THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. 
LAND: 

ITS INDIVIDUAL OWNERSHIP AND CULTURE, THE SUREST SAFEGUARD OF FREE GOVERNMENT. 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I return thanks to the Honorable Board of Regents and the President and Professors of this University for the kind invitation under which I speak. My theme is ''Land-its individual ownership and culture, the surest safeguard of free government." The fact that a majority of over eight hundred students who are being instructed in the University of Texas have come from rural homes, is a hopeful sign, and shows that the necessity for higher education is appreciated by those on whom the State must cihiefly depend for the support of free government. 
GENERAL SAM HOUSTON. 
Forty-two years ago I listened to the first speech ever made on thi1t University Hill. The speaker was General Sam Houston. He spoke un­der the shelter of forest trees on the spot now occupied by this building, and to an audience largely composed of the frontier rangers who had aided to establish independence. He urged that the lands which had been won by American valor, should be kept as a heritage for that race which, above all others, best understood how to win and prese:rve free in­stitutions. Even then, he apprehended civil war, which he deprecated with fervent eloquence. Much that he predicted has passed into !history. It was my good fortune when a young man to know the illustrious speaker, and to have enjoyed his friendship. He died during our civil war, with the firm conviction that domestic slavery would be abolished, and that the Union would be preserved; but th31t following the restora­tion of peace, dangerous political and economic problems would be evolved by the influx of foreign immigrants, the displacement of our labor syetem, and the centralization of power incident to tl:i.e war, the solution of which no man could foresee. 
Locke declared that t'he proper calling of a genilleman was the service 
of his country, and that he should study those thingl'! which treat of 
virtue, the vices of civil society, and the arts o:f government. The ex­
perience of our raee through many centuries does not encourage strong faith that any form of civil government will long endure. Monarchy, oligarchy, aristocracy, despotism, and democracy, have all been tried, and each, after a time, has disappeared before the aspirations, the ambitions, or the meanness of men. When the change has been effected through domestic violence, some land or labor problem was generally its cause. 
Under our complex system of government, a wide domain is reserved, within which the State may act unrestricted in the administration of jus­tice, the diffusion of knowledge, the fostering of individualism, and the encouragement of those industries best suited to promote the happiness of the people. Upon the wise exercise of these powers must depend the stability of the State. It must, therefore, deeply concern those who are here preparing for the high duties of citizenship, that they understand the dangers 'that menace our industrial and political future, and the lines of industry on which our State will most surely advance. 
PROGRESS OF CIVIMZATION IN TEXAS. 
A brief review of the progress of Anglo-American civilization in Texas, and the importance attached to the individual ownership of land by the revolutionists of 1836, is germane to my subject, and will aid in its illus­tration. There were few civilized men within the territory of Texas from 1685, when La Salle landed at Matagorda Bay, until 1822. A very few lived at widely separated military presidios and in Oatholic missions, where good priests attempted the conversion of the Indian. The first peaceful Anglo-American settlers came under the Empresario enter­prise of Austin in 1822, chiefly from Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ten­
ne:;:see, and J.JOui':iana. Each of them had learned the lessons of self­
reliance in the wilderness, and they ea;ch came seeking individual domain 
over