The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1912-08-02
JENNINGS DENIES RESPONSIBILITY
FOR CROOKED WEST LINE
Under Caption of "Who Can You Blame For Those
Irregular Lines of the West of
Jefferson Davis Parish"

or oil the weak arguments that the
Jennings bunch of smoke makers have
tried to palm of on the people. whose
creduity they have greatly over es-
timated, in an effort to bolster up
their lost cause Of trying to place the
parish seat at the extreme edge OF the
parish, rather than in its geographi.
cal centre, appeared ia the Times
Record of Monday. In this issue ap-
pears lengthy article in which the
writer beats the devil about the bush
for something like two years to prove
that WELSH is accountable for the
crooked lines on the west. There is
scarcely q ten year old school boy to
say nothing OF men and voters in the
entire parish OF Cu,casieu but that
knows better than this.
The writer, whom we almost called
Attorney Modesette, goes back to 1910
when IL bunch Of Jennings and De-
Ridder citizens went to Baton Rouge
and decided upon certain lines as the
proper ones upon which tie parish
should be divided, as evidence that
Jennings was DESTROYS Of having the
west line straight. Now no one denies
that the line drawn then was straight
and would have been acceptab BILE to
Jennings at that time, as she believed
then, that she had a ciuch on the par
ish seat with the line located where it
was, but that has nothing to do with
her sentiments and actions two wears
later. Nor does the fact that the divi.
sion OF the parish was defeated by
approximately 500 votes, or exclusive
OF Jennings and DeRldGer who were
directly interested in securing q par
lsh seat, bv two to one vote in tie
entire remainder of the parish, in any
wise liX the blame upon Welsh for the
crooked lines adopted by the Jennings
Lake Charles bunch two years
later. The fact is that after the elapse
of two years the jennings bunch came
to realize that the sentiment of the
parish had become SO strong against
them, that it would be necessary. in
order to assure her the parish seat, to
trim the western edge of the parish as
close as possible, and for that reason
the voting portion of the Iowa neigh
borho0d was cut off, and so strong
has been the growth of this feeling of
aversion to locating the parish seat at
jennings during the time that has in
tervened since these lines were drawn,
that were Jennings again to have the
opportunity Of debating lines she
would doubtless move them a good
deal further east than they are now.
In reference to the jog made at Iowa
whereby the interests of that commu-
nifty was literally torn asunder, the
writer of the above article claims that
this jog was made at the solicitation
of the Iowa delegates. This assertion
is so utterely at variance with the
facts that we are surpriZed that even
Jennings parish divisionist in u
parish seat fight should use it. The
facts of the case are that the Iowa
delegation to u man opposed the lines
as drawn, and not only this, but these
delegates spent their time and money
and made ut least two trips to Baton
Rouge during the recent session Of the
Legislature indeavoring to have the
west line of Jefferson Davis Parish
ghtened, and Iowa put in the new
parish.
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