To Die on Your Feet

Amidst the pantheon of Mexican heroes, poet-revolutionary Praxedis G. Guerrero (1882-1910) is a name that is often overlooked. His importance, however, to a full understanding of a rich and dramatic pre-revolutionary period of Mexican history is undeniable. Ward S. Albro's To Die on Your Feet studies Guerrero's involvement in a movement led by Ricardo Flores Magon, a movement that brought about the Mexican Revolution against the government of Porfirio Diaz in 1910. Unlike other Mexican revolutionaries who are most notable as men of action, Guerrero combined thinking and doing. He was a courageous and active leader of the magonistas who attempted to rally by any means his meager forces to strike a telling blow against the dictatorship; a champion of the downtrodden, he was also a journalist for three liberal newspapers, Revolucion, Regeneracion, and Puntos Rojos, in which he developed anarchist ideals that moved people on both sides of the Mexico-United States border. Guerrero, the young fighter for liberty, joined the ranks of martyrdom when he was killed in 1910 in Janos, Chihuahua, during the early days of the Mexican Revolution. He died on his feet.