A slow news cycle. Yeah, exactly. So Bierce was sent to use his considerable sway as one of the most famous journalists in the U.S. to make sure the public knew what was going on and get opposition going. It actually made an executive from the Central Pacific Railroad go up to Bierce and attempt to bribe him. He said, quote, name his price to him, theoretically, to make it all go away. And Bierce responded, and this was published in newspapers all over the country, quote, my price is $130 million. If, when you are ready to pay, I happen to be out of town, you may hand it over to my friend, the treasurer of the United States.

That's the quote we were talking about before. Yes. Again, it got published and was made famous. And that was the owner, I think, of the railroad who was pretty peeved. His plans were foiled.

They didn't want to pay that money back. Now they're connected. They want to make all their money. And the railroads, they made a lot of people rich. I'm pretty sure this is pre-income tax because I know that that's part of what made Cornelius Vanderbilt or Commodore Vanderbilt so rich who built the Biltmore house here in North Carolina that I've toured like 50,000 times, so I should know this.

That's the idea though, is that look, it's a loan. It's not a giveaway. It's not a handout. It's a hand up. And the idea was that eventually you'll make money on this. We all know that you're going to be rich, but for the uber wealthy, you can always be richer. And of course I get out of any paying anything more than you have to. So that was the idea here and Beers foiled that plan and ended up that quote stuck. But people point to that as a sign of his integrity. He could have easily just said like, all right, how about $20,000? And I don't say anything. Yeah.

And by the way, that would be 130 million in 1896 is 3.2 billion of today's dollars. That's a fair price. So that's what they were trying to be like. We're not going to pay that back really, do we? So anyway, again, that was 1896. In 1899, he actually wound up moving to D.C., still working for Hersey, stayed there until he disappeared in 1913. Right. My takeaway from the letters and the research we've done was that he didn't really enjoy that work. He seemed kind of bored. And also, not to whitewash history, but according to an article from the Oakland Tribune in October of 1914, Beers told his friends, quote, this damn country was not fit to live in with prohibition and women voting, end quote. And also that he wanted to see a scrap before he died.

Okay. That second part there, that's really telling. Is that, again, he wanted to go out with his boots on standing up, not sweating away in some deathbed.

Yeah. So that's the question. Is that part of what took him to Mexico? He's touring all his old battlefields. He's reminiscing about being a man of action. And he's like, how am I going to go out? Is that possibly what happened here? Did he miss war? This

episode

is not really about the Mexican Revolution per se, but since Beard said he was going to be a part of it, we feel like we need to do some broad strokes there. It was way more complex than the Civil War here in the U.S. Where do we start with this, Forrest? Well,

I think we should begin with some context here. It really started with what is called the Porfiriato, which was a long dictatorship under Porfirio Diaz.

Yeah, that was 35 years from 1876 to 1911. Diaz had brought a period of relative peace and economic growth thanks to foreign investment, but it came at a cost. The benefits were concentrated in the hands of a wealthy elite. Never heard of that happening before. While the majority of Mexicans suffered from poverty and inequality, which is pretty much how a dictatorship works. And that's how he ultimately came to be regarded was as a dictator.

Yeah, exactly. Well, it was a period of progress for some, but stagnation and oppression for many others. And the land ownership was hugely concentrated, haciendas controlled by a small number of powerful families. That's just the way of history always there, but that's the way things work. I don't care if you're in a idyllic type of other, let's say other type of political arrangement with your living. There's always the few, the haves and the have-nots. That's the way things kind of suss out there. Peasants, though in this case, were often landless and as to be expected, exploited.

Yes, they were the have-nots in this scenario. So it's just like when we talked about Versailles in the Time Slip series. The key ingredient to a revolution is the discontent of the people, and that's what happened here. People started demanding political and social reform. Francisco Madero emerged as a key figure challenging Diaz in the 1910 elections. Even though it was rigged in Diaz's favor, Madero's challenge was significant. And when I say rigged, the campaign was suppressed. There was intimidation, arrests of his supporters. There was no oversight of voting or verification of results. Voters were coerced to support Diaz. There was ballot stuffing. Everything about it was completely unfair.

And, you know, still goes on. So the- Yes. Because that stuff seems to work to some degree until it doesn't. Well, Madero's campaign calling for, quote, effective suffrage and no re-election, end quote, struck a poignant chord with many Mexicans. This is where the seeds of revolution are truly sown. Diaz, underestimating his opponent's popularity, jailed Madero. And, well, that sometimes works, doesn't it? It depends on how- Not every time. Not every time. It depends

on the road to martyrdom.

