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John Kenneth Turner
Early Twentieth-Century Regime Change and Support through the Pen
John Kenneth Turner, an American reporter, publisher, author, propagandist, advocate of pacifism and socialist causes - and even one-time gun-runner in support of a regime change in Mexico, partially through the best-seller of his time, Barbarous Mexico - has been almost forgotten in his home country. Having backed the appropriate winds of change south of the Rio Grande, he is more favourably remembered there.
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| John Kenneth Turner y Ethel Duffy Image in Public Domain within the U.S.A., see: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:JohnKennethTurner.jpg (which in turn took the image from http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/turner) Photo taken ca. 1920 |
Birth, Death, and Childhood
John Kenneth Turner was born in Portland, Oregon, on April 5, 1879 and reputedly died on July 31, 1947 or August 17, 1948.[1] Turner had a strict upbringing from his Methodist mother, Laura Kelly, a descendant of Clinton Kelly, an itinerant Methodist minister from Kentucky who had moved to Oregon. Laura's husband, Enoch, was editor of the small Portland Oregonian. When John was about 8 years old, the family moved to, and farmed in, Tulare, California, and then went on to Stockton, California, where a small printing shop was set up.[2]First Published Articles and Political Formation
John Kenneth Turner became interested in socialism at the age of 16. A year later, he was publishing his own weekly newspaper, Stockton Saturday Night, in which he denounced corrupt politicians and businessmen. At eighteen, Turner entered the University of California as a special student, alternating his studies with teaching, and working as editor of the Fresno Daily Democrat - before switching to a better opportunity by contributing to the Fresno Republican at the invitation of Chester Rowell. At university, Turner met a senior student and future wife, Ethel E. Duffy. They first settled in San Francisco in the Bohemian district of the Montgomery Street area. As a consequence ofthe famous 1906 earthquake, they moved to Portland, where he was the sports editor of the Portland Journal. Not long afterwards, they moved on to Los Angeles.. Turner briefly worked as an independent reporter for the Los Angeles Herald, helped found the Los Angeles Weekly Socialist, and obtained a position as a reporter on the Los Angeles Express. In 1907, he became a member of the Socialist Labor Party.[3]With his wife, he also joined the Mexican Revolutionists Defense League. "These revolutionaries collected money, organized committees, hired lawyers, made propaganda, led demonstrations and held conferences, with the aim of making known the struggle of [ ... ] Mexican rebels."[4]Turner's Support of the Mexican Revolution
1908 to December, 1912
In 1908, the Los Angeles Express sent Turner to interview some Mexican political prisoners at the Los Angeles County Jail - Ricardo Flores Magn, Librado Rivera y Antonio I. Villarreal.[5] Turner claims that this meeting awoke his special interest in the politics of Mexico, and made him want to see for himself the truth of the allegation that these interviewees had made about slavery in Mexico.[6] Consequently, with the support of the Socialist Labor Party, [7]he made his first trip to Mexico in September, 1908, pretending to be an investor with millions of dollars available for the possible purchase of henequen plantations.[8] Turner submitted the resulting report to The American Magazine, but its editors suggested that he return to Mexico to obtain material for a more in-depth presentation. At the beginning of 1909, he therefore crossed the border again, assumed the role of sports editor for the English-language Mexican Herald, [9] and acted as a tennis expert and referee for a Mexican-U.S. Tennis Tournament.[10] Around this time, he was the object of a federal investigation andon the point of being deported, as he was confused with a British terrorist of the same name.[11] The first three articles were published in the last quarter of the year, [12]not only in The American Magazine, but also in The New York Sun, The Rochester Times, The Milwaukee Journal, and some London periodicals.[13] In January, 1910, after some intimidation of the editors of The American Magazine, there was a change in editorial policy, and no further installments were accepted, [14] but seven additional chapters were sent to the publication Appeal to Reason, one to International Socialist Review and one more to Pacific Monthly.[15] Barbarous Mexico, the book containing these reports, was first published by Cassell and Company in England towards the end of 1910, and in February of 1911 by C. H. Kerr of Chicago. Several million copies were sold, and it may have been instrumental in triggering the Mexican Revolution in 1910.[16] That year, Turner crossed the Rio Grande a third time, lending his support to this anti-government action.[17]Turner and the Magonista Rebellion
