Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1916-08-30
WILD DAYS
ON BORDER
:. PASSING
Mercedes Man Says Everyone
Used to Garry Pistols in
Old Days.
THIEVES WOULD CARRY
BOOTY ACROSS LINE
Tricky, the Greasers for Years
Have Preyed on the Am
ericans.
BY Ewing Lewis.

McICcucS, 4cA.- Anc 1cAdu uOco
not consider the Mexican an humble
migrant timidly stepping under the
shadow and protection Of the STARS
and STRIPES. For many years, and
until eecently. the, Mexicans along
this side Of the Rio Grande controlled
county politics, say the Americans
here, e,and for tricks that were dark,
they had boss rule in Chicago beaten
in forty ways. It was always fairly
easy for Mexican VINO committed
a crime to flee across the Rio Grande
that is, between the time Dfaz
power waned and the time the United
States government filled the border
with soldiers. But the Mexican often
did not go to the trouble of fleeing
With men Of his own blood in con.
troll of American counties on the Dor.
der, he calmly defied the statutes.
Some of the rich Mexican ranch
men improved on the method that
the land owners used in Mexico at
election time. Across the line the
land owner voted h.gf3Jairs solid. fcr
the candidate of his choice. On this
side he paid poll taxes for hundreds
of imaginary citizens of his neighbor.
hood, the Texas say, and brought vOt
ers and repeaters from across the
'Roi Grande for election day.
Wild Days Passing
"Until lately" a Mercedes business
man told me yesterday, "everyone
here protected his own property the
best he could with his own, right arm
and his own pistol finger. You could
ride all day and meet no man who did
not carry a revolver at his side. If
you left a horse tethered outside at
night, you were lucky to find the
horse in the morning. If the animal
was not stolen the chances were that
the rope was, and you had to spend
day chasing the animal. If proper.
ty was stolen and taken across the
border you had little chance of re-
covering it. Even if the thief were
caught, there were long delays. A
saddle was stolen from me, and by
hard work l had the thief caught in
three days just across the river. But
it was eight months before I could re-
cover the saddle. The men had to
be proven guilty before could re-
cover my property and it took eight
months to convict him.
For years the IMeXicans had the
whip hand along this side of the river
and controlled most of the county Of
|fices. The plan of Sandiago was moi
a joke. The Mexicans did greatly
outnumber the Americans, and for a
good while it was pretty much like
living in Mexico here.
Mexicans Hard to Understand
1T is hard for the northerner to
understand the Mexican. i don't
understand him myself, and I've lived
on the border forty years. A Mexican
may apparently be trustworthy for
years, and then prove traitor to the
flag he is living under There was a
Mexican on the ranch adjoining my
fathers, whom we thought to be as
good as they make them. In five
years he never left the place except
to go to town for an hour or two
My father took him on our ranch
and he lived with us three years. We
often trusted him with several hun
dred dollars, and he was scrupulously
honest. He spent all his evenings,
as far as we knew, playing cornet
about a year ago we learned that he
had been a ringleader for years in
plots against Americans. You can.
not dismiss the matter by declaring
that there are some good Mexicans
and some bad ones. The ones who
are noticably good and fine work.
men, are sometimes the most danger.
Ous"
Guard Likes Them
j. d. White, river guard and a
veteran of the border, finds lots of
good in the Mexicans of Hidalgo
county. A good many Texans will
tell you that the poor Mexicans was
ruined by prosperity when the men
from the north came down and paid
him five times as much as he bad
been working for. Used to working
for about seventeen cents day,
American money, he was paid dol
lar a day, and one days work gave
him enough to live on for week-or
to stay drunk two or three days. He
had no desire, they tell you to get
ahead. If he had a dollar in his
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