The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-04-15
JUDGE TERRELL'S SPEECH.
DELIVERED AT THE OPERA
HOUSE., IN AUSTIN,
THURSDAY, APRIL =, ISSG-A RE-
VIEW OF THE CONDITION
OF AFFAIRS.
My Fellow Citizens:

among you, and time and again and al
ways whenever have asked your suffrage
for Office, whether legislative or Judicial
you have shown your confidence by you
votes in electing me. My deat
are beneath this soil, and all tina
/ have or hope for are inseparabl,
connected with the peace, the prosperit,
and glory of Texas. Your confidence
would no longer deserve, if being invited
TO speak to you | should remain silent
when public opinion excited by recen
events, now, like the pendulum of a clock
swings blindly to extremes.
In the history Of every free people there
have been times of danger, when discon
tented labor on the one hand, and capital
created by partial laws on the other
threateDes to make shipwreck of civil lib
erty. For about one hundred years we
have sustained republican government,
but unless | misread the signs of the hour
we now approach period when the cur
tain is trembling to rise upon another era.
1t is for the people to determine whether
they will heed these signs before it is too
late, or glide forward unconcerned to the
gulf before them.
The relation of the precious metals to
each other as money, the question of fed
eral aid to education, and the like, about
which statesman concern them selves, are
questions full of interest," but there is a
danger to civil government from conflict
ing forces; the force of capital long or
ganized and incorporated, now threaten
ing, and being threatened, by organized
labor. This clash between the employer
and employed, this turbulent discomfort of
kh. IaL 81, -,
economic question above and beyond all
other questions, which suggests danger
and demands a remedy.
RAPID INCREASE OF WEALTH.
The gap between wealth and poverty,
has widened and deepened with us as never
before in the worlds history, until we have
developed race of men who are called
railroad kings, cattle kings, land kings,
manufacturing princes, silver kings, and
merchant princes names unknown among
our republican people until now. 1t
deeply concerns US, then, to reflect, and
search out, if we can discover, whether our
government has prostituted its high mis-
sion to produce such results. | see before
me old men who can remember the time
when John jacob Astor and Girard were
America. Behold the change One city
now counts such men by the scores.
Twenty five years ago Huntington, Gould,
Stanford, Sage and Field were poor men.
Their wealth was, three years ago, esti-
mated at five hundred millions, and they
welded the power of three thou
sand millions through the corpora
tons they controlled. A fool can I'M
derstdnd that wealth like this, so enor-
nous that if they would sit down and
count dollar by dollar for lifetime, they
could not count il, was never gathered by
honest industry or square trade. Per-
gerted or partial laws, gambling specula-
tiOns, watered stocks railroad wreckings
aud she like, have made those fortunes
and concentrated this power. Such results
are not born of the spirit of true democ-
racy, as understood by the fathers, nor
did they believe that such accumulations
were possible under the government they
left US. The doctrine Of democracy taught
by the fathers, was, that government is
but an agency of the people to promote
general welfare" by protecting alike all
with equal rights to all, exclu-
sive privileges to none, and the largest
possible freedom for the interchange of
our products at home and abroad,
NEW AGENCIES OF PRODUCTION.
We are now living under constitution
made for the union of states before steam
and electricity had invaded the domain of
production and commerce, or revolution
god the habits of human industry; and
20, laws made before we knew how to use I
hose subtle and powerful agents, under
control, now seem almost I'M
suited to secure the common welfare.
jefferson and his friends thought they had
protected the people against the power of I
avs Or primogeniture and entailment.
For fifty years or more all !
vent well, but at last, machinery with
which one man could do the labor of
lundred, and corporate organization l
which not only invaded the sphere of in +
iiyidual industry, but levies tribute with
mt control on the great highways of com
nerce, in enterprises proper for incorpo-
alton, came on the stage. Then the gap = ,
between those who controlled these pow
RS and other people, widened and deep :
med alike to the danger of the favored !
ew and the discontinued many. Land >,
by corporate power, trans ,
monopoly, trade combinations, :
Unequal taxation and patent monopoly
~ the one hand, and the fell spirit of ,
Omm inistic devilment on the other, are ,
making the very pillars of the social fab
ic. Yet, about all these things, our
tatesmen have generally until now re- r
NAMED silent and mysterious. i
rHR TARIFF ENRICHED THE NORTH AND :
PAUPBRIzED LABOR, >
Early in our history congress enacted :
he first tariff law for the protection of l.
that vas called our infant manufactures, J.
nd Tho promise was, that when they had +
.rovn strong they would stand alone :
BEHOLD the results Though in 1884 the Z
apitsl invested i'll manufac-
uring enterprises was nearly three thous- .
nd millions, they received tariff pro-
eotion of forty-one per cent. as against /,
iineteen per cent. in 1860. For over half !
century the labor of agriculture has !;
'aie tribute TO manufacturers, who were -
ble, Under the high prohibitory tax =
gaiHst foreign products to combine and y
q hig1 prices control the home market.
The concentration of factories in New
England was natural With poor
oil their people early looked to maniac f
ure as a source of profit, and to com. r
nerce .
The national treasury was depleted to "
ntpr,ra and fnry;F,- tka;. L.,