A Livelong Propagandist, by William C. Owen (1912)
Article from ‘Regeneración’, English Section, March 16, 1912, Los Angeles, edited by William C. Owen
More than a generation ago the exploitation of Canadian lands by powerful financial interests produced what was known as the Riel rebellion, just as the stealing of Mexican territory has produced the Mexican Revolution.
The British government was strong enough to put down Riel and execute him, and his Secretary of State, Honore J. Jaxon, escaped to the United States. Since then he has been a tireless propagandist of the principle that the soil and its product should be for the use of him who cultivates it, and last year he visited England and Europe mainly to assist in educating the public there as to the causes that underlie the Mexican upheaval.
At the Congress of Races and before various representative labor bodies in England Mr. Jaxon did excellent work in that connection, and returning through Canada to the United States he has left a trail of light behind him. Copies of the “Quebec Daily Telegraph” and “L’Evenement,” of the same city, of the “Montreal Daily Herald” and “La Patrie,” also of Montreal, contain long notices of meetings at which he explained with admirable lucidity the identity of the aims for which Mexico is struggling with those that form the basis of the international labor movement.
In reality Mr. Jaxon is able to demonstrate that the Metis of Eastern [correction: Western] Canada and the native population of Mexico spring from the same stock; that their passion for liberty and justice has never been extinguished, and that, alike in the north and south, they have allied themselves with the Latin race. In his own words:
“There are still hundreds of thousands of Metis in the Western United States and Canada. The Metis blood is a strong blood, alike from the intellectual and moral standpoint. It is destined to exercise an influence on the future of the American continent that will be perhaps subtle but, I believe, very important, for it is a blood that has inherited, from the French and from the savage, a passion for justice. And, in our century, justice is more necessary than charity.”
With our comrade Jaxon the vindication of these principles has been the passion of a lifetime, pursued in the face of difficulties that would have mastered ninety-nine men out of a hundred. His activity will cease only with his death.