The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-06-04
A Bit of History.
Waco Examiner.

When in the year of Grace, 1879, Gov
Roberts took his seat in the gubernatorial
chair, he proclaimed the State of Texas lost
and ruined, and set himself up as the savior
of the State. In less than three months he
had the whole State in q ferment. Half the
State was moaning and grooming with the
fears of approaching ruin. Day after day,
and week after week, at Austin, the Governor
was proclaiming aloud, in season and out OF
season, that Texas WAS on the verge of bank
ruptcy, that the income of the State would
fall far below the expenses, that the bonded
debt would be increased, that warrants would
not be paid, and that to keep Texas from
bankruptcy the most severe measures were
demanded. He reiterated and reasserted day
and night the hopeless condition of the State,
and with the most vehement positiveness
declared that he alone and the measures he
proposed could save the State. The State
was lost and only by a sacrifice of the most
sacred objects could 1t be saved. Heinsisted
on offering up the school fund held sacred
since the foundation of the republic;
he would sell off all the public
lands; nothing was too venerable or
too holy to be sacrificed to save
Texas from the pending ruin. In three
months Texas was in a tempest, and the
State rang with new issue that put every
thing in an uproar of excitement, and Rob-
erts stood on pinacle, a halo about his head.
Thousands were swept away by the storm he
had raised. The State finances were so COM
pick and the tempest so great that their fears
we're excited. Roberts was one of our most
venerable Judges, and so the conservatives,
carried away by doubt Of the finances amt
confidence in Roberts and desire to preserve
the State from danger, were led to believe in
our bankruptcy and to worship Roberts rs
the Moses who was to lead us out of the will
derness. This Examiner, always conservative,
was carried away. Mr.. Lang was swept
with the tide. Thousands bent before the
tempest, and believing the State in danger,
held up the hands of Roberts while he should
save the State. That was nearly two years
ago. Two years have passed. The State
finances have been studied; the whole sub
ject is before us. What was excitement is
now judgment. We are able to review the
whole situation; to consider the basis of those
cries OF alarm with which Roberts thrilled
the whole State, and to rightly estimate his
claims as a self assumed savior.
We now see that the whole cutlery was un-
necessary that this cutlery in reality SLAM
dered every Democratic administration that
had precededit; that his calculations of the
income of the State for the coming year mis-
took the figures by nearly five hundred thou
sand dollars. The Governor made mistake
ola half million dollars in his calculation of
the income of the State for 1879, and he did
so by failing to see the results of the opera
ton of the land laws of previous legislatures
which were just beginning to operate to flood
the treasury with money. The sacrifice of
free schools was unnecessary; all that was
needed was retrenchment and economy in
government departments, the outlay and
alarm was uncalled for; the whole tempest
manufactured in our Governors mansion.