The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, July 1981 - April, 1982 Page: 60
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Governor Stevenson was confident that proper functioning of the
Good Neighbor Commission would reduce discrimination sufficiently
to cause the Mexican government to change its position. Stressing ed-
ucation as the solution to discrimination, the commission sought to
promote mutual understanding to surmount prejudice, and to en-
courage the revision of school textbooks and the elimination of segre-
gation in schools and community facilities. Initially funded by the
U.S. Office of Inter-American Affairs, the commission operated through
local, state, and national agencies in the fields of education, housing,
health, sanitation, and social justice. The commission opposed a legis-
lative approach to discrimination on the grounds that legislation
would be unenforceable without prior education of the populace, and
that nonenforcement of the law would lead to further misunderstand-
ings. Mexican officials unsuccessfully urged the commission to supple-
ment its long-range education program with a short-range program
of antidiscrimination legislation. The commission's persistent refusal
to do so impaired its credibility with Mexican officials and diminished
its effectiveness in helping to obtain the desired braceros.33
Texas farmers made fewer public demands for braceros in 1944 and
intensified their recruitment of wetbacks to supplement available
domestic labor. Farmers in the El Paso valley region, however, made
one last attempt to obtain braceros by sending representatives to Mexi-
co City to personally contact Mexican officials. Calling on Messersmith,
they contended that the El Paso region was free of discrimination and
was thus qualified for braceros under Mexican policy.34
Messersmith assured them that influential Mexicans who opposed
the bracero program attacked the government daily through the press
and that to importune the Foreign Office at that time could endanger
the entire bracero program. He was quite surprised, therefore, when
Padilla advised him that he was ready to consider the proposal, since
he had heard that El Paso was practically free from discrimination.
Messersmith conveyed that information to the Texans and to Pauline
Kibbe, asking them to treat it in confidence until the Mexican gov-
ernment had made its final decision.35
33Kingrea, "History of the Good Neighbor Commission," 49-65.
34Thomason to Hull, Feb. 14, 1944, and Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., to
Thomason, Feb. 23, 1944, 811.504Mexico/307; memorandum of telephone conversation,
MacLean (in Washington) with Sidney O'Donoghue (in Mexico City), Mar. io, 1944,
811.5o4Mexico/349; Messersmith to Hull, Mar. 15, 1944, despatch 16478, 811.504Mexico/
363, RG 81, NA.
35Messersmith to Hull, Mar. 15, 1944, despatch 16478, 811.5o4Mexico/363, RG 81, NA.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, July 1981 - April, 1982, periodical, 1981/1982; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101208/m1/80/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.