The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-07-13
GOVERNOR ROBERTS.

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two hours. We think his visit to this city was
to some degree detrimental to his cause. We
are not prepared to say that he alienated any
one who had already expressed preference
in his behalf but we are inclined to the
opinion tn t there we're a number who heard
him, who were open to conviction, whom he
failed to win to him, rather repellng them
than otherwise. He is not pleasing nor a
forcible speaker and his defense of his nd.
minstration and of his policy was so clumsily
put that whatever of worth there is in ii
failed to show up. He devoted the most of
his time in trying to prove that he
had always favored public free schools, and
that the action he had taken in the matter
of schools during the sixteenth legislature
was in the interest of the schools. He ut
terly failed to make US comprehend how
that was, and we think he failed TO make his
audience comprehend it. 1t is not matter
easily understood that 1t was to the interest
OF the schools to give them nesiXth of the
ad valorem tax instead Of one-fourth And
when he explained that he vetoed the one.
fourth appropriation on the score ofeconomy,
and to carry out his policy Of 'pay rs you
co. those who heard him wondered where the
economy came in when there was such large
balance in the treasury, which balance he
made his especial boast. He ignored that
part of one of his messages, in which he said
the best system of free schools the state had
ever had was that in vogue prior to tho war,
when only INDECENT children we're educated
at the expense OF the state. He forgot this
passage in his message and he forgot every
other detrimental TO the education of the
children of tho land, in his efforts now to out
Herod Herod in his devotion to free educa-
ton, knowing now that the people favored
free schools. lie put much stress upon the
resolutions of the teachers lately assembled at
Mexia endorsing his free school policy.
1t is reasonable that these teachers
should endorse him and on two
grounds. la the first place, many of the
teachers of private schools and academies
aud colleges in Texas don't want TO see free
schools established. They interfere with
their pecuniary interests. They want to keep
their institutions full of pupils at high prices
which they cannot do when once an efficient
system of FREQ education 10 established and
maintained. Furthermore, the gov.
ernor to Offset his opposition to free
schools in the past, is making d
hobby of state university to be established,
and these teachers all want finger in that
pie. Hence their graciousness He claimed
that he was the sole cause of all the money
that the comptroller has collected since he
went into Office, calling it "his financial
policy" He forgot that Coke and Hubbard
we're the authors of the very policy he so
unceremoniously laid claim to, and further
more, that it was the big crops and
high prices of 1879 which enabled
the tax payers to settle up their taxes for
back years. He didn't tell that over the half
of this large influx of money into the treas
ury was money due under Coke and Hub
bard and which had not been collected then,
because the people were not able to pay it.
He laid much stress, however, upon the fact
that the deficiencies of Coke's and Hubbard's
administrations handed down to him had been
paid since no went into office,
but failed TO let his audience
know that tho money with which it was paid
was due to Cokes and Hubbrads admins
trations and collected since they went out OF
office. He failed to tell anything about the
deficiencies that have already occurred under
his administration. He did not enlighten his
hearers as to the amount due officers of the
various counties for fees, the warrants for
which have been hawked upon the streets Of
Austin at fifty and sixty cents on the dol
lar and to pay which warrants tho
seventeenth legislature will have to appropri.
ate many thousand dollars out of that
boosted surplus in The treasury. He claimed
to be strongly in favor of immigration; said
he had suggested the bill for the sale of the
public lands in six hundred and forty acre
tracts solely for the purpose of inducing i'm,
migrants to come to Texas, and he also said
no favored the liberal advertisement of
the advantages and superiorities our
state can boast to secure i'm
migration. The fact is that the governor
talks so differently now from what he has
done heretofore, and so contrary to all his
actions during the session of the sixteenth
legislature, that he may be put down as re-
cent convert to free. schools and to immigra-
ton, and new converts are always very zeal
Gus. He dwelt somewhat upon occupation
taxes, claiming that it was resort on the
part Of the state to get from merchants some
thing like the taxes they ought to pay, as it
was impossible to get a just
ad valorem tax from them. He in
atsnced Galveston in this particular,
that the property, the merchandise rendered
by the business men of that city on the first
day of January of every year for taxation,
was not fifteenth of the value of the goods
sold in that city each year, and therefore an
occupation tax imposed upon them forced
them to pay at least an approximation of
what they ought to pay to the state. This