The Cotulla Record (Cotulla, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 52, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 1957 Page: 3 of 6
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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1957
THE COTULLA RECORD
COTULLA. TEXAS
Pag? Three
GO. 7
tLvai "Refugees" Cut Population
By 43 Per Cent in Fifteen Years
By-FREDERICK HODGSON
SAN DIEGO, TEX.—In Duval
County there has existed “an al-
most indestructible machine of
theft, secrecy and terror." So
states John Ben Shepperd, Attor-
ney General of Texas.
If Shepperd be right is it any
wonder that Duvalans flee to free-
dom through the Mesquite Cur-
tain ?
Between 1940 and 1955, in-
clusive, Duval County lost 43 per
cent of her population.
In 1940 there were 20,565 peo-
ple living in the County according
to the U. S. Census.
By 1950 the population had
dropped officially to 15,563.
By 1955 the population had
dropped to an estimated 12,000,
give or take a hundred or so
either way.
This figure is based on a usual-
ly accurate barometer, on the
school population which varies
directly as the total population.
In 1950 there were 5,077 child-
ren attending public schools in
Duval. By 1955 the number of
children in school had dropped
to 4,150, a loss of 927 in five
years. The 1940 figure was 6,213.
All of the above figures are
taken from the authoritative Tex-
as Almanac—except the per cent-
ages.
Seven other Texas counties
touch on the borders of Duval.
These arc Brooks, Jim Hogg, Jim
Wells, La Salle, Live Oak, Webb
and McMullen.
All but two of these counties
show population increases for the
ran’.e period; the exceptions are
Live Oak and tiny McMullen—and
lo ises are small.
arm, people whose names are on
the record.
Let’s consider a speech by Ri-
cardo Barton, wealthy Duval and
Jim Wells rancher, former Parr
stalwart and now a foe of the
Machine.
It takes courage to face up to
one’s past and obey the dictates
of conscience. Barton, over the
protests of his fearful family,
showed up at an anti-Parr elec-
tion rally and made a speech.
This, in part, is what he said:
“I’ve been with the Duke in
stealing from the school kids ...
Sixteen years ago Parr ran my
own brother out of the county...
I could tell you a few things
about an unsolved murder or two
... I want you all to know the
truth about the Possum (the La-
tins’ nickname for Parr, El Tla-
cuache—the Possum) even if I
have to go to prison for it.”
The exodus is not only from
Duval. People are deserting the
Parr camp in droves.
Most important of the defec-
tions, of course, is the present
District Judge C. Woodrow
Laughlin, a former Parr man
who was once unceremoniously
tossed out of office by the Texas
Supreme Court. Duval County
Judge Dan Tobin is another. Yet
another is Manuel Marroquin, now
editor of the anti-Parr bi-lingual
tabloid newspaper “New Duval."
Marroquin, the man described
by Assistant Attflrney General
Sidney Chandler as having “more
intestinal fortitude than any other
man in the county,” gives an in-
teresting sidelight on the Duke of
Duval—and it’s by the sidelights,
the little things, that we under-
stand people. Here's Marroquin’s ^ent ”
tilla bakery. Parr put him out of
business.
Marroquin today is one of the
Duval emigres. The five members
of the Marroquin family have
helped swell the census of neigh-
boring Jim Wells County.
“Meme,” with his Winchester al-
ways at the ready, lives iust
across the county line on High-
way 44.
Take the case of another refu-
gee, Jose Serna, brother of Dona-
to Serna, now the Duval County
auditor. Jose owned a cafe in San
Diego and incurred the displea-
sure of the Boss. Here’s how Do-
nato tells the story:
"George Parr drove my brother
out of the County, out of San Di-
ego. Deputy sheriffs blocked the
entrance to his place of business.
They’d arrest customers who had
one beer and charge them with
drunken driving whether they
owned automobiles or not. They
didn’t press any charges, just
scared them so they wouldn’t go
in my brother’s place any more.
“I went across the street with
a loaded camera to take a pic-
ture for evidence and George Parr
grabbed his pistol and ran across
the street to me, cursing in Span-
ish. Tried to grab my camera.
Amaya (Manuel Amaya, then
deputy sheriff and now chief of
police in San Diego) hit my cam-
era with the barrel of his gun.
“Amaya said ‘You’re both (Do-
nato and Jose) under arrest. Get
in that car.’ We got in and I
said ‘All right, arrest me but
don’t hit me.’ They took us to
the courthouse. George put his
gun in its holster and hit me hard
on the head with a five-cell flash-
light. I sat down,on the jailer's
bunk. He was Seating me up
when Amaya took the flashlight
away from him. Amaya put the
camera on the table and they tore
it to pieces. Then George told hs
‘Get the hell out cf here.' Y.'e
44?;S?e“rtj“tWdult38B3i;5 ^ory, taken directly from a tape |
cent and Webb gained 22.3 per
rent. These figures are for 1940-
50. School population jumped in
these three counties between 1950
and 1955, indicating a proportion-
ate population gain.
