Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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