Montpelier examiner. [volume] (Montpelier, Idaho) 1895-1937, 1911-02-10

ulllNI.""llltI SAOOhCd OhCs IL 10 hhCAy lndb
M both the distance and your
rate Of speed may be vastly
IIltWIMa increased. Clouds there sail
NlLyGES1IIl serenely against the wind.
OY1ll The whip-poor-will delivers
K@M1lllIl its disconsolate cry with the
NUH(lINlill notes exactly reversed from
those of his northern broth
er. Given a drought and subsequent
lively rain, and 10! from glazed and
stony soil will spring in single night
blossomed lilies, miraculously fair.
Tom Green county was once the stand
ard OF measurement l have forgot
ten how many New Jerseys and Rhode
Islands 1t was that could have been
slowed away and lost In its chaparral.
But the legislative ak has slashed Tom
Green into a handful of counties hard
hy larger than European kingdoms. The
legislature convenes at Austin, near
the center of the state; and, while the
representative from the Rio Grande
country is gathering his palm-leaf fan
and his linen duster to set out for the
capital, the Panhandle solon winds his
mufier above his well-buttoned over
coat and kicks the snow from his well
creased boots ready for the same jour-
ney. All this merely to hint that the
big ex-republic of the southwest forms
a sizable star on the flag, and to pre-
pare for the corollary that things
sometimes happen there uncut to pat
tern and unfettered by metes and
bounds.
The commissioner of insurance, sta
tistics and history Of the state OF
Texas was aneofficial Of no very great
or very small Importance. The past
tense is used, for he Is commissioner
of insurance alone. Statistics and his
tory are no longer proper nouns In the
government records.
In the year 18S- the governor ap-
pointed Luke Coonrod Standifer to be
head of this department. Standifer
was then fifty-five years of age, and
Texan to the core. His father had been
one of the states earliest settlers and
pioneers. Standifer himself had served
the commonwealth as Indian fighter.
soldier, ranger and legislator. Much
ieayning he did not claim, but he had
drank pretty deep of the spring OF ex-
perience.
II other grounds were less abundant,
Texas should be well up In the lists OF
glory as the grateful republic. For
both as republic and state, 1t has bust
ly heaped honors and solid rewards
upon its sens who rescued It from the
wilderness.
AhAwnfnrO
sCoonrod Standifer, son of Ezra Standi-
fer, ex-Terry ranger. simon-pure Demo
-crat, and lucky dweller In an unrepre-
scented portion of the politico-geograph-
ical map, was appointed commissioner
of insurance, statistics and history.
Standifer accepted the honor with
some doubt as to the nature OF the OF
nee he was to fill and his capacity for
-fllling it-but he accepted, and by wire.
He Immediately set out from the little
country town where he maintained
(and was scarcely maintained by)
-somnoIent and unfruitful office of sur
veying and map-drawing. Before de-
parting, he had looked up under the
rs, SIS and HIS In the Encyclopaedia
BRITANNICA" what information and prep
aration toward his official duties that
those weighty volumes afforded.
A few weeks OF incumbency dimin-
ashed the new commissioners awe OF
the great and important office he had
been called upon to conduct. An In
creasing familiarity with its workings
soon restored him to his accustomed
placid course of life. In his office was
an old, specialized clerk-a consecra-
ted, informed, able machine, who held
his desk regardless of changes of ad-
ministrative heads. Old Kaufman in
Structed his new chief gradually In the
knowledge Of the department without
seeming to do SO. and kept the wheels
revolving without the slip Of cog.
Indeed, the department of insurance.
statistics and history carried no great
hoft Of the burden Of state. Its main
work was the regulating Of the busi-
ness done In the state by foreign In
Hurance companies. and the letter Of
khe law was TO guide. AS for statistics
well, you wrote letters to county Of
sicers, and scissored other peoples re-
ports, and each year you got out a re-
port OF your own about the corn crop
and the cotton crop and pecans and
pigs and black and white population,
and q great many columns Of figures
headed bushels and acres" and
square miles," etc.-and there you
were. History? The branch was pure
ly a receptive one. Old ladies' inter-
ested in the science bothered you
some with long reports OF proceedings
of their historical societies. Some
twenty or thirty people would write
you each year that they had secured
Sam Houston's pocket knife or Santa
Ana's whisky-fiask or Davy Crockett's
rifle all absolutely authenticated
and demanded legislative appropriation
70 purchase. Most of the work In the
history branch went into pigeon-holes.
One sizzling August afternoon the
commissioner reclined In his Office
chair, with his feet upon the long, Of
klcial table covered with green billiard
cloth The commissioner was smo-
king a cigar. and dreamily regarding
the quivering landscape framed by the
window that looked upon the treeless
capitol grounds. Perhaps he was think
ang Of the rough and ready life he had
BED, of the old days of GREATNESS adj