The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-09-06
The State Government and Local
Feuds and Troubles,

The State Government and Local
Feuds and Troubles.
Galveston News.]
The barbed-wire fence cutters, it
appears, are remitted by the
state government to the tender
mercies OF the cattle kings and
local authorities until their
operations, now already extensive,
shall have occasioned such degree
of lawlessness and such paralysis of
the civil power as to awaken the
whole people of the state to the ne
cessity of suppressing shameful and
bloody struggle. This implies a
singular and humiliating confession of
the weakness of the executive arm of
the state government. 1t is confess
sion that the executive power of the
state government lies dormant and in
effectual until barbarous feuds and
local revolts arouse them into action.
There may be law to justify this pol
icy of the state government. 1t may
be contemplated by law that the
struggle Of the small farmer and
small stock raiser against the great
rancheros shall not be suppressed I'M
less the strength of the two parties is
so equally balanced as to render civil
war imminent. It may be commended
that if the one or the other party is
strong enough to summarily eXtin-
guish its adversary, the state has no
business to offer mediation and pro-
lection for the weaker. The state
may invite, as it does invite
by the last land laws en-
acted, the small farmer to plant
himself in the sparsely settled from
tiers,and may receive his payment for
the lands offered for sale; but unless
he joins with others Of the same in
terest to creote hostile vampS and is
able to precipitate local war and
blood-letting on magnificent scale,
whatever his rights or wrongs may
be, he will be incontinently bounced
and expelled for all that the state
government may do for him. Indi-
Vidually he is mere 'nestler," created
as the land pirates and land forgers
have been created, and as land mo-
nopoliesI and corporations, gorged
with state and school lands,
have been created - by the loose
and reckless land legislation of past
years. The executive department is
unable to give him individual protec-
ton until his class have numbers and
power to resist their enemies, and
blood=letting becomes wholesale. The
warning comes from every section of
the state that there exists such HOSTILE
ty, and such acts Of oppression and re-
taliation are perpetrated, that desper-
ate and bloody feuds are imminent.
Such feuds in Texas continue for a
generation, and have required in one
county alone for their suppression
a small standing army for years,
at an expense to the state
equal to the cost of main
taining the entire frontier force for
year. 1t is the greatest folly to per-
NIT such feuds to be inaugurated.
There are wrongs no doubt on both
sides, but it is fact that one or the
other side needs the protection of the
state in every such contest, which pro-
lection, if given at the beginning of
the trouble, is almost certain to pre-
vent any permanent feud. 1t is in
order for the war department, the
right hand of the chief executive, to
put an it's field glasses andobserve the
skirmishers in the outlying districts.
This war department has -spied out
malefactors in their hiding places be-
yond the state limits, from Leadville
to Pensacola, when there were
glciy and large pecuniary rewards in
the capture OF notorious outlaws or
celebrated land pirates. 1t has occu-
pied interior counties and in a man.
ner promoted it's captains and lieu
tenants to the chief county offices by
permitting their presence during the
elections, 1t has raided settled coun-
ties, arresting in day or two fifty or
more citizens, while the Mexican and
Indian marduders were raiding the
frontiers. But now, when there is no
need of a Texas military force for
frontier protection, it is announced as
the settled policy of the state
to withdraw from any further
operations in the popqloUs
counties until there shall be such a
condition of actual warfare and such
paralysis of the civil power as to JUS
tify the interference of the military or
police arm of the state government.
Probably a general raid on the from
tiers might induce a change in the
policy determined upon. At all
events, is it not wiser craftsmanship
and better economy to deal with the
incipient troubles in question by time
ly measures of restraint and proven
ton than to wait until they burst in a
storm of anarchy and sanguinary vio-
lence, which may leave its marks of
material, moral and social disaster for
I