The men and women who "redeemed Texas
from the wilderness" came principally from that region. The
code of conduct they gave Texas was largely the code of the
booming West. Considering the character of the Anglo-
American people who took over the Southwest, the region
is closer to Missouri than to Kansas, which is not Southwest
in any sense but which has had a strong influence on Oklahoma.
Chihuahua is more southwestern than large parts of
Oklahoma. In _Our Southwest_, Erna Fergusson has a whole
chapter on "What is the Southwest?" She finds Fort Worth
to be in the Southwest but Dallas, thirty miles east, to be
facing north and east. The principal areas of the Southwest
are, to have done with air-minded reservations, Arizona, New
Mexico, most of Texas, some of Oklahoma, and anything
else north, south, east, or west that anybody wants to bring
in. The boundaries of cultures and rainfall never follow
survey lines. In talking about the Southwest I naturally
incline to emphasize the Texas part of it.
Life is fluid, and definitions that would apprehend it
must also be. Yet I will venture one definition--not the
only one--of an educated person.
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