In Los Angeles, the Flores Magn group, members of the Partido Liberal Mexicano known as Magonistas, had planned to send a group of combatants to Mexico, and entrusted Turner with the task of purchasing weapons.[18] Through a printer of Socialist papers, A.G. Rogers, fifty 1903 army-issue Springfield rifles, at two dollars each, were bought, crated and then marked "agricultural machinery" or "electrical equipment".[19] Jim Wilson, a farmer friend in Holtville, California, wagoned such supplies to the border for night-time retrieval[20] and sent them, not forgetting to include ammunition, to Mexicali in Baja California.[21] Mexicali was taken on January 29, 1911, where Turner was an notable organizer, passing food around under the very nose of Captain Babcock, the officer in charge at the border.[22] Though Turner did not directly participate in the hostilities, [23] the government of Porfirio Daz requested Washington to have the author arrested.[24] Turner's writing did not stop during this period, and he has been referred to as the chief propaganda agent of the Magonistas.[25]1912 and 1913
In 1912, the Turner family moved to Carmel, California and, because of financial difficulties, [26] first lived in a house provided by John's hunting companion, the poet George Sterling.[27] Turner wrote little at the time, but he did travel to the Mexican state of Morelos, where he interviewed the Zapatistas Genovevo de la O, Otilio Montao, y Gildardo Magaa.[28] In December, he was back in Mexico City.[29]
On February 16, 1913, Turner accompanied Mexican General Flix Daz, nephew of now ex-president Porfirio Daz, and the American military attach, Captain Burnside, to a meeting with rebel forces. When Daz discovered the reporter was not a government official, he was accused of trying to obtain official secrets and arrested, for which reason the U.S. military attach refused to help his countryman, beyond obtaining a promise that the prisoner would remain unharmed. At first, Turner would not reveal his true identity, but he finally let it be known that he was the author of Barbarous Mexico, and of articles in the Mexican newspaper, El Pas.[30] Upon revealing who he truly was, he was immediately condemned to death by another officer, for plotting the assassination of Gen. Felix Daz.[31] Arizona's Senator Ashurst, responding to a flurry of telegrams, made an urgent appeal for the release of Turner, presumed in danger of death after having been rearrested by the Victoriano Huerta government - this time accused either of supporting Francisco I. Madero, [32] or of criticizing Daz.[33] Finally, American Secretary of State Philander Knox intervened, instructing the Consul-General in Mexico that Turner had not done anything unlawful, and that "any harm done to [the author] would be regarded by the United States Government as an act calling for decisive action."[34] A few days later, the de facto Huerta government ordered Turner's expulsion, supposedly for his recent articles against Huerta and Daz.[35] Afterwards, the released prisoner made charges of robbery; three death threats; torture by Daz; and the lack of help by the American Ambassador in Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson.[36]
On March 7, back in the United States, Turner elaborated on this, revealing that he was nearly shot by firing squad on three occasions, but that the officer in command was always engaged otherwise; that the destruction of a letter given Turner by Madero may have saved him from being killed immediately by the soldiers of Daz; and, in apparent bitterness, that Ambassador Wilson had not provided Turner with help against the revolutionaries.[37] In the U.S. press, he was to accuse Wilson of complicity in the assassination of Madero.[38]
In November, Turner was present at a meeting of the International Peace Forum with Henry Allen Tupper and future Mexican president, Venustiano Carranzo.[39]
Second Half Of Turner's Life
In 1914, Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. press came to adopt some of Turner's way of thinking to justify an intervention in Mexican affairs.[40] Turner reported on the resulting American military activity in Veracruz, and demanded that his compatriots withdraw.[41] In the spring of 1915, he went to Tampico, then on to Veracruz, to report on the latter city's occupation by American forces, [42] and to meet, in August, Mexican President Venustanio Carranza, [43] towards whose politics he was to incline.[44] As of this time, Carranza - who understood the importance of having good writers - hired Turner, and a secret agreement was made between the two such that the author helped create the Mexican president's image by writing in favor of his constitutional rule, and against interventionism and Pancho Villa;[45] and by comparing the doctrine of Carranza with that of Monroe.[46] For his first effort, he received $2000.[47] Two pieces published that year were "Quin es Pancho Villa?" and "La intervencin en Mxico y sus nefastos factores".[48]
In 1916, Turner reported on Pershing's Punitive Expedition.
