Ringside Seat To A Revolution
a book review
May I recommend Ringside Seat To A Revolution by David Romo.
Romo has produced an eclectic history of El Paso during the years 1900 to 1920. With the use of stupendous photographs, current newspapers articles, gleanings from oral histories and even retelling of legends, it weaves a tapestry of El Paso history.
It is chock full of real history and lots of quirky history. All of this falls directly into the weird and wacky world of People’s History in Texas.
Let me give you an example.
The Day They Shut the Border Down.
“Everyone was happy, coming and going without any customs restrictions, any immigration restrictions, any health department strict restrictions. We were a happy lot.” Cleofus Calleros, on crossing the Juarez-El Paso Bridge before 1917.
“Everybody just went back and forth. All of us together built El Paso and Juarez.” Elizabeth Kelly, daughter of El Paso Mayor Charles Kelley.
The border was open and people went back and forth, visiting and working and creating a border community.
But in the years running up to 1917, conditions changed. The revolution in Mexico made things tense. Although El Paso residents could entertain themselves by watching the whole thing from rooftops along the border, Americans eventually became irritated and frustrated about not being able to catch Pancho Villa. Villa even played a part in the mayoral election of 1915 between Charles Kelly and Tom Lea, Sr.
Charles Kelly, the incumbent, had good relations with Villa. Good not great. “When Kelly heard that Pancho Villa was armed and ready to kill Gen. Giuseppe Garibaldi, grandson of the Italian liberator and leader of a foreign faction of revolutionaries in Mexico, Kelly did not wait until the police arrived but went himself and demanded that Villa drop his guns. He did. Kelly’s actions made national headlines.” [this is from Borderlands Vol. 24]
But in general, Kelly and Villa got along.
Tom Lea, Sr., the challenger, however, was rabidly anti-Villa. Some say Lea was just rabidly anti-Mexican. In the campaign, Lea charged that Charles Kelly was part of the group who had controlled El Paso for several years. Lea ran as a “reformer.”
The real story is difficult to parse without a full blown history and as you know from reading this Substack, without collecting oral histories or at least a careful perusal of letters to the editor, the actual people’s history is difficult to sort.
According to the Handbook of Texas Online, Kelly’s administration “assumed municipal acquisition of the privately owned waterworks, extended street lighting and paving, reduced the cost of fire insurance, voted funds for the construction of schools, and supported the building of Scenic Drive, which became a tourist attraction.” That sounds like reformer activities to me.
Lea, however, claimed to be THE reformer. Lea won.
And then the United States entered the war. And folks were worried about German spies crossing the border and well…spying. The Immigration Act of 1917 now required immigrants provide a passport, proof of literacy and $8.
Juarez and El Paso were now two separate communities, separated by a border.
As an added bonus to El Paso border worries, typhus hit central Mexico.
Typhus never actually hit El Paso. But, Mayor Lea worried that Mexican workers crossing the border would carry typhoid fever with them.
Lea sent telegrams to Washington demanding a quarantine be put in place to stem the tide of "dirty lousey destitute Mexicans" who would spread typhus. The Public Health Officer for El Paso admitted there was little danger and opposed a quarantine, but did suggest opening de-lousing plants. U.S. officials adopted a policy of sanitizing Mexican immigrants coming in from Mexico and it continued for 40 years.
So El Paso set up those awful disinfectant showers, in which immigrants were disinfected with insecticide, DDT and kerosene. Fun stuff. But no smoking while bathing.
The infamous Bath Riots are a legend along the border. Perhaps more on this in a later PHIT substack.
But…Here is another fun fact from the Ringside seat at the Revolution.
Mayor Tom Lea, THE reformer, wore silk underwear.
And Lea was not only rabidly anti-Villa. He was rabidly fearful of typhus.
A doctor once told him that lice carried typhus and that lice could not stick to silk. So the Mayor wore silk underwear. PHIT wonders where the Mayor acquired his silk underwear. Kenneth Lay, who wrote War, Revolution and KKK says the esteemed Mayor Lea, THE reformer, was in the KKK. I wonder if his fellow Ku Kluxers knew what was under his robe. Or perhaps they all wore silk underwear and bought in bulk?
Weird history in Texas!