speecH4-^;%..: . • •• • • • • , • • OF HON. A. W. TERRELL, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE- OF TEXAS, JANUARY 21, 1884,. ON SENATE BILL No. 2, ENTITLED “AN ACT TO REOULATE THE GRAZING OF STOCK IN TEXAS, AND TO PRESCRIBE AND PROVIDE PENALTIES FOR ITS VIOLATION.” REPORTED BY THOS. H. WHELESS. AUSTIN: E. W. SWINDELLS, STATE PRINTER. 1884. 3 o o T 1 "/ 7.V I I mcvYood. SPEECH OF HON. A. W. TERRELL. The Senate being in Committee of the Whole on Senate Bill No. 2, entitled “ An act to regulate the grazing of stock in Texas, and to prescribe and pro- vide for enforcing penalties for its violation,” Senator Terrell said : Mr. Chairman: I do not know when I have felt more touched than I was ten minutes ago, when the distinguished divine, who officiated in the place of our Chaplain, prayed that we might be inspired with that dignity and modesty which become the law-givers of a great people. I say, sir, I do not know when I have been more touched, in view of the scenes of the last few days, which remind me of nothing so much in man’s history, as the fiddling of a Eoman Emperor when Rome was burning. I cannot respond in the spirit of badinage which has inspired this discussion, and which has characterzied the members of the opposition. With a'defective voice and an aching head, I shall have enough to do to address myself to the question, without attempting to tickle the ear of the groundlings by anecdote, or gratify myself by just retaliation on those who should know their duty, but are constrained by the madness of the hour to evade it. And first, sir, before discussing this bill, let me, in all fairness, get those who have been unable to understand my position, although I labored two long hours to make it understood, with simple, plain language, I say, let me get them out of the fog, that they may understand who it is that is impaled on the barbed wire fence. First, I am for removing provoking causes for lawlessness, and putting those who , are wrong doers in the penitentiary, if that be necessary to stop provocations. The man who encloses the land of his neighbor without his consent, and will not turn it loose, unless he conforms to the principles of the bill for fencing it up, put him in the penitentiary. Does this make me the champion for pasture .men ? If he will not give a road out of his pasture, if another owner occupies the interior land, put him in the penitentiary. Is that acting in the special interest of the big pasture man? If, having a pasture in which he can keep his stock, he does not conform to the principles of the bill for the use of outside grass, when he turns then out, put him in the penitentiary. Is that acting in the special interest of the big pasture man? On the other hand, if the man, from innate meanness or from perverted judgment, goaded, it may be, by what he conceives the grievances that have been inflicted p 2-C I 0 4 Speech of Senator Terrell. upon him, haa, Vifij^r to the cor- rection of each and every one, except the defective road law, which must be corrected by another act. EXTENT OF SCHOOL LAND. We have about thirty millions of acres of school land, nearly all of it in the Pan- handle, lying north of the thirty-first parallel of latitude, and west of the ninety- ninth degree of longitude, in fifty four unorganized counties. Every section of that school land has been surveyed. The public domain is all gone, and what was once public land now belongs to private parties, to corporations and to the children of Texas. These school lands are a sacred trust, held by the Legislature under the Con- stitution for the education of our youth, forever. Over all that domain in those fifty- four unorganized counties vast herds of cattle are grazing on mesquite grass, win- ter and summer, enriching a favored class in this country who enjoy that range free of charge. These school lands, leased at four cents per acre, would yield a revenue for free schools of twelve hundred thousand dollars slj ear \ enough, with other funds on hand, to school every child in Texas, white and black, eight month in the year, without taxing the producing classes one dollar. Corporations speculating in land, the great source of life, many of whose stockholders live in Scotland, France and England, rule with the sway of ; lords that vast domain ; gatherieg wealth without labor and without price, while we, the trustees of a territory for children yet un. born, stand idly by. Was I notright when I said only yesterday, that Texas, in turning over that country to the common use of cattle speculators, jhad made herself the champion communist of this continent? How can she punish the fence cutter for coveting his neighbor’s grass, so long as she encourages communism by refusing to punish corporations and individuals for