No, I know. But it, well, like I said, sometimes it depends on how much of a clampdown you got. Yes. And so whoever owns the guns and the army controls and this and that, that makes the rules. Again, the idea is you lock up the more popular guy and he can't sow discord anymore. But in this case, it led to a widespread revolt. And then suddenly the whole system was challenged. So it wasn't just a small group anymore. It was a widespread rebellion. And most historians point to the fraud and the oppression of the Diaz slash Madero election as the catalyst for kicking the revolution off in earnest. Yeah, that's

right. And the thing is, and this is where it gets more complicated, the revolution wasn't really a single event. It was a series of conflicts involving various factions with diverse aims. Madero was just one player, but you also had the now legendary Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, each with their own goals and their own armies. Absolutely. And

we've also, many of us have heard of Zapata. Maybe Pancho Villa gets more press, I think. Yes, he does. But yeah, those familiar, we also know the name Zapata. So now you have, like anything else also, you have the freedom fighters and then they don't always agree. And they got their own, they're warlords. They got their own factions and armies and interests, as you said. So Villa here represented the northern peasants who were mostly focused on land reform. But Zapata in the south, well, he was fighting for the return of land to the villages or ejidos. They each had very different approaches and agendas. And they sometimes would fight each other as much as they were fighting the government. So, yeah, we're, again, just the

way. Yeah, that's what we're talking about when we say it's complex. On top of all of this, there was the constitutionalist faction led by Venustiano Carranza. The goal of that was to create a new Mexican constitution. Yeah, and that worked to a degree. So the 1917 constitution

is the result of that. And it enshrined many significant reforms, including land redistribution, workers' rights, and limitations on the power of the church and military. That

was a victory for the Mexican people, but it wasn't the end of the violence. Now, to be clear, this was after Beers disappeared, but we want you to understand the bigger picture and the outcome of the revolution. It continued for several more years. There was still a lot

of conflict. Yeah. So as we said, it wasn't just all about political power. It was about redefining how the Mexican government worked and was more fair to the people of Mexico. So that's the big picture, you could say. But all the players and movements we just mentioned, the one that Bierce allegedly went to embed with, well, he's also a war journalist. Yeah, he's a journalistic. Yeah, right, right. And so, yeah, he wasn't going to pick up a rifle, I don't think, but he wanted to observe. He wanted to see action, as he said, some good fighting.

Yes.

And that man that he embedded with was Pancho Villa.

Yeah. Now, Pancho Villa was this legendary figure with fame, even in the US. He had a huge personality. He had a rough upbringing. He was a bandit, or a bandito, but he had a lot of charisma. So he went from being a bandito to joining the Revolutionary Army, which wasn't one unified force. It just means like one of the many forces fighting the government at this time. Right.

And then the other thing that's fascinating about him is that he may have started out as a bandit, but he is known today as an amazing military commander. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes he's not just a mindless criminal you see on these reality shows. He had tactics in his quiver here. He's fond of guerrilla warfare and he knew how to use the cavalry and mounting these bold raids and his men loved him. So he would go in guns blazing, charging, and they ended up being very extremely loyal to him, which you also need. You don't need your people turning on you as soon as you achieve power. Yeah,

that's right. He was kind of a Robin Hood too. His focus was putting land back into the hands of the poor and

social justice. Well, there you go. Well, that's the branding. That's his brand. And yeah, he was aligned with other revolutionary leaders. But eventually there was discord, of course. And then sometimes, as we said earlier, these revolutionary groups would wind up fighting each other again because, you know, you're all fighting for the same goal. But who's going to lead? Who gets all the spoils? Who gets all the fame and the riches? Well, it was ultimately Villa's army who was one of the most powerful ones when things shook out here. And it was in fact, his army that managed to contribute to removing Victoriano Huerta's regime from power, which was yet another dictator who took over with a coup after Madero managed to replace Diaz.

Right. There's just so many players and people hungry for power. It's a complicated mess. There's a lot more to it, but that's it in a nutshell in the broad overview. But by 1912, Diaz, who we mentioned earlier, had already gone into exile and the opponent he had jailed in the rigged election, Madero, was now president. But after Madero came Huerta, who Villa wound up helping to unseat. But anyway, it's a struggle to unite everybody. You

need a playbill and a scorecard here. Yeah. Well, yeah. So there's a coup that takes place February 9th and 10th of 1913, which was when Huerta becomes president by assassinating Madero and then seizing power. So Bierce is going down now to hang out with Pancho Villa's army during the brutal dictatorship of the Huerta regime.

Yeah.