Secret Service Men Back Madero Story.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 10, 1913:
Said to Have Reported to Washington Huerta Knew of Torturing the Captive President.
SURVIVORS' VERSION MILD
Americans Killed and Flung Into Gutters — Army Officers Hear Mexico Is in a Bad Way.
Special to The New York Times.
    GALVESTON, March 9. — Agents of the United States Secret Service who have been investigating conditions in Mexico have made a report to the Government in Washington in which they verify practically in every detail the story told to The New York Times by Raoul and Emilio Madero, two of the younger brothers of the slain President, Francisco I. Madero, Jr., concerning the torture and mutilation of President Madero and his brother Gustavo. From the Secret Service report, Emilio Maderos narrative, published in The Times last Friday, was a very conservative statement, and the worst details of the tortures to which Francisco and Gustavo Madero were subjected were not told by the surviving Madero brothers. The substance of the Secret Service report on the investigation is known to several prominent United States Army officers on duty in Texas with the mobilized troops. It was from those officers that The Times got the information on which this story is based.
    The story of the Secret Service report came out after publication in The Times of the statements by Emilio and Raoul Madero. Copies of the Madero brothers' charges were shown to those army officers, who naturally are much interested in conditions south of the Rio Grande.
    "That statement is a conservative recital of the actual facts as to the manner of death meted out to President Madero and his brother Gustavo," one of the officers said. "It does not go quite far enough. The Secret Service has reported that other tortures much worse than those in the Madero statement were inflicted on the unfortunate President, his brother and others who met death because of their loyalty to the Madero administration." Those tortures, it is alleged, were inflicted with the consent if not at the actual direction of Gen. Victoriano Huerta, now Provisional President of Mexico. Until the day President Madero was made a prisoner, Gen. Huerta supposedly was one of his most devoted friends.
    "When he turned against his President, the General, it is said, became an enemy so bitter that there was no indignity or torture from which he would make the slightest effort to save the Maderos. It is reported even that it was an officer of Huerta's forces who inflicted the worst cruelty on Gustavo Madero. Pino Suarez. Madero's Vice President, likewise was a victim of the anger of the Huerta-Diaz partisans.
    The Huerta Administration, according to the Secret Service report, was officially cognizant of every detail of the tortures the Maderos suffered, yet that Government issued a statement that the deaths of the Maderos occurred under the "ley fuga," or "law of flight" of Mexico. Neither Francisco nor Gustavo, the report runs, had a single chance to escape, and they could not have crawled even a few feet had any avenue to freedom been open to them. Gustavo was doomed from the moment when Huerta by subterfuge borrowed his pistol. His tortures were not long in beginning, and they lasted to his final breath, it is said here.
    As to conditions, not only in Mexico City but also in the Republic of Mexico generally the information now in the possession of the Wilson Administration in Washington is of the most disquieting kind. From one end to the other the country is in a state of great unrest. It is said the hope of peace is remote. In little towns persons who are captured by the revolutionists or by Government troops are subjected to indignities and tortures. A story along that line was told by an American who was employed in a managerial capacity by certain of the Madero interests.
    This man said that in a certain small city not far from the American border the Jefe Politico, who is the big law officer in every Mexican town, was captured by insurrectos. The Jefe was dragged through the streets to the town plaza. He was subjected to tortures, and in his dying hour his wife and daughters were made to spit on him.
    In the Territory of Lower California, Mexico, several months ago three Americans employed in a mining camp were killed. One of them was manager of the company store. The bodies were thrown into gutters and left there. A re- port of the murders was made to a representative of the company in New York, and by him was called to the attention of Secretary of State Knox. A few weeks afterward another letter came from the mining camp, in which it was stated that the Americans' bodies still were in the gutter. The man to whom that information was conveyed was connected with the management of Woodrow Wilson's campaign for the Presidency, but it is not known whether he has told the story to the President. He certainly gave the facts to the Taft Administration. The Times correspondent has seen the original letters from Mexico and copies of the correspondence with Secretary Knox.
    Mr. Knox ordered the American Consular agents in that part of Lower California to investigate the report, but it is not known what further action, if any, was taken.
    In one of those underground ways that cannot be explained, a report was current to-day in the camps of the troops that they might as well get the idea out of their heads, if they had any such idea, that they were going back to the home posts in the near future. It was said the United States soldiers would be kept on the border indefinitely, owing to the unsettled conditions in Mexico.
    In the camp at Texas City conditions are unpleasant. The camp is buried feet deep in mud and water. Unless the weather clears soon a serious situation will develop, it is feared, because of the difficulty of getting supplies to the men. The mud is so deep that wagons carrying heavy loads cannot move. Progress on foot is a problem.
    It became known here to-night that there had been a death in the Texas City mobilization camp from spinal meningitis. The facts were guarded carefully and orders were said to have been issued to the medical authorities not to give out information concerning the case. The soldier was taken ill a few days ago and a bacteriological examination that was made here confirmed the diagnosis of spinal meningitis. The name of the soldier and the regiment to which he belonged were not divulged.