| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Border Boss: Manuel B. Bravo and Zapata County. By J. Gilberto Quezada. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999. xviii, 291 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-89096-865-9.)

There were probably several ballot boxes in several obscure counties in Texas that helped Lyndon B. Johnson win the 1948 Democratic runoff election to the United States Senate. Of these, Box 13 in Jim Wells County is the most famous, since the winning votes, it turned out, were in a different color ink and in alphabetical order. Another, Box 3 in Zapata County, achieved almost the same fame or infamy. The count from that box was revised progressively upward on election night by the county judge Manuel B. Bravo as reports came in of Johnson's tight race with Gov. Coke Stevenson. By the time of the trial that resulted from a federal investigation, the ballots from that box had conveniently disappeared altogether from the office of Judge Bravo, and the lack of evidence made prosecution useless. Otherwise, Box 3 would have had its rightful place in history. 1

At least Judge Bravo gets his rightful place in history in Border Boss by J. Gilberto Quezada, who places this patrón in the context of regional, state, and national politics. . . .

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