El Paso Mayor Tom Lea, Sr.
Tensions began to arise within the border land when a newly elected mayor, Tom Lea, Sr., was elected in 1915 and a typhus scare was thrust upon the nation.
Typhus as a Mexico-U.S. Border Concern
Typhus cases were reported to be prevalent around the Mexico-United States boundaries. With massive turmoil set in Mexico, the spawning of impoverishment within the country became endemic. Across the border, Americans easily established the face of a ‘dirty Mexican,’ with the help of sensationalized rants made by ‘credible’ authoritative and health officials. The growth of, “misery, poverty, and absolute lack of sanitary measures…” and “vermin infested” regions in Mexico were theorized causes of the typhus spread (Pierce, 1917, p.426). This not only fueled fear among American citizens residing near the border, such as El Paso, but also implanted a germ phobic paranoia in Tom Lea, Sr.’s head.
Mayor Lea's Solution
This early twenties Ku Klux Klan member, as discovered by Shawn Lay, was anti-Villa “progressive” leader who idea of progression in El Paso was to rid the city of “dirty, lousey (sic), destitute Mexicans” (as cited in Romo, 2005, pp.220-233).
Besides wearing silk drawers to prevent lice from attaching to him, Lea, Sr. needed a way to eradicate the filth bombarding the border. His request for a ten to fourteen day quarantine of Mexicans before they were allowed to cross the border was seen as “extreme” by the Public Health Service (Romo, 2005, p.233).
U.S. Custom's Solution
During 1915, a few cases of typhus arose in Laredo, Texas and in order to quickly dispose of the problem, the United States Public Health Service “rehabilitated abandoned disinfecting plants” to steam clothes and bath individuals with soap and water.
This accomplishment at Laredo in effect persuaded U.S. Customs to grant “$6,000 for the construction of a disinfection plant at the Santa Fe Bridge,” in mid-1916 (Romo, 2005, p.234).