Ask a Parr proponent to ex-
plain the exodus from Duval and
he has a ready answer, the long
drought and the trend to the big
cities.
It isn't explained how the
drought affects Duval more than
her s'even neighbors.
Nor what big cities exist in
those seven counties. The only
“big city” is Webb’s Laredo with
an estimated 59,000 people.
There can he but one answer
for the Duval exodus. Too many
people found life there unpleasant,
unbearable, unsafe or unprofit-
able. So they packed up their
families and vamoosed.
I was sitting in a restaurant
in Jourrianton, the Atascosa coun-
ty to*.vn, when a man came over
and wanted to know what was
going on at the courthouse He
thought I was a lawyer, and vis-
iting lawyers are celebrities in
Jourdanton.
I told him that Judge Barrow
was hearing a case having to
,o with Parr’s 55,711-acre Dobie
anch.
“Use'ta live in San Diego
onc’t,” the man said.
I asked him why he left the
place.
"Couldn’t raise my kids there
proper,” he said. "I got beatened
up onc’t and we didn’t want our
kids to see their daddy get beat-
ened up.”
When 1 pulled out my note hook
to jot down his name the /man
added this: “Nope, Nope. 1 got a
married sister still livin’ there.”
The list of people forced to
leave Duval County for one rea-
soh or another, frightened out or
'ordered out, is as long as y«ir
recording: I tBW° Senia 8tayed !" DuVal
“I started to sell milk in my, In* nuval these days a v.~,
store and George Parr came m. ; either f;chts for.Pan: or ,y • ■
f.”'rd arcs, ’s? xm vs -«
SL’SSfVS* *•let ,eo i ,f> phy,toiiy 'tapo.;,,';*
y •• i on your hands and straddle the
George §aid_to me, he _ said fence one an(^ sanle time.
‘Meme’ — he always called me
Meme, that's short for Manuel
you know—he said ‘Meme, you
know I don’t drink milk’ and he
started to go out.
“I said, ‘George, I know you
don’t drink milk, hut if people
see you with my milk they’ll buy
it from me.’
“He said, ‘Sure, Meme, give me
a bottle of milk.'
“And I said, ‘I won't charge
you anything.’ He put the money
down anyway and I said ‘If you
want to throw the bottle away
after the people see you with it,
then throw it away. Just let the
people see you with my milk and
they’ll buy my milk.’ .
“He went out of my store and
held up the bottle of milk and
he waved it and before he got in
his car he told everybody what
fine milk I had. And he waved
the bottle of milk out of the win-
dow of his car after he got in his
car and drove off,
“For three days everybody in
San Diego buys my milk. Every-
body in San Diego’s drinking milk,
then... Wham! Nobody at all
buys my milk. I had all my milk
and it went bad. I lost plenty of
money. You know what that
blankety blank so and so did?
His pistoleros found out they
could make money with milk so
George gave the milk business to
a deputy sheriff.”
If that isn’t a whimsical switch
on old-style Bossism I’d like to
know what it is. If the men who
bossed Chicago in the days of A1
Capone ever hear of it they’ll be
doing a dervish act in their
graves. Milk!
Liter Marroquin opened a tor-
I first heard that term "inactive
subversion” a few weeks ago in
Austin as I sat and talked about
Duval with John Ben Shepperd,
who knows more about the county,
probably, than any other person
outside the immediate vicinity.
Shepperd’s knowledge has grown
out of his early, undercover vis-
its to Duval back in 1953, when
he waited in a dark ranch house
to talk with anti-Parr citizt--3
who he said came stealing out of
the bushes in the dark after nark-
ing their cars a mile away. Some-
times, he tells, they changed cars
two or three times on the way to
the rendezvous to keep from be-
ing followed by Parr men.
Months of this undercover in-
vestigation gave Shepperd enough
information to sustain a frontal
attack on the stronghold of Parr.
When the Parr dictatorship was
first battened down on Duval, con-
solidating itself into “an almost
indestructible machine of theft,
secrecy and terror,” the people
were ignorant, miserable, exploit-
ed and politically inexperienced.
Perhaps they cannot be blamed
for letting themselves get caught
in the coils. Today they’re still
miserable, still exploited and the
illiteracy rate is among the very
highest in the State of Texas.
