Michener, James A. (159 page)

When he compared this vital, robust scene to the tentative, cautious way they had been living previously on their plantation in the dark woods at Jefferson, he impulsively kissed his wife and exclaimed: 'My God, am I glad we came to Waxahachie!'

In the chain of Spanish-speaking counties which lined the Texas side of the Rio Grande, three types of elections were held, each with its highly distinctive character. There were, of course, the general statewide elections in November in which Democrats contested with Republicans for the governorship of Texas or the presidency of the United States, but because of the lingering tanimosities growing out of the Reconstruction years, when Black Republicans tormented the state, no Republican would be elected to major office in Texas for nearly a century. So these November elections were a formality.

The statewide election which counted came in the summer, when Democrats, often of the most lethal persuasion, fought for victory in their primary, for then tempers rose so high that sometimes gunfire resulted. Prior to 1906, the Democrats had nominated their contenders in convention, which encouraged chica-|nery, but in that year a reform act was passed requiring nomination by public election, with a lot of frills thrown in so that the professionals could still dominate. Now statewide brawls took place, and nowhere were these new primaries more corrupt than along the Rio Grande, where some county would have a precinct with a total population of 356, counting women, who were not eligible to vote, and their babies, and report late on election night that its favorite Democrat had won by a vote of 343 to 14. Quite often two Texas Democrats of great probity, one a judge from along the Red River in the north, the other a distinguished state senator from the Dallas area, would conduct high-level campaigns across the state,

only to see their fate determined in the so-called Mexican Counties of the Rio Grande, where elections were conducted with the grossest fraud.

But it was the third type of Rio Grande election which displayed Texas politics at its rawest. This was the strictly local election, town or county, in which Republicans and Democrats vied evenly, victory going first to one, then the other. A local election in these counties could be horrendous.

How, if Texas never voted Republican statewide, could that party expect to win local elections along the river? The answer was threefold: legal citizens of Texas who could not speak English could be manipulated by bosses; citizens of Mexico could be handed fake poll-tax certificates and enrolled as Republicans 01 Democrats; and the presence of the international bridges that gave employment to political henchmen. These bridges were sorry affairs, often wooden and sometimes one-lane, but they were staffed by customs officials appointed in Washington, and since these were years when Republican Presidents like McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft ran the country, it was their Republican appointees who ran the bridges. Republicans hired local toll collectors and customs inspectors. Republicans controlled the flow of federal funds, and Republican functionaries, often newcomers from Republican states in the North, were told by Washington: 'Forget the statewide offices but vote your county Republican, 01 else.'

Sixty miles upstream from where the Rio Grande debouches into the Gulf of Mexico, a rickety wooden bridge connected Mexico and the United States, and on each bank of the river a small town of little consequence had grown up; the bridge was more important than either of the towns.

As was to be the rule along the entire reach of the Rio Grande, and along the land border as well in New Mexico, Arizona anc California, whenever two such towns faced each other in the twc countries, it was invariably the Mexican one which came to be the larger. Thus, Matamoros with its advantageous Zona Libre (fret customs zone) was larger than Brownsville; Reynosa, much largei than Hidalgo; Nuevo Laredo, substantially bigger than the Texas Laredo; and, to the surprise of many, Ciudad Juarez, bigger thar El Paso.

The reasons for this were clear. No Texan town bordering Mexico constituted any irresistible magnet drawing Texas citizens wishing to settle there permanently; Dallas was always a mucr more promising town than Laredo. But the contrary was not true Mexican citizens caught in the poverty-stricken parts of northerr

Mexico were lured to the border towns, where jobs across the river might become available and where American stores stocked with bargains were a temptation. There were a hundred reasons why Mexicans sought to crowd the Rio Grande, and they did.

At this particular bridge the rule prevailed. At the Mexican end the town of Escandon, named after the excellent man who had explored this region, contained about two thousand citizens; on the Texan end the little town of Bravo had less than half that number. The bridge was important, and sometimes it seemed as if the history of the county was identical with that of the bridge.

In these early years of the century the Bravo Customs Office was occupied by a ruthless gentleman of great ability and considerable charm. He was a big, brawling, red-headed Irishman named Tim Coke, imported from New York, forty years old and a graduate of that corrupt school of Republicanism which existed only to fight the worse corruption of Tammany Democrats. With the brazen assistance of three others like him from Eastern cities and nine tough local men, Tim Coke had long ago declared war on the Saldana Democrats, and saw this year of 1908 as a real chance for victory: Time has come to turn this county Republican, once and [for all. Last two local elections we won one, lost one. This year we inail it down.'

