Henry Lyman Abeline falls at Mexicali fighting for Land and Freedom with the international Magónista column of I.W.W. fighters during the short-lived Baja Commune. I would love to know more about this comrade if any have information.

‘The Death of an American Insurrecto in Mexico’ by Arthur Roos from The Coming Nation. No. 39. June 10, 1911.

THE first week in April, 1911, newspapers all over the country told of the fool-hardy exploit, or daring bravery (according to the point of view), of General William Stanley who lead a body of eighty-five American rebels at Mexicala, Lower California, in a daring assault on three hundred and fifty regular Mexican soldiers. Contrary to adverse newspaper opinion at the time, it was one of the most sublime and daring attacks in all history. Love of fellow-men and desire to promote the establishment of a Socialist republic on the ruins of the Mexican autocracy in Lower California was the real propelling force, with the desire for equality, or true democracy, the moral principle.

Though Stanley and several of his comrades fell martyred, others like Price, Dunn, Hopkins and Smith lived to carry the ideal forward. The casualties of that whirlwind of flame and death were two rebels and sixty-five federals killed and one rebel wounded. The brave leader himself was injured by a piece of a shell from the enemy’s batteries, dying a short time afterward. He lies buried behind the very breastworks from which his daring attack was made. At least, part of the ambition of his last days is realized. If he could not live for a Socialist republic in Lower California he could at least die and fructify the soil with a martyr’s blood. From Stanley’s death will spring new offshoots of the revolutionary spirit in old Mexico.

But it is not of Stanley, primarily, that this article is to be written, but of another, a personal friend of the general and the writer, who fell by his leader that memorable day, but, unlike his leader, never left the field alive to die in a hospital. He died in the only place he would have chosen to die, if he could have had a voice in the matter; in strenuous action for a great cause on the battlefield. A militant, revolutionary Socialist nearly all his life, he died in the only way a true Socialist could die, in an endeavor to promote justice and equality among men and as a martyr to universal peace and prosperity, with hands raised in violence against organized class injustice, typified in the capitalistic, autocratic misgovernment by Porfirio Diaz.

His name was Henry Lyman Abeline and he was a native of San Francisco, for a time a resident of Santa Cruz, Cal., and originally a printer by trade. Later he attended Stanford university and studied mining and engineering. It was in the university town of Palo Alto that the writer, then writing under the assumed name of Arthur Mansfield, became acquainted with him. Shortly after he received a tempting offer of employment from an American mining company in Mexico and as he desired to go there he invited the writer to go with him and make a fortune in old Mexico, besides having a lark coming and going, and getting a chance to study the country while there.

“I tell you what, Comrade Roos,” he would often say, his eyes alight with enthusiasm, his voice vibrant with hope and his manner confident, “Mexico will be the first republic to realize the ideals of Socialism. President Diaz is the grandest man, next to Washington and Lincoln, ever produced on this continent. He has the whole economic interest and progressive development of his people at heart and never gives away a public right or franchise to a private corporation without a struggle. All the land and industries are being nationalized as fast as possible and all this is so satisfactory that the Mexican people re-elect Diaz president every four years without a dissenting vote. As soon as the people are ready the transition of all land and other utilities to social ownership will be effected without friction; meanwhile Diaz is the one great democracy-builder who thus guides his country along lines of modern evolution.”

“Your picture looks rosy enough and it is in strict accord with the prevailing idea in this country of what Mexico really is,” the writer often replied, “but wait until you see it for yourself; then you may change your viewpoint.”

“What I have old you is a digest of statements made by the mine superintendent at Mexico City who is a friend of mine,” he would answer. “He could have no other motive in spreading such in- formation than a conscientious desire to assist in civilizing Mexico.”

We were not long beyond the American border before Abeline reversed his opinion. All the innate revolutionism of his pure Americanism became aroused over the injustice, oppression and hypocrisy practiced throughout Mexico and he came to hate the very name of Diaz as typifying the cowardly brutality and organized injustice by autocracy and violence misnamed the government of Mexico that for more than thirty years had supported a throne with bayonets. Day by day the militant Socialist in him grew and he became fierce as a wild lion.

“The people of this country are fools,” he said to me one day, as we sat in a railway station, waiting for the train back to the mines. “If a handful of them had any common sense at all they would stir up a revolution that would change the government of the country in a few months and make it a republic in fact as well as name. The constitution of Mexico is worthless paper; all would-be political parties are choked at birth; there are no elections in fact; mayors and judges are appointed by governors and governors by Diaz; corporations combine with the government to over-tax and under-pay and over-work the people; absolute slavery and peonage prevail; illiteracy is widespread and public schools suppressed because knowledge for the masses is dangerous to Diaz; robbers and murderers are promoted to offices of trust; thousands of paid murderers and spies are maintained at government expense and the whole social structure is rotten from top to bottom and crumbling in the mire.”

“Better come with me back to California and Santa Cruz county,” I advised him, “where at least we can still organize and agitate for better conditions in the struggle for existence against the classes in power.”

