Why Victors Shot Gustavo Madero.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 20, 1913:
Powerful Politician Was Generally Regarded as Brother's Evil Genius.
ONCE BANKRUPT, DIED RICH
Accused of Gaining Wealth by Undue Influence and "Strong Arm" Methods.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    MEXICO CITY, Feb. 19.— Gustavo A. Madero, who was shot to death to-day in the arsenal, was generally regarded as the real head or his brother's Administration, and because he was credited with being the evil genius of Francisco Madero's acts, Gustavo was the most cordially hated man in Mexico by those who could see no good in the government of the Madero family. He was accused, secretly at first, and of late openly, of looting the Government.
    By the lower classes he had long been known under the derisive nickname of Ojo Parado. The name means in English "fixed eye," and apparently was considered appropriate because of the fact that Madero had lost one of his eyes.

Called "Man Higher Up."
    Gustavo, in the opinion of his enemies — and their name was legion — was the "man higher up" in Mexican political life. He was accused of all forms of grafting, and in support of the charge attention was called to the fact that before his family came into power he was bankrupt. When he was led to his death in the arsenal he is said to have been worth $5,000,000.
    One alleged source of Gustavo's revenue was the concessions of all sorts which his great influence with his brother obtained for him. At one time he was Minister of Finance, and it was then, so his enemies charged, that he made his greatest progress toward independent wealth.
    Gustavo Madero bore the unenviable reputation in quarters by no means limited of being the embodiment of all that was bad in professional politics. He was credited generally with shrewdness equaled by no other politician and with an equally amazing inability to use this gift for any but his own ends. Only in his rapacity for wealth would his enemies concede that this characteristic of the man was exceeded.

Charged with "Strong Arm" Work.
    He was believed pretty generally to be at the head of a "strong arm" gang known as La Horra, whose chief occupation seemed to be waylaying and abusing the employes of papers which opposed Gustavo's organ, the Nueva Era, and beating enemies of Madero's Government. Marianno Duque, the active head of the band, was regarded as a lieutenant of Madero's. He was killed early in the recent fighting while trying to set fire to the plant of El Independiente, a paper which issued its first number while Felix Diaz was bombarding the city.
    Gustavo made himself unpopular at the very outset of his brother's regime as President by forcing José Pino Suarez into the Vice Presidency. This resulted in the formation of an opposition party, which devoted itself entirely to resisting and combatting the schemes of Madero.
    Madero, the President, a dreamer and idealist, was accused right and left of breaking promises which he had made when he assumed the Presidency, but it was Gustavo, the politician and schemer, who was blamed by his brother's critics for Francisco's actions. Whether or not he did so, he was credited with directing his brother's policies, and it is certain that he had great influence with the man who believed himself Mexico's savior.
    The news of his arrest yesterday was accepted everywhere as his death warrant, and the announcement to-day that he had been shot came as no surprise.

Known Here as the Strong Madero.
    To Americans familiar with Mexican affairs, Gustavo Madero was the cleanshaven, one-eyed brother, the "financial boss" of the rebellion that sounded the death knell of Porfirio Diaz's political career, and sent that old warrior-statesman an exile to Europe.
    Many have said that it was on the advice of Gustavo Madero that Francisco, when he was defeated for the Presidency by Diaz in 1910, decided to take to the wilds of Chihuahua and begin a fight for the control of Mexico. But whether this be true or not, it is true that from the moment the star of Francisco Madero began to ascend. Gustavo Madero became openly the most powerful of his advisers.

