The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-10-07
BOYS IN TBS. C0SxTIFUrroNAL AZ ooN-
VKNTION.


Boys catch birds by inveigling them int
coops and the birds could get out as easily
as they enter, and by the same route, if they
would only look down instead of above
their frightened little heads for place OF
exit. A dozen members of the Constitu-
tioual Convention find that they, OF the
people they represent, have been sadly en-
trapped by railroad rings and instead of
seeking remedy for wrongs done in cheap,
lateral and transverse narrow gauge and
PFismoidal roads, the illustTious body would
get out at the top or not at all. To name
railways sets the whole re-naorse.ful little
.coyey hutterlng,. and somebody, to termin-
ate their spfferings should wiring their little
necks, or, with the thumb and finger smash
their soft little heads. 4ilsp' a-
II is said that this railway phobia is such
that those afflicted with il intend, in order
to demonstrate their wisdom and deyo-
ton to the proud spirit of their constitu-
encies, to return home on mustangs.
They illustrated their antipathies to iron
and steam when they induced the Conven-
ton to declare that mileage should be
awarded with reference to air line rather
than ironed distance. And yet not single
member is winged, and We have discovered
very few who are even pin-feathering for a
glorious immortality. May we not ask,
without offending these gentlemen, if they
have not been taught valuable lessons by
spectators and sharpers, who deal with
knaves in Texan Legislatures. There will
be, when the poll tax does its proper work,
no more depraved Twelfth Legislatures,
and the treasury of Texas, when controlled
by those who fill it, will never more be sue
cessfully invaded by those extraordinary
''highwaymen'' who built the highways
of Texas. We only ask members of the
Convention who are so excitable when
ra: ways are named, who would rem
der it impossible for US, when the De
moeracy has administered dose of salts
to the money market, to bull Id a road from
Austin to .Luling, and Lampasas, we would
only ask these geIt!emtn to draw distinc-
tion between thieves whoconstructed roads
and the roads themselves. We must have
more railways; we want, and will have, no
more thieves in Texan legislative assem-
blies. Provide for home government not
only by voting for the Democratic candi-
date for the Presidency, but by restricting
suffrage in county and town elections to
genuine Texans, and then there will be no
robberies practiced, and If the people must
have cheap railway from one to another
country town, in Gods name do not rem
der the consummation impossible and
simply because body of unconscious
BILE knaves in Legislature and one
more remorseless outside parceled out the
States wealth among themselves. After
all, these bandits were great public benefac-
tors. They have invested Texas with its
chiefest charms and given it its greatest inn
petus in progressive civilization; and if they
robbed the negro and the innocent repre-
sentatives of the negro, and the -knaves
who climbed INTO office over the negro's
backs sold both the negroes and the rail
way rings, it surely does not follow that
men sent hIther, because supposed to be the
wisest Of their compatriots, should render
the construction of local and other railways
forever impossible. On the contrary, the
true policy of the Convention consists in
promoting the creation of these most benef-
cent agents of intelligence, progress
and riches known to modern civilization.
While we were fighting for our rights
in the Territories, as advised to do by
statesmen, Cd British India built seven
thousand miles of narrow guage railways.
We see the result to-day. Inferior cotton
is made so abundant that this of Texas is
not worth the cost of production and trans
fer to market. We, too, must cheaper
every incident of living, and labor can only
be made cheap by making transportation
cheap and by cheapening all incidents of
living and especially by chearening the
cost of transferring crops to market. This
cannot be effected by means OF balloons, or
by mustangs or oxen. Texas must now
choose between +, r,tFogression and progress
between the OK and mustang and the
cheap narrow guage railway-the mustang
of modern civilization.
But we only began to write of railways
in Texas to show that people suffer preju-
dice to gain the mastery of intelligence and
fail to distinguish the knaves who robbed
the State from the roads tina thave enriched
it.