As of 1919, Turner had to become more careful, as there was now an anti-socialist climate. For this reason, he now wrote using both a pseudonym, and coded language, but he still railed against Wall Street, and defended Carranza, now in El Liberator.[49] Turner's obligation to Carranza ended when, at the beginning of 1920, he had finished his booklet, Hands Off Mexico, publication of which U.S. authorities tried to prevent, as related in a confidential document written by the Mexican consul in New York.[50] Towards the end of the year, he interested himself in questions of Mexican agrarian reform with Zapatista General Genovevo de la O.[51] In 1921, after having penned at least 50 articles on Mexico, Turner wrote on it no more.[52]
A "very successful book", Shall It Be Again?, was published in 1922. Here it was claimed that the United States was not a democracy, but a financial oligarchy.[53] The work was cited by former German Kaiser Wilhelm II when he argued against President Wilson's justifications for entering the Great War.[54]
Ethel Duffy and John Turner were divorced in 1925. His second wife, with whom he lived until his death, was another writer and socialist, Adriana Spadoni. He continued to live in Carmel, among artists and writers such as Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, and the previously mentioned George Sterling. On one occasion, he played the part of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, although Ethel was to describe him as a very dignified person, with whom one would not dare joke or act foolishly. His last essay was published in 1941, Challenge to Karl Marx. There he showed a new attitude - he was now disinclined towards Marxism.[55]
He spent the remainder of his life as a real estate agent in Carmel.
Some websites give his place of death as Salinas, California; one states that and Adriana Spadoni were both cremated, and buried in an unmarked grave.[87]
Final Evaluation of Turner and his Work
Turner himself acknowledged that the allegations made in Barbarous Mexico were attacked, [56] but his "expos of workers exploitation elicited praise from US leftists."[57] Such feelings existed on both sides of the Atlantic: "... U.S. and English Socialists expressed their enthusiasm and support to the Mexican revolutionary cause."[58] After his death, Turner was, to Mexicans, "... a man who would assume as his own the Mexican cause ...", "... the famous American newspaperman, who at the beginning of the last century, stood out as one of the most combative reporters of his country ..." and "the most obstinate defender of our national sovereignty (in the first two decades of the [twentieth] century)."[59] However, in that country Turner is also seen as sharing the Puritan ethic of the United States, [60] and following the translation of Barbarous Mexico into Spanish, Mexican historian Daniel Coso Villegas considered the book as the work of a "simple mind", a publication wherein "there is nothing profound and little intelligent".[61] It has also been asked whether the attacks on Pancho Villa were written out of financial obligation to Carranza, rather than out of conviction.[62] More aggressive criticism, beyond that of Turner's politics, included his being called a renegade.and mercenary reporter, due to his pro-Mexican position.[63] One critic suggested that Turner "... knew most of the seamy sides of Mexico, though perhaps correspondingly little of the upper side."[64] There were lies: a Mexican attorney spread the rumor, under oath, that Standard Oil, of which Turner had spoken badly, had paid Turner to vilify the Daz regime;[65] and there is revisionism: a recent study claims that the lot of Mexican workers was not as bad as described.[66]
As most countries of the Americas obtained their freedom through revolution, and since most of the revolutions are seen as the product of the Enlightenment, only countercurrent thinking could criticize anyone who had helped overthrow a pre-Enlightened regime. Nevertheless, Turner would seem to be more of an opportunist than a true idealist, and his work depended both upon fraud and breaking the law. For the charge of opportunism, it is sufficient to see that he jumped from socialist themes in his own paper, to a newspaper owned by a Democrat, then to one owned by a Republican, switching to socialism again, and interesting himself in the anarchist Magonistas - and finally criticizing Marx! Considering the modern value of the money he earned, he was by no means poor, and as a real-estate agent in his last years, he was a bit removed from working class considerations. He had originally gone to Mexico dressed as a tramp, and upon crossing the border, posed as a millionaire, [67] the latter, by his own admission.[68] He may have pretended to be a government official. He violated the U.S.-Mexican border, and smuggled arms. What punishment he had, was borne in Mexico - although he had also broken U.S. laws. Ambassador Wilson, however, who had been reluctant to help Turner, was recalled and possibly defamed. Turner clearly worked at the overthrow of a government, that Wilson did so, is disputed.[69] Could it be that he is almost forgotten in the United States precisely because the most interesting years of his life are of a man not serving as a role model of the American Way?
On the other hand, it has been seen that certain arguments of his were used by President Wilson, by Mexican political leaders, and by a dethroned Emperor. That is not a bad achievement for a middle-class quasi-Bohemian who had hobnobbed with some of the most famous names in American literary history.
