The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1885-04-16

NETWORK SUN" ON SAND CITY.
I,s Fortunes aud nisfortunes aud Their
Enect on Texas-uapt. hads' TIE
wharf OF Monosoly-ihef VA
psrs-Other subjects,

and southwest. A Galveston paper ro'
Gently published special edition con
tanning a full page map of North Amer
lea, showing that most of the important
lines OF travel and transport by rail- OF
water, of tho United States and Mexico
ara tributary 10 Galveston. the news
paper was the organ OF the Eads lobby,
Which modestly asked 81 ,O5O,OO0 nom the
federal treasury for dredging tho bar AZ
Galveston, promising Tor that hueh i
money TO give r channel thirty Ieet
deep whore there IL now about fourteen.
The hope of handling such sum might
we'll excite the Imagination, stu Cal
weston In bound To be an important place
The fact that In 1883 10 Iect|Ved and
shipped $4,000 bales OF cotton alone
proves that,
weston, and of Texas Ia general, IS It's
climate, which is hardly toierablo for
the races from northern Europe or for
persons from our own n'rtborS states,
From the beginning vi May until well
ON In November the mercury seldom
fails below 81 . anu il usually keeps up
in the nineties, with litilo or no frost In
the so-called wintor 10 brace up the sys-
tom against the next summers heat.
About May all Texans, whose busi.
ness or means permit, hlo Thorn 10 tho
north, not returning, If they can helm H.,
before November or December. This
does not apply TO tho Panhandle or
northern strip of the state, but u docs
apply TO four-fiiths OF TeNgs. IL IL q
land where the flowers are nlways In
bloom. 1t is a soml-trcpical climate,
suited to somi-tropical races only. The
whites who ought To settle there should
be natives of the other Gulf states or
SpaniGrds, southern Italians, Greeks,
and the like. There are many thrifty
Germans already in Texas, but IL II an
interesting problem as 10 how their de-
scendents will develop after Two or
three generations under the Texas sun.
IL viii not be many years before the
growing population and increasing
trade O. the country between the Missis-
sippi river and the Rocky mountains,
south of Missouri, will DO clamoring for
good seaport, and there appears 10 DO
no other port 80 feasible a. Galveston.
But as to the Eads plan of improving
the harbor, or any other plan, II is just
as well TO remember that nature IS q
mighty force to fight.
Nature does not often provide good
harbors where the sea coast is n low
stretch OF plain, onle a few feet or
inches above high tide. The engineer
who can make a very good harbor on
such a coast is yet to be born. From
the mouth of tho Sabine to the Rio
Grande the whole shore lire of Texae is
SO indefinite that a stiff breeze from the
south or southeast, if continued for q
few hours, as is often tho case, sends
tho waters of the Gulf of Mexico u mile
or more inland over the prairie. With
such breeze the streets of Galveston
are always some inches under salt
water. On a coast like that,
where one can walk half mile
out into the sea before the water
reaches his armpits, q channel for
ships must be dug as elaborately as a
canal and it would take as many mill
ions to keep it from filling up with sand
as it would cost to dig it in the first
place. Capt. Eads may be g great en-.
gineer, though his Mississippi mouth
has not yet had time to be fairly tested.
His channel there is said TO have mar
rowed in some places to about 30 feet
vide. Pretty tight "scrooging" for a
ship to get through.
A common. sense observer, uncon-
nected with any lobby, would say that
If Galveston wants TO be seaport, the
only thing to do Is for the city to move
out into the sea for mile or so, till 1t
gets to the deep water it longs for
North of Galveston, just across the
toward tho gulf. For less millions than
the Eads and Galveston Wharf compa-
ny's lobby asked the outer end of this
sand bar could be converted into some
sort of entry port. which by constant
Improvement might be made into an
outlet for the trade Of the southwest.
Texas is still very new and very
raw state. 1t has future, for it has
great capacity. What that future is to
be, and what kind of people are to
work it out, is for prophet to say.
Texas declared its Independence in 1887,
but it is not yet an independent state.
Its interests are not controlled by its in
habitants. 1t is governed, and rather
tyranically, too, by outsiders, by cotton
ana cattle specu ators, mostly English
and Scotch aliens, and the promoters of
the Jay Gould and Huntington railroad
syste MS. Aliens own 100000 acres of
its land, though how many other acres
they browse their cattle on without any
claim of ownership whatever, and with
out paving rent or taxes, it is hard to
say. If the aliens do not vote, they
control very many votes. The Cotton
exchange, with the device of crowned
cotton bale on its pediment, rules Gal
weston, and the Cotton exchange con-
tains more Manchester men than bona
fide Texans. 1t was the Cotton exchange
and the Wharf company of Galveston
which furnished the Backing for the
Eads lobby.
There are not more than three, or per-
haps four, newspapers in the State with
any merit. Tho typical Texas paper
contains few paragraph squibs, few
personal notes relating 10 advertisers OF
TO local political rings, and, besides the
advertisements, fow columns OF pat
ent" or ready-set matter sent out IN ste
reotype form from New Orleans or st,
Louis. OF the three or four newspapers
of merit, at least two, and the two lead
ing papers at that. arc under railroad,
and alien influences. The negroes, who
are numerous, have no voice except at
the polls, and there they vote usually
with little intelligence. This looks like
pessimistic sketch OF things in Calves
ton and Texas at large, but it is the re-
suit of twelve months close observation
by one who has seen q good deal Of the
world.
Texas is dominated now by cotton
SPECTATORS, cattle kings, and railroad
wreckers. What the state needs is more
varied agriculture and manufactures.
The Manchester school Of political econ
omy which controls the Texas press
may be Mortified at the suggestion, but
Texas will do we'll ifit will discourage
Manchester and other alien capital for a
while, and set about developing its own
resources, in its own way and for its
own benefit. One of the most useful
mon in Galveston Is denounced by the
Manchester coterie, and those Texans
pss eS an al eve as he sa
an American, and, whatever his con-
nection with reconstruction may have
been, he has done more for Galveston
and Houston than the combined Cotton
exchanges of the two sister cities. He
has given these cities street. car lines,
good hotels, electric lighting and other
useful things. New York Sun.
>
Death of Capt. King,
SAN ANTONIO, April H.-[Special.I-
Cant Richard King. of Nuacas county