“Para reprimir a este difamador”: Discursos públicos, valores y orden social en Guadalajara, México, 1885

In 1885 Wistano Luis Orozco was a known political opponent of Jalisco's state government. Orozco was beaten and jailed because of a journalistic note published in his newspaper, after which finally he fled from Jalisco. That episode reveals values of the Porfiriato's political culture like honor and decency, as well as some contradictions between the discourses and practices that gave meaning to social and political order. The beating lets us know that in Guadalajara there were alternative conceptions of values. By acting as a representative of the aspirations and values of opposition groups, Orozco became a victim of political persecution by the Jalisco government and local elites.