The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 25, 1918, Page 4

Svasassensenanestnteimenten, cisessannanans f b Wention Leader when writing advertisers A Panic That Broke Texas Farmers * The Great Cotton Holding Plan of 1907 and How Wall Street Beat It— ' Second Installment of Texas History Mules provide most of the motive power: for farm work in Texas and throughout the many mules to the United States and its war associates for their armies. ’ BY E. B. FUSSELL ) HERE is in Texas a body of peace officers known as the Texas rangers. Whenever, in any of the 220 or so counties of Texas, some situation arises that the local peace officers can’t ‘handle—a band of cattle thieves, some bank robbers or a race riot between Mexicans and Texans —they send a ranger or two to the scene to settle things. And things generally are settled. These Texas rangers are men well trained in their busi- ness, quick on the trigger and with a reputation for “bringing home the bacon” that rivals the reputation of the Canadian northwest mounted police, There are plenty of Texans who have a sneaking notion that this idea of raising an army of 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 men to settle the European fuss is all rot —they ought to send the rangers over and the Kaiser would back down quickly enough! ‘However, while one or two rangers have generally been sufficient to settle such minor matters as raids by bandits and race riots, things have been differ- ent when political fights have hroken out in Texas. In such cases whole platoons of rangers have been sent to quell disturbances. The Texas politician, especially 20 or 30 years ago, gained the reputation of being pretty quick to pull out his shooting irons to settle anything like a political argument. FARMERS HAVE ATTEMPTED TO CAPTURE THE STATE That is one reason why the law-abiding farmers of Texas in the past have not been able to make much of a success in: gaining political control of their state. Another reason is that Texas, to all intents and purposes, is a one-party state. After the Civil war, when Republican carpetbaggers ruled the South, they called in the recently freed negroes to help them. The bitterness of those days has never died away. It is not respectable, in the South, to be a Republican, this difficulty. Because of lack of fair primary and election laws, they could not capture the Democra- The farmers have been faced with- This is the story of ome of the most sensational fights ever put up by farm- ers in the United States. The farmers of Texas in 1907 had vietory almost within their grasp. Then they failed. Why? Because a manufactured panic, started in Wall street, spread over the country and wiped out markets almost overnight. Farmers had control over their cotton, but they didn’t have con- trol over the government:or over the money market., The next article in this big series will tell of the fight of Okla. homa farmers to get a fair state consti- tution. It is one of the most interesting stories of the series now running in the Leader concerning farmers’ and. peo- ple’s fights for justice in stites where the Nonpartisan league is organizing. ‘tic party; because of deep seated prejudice against the Republicans they could not.use the machinery " of that party to elect their men. In spite of these difficulties, the farmers of Texas have made a brave attempt to capture the govern- .ment of the state. The old Farmers’ alliance, or- ganized in Texas about 1880, was responsible for the beginning of this attempt. It was at this period’ that millions of acres of Texas land were being presented ‘to - the ‘railroads. “The Alliance rose in protest against this. railroad domination of the state. It agitated for government ownership of rail- roads, parcel post and government savings banks, and was considered very “radical” The Alliance also went into the field of co-operative purchasing ‘of farm supplies, as it had in the North. ‘As the result of Alliance agitation, James . Hogg - PAGE FOUR : South. Besides having enough mules to plow its cotton fields, Texas has sold This picture shows some of the mules gathered for army inspection. was elected governor of Texas in 1892. Hogg, while not strictly speaking an Alliance candidate, ran on Alliance principles and got most of the Alliance votes. He was also backed by a man who has since become nationally famous as the closest friend of President Wilson. This man was “Colonel” Edward M. House. . Many men in Texag will tell you today that “Hogg was the best governor Texas evet had.” Others say he wanted to compromise too much. The Alliance didn’t get all it expected to get, but the state did get state regulation of railways under a railroad commissioner, a big step in advance for those days. But the fact seems to be that Hogg alone couldn’t do muchi. He was surrounded by reactionary Democrats who fully controlled the party. Many of the farseeing farmers realized that it would be impossible to do much of anything with the Democratic party as it stood. At the next elec- tion, 1894, a full Populist ticket was put into the field. But Hogg was a candidate for re-election. He had made such a good record, as compared with other governors, that he was re-elected, though the Populist candidates all got big votes. 5 POPULISTS OF TEXAS WERE AGAINST FUSION " Two years later—1896—was the big year of the Populist party. - Northern Populists were urging fusion with the Democrats that year, because the Democrats through the North were generally more progressive than the Republicans, and it seemed that a combination would win, Texas farmers knew, however, that there was no hope for them in the Democratic party of Texas, They knew it was in the hands of the big interests and that under existing laws there was no chance for the people to get control of the party machinery. They sent a solid delegation of 103 to the St. Louis convention and every old time Populist in the country remem-- bers the fight that “Texas 103" put up against BAY G v e VR i : AY 4 ) . L4 G ’1;