The Giddings News (Giddings, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 21, 1957 Page: 2 of 20
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THE GIDDINGS, TEXAS, NEWS — Thursday, February 21, 1957
RABBS CREEK PHILOSOPHER
Dear editar:
J. A.
“By contro
County.
Member of
Congress nt Mareh 1, 1-70
and Past Texna Pre-- An- riation, and
South
any complicated paper
OU CAF
.1
“Re-,
ll
Texas in Review
heart
and
v-
Giddings, Texas
127 Austin St. — Phone 438
(
1
)‘ 1
Prove it by opening a
Savings Account in this
convenient bank and
greater success.
CIl IZENSfej
ESTATE BANK
%
this would be a lot simpler than '
the Soil Bank Wouldn't require ,
Way to End Surplus Is To Substitute
Tractor Bank for The Soil Bank
Subscription Kates
(Payable in Advance)
in Lee and adjoining coun-
ties: 1 year $2 00, 6 mos $125;
Elsewhere 1 year $2 50. 6 mos.
$1 50 Foreign postage extra
Texas
North
At
3,779
force
3,717
arrat
ing tl
A
Color
Selec
natio
tive 2
day .
•f
unifo
durir
th rot
main
into
other
Sti
ward
joint
wBi 3829658388827
gh
even love—they’ve al _____ ____
wire in this,haywire county, and
are getting back to normal. Boys
and girls who couldn’t date each
a man ought to be willing to do
his part to end the surplus, with
/MSoinqECuntyScc/906)
177
L cSer
to 60 miles to their jobs in Oilton
and Falfurrias and Alice because
nobody would hire them in George
Parr’s county. There are many in
this category—exiles from sunup
to sundown, six days a week. Now
they’re coming home.
much authority which ordinarily
belongs to a state. This is espe -
cially true of the criminal law.
This local autonomy is a good
thing, provided you have safe-
guarsragarinstits misuse. But
once a county boss learns enough
law to take advantage of the
loopholes, you’ve got a dictator
on your hands. This is thel way
former Attorney General John
ors to film the beating
from both front and side.
Conservation practices
Memorial Hospital in Dallas, is
the only one of its kind in the
United States that enables doc-
A
People Take Over in Duval County;
County Government Has New Look
' •
- /
government,
>11 been hay-
Ben Shepperd explains it:
I l i n.g elections
ThisYear
already have written their copy
for the morning edition.
What does the Duval story
mean to the State of Texas?
My colleague, Frans Rosenwald.
. has seen more than one dictator-
..
y
any measuring and inspecting,
work
Here of late I have been giv-
ing considerable thought to the
Soil Bank, since nearly every
newspaper you pick up has an
article or two on it, and where
there are several aspects of the
Bank that suit me, for example.
I have no objection to leaving
land un-plowed and I never
have objected to opening a let-
ter til finding a check in it. it
seems to me the Soil Bank idea
hasn’t been"carried far enough.
What I mean is, putting a few
acres in the Bank may be mine,
acres in the Bank may be fine,
ought to offer more services.
For example. I can't find any,
provision for putting my tractor
in it.
Now as I understand the pur-
pose of the Soil Bank, it's de-
signed to take land out of culti-
vation and reduce the surplus,
j and one of the worst culprits as
far as producing a surplus is
concerned is the tractor.
What the government needs
if it really wants to wipe out
that surplus, is to establish a
Tractor Bank The way I see it,
The Giddings News
Publshed every Thiradny by The
uiddings Newa Publishint Co . P o
- .
views of our correspondenta. In ean
of etror or ommiaslon in ndvertie:
menta, the publisherw do not hold
themselres llahle for damams further
than the amount recelved by them for
-nrh ndvertieinu
tween the kids of "Parr people” autonomous, letting them retain
and others has pretty well van-
Editor’s note: The Rabbs
Creek Philosopher on his John-
son grass farm will get no
where with his idea this week,
but we don’t guess you can
blame him for tryink.
Life, business,
Dr. E. E. Whiteside, Optomelrist
EVES EXAMINED A GLASSES PRESCRIBED
Contact Lens — Visual Training Telescopic Lenses
for Subnormal Vision
Lenses and Frames Duplicated
OFFICE HOURS: 9:00-12.00 A 2:00 - 5:00
• Monday, Wednesday and Friday
0:00-12:00 Saturdays
All you'd have to do is mail
, your tractor key to Washington,
i let them mail you a check back,
and when the surplus was down
to where the experts figured it
was safe to return your key,
let em drop it in the mail. If
your tractor doesnt have a key
have one installed After all
other and fall in love because one
family had Parr’s blessing and an-
other. his curse, now can give
Cupid a free rein. The invisible
barriers of hatred are falling
down. Romeo and Juliet have
come into their own.