But they’ve had political exper-
ience thrust upon them.
Quien sabe? Who knows, per-
haps with upsurge of real democ-
racy in the county that catas-
trophic population drop will be
halted, even reversed*.
Thanks to men like Serna, and
Marroquin, and Shepperd and
many, many others, Duval may
yet come into its own.
RED LEGS RELEASED
IS TEXAS
redlegs
1 consignments of the
i were flown to Texas.
--— i Still another step in the glo-
Austii.—A third shipment of bal effort of the Game and Fish
Spanish red-legged partridges Commission to augment Texas
has been released in the Pan- j wildlife species will be taken
handle, according to the Direct- ‘ shortly when the second ship-
or of Wildlife Restoration for ment of seesee partridges ar-|. .. ^ , ntcueu ivl-
the Game and Fish Commission.! rive by air from Pakistan. This!^ insurance, it \ou want max- ~ ^ uejno.
mi.......*______i _ _____ • • f. . , . . .... .. , lirmm aofotv ir» u pnmnomr nt 1 ^
iTORY NO. 8
Narcotics, Liquor, Women, Gambling:
They re All Part of the Duval Story
By-FREDERICK HODGSON
SAN DIEGO, TEX.-No self-
respecting lioss-run barony is
complete without its quota of
syndicated sin. And Duval County,
Texas, is no exception.
For the moment “the heat is
on” and the gambling wheels are
stilled, night sin-spots like El
Ranchito are closed, most of the
women of easy virtue are in exile
and traffic in illegal liquor and
narcotics is very much under
wraps.
One disgruntled deputy sheriff,
raging at the Rangers who put
him out of business, moved his
house of prostitution, lock, stock
and women, all the way to Hous-
ton.
The Rangers, armed with in-
junctions obtained by the Attor-
ney General’s office, simply pad-
locked the town.
“It was just like the good old
days of prohibition,” said Captain
Alfred Allee, regarded by his fel-
lows and by his superiors in Aus-
tin as one of the greatest Rangers
of them all.
The merchants of sin fumed
and fretted, appealed to the courts
for injunctions of their own, tried
every trick that wily lawyers
could dream up. It was no soap.
The places stayed closed and the
gambling apparatus, the wheels
and the dice and the tables, stayed
carted away.
Quite naturally Captain Allee,
Attorney General John Ben Shep-
perd, and all the others who had
declared war on the Duchy of
Duval and on its up-to-then un-
disputed ruler. Boss Parr, were
roundly cursed by the purveyors
of iniquity. The machine went
even further.
This writer has a long docu-
ment before him right now, a
document revealing plans for the
“liquidation" of Ranger Captain
Allee and Ranger Joe Riidge.
If these killings had been car-
ried out, they would not have been
the first political murders in that
seething section of deep South
Texas. Several years before Law-
yer Jacob Floyd and District
Judge Sam Reams had been
marked for death. The pistoleros
got their signals mixed and killed
Floyd’s son by mistake. The life
of the Attorney General has been
threatened three times.
The gambling, the women and
the illegal liquor may have de-
parted from Duval, for the time
being at least, but the narcotics
picture isn’t so pretty.
Should you happen to be driv-
ing along the Eenavides road,
Highway 59 to Laredo, or along
Highway 44 through Freer, you
may hear the engine of a hedge-
hopping a'l'plane. It won’t land
so long as >our car or any other
car, except very soecial ones
known to the pilot, is i;' the vi-
cinity.
Once your cai is out of sight
the plane will touch down on the
highway and its cargo will be
quickly transferred to an auto-
motive and (he plane immediately
takes off, flying low. This trans-
fer always takes place in the
early morning.
The eavgo is heroin and mari-
juana. S< me:»mcs the shipment
includes diamonds urd gold.
Tt is said by throe who should
know that 90 percent of all the
illicit narcotics coming into the
RARE SUNFISH
COMES ASHORE
United States is brought across
the border from Mexico, most of
it coming through Texas and
through San Diego. And only a
small proportion of the total
amount of dope brought into Tex-
as, an?l from here spread all over
America, is ever seized.
I checked with the United
States Air Force. South Texas is
180 degrees out of phase to the
radar screen, concentrated as it
is to spot planes coming in from
the Atlantic or from the Pacific.
Unless I’ve been badly misin-
formed, the Mexican border is
wide open to any airplane, Rus-
sian or smuggler. Besides, :t plane
coming almost at ground level
would be safe from radar in any
case.
Previous articles in this series
have pointed out that this utterly
fantastic county is a product of
its isolated geography, its his-
tory and its people. But history
fades and people change. So in
Duval. Democracy is raw, red
meat, nourishing stuff on which a
man, or a people, can grow
strong. In Duval the people are
feeding full.