In Saldana County, as elsewhere along the Rio Grande, it was :he custom to smuggle across the river large numbers of Mexican nationals, pay each one a small fee, vote him illegally, and send him Dack to the jacales south of the river. Since the legal population Df the county tended to be Democratic, the Republicans were required to sneak in a good many more transient voters than the Democrats, and no one was more adept at this than tough-minded, nventive Tim Coke. A newspaperman from Austin, summarizing Texas politics, wrote. 'When loyal Democrats along the Rio

rande see red-headed Tim Coke manipulating the patronage at lis bridge, they tremble.'

The sumbitch has one big advantage over us,' the Democrats whined. 'He controls the bridge. He can march his voters across x)ld as you please. Ours we have to swim.'

When Coke heard such complaint he cursed: 'We may have the bridge, but they have that damned Precinct 37.' It was a legitimate )rotest, because the wily Democrats kept sequestered deep in the leartland of Saldana County a rural precinct which had the habit )f waiting till four or five in the morning to report its tally. By then he leaders of the party in Bravo would know how many Precinct »7 votes they needed to win the election, and the call would go orth: 'Elizondo, you've got to turn in figures which give us a three

hundred and three majority,' and half an hour later Elizondo would report: 'Democrats, three forty-three; Republicans, fourteen.' There was always a howl, charges of fraud, and threats of federal action, but always Elizondo explained: 'We were a little late, but up here everyone votes Blue.'

It was the rule along the Rio Grande, where vast numbers of voters could not read English, to identify the two major parties by color, which varied from county to county. In Saldana the Republicans had always been the Reds, Democrats the Blues, so that when a vote was held, each party devised some trick to help its imported constituents know how to cast the votes for which they had been paid. The color scheme was also helpful to those Hispanics who lived in Texas and were legally entitled to vote but had not yet mastered English: 'Pablo, when they hand you your ballot, you'll find a little red mark at the right place. You scratch your big X there and you get your dollar.' Before the ballot was deposited, Republican workers would erase the telltale red mark, aware that Democratic workers would be doing something similar with their blue marks.

Any election in Saldana County was apt to be a lively affair, and for two good reasons. First, after the voting booths closed and the counting began, both the Reds and the Blues threw parties for their imported voters, with tequila, hot Mexican dishes and whiskey, and if the Reds won, their partisans were apt to grow rambunctious, with the losing Blues growing resentful. Gunfire was so customary at Saldana elections that some thoughtful anglo residents said: 'It would be better if one side was clearly superior. Let them celebrate and leave the rest of us alone.'

The second reason for unrest was that Democrats, denied the patronage associated with the Customs Office, had to work extra hard, and for some years they had placed their fortunes in the hands of one of the most competent political leaders Texas had so far produced. Horace Vigil was an anglo, of that there could be no doubt, for he was somewhat taller than an ordinary Mexican, more robust, whiter of skin and more confident in manner, yet the pronunciation of his name, Vee-heel, indicated that at some time long past he must have had Mexican or Spanish ancestors. Much of his genial manner seemed to have stemmed from them, for he was a markedly courteous man, and when he used his fluent Spanish he sounded like a born hidalgo.

When people first saw Vigil standing beside Tim Coke they were apt to think: What an unfair competition!—for the big Irishman, with his forthright and engaging ways, was in the full force of his vigorous manhood and seemed to dominate all about

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him; at the bridge he was unquestionably in charge, while Vigil, twelve years older and slightly stooped, was obviously a retiring man seeking to avoid notice. He accomplished this in two ways: by twisting his torso slightly to the left, creating the impression that through diffidence or even cowardice he was going to avoid any impending unpleasantness; and by speaking in public in a voice so soft that it seemed a whisper. Women especially thought of him as 'that dear Senor Vigil.'

But if in public he gave the appearance of a somewhat bumbling and well-intentioned grandfather, in private, when surrounded only by his Spanish-speaking subordinates, he could rasp out orders in a voice that was completely domineering. In protecting his personal interests and in furthering those of the Democratic party he could be ruthless, and observers of the system warned: 'Don't touch his beer business or the way he buys his Democratic majorities.'

He had for many years operated a lumber and ice establishment, and in developing the latter he had eased over into the lucrative trade of distributing beer, so that now he controlled how men built their houses, how they stayed cool in summer, and how they relaxed when the brutally hot Rio Grande days turned into those very hot Rio Grande nights. He was not a scholarly man and he lacked formal instruction in politics, but he understood the two essentials required for governing his county: he hated customs Dfficials—They prey off the public, they contribute nothing to the :ommunity, they're all Northerners, and damnit, they're Republi-:ans'—and he loved Mexicans, holding them to be 'God's children, warm-hearted, kind to their parents, and loyal up to a point.'