In the schoolrooms the distinc-
tion — the discrimination — be-
Mrs. Ida Bloh Bloom
Publishe» Manager
Al Bloom, Advur* ing Manager
Lee Cotnty’a oldest bueinena I nat t
tution Eatabliahed in 158 Entered
necond elana matter at the Post otriee
at Giddinga Texan, under the art of
the planting of a newly devel-
oped grass in the Salt Fork
area of West Texas will be seen,
as new steps arc taken to com-
bat drought conditions in that
section of the state.
While some folks collect
stamps, Coins and many other
odd items, a Houston lumber
dealer makes an unusual hob-
by of collecting old buggies.
Some of these vehicles are 65
or 70 years old and each tells
a story of a bygone day.
Texas in Review can be seen
Tuesday, Feb. 26 over KTBC.
TV, Austin at 8 p. m.
ship rise, flourish, fizzle and d <
He says there are two things t >
remember about dictatorships.
First, they don’t just fizzle by
themselves. They have to be
helped along by people who are
fed up with them. Second, there's
not much hope for people who get
rid of one dictator and fail to
lock the door against the next one.
And there is always a ne:t one.
Under the Texas Constitution
there’s not likely to be a dictator-
ial governor; nor even a Legisla-
ture that gets too far out of line.
The old state charter was written
in 1875, when carpet-baggers
were crawling all over the cap-
ital, and the men who wrote it
made provisions against abuses of
power on the state level. They
made Texas counties relatively
the Texn: Press Anmoriation.
Quit Const Preas A-- ocintson.
Drawer 3* Gtidin
Texna
Any erroneous reflectton upon cha:
tarter, ntanding. the teputation of any
person, firm, or corporation that may
appear in the colume: < t thin papa*
cladly will be cortected It brougbt te
the attention of the publinhera. Wp 4a
not hold ourmlte- responnible for the
through threats, bribery or the
miscounting of the ballots, you
control the sheriff, the county and
district judges, and the county
and district attorneys. Your pup-
pet district judge appoints the
grand jury commissions, and they
appoint the grand and petit juries.
Since you control the offices, you
can lock up or destroy the rec-
ords, thus removing the evidence.
You cannot be arrested, indicted,
tried, convicted or sentenced You
are the law in your county.”
If you steal or misapply the
county funds, nobody will know
it because you can just refuse to
let them see the records. There
are few penalties for such se-
cretiveness. Besides, whether you
are accused of hiding records or
stealing money, or both, you have
to be indicted in the county of
the offense. And, remember, the
grand jury is in your own pocket
along with the judge and the
prosecuting attorney.
In most cases you can’t even
be sued for the money you have
scooped out of the till, because
recovery suits esn only be started
with the permission of the gov-
erning body of the agency you
have stolen from. When Shep-
perd’s office and District Attorney
Sam Burris filed a suit to recover
money misapplied by the Duval
County Commissioners Court, the
Commissioners effectively stalled
it by refusing to go along with it
It took a couple of dozen court
hassles in three different coun-
ties and several changes in coun-
ty commissioners to straighten
the mess out.
Back to those secret records
There is no adequate law under
which you can be removed from
office for refusing to show them
And you can always do as the
county auditor of Duval County
did. He stood on the Fifth Amend-
ment ana refused to say where
his recotds were kept on the
grounds that it might tend to in-
criminate him There’s no law
against that, either.
Texas needs many new laws to
protect its citizens against an
other "Duval County" Fifteen
corrective measures have been in
treduced in the Legislature, by
the Texas Press Association Each
of these “Better Government
Billt” merits public support.
out relying "on the government
for every thing.
Now I know that somebody is
gonna say, what about the man
with two tractors, or the shady
character with two tractor
keys? Well, naturally the bank-
ing business is not all smooth
sailing, you're bound to find
dead beats in any enterprise,
but on the whole, if the check
was big enough—to get you
through the year, there would-
n't be many people who’d slip
around and sort of bootleg an lit
tie plowing Oil the side and after
dark At least you sure wouldn't
catch me doing it
if you think this idea has any
merit, I'd like to say I’ve got my
key here-in my hand ready to
drop in the mail.
Yours faithfully. >
By-FREDERICK HODGSON
SAN DIEGO, Tex.-Things are
different in Duval County.
No matter how brightly the lust
for liberty burns, it takes a little
know-how to jump in and operate
"a government according to the
Constitution. Before the “clean-
up,” Duval County leaders had
had their government run for
them since before World War
One, and unashamedly admitted
they were rusty as the nails in
the Ark. They obtained and cir-
culated elementary textbooks on
county government and read them
like dime novels.
As a result, Duval County be-
came a textbook on democracy.
It would have made any county
in the United States ashamed of
itself to see Duval citizens relig-
iously attending every meeting of
the school boards and the com-
missioners court in such numbers
that crowds had to stand out on
the courthouse lawn.
