Border City: A Book Review

From the lessons learned by Lefty Lester in Campus Town, Hart had become a man of the people. Hart was a New Dealer to his soul and believed all men should be treated fairly and equally. In fact, he dedicates his first book, Border City to "the proposition that all men are created equal." Stilwell, influenced by Dobie and Bedichek and other University of Texas professors, was a modern day liberal in a Texas wrought with conservative, communist hunting folk whose prevailing politicos believed in States rights and the worker's right to work and not be subjugated to a union or strike. The political bosses of south Texas like, R.B. Creager and Jim Wells of Cameron County, worked hard to squash labor organization. To protect self-interests and their landowning constituents, the political bosses of south Texas, most owning large tracts of farm land and ranches, wanted to keep the flow of cheap "wetback" labor moving across the Rio Grande to work their fields and replace the able-bodied laborers who had gone off to fight in World War II. The working conditions for these undocumented laborers were deplorable and pay was even worse. In Border City, Hart succinctly captures and attacks the trials and tribulations the Texas-Mexican population faced in pre-war and early war time Valley culture.

The thinly hidden town depicted as Border City in the book by the same name is pre-World War II Brownsville, Texas. The town politicos and press are controlled by a one-man rule that is willing to go to any extreme to maintain control and votes for Cameron County. The book opens with the beautiful Chelo Moreno, ironically named after Americo Paredes's first wife, and her family pleading to the district attorney to help them after the Political Jefe, Billings, allegedly rapes her. The scene reflects the injustices and hand tying Texas-Mexicans encountered in the mid-twentieth century.

The pre-war forties of the lower Rio Grande Valley still clung to a patron/peon system. Most Texas-Mexicans who did not find refuge in the cities and remained in the 'bush' during the Mexican Revolution still worked in the orchards and as ranch hands. They operated essentially under a feudal serf system and the laborers found themselves indentured to their patrons by debt or by familial loyalties. Most families that were here illegally, or first generation legals, weathered unmentionable abuses and simply kept their opinions and mouths shut to protect the family from further scrutiny or deportation back to Mexico.

The young protagonist of the story is idealistic newspaperman Dave Atwood. The parallels between the life of Dave and the life of Hart are inescapable. Stilwell, like Dave Atwood of Border City, starts his life in Brownsville as a cub reporter for the Brownsville Herald. Stilwell will eventually become the editor of the Herald and make the same editorial changes to the paper as Dave does in Border City. The characters of the fictitious newsroom of the Border City News pay homage to Stilwell's real-world friends, and the colleagues he worked with during the writing of Border City. For example, one sympathetic character and near mentor is the copydesk man, McWilliams. While Hart battled discrimination in the Texas republic, Cary McWilliams, editor of the New Republic, waged the battles of California. Stilwell wrote frequently in the same journals as McWilliams and was a political contributor to the New Republic in the 1940s. Another example and one of the most influential characters of Border City is Pepe. Pepe is the editor of the nightly edition of the News's Spanish language version of the News. Clearly the character is based on Mexican-American author, Americo Paredes, author of George Washington Gomez, who was the Spanish edition editor while Stilwell edited the Herald from 1942-1944. Years later, in interviews, Paredes rails against Stilwell and the character portrayed as Pepe. Paredes feels his character is painted as an angry, indignant young man--he feels Stilwell does not portray him in a favorable light.

Border City is the story of young, hard-drinking, womanizing, and idealistic Dave Atwood. A wayward newspaper reporter unafraid to face the political boss and machine of south Texas. The premise of Border City rests upon the discrimination Texas-Mexicans have to deal with on a daily basis on the border. The opening vignette finds Chelo Moreno raped and with nowhere to go for recompense. The rape occurs at the hands of a powerful politico, Jim Billings, who has the ear of the district attorney, the loyalty of a half-Mexican, half-Anglo deputy sheriff, Enrique, and the support of the Border City News. Stilwell sets the tone of Border City to voice the outrages of discrimination the south Texas-Mexican faces, and the political forces that worked to squash labor unions. As Dave weaves his way through a quagmire of small town politics, he falls in love with the beautiful Chelo.

As Dave is educated, first by Tito, Chelo's older brother, and then by Pepe, a character based on Americo Paredes, of the horrors the Mexican-descended race faces, he swears to take Chelo away from the turmoil of the Rio Grande Valley and take her to a place where no one will care what color they are. Dave dreams of a place near Chicago where people will think Chelo is Italian, rather than Mexican. However, as the narrative unfolds we witness the death of Tito at the hands of Enrique, as a few grapefruit workers try to organize a union. Dave is also dragged into the world of the Mexican plight, when in the dark, there to report the gathering, is beaten by Enrique. Now imbrued in the "cause" to give the Mexican race a voice, Dave witnesses the travesty of discrimination from looks he and Chelo get at the local burger joint, a real-world situation Stilwell writes about in the Parade, to the couple forced to go to the movies at the Mexican theatre, rather than the white one, because Chelo could not go into the white theatre.