He was an American patron, one of those fiercely independent 'ural leaders so common in Mexico. They were self-appointed dictators who paid lip service to the central authority but continued to rule their regions according to their own vision. Horace Vigil decided who would be judge and what decisions that judge vould hand down when he reached the bench; he did not collect :axes but he certainly spent them, rarely on himself but with joyous liberality among his Mexican supporters; it was he who determined • vhich daughters of which friends got jobs in the school system; it ' vas he to whom the people came when they needed money for a vedding or a funeral.

In return, Vigil demanded only two things: 'Vote Blue and buy

ny beer.' Any who voted Red found themselves ostracized; those

|vho tried to buy their beer direct from the breweries in San

Antonio awakened some morning to find their establishment afire

jj >r their beer spouts running wide open, with no thirsty patrons to

t :atch the flowing brew.

In the 1908 local election the great showdown between Coke and Vigil occurred. Prior to the balloting, Customs Officer Coke had so many Mexican nationals in compounds just north of the river that Vigil had to become alarmed. Twice at the end of the last century Coke had stolen elections in this manner, and with rambunctious Teddy Roosevelt still in the White House, he could depend upon vigorous support from the federal courts. Indeed, word had come down from the Justice Department in Washington: 'You must break Vigil's stranglehold,' and Coke was determined to do so.

On the Friday morning prior to the election, Vigil received disturbing news: 'Senor Vigil, Senor Coke he is bringing a hundred and fifty more Reds from Mexico.' The report was true; about half these men had voted in previous elections, each receiving his dollar plus a couple of good meals for doing so, but the other half had never before stepped foot in Texas. Like the Mexicans imported earlier by Democrats, they were herded into adobe-walled compounds, and there they whiled away the time until the customs people arrived with instructions as to how they must vote.

'Hector!' a worried Vigil called to his principal assistant, a smiling young man of eighteen, 'you've got to cross into Mexico and round up at least a hundred more votes.'

'Yes, sir!' He had spent his last three years doing little but saying 'Yes, sir' to Senor Vigil, so as soon as the orders were given he knew what to do. Reporting to the campaign treasurer, he asked for twenty dollars to entertain his voters while they were still on the Mexican side, knowing that if he could swim them across and slip them into the Blue compound, additional payoff money would be awaiting him there. With the coins secured in his belt he entered Mexico, but not via the bridge, because there the Republicans would be on watch, and if they spotted him entering Mexico they would deduce that he was going there to import more Blues, and he could hear Coke bellowing: 'Hilario, bring us a hundred more Reds.' So Hector rode his horse west about two miles, swam it across the river, and doubled back to Escandon, where he picked up a group of congenial men who could use a dollar.

This enterprising young fellow was Hector Garza, descendant of those Garzas who had immigrated to these parts from San Antonio in the 1790s and grandson of the outlaw Benito Garza, who had caused such consternation among the Texans in the 1850s. Hector and his immediate forebears had been good United States citizens; he loved Texas and wanted to see it enjoy good government, which was why he associated himself with Horace Vigil.

Like the vast majority of Hispanics, he had received only spasmodic education, partly because Texas did not consider it necessary to educate Hispanic peasants and partly because he was, like Benito Garza, a free wandering spirit who could not be trapped in any schoolroom. His real education had come from watching Vigil, and he was confident that if he continued to work for the beer distributor, he would learn all that was necessary about Saldana County.

Had the election of 1908 gone according to schedule, the Democrats, with Garza's last-minute voters, would have won by a comfortable margin, but a Mexican storekeeper who acted as spy for the Customs Office alerted Tim Coke to the hidden influx of Blue voters, and Coke summoned his aides: 'Round up every Mexican in Escandon who can walk,' and this was done.

On Saturday, Vigil, having learned of this, called a meeting of his war cabinet and told them: "We face a major crisis. Coke and his Yankees are tryin' to steal this election. If we can win it, we can hold this county for the next fifty years. Teddy Roosevelt will be out of the White House and the pressure from Washington will end. So whatever can be done must be done. If Precinct 37 has to give us five hundred to seven, it must.'

'But the precinct only has a hundred and seventy-nine registered voters.'

'Come voting day, it'll have more.'

But even so, Vigil knew that he needed some additional miracle to win, and next morning it arrived, for at about noon a man came shouting: 'Dead girl! In the bushes by the river!' And when the town officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, ran to verify the report, most of Bravo forgot the election, but Horace Vigil did not. Assembling his precinct workers, he asked them: 'How can we use this sad affair to our advantage?' and much thought was given. When the meeting ended, Hector Garza performed his part of the strategy which had been agreed upon; he moved through the town whispering to citizens: The Rangers have uncovered mysterious facts, but they won't say what.'

