Abilene Reporter-News from Abilene, Texas • Page 125

Abilene features 17A ABILENE, TEXAS. SUNDAY MOBNING. DECEMBER 18, 1977 Farm Strike Desperation, Tragedy Drive Cross Plains Family to Protest By J. T. SMITH Firm Editor CROSSPLAINS The factors.and events that culminated in a national (arm strike Wednesday didn't happen overnight.

In fact, one young farmer here knows from personal experience and tragedy that the desperate situation started several years ago for many in the agriculture industry and in 1977 continued until farmers reached the breaking point. Charles H. Payne, 34, says he would rather not use the word, "strike," but instead would call the movement a highly-organized protest. For Payne, the lowest return since the Great Depression on the farmer's invested dollar in 1977 is-the second time he's been really knocked flat on his back. He's beginning lo wonder if he shouldn't do something else with a college education than "feed others at a loss." "I used to think there wasn't anybody who could run me out of agriculture," Payne said.

just not sure if they run me out and other farmers those folks who live in the high rise apartments and those folks in Washington can just grab a hoe and break ground in their gardens let them try to grow their own food!" It Payne sounds bitter, it would be understandable. However, it is more utter disappointment in an almost quivering voice than it is bitterness when he talks about it. What has happened to this native of Cross Plains doesn't make sense to him. What has happened to the nation's farmers shocks him. Payne gives credit to his wife, Linda, for helping him through a tragedy in 1973, a year when the problems really started for some food producers, and a year that is important to examine in order to understand what happened the past Wednesday in the United States.

Charles ind Unda have two children, Sheila, 9, and Chas, 11, third and fifth graders respectively in Cross Plains School where his wife is also employed. Charles says Linda's work has helped keep them going during these dark months on the farm. And, the moral support at home means even more. Linda, a Bowie native, was not from a farming background when she married Charles. "It takes a real strong woman with a lot of fortitude to stay with you in times like we've sera," Charles said "I don't think I'd be here today without her." Unda, an ilumna of North Texas State University at Denton, married Charles in 1964, and worked while he was attending Texas Tech University in Lubbock and also working.

Payne received his E.S. degree in animal science from Tech, and an agricultural teaching certificate from Tech in 1968, He been in school six years while carrying a double major Sad Season Cross a i a Charles and Unda Payne spend time with there children this troubled i a a Charles, working on his books, has grave doubts about the future of the a i i Payne closes his pasture gale. (Slaff Photo by J.T. Smith) and working on the side. During his last year in schoo! and immediately after gradu ation, the Paynes got into the feed yard business at Hed nightmare the couple will never forget.

'I used to think there wasn't who could rut) me out of agriculture' The Paynes worked long hours, obtained investors in the feed yard in the Texas Panhandle town, and sold stock. Things were going well it appeared that hard and the "American dream" economic philosophy was true. But it wasn't. "Free" enterprise didn't remain free very long in 1973. Just as Charles and Linda had put in a new feed base plant that cost more than a half-million just as Linda and Charles had 700 of their own cattle in the feed came "Tricky Dick" Nixon on the scene.

At the lime, Payne was serving as a director on a Texas Cattle Feeders Association Committee. He remembers how former President Richard Nixon had "promised" the cattle- See BROKEN, Pg. ItA The Man Foiled Santa Claus Retired Hero Recalls Cisco's Christmas Bank Heist By WILLIAM WfflTAKER Staff Writer He was the boy who foiled the crooks even (hough Santa Claus was one of them. The 14-year-old boy thought it was all a prank at first. But when Santa Claus, a gun in each hand and bullets whistling overhead, ordered the youth out of the car, Cnristmas looked pretty bleak.

It's been 50 years since Woody Harris, now 64 and retired from a successful electric shop business in Rising Slar, encountered the bank-robbing Santa Claus and his gang. The robbery, which took place December 23. 1927 in Cisco, might have been a successful if costly venture if young Woody hadn't pocketed the keys to their intended getaway car. aM BBHVMMa Robert Hill, the one sur- I viving robber of the Santa I Claus bank robbery, said I in an official statement a I short time after his cap- I ture that, young Harris. I more than anyone else.

I "prevented out successful I escape with the money we had." "He's a fine fellow," Harris says nowadays of Hill, the then-young rob- her who lifted Hards' grandmother out of the auto and put her on a "i a porch i "He's my friend." Harris, now ailing from a recent heart attack and i from Parkinson's Disease, says Hill now under a different name visits him frequently. The two men plan lo get together for the 50th anniversary of their unusual encounter this Friday though they're not saying where. One of the places they do not intend to visit, however, is the First National Bank in Cisco. "He doesn't gel much of a kick out of banks." Harris said. It was the First National Bank in Cisco in which, a few days before Christmas in 1927, a man dressed up as Santa Claus entered, followed by three men dressed in regular suits.

