Hundreds of U.S. radicals participated in 1911’s Baja Revolution led by the Partido Liberal Mexicano.

‘I.W.W. Men Helping Out Insurrectos’ from the New York Call. Vol. 4 No. 58. February 27, 1911.

Army and Navy Men Deserting to Go Across the Border–Sailors Caught.

(Special to The Call.) LOS ANGELES, Cal.. Feb. 26. News has reached here that the majority of the members of several locals of the Industrial Workers of the World along the Mexican border have gone across the line to help out the revolutionists, who are determined that there will be no let up in the fighting there until the bloody Diaz regime is completely overthrown.

These men, it is said, will make the best kind of soldiers for the sort of fighting that is going on now in Mexico. Many of them have been soldiers in the United States army and there are scores of others from the ranches and lumber camps. They all can ride and shoot.

There are hundreds of other young men all along the coast who have thrown in their lot with the rebels. Some of these men, who have been non-commissioned officers in the United States army, are in charge of groups of Americans now in the hills across the border and moving on toward the federal troops in different parts.

Already several men from the United States army and navy have deserted and are now among the insurrectos. Five sailors who were doing duty on the flagship California the day before yesterday made an attempt to get across the border in order to help out the rebels, but they were caught by a squad of cavalrymen and marines near San Diego and taken to Coronado and returned to their cruiser.

It is claimed that as the rebels are more and more getting the upper hand, more men from the United States army and navy, as well as Americans along the border who are. out of work, will join them. Also, as it is being more and more realized that the overthrow of Diaz and the present administration by the Madero forces is only a matter of a few weeks, large numbers of federal troops are expected to desert the government and go over to the rebels’ side. Already a large number have walked into the camps of the insurrectos and given up their arms.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1911/110227-newyorkcall-v04n058.pdf