Newspapers Call It A Dastardly Crime.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 24, 1913:
Darkest Page in Mexico's History, Says The Tribune; Wanton Murder, Says American.
NATION'S PRESS UNANIMOUS
Editors in Other Cities Unite in Condemning Killing of Madero and Suarez in Huerta's Capital.
Following are excerpts from editorial articles in this morning's World, Herald, Sun, Tribune, and American on the assassination of President Madero and Vice President Suarez:

Mexico Aflame.
From The World.
    The treachery and savagery with which the revolt in Mexico began a fortnight ago attends it to its tragic culmination in the murder of Francisco Madero and Pino Suarez.
    These men were the President and Vice President of the republic, the only ones lawfully chosen in a generation. They had attempted to rule constitutionally. They had been deposed and imprisoned through the perfidy and violence of men closely associated with them in government. They were shot to death by cowards acting in behalf of other cowards whose false excuses only add to their guilt.
    It would be difficult to find in all history a series of events more shocking than that which in two weeks' time in Mexico has supplanted an administration of law with a reign of terror. * * *
    Tragedies past and in prospect south of the Rio Grande should cause no change in the attitude of the Government and people of the United States. Our responsibility is solemn indeed, because it is many-sided. We may have duties in Mexico, but we have more important ones at home. As the nearest powerful neighbor, we may owe some things to the world at large, but until other complications arise we owe more to ourselves.
    President Taft is right in providing against possible contingencies. He is even more emphatically right in his policy of non-intervention except as a last and desperate resort. We have the uttermost obligation to safeguard the lives of our own people and or other foreigners in Mexico. We have no obligation to imperil the lives of our own people and other foreigners by keeping the people of Mexico from each other's throats.

Madero's Murder.
[From The Tribune.]
    The official account given of the death of Madero and Suarez staggers credulity. Taken in connection with the slaughter of Gustavo Madero under the transparent pretence of the notorious "fugitive law," the story of the "accidental" killing of the deposed President and Vice President as an incident of an attempt at rescue while they were being secretly transferred under strong guard from the palace to the penitentiary will deceive no one. It was plain murder — murder which awakens the detestation of the civilized world and leads it to turn with loathing from the bloodstained traitor who, while pretending to uphold the lawful government and defend the constitutional President, turned against him, threw him into prison and now with professions of humanity and peace on his lips has guiltily let him be put to death.
    There is no darker page in the dark history of Mexican disorder than this which Huerta has written in the blood of the Maderos.
    Whatever his faults and weaknesses, Francisco Madero was a humane man. Apparently he was too humane for the task set before him and fell a victim to his own principles of liberal government in a land not prepared for them. He showed mercy to his enemies and to the unsuccessful rebels against his Government, which, good or bad, was yet the constitutional Government of the country. But his ambitious supplanters have shown no mercy and no glimmer of remembrance of his generosity toward them. Nor have they shown any decent respect for the opinion of mankind.

May Hasten Liberation.
[From The Sun.]
    Whatever Madero's faults or weaknesses, he represented long grievances that must be righted before permanent peace can be established in Mexico. Against relentless, murderous absolutism, rebellion is the only shield. May the blank days of Mexico be ended speedily, and a real constitutional polity established! Meanwhile the course of the Government at Washington will, we may be sure, continue to be temperate, patient, just, and firm.
    It may be that Madero dead, and slain, unfulfilled, after useless protests and promises of the gentle Huerta; it may be that this magnate, surrounded by grafters and hampered by intolerable obstacles, as he was, this dreaming impracticable man may yet be far more powerful for the liberation of Mexico than he was able to be living. As for the violent, reactionary impotents who fill a constitutional State of the twentieth century with, the slaughter of old Turkey or a Morocco that is already a reminiscence, they are but commending the poisoned chalice to their own lips. It is not with the name of Diaz, that doddering autocrat, whose power vanished like an exhalation; it is not with picayune heroes of a few hundred troops and many murders that in the long run the allegiance of divided Mexico can be won. Poor Madero — whose "proscription list" was written, we take it, after his deposition by his assassins — stood, however totteringly, for deep, imperious, inescapable reforms that will take Mexico out of the oligarchies and make her really free and republican. Victim of another tyranny, Madero's name may yet stand with those of Hidalgo and Morelos.

Steady, Now!
[From The Herald.]
    Let no one attempt to minimize the seriousness of what befell in Mexico City yesterday, but at the same time let no one consider this a time for hasty action or wild talk about intervention.
    Apparently Francisco I. Madero, the deposed constitutional President, and Jose Pino Suarez, the deposed constitutional Vice President, were killed under circumstances only different in degree from those surrounding the killing of Madero's brother a few days ago, and yet, when all the facts become known, it may be shown that this was not a thinly veiled assassination. Let us hope this may prove true.
    The serious aspect of the situation is that if this thing were done in cold blood it transcends all laws of civilization, and it is, moreover, a deliberately hostile answer to President Taft's expressed desire that Madero's life should be spared and that he should have a constitutional trial.
    Such methods as these are not tolerated in civilized countries, and civilized countries may well hesitate before they have diplomatic intercourse with a Government such as that which Provisional President Huerta has built up. These methods are very much in favor in Turkey, and it would seem just as there is a Sick Man in Turkey there is a Sick Man in Mexico.

Wanton Murder in Mexico.
From The American.
    If there had been in the President's chair, at Washington, a Cleveland, for instance, instead of the softest, most hesitant Executive this country ever had, there would be peace, instead of anarchy, in Mexico.
    All Mexico is weltering in murder and rapine. Bandit gangs are ravaging all over the nation, preying on anybody who has a home or a dollar. The brigand chiefs call themselves Generals and pretend to follow a flag, but the most respectable approach to patriotism among them is a desire for revenge, and loot is the object of their campaign.
    The murder of Madero and Suarez — the elected President and Vice President — is proof that the men who, for the moment, occupy the national palace at the capital are waging the same sort of war as the ranch raiders of the outlying States.
    That Madero, after catching Diaz in full rebellion, should be slaughtered by the man whose life he spared makes this crime a supreme atrocity even in the annals of barbarous revolution.
    The savage murder of unarmed prisoners takes Mexico outside the class of nations whose convulsions are entitled to respect.
    There is not to-day the least guarantee for life or property in Mexico. Americans are among the slain; American investments have been ruined; American property has been seized; American women have been maltreated.
    We have promulgated a Monroe Doctrine and the other nations are waiting to see us perform the duties we so boldly arrogated to ourselves.
    While murder succeeds murder in Mexico, Taft, the Man of Straw, makes bland speeches about the necessity of patience and the part of a Big Brother we are to play.