The morning before election the voters of Saldana County read the startling details: tim coke, republican leader, arrested for

HIDEOUS MURDER.

Under the lash of Horace Vigil's demand that justice be done, detectives under his control had uncovered clues, not very substantial, which led to Tim Coke, so the police, also in Vigil's pay, had arrested the Republican leader. The local judge, a reliable Vigil man, had refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus, so that when the voting started, Coke was still in jail.

The Republicans did their best to preserve their slight lead; they voted their Mexicans, stole ballots when they could, and put into practice the tricks Tim Coke had mastered while righting Tammany Hall in New York. But the awfol charge that their leader had committed a murder, and of a girl, sickened the voters, and many who had intended voting Republican found themselves unable to do so.

Vigil and Garza, meanwhile, were whipping up enormous enthusiasm for the unsullied Blue cause, and even before Precinct 37 reported its traditional count—343 to 14 in favor of the Democrats—it was known that the Blues had won.

On Wednesday, when Coke was released from jail, Vigil personally apologized: 'Deplorable mistake. The Mexican informant couldn't speak English, and the Rangers misinterpreted his information.' He also drafted a statement for the press: 'Every right-thinking citizen feels how wrong it is when a respected member of our community is subjected to unwarranted indignities. All Saldana County sends Tim Coke, custodian of our Bravo-Escan-don Bridge, an apology and a solemn promise that nothing like this will ever happen again.'

With crusading Teddy Roosevelt about to leave the White House and with Precinct 37 sticking to its habit of not reporting its count till dawn, the Democrats of Saldana County appeared to be safe for the coming decades.

Laurel Cobb had never considered running for the seat in the United States Senate once held by his father, but in 1919 a surprising chain of events forced him to change his mind. To begin with, a revival tent was pitched on his farm, and as a consequence he began to teach a Sunday School class, which led to the excommunication proceedings within the Jordan Baptist congregation.

The little towns of North Texas never seemed more exciting and attractive than in those hot summers when some wandering evangelist pitched his tent in a country grove and conducted a revival. If the man was noted for either his piety or his eloquence, people streamed in from forty or fifty miles, pitching their tents or boarding with strangers. Family reunions were held; courtships were launched; choirs came from distant churches; food abounded; and for fifteen joyous days the celebration continued. But the basic attraction was the fiery religious oratory, allowing people whose lives were otherwise drab a glimpse of a more promising existence.

The revival was an important aspect of Texas culture, some thought it the major aspect, for it determined that Texas would become largely a dry state, it reinforced the power of local

churches, it kept stores closed on Sundays, and it defined in fundamentalist terms what religion was. But it was also a social celebration, and the family that did not participate found itself in limbo.

Some of the wandering evangelists ranted, some threatened, while others were little more than vaudeville performers with an overlay of Old Testament religiosity. All had their loyal patrons, but there was one who excelled in all aspects of the calling He was Elder Fry, not associated with any specific Protestant denomination but equally at home with all—Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Campbellite—and a servant to all. He did not, like some others, come into a community to denigrate the local clergymen, claiming that only he had the truth while they were straying; he came to help, to ignite the fires of faith so that when he left, the resident pastors could do a better job. It was said of Fry: 'He sometimes roars but he never rants. He warns of punishment in afterlife but he does not terrify. And he never tears down, he builds up.' If the phrase 'a man of God' had any meaning, Elder Fry tried to be such a man.

In the summer of 1919 he drove his buggy south from Waxahachie to the Cobb plantation, as they called their acreage, where he met with Laurel and his wife: 'I know that a revival tent causes problems to the landowner, but if you let me use that far field, I'll keep our visitors to only one road and we'll do little damage.'

'Elder Fry,' Sue Beth interrupted, 'we think of the good life we enjoy as a gift from God, and the least we can do in return is to thank Him. Will it be for fifteen days, as usual?'

The older I get the more I think that I ought to cut back to one week. Half as much work for everyone, but to tell you the truth, Mrs. Cobb, I need a week to instruct, a week to inspire, and that final glorious day for rejoicing and salvation. I'll need the fifteen days.'

