The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1908-05-15
GOVERNOR COULDN'T TELL.

day celebrated its twenty-fifth ami
versary and as a feature printed
among other things, letters from
governors of large number of states
| telling what had been accomplished
in their respective commemorative
| during the past quarter of century.
| Among the governors who wrote
was Governor 7. NJ. Campbell of
Texas, and although he had more to
write about, greater degree of de-
yelopment, more striking progress
than the governor of any other
state, what he did write was very
little.
He was able to tell how railroad
building had increased in the state,
Office could furnish him that infor-
nation; how taxable values have in
creased to beyond the billion dollar
mark, because taxes are a matter of
state record how the ad valorem
rate has been reduced, because that
was one of the governors pet meas
ures; he was also able to tell that
Texas has become the leading rice
producing state of the union, while
twenty-five years ago not a grain of
rice was produced in the state; he
also declared that Texas is getting
to be a leading wheat producing
state.
And that was about all.
Governor Campbell is as we'll in
formed about Texas and it's resour-
ces as any average citizen, he knows
a great deal about the states devel-
! opment, but like everybody else in
| Texas who is asked for definite facts
| about it, he couldn't give them, be-
cause Texas department of statis-
tics is yet in it's infancy.
Who in Texas can say what this
| state has done in the last ten years.
to say nothing of twenty-five? Dur
ing the period since 1900, not hun
! dreds of thousands, but millions of
acres of Texas soil have been turned
to agricultural uses. At least twenty
five of the biggest ranches in the
history of the American cattle in
dustry have gone into the hands OF
the man with the breaking pillow
| Thousands of new settlers have come
in to live on them. Since 1900 al
least fifty Furnishing towns have
been started in one single section OF
the state, and these towns have pop
| ulations ranging from 500 to 5000
Since 1900 cotton has been intro
| duced west Of the Brazos and into a
| territory which produced in 1906
one-twelfth of the American cotton
crop.
Since 1900 the annual tide of cat
tie from the Texas plains to Kansas
City, st. Louis and Chicago have
been checked and diverted to Fort
Worth, and the state now has within
| its own borders packing plants which
eat up one-siXth of the states entire
cattle production annually
Practically since 1900 the great
! truck growing, fruit raising and
onion industries of Texas have been
built up into an immense source Of
revenue
Within the same period Galveston
has leaped into second position
among all the ports of America
| And these are only generalities.
The actual figures would be far
more striking, far more illuminating
| of the rate at which Texas is pro-
| crossing. The actual figures cannot
! be obtained until Texas has a de-
| partment of statistics with money
| enough to keep men in the field find
| ing out what Texas is doing and
| making record of it.
Today if we had the charted rec
ord of how far the ship of Texas
prosperity had sailed in the past
| quarter century, there would not be
| found in the state man rash
| enough to venture that the record
can be surpassed in the next twenty
five years, yet it may be exceeded
within the next ten.
! Governor Campbell knows the
need of more facts and fewer ad-
| jectives about Texas. and would like
! to see a department that can give
| real information to whomsoever may
| ask. 1t is up to the next legislature.
Fort Worth Telegram.