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against 79.6; Oklahoma 71.4, against
86.3. The average condition of the
entire cotton belt is 69.0, against 82.1
a year ago.
The season averages are nearly a
month late and many correspondents
refrain from Committing themselves to
close estimates until the crop has ad
vanced to further maturity. Much of
the seed has not yet sprouted, but
where stands have been obtained they
dre generally poor. In regard to the
condition the persistence of unfavor
able weather has discouraged planters,
a feeling which is refleced in the wide
distribution of reports describing the
outlook as the “worst in an expe
rience of 40 to 50 years.’ 5
THE FARMER NEGLECTED.
The absence of farmers in our law
making bodies has been frequently
commented upon during late years,
and it is being insisted that they
should be liberally represented, as
they furnish such a large proportion
of the citizens to be governed by the
laws made. It looks reasonable that
the farmer should know what is best
for him, and what is be§t for him is
undoubtedly best for the whole coun
try, everything being dependent upon
the agricultural classes. A gentleman
writing from Washington to one of
our Mississippi papers has the follow
ing to say anent the absence of farm
ers iii dur National law-making body:
“During my thirteen years’ resi
dence at the National Capitol, I have
observed that every interest in the
country is organized and represented
here, except the farmer. The farm
ers alone have Stood aloof from con
solidation and combination. I am
glad, however, that they are at last
realizing that if they are to secure
their rights in the nation and in the
states they must band themselves to
gether in a compact union, in order
to have their demands more speedily
recognized. Senators and represent a*
tives in Congress pay tribute to or
ganized labor, to organized capital
and to organized business interests of
all kinds, but, strange to say, the
farmer Ims few genuine defenders in
the legislative halls, national and
state.”
The statements made by the gentle
man are correct and furnish fo< d for
much thought and consideration. The
agricultural classes should be repre
sented according to their strength,
and careful watch kept with an eye
for legislation that is fair and right
to all parties concerned. Nothing of
a discriminating nature should be con’
tended for, but for “equal justice to
all and special privileges to none.”—
Mississippi Union Advocate.
Georgians aren’t very greatly in
love with the foreign immigration
idea. Georgia for Georgians isn’t
altogether a bad slogan. Still there
are some waste places in the state
that are in need of development and
it is altogether probable that wheth
er Georgians want it or not new peo
ple will come in to develop them. Im
migration is largely an economic mat
ter and settlers generally go where
they may naturall expect to ffnd op
portunities for creating something bv
industry and labor. We do not know
but that the effort to force immigra
tion into the south will work harm
The right sort of people generally go
where the right sort of inducements
are offered them. —Chattanooga Times.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
HOUSTON IN HIS OLD AGE.
(Continued from Page Three.)
because they loved the kind of a
fight Sam Houston was making.
His principal opponent was Sen
ator Wigfall, and it is related as
a fair example of Houston’s cam
paigning methods that after speak
ing in a town in Eastern Texas
where Wigfall was to reply to him he
said in concluding!
“I am teld there is a little fellow
by the name of Wigfall, or Some
such name, following me about and
trying to answer what I say. What
he tells you will be a pack of lies.”
This studied insolencb delighted
people who might have been disgusted
with it in anyone other than Houston.
It pleased them in him as a part of
the same picturesque egotism which
mtide him wear his Mexican blanket
into the senate chamber. And it is
not likely that anyone knew b'tter
than Houston himself just how far
he could go in such eccentricities'
without having them become unprof
itable.
Elected governor by a majority of
more than 33 per cent of the total
vote of the stale, HbuStoft was in
augurated in 1859, and in his first
message to the legislature he declared
that “Texas would maintain the con
stitution and stand by the union,”
but he mistook the meaning of his
victory. It was largely a demon
stration of the -personal affection felt
for him by the masses of the Tevas
people. It meant, too, that a major
ity of them were anxious to stay in
any union in which they were likely
to remain as comfortable ns they
thought they Were entitled to he. But
it hardly meant more than that. Such
unconditional union men as Hous
ton were in a minority, as were the
unconditional secessionists. The ma
jority were opportunists, waiting and
hoping that times would grow bet
ter and all the misfortune threat
ened by the slavery agitation would
be avoided.
• • •
After the election of Lincoln and
the secession of South Carolina,
Houston began to waver, as did near
ly all the other unconditional union
men in the south. Still he did not
surrender. He fought the secession
ists, tooth and nail, as long as he had
standing room.
At the sou|h, as at the north, it
was loudly asserted by the dema
gogues and braggarts of the day that
there would be no fighting worth men
tioning. Wherever Houston found
opportunity to face an audience o’s
secessionists, it gave him the greatest
satisfaction to beard them and tel’,
not only that they were inviting
a most tremendous fight, but. that
they were sure to be whipped. He
was Sam Houston of San Jacinto,
over 70 years old, of majestic stat
ure and with venerable gray hair
thrown back from his face—a heroic
figure truly as he bullied his oppon
ents in his last struggle with the in
evitable. And being nil this he could
say, as he well knew, what no ofhnr
man in the state would be allowed to
sav
He had not supported Lincoln in
♦ he least, and had rather opposed him.
but he was in communication with
Washington, and Mr. Lincoln had
great hopes of being able to hold Tex
as out of the confederacy through his
influence. Perhaps it might have been
done had the peace been kept, but
as soon as the people of Texas saw
there was to be fighting, there was no
holding them, and Houston himself
announced that he would go with his
state, no matter how far wrong, in
his judgment, it went.