The man in the Santa suit was Marshall Ratliff. and with him were three other men Henry Helms, Louis Davis and 19-year-old Robert Hill, the youth of the group. Their intentions became known almost as soon as they were inside the bank, when guns were pulled and they announced they wore holding up the bank. After ordering the bank employees to open one of the MARSHALL RATLIFF hung him nude" THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF CISCO it looked in 1827 WOODY KARRIS hero vaults, Ratliff produced a tow sack from under his Santa suit and began filling it up with money. A woman and her daughter, who had managed to flee the bank before the robbers could do anything, alerted the law.

and soon the building was surrounding. In a Woody Shootout, the robbers made their way lo their getaway car, and with two little girls as hostages, fied the scene in a hall of bullets. One of the robbers. Davis, was already severely wounded at the lime. But to make things worse, (he robbers had somehow forgotten to fill the car with gas, and with one lire already shot oul and flat, the robbers began looking for a replacement for their getaway car.

Thai's when they saw 14-year-old Woody Harris driving the family Oldsmobile into Cisco. His parents and his grandmother were with him at the time, and when he saw Santa Claus and the robbers waving for him to pull over, he thought it must be some kind of prank. "They were parked down the street and they waved me down," Harris said, recalling that day nearly 50 years ago. "I thogght ii was just a trick. I thoughl they were just trying lo steal my car ii was a brand new Oldsmo- bile." Harris said Hill was standing in the center of the road, and shot into the air when the Harris car came along.

But (he first one to approach the 14-year-old boy was Marshall Ratliff still in his Santa Claus getup. which he wore so no one could identify him. "Ratliff jerked the door open," Harris said. "He told me (o gel out and mafce it damn quick he said he wanted my car." The youthful robber Hill had already begun clearing the Harris car of its occupants, though, starting with Woody's grandmother. "He opened the door and said, 'Grandma, we've got lo have your Harris said.

Grandmother was too confused, however. "She was about 80 years old and didn't know what was going on." As a result. Hill had lo assist Grandma oul of the car bul fast. Bullels were already screaming overhead. "He picked her up, carried her wilh his back lo the bul- lels and set her down on someone's porch swing," Harris said.

continued lo fly overhead in ever-increasing numbers. "Everyone (rom 10 years old lo 60 was out there with a gun," Harris said. One bullet passed just inches over the boy's head "they thoughl was a bank robber." The nervous babbling of Harris' moiher apparently began to gel to the youthful Hill, and Ihe robber lold her lo pipe down or he'd shoot, ft didn't work, though. "You'll just have to shoot." she said. Harris' father, however, "was as cool as a cucumber.

He just walked over there and sal down wilh them (his family)." Woody, however, remained in the car, and when RalHff still in his Sanla garb returned to see the boy had not gotten oul, he jerked him up and slruck him across the face. The boy fell across the seats. "That's when I put the keys in my pocket," Harris said, adding lhal when he looked up, "I was looking right at the barrels of two Ratliff liflcd the boy out of the car and lold him to stay Ihere while Ihe robbers continued transferring everything into the Harris car. It was then that Woody learned the robbers planned to use him as their driver, he said. "Sanla Claus wanted lo load everylhing in my car -and he wanted me to drive it," Harris said.

Spoiling Ihe two little girls being used as hoslages by Ihe robbers, Woody ran up lo them, nervously asking them "What in the world's going on?" He said he was nowhere near as cool as A.C. Greene's book. The Santa Claus Bank Robbery, indicated he was. Receiving no answer and with Ratliff coming back. Woody decided it was lime to "leave out, so I started running.

Ratliff shot at me two or three times, then another shot from town went over my head." Woody eventually slid under a shed. With the nesrly unconscious Davis transferred to the Harris auto and the money under the seat of the Oldsmobile, the robbers "got back in but found Ihey weren't going anywhere. They couldn't. They didn'l have any key." With Ihe law and anxious, gun-toting citizeny not far behind, the robbers found Ihey had no olher choice but lo jump into the same ear in which they had made their original getaway. Two of the robbers sustained bullet wounds as a result of their delayed take-off, and Davis was lefl in the Harris auto.

But tlicre was something even more amaiing lefl behind the money, all $13,000. Woody found it laler, after laking the unconscious Davis back to town, and returned it to the bank. What to be i smooth operation had turned into the bloody Shootout. Two men Cisco policeman George Car- michaol and Police Chief G.E. Belford were killed in the shooting at the bank, while six others were wounded.

In addition. Louis Davis was lo die in a Fort Worth Hospi- lal. Davis' comrades were not destined to escape, cither. See HARRIS, Pg. 19A.