trespassing on the pasturage owned by the children of this State? The authority of law is never felt in that Panhandle country, whiclv with unor- ganized counties southwest of it, covers a territory larger than New York. One corporation encloses seven hundred thousand acres, covering nearly three counties, and its five hundred stockholders are scattered in every city from St. Louis to Paris. CONDITION OF PANHANDLE COUNTRY. Go with me into that Panhandle country and explore its mysteries. There you will find a wire fence said to be one hundred and twenty miles long, running east and west, crossing school lands and the land -if private parties. It is a straight fence to catch drift cattle and connects with no other. North of it, men who own grass and those who own none, have divided of! lor their use the territory of Texas; and woe to the unlucky stranger who drives his herds to share with them the grass. Streams and dividing ridges form the arbitrar}^ boundaries of their usurped domin- ion. Lines of side-riders pass every day from north to south, and fence_and keep the 6 Speech of Senator Terrell. stock of each lord on the territory claimed by him. Vast pastures, without regard to ownership of land, now enclose counties. Passing from Mobetee to Tascosa, 130 miles, you are only out of a pasture for twenty-three miles of the distance The Kerr Land and Cattle company is said to have 70,000 head of cattle in a pasture, across which is a day’s journey. The Franklin Land and Cattle company is reputed to kave over 70,000 head in Gray and Hutchinson counties, while the Matidor Cattle company dominates with stock men and cattle the territory of Crosb}', Dickens and perhaps Moiley>counties. One firm alone, which purchased over twenty thousand head from tlie Millett Bros., and which is said to own two millions of dollars worth of cattle, has hardly enough land in Texas for their vast herds to be penned on. Fre»range men, who neither own nor lease land, occupy most of the land from the Sand Hills to the north, and from Red River to the Rio Grande, along the border, except that fenced in those immense pastures. Roaming over unorganized counties and along the border, from one water bole to another, they trample under their hoofs the grass around the humble home of the pioneer nester; and thus, away from law, where powder measuies right, there is no redress. When is this madness to cease ? and does not this w holesale use of school lands by associated capital, and its purchase by indirect agencies, call as loudly for an exe- cutive recommendation to correct it, as the evil of the statute not giving a lieu on an animal that goes into another man’s pasture, wdiich his Excellency thinks we should correct? Be patient, Senators; I am doing a sum for the farmers of this State, and if that stenographer will report my words, I will send it through the land. I am showing the evils that threaten social order before I answmr your objections to my remedy. In one county, three months ago, there was a pasture of two hundred and fifty thousand acres, built ou a cordon of sections owned by the pasture men. The fence w^as all on their land; but inside of that pasture there were over fifty thousand acres of land wdiich be’onged to private parties and to the school fund, not an acre of which was rented to them. Near that pasture ruus a stream of living water, up wiiich the hardy emigrants had pushed their way, and built their nests. From that pasture herds of cattle poured out during the summer to consume the grass around the humble homes, and tread to mortar the prairie where verdure grew, only to return to fine range, on the inside, during winter. Put your- self in the ncster’s place— unable to raise a milk cow or a beef on your owm land. You look over into the pasture of your neighbor and reflect that he has appropri- ated to his own use the school land dedicated to jmur child as well as his; and w'ould you not curse in bitterness of heart the partial laws that gave you no remedy? Wy friend, Senator Henderson, who lost an arm in the service of his countrj% is said to own a section of land inside of that pasture, w’hich he could neither rent nor sell to the usurpers. ROAMING STOCKMEN, Aloug the border counties now' organized, skirtiog the Panhandle, and in those below the sand hills, the same w'rong and oppression is found. Wandering, nomadic herdsmen range across dividing ridges from one stream to another, over their king- dom of free grass, consuming the range and starving the home stock of the small farmer— men wdio owm nothing Imt their stock, their herd horses, and side-arms. To some of these gentry, the wire fence, whether around the farmer’s pasture or a school section, is especially inconvenient; and among them are found warm dis- ciples of Mr, George — men wdio believe that laud ought to be free, and w'bowfliisper into the car of the nester that tlieir pastures alone cause all the trouble. I/nless this gentry is controlled by law, unless they arc made to cease their wandering ways and Speech op Senator Terrell. 