Paul Karl Moeller
September 3, 2008
Appendix I: Ethel Evelyn Duffy Turner
Ethel Duffy Turner seems to have paralleled the life of her husband, in that both were writers, militated in the same circles, dedicated themselves to political change in Mexico, and attended the same university, - without obtaining a degree. Yet, her reputation would seem to derive principally from her relatives.[70]
John Kenneth Turner's first wife was born in San Pablo, California, on April 21, 1885, "the eldest of the seven Duffy children who grew to maturity."[71] Her father, William Duffy, was a one-time Mason and justice-of-the-peace, [72] and later, a guard at the San Quentin Prison.[73] On the penitentiary grounds, she went to primary school. Secondary school was attended at San Rafael and the unfinished college years were at the University of California. She was a "brilliant student" in History and English, [74] majoring in the latter. These years are supposedly the basis of her novel, One-Way Ticket.[75] Her marriage was in 1905.[76]
She co-edited the English language section of the revolutionary Regeneracin.[77] Another writing experience was in the company of two scions of wealth, John Murray, and Elizabeth Darling Trowbridge, all joining to publish the Magonista-friendly The Border, in Tucson, Arizona.[78]
Ethel Duffy's enthusiasm for the Mexican cause rings out clearly. Upon the August 3, 1910 release of three Magonistas from the Los Angeles County jail, she bubbled over: Something of great importance has happened [with the publication of Barbarous Mexico]. When the 1910 revolution broke out, it was impossible for the United Stated to send troops across the border to protect the 'benevolent Diaz. The American public knows to much.[79]
A daughter, Juanita, was born October, 1909. After Ethel separated from Turner - a fact she referred to but coyly in an interview given in her last years - she and Juanita went to San Francisco. Apparently Turner's royalties from Barbarous Mexico did not generate any alimony for her, nor did Ms. Trowbridge contribute anything, for Ethel states, "I had to earn my own living then.", by doing office jobs. This was followed by the publication of some verse for the Call-Bulletin, and then in June 1923, she became co-editor of the poetry magazine, The Wanderer. A novelette, Likewise After Supper was published in Story Magazine around 1937. [80]
At either the request of the Mexican government or at the petition and expense of former president Lzaro Crdenas - in her words, "the best president [the Mexicans] ever had", "when [Ethel] was 70 years old she picked up and moved south of the Rio Grande" to Mexico City in 1955, to write for her host. Crdenas used his influence to have the resulting work on Flores Magn, translated and published by the government of the State of Michoacan in 1960: it was an edition of 1000 copies, 700 of which were "appropriated" by the Governor, and 300 left to Ethel. Furthermore, it was made into a movie.[81]
In 1961, a year after publication of that book, Ethel moved to Cuernavaca. Her stay in Mexico was facilitated by "a permiso de cortesa, a courtesy permission ... granted upon request to writers, especially those who are writing about Mexico in a friendly way ... [and who are] a precursora, which means a forerunner of the Mexican Revolution. This [gave her] prestige in Mexico."[82]
Ms Duffy also was a narrator for a Mexican movie, [83] and in addition to the above, wrote essays which she placed in the Bancroft Library, including "Early Literary Carmel, " "George Sterling in Carmel, " and "George Sterling in San Francisco." She also was a narrator in a Mexican movie.16 Together with a sister, she wrote a geneology of her mother's side of the family.[84]
Conclusion: Ethel Duffy Turner used her writing skills throughout her life, but her fame seems to have been generated by the work of John Kenneth Turner, for her output of poetry and essays limited her influence to an area in California. Offered proofs of limited fame and influence are that The Border was only published four times, Regeneracin was a Spanish publication, in which the English contribution was shared with her husband, and her most important work, Ricardo Flores Magn was small, and a later reprint was also managed by the Mexican government. On the positive side, her work on Flores Magn was republished, she contributed to a film on related to her husbands work, and whatever the reasons may have been for the divorce of Ethel and John, she did keep his memory alive. "When she died, (August 29, 1969), she was given a 21 gun salute at her funeral and the president of Mexico sent flowers".[85]
Paul Karl Moeller
November 1, 2008
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Ms. Susan Snyder, Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley for her kind permission to cite Ruth Teiser's manuscript, Ethel Duffy Turner: WRITERS AND REVOLUTIONISTS.
Bibliography
Primary SourcesDuffy, Alma, Eugenia Duffy, Carol Duffy, [Phil Zubler, editor of Web Page]. "Ethel Evelyn Duffy". On Duffy Page. Retrieved 23 June 2008. .
New York Times, On-line edition [various scans of articles printed from 1910 to 1913 in pdf format].
Turner, Ethel Duffy. Interviewed by Teiser, Ruth. Ethel Duffy Turner: Writers and Revolutionists. [University of California Bancroft Library/Berkeley/Berkeley Regional Oral History Office, 1967. Retrieved 28 June 2008. .
Turner, John Kenneth. Mxico Brbaro. Buenos Aires: Hyspamrica, 1985.
U.S. Department Of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Consumer Price Index, All Urban Consumers - (CPI-U) U.S. city average, All items". Retrieved 3 September 2008.
