John Kenneth Turner

John Kenneth Turner (April 5, 1879 – July 31, 1948) was an American publisher, journalist, and author. His book Barbarous Mexico helped discredit Mexican President Porfirio Díaz's regime in the eyes of the American public.

Early life Turner was born in Portland, Oregon to Enoch and Laura Frances (née Kelly) Turner.

Turner was hired as a stringer for the Fresno Republican. After losing their apartment in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the couple spent a brief period in Portland, Oregon. He edited sports at the Portland Journal before moving to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, Turner worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald.

From 1908 to 1911, the Turners were involved in Mexico's revolutionary movement, and Barbarous Mexico, criticizing the corruption and brutal labor system under Diaz, played a role in accelerating it.

In 1915, Turner traveled to Mexico to report on the American occupation of Veracruz and got an exclusive interview with Venustiano Carranza, one of the constitutionalist revolutionaries' key leaders. He traveled to Mexico again the next year to report on the Pancho Villa Punitive Expedition.

As the guest of a progressive Republican senator from Wisconsin, Robert M. La Follette, Turner was present for President Woodrow Wilson's speech to Congress requesting a declaration of war on Germany. He opposed U.S. participation in the war and in 1922 published Shall It Be Again?, a book criticizing the war and America's involvement, which was cited by, among others, former German Kaiser Wilhelm II in his memoirs on the question of war guilt. After the war, as the prospect of yet another American intervention in Mexico arose, the Rand School of Social Science published his book Hands Off Mexico. In 1921, Turner interviewed the Zapatista General Genovevo de la O in Cuernavaca.

Later life Political developments in the 1920s and 1930s discouraged Turner and he ceased his writing and political activities. He and Ethel separated in 1925 and he later married socialist writer Adriana Spadoni. In 1941, he published his last book, Challenge to Karl Marx.

Turner died on July 31, 1948.