This is the courthouse, here
in San Diego, Texas, where Parr’s
non-supporters say they were nev-
er allowed to enter unless they
were summoned. They never saw
the inside of the district court-
room, they say, “unless we were
being tried for something we did
not do.” The meetings of the
commissioners court and school
boards were always held in secret,
if at all.
After “Operation Cleanup? an
invisible line developed down the
middle of the courtroom, dividing
the Parr people from the non-
Parrists. Many of the Parr people
had relatives under indictment.
Every day was a big day in court,
.with overflow crowds. One day
the Duke himself appeared to
answer an indictment. Another
day a handful of school trustees
arrived, with a motion to quash
an indictment The next day half
a dozen lawyers tangled with Dis-
trict Attorney Sam Burris and the
“State men/’ Now and then a
Ranger stood up or shuffled his
feet to remind the participants
that “it’s peaceful here, and we
aim to keep it peaceful”
The courthouse is the Sanctum
Sanctorum from which all but
Parr’s “Old Party” members were
excluded. There are other places
besides the courthouse. that used
to be rigidly off limits to Parr’s
opposition, but not any more. The
San Diego Community Center, a
public building, now is accessible
to any group of citizens, no mat-
ter how they vote. And that’s
new in Duval County.
No sir, you wouldn’t know the
old Duchy with its new look.
People stand around in the drug
stores and talk about whatever
they please without whispering,
without looking over their should-
ers to see who is near. This is
faybe the biggest, the most strik-
ing change.
Business has picked up in the
Duke’s domain. Manuel' Marro-
quin, whose tortilla bakery was
put out of business by Parr,
started over again before he be-
gan publishing his newspaper, the
New Duval. He had to set up his
cafe across the line in Jim Wells
County, just outside San Diego.
But all the old customers who had
quit trading with him on the
Duke’s orders came back. They
...........bought hit tortillas and his milk,
and now they read his newspaper.
A lot of Duval residents dre
coming back home to work from
the surrounding counties where
they say Parr drove them by for-
bidding their employment in Du-
val. Some have been traveling 20
ished. You don’t have to be the I
child of an “Old Party" family <
to go to the fair now and sell
your 4-H Club calves and lambs. I
If you’re poor, you don’t have to ;
be a Parr follower in order for >
your kids to get free milk at the I
school cafeteria. Giving milk to
one child and withholding it from <
another for reasons of politics is
just one of the many quaint prac-
tices condemned by Duval County
grand juries that have been look-
ing into things since the State of
Texas moved in on the stronghold
of the Duke.
The changes in Duval County
don’t mean that Parr isn’t still
fighting. Those who know him
best say he’ll be fighting when
the iron doors clang behind him.
The men who hang around the
courthouse, the ones who couldn’t
hang around there before, will tell
you that George Parr’s ghost will
walk those dim halls fifty years
after he has fought his last fight.
You don’t get rid of 40 years
of Parrism quickly. A whole gen-
eration of men and women in one
Texas county have been born and
brought up in a climate of fear,
hatred and distrust There are
those who have always eaten at
the public trough, always had the
protection of a Big Boss, and al-
ways helped him elect his candi-
dates, spy on his enemies, destroy
his opposition. In Duval County
there are still many of these, and
they have children. Their Golden
Age has passed away, and they
will mourn for it because they,
like the Duke of Duval, have been
born in the wrong century. They
are a part of feudalism, part of a
day when little kings dominated
a few hundred square miles of
earth, overtaxed their impover-
ished serfs, and amused them-
selves with senseless wars.
But the rest of the people in
Duval County have just come into
their Golden Age. They have a
new dignity They have a new
hope. They have a County Audi?
tor, an impartial grand jury, su-
pervised elections, and police pro-
tection As one Duval rancher
put it, the clouds have parted
, and the sun has broken through.
To be sure, the sharp crack of
legal conflict is still heard. There
is still.tumult and shouting in
, Judge Woodrow Laughlin’s dis-
trict courtroom But the roar of
the big legal artillery that has
■ rattled the whole State of Texas
’ for three years, while George
, Parr and his friends fought ditch
by ditch to hold their fortress
• intact, has died out The final
i score has yet to be tallied, but
> the trend is clear The watchers
in the grandstand are picking up
their pennants and going home,
I and the boys in the press box
2 I
X-Ray movies of the human
heart, made possible by the
development of an amazing
new camera, wil be shown on
The Humble Company’s Texas
in Review next week This ca-
mera, located at Parkland
WE ARE PAYING 3% INTEREST ON SAVINGS-
, SINCE JANUARY 1 ;
(____________
A man who went brokerin
business said: "I blame it all
on advertising:” His friend re-
plied: "What do you mean?
You never did much advertis-
ing.” "I know,” was his reply;
“but my competitors did.”
■ *
--
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The Giddings News (Giddings, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 21, 1957, newspaper, February 21, 1957; Giddings, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1611441/m1/2/: accessed July 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Giddings Public Library and Cultural Center.