Secondary Sources
-----------. "Mxico brbaro" (Abstract). Scientific Commons website. . Acc.; 20111029.
--------------. "Shall it be Again?", [Brief biography of Turner]. Retrieved 10 March 2008. .
Ashton Smith, Clark. "George Sterling: Poet and Friend". In Planets and Dimensions: Collected Essays. Baltimore: Mirage Press, 1973. In The Eldritch Dark, The Sanctum of Clark Ashton Smith Website. Retrieved 12 June 2008. .
Bartra, Armando. "John Kenneth Turner: un testigo incmodo". Retrieved 22 June 2008. .
Brown, Jonathan C. Oil and Revolution in Mexico. University of California Press, 1992. Retrieved 6 March 2008. .
Gerhard, Peter. The Socialist Invasion of Baja California, 1911. [Extract]. University of California, 1948. Retrieved 21 June 2008. .
Gmez-Galvarriato, Aurora. "Myth and Reality of Company Stores during the Porfiriato: The tiendas de raya of Orizaba's Textile Mills". Helsinki: XIV International Economic History Congress, 2006. Retrieved 11 March 2008. .
Griswold del Castillo, Richard. "The Discredited Revolution: The Magonista Capture of Tijuana in 1911". In The Journal of San Diego History, 26[4]. Retrieved 10 March 2008. .
Kratzke, Pete., "The Man Who Would Have It All: George Sterling and the American Dream, " The American Popular Culture Online Magazine. June 2005. On George-Sterling.Org Webpage. Retrieved 15 March 2008. .
Len Diez, Lorenzo. "Turner: Periodista de Mxico". In Ciclo Literario N 46 (March 2006). Retrieved 15 March 2008. .
"Maggie Mae". "John Kenneth Turner". Apr. 6, 2011. Find a Grave website. . Acc.: 20111029.
Owen, William C. La Muerte de Flores Magn ["The Death of Flores Magn"]. Reprinted from Freedom. London 1922. In El anarquismo en la Revolucin Mexicana. www.geocities.com/grupo_libertad: Ediciones Libertad. (n.d.), Retrieved 6 March 2008. .
Ramrez Cuevas, Jess. John Kenneth Turner, el periodista incmodo. Mexico: UNAM, 4 de diciembre de 2005. Retrieved 12 March 2008. .
Taylor, Lawrence D. "The Magonista Revolt in Baja California: Capitalist Conspiracy or Rebelion de los Pobres?". In The Journal of San Diego History, Volume 45, Number 1, (Winter 1999). Retrieved 15 March 2008. .
Tejeda, Ana Rita. "Editan libro sobre John Kenneth Turner". In Gaceta [rgano Informativo de la universidad nacional autnoma de Mxico]. Mexico, D. F.: 05 January 2006), 13, 16. Retrieved 05 July 2008. .
Thompson, Wallace. "Propaganda and the Mexican Problem". New York Times. [3 August 1919], 47. Retrieved 15 March 2008.
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Trejo, Rubn, "Libertrer Internationalismus", Translated by Martin Schwarzbach from Magonismo: Utopa y revolucin, 1910-1913. (Mexico, 2005), 3. On Land und Freiheit Web page. Retrieved 15 March 2008. .
U.S. Department Of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Consumer Price Index, All Urban Consumers - (CPI-U) U.S. city average, All items". Retrieved 3 September 2008.Velasco, Jesus. "Reading Mexico, Understanding the United States: American Transnational Intellectuals in the 1920s and 1990s". In "Rethinking History and the Nation State: Mexico and the United States", A Special Issue of the Journal of American History. Retrieved 12 March 2008. .
Velzquez Estrada, Rosala. "John Kenneth Turner y Venustiano Carranza: una alianza en contra del intervencionismo estadounidense", Signos histricos, N. 7. Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana, enero-junio 2002. Retrieved 6 March 2008. .
von Hohenzollern, Wilhelm II. "Die Ursachen des Weltkrieges", Ereignisse und Gestalten zur Kriegsschuldfrage. Leipzig: Verlag K. F. Khler, 1922. Retrieved 23 June 2008. In Wiener Nachrichten Online. .
von Hohenzollern, Wilhelm II. Ereignisse und Gestalten zur Kriegsschuldfrage. Leipzig: Verlag K. F. Khler, 1922. On Archive.Org. Retrieved 24 June 2008. .
von Hohenzollern, Wilhelm II. The Kaiser's Memoirs. Translated by Thomas R. Ybarra (New York and London: Harper and Bros., 1922). Retrieved 24 June 2008. .
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