As Dave tries to convince Chelo to move, he is offered the editor's position at the News. The Old Man, the publisher in Border City, not the father of Uncovered Wagon, though, convinces him to stay and offers him full editorial control over the News. Stepping up to editor's position places Dave toe-to-toe with Billings, Border City political boss--Dave Atwood's greatest menace. Billings represents all that is bad with Texas and he metaphorically represents the Anglo rape of the Texas-Mexican people that occurs in the opening scene, where Chelo's family is swearing affidavits concerning the circumstances of her rape in the home of Billings. Dave, newly appointed as editor of the News, is given assurances that he can make the editorial changes he sees fit to help the local Texas-Mexican population. His first active editorial policy change at the paper is to drop the red-scare enflaming, Pulitzer prize winning columnist, Westbrook Pegler from the paper. Dave, moreover, is given the opportunity to attack Billings when the time is nigh. Dave sees this as his chance to truly avenge Chelo against the horrible rape that occurs at the hands of Billings in the open pages of the story and loosen the stranglehold the political boss has on Border City. Dave Atwood, now as editor, has a voice, power and a conscience that is developed by Stilwell's alter-ego, Lefty Lester, in Campus Town.

Dave, in a final attempt to convince Chelo to "runaway" with him, meets her in a secluded apartment of a friend. Looking through the window and ready to report the couple to the political boss, Billings, is Enrique. When Enrique reports the news of the couple's affair to Billings, the political machine threatens to deport Chelo back to Mexico if Dave does not retract a salacious news item linking Billings to the rape. Dave, the idealist he is, is given a choice to retract a news item he reports or face Chelo's banishment, if you will, from Border City---he chooses to retain the news item and loose Chelo in favor of ethics.

The power and accuracy of Border City,though, is captured in the publication of the book. When Stilwell first submitted the manuscript to Doubleday and Doran, the original text was written as a non-fiction book. Stilwell, as we see in Uncovered Wagon and Campus Town was not afraid to tackle real world headlines. In fact, he ripped his novels either right from his own life or from the pages which he edited. Doubleday returned the original manuscript and over a three year period made Stilwell rewrite the work into a novel. We can only assume Doubleday asked Stilwell to do this because of the criticism he levies against the Roosevelt administration's Office of Inter-American Affairs. The publication also may have been the impetus to force Stilwell to move to Austin. As Dave, the Stilwell alter-ego kept trying to convince Chelo to move north after his attack on Billings, Stilwell moved to Austin within weeks of publication. Did Stilwell know he was leaving for Austin and this was, in fact, an attack on the south Texas political machine or was the move to Austin merely coincidental? Stilwell's complexity makes these answers hard to find, but the temptation to wonder is too great.

Health care, sanitation, economy, and education were not deemed prerequisites for a Texas-Mexican during the period. Sadly, as illustrated in a tragic scene in which Chelo's brother Antonio is killed by a sheriff's deputy, the Texas-Mexican's first inclination was to call the priest for Last Rites before calling a doctor-if a doctor was summoned at all. The pre-war era was marked by Texas-Mexican ignorance and the white political bosses' abusive measures to ensure the Texas-Mexican population remained ignorant.

Commerce was just as stifling for Texas-Mexicans as was their prospects for education and a fair shot at the American dream. For the most part, the general population of the Valley region was predominately uneducated and unskilled Mexican laborers. The Texas-Mexicans were pawned by the Anglo ranchers and politicos to do their dirty work in the fields or on the ranches. In a sense, the early twentieth century Mexican on the Texas border was little more than an indentured servant. Any move, or coordination, to organize into unions was squelched by a communist fearing Texas establishment and white population. During World War II, the denizens of the Rio Grande Valley feared Nazi intervention inside Mexico. Heightening border tensions before Pearl Harbor, Congressman Martin Dies of east Texas created the House Un-American Activities Committee to weed out and thwart Communist or Nazi sedition within the state. Stilwell illustrates this fear poignantly with the death of Antonio. Texas-Mexicans are beat and killed to stop them from forming a labor union. The formation of unions in the eyes of Dies and Texas Regulars was enough to be considered a communist activity.

Chelo's closest brother, the drunken, tuberculosis ridden Tito, lived through the conditions that sparked the 1938 Pecan-Shellers strike in San Antonio. His family, and he, claimed he contracted Tuberculosis by working in the damp, cold conditions that persisted in factories at the time of his employment. The Pecan-Shellers Union Strike was the first major pro-labor strike organized by Texas-Mexicans. However, 500 women and young men were arrested and placed in a jailhouse that was barely designed to fit sixty. Governor Allred, a liberal governor by Texas standards, interceded and stopped the strike. The impetus of Governor Allred's pro-labor stance paved the way for Conservative anti-union factions and candidates like "Pass the Biscuits" Pappy O'Daniel to take over Texas politics and create an establishment that still holds power today. Big Business and Oil now had a grasp and groups like the Texas Regulars, Christian Americans, and the Fight for Free Enterprise were determined to quell any insurgency of pinko communists that may try to sell their brand of pro-labor organization in Texas.

