Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-02-28

interest SO requires. institute actions
against alien owners of lands, and escheat
such lands TO the state under such con-
ditions as the state may see fit to impose.
This would leave our titles undisturbed,
and purchasers would not be required as
under the Hogg law, to investigate the
family history of his vendors in the
CHAIN OF TITLE
in order to ascertain If he had ever been a
stockholder in an alien corporation and to
keep void title from being imposed upon
him. Whether it be true or false I know
not but at any rate it has been published
by the Galveston and Dallas News that in
an interview with Governor Hogg at Cor
pus Christi last summer he attributed the
passage Of the alien land law to the rail-
road lobby, stating that the motive was to
bring disrepute upon the administration.
If such be the fact, felloT-citizens, the ad-
ministration was very easily gulled, far too
easily for the comfort of intelligent people
in the state who realize that their interests
are in the hands of such an administration.
If our governor is gullible, we ought to
swap him off, because Texans are a smart
people, and their governor ought to be
thoroughly representative in this respect.
We ought to select q map who cannot be
gulled either by a railroad lobby or any
other sort of inspiration. If the governor
had devoted less time to the study of multi
plying appointments BY three when only
one vacancy had to be filled, he might have
avoided this mistake, which in one line up
set the land titles Of the state and cast dis
grace and suspicion upon our people.
Another public feature of the present ad-
ministration is the
MANIFEST INsISCERITY
of its promises. Notwithstanding the
fierce war waged by the governor upon
the railroads and other investments of the
state during his canvass two years ago one
,la+ir
was that the people of Texas should invest
their school fund in the building of new
lines, presumably short lines. This did not
fail to strike the average citizen with won
derment at least. If the governor was to
be believed in his canvass, the railroads
have been engaged for many years in the
occupation of robbing the people, and it
was a matter for special alarm upon the
appearance of his message that he should
recommend the Investment of this
SACRED FUND WITH ROBBERS.
No one act was better calculated to dis
abuse the public mind of the impression
made upon it by the canvass than this sin
gle recommendation, because it was impos-
Sible to make people believe that the gov
ernor, if he was earnest in his canvass,
could have promulgated such recommends
ton. If the railroads of Texas had been
robbing the people, as was urged by him
self and his partisans, they were the last
people on earth to whom the school fund
should have been loaned. Upon seeing this
recommendation people began to look at
each other who before this time had never
doubted or wavered in the support of those
ideas which secured the election OF Gov
ernNr Hogg. They began for the first time
to reflect and to wonder whether in truth
and in fact the canvass was made upon
false pretenses, or whether, indeed, the
governor was really in earnest in his recon-
10.
telligence of the state that new lines Of
railroad never pay at first. 1t was also
well known that short lines operated under
independent management are incapable of
profit 1t was equally well known that
there was no more insecure investment
THAN LoANING MONEY
to the railroads of Texas. The state had
its experience with such investments many
years before, and the records of the comp
troller and treasury departments contained
the information that hundreds of thousands
of dollars had been lost by such perilous in
VeStment. And yet the governor, who was
waited into Office solely because Of his hos
Utility to railroads and railroad investments,
did not hesitate, as one of his first official
acts, to gravely recommend to the legis-
lature that these public robbers should be
tine custodians of the public fund set apart
by the fathers of the republic for the edu-
cation of their children This was proof
sufficient to any intelligent mind that the
campaign had been made upon a false
basis; and no wonder that it received the
disapprobation of the people of Texas. But
there has been another play which is
equally insincere and equally transparent,
and that is the laudatiOus of the governor
by his peculiar partiSanS because of his
execution of the laws. This cry is well
CALCULATED TO ALARM
every Democratic mind, because it implies
~ =
with vigilance and dispatch it is requisite
that there be some central authority sitting
in our capitol charged with this high duty.
This was the idea which obtained with
Edmond j. Davis, and the heresy was par
donable in him, because he never claimed
to be Democrat. His mind was thor
oughly Republican, possessing little or no
confidence in the people, and with the be-
lief grounded in his very nature that they
required some central authority vested
with power TO execute their laws. But
such au idea is objectionable in Democrat.
According to Democratic teachings it is
current belief that the people themselves
are not only ca pable of executing their own
laws in their respective localities, but that
ANY OTHER SYSTEM
of government is tyrrany. The idea pre-
yailing among those OF Democratic faith is
that when the people themselves by reason
Of a want of intelligence or an absence of
moral virtue are unwilling or unable to ex-
cute their own laws in their own domestic
tribunals, the end of republican govern
ment is near. If the people of Texas must
rely upon governor to execute the laws of
the state their reliance is upon broken
stick, for the governor has less power in
this direction than any constable of any
precinct in the state of Texas. l am aware
that there is provision of the constitution
which requires that the governor shall
cause the laws to be faithfully executed.
The meaning of which provision to those
who view IL from a Democratic standpoint
is that the governor shall take care that
there shall be no obstruction to the
faithful administration of the law by the
people themselves. The meaning of this
provision is that if the execution of your
laws is7obstructed
BIZ AN ARMED MOB
which terroriZes the civil authorities, it is
the duty of the governor, upon application
Of such authorities, to furnish the military
arm or such other force as may be neces-
sary for the emergency in order to remove
the obstruction and allow the people to pro-
coed with the execution of the law. 1t also
has other meanings, one of which I may re-
fer to- and that is in case of q vacancy in
certain offices charged with the administra-
ton of the law, it is the duty of the gov
eruor not to allow such vacancy to continue
for any undue length of time, because
thereby the execution of the laws would be
paralyzed.
And so the constitution steps in, and
when it commands him to see that the laws
are faithfully executed, it means that he