George B. Parr is fighting, and
fighting desperately, for his polit-
ical life and for his physical lib-
erty. There’s something magnifi-
cent and awesome about a good
fighter, even when he’s on the
opposite side.
According to Attorney General-
John Ben Shepperd, to District
Attorney Sam Burris, to Lawyer
Jacob Floyd of Alice, and to half
a hundred other Parr opponents
I’ve talked to, the Duke of Duval
is fighting his last big fight. The
Duke, they say, is through, fin-
ished, licked.
I Jones, who is nothing if not
; frank, admits without any quib-
; bles that his client is no saint. He
I depicts George B. Parr as a man
| who gets what he wants when he
wants it and who isn’t overly
squeamish about methods. And
Jones had admitted as much in
open court, many times.
The well-dressed little lawyer,
who presumably knows what is
going on inside the Parr machine,
has some interesting ideas about
the future of Duval
Should George B. Parr lose his
battle, even be sent to prison, this
does not mean the end of the
Parr dynasty. Another Parr, the
Dukes nephew. Archer Parr II,
Is ready to take over.
Should this switch happen, Du-
val history would be repeating
itself George Parr deposed his
father just twenty years ago.
Archer Parr is a personable
young man, 35, a Marine veteran,
a family man, educated, and well
schooled in the rough and tumble
of Duval politics. He has served
as sheriff under his uncle.
George B. Parr “did time” in
Federal prison, in El Reno, Okla-
homa, back in 1936. The charge
was cheating on his income tax.
When he got back home to San
Diego he was greeted as a hero,
as a man who had suffered per-
secution for the sake of his peo-
ple. He was met by a brass band
and by dancing in the streets.
But he returned to find that
wire cutters had b- -n at work on
the Parr political fences, that his
father. Senator Archie Parr, the
then reigning Duke of Duval, was
unable to ride the range as of
old.
George took over the power in
Duval. His father went into exile,
to live at the Nueces Hotel in
Corpus Christi until his death.
Again George Parr is under
indictment for income tax cheat-
; mg. and again his followers say
he is being persecuted for their
According to one of Parr’s top "V3 Persecuted tor tlier
attorneys, dapper Luther Jones of ! ®' S.h,ou!.d again be convict
Corpus Christi., Shepperd, Burris j ^anyone
et al are dripping wet.
Thev i a number of other Federal or
y ! State charges now pending
couldn’t be more wrong. So says | against'him!" ^cLdfng' a Xrg?
Jones°t me. “Thisls iSiecfi | ^ !"
year and the politicos are making
hay. All this will blow over. These
civil suits and indictments are
pure politics and once the shout-
ing is over they’ll be allowed to
die very quietly. You’re a strang-
er to this part of Texas or
you’d know all of this has hap-
pened before.”
As Luther Jones talked my
mind went back to long ago when
I was just breaking into news-
paper work on the old “Chicago
However. Luther Jones to the
contrary, there is a vast differ-
ence between the Duval of 1936
and the Duval of 1956. (As a
matter of fact, there is a vast
difference between the Duval of
1954 and 1956, which will be the
subject of the two final articles
in this series.)
Twenty years ago the Pan-
power was solid as the Rocky
Mountains, and seemingly as per-
SSSSSES SfiSSS'S
the Racketeers and a right charm-
ing fellow he was. Nobody ever
pinned a murder rap on Al. He
went to Alcatraz for income tax
evasion.
In New York I’ve met Frank
Costello, he of the television
hands that Senator Kefauver
made so famous. Talking to him
at the Vesuvio Restaurant on
West 48th Street, one of his fav-
orite haunts, you’d never think
he’d ever heard of a slot machine
or a gaming table. Charming fel-
low. Lovely fellow. He’s in jail.
“And all this business about
political killings in Duval,” Jones
went on. “They’ve been trying to
pin a killing on Parr for years.
Don’t you think he’d have been
charged with murder long ago if
they could’ve got something on
him?”
he crooked his little finger.
Parr could, and did, deliver
100 to 1 majorities in any elec-
tion. He could loftily ignore the
mundane doings of ordinary poli-
tics. He was the puissant prince,
after the fashion of the Middle
Ages.
But Parr has been projected,
head over heels, into the unsym-
pathetic new world of the mid-
Twentieth Century. The alchemy
of his time has changed his coun-
ty. George B. Parr was bom just
500 years too late.
Actually, it was more than al-
chemy that changed Parr’s coun-
ty. The last two articles of this
series will deal with what radical
changes can be made in a boss-
ruled county when one Attorney
General gets it into his head that
1 feudalism has got to go.
