“Souls in Bondage: 

“The plundering plutocrats who suck the very life blood of your mother country under the guise of the development of her resources, are working in harmony with the rich brigands north of the border to plunder you further, and to despoil the fair land you have helped to win from the wilderness.

“Shall strong men be content in their slavery to the greed of others?  Rise up and help us show the plunderers that we are men, not slaves.  Let this shameless persecution of your mother country cease!

“American bandits would subjugate and annex the richest portion of Mexico.  Why should not Mexico therefore reclaim her own?  Why not turn the tables and annex a part of the vast territory stolen from her by the octopus arms of our capitalist class?

“We are a proud people and we never forget.  Are we a cowardly people who would cringe and yield when submission means infamy?

“Awake!  Strike one swift, successful blow for freedom and your bleeding mother land.

“Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona were stolen from Mexico, just as the riches of her mines are being stolen from her to-day.  Sons of Mexico, you can help her reclaim her own.  Will you stand by and see her further despoiled?  Let your voices rise in a mighty cry for justice!  Let your arms be strong to strike a blow for the right!

“Souls in bondage, wake up and strike off your shackles!  Be not slaves but free men!

“Texas, New Mexico and Arizona for Mexico, to whom they rightfully belong!”

“They sure do make it strong enough,” Starr commented, feeling for a match with which to relight his cigarette that had gone out.  He laid down the written pages and took up the leaflet entitled, “ALMAS DE CAUTIVERO.”  The text that followed was like the heading, simply a translation into Spanish of the exhortation he had just read in English.  But he read it through and noted the places where the Spanish version was even more inflammatory than the English—­which, in Starr’s opinion, was going some.  The other pamphlets were much the same, citing well-known instances of the revolution across the border which seemed to prove conclusively that justice was no more than a jest, and that the proletariat of Mexico was getting the worst of the bargain, no matter who happened to be in power.

Starr frowned thoughtfully over the reading.  To him the thing was treason, and it was his business to help stamp it out.  For the powers that be cannot afford to tolerate the planting of such seeds of dissatisfaction amongst the untrained minds of the masses.

But, and Starr admitted it to himself with his mouth pulled down at the corners, the worst of it was that under the bombast, under the vituperative utterances, the catch phrases of radicalism, there remained the grains of truth.  Starr knew that the masses of Mexico were suffering, broken under the tramplings of revolution and counter-revolution that swept back and forth from gulf to gulf.  Still, it was not his business to sift out the plump grains of truth and justice, but to keep the chaff from lighting and spreading a wildfire of sedition through three States.