New-York tribune., 1921-05-29
Gangs Use Tar
And Feathers
ToUplift Texas
Masked kidnappers Invade
Principal Cities to Beat
and Brand Offenders Who
Violate Set Moral Code
Several Victims Vanish
Knife Applied to Accused
Negroes; Acid Traces
ssk. X. X" ON Forehead
special Dispotch to The Tribune

Special OsSpdtch TO Ife IftbuHe
HOUSTON, Tex, May 2s.~-Rands of
masked kidnsppers, representing them
selves to be intent on enforcement of
prescribed code of morals and on "up-
holding of the supremacy of the white
race" are operating with free hand
in Texas.
They lay down their own laws,and in
fiict their own punishments. Penalties
they have dealt out to their victims
include tarring and feathering, lashing,
branding with acid, surgical operations
and Punishment,
Legal agencies so far have failed
completely in efforts to check the op-
erations of the kidnappers. Houston,
Dallas, Beaumont and other Texas
cities have had repeated visitation
from them. The victims have included
whites and blacks. Despite denuncia-
tions of the kidnappers by court author
tiles and special charges to grand
iuries to detect and indict them the
first arrest and prosecution is yet 70
take place.
Attorney Is First Victim
The first activity of the kidnappers
was the tarring and feathering of B. I.
Hobbs, attorney. of Houston, several
weeks ago. He was ordered to leave
the city and complied. Hobbs had spe-
cialized in negro divorce suits.
In Dallas negro hotel porter was
bo e&r 1r,b,
the city and severely beaten. Then the
initials "K. X X" were branded on his
forehead with acid.
The grand jury in Beaumont is now
investigating the case of DR.. J. S.
Paul, white physician. He was kid
mapped from his home and after the
tar and feathers were applied was
dumped from an automobile unclothed
in the business section of the city.
Federal agents are assisting IN the
of DR.. Paul that some of the kidnap-
pers represented themselves as gov
ernment officers when they appeared
at his home.
The Beaumont grand jury was
charged by District Judge Davidson,
to get these kidnappers, no matter how
big they are. Judge Davidson ignored
a threatening letter he received,
w. J. McGee, auto salesman, was
picked up by masked gangsters on
Main Street, in Houston, after police
had released him on bond under a
charge that he had insulted school
girls. He was whipped and ordered to
leave. He promptly disappeared.
town, Justice of the Peace Joe J..
Devere was tarred and feathered. He
vanished later.
Negro Put Under Knife
A few days after ). l.. Cockrell.
negro dentist, was fined $1,000 on
charge involving a white woman, in
the Houston courts, he was jerked
from an automobile on a downtown
street by eight masked men, taken
to an unoccupied house outside the
city, and slashed. He refused to at
tempt to identify any of his assail-
ants.
In Shreveport, La. this week, Jack
Morgan, thirty-year-o oil worker, was
tarred and feathered after he had been
arrested for annoying his fourteen
returned to her parents.
John I. Moore was abducted in
Dallas, after he had made bond on
charge that he enticed a girl, twelve
years of age, to his hotel room. He
received twenty-five lashes, and was
ordered out OF the state. He has not
been seen at mis- Dallas home since.
In many cases these kidnappers have
invited newspaper reporters to witness
their operations. The invitations have
been extended by telephone, reporters
being told to appear at some place and
wait for an automobile.
Postal authorities were asked after
the organization of the Ku-Klux Klan
chapter here, to hunt down writers of
anonymous letters, most of them
threatening violence, with which the
mails were flooded. This investigation,
too, has been without result.
The Ku-Klux Klan has staged pa
rades throughout the state. Hundreds
of men, wearing white robes and
masks and following a flaming cross,
appear in them. They carry placards
warning against intermingling of the
white and black races, and against all
varieties of immortality.
SOUR LAKE, Tex, May 28.-After
week of turmoil due to a political
wrangle, Sour Lake was comparatively
quiet to-day, with two preachers and
twenty-three citizens acting as spe-
cial deputy sheriffs.
Of three men ordered to leave town
last Saturday, one is dead, another has
departed and the third has been tarred
and feathered The latter, Joe ]. De-
Sveres justice of the peace, plans to
leave Sour Lake tonight, it was said.
Inc trouble grew out of an effort
TO have the city corporation dissolved.
question now before the state Su
preme Court.