7 buy or lease the grass on which they feed, there is no peace for Texas. The fenced- in water hole is in their way, and, with the help of the deluded settler, they make it the special object of their devilment. I see a man now in the lobby who will tell you that the corporations which own fat herds and no land are not the only depredators, for that, within one hundred miles of where I now stand, there are scores of men who own from 500 to 5000 cattle, who hardly own or lease enough land on which to round up their herds. These gentry are the same in all ages. Since the days when the herdsmen of Gerar strove with the herdsmen of Isaac ‘at the well — since the days when Jacob swindled his father-in-law Laban, by fixing his striped rods, the wand- ering herdsman has been gathering by craft and holding with the strong hand. Their habits are wild and unrestrained, and the custom of marking a calf without knowning the ownership of its mother will never improve your civilization. I know this class well, and for thirty years I have both tried and defended them. Faithful in friendship and vindictive in their hate, they will make your best citizens when you once stop their roaming. Until then they will sometimes practice the strange morality of seeing no wrong in desolating the range around the settler’s door, or hanging a horse-thief and branding an unknown calf as (some of them have done) on the same day. As long as they are let alone they will fix bounda- ries on free range between themselves in the Panhandle, even as Laban and Jacob did, and watch each other with the same suspicion that this same Jacob did his brother Esau, when, after a long absence, h» came to meet him— with four hundred horsemen — sending forward his presents of goats and cattle, but hiding in the rear Rachel and her tender-eyed sister, to both of whom he had taken a fancy. FREE GRASS THE GREAT CAUSE. Sir, free grass in Texas is at the bottom of all this lawlessness; against it this bill opens a war; against it, I put in motion a ball, which, whatever this Senate may do? will roll over those who stand in its way next November; for upon its progress depends, not only the advance, but the existence of civilization in Texas. Look at your condition. Last year 400, 000 cattle were under contract in January for the northern drive; this day not one hoof is bought, for there is not a bank in St. Louis, Chicago or any where else, that will advance a dollar to a Texas cattle man. Your banks at home will net advance for beyond 90 days, and then only on gilt- edge collaterals, while your landed values are depreciating twenty millions a month. Nobody wants your land, for a commune spirit demands that it shall be free — even when you fence it. The whole social fabric is honey-combed with communism, and nothing but a “heroic remedy ” will cure it; no wizard oil or healing plasters will restore confidence or protect property rights, for this is no skin disease; the sur- geon’s knife must go the hone, for the hip joint is affected, and the State has ceased to advance. Free grass, and the devilment that it breeds, is at the bottom of all this trouble. This lobby holds its free grass advocates, who say one thing in their cattle convention and another thing up here. But I see NO PARMER HERE, and hear nothing of their conventions in Austin; but when you refuse to pass my bill — when you increase their burdens in scliool taxes to fatten corporations and wandering herdsmen on school lands, you will hear from them at the numbering of the tribes in November. WHO SUPPORTS THIS STATE? In 1879 there were in Texas 200,000 farmers (I leave off odd figures); of agricultural 8 Speech of Senator Terrell. laborers there vrere 143,000, making in all, of those who till the earth, 343,000. Of stockmen and herders there were only 14,031, or about twenty-two farmers for one stockman. WHO OWNS THE LAND? The value of farms, fencing and buildings in Texas in 1879 w^as $170,468,866. The whole land values of the State was $216,954,000— leaving to corporations, pasture men and wild land owners of values but $46,468,060, while farmers paid taxes on fixed values amounting to over $170,000,000. WHO OWNS THE STOCK? The census report shows that the value of farm stock in 1880 was $60,307,000. The Comptroller’s report shows the whole value of cattle in the State in 1883 wai? $28,307,000. So the cattle values of our farmers who had to sustain their stock without school land grass were double that of the ranchmen. WHAT MORE? The value oi Texas farm products was, in 