ALONG OUR SIDE OF THE MEXICAN 



BORDER 



By Frederick Simpich 



Formerly American Consul at Nogales, Mexico, Author of "Where Adam and Eve Lived," 

 Nedjef, the Shia Mecca," "The Rise of the New Arab Nation," etc. 



'Mystic 



THE Mexican border ! What a 

 frequent phrase ! How it hints 

 at turmoil and intrigue, at wild 

 night rides by cavalry patrols, at gun- 

 runners and smugglers ! How sugges- 

 tive it is, too, of brown-faced, snappy- 

 eyed girls in red skirts and mantillas, 

 peddling tamales and dnlccs; of Mexican 

 women washing clothes, babies, and 

 dishes in irrigation ditches ; of burros, 

 hens, and pigs foraging about adobe 

 doorways ! 



For years our papers have run news 

 stories under border town date-lines, 

 telling of turbulence and strife, of adven- 

 ture, romance, and intrigue. Hardly a 

 week passes but a front-page story 

 "breaks" somewhere on the Mexican 

 border. No region in all North America 

 is more frequently mentioned or more 

 widely misunderstood, perhaps, as re- 

 gards places,* routes, distances, and the 

 habits and customs of its people. 



Now a boundary, they used to tell us 

 at school, is an imaginary line between 

 two countries. But in various jails hard 

 by this long line of muddy water and 

 stone obelisks that marks where the 

 U. S. A. quits and Mexico begins, there 

 are always a few tardy fugitives who 

 deny that this line is "imaginary." It 

 unites us with Mexico, or separates us 

 from it, they say, depending on the 

 humor of border sheriffs at particular 

 moments. 



At Nogales they tell of a fugitive from 

 American justice, hard pressed by the 

 Yankee police, who fled and fell sprawl- 

 ing fairly across this line — his head and 

 shoulders in Mexico, the rest of his body 

 in Arizona. Frantically his waiting 

 Mexican friends grabbed him by hair 



*A common cause of geographic confusion 

 is the large number of towns in our Southwest 

 which bear Spanish names, and the frequent 

 recurrence of these identical town names in 

 Mexico. Names like Santa Cruz, Del Rio, 

 Casa Grande, etc., occur on both sides of the 

 line. "Alamos" are found by the dozen; like- 

 wise "San Juans." 



and hands, seeking to drag him over to 

 safety. 



But a pursuing constable dropped 

 heavily on the fugitive's feet, with a pistol 

 against the American part of his anat- 

 omy, and bawled such ominous threats 

 that the runaway squirmed hastily home 

 again. More than one border bad man 

 "bit the dust" because he didn't know 

 just where this line was or didn't reach 

 it in time. 



In other ways the social cleavage of 

 this border is sharp and startling. It cuts 

 us off abruptly from another people, 

 showing an odd, interesting "cross-sec- 

 tion" of diverse civilizations, proving 

 again what the Roman said about races 

 of men differing in manners and habits, 

 in standards and traditions. 



Nor are all the people along this line 

 either Yankees or Mexicans. Thousands 

 of Chinese are settled here, on the Mex- 

 ican side ; and Turks and Japanese, and 

 twenty Indian tribes speaking twenty of 

 the babel of tongues heard in Mexico. 



it's a long, crooked line 



Thousands of settlers migrate to this 

 border-land each year, losing themselves 

 in the vast, hazy-blue stretches of its 

 open country ; but they are Americans 

 all, mostly from the Middle West and 

 the South. The hordes of Finns, Slavs, 

 and Neapolitans that pour into our At- 

 lantic ports never get this far; they stop 

 in the manufacturing centers of the East. 

 In Texas and California, of course, na- 

 tive-born generations are found : in the 

 newer States of Arizona and New Mex- 

 ico most of the residents (barring chil- 

 dren) have come from other States. 



Adventurous, colorful, and full of con- 

 trasts as it is, the 1,800-mile trip along 

 this crooked, historic line is rough and 

 difficult and has been made by few people. 



Some of the wildest and least known 

 regions of our country are piled up 

 against this border. Ask any doughboy, 

 of the many, many thousands who have 



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