The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-02-04
SHALL TEXAN towns, CITIES AND
COUNTIES BE PILLAGED4

nifcant Of good citizenship. But a mans
patriotism may be measured, in many In
stances, by his modes of investing wealth.
Foreigners and strangers coming to Texas
simply to make money by hard dealing,
caring nothing for local honor or fame, if
they may make money, never invest in real
estate. They can'tshlp it abroad and since
it is usually sold on time they prefer per-
sonal estate or two and half per cent. per
month. Then there is migratory popula-
ton that drifts westward with the waves of
progressive populations. Valuable aecre-
tions to the country's prosperity are the
first to become stationary and immovable
by ownership of realty, and are anchored
while the drifting mass of adventures is
still swept onward. Wherever it is dam
med up for time, as at Dallas, the coun-
try is overwhelmed by its vices and Relig-
ion wells its face in the presence Of surging
waves of pent-up depravity and recklessness
that threatens to engulf society and the
church, and even civilization itself in its
blackened measureless depths. They are
not owners of land who perpetrate outra-
ges calculated to render property and homes
where such crimes are committed and sich
vices practiced, utterly valueless. There
are, however, as good citizens and as vir-
tuous and worthy who never owned the
soil as any that rest beneath or dwell upon
it; but the hsbitual violators Of law and
efla md Of n IL
whererare the rabble that ruin towns and
cities, elect their officers and impose local
taxes till plundered communities are finally
driven by thieves from ravaged homes and
farms. Carpet-baggers' vices had origin in
the fact that they never ''owned dirt"
They rob the ''dirt, owner" They " no now
constitute the Oranges of the South were
special victims and remorselessly pluudered
during the sway of the carpet -bagger. They
who imposed taxes, as happens to-day in
most Southern towns and cities, owned moth
ing, and it is only amazing that sane peo-
pie submit, like towards, as they are not,
to the intOlerable wrong. A few white men
from all clines and countries gather about
the. outskirts of a growing town OF have
centres of power in a dozen or two rum
holes and fIthier hash houses, and about
these, voting forces are organized by which
prosperous municipalities are reduced to
beggary. Negroes, all alike black to
white people, and none recognized save
to the 'extent that they are negroes,
uniformly ally themselves, in elections,
against the landowners--the permanent,
taxpaying, gosernmentlsustaining popula-
ton. These drifting, unstable populations
should not be suffered to vote. They are
ignorant, and therefore unfit for the
meanest-as this is the highest-of offices
Of citizenship. These domestic carpet
baggers are Democrats or Republicans or
Radicals as the occasion requires. These
are they who have multiplied offices every
where in local State governments till this is
land OF oficeholders, made for Office
holders, cultivated for oficeholders, and
reduced to poverty BY the mighty horde of
oficeholders. so potent are they that
Legislatures howl and roar and pfate eter-
nally about economy. but never dare 70
lessen By one the number Of ofRceholders,.
and never dare to place it in the power of
the people Of corporations, by restricting
suffrage in these to :. freeholders, " to lessen
costs Of government Is there a true man
and brave and an. honest man among the
cOuntry's lawgiversi Everybody sees the
source of intOlersble evils Of the times
the imposition Of taxes BY those who pay
no taxes-and YET few have the moral
courage even to suggest the only remedy.
The people win Jet most honor hmswhO
most series them By relieving Texas Of =
calamity which has already rendered cOun-
ties, cities and towns Of the East uniDhAbi-
table, and Is already seen and felt even here