1879, according to the census, $65,204,000 We raised cotton that year worth 67,758,000 In all $132,962,000 Or, in other words, our farmers made from the sweat of their brows, in one year, in Texas fields, more than three times the value of all the ranch stock in the State. The farmer had some burdens. That year (1879) he spent in building fences $ 3,676,603 And he invested in agricultural implements 9,000,000^ Total $12,676,603 Vast as the products of our farmers were, the farmer and farm laborer averaged in wages and profits but tuenfy-jive dollars a month. [the AREA OF AVAILABLE PASTURAGE in Texas is 150,000,000 of acres, while the entire land area of the State is 167,735,- 000 acres. We have of cattle, mules and horses, according to the Comptroller’s report, about 6,000,000, or, as you see, about tw’enty-one acres of available pastur age to the head. FARMERS TAXED FOR FREE GRASS. Now, sir, these 343,000 farmers labor in the field to pay over a million dollars in taxes to educate the white and negro children in Texas, while 14,000 free-grass stock men are enriched without paying one dollar rent for the 30,000,000 acres of school land on which they graze. Such open handed plunder of farmers, encouraged and permitted by law, has never been witnessed since William the Conqueror divided out the English farms among the Norman barons. That school land, even at Speech of Senator Terrell. 9 four cents per acre, would bring $1,200,000 a year — enough to educate, with other available funds, without taxation, every child in Texas. I have seen the derisive smile when Senator Johnson, sometimes called Rutabaga Johnson,, the only farmer among us, would rise in his place and warn you that these school lands should b« made to yield a rental now^ that the farming classes might be relieved. Let me tell you, rude of speech as he is, in all that pertains to patriotism, he is the peer of any of you, and his unheeded warnings will yet pester us. You tell me that under existing law, these school lands will be leased ; but how and when ? At the present rate, under the law, it would take about sixty years, and your land board, which seems to make law instead of execute it, will be bound to lease to the best bidder, and not in limited quantities, which will increase the evil and place those lands, if ever leased, in the long purses of land corporations. Mark my prediction, when you have buried my bill, you will pass some high sounding measure that will give preference in leasing to the man who already has a school section in his pasture, as if priority in theft should invest him with superior rights, and you will putfthe lands to the highest bidder and enable concentrated capital to strangle competition. You know that there is not a constable or magistrate in the fifty -four counties of the Panhandle; and now, mark my prediction : If this bill is defeated you will make a penalty for grazing on school lands, and refuse to create any tribunals to enforce your law in that vast territory, covered all over with cattle. Lay not the flattering urction to your souls that this dodge of the free grazer will pass muster, or that ytur policy can be concealed. WHERE FENCE CUTTING STARTED. Sir, the weather prophet when he foretells a storm, first finds out from his signal- stations where the atmospheric pressure is greatest. Let us imitate his example and scan the political horizon. Close along the edge of the unorganized counties, north of us, this fence cutting mischief first started, for there the pressure was greatest. The farmer, making his twenty-five dollars a month, finds the range around his home destroyed by the wandering stockmen, who owned no grass. He is a nester,. but his little nest with his white-headed babes are as dear to him as yours can be to you. This country was made and has been defended by these same nesters. Look- ing across the bordei into the Panhandle, he discovered a new race of men springing up, who without labor were enriching themselves on unrented land, solemnly dedica- ted to educate the children of all. Yes, sir, a new breed of men who are called Kings — caitle lings. I told you about one of them the other day. Mr. Driskill, of my town, authorized me to say that, eleven years ago he owned 800 head of cattle, and now is worth $800,000, every dollar of which was made from cattle raised on public land, and that he never was even called on to pay one dol- lar of taxes. I told you that he was a good man, and not to be blamed, for the fault lay at our doors. Senator Davis wanted to know why he did not give some of it to the poor. Well, he gives by rule, just $5,000 a year to the poor; more money than that Senator ever made in one year by his practice or otherwise. This is not all; as the nester looks into that broad waste covered with