardo Reyes, Mexico's former Minister of War, was one of many dissidents who fled to Texas to escape arrest under the corrupt but pro-American dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Taft feared the leftist program advocated by Reyes and his fellow members of the Partido Liberal Mexicano (Mexican Liberal Party), which called for unionization of workers, female suffrage, and greater government control over foreign companies. Bitter factional fighting and civil war plagued Mexico--and the Texas border country--for a decade, and Reyes was killed in 1913 during a coup attempt launched from his Mexico City jail cell against Díaz's successor, Francisco Madero.