Thursday April 13, 1916
From the Chicago Daily Tribune: Don MacGregor Killed by Villistas

Perhaps we will never know the full the story of how Don MacGregor died in Mexico. This latest version come from war correspondent, Floyd P. Gibbons, whose report was published yesterday in the Chicago Daily Tribune:

"Don" MacGregor Met Death in Mexico
Because He "Stuck" to German Friend

BY FLOYD P. GIBBONS.

NEW EXPEDITIONARY HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE AMERICAN ARMY IN MEXICO, April 10, via aeroplane to Columbus, N. M., April 11.-If the censor permits, and if good fortune accompanies a four hundred mile aeroplane flight to the border this story will bring sad news to a number of the radical group of Chicago, who are collectively known as anarchists, but who prefer to style themselves "rebels."

Don MacGregor is dead. His name was no strange one among the esoteric circles that form in Halsted street basements in the vicinity of Hull house or on North Clark street, where one brings his own beer and occasionally contributes a quarter for the lagging gas meter.

Killed Under Assumed Name.

Under the assumed name of David Bruce, which he often used in his writings, and an exile from the Colorado form of justice, which he believed he had good reason to fear, this good newspaper man, red blooded and without fear, was killed March 28 at Manaca [Miñaca], not many miles from here. So far as is known his is the last American life that has been taken in the murderous career of Pancho Villa.

I knew MacGregor. Yesterday I talked with J. H. Locke, whose looted, shot-riddled hotel in Manaca is called El Pacific. He is the last American who saw MacGregor alive and also, according to best information, is the last American who saw the bandit Villa. Locke showed me the letters which were taken form the body of the American whom he knew under the name of David Bruce, and then described to me the red face and unmistakable agitator's mouth of Don MacGregor.

Story of MacGregor Death.

Here is Locke's story:

This American whom I know as David Bruce and a German mine superintendent in the Guerrero district by the name of Herman Blankenburg, who were stopping at my hotel in Manaca on the night of March 27 when Villa, fleeing from Columbus, divided his forces into three commands and made simultaneous attacks on the towns of Guerrero, Manaca, and San Isidro.

There was a small Carranza garrison in Manaca, whom the Villistas engaged in the streets. MacGregor, Blankenburg and I closed the doors and windows and lay low. We heard a drum beat after the fighting had subsided and a Carranza soldier, who was hiding with us, told us that meant that Villa had won, because the Carrancistas had no drum.

Feared Anger of Villa.

It was bad news for me. I had seen Villa personally two days before between Manaca and Guerrero and he had told me to get out of the country, saying that if he ever caught me in Mexico again he would kill me.

Blankenburg, MacGregor and I talked about escape. We knew that it was only a matter of hours before the Villistas would start to loot the hotel and find us. I was for getting away and as a result of that decision I am alive today. The other two are dead.

I tore a plank from the fence in back of the hotel and told them that I thought our only chance was in getting out of town in the darkness. I had a six shooter in the holster and carried an automatic in my hand. I believed I could make it.

Blankenburg refused to go with me. He said, "I am a German. I am not an American. Villa kills only Americans. I will stay in the hotel until morning and then I will go over to the hotel of Richard Seimple in the town and stay with him. If we go out tonight we will be killed in the dark."

MacGregor was for getting out with me, but he didn't want to leave Blankenburg to face the Villistas alone. Both of them were unarmed. I could not persuade them so left alone. I didn't run because I didn't want to attract attention.

The moon was in the last quarter and as I walked across the field in back of the hotel I expected to be challenged or shot at every step, but luck was with me and I reached a safe place in a friendly barrio on the outskirts of the town, close to the mountains. I hid in the hut of a Mexican for two days.

Then I sent a Mexican woman into town to learn what had happened to my companions. She returned with the following story:

"At 8 o'clock in the morning following the fight, Blankenburg opened the door of your hotel and with his satchel in his hand walked out on the street.

Splits Scalp with Sabre.

"As he did so a Villista officer, riding by at a gallop, drew up his horse and Blankenburg started to explain that he was not an American. His words were cut short by a blow from the officer's saber. The blade struck the German on the crown and split his scull in two. Then the Villista fired two shots into his body.

"Just then the officer saw MacGregor, who had started out to explain with his meager command of Spanish. He reached the sidewalk when the officer, unsheathing his rifle, sent two bullets through him. MacGregor dropped dead in the street."

In the afternoon the pigs tried to eat the bodies which still lay in the street. The Villistas were still in the town and the Mexicans were afraid to remove the bodies. But an old Mexican who is friendly to me sent his little boy over to the door of the hotel and the muchacho sat there through the day, throwing stones at the pigs to keep them away.

In the morning the Villistas rode out of town and the bodies of MacGregor and Blankenburg, with those of eleven Carranzista soldiers, were carted to the edge of the town and buried in a common grave.

Narrotor Reaches Cusi Camp.

Locke, accompanied by a faithful Mozo, rode two days through the hills and reached the ming camp of Cusihulachic, to which place the eighteen American miners were bound on Jan. 17 last, when they were taken from a train at Santa Isabel and murdered by Villistas under José Rodriguez and Pablo Lopez.

After much hiding in the hills and perilous night rides to evade the bands of Villistas, scattered after their disastrous encounter with American forces at Guerrero on March 29, Locke arrived at this place and reported to Gen. Pershing.

Among the letters taken from the body of MacGregor, was one from W. M. Leissesor, written from Chicago; another from S. T. Hughes, formerly of the newspaper enterprise association in the Chicago office, but now located in Cleveland, and another from J. R. Walker of Denver, Colo.

All the letters indicated that MacGregor had been selling newspaper and magazine articles on the Mexican situation, while he remained in Mexico in the hope that the federal industrial relations commission which he had supplied with much data would come to his assistance in his trouble in Colorado.

Admired in Chicago.

I don't know exactly what MacGregor's Colorado trouble was, but I do know that his associates in Chicago admired him for the part he took, and even now I can see him sitting across the table from me at the Press club in Chicago, where he first told me about it. Briefly it is this:

He was fighting tuberculosis in the Colorado mountains when the miners' strike reached its bloody climax in the battle of Ludlow. Against the orders of his physicians, MacGregor joined the striking miners and was the guiding genius of the armed resistance that followed. There was nothing in it for MacGregor but the excitement and the possibility of being drilled with a bullet from one of the so-called militiamen.

For this participation he sought safety in Mexico and remained here with the knowledge of John Lawson's cell at Trinidad as an example. That is why I believe this story will be sad news to his fellow exiles when they foregather again in darkest Chicago.

SOURCE
Chicago Daily Tribune
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Apr 12, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/28696640/

IMAGES
Pancho Villa, Ojinaga, by JD Wheelan, Jan 1914
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa
Don MacGregor, Last Letter (1 & 2), Chicago Daily Trib, Apr 12, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/28696640/

See also:

DK Tag: Don MacGregor
http://www.dailykos.com/news/DonMacGregor

C99 Tag: Don MacGregor
http://caucus99percent.com/tags/don-macgregor