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ONE The Other Lost Generation Reform and Resistance in the Juvenile Training Schools, 1907–1929 In February 1927, Jimmy Jones, a sixteen-year-old inmate at the Texas State Juvenile Training School in Gatesville, convinced two parolees to smuggle letters to his father out of the institution. Jimmy’s odyssey into Texas juvenile justice had begun the previous October, when he was charged with “highway robbery with firearms.” That day, after working on the family farm, Jimmy had gone on a drinking excursion into the nearest town, San Marcos, just south of Austin. Armed with his father’s revolver, an intoxicated Jimmy “went up the road a few miles, held up five Mexican men, got one dollar out of the crowd, and drove back to town,” where he was arrested within minutes. Mr. Jones later speculated that Jimmy “must have thought himself a moving picture Hero of the West, under the influence of liquor.” Jimmy’s father was so angry that he “did not even hire an attorney” and gladly signed a court document declaring the boy “a Delinquent Child.” A few months in Gatesville, he thought, would teach Jimmy “a lesson” about such reckless behavior . Within days of his arrival at Gatesville, however, Jimmy attempted to escape. In hot pursuit were bloodhounds led by Mr. Burleson, the Gatesville dog trainer. The dogs soon “treed” Jimmy, meaning they trapped him up a tree. When Jimmy tried to surrender, he was bitten in seven places. Upon Jimmy’s return to Gatesville, he received “a run away busting,” or “forty licks” with a black bat while three guards held him down. Jimmy then became a model citizen, building such a good conduct record that Gatesville staff made him a “trusty,” the juvenile equivalent of the co-opted inmates in the adult prison system who helped guards maintain order in exchange for special privileges. However, Jimmy remained deeply unhappy. In addition to feeling “homesick,” Jimmy loathed the meals of “beans and bread” and the constant threats of punishment for the pettiest mistakes in the classroom or the fields. He chafed at the institution’s dishonest control of information. In his letters home, Jimmy explained, “[I’ve] got hold of some of the literature that Mr. Luck [the chaplain] sends you and half of it isn’t true. He won’t let us write anything against 8 · C H A P T E R O N E this place and won’t let us ask to come home.” He also remarked, “This place isn’t what you think it is. . . . We are treated like dogs.” Thus, Jimmy not only passed his request secretly; he also advised his father to respond in coded language. If he was willing to seek Jimmy’s release, he was to write that he “got the new barn built,” and if not, that he “got the new chicken house built.” Jimmy expressed deep regret for his past misbehavior, insisting that he would “go straight” and renounce alcohol. Moved by his son’s plight, Jimmy’s father took action. He visited Jimmy and was outraged by the scars and dog-bite marks that covered the boy’s body. Mr. Jones confronted Gatesville officials about the matter and received contradictory explanations for the scars. The Gatesville parole officer, Lorene Moon, told him that Jimmy “fell out of a tree and scratched himself,” while the superintendent, Charles E. King, explained that Jimmy “went through a barb wire fence.” After observing Mr. Jones in a heated argument with Moon and King, a sympathetic staff member quietly advised the angry father that reporting the incident would only place Jimmy in greater danger. But Mr. Jones already feared for his son’s safety; immediately after his departure, staff “cursed [Jimmy] out” and threatened him so much that Jimmy was afraid to sleep at night. Angry and desperate, Mr. Jones brought his case before Texas Governor Daniel J. Moody Jr., the Texas Board of Control (tbc), the Texas Department of Public Safety, and Hays County Judge W. H. Thompson (who had committed Jimmy to Gatesville). Governor Moody’s office took immediate action, ordering all documents related to Jimmy’s case and sending a detail of Texas Rangers to Gatesville for a surprise inspection and an interview with Jimmy and other inmates. Ranger J. E. McCoy examined Jimmy and found “scars and cuts” that “had the appearance of Dogbites.” However, he concluded that Jimmy’s case was an aberration; McCoy took part in another dog chase and recapture...

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