El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-03-18
E. PASO As All
ARMS CENTER
IS LEADER
Springfield, Mass, Probably
Only American Town Out
ranking in Importance.
REVOLUTIONS AS
AID TO BUSINESS

A S AN arms and ammunition cen
n ter. FL Paso ranks second to
4 Springfield, Mass. Records
which have been made to Fl Paso Gus
tom house OF shipments which have
been made to FL Paso show that $780,
600 worth OF arms and ammunition
were shipped into this city as the final
destination during the year just closed
Less than one per cent Of this am
munition was intended for local con.
sumption and the great bulk Of it wa
smuggled across the bolcer for the
use of the revolutionary armies in the
field
Big Shipments Received.
The statistical part Of the record is
most interesting. By way Of Calves
ton over the Southern Pacific there
vasshipped into FL Paso during the
arms and SIS, 600 rounds of ammunf-
ton. As the Southern Pacific is pre-
sumed to have handled one-half Of the
ammunition and arms shipped into FL
PasO during the revolution the to-
tai amount Of ammunition shipped into
this city during the revolutionary. year
IS estimated TO have been 1861, 600
rounds As each cartridge costs an
outlay Of $S0.5OO for cartridges with
which the revOluti0nists made their
merry war The greatest outlay was
for rifles and carbines for the revO-
1utiOnary army. An average of SIS is
a fair one, dealers say. for fire arms Of
the kind furnished for the revolution
lists. This means that a total outlay
of S209100 for death-dealing rifIeS
The small arms shipments were not as
large for the last year, as only IS
Of ny Oh
Many Rifles Reeefvea.
One shipment which reached FL FasO
on Nov. IL Of last year, contained 1850
rifles nd another shipment amounted
10 $40 rifles, on Oct. s. All of these
arms and ammunition shipments were
billed to E. PasO dealers and were de-
livered in FL Paso by the railroad com
pany- The amounts and destinations
were obtained by the custom service
from the Galveston port, where the
shipments were all taken from the
boats and transferred to the railroad
at that point In addition to the large
amount shipped into FL Paso during
the past revolutionary year there have
been large q antilles skipped to Tue
son Douglas ana to OthA towns along
the border. 1t iS presuHEAi that these
were also intended for revolutionary or
protective purposes in Mexico.
What the SmuEgIers Made.
An interesting sidelight on the arms
end ammunitiOn shipment is the esti-
mate Of a government official on the
amount paid to the border gun run
ners for the delivery Of these elements
OF war on the. Mexican side. At one
time the revOlutiOnists were paying 10
cents each for cartridges and five cents
each was considered a good price by
the ammunition smugglers. considering
the risk. For rifles, the gun runners
got on an average Of 81 each for the
guns, and as they could get from five
70 p across each night they worked,
business was good with this class of
artisans along the border while the
business lasted
While the custom house figures are
considered correct, they are not COM
plete as many car loads of ammunition
and arms have been sent to smaller
towns along the border and delivered
TO the smugglers there.