Editing Mexican Revolution (section)

===Opposition to Díaz===
[[File:Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magon.jpg|thumb|[[Ricardo Flores Magón]] (left) and [[Enrique Flores Magón]] (right), leaders of the [[Mexican Liberal Party]] imprisoned in the Los Angeles (CA) County Jail, 1917]]
[[File:Partido Liberal Mexicano button 1911.svg|thumb|upright=0.7|"Land and Liberty", the slogan of the Mexican Liberal Party]]

Díaz effectively suppressed strikes, rebellions, and political opposition until the early 1900s. Mexicans began to organize in opposition to Díaz, who had welcomed foreign capital and capitalists, suppressed nascent labor unions, and consistently moved against peasants as agriculture flourished.<ref>{{cite book |last=McLynn |first=Frank |title=Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution |chapter=The Rise of Villa |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |location=United States |year=2001 |isbn=0-7867-1088-8}}</ref> In 1905 the group of Mexican intellectuals and political agitators who had created the [[Mexican Liberal Party]] ({{lang|es|Partido Liberal de México}}) drew up a radical program of reform, specifically addressing what they considered to be the worst aspects of the Díaz regime. Most prominent in the PLM were [[Ricardo Flores Magón]] and his two brothers, [[Enrique Flores Magón|Enrique]] and [[Jesús Flores Magón|Jesús]]. They, along with [[Luis Cabrera Lobato|Luis Cabrera]] and [[Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama]], were connected to the anti-Díaz publication {{lang|es|[[El Hijo del Ahuizote]]}}. Political cartoons by [[José Guadalupe Posada]] lampooned politicians and cultural elites with mordant humor, portraying them as skeletons. The Liberal Party of Mexico founded the anti-Díaz [[Anarchism|anarchist]] newspaper {{lang|es|[[Regeneración]]}}, which appeared in both Spanish and English. In exile in the United States, [[Práxedis Guerrero]] began publishing an anti-Díaz newspaper, {{lang|es|Alba Roja}} ("Red Dawn"), in San Francisco, California. Although leftist groups were small, they became influential through their publications, articulating their opposition to the Díaz regime. [[Francisco Bulnes (politician)|Francisco Bulnes]] described these men as the "true authors" of the Mexican Revolution for agitating the masses.<ref>Claudio Lomnitz citing Francisco Bulnes, {{lang|es|italic=no|cat=no|"El verdadero Díaz y la revolución"}}. In Claudio Lomnitz, ''The Return of Ricardo Flores Magón''. New York: Zone Books, 2014, p. 55 and fn. 6, p. 533.</ref> As the 1910 election approached, [[Francisco I. Madero]], an emerging political figure and member of one of Mexico's richest families, funded the newspaper {{lang|es|Anti-Reelectionista}}, in opposition to the continual re-election of Díaz.

Organized labor conducted strikes for better wages and just treatment. Demands for better labor conditions were central to the Liberal Party program, drawn up in 1905. Mexican copper miners in the northern state of Sonora took action in the 1906 [[Cananea strike]]. Starting June 1, 1906, 5,400 miners began organizing labor strikes.{{sfn|Meade|2016|p=323}} Among other grievances, they were paid less than U.S. nationals working in the mines.{{sfn|Turner|1969|pp=181–186}} In the state of Veracruz, [[Río Blanco strike|textile workers rioted in January 1907]] at the huge [[Río Blanco, Veracruz|Río Blanco]] factory, the world's largest, protesting against unfair labor practices. They were paid in credit that could be used only at the [[company store]], binding them to the company.{{sfn|Turner|1969|pp=167–173}}

These strikes were ruthlessly suppressed, with factory owners receiving support from government forces. In the Cananea strike, mine owner [[William Cornell Greene]] received support from Díaz's rurales in Sonora as well as [[Arizona Rangers]] called in from across the U.S. border.{{sfn|Turner|1969|pp=181–186}} This Arizona Rangers were ordered to use violence to combat labor unrest.{{sfn|Meade|2016|pp=323–324}} In the state of Veracruz, the Mexican army gunned down Rio Blanco textile workers and put the bodies on train cars that transported them to Veracruz, "where the bodies were dumped in the harbor as food for sharks".{{sfn|Turner|1969|p=173}}

Since the press was censored in Mexico under Díaz, little was published that was critical of the regime. Newspapers barely reported on the Rio Blanco textile strike, the Cananea strike or harsh labor practices on plantations in Oaxaca and Yucatán. Leftist Mexican opponents of the Díaz regime, such as Ricardo Flores Magón and Práxedis Guerrero, went into exile in the relative safety of the United States, but cooperation between the U.S. government and Díaz's agents resulted in the arrest of some radicals.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Raat |first=William Dirk |date=1976-11-01 |title=The Diplomacy of Suppression: Los Revoltosos, Mexico, and the United States, 1906–1911 |journal=Hispanic American Historical Review |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=529–550 |doi=10.1215/00182168-56.4.529 |issn=0018-2168|doi-access=free }}</ref>