Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-08-02
LONE STAR GREATNESS.
The PlethOric Treasury and the Gran
Capital of the State of Texas.

| IONE - An 1hCA NGSS.
| The PlethOric Treasury and the Grand
Capital of the State of Texas.
No man can travel through this great
| Lone Star State, as | have often done,
| without being impressed with its mag
nitude and present wealth and over
awed at its prospective Importance.
We get but vague idea of its size
when We are told that its area is 294,-
600 square miles. 1t helps Us to think
of it as forty-one times as large as the
State of Rhode Island, six times as
large as the State of New York, and
that it might have lake in the center
of it so large that if the whole of
France were anchored in the middle of
this lake it could not be seen from the
Texas shore.
Governor Ross gave me a few facts
about the finances of the State that
comport with its magnitude. Its
bonded Indebtedness, mostly held in
the State, in round numbers, is ST.
100000. Like Uncle Sam, it is troubled
with a surplus that it don't know what
to do with. 1t has in the general State
Treasury a surplus of over $2,O00,O00.
Its school fund has a surplus of over
SIG, 200, 900, more than half loaned out
on county and railroad bonds, and
they are seeking an investment for the
balance.
The farmers to whom the State has
been selling its lands on forty years
time, with only per cent. interest. in
the hope that they would be very dill
atory about paying the principal, are
piling in the money to the Overbur
dened State Treasurer. The counties
are doing the same. To add to its
misery the State has 80, 900, 900 acres of
land yet to sell, which are bringing
every year higher and higher prices.
Poor Texas, Let every nation and in
is signing '.for lack of dollar or two"
drop tear over the lofty loneliness of
this melancholy State.
The first State House of Texas was
simply double log cabin. Then came
two or three larger ones, one after the
other. But such was the obesity of the
body polite that in 1875 a State Con-
vention offered anybody three million
acres of land up in the Pan Handle that
would build them real big State
House. These lands then were not sup
posed to be worth more than fifty cents
an acre. Governor Ross told me that
under General Houston he commanded
the frontier when he was nineteen
years old. and was all over these lands,
then in a particularly dry time. He
says he has to confess with shame that,
as member of that convention, he told
them how barren these lands were, and
that he wouldn't accept them as a gra-
cious gift. Well, in five or six years
three men from Chicago came along
that were fools enough to take up the
offer they said they would build them
big. fine State House for those worth
less lands. These men were John V.
Farwell. his brother Charles B. Far
well, now United States Senator from
Illinois, and d little man called Abner
Taylor. Work was begun in 1884. and,
to help along, some quarrymen in Bel
ton gave all the red granite for the
building, and the State sent its convicts
to quarry it. Now the State has the
largest State capitol in the Union, if
not the finest. and second in size only
to the capitol at Washington. 1t is So
feet long. 2S7 feet wide. and its height,
from base line 10 the silver star in the
hand OF the goddess of Liberty sur
mounting the dome. is 81 feet-four
feet higher than tie national goddess
at Washington. 1t is grand, elaborate
and massive in its exterior, and its 256
interior apartments are light, airy. ele-
giant, magnificent. | have been all
through it to-day. and | don't wonder
that Texans are tickled with it. Gov
ernor Ross tells me It cost the Chicago
syndicate 81, SOC, 000 in cash. And what
have they got to show for the pin money
they have spent? A little farm that it
takes $50 miles of fencing to surround,
to say nothing of cross fences, watered,
where lakes, rivers and springs are
lacking, by flowing artesian wells only
$50 feet deep-wOrth. says Governor
Ross, $4,000, 000.-C. ". Cady, in 1t
ldntd Constitution.