It has not suited the convenience
of those who have written current
histories to recognize the strength of
this feeling in such men as Houston,
but until full justice is done them, as
they represent it, it will never be pos
sible to write a real history of their
time.
After Houston was deposed from
the governorship, illegally deposed, as
he d dared, and as no one will now
deny, some believed that he might be
induced to support the federal gov
ernment against Texas, and he was
offered a commission as major general
in the federal army, but if he .had
been offered a life tenure of the pres
idency itself fls the price of desert
ing Texas he could not have given
the offer a moment’s entertainment.
He had fought his fight for the union,
staking everything on it and making
no reservations. After that, when it
was a question of fighting for <>r
against Texas, he was for Texas, right
or wrong. And whether thi§ feeling
is right or wrong, it is the only real
patriotism there is. Anything short
of it is mere pinchbeck, the cheap and
worthless imitation of that quality in
which human selfishness;? approaches
most nearly to sublimity,
« • •
After he was deposed for refusing
to take the oath of allegiance to the
confederacy, Houston had the alter
native of submitting or bringing on
civil war in Texas. He submitted
without hesitation, but with the hone
fulness of the veteran politician who
never looks on any defeat as final.
On March 21 he started for the
statehouse, knowing that Clarke, the
new governor, was in possession. He
intended nothing more than to make
a final exhibition of his superioritv
to circumstances, and it must have
been a spectacle, indeed, to watch
his majestic display of lameness as he
walked toward the governor’s office,
now in control of the southern con
federacy. The confederates watched
him with keen and good-humored en
joyment, telling each other that the
old man’s San Jacinto wound had
broke out afresh and much worse
than usual.
After Virginia had been invaded
Houston tied on his San Jacinto sword
with the identical buckskin string he
had used for a belt in the Texas war
of independence, and went out to drill
the confederate company into which
he had sent young Sam Houston, but
he still bdieved the south was fight
ing a useless and hopeless fight. Af
terwards, however, when the fighting
grew hot and others began to despair,
the (’ld man’s Berserker mood camo
on him and he really thought, as did
so many others, that a single half
starved. barefooted and barebacked
confederate would somehow be able
to whip any half dozen of the best
fed andelothed troops in the world.
Houston lived and died a poor
man. Finding that he wa« too infirm
to fight for Texas and that his ca
reer in politics was over, he re*(red
to his log enbin to waif for death
In 1862 his physician announced that
it had come—that he had only a few
hours to live. He received the an
nouncement unmoved and had his
family and negro s summoned around
him. After giving detailed instruc
tions to be carried out by each of
them after his death, he read a Psalm
and gave out a hymn. His daughters
attempted to sing, but broke down,
sobbing. He then took it up himselt,
and, after singing it, sent all back t »
bed again. Then feeling himself duly
shriven, he waited to die in the odor
of sanctity.
The next morning he found him
self still alive, and as Mr. Hamilton
Stewart, who had been his guest, was
obliged to set out to Galveston, he
became the bearer of Houston’s fare
well message to his friends. “Bir
tell my enemies I am not dead yet,”
the veteran added, feeling some of
the old unsanctified fighting spirit
coming back in spite of the shrift.
Unwilling to surrender to. any en
emy, he fought death back in that
grapple, and lived to remind his op
litical enemies that his predictions of
the results of the war were being
realized. But his last words in a
speech delivered in March. 1863,
when he felt himself very near deaih,
were a declaration that the welfare’
and glory of Texas would always be
the thought uppermost in his mind as
long as he had a spark of life remain’
ing. That was true, and when he
died, July 26. 1863. Texas lost its
truest friend and the North Amer
ican continent one of its most heroic
characters. •
GOOD ADVICE.
By Benjamin Franklin.
“But. ah! think what you do’
when you run in debt; you give to
another power over your liberty.”
“The second vice is lying, the first
is running in debt.”
“But poverty often deprives a
man of all spirit and virtue; ’tie
hard for an empty bag to stand up
right.”
“Those have a short Lent, saith
Poor Richard, who owe money to be
paid at Easter. Then, since, as he
says, the borrower is a slave to th >
lender, and the debtor is to the cred
itor. disdain the chain, preserve your
freedom, and maintain your indepen
dency; be industrious and free; be
frugal and free.”
“If you know how to spend less
than you get. you have the philoso
pher’s stone.”
“Again, he that sells upon cred t
asks a price for what he sells equiv
alent to the principal and interest
of his money for the time he is like
to be kept out of it; therefore.
“He that buys upon credit pays
interest for what he buys.
“Yet. in buying goods, ’tis b’est to
pay ready money, because.
“He that sells upon credit exp ets
to lose 5 per cent by bad deb s;
therefore he charges on all he sells
upon credit an advance that shalll
make up that deficiency.
“Those who pay for what they
buy upon credit pay their share of
this advance.
“He that pays ready money es
capes. or may escape, that charge.”
“A penny sav’d is two pence
clear. A pin a day is a groat a year.
Save and have. Every little rnakeg a
mickle.”
PAGE SEVEN