The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-02-04
REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

of Texas with the federal head as a SOW
ereign state when the state needed in
federal and state councils, men of weight
and calibre, more than to-day. There has
been no time heretofore in the history of
the state of Texas when statecraft and
broad craftsmanship was more needed to
guide the ship of state between the rocks
of scylla and Carybdis than to-day.
Heretofore her boundless resources and
splendid wealth have enabled her to keep
abreast in the progress of states. Here
tofore, too, her craftsmanship has always
been, at the time right at the helm, and
she had smooth sailing but never before
has such important questions arisen for
her solution or more larger impediments
stood in her way of progress. Heretofore
she has treated her domain az bOundess
and inexhaustible and given it away with
more liberalily than eastern nations lavish
their wealth on princes and potentates,
but suddenly it has become apparent that
in the manner Of her distribution Of her
domain she has been acting prohigate and
wasteful, and prudence calls halt.
Suddenly the state of Texas has been
aroused to the knowledge of the fact that
her public domain is her most precious
legacy to bequeath to the actual settler,
and she has been chagrined to contem-
plate the almost unlimited acres that she
has lavishly donated to corporations. 1t
has suddenly dawned upon her that her
prohigacy has wasted her only possession
of great Importance and that she has
been cultivating feudalism to an extent
hardly rivaed by any other state in the
Union.
Again, she stands face to face with n
controversy involving the settlement of a
boundary line that will give her hundreds
of acres of fertile public land or curtail
her broad dimensions.
Texas, in point of fact, is i'll a chrysalis
state, she is undergoing that change of
her original condition into a more per
feet and tried state, by which she is plum
ing herself with wings to take her flight
and assume her more positive position in
the galaxy of states, or have those wings
clipped and broken by unwise policy.
We might enumerate, and will hereafter
enumerate, the many changes necessary
in her laws and government, but we are
content to rest upon the important ques.
tions indicated in this article, to show the
importance TO Texas at present of her
best and very ablest men in her counsels,
both national and state.
There are many men of negative quail
ties that when a state is moving on in the
regular routine of machine management.
who do very we'll to lubricate that machin-
cry and keep it in motion, and states thus
fixed in the regular ruts of progress may
and are content to reward such amiable
negative men with their control, but when
state is unlimited in resources and I'M
trained in development, when in her youth
full and giant powers, she rises and
stretches her young limbs, she needs a
skilled and prudent trriner to control and
develop her powers.
The state of Texas is indeed giant in
proportions and powers, and unframed by
the skillful hand of statecraft she is both
dangerous to herself and all those allied
with her.
Then it becomes us now in this chrysalis
state of her growth to pause and put her
under the control of the wisest and best of
her statesmen.
As we asserted, when the people govern,
state is safe. Unfortunately for many
states professional politicians have robbed
the people of their rights to govern, and
by the manipulation of rings and cliques
have deprived the people of their right
and power to name their representatives.
Just as this power is acquired and main
tanned by rings and cliques in the govern
ment of people, either i'll federal or
state affairs, does state degrade and lose
its standing among states, and reduce and
limit the rights of the people in political
liberty.
God forbid that the state of Texas
should ever become the mere tool in tAe
hands of professional and political trick.
sters, and thereby be doomed to the dry
rot of political vassalage. The people
can prevent this. The power is in their
hands, and it only re luires its assertion
by the nomination of the very best and
ablest men in Texas to maintain and per.
petuate that power in their own hands.
The people rarely ever make mistake
They generally name the most repre-.
sentative men among them to make their
laws and maintain their dignity as a
state.
We need now in Texas, in the councils
of the state and the nation, the ablest and
most comprehensive minds of the state,
Ordinary men will not do. They are I'M
equal to the grasp of the questions that
press upon us. We need men thoroughly
yersed, not only in the history of govern