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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Go Ask Alice AT FIRST GLANCE, THE SOUTH TEXAS TOWN OF ALICE hardly looks like the sort of place that changed the course of history. Other than the decaying grandeur of the Rialto movie theater and the carved limestone facade of the Texas State Bank Buildingnow bearing a For Sale signthere are few clues that Alice has a story to tell. But even if historical markers and the local museum make no mention of the towns claim to infamy, the facts are undeniable: In September 1948 Alice saved Lyndon Johnsons political career from near ruin, providing himby hook or by crookwith an 87-vote victory in a U.S. Senate runoff against Texas governor Coke Stevenson. Without Alice, LBJ would have lost a Senate bid for the second time, making his eventual ascendancy to the vice presidency, and then the presidency, practically impossible. Fifty years after the fact, interest in Texas most notoriously corrupt election shows no signs of waning, in part because Box 13the tin ballot box that was stuffed with votes for Johnsonremains at large, although its widely believed to be in the hands of an unidentified local. Visitors periodically nose around Alice inquiring about the box, and there is good reason for wanting to find it: If it holds the original paper ballots and tally sheets, its reappearance could settle any lingering doubts about the integrity of the 1948 election results. But locating it has proved difficult; the scandal cast a shadow on the town for decades, and many Alice residents still greet inquiries about Box 13 with uncomfortable silence. But a few will talk, and each has a theory: It was stashed in a meat locker; it was thrown into the Rio Grande; it was auctioned off by the sheriff years ago. I received an anonymous letter this summer saying that it was in the Texas State Bank vault, says Jim Wells county judge L. Arnoldo Saenz, but there wasnt anything to it. The origins of the Box 13 scandal lie in a painful lesson Johnson learned in the 1941 Senate primary, which was stolen from him by Governor W. Lee Pappy ODaniel. One day after the election, Johnson was proclaimed the unofficial winner; campaign workers hoisted the jubilant candidate onto their shoulders, and John Connallythen Johnsons campaign managersent a telegram that read Unless miracle happens . . . looks like were in. But an overconfident Johnson made a crucial mistake: He had instructed his key districts to report back their results promptly on primary day, but that alerted ODaniels men to precisely how many votes they needed to discover in unreported districts to guarantee a win. Indeed, three days after the election, ODaniel was declared the victor by 1,311 votes. It was the only electoral defeat Johnson ever suffered, and he would call the following few years the most miserable period of his life. Johnson did not contest the 1941 election results, most likely because he did not want to invite scrutiny: His campaign had engaged in questionable voting practices with the help of men like political boss George Parr. Known as the Duke of Duval County, Parr ruled much of South Texas through patronage and force, regularly fixing elections. He proved invaluable in 1948 when Johnson decided to run for the Senate again, this time against Stevenson. Three days after the election, Stevenson was the unofficial winner, but votes continued to trickle in from far-flung precincts. Three days after that, officials made a startling discovery in Alice: Precinct 13s tally sheet, which had reported 765 votes for Johnson on primary day, now listed 965 in his favor. (One of Parrs men, it was later revealed, had extended the lip of the 7 downward into a 9.) The votes for Johnson were written in the same handwriting, signed in the same ink, and cast in alphabetical order. Nevertheless, Johnson was pronounced the victor, earning the tongue-in-cheek sobriquet Landslide Lyndon for winning by less than one hundredth of one percent of the total vote. Ever since, Alice residents have heard their fair share of stories. For years afterward, the whole country down here was rife with rumor, recalls eighty-year-old Homer Dean, a former Jim Wells county attorney who observed the first of several unsuccessful investigations into the Box 13 scandal. Dean remembers the late September day in 1948 when Stevenson and Frank Hamerthe Texas Ranger who led the ambush against Bonnie and Clydecame to Alice looking for answers. They were hot to prove the election had been stolen, but they didnt get very far, he says. Tom Donald at the Texas State Bank let them look at the tally sheet, but he took it away when they started copying down names. Stevenson later contested the election, but Johnsons attorneys successfully argued that the federal courts had no jurisdiction in a state election. Since Dean was one of the attorneys who helped present the investigation in 1948 to a local grand jurywhich handed down no indictmentshe has his own ideas about what happened to Box 13 and its contents. But hes saying little, at least for now; an interview he gave to a researcher at the LBJ presidential library will be made public, as per his request, only after his death. This summer, despite the obvious impediments of reluctant witnesses and a fifty-year-old case, Duval County sheriff Santiago Barrera, Jr.whose own quarter horses are descended from one of Parrs prize-winning maresbegan an investigation into Box 13s whereabouts. He successfully tracked down Juan M. Escobar, the great-nephew of the late Ignacio Nachito Escobar, the deputy sheriff said to have added Johnson votes to the tally sheet on orders from one of Parrs followers; the younger Escobar confirmed the story. But what about the missing piece of evidence? Barrera has thus far found only a fake: a tall, rusted box emblazoned with 13 that is proudly displayed on the counter at the Branding Iron Bar-B-Que House in Alice. Duval County Historical Commission chair Lydia O. Canales is eager for Barrera to find the real ballot box since the Duval County Museums collection of George Parr memorabiliaincluding his Stetson, alligator-skin billfold, and last will and testamentseems sorely lacking without it. Visitors to the tiny museum, which is in the neighboring town of San Diego, often inquire about Box 13, but must settle for an archival photograph. It would be such a draw, Canales sighs. She may never get her wish; according to one longtime observer of Alice politics, the search for Box 13 is certain to be fruitless. The ballots were burned that night in the Ranch Motel, and the tally sheet was taken across the border by some of George Parrs men, the source claims. Box 13 was probably burned along with everything else. And how did the source come by this bit of information? You can hear it from the horses mouth. Which horse? Whose mouth? The source wont say, preferringlike just about everyone in Aliceto savor the secret of Box 13 just a little bit longer. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest
#1. To: X-15 (#0)
Texas Monthly is just an excellent magazine, thanks.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable. ~ H. L. Mencken
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