The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-05-21
Vagabond
from
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE

EDITORS NoTE-This rowing reporter
for The Times goes where he plesseS.
when he pIeases, in search 81 odd stories
about this and that.
I'll PAsO, Tex, May 21-Ed
~ Reeves and Joe Minton and
Louis Murphy and I went out rid
ing the border the other afternoon
looking for wet" Mexicans. We
didn't find any.
A wet" Mexican is one who is
in this country illegally. The phrase
grew out of the fact that . Next
can gets wet when he wades across
the Rio Grande. Even if he has
been drying of for 10 years, he's
still wet" to the Federals.
The three citizens mentioned
above are United States border pa
trolmen. They wear khaki uni
forms and brown sun helmets and
carry artillery and speak river
Spanish.
They didn't really expect to find
anybody sneaking across the border
when they took me out. It was just
sort of sightseeing tour, but they
took their cannonS along anyway.
Four patrolmen have been killed
in the Ell Paso district in the last
nine years. For every patrolman
killed. they say 20 or IS Mexicans
are sent to their reward.
TINE patrolmen at FL Paso have
u freak situation to contend
with. For there's one place where
Mexico actually is on this side of
the Rio Grande. It's about mile
around, and sticks right out into the
suburbs of Ell Paso.
A wet" Mexican can cross the
river and still be in Mexico, and
they can't touch him. Then he
walks up to the United States line,
and hides in the bushes, and when
it's dark he runs over and lodges
into house, and they never find
him.
The reason a Mexican tries to
sneak across, instead of coming in
legally. is that he either hasn't
enough money to pay for his papers,
or can't pass the tests. There isn't
any immigration quota.
There aren't a lot of big alien
smuggling rings now, such as there
used to be. There is one fellow ON
the other side who runs ring. and
they know him, but they can't get
| the dope on him.
| Most of the Mexicans they catch
are poor, ignorant fellows who are
simply trying to better their lot, and
who don't mean any harm.
The shooting trouble, they say,
comes when master mind" hires
some low characters to escort men
or liquor across the line, and gets
them drunk beforehand. and tells
them they aren't afraid of any
"Federals," and they're SO brave and
hoped up when they see patrol
man they just start shooting.
IT makes the patrolmen mad, be-
Il cause they know the fellow really
responsible is sitting in a fine house
and they probably never will catch
him.
We drove clear around this circle
of Mexico that sticks out into the
United States, and the boys showed
me a couple Of dozen places, /
guess, that smugglers dodge into
when they cross the line, or places
where they've had fights and pa
trolmen were killed, or favorite
bushes where people hide.
Some of the patrolmen are ex-
cellent crackers. One of them was
looking at footprints in the dust one
Gay, and he said six men had
crossed the line, four carrying
heavy sacks of liquor, and two car
rying guns.
He figured this out because the
tracks of four were deep and the
other two were light. They caught
the whole batch later that night,
and there were four men carrying
liquor and two carrying guns.
THERE'S a great grapevine of
i signals along the border at
| night. You can sit there and hear
strange whistles, they say.
There are so men in the FL Paso
district, working up and down the
river. They patrol in cars, on foot
and on horses. Some of them carry
horses in trailer, and if they're
chasing somebody they go as far as
they can by car, then unload the
horses and ride in.
They've just put in radio, so they
can broadcast orders. Some Of these
days they're going to build high
towers all along the border, and
they'll stand up there, like forest
rangers, and watch for wet" guys
coming across. They'll have radio
to give the warning when they see
] ANYBODY