“Never!” he exclaimed, in a fine, enthusiastic frenzy. “My father fought in the American rebellion for freedom from slavery and I will be true to my inheritance. Am I American to flee from what is soon to become battle ground for freedom? No; I will stay in Mexico and when the revolution comes, for I regard revolution as inevitable, I will choose the forefront of battle and help win, or die a thorough American.”

In the light of what happened later in the wild, heroic charge with General Stanley from the little breast-works at Mexicala, Abeline’s words seem prophetic. Many a time since I have been sorry that I did not stay with him, instead of returning across the border; but the most important event in my relations with him occurred within a week after his astonishing statement that he meant to help Mexico in the event of there being a revolution.

It was a few days before my departure from Mexico and Abeline and I were to visit the home of one of the revolutionists on a big ranch a few miles from town. We were to ride ponies and knowing we were under perpetual surveillance by government spies we left town in the late evening, just after dark, and after a mazy threading of country by-ways turned at last into the main road far out in the country, riding slowly and cautiously so as to avoid meeting stray police or soldiers. When we reached our friend’s house we learned that but a few hours before a band of five rurales, a captain and four privates, had raided the home of a neighbor suspected of being one of the local organizers of the Liberal party which came into existence to oppose the continuation of Diaz in office. Similar events were of almost daily occurrence all over Mexico. In the instance here mentioned the head of the family had been warned of the coming of the rurales and had gone into hiding. The rurales had then seized the mother and daughter found at home alone and were at that very moment torturing them to extort a confession as to where the suspected man had taken refuge. Our host trembled with fear as he told us and wept bitterly over the country’s future. While the narration proceeded Abeline’s eyes were flashing fire and one could plainly see he had in him the making of a hero who would give his all for Mexican freedom or fall fighting in smoke and flame.

“Why don’t you people kill the rurales and make a revolution?” Abeline asked, when the old man had finished. “For myself I am ready to kill any soldier who tortures a woman for a confession,” he added.

The old Mexican readily understood and from a hole under the adobe floor drew out a rifle and cartridges. These he handed to Abeline without a word.

“Get your pony and go back to town as quietly as you can,” Abeline said to me. “You will be in Mexico only a short time longer and I don’t want you to run a great risk. Besides, we have only one gun between us.”

I agreed with him and prepared to go back to the town we had left a few hours before while our host and his family waited to bar the doors and lie down to pretend sleep in case soldiers should scour the country for “insurrectos.” At once Abeline rode away toward the neighboring ranch with the Mexican’s rifle held lovingly across the front of the saddle.

Just before daylight the next morning Abeline crept into the room where we slept with comrades in town. I had not slept at all, but still lay on the top of the couch, waiting for him.

“There were five rurales, all right,” he replied. “They had the old lady and the girl, trying to make them tell where the suspect was hidden. They had stripped both the women stark naked and were beating them with riding whips, trying to make them confess. I shot them, one at a time, but they killed my pony before I finished. I had to walk back. I was hit, besides.”

He bared his left arm and showed me a bullet hole clean through the fleshy part of it. He had tied a stout cord around the injured member to prevent bleeding, but without entire success, inside of the sleeve was a mass of clotted blood. The next day we did not dare to show ourselves on the street or about the mines, because of fear of the secret police, arrest and sudden death. I was already known as a comrade to Abeline and had to leave the country secretly, assisted by comrades of the revolutionary organization. Abeline later made his way into Lower California, to a stock ranch near the border, where he kept in constant touch with workers in the revolutionary movement, both in Mexico and Los Angeles. When the expected revolt did materialize he at once enlisted and fought continuously up to the day of his death at Mexicala.

Henry Abeline died as it now seems Fate had decreed many years before the revolt of 1911. After that sublime, heroic charge under Stanley at Mexicala–85 Americans against 350 federals–I read of his death in a letter from a comrade at the scene of action. It was what had been long expected, but his acts had been shaped to carry out the faith of his soul. Who shall say that Mexico was not helped to become an industrial republic by his blood?

He fell, fighting for liberty under the red flag he had learned to love. Who shall say that that flag shall not yet wave over Mexico? Great events happen fast in an age like this. The grandest state of human society is yet to be realized and sectionalism, race-hatred and age-long prejudice are even now being weeded from the hearts of men and the brutal struggle for existence under forms of class-government is driving them into organized self-help. Meanwhile, behind the little breast-works at Mexicala is the unmarked grave of one who gave his life that the causes of war and brutality might be destroyed. One more American-insurrecto in Mexico has become a memory, yet the cause of revolt learns from the way he died.

The Coming Nation was a weekly publication by Appeal to Reason’s Julius Wayland and Fred D. Warren produced in Girard, Kansas. Edited by A.M. Simons and Charles Edward Russell, it was heavily illustrated with a decided focus on women and children.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/coming-nation/110603-comingnation-w038.pdf