On December 7, 1941, the day Roosevelt claimed "will live in infamy" the Texas-Mexicans joined their Anglo brothers and rose to the call to arms required to defend America. The border region changed and Texas-Mexicans fought valiantly alongside their Anglo buddies. As Texas-Mexican men left for the theater of war, their women filled home front jobs that were, before the war, off limits. They were allowed into different aspects of commerce that were traditionally reserved for Anglos. The flush of English speaking and moderately skilled workers into urban areas left a vacuum of labor in the fields. The vacuum brought with it a flush of illegal workers from Mexico. The workers were called wetbacks because they were still wet when ranchers and farmers picked them up for work. As Americo Paredes, Pepe in Border City, describes J. Frank Dobie as saying, "the Mexicans' backs were still wet because as soon as they swam across the river they took a nap. The backs of their shirts did not have time to dry." Paredes's accusation of Dobie's assessment was the equivalent of Dobie overtly calling the Mexicans lazy and dumb in one sentence. "Didn't Dobie know," elucidated Paredes, "that the Mexicans took off their clothes to ford the river?" (Davis, 212)

The American and Mexican Governments, in efforts to stem the illegal workforce and protect a still depression ravaged American workforce, created the Bracero Program that would allow Mexican nationals to cross over and work legally in the United States. However, Texas was quickly blacklisted by the Mexican government and their citizens were not allowed to legally come to Texas because laborers' working conditions and pay were atrocious. Once again, a tide of illegal workers flooded the shores of the Rio Grande and wages plummeted. A wetback could swim the Rio Grande and work for $.35 cents a day and earn more than they could in their homeland. Texas wanted to the cheap labor but had to find a way to convince the Mexican government that discrimination and injustice were actively being attacked to protect their citizens. Moreover, as the Texas-Mexicans returned home from war as decorated and revered heroes, the idea that they would quietly go back to the fields and to unskilled positions was a miscalculation on the parts of the Anglos that still controlled south Texas.

While Dave is actively changing the editorial policies of the News, the Governor's Mansion is getting a new resident, and the Texas Legislature under direction of the office the New Deal Office of Inter-American Affairs is instructed to form a commission to build better relations with Latin-American countries, especially Mexico, with its pool of valuable, but cheap, labor. In 1942, sitting Texas Governor 'Pappy' O'Daniel was vaulted to the US Senate with the help of the anti-labor factionists, the Texas Regulars. His Lieutenant Governor Coke Stevenson was elevated to Governor. Within the first six weeks of office, the Mexican Government blacklisted Texas from the Bracero Program. On urging from President Roosevelt and Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson, Governor Stevenson passed the House Concurrent Resolution, Number 105, The Caucasian Race Resolution. The resolution mandated that all people of the Caucasian race could not be discriminated against. The Texas-Mexicans fell under this protection. However, actuality is not reality. Abuses and injustices continued to occur on a daily basis. The war effort was raging and Texas producers, farmers, and ranchers were happy with their status quo of low wage earners and a small, illegal and undocumented work force. The unskilled wetback tide was cheap and efficient. Employees did not have to pay if the funds were not there and immigration employees were informed not to arrest a wetback unless they broke the law or were found walking the streets.

Roosevelt, still concerned with the repercussions of the Depression and needing to feed, arm, and clothe his troops, instructed Stevenson to form a Texas Commission that would be overseen by the Office of Inter-American Affairs. On September 4, 1943, Stevenson signed the proclamation that formed the Texas Good Neighbor Policy which would in effect "give full and equal accommodations, advantages, and privileges of all public places of business and amusement to Mexicans and other Latin-American residing or visiting the state." (Kingerea)

The prevailing attitude of most in the upper reaches of the Texas establishment thought the Good Neighbor Commission was a laughable jest. Dave Atwood felt the same. The Governor, a character who remains faceless and nameless in Border City, had to be Stevenson. The commission in the book was no mystery as it shared the same name as the real life commission. However, the advent of the International Goodwill Ball in Border City allowed Hart to set the stage for the farce he felt was the Good Neighbor Commission. Chelo, as Dave's date, is given the cold shoulder due to her skin color; she is not allowed, under normal circumstances, to be in the hotel. Dave laments the discrimination. He recognizes the duplicity of the Good Neighbor Policy and sees it as a means for the heads of state to pat each other on the back and congratulate each other, rather than find hard-tack, specific solutions to Mexican labor issues.

In real life, the Good Neighbor Commission focused primarily on education. Education was never entered into the establishment's vision of what the Good Neighbor Commission was to address. As the commission grew and matured, the University of Texas Board of Regents attacked the freedoms of education by firing then President Homer Rainey and four economics professors-a subject Stilwell tackles in Campus Town. The Good Neighbor Commission was misnamed and fell short of its true identity, the Feel Good Commission.

Stilwell's use of the daily headlines he edited at the Herald and his first hand accounts of the dangers facing the Mexican race deeply affected Stilwell. Although the matter is almost entirely conjecture, he leaves Brownsville and political reporting shortly after the release of Border City. He moves to Mexico City to write Fishing in Mexico, and once back in the States, he moves to Austin, never to return to the Valley to live. Was Stilwell forced from the Valley? Did he attack the political machine as his alter-ego Dave Atwood does? We do know that Border City was not well received by critics, but was the message to stop discrimination against the Mexican race effectively delivered?

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