Companions:
The old society, the unjust and cruel society that condemns those who work and sweat to all kinds of deprivation, and that rewards the laziness of a few with all the pleasures of life; this corrupt society that cannot and does not want to guarantee well-being and freedom to all human beings; This society is crumbling, this society is collapsing, this society is about to disappear; But now dying, it still has the strength to tear from our ranks, from the ranks of the poor, those brave ones who have made the greatest efforts to overthrow it.
Raúl Palma is a worker, he is disinherited, he is a proletarian who understands that every human being, by the mere fact of coming to life, has the right to satisfy all his needs, and this simple principle of social justice, of human justice , he propagated it relentlessly, in the press, on the platform, everywhere, eager to see his class brothers free from chains.
This was his crime: to open the eyes of the workers; This was his crime: to remove the blindfold that covered the eyes of his brothers, to make them see the path of their emancipation.
For his activity as a propagandist, he had twice been arrested before now. He was speaking in the Plaza, and his words of truth and justice were not to the liking of all those who want this system to be perpetuated, which makes it possible for those who do nothing useful to enjoy themselves at the expense of those who with their hands and intelligence they move the industry and make progress. Our masters, the bourgeois, could not live in peace when Palma was at liberty, because they knew that this man, outside the prison bars, was undermining the foundations of the old social structure whose weight we below have borne for centuries and centuries.
Our masters want to put their hands in our pockets, without the exploited opposing the least resistance, and they want to enjoy the product of their prey, without a phrase of discontent, a word of protest, or a groan of anguish coming from our lips. And everyone who, like Palma, worries the bourgeoisie; Anyone who, like Palma, disturbs the digestion of those whose stomachs are satisfied with their actions and words, is uprooted from their home and thrown into prison, as a lesson to those of us who are not happy with this system of injustice and of infamy, without reflecting that those of us who feel like men resent the outrage and are not willing to turn the other cheek for the attack to be repeated, but we are ready, whatever happens, and disappears, whoever disappears to strike back blow for blow, insult for insult.
Raúl Palma is accused of having taken the life of a store owner and, in addition, a cop, on the night of July 13, 1916, with the attempt, according to the police, to appropriate the effects stored in the store. The accusation could not be more unfair, because at the time it is alleged that Palma committed the crime, this young worker was rendering his invaluable services to the cause of the disinherited in the Regeneration workshops, at the same table where I work, in front of me, sharing my sleeplessness and my eagerness to convert a humanity that crawls and sobs, weak and suffering, that does not have the strength to complain, that does not have the courage to look up for the size of its oppressors, in a truly human whole suitable for freedom and justice.
That Palma is not the author of the act for which he is being held, it is a truth that is obvious. He could not be at the same time working side by side with me writing articles for Regeneration, and at the place where the death of the bourgeois is said to have occurred. Undoubtedly another was the author of the homicide; but our oppressors do not want to look for the true author of the act; they don't need it; Who they want to lose is Palma, who they fear and who they hate.
The true perpetrator of the homicide must laugh, satisfied at this time for having been able to evade the criminal action, thanks to the malice that those above profess towards Raúl Palma, while this young worker waits in his dungeon for the moment to be called so that the executioner puts on his neck the tie that will tear his life away.
The accusation is based on an anonymous that perhaps the same author of the crime wrote to get rid of all responsibility, and who knows if any of those interested in making Palma disappear, may have been the author of the lines that have put our brother in the Presidio. An anonymous is the basis of this fierce persecution. An anonymous one in which Raúl Palma is denounced as the author of the homicide. In no country in the world is a person persecuted for anonymous accusations: The law, as oppressive and enemy of the weak as the law is, does not grant the anonymous any legal force, not because the law is interested in the helpless, but because the anonymous it may involve not only one person in our class, but those above as well. But in the case of Palma, everything has been different. A criminal hand drew the lines of the anonymous, and the police were immediately involved. Anonymously, it is not denounced an individual removed from the tremendous struggle that those below us are holding against those above, but Palma, the worker agitator, the man who teaches and educates us, the young fighter who is not yet twenty-one years old. of age, nevertheless has the necessary experience to tell us who suffer misery and oppression, why we are unhappy, why we are down, when our hands and our intelligence make us eligible to enjoy all the advantages it offers us the civilization, the civilization that is our work, the civilization sustained with our fists and our brains, the civilization that would not exist if we refused to water the fields with our sweat and to defy consumption and anemia in the workshop and in the factory. Civilization, brothers in chains, is our work. It is not made by the bourgeois, it is not the work of the religious minister, the ruler does not promote it. Civilization does not spring from the palaces of our masters, but from our hands and our brains. Civilization is the daughter of our sacrifice and in every detail of it we find a drop of sweat from our weary bodies, a tear from our eyes and the tired breath of an entire tormented and suffering humanity.
Palma had to be the target of the wrath of our executioners, and for that reason he is in prison. Our oppressors do not want the Mexican worker to wake up, because then they would no longer find cheap work and their earnings would decrease. They want to see us always submissive, ready to put up with everything, and that is why, when a man like Raúl Palma springs up from the proletarian mass, all the forces of reaction are put into play to make him disappear.
It is up to us, then, to make our strength felt, to show that we are alert to prevent our own, our class, those who educate us, from being snatched from our bosom.
Raúl Palma's jury will take place on March 18, and money is needed for his defense. If we don't help him, he will be hanged and his death will weigh on our heads.
Yes, comrades, Palma's death will be our doing if we do not do everything that must be done to rescue him from the clutches of the enemy. Those who oppress us want to take his life from him; it is up to the oppressed to express their discontent and protest.
If the oppressed do nothing to save our own, we well deserve to be slaves.
R. Magon
March 16, 1918
Regeneracion
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