mesquite grass, he sees the drift fence of th3 Matidor company, a corporation with its five hundred native and foreign stockholders, and knows that the grass that should educate his children is enriching men in foreign lands, while he must labor fortaxes to educate the children of all. He sees, under the operation of partial laws, a breed of pampered speculators enrir lied by the State, and the deep gulf between th^ rich and poor widening and deepening every day. No tide of emigration can ever invade those vast possessions usurped by corporations and individuals; for the stillness of death is upon the plains, 10 Speech of Senator Terrell. broken only by the lowing of the cattle, and all the land is partitioned by the arbi- trary boundaries set up by these modern Labans and Jacobs. No fence cutting in these plains, for these kings make their pastures safe by the free riders of the prairie, who are as experts with the pistol as with the lasso. Sir, this picture is not over- drawn, and even a fool can understand how a small farmer, goaded by his surround- ings, finds himself working at the nippers by the side of the free-grass herdsman, on the wire fence around the pasture of some rich neighbor, I have no excuse for him . there is no excuse for him who violates law. Along the line of the organized coun- ties of the border, the cloud first settled that threatened us, and it has spread uuti[ now, the deluded farmer is striking hands with the heidsmen over half the State in ; destroying property, never dreaming that he is applying the torch to the very frame- work of society. PRESSURE ON THE SENATE. Let US pause a moment to see also where tbe pressure that threatens to strand this bill comes from in the Senate. Cast your eye along the edge of the frontier from Red River to the Rio Grande, and you will find the Senator from Cooke (Senator Davis), the Senator from Dallas (Senator Gibbs), the Senator from Parker (Senator Shan- non), the Senator from Eastland (Senator Fleming), and the Senator from Bexar (Sen- ator Houston). In Gainesville, Weatherford, Dallas, and San Antonio, where these senators live, these cattle and land corporations who have divided up these 54 counties have their headquarters, and there many of the free grass kings live. These are the champions of the opposition, who see nothing wrong in the unorganized counties ; these are the speakers of the opposition, whose constituents are those who hold the purse strings for those 14,000 ranchmen. No Eastern Texas, no Central Texas Senator has opposed this bill in debate. Along that border are the two other Senators, Senator Matlock, from Montague, who represents over forty counties of the Panhandle, and who lives not at the headquarters of the corporations, but | in their dominions. Rising to the full height of a Texas Senator, he sees the danger of the hour, and by his fearless course on this bill gives assurance of further use- fulness. Further west is the Senator from Cameron (Senator Collins), himself the owner of a 40,000 acre pasture, which has never been cut, for he oppresses no neighbor, and who favors and reported this bill. These two stand on the frontier like rocks in the ocean, unshaken by the free-grass champions. The pressure on these border Senators in favor of land corporations becomes more apparent when I tell you that, since we met here one short year ago, when, on my mo- tion. we solemnly enacted that no land corporation should buy more than one school section in one county, the following charters have been granted, with headquarters of the corporations in the following towns in the districts of those Senators: Capital Stock. Headquarters. Palo Pinto Merino Co $ 100,000 Weatherford Mill Iron Cattle Co , 1,000,000 Gainesville Monro Cattle Co 500,000 Albany Ohio Wool Growing Co 100,000 San Antonio Mexico Cattle Co 500,000 Colorado Espuela Cattle Co 500,000 Fort Worth Llano Live Stock Co 400,000 Fort Worth North Concho Cattle Co 300,000. Colorado Alamo Cattle Co 600,000 Fort Worth Rio Grande Cattle Co 250,000 Colorado Gainesville Live Stock Publishing Co 10,000 Gainesville Colorado, Chicago and Texas Land Investment Co. . . . 3,500,000 Gainesville Stone, Cattle and Pasture Co 4,000,000 Gainesville 11 Speech of Senator Terrel^ Fort Worth Live Stock and Land Co Boston and Texas Land and Loan Co Texas Land and Live Stock Co . . Texas Investment Co Texas and Montana Cattle Co Indiana Live Stock Co Live Stock Protection Association Gainesville Land and Cattle Co S, R. E. Land and Cattle Co Horse Shoe Cattle Co West Texas Stock Yard and Refrigerating Co Fort Worth Stock Yards Liberty Cattle Co .. St. Louis Cattle Co ; Brazos Cattle Co Keystone Real Estate Association . San Antonio Live Stock and Land Co Jumbo Cattle Co Tahoka Cattle Co Texas Real Estate Association Capital SfocV*, , . 