INSURANCE
SAVING
If you are interested in sav-
I Rockport—A Texas “first”
j in the beaching of a baby ocean
, sunfish was reported to the Di-
i rector of Coastal Fisheries for
j the Game and Fish Commission,
j The specimen, weighing an
| estimated 200 pounds, went a-
| ground oi. North Reach at Cor-
!pus Christi, thirty miles below
j the Marine Laboratory here.
Bop Kemp, Assistant Direct-
ing money on your proper-! first authen-
an ocean sun-
seen. dead of alive.
County and near Canadian in arid climate.
Lipscomb. County where , two The seesees will be released in
previous batches were planted Palo Duro Canyon southeast of
in 1955 and 1956. | Amarillo, in the same general
The Director said favorable; area where a foundation stock thVou^houT* ‘the'Iree 110 tail’ a coul)le of fins and was
reports have been received from of aoudad sheep was established |noa, tmougnout tne nee ,, , .. . ...
ced local agent, then read the
rest of this message.
The Insurance Company
North America.
no-
ticed in the surf, was described
0j- by Kemp as "peculiar looking.”
He said il “looks like the head
~\ortn America, a name respec-i ,, , ;. , . ,, c
ted by insurance men and policy I an?.s 1 lSt’ las ” mouth.
ranchers about the previous re-. recently in an
leases and added that “hopes this prize gan
are high” that the comparative- j
ly large partridge will take hold.!
' Red-legged partridges are a-1
bout twice the size of ordinary
quail, are fleet on the wing and
are considered prime birds in
their native Spain. All three
Tgreyish white in color.’
The first shipment of 77 see-
sees were placed in the Canyon
Country last summer. Several
Reports have been received a-
bout ranchers observing some of
the newly transplanted game
birds.
DILL’S SHOP
Modern Portable Welding
Anywhere - Anytime
Welding and Repairing
ALL WORK GUARANTEED
J. c. DILL, Owner
Telephone 147
jeent on practically all property
such as Dwellings, Commercial
Buildings, Churches, Farms and
Ranches and Public Buildings.
Ocean sunfish, ordinarily oe-
cur in deep water where they
' .' • ■ - 4i iX
feed on jelly fish and other mar-
h
<*$ pm
ine coelentrates..
• V1
Kemp said it could not be de-
Remember this: These lower jeimined what had caused the
rates are being offered you by wo hundred pound “baby’ to
America’s oldest and strongest |l^conu’ >ti anded. He said
insurace company known for - ]1,ae was slgR °t a wound
prompt and fair claim settle- ^at cou c ^:ne tabled it.
ment. _
And important, too: This
facility is available through an j
independent business man in
this community, an experienced j
local agent who can help you
decide on proper protection, and
will be nearby to help again if
a loss should occur. See or
Call
iKM
RSi’W.
■r J
MANLY INSURANCE
AGENCY
Phone .31
Record Bldg.
adv.
LIST OF REGISTRANTS
La Salle County T
George Lansford, I.os Angeles
Carlos B. Cassiano, Encinal
Artts-Secfcy Isi/sfcrfion Introduced
i>u. ift iry P. Co”.zii!ez (left) of San Antonio and Rep. Din Ken-
nurd (riglil) of Fort Worth, discuss the “open meeting” hills they
L.. .c intiodaeed in the Lcr ’-Mature with (he backing of the Texas
1 . .-Ls Association. SB 88 ard MB f9 are identical. They call for all
it./Ti lings of official bociie' of th/- State, City, Count; or other politi-
ial subdivision of the St: ! a to to open lo the public. “It is time for
tin- State of Texas V join the other stab s i i the immediate passage
oi an anti-secrecy bill,” so id the sponsor?,, “and wo urge the public
to join us in r-upporiing our campai ’pi for a full and public airing
ol all public matters.”
Frio Courly
Julian V. Martinez, Dilley
Frank Rodriguez. Pearsall
Pedro M. Pena, Pearsall
Don L. Gardner, Pearsall
William P. Carroll, Dilley
Reyes M. Frausto, Moore
Robert L. Soto, Pearsall
Mario S. Sanchez, Pearsall
Stockmen's Insurance Agency
COTULLA, TEXAS
SEE US FOR ALL FORMS OF
AUTOMOBILE, FIRE AND CASUALTY INSURANCE
Phone 33
RAY M. KECK. JR.
WILLIAM B. BARBOUR HI
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The Cotulla Record (Cotulla, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 52, Ed. 1 Friday, February 22, 1957, newspaper, February 22, 1957; Cotulla, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1158578/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Alexander Memorial Library.