The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1884-01-17
/ rATiENT- LUA6 NEEDING AL
TESTIOS.


The election of Ex-GoY. Sayers as
president of the Stockmen's conyen-
ton is piece of conservatism, thai
might have been expected from Il
body possessing as marked ability
as the one over which he
is called upon to preside.
The elevation of this distinguished
citizen to SO honorable position, in
times like these, may DO taken as an
earnest that the cattle men of Texas
are going to work earnestly to assist
in solving vexed questions. now pre-
sented. for the best interests of the
majority of all classes in the state. The
election is declaration in opposition
to free grass, made by the very men
from whom, it has been said, 10 such
declaration might have been expected.
But few may know that the political
record Of Mr.. Sayers placed him, as
long ago as 1873, in opposition to free
grass in Texas. While a state senator,
in the Thirteenth Legislature, he
made an effort to prepare
Texas for dawning civiliza-
ton by introducing u prop
proposition in the legislature to do
away with the free use of public lands
| in Texas; but no one was found to
follow the senator in his states
manlike proposition. He introduced
a bill, providing for the lease
of school and other public lands,
containing provisions that would have
effectually barred all such difficulties
as. have arisen from the fixed uses OF
such lands by persons having no in
terest In them. and from whom the
state has derived no return for their
profitable uses. As said, he was
alone, but he made manly fight, as
Mr.. Sayers always has done for what
he felt was right, and to-day he stands
as the first public man of Texas.
who, apparently, with prophetic soul,
comprehended a coming situation and
presented its solution to the people of
Texas. He saw the higher civiliza-
ton coming, knew what it would de-
mand, and with mind unclouded with
the least tincture of demagogueism,
he allied himself to truths which
other men did not endorse, because
they did not dare make them, under
the power of law, operative against
existing conditions. There he stood,
alone, promising to do then what
every body in Texes is desiring to-
day, no one to aid him in grand,
progressive course, which, years ago,
would have made property values
in Texas greater than they were in
1889. Had the proposition of Mr..
Sayers then been shaped into such a
law as he proposed, the public
lands of Texas would now have
been the channel through which
a contribution of one and half mil
lion dollars would have been flowing
into the educational Golfers of the
state. A lonely eEdorser of Mr..
Sayers' plan, at that time, was THE
STATESMAN, and it has ever since
held to theories then presented, and
which are now proven imperatively
necessary. Nearly all admit, now,
that free grass has had It's day. 1t is
an existing evil, demanding vigorous
treatment. Homeopathic practice,
put into operation on Texas grass,
would soon lead to the ebbing away of
/ the vital energies of the state
An alopathic prescription is necessary
and the doctors must soon begin to
turn in the doses. The legislature has
been called upon to attend to the
case; the stockmen advise positive
treatment, and the physic must be ad.
ministered in very few days or the
patients condition will grow hope
lessly worse.