100,^0^ *. . . 200,bo//^ 50,00T*i.’ . 100 , 000 ..* . . 600,000.. . . 500,000.. 25,000... lll^dqu^iiS^s. Balias, .j^oft Wgfrtii ’^^att.w'Qttli. *.*.’.*]^allas Dallas 1,000,000 Gainesville 200.000 Fort Worth 100.000 Fort Worth 150.000 San Antonio 10.000 Fort Worth 100.000 Fort Worth 200.000 Colorado Fort Worth 50.000 Dallas 200.000 Coleman 300.000 Colorado 200.000 Fort Worth 100.000 Dallas Scan the surroundings of those Senators more closely, and what more do you discern? You were told through the press only yesterday, toat Senator Johnson was the only rich Senator, and all the rest of us were poor. Let us see. Senator Fleming told j’-ou yesterdry that he had 110,000 acres in pasture. He has 100,000 acres in one pasture and 10,0C0 in another. With such a load in his pockets, and goaded by the barbed wire of the situation, it is no wonder that he grew eloquent in favor of the wandering herdsmen outside of his domain; but it would have been wiser if he had remembered that the lawless depredations on school grass, which he now encourages, breed the commune spirit that will pester him ht-reafter. The Senator from Dallas also has his 5000 acres of enclosed pasturage, near Dap las, and by a strange coincidence his colleague in the other house wants to limit the size of pastures to just that amount. The Senator from Bell has a large pasture, on which the nippers have been at work, while the Senator from Montague’s pas ture was lately destroyed. Senator Traylor, when we failed to get a ratic nal road law through the other house, sold his large pasture, and casts his vote with no handicap weights. Now, sir, right here and, ii this connection let me fortify, by the h'story of our race, as it has passed through the centuries, the position that re- forms and increased punishment should go hand in hand. Civilization can not re- form by punishment alone ; therefore it is that my bill, while increasiiig the pun- ishment of the fence-cutter, undertakes to punish those who oppress him, for capital has its duties as well as its rights. •«•*** ROMAN PASTURES. Some Senators in Rome had their big pasture troubles once, just as these Sena- tors have to-day. That era was prolific in writers, so that its history, told by Froude, stands out as plain in detail as the Irish question of yesterday. In the early days of Rome, Spurius Cassius procured a law that the public domain of Italy, usurped by patricians, should be surrendered to the State for necessitous citizens. The law was resisted by the Roman Senate, and became a dead letter. The keeping of large fiocks upon the common pasture lands in the Campania excluded 12 Speech of Senator Terrell. the BmfljV/ar^aers^ffcm them. The law De^Modo Agri was then passed, that no one- Bhan^^’.p.hSSess^ p\6xe: than 330 acres of the public domain. Again the patricians frkjrjphed, aifdt«Vnthout repealing the law, it was disregarded; and Italy, with its ‘’^Vstur^e,*ttt 5 )oSs and forests, was parceled out for two centuries by patrician Sen- atorSk/, enfphct^t^at law, not to disturb vested rights, Tiberius, and afterwards ^•CaiuVGrac^hbs.lTest their lives. And then came upon the stage a wonderful man — •CtEsar^ tlife»cfe 4 >hew by marriage of Marius, who had seen the rights of the people •crpslf^(f»jinder the legions of Sulla, and bided his time. When he became Consul la:^£r. tracts were held on the usual easy terms by great landed Senators and patt-icians. These, Caesar, when Consul, proposed to buy out and settle on them Pompey’s veterans, who had just driven the pirates from the Mediterranean, and could find no land on which to lest. The public lands had been shared conveniently among the Senators, and they resisted him. Cato headed the opposition, while the Senate groaned and foamed even worse than these border Senators did yesterday. Csesar then went before the Temple of Castor and proposed his decree to the people. Pompey and Cassius were at his side. Caesar asked Pompey : “{Will you, Pompey, support the law if it be illegally opposed?” He replied: “If you, Con- sul, and you, my fellow-citizens, ask aid of me, a poor individual, without office and without authority, who, nevertheless, has dore the State some service, I say that I will bear the shield if others draw the sword.” A hundred thousand throats applauded the answer; the law was enacted by the people, who broke the rods of the Lictors. and scourged the Tribunes who had betrayed their trusts. And thus were 20,000 of Pompey’s battered veterans located on public lands, in one year, over Italy. Thus, concession to public necessity preserved the public peace» and perhaps avoided another Cataline conspiracy. REFORMS IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. Sir, whenever a republic has gone down, some land trouble, oppressing the