Raised Money in New York.
    In the latter days of 1910, when the tottering Diaz Government wag flooding the world with reassuring news to the effect that the Madero revolution was waning and that peace and order had been practically restored throughout the republic, Gustavo Madero was here in New York getting the money to finance the fight of his brother. It may be mentioned that one of the charges brought against Madero's administration by the followers of Pascual Orozco, Jr., is that President Madero reimbursed Gustavo to the amount of about $600,000 for his alleged expenditures in the revolution that ended at Juarez in May, 1911, when Madero overcame old Gen. Navarro and set up his provisional capital in that adobe city on the Rio Grande. This money came out of the National treasury, and, according to the Orozco people, was an amount far in excess of any money that Gustavo had paid out in the furtherance of his brother's political ambitions.
    It was in the Fall of 1910 that Gustavo Madero arrived in New York for the purpose of financing his brother's war. When the news from Chihuahua indicated that the days of Porfirio Diaz were numbered, Gustavo suddenly came into public notice as the man who was supplying the dollars for the rebellion. He lived at the Hotel Astor and was for weeks a familiar figure in the lobby of that hotel. He was likewise well known in Wall Street.
    Late in the Winter of 1911, when all signs pointed to the triumph of the Madero revolt, Gustavo Madero and his chief assistants in this part of the United States, set out for El Paso, Texas, so as to be near at hand when Juarez fell.
    On his arrival at El Paso Gustavo, who was the dandy of the Madero clan — and a more numerous one does not exist in Mexico — cast aside his fashionable New York clothes and blossomed out, as far as appearance was concerned, into a full-fledged soldier. He had not been at the Hotel Sheldon, El Paso, twenty-four hours before he appeared in the lobby in khaki uniform, campaign hat, and shiny leather leggings.

 Minister In Provisional Cabinet.
    When, on May 11, 1911, Madero assumed the title of Provisional President of Mexico and named the members of his Cabinet; it was his brother Gustavo who was named as Minister of Finance. Gustavo never had anything to do with any department other than that of finance. The naming of that Cabinet nearly cost Madero his life, for, when Pascual Orozco, who is now heading a little revolution of his own, read the names of those who held the portfolios, he straightway went to the Provisional President, placed the muzzle of a revolver against his bosom, and told him he had to form a new Cabinet from top to-bottom.
    "You should at least have named one or two of the men who fought your battles and put you where you are," said Orozco.
    Francisco Madero patted the mad Chihuahuan on the back, called him the finest soldier in Mexico, and promised him all kinds of honors; and finally the irate mountaineer was calmed down. While all this way going on Gustavo stood near, nodding his head in approval of the conciliatory remarks of his brother, and every now and then adding a word of his own in reference to the great honors that were in store for Orozco.
    So that danger passed and all was quiet for a few days. In the meanwhile the power of Gustavo grew, and the Provisional Government was not a week old before everybody in El Paso realized that the man in khaki, who lived at the Sheldon, was the really big man of the Provisional Government on the other side of the river.

How Gustavo Paid the Rebel Soldiers.
    Soon after the Orozco outbreak a report was circulated in Juarez that the vaults of the Banco de Minero in that city, had been broken into by agents of the Provisional Government and at least $50,000 in gold secured. This money, it was said, was taken by Gustavo Madero, the Minister of Finance. The army that had fought for Madero heard about this, and the men asked that they receive at least a little of it. So insistent did their demands become that finally Gustavo ordered $5,000 paid to the army. Each man got about $2, and there are men, who ought to know, who say that not a cent more did the men who made Madero the ruler of Mexico ever get for their services.
    When the newspaper correspondents in El Paso heard that Gustavo had distributed the $5,000 they went to him and asked him if he intended to give the men any more money, "I would not offer them money, for it would be to insult them." he said with a fine show of indignation. "These men are not fighting for money, but for the honor and liberty of Mexico."
    As long as the Provisional Government lasted Gustavo continued as Minister of Finance, and some surprise was occasioned when, with the accession of De la Barra as President ad interim, Gustavo was not named for the same post in the new Cabinet. But, while Gustavo was not named, his uncle, Ernesto Madero, was appointed to the portfolio. Gustavo remained all-powerful, and when Francisco Madero left El Paso in June, 1911, to go to the City of Mexico, the man who stood beside him, as he waved farewell to his army, was Don Gustavo Madero.

His Mission to Japan.
    Gustavo recently returned to Mexico from a visit to Japan, whither it was said he went to return the visit of the Japanese delegation that was sent to Mexico to represent the Mikado's country at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the independence of the republic. Diaz was the President then, and much comment was occasioned that so bitter an enemy of the famous old President as Gustavo Madero should have been selected as the man to go to Japan. But there were other and uglier rumors connected with that visit to the Orient, one of the most widely circulated being that the mission was in reality a secret one having to do with the leasing of certain port privileges in Magdalena Bay to Japanese interests. This report was later officially denied from the City of Mexico.
    Gustavo Madero was one of the nine sons of Don Francisco Madero, Sr. He was the second, and was 38 years old. The deposed President was the eldest of the nine, and he is now 40 years old. The family also includes four daughters, two of whom are married.