TX BIOS:  Dee Cook, McLennan CO. TX
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   00011
   
   FOLKWAYS
   
   Wm. V. Ervin, P. W.
   
   McLennan County, Texas.
   
   District No. 8 [????]
   
   AUG 23 1937
   
   No. of words 855
   
   File No. 240
   
   Page No. 1 Reference
   
   Interview with Dee Cook, early day peace officer of McLennan County,
   South Fifth Street, Waco, Texas.
   
   "A good many years ago there was a newspaper man here by the name of
   A. B. Davis who wrote for the local papers and the St. Louis
   Globe-Democrat. I'd often give him news. He never did publish anything
   I asked him not to, or didn't until I told him he could. He didn't
   publish things without knowing the facts. One of the biggest fights I
   ever saw came up over things he published.
   
   "One time I was called to go down on the river and arrest a nigger who
   had badly beaten his little stepson. I went to get the nigger. I found
   the boy out in a cornfield where he had run away to hide, and he had
   built him a hut of cornstalks and was eating roasting ears to live on.
   His back was one solid scab. When I got back to town with his
   stepdaddy Davis met me, as he had been told where I had gone, and he
   wanted the story. I told him all about it, and he wrote it up and sent
   it to the Globe-Democrat. He showed me a check for nine dollars, they
   had sent to him for it. The paper got letters from all over the
   country about that, and I got some, too, and so did Davis.
   
     NOTE: [C-12 Texas?]
     
   "The fight was made by John Magee, who was jailer at that time, which
   while Pete Ross was sheriff in the late seventies, I was deputy then.
   John was a big man strong as a horse, and he was a mighty good man.
   somebody for a joke had given some of the prisoners some food that had
   moulded, and the prisoners showed it to a preacher who had come to the
   jail to preach a sermon for them; and they told him that was the kind
   of food they had to eat. I guess they did it for a joke as Magee
   always fed the prisoners good food. I had eaten some of it, and it was
   good. The preacher believed them, and he told Jere Hutchings, who was
   reporter for the paper, 00022which was published by Major J. W. Downs.
   Downs printed in the paper, and he ought to have known better. None of
   them investigated to see if it was true.
   
   "Well, John Magee was good and mad. When I came along he had Downs'
   head under his left arm and was giving it to him in the face with his
   right fist. Downs was a little man, but he was a scrapper, too, but he
   wasn't doing much with John then. John worked Jere over next, and
   knocked him around somewhat; and John Sleeper, who was a cousin of
   Jere, saw what was happening to Jere so he came running up to take
   Jere's part. Sleeper and Clifton had a store near where the fight was
   taking place, on the square. John hit Sleeper and knocked him away out
   there, and Sleeper jumped up and went running into his house and
   yelling for a piece of raw meat to put on his face to keep it from
   turning black. Pete Ross came out and separated John Magee and Jere.
   
   "A day or two before the fight, or maby it was the same day, Judge
   Gerald was holding court in a building on the north side of the
   square, and some of the lawyers didn't do what he told them to, and he
   threw the inkwells and books at them, and they sure paid attention to
   him after that."
   
   "J. R. Meers, chief of the Waco Fire Department remembered some more
   of Judge Gerald's court methods. "If a witness wouldn't testify," said
   Mr. Meers, "The judge would tell them, "You'll testify in this court,
   or I'll throw you so far back in that jail you'll rot before they
   think of you again.' Usually the witnesses testified. One time a
   gambler by the name of Skeeter Root was here then and came up before
   Judge Gerald. Skeeter was a little, dapper, man always looked like he
   came out of a banbox. He took a contemptuous attitude toward the Judge
   and the court because he expected only to be fined, and he had plenty
   of money to pay it with. The judge says, Skeeter Root, I fine you one
   hundred dollars--' 00033Skeetor hardly let the judge finish what he
   was saying when he says, 'Got it right here in my pocket, judge,' and
   jerked out a hundred-dollar bill and tossed it at the judge. The judge
   says, 'And ninety days in jail. Got that in your pocket, too, Mr.
   Skeeter Root?""

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