His manner was deceptive, for he was sixty-six years old, white-haired, almost childlike, with only a modest voice incapable of filling a tent, and during the first week of a revival some had difficulty hearing him, but in the second, as he became inspired, he seemed to change: he was taller, more fiercely dedicated, and possessed of a voice which thundered its impassioned message that Jesus Christ had come down to earth to rescue human beings otherwise condemned to darkness. He never tried to force conversion, nor did he promise cures; he simply offered the testimony of a man who had lived a long life in the service of God and who believed without question that heaven awaited such faithfulness.

Laurel instructed his servants to help the old man pitch his tent and personally worked at arranging the chairs. Sue Beth helped

organize the picnic tables that would be so important a part of the two-week festival, and workmen from the farm repaired the road that would give access. As a consequence, the Waxahachie revival of 1919 was one of the best; the weather was clement and the crowds tremendous. Although the recent world war had barely touched daily life in the state, it had claimed many sons of Texas, and now people wanted to celebrate the coming of peace and were ready to accept Fry's thesis that God Himself had been responsible for the victory. Cobb, listening to the long sermons, gained the impression that Fry thought that God watched over the United States with special attention and the state of Texas with a deep personal concern: 'He loves Texas, and it grieves Him when a community degrades itself with liquor. Do not cause Him remorse! Halt any evil behavior which might offend Him!'

During the second week Fry lodged with the Cobbs, at their insistence, and they enjoyed several long talks: 'Dear friends, I find in North Texas a degree of spiritual concern unmatched anywhere else. God has chosen your territory for some special commission. He holds Texas close to the bosom, for here He sees the working-out of His Holy Bible.'

On Wednesday of the final week he launched into that steady ascendancy of voice and manner which brought his revivals to such triumphant conclusions, and on Friday he preached so compellingly, Cobb got the feeling that the words were directed specifically at him. Laurel was not an overly religious person—his wife was—but he did believe that society improved when it stayed close to the Bible, so on the last Saturday night he was spiritually prepared to be touched by Fry's farewell sermon; it dealt with the Faithful Servant, and as Cobb listened to the majestic voice of this good and kindly man, he felt that he, Cobb, was undergoing what could only be termed a rebirth.

Certainly it was a rededication, for when his local Baptist minister came out to the plantation on Monday to ask a favor, Cobb greeted him warmly: 'Come in, Reverend Teeder. Wasn't that a splendid two weeks 7 ' Teeder, a much different man from Fry, admitted grudgingly that it had been: 'But Elder Fry seems to lack the fire that marks a true man of God.' Cobb, not wishing to argue at a time when his heart was filled with new understandings, said merely: 'But he wins a lot of souls,' and Teeder said: 'For the moment, yes, but permanently, no. I believe a sterner message is required than the one he delivers.'

Teeder and the Cobbs belonged to the Jordan Baptist Church, situated in a pretty village just south of Waxahachie, and because it dominated a large rural population, it enjoyed a membership

rather greater than one might have expected and a minister of more than ordinary fervor. In "1919, Simon Teeder stood at the midpoint of his religious career; he had started in a devout community in Mississippi, had been promoted to this good job in Texas, and would soon be moving on to a really important church in the new state of Oklahoma. He was an intense man, convinced that he understood God's will and driven by a determination to see it prevail.

He had been surprisingly effective in making the members of his Texas congregation feel that he, Teeder, had a personal interest in each one's welfare, and as soon as he had settled in he established two groups to help him with the work of the church. After studying carefully the character of his parishioners, he nominated seven devout men for election to the church Council; they would advise on doctrine. He then selected a quite different group of men, respected for their business acumen, to serve as his Board of Deacons; they would look after the financial and household affairs of the congregation.

When he had his structure completed—seven devout councillors, nineteen prosperous deacons—he pretty well controlled his area of rural Texas, and he exercised his control sternly:

'Jordan Baptist is founded on sturdy principles, and if all live up to thern and glorify them in our hearts, we shall never have a rumble of trouble in this church, nor a confusion of scandal among its membership.

'First, we believe in the Bible as the revealed Word of God, and we accept every single passage in that Holy Book. We admit no popular modern questioning, no cheapening of that Sublime Word. If you cannot accept the Bible as written, this church cannot accept you.

'Second, we believe that every man who aspires to membership in our church must take it upon himself to live a Christian life, in the fullest sense of that commitment.

'Third, we condemn all those forms of loose and licentious living which have crept upon us since the end of the Great War, and anyone who aspires to the fellowship of this church must take a solemn oath to avoid drinking, gambling, horse racing, pnze fighting, licentiousness with women, and other immoral behaviors. Particularlv, young and old must reject dancing, which is the principal agency by which the devil seduces us.'

When these stricter rules had been circulated and understood, Reverend Teeder began visiting various members of his congregation, pleading with them to assume additional responsibilities for