poorer classes, first inflicted the wound. Louis of France and Navarre, in 1315 I believe it was, crystalized his power by enfranchising the farmers and lifting burthens from their necks in his celebrated decree, the first Magna CJiarta of France. Over five hundred years afterwards Mr. Gladstone found himself powerless, even with the great army of England at his back, to stop or punish the fence cutters of Ireland. That statesman, in the same breath which increased the punishment of the lawless- ness, coVrected real grivances by the land act of 1880, passed to aid the tenant to ob- tain an interest in The soil. In 1769, the same disturbing forces vexed unhappy Ire- land, when tenants were evicted in order to rent to large grazers at high rent. The White-Boys of that day destroyed the enclosures built for the cattle, and the moon- lighters and ribbon-men over there only yesterday, follow^ed in their wake, [Here the Senator had .«ent up to be read by the clerk, an extract from a work on the Irish Question, showing Mr. Gladstone’s policy to do justice to the Irish poor, vfhich we omit.] Senator Davis— Is he going to have that whole book read ? The President — The clerk will read as desired. Senator Terrell — Be patient. I’ll make you land corporation and free grass Sena- tors more anxious for me to cease than this, before I finish. GOVERNOR DOES NOT ASK MORE TROOPS. I call the attention of Senators to the fact that the Governor, in his message to you of the eighth of January, nowhere asks you to place an increased military force at his disposal. IIow’ could he? for only a few' days before, he had said that sending troops to catch a fence cutter w’ould be like the king of France marching an army Speech of Senator Terrell. 13 up a hill only to march it down again, for the “ fence cutter would be a fool to stay until the soldiers came.” If you follow him then, you have no use for troops, nor even for detectives, who, be seems to think, are opposed to the genius of our gov- ernment. THE governor’s MESSAGE, Many reforms suggested in his message I approve (if modified); and the pending bill is framed to meet them. I especially refer to that part of his message in which he says,“ I recommend alawgiviug a land-owner alien on stock that may trespass on lands with the knowledge or consent of the owner, and against the will of the land-owner, for all damages done by said stock, and value of grass and property destroyed by them.” This, in plain English language, seemed to be recommending a herd law stricter than we are prepared for, and nothing else. Two days later, when it was manifest that the stock convention would pronounce against a herd law, the Gov- ernor made a speech, Jin wuich he said, “The herd law has been referred to in your body as the herd law of the Executive, I have not snggested^such a thing. What I might conceive to be right, and what I referied to in my message was, the driving of stock on the enclosed lands of another.” So, at last it is made plain that the Governor has convened us to pass a law to give a land owner a lien on stock that are driven inside of pasture to eat grass, with the knowledge of the animal’s owner. This is a revelation; we are convened to pass a law to give a lien to the pasture man for pasture charges, a right which I believe the common law has secured with- outa statute, time out of mind, Bu*t, in that same speech to the stock men, he said, “Protect yourselves! Months ago I said through the press, that the remedy is in the hands of the people. For this, one of the State journals said that I w^anted them to take the law into their own hands. No, sir, but I do want to tell these officials to do their whole duty ; and if you catch a man setting fire to your barn and destroying your fences, if you catch him in the act and shoot him — well, I will make no pledge as to what I will do, if you will appeal to me in the matter.” What is this but a suggestion of executive pardon for murder ? Is this your remedy ? Encourage the doctrine that the fence owner must make himself judge, jury and executioner; let this doctrine g« forth, and the prairies will be dyed in blood from Red River to the Rio Grande. Murder will provoke or- ganized retaliation, and the red arm of butchery will be doing its work, instead of the peaceful methods of protecting laws. The genius of Constitutional Liberty, faint with wandering the plains, and scorched by the vertical rays of anarchy, beheld the Governor of Texas afar off, promising her shade and protection; she hastened, heated and fatigued, to his protecting arms; but when she heard from his lips this implied promise to pardon the murderer, she would not enter the cir- cumference of his shade, and she must now look for safety to the patriotism of the people. LAW NOT SECURE ON PEJ