This Week in Texas Methodist History September 6

 

Quixotic Campaign Against Tijuana Vice Spills Over into Texas, September 1920

 

One of the unintended consequences of the enactment of the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States was a boom in the liquor traffic along the Mexican border.  The most prominent explosion of bars, casinos, and brothels was in Tijuana (or Tia Juana as it was usually spelled in 1920). 

In 1900 the reported population of Tia Juana was 343, but upon the enactment of prohibition, the sleepy little seaside village was transformed.  It was just across the border from San Diego, California, which in the 1920 census had a population of about 70,000.  American capital poured into Tia Juana to build facilities for every kind of vice one could imagine. 

 

The MECS Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals, headquartered in Nashville, TN, knew exactly what was going on and devised a plan.  They would petition the Passport Office of the United States to deny permit cards for U. S. citizens wishing to cross the border at Tia Juana. 

 

Naturally Secretary Colby of the Passport Office denied the petition in the interests of uniformity of regulations at all border crossings and the necessity to conduct international trade to the mutual benefit of both nations. 

 

There was a Commission on Temperance in every annual conference of the MECS, and they received literature from the Nashville board.  As they learned about the campaign to deny U. S. citizens access to Tia Juana, their thought naturally turned to Ciudad Juarez/El Paso and Nuevo Laredo/Laredo.  Both of those border towns were far more important than Tia Juana/San Diego in terms of international trade.  The commercial networks at San Diego led to the unproductive Baja Peninsula while the two Texas inland ports led to the productive mines, factories, and farms of the interior. There had been rail connections in Texas with Mexico for decades, and the volume of commerce was hugely important to both nations.   In addition, San Diego, El Paso, and Laredo all had significant U. S. military presence, and one of the main objectives of the Board of Temperance during World War I was making sure U. S. military personnel did not have access to liquor. 

 

Texas Methodists contacted the head of Immigrant for the Mexican Border to ask him about vice conditions in Ciudad Juarez.  He assured them that Mexican authorities were far more engaged in vice suppression in Juarez than they were in Tia Juana.  The Temperance Boards breathed a little easier and turned their focus to enforcement of prohibition laws, trying to suppress the cigarette habit which had increased in World War I, and trying to keep Sunday closing laws on the books.