The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-04-29
THE POLITICIANS AND THE PEOPLE


To measure, accurately mans il gnoranc'
of the world and Of himself, measure hi
local selfshness. Demagogues, for fifty
years, have gone over the country making
speeches to the masses. Their business bai
ever been to secure offices. To win the
affections of the populAce, the populace,
like a coy woman, must needs be adroitly
fattered, and then tenderly caressed.
Therefore, the dear people have been per
sistently told that they surpass all the ma
tions in intelligence, in taste, IN learning
and in capacity for tasks of government
Results are before US. Stupendous asses
have figured now and then herolcally in
Texas legislative halls; but they return to
their homes, they trim the sails of the news
papers, and then go forth pandering to the
self-love and cultured Prejudices rather
than appealing to the honest, good sense OF
the masses, and are again triumphant.
With shame il must be confessed that stu
pidity seems incurable, and vices of vanity
and Ignorance forever reproduce themselves.
Texans represent all the old States, even
from Maine TO Louisiana, and arc neither
better nor worse, nor more nor less intelli-
gent, than the masses of dwellers beyond
the Mississippi. OF late years the character
of immigrants has been somewhat changed.
In the days of the original revolution the
boldest spirits of the older States sought
excitement in the Republic, and then came
men like Houston and Crockett and Fannin
and Shepherd and Travis, and daring, reso-
lutte adventures followed these in great
numbers. They left the impress of their
characters upon that of the people, and
they still have representatives in the hun
ters and herdsmen and Indian fighters of
the West. But the descendants of these
original heroes are slowly absorbed, and
since the war between the States Texas has
become the land of promise for countless
mulhtudes seeking escape from worse than
Egyptian bondage. The Freedman's Bureau,
with its flock of depraved, corrupt manag-
ers, sent great numbers of the most intelli-
gent people of older Southern States, fugi-
tives from black barbausm that was organ
lied by knqvery and made terrible by COM
pactness, into Texas. The Bureau, in this
aspect of its operations, was the choicest
boon to Texas, and Texas might even afford,
in this view Of the facts, to pay a small
share of sums stolen from stupid blacks by
the stupendous Bureau Bank. When the
fact became known throughout the Gulf
States, through these fugitives from carpet
bagism, that Texas was a white mans
country, made for white men, and governed
by white men, and that its people intended
to protect towns and counties from the raw
ages of blacks and of worse than blacks
forever, the stream of immigration was
widened and deepened, and its tributaries
convergad from all the States. From the
Northwest, white farmers, the most skill
full and industrious that bless the State
with productiveness and riches, were gath
cred within the confines of Texas.
No peculiarity of Southern taste is IL
lustrated when the absence of Sambo in
government renders a country attractive.
Cuffee, as voter and as progressive, use
fnl citizen is only an imaginary animal,
admirable at great distances n fact which
Dickens discovered when he told the story
of Mrs. Jellaby. Northwestern white men,
skilled farmers, have discovered the charms
of Northern Texas, and at this hour count
less broad acres glowing with the very rich
ness of the verdure of springtime promise
redundant harvests to Northwestern hus-
bandmen having charming homes every
where on the plains of Northern and
Western Texas.
From all these sources of American sup
ply, and even from Faderland, Texas has
drawn its unsurpassed riches in population.
The great body of these immigrants are
intelligent, and capable of proper self-gov-
ernment. They are the equals in all things
that make men respectable in social life, in
sobriety, honor, truthfulness and industry,
of those who came hither at an earlier day
in the history of Texas. These are plain
facts, seen and confessed by everybody GO
ing about with eyes and ears open, and we
hope never to read again in any Texas
newspaper evidences of that limited knowl-
edge of the world which would induce US
to strut ourselves to death because we hap
pened to be born on either side of Mason's
and Dixon's line, or on either side of the
Atlantic or equator. God was not sec
tional in creation, and we never believed
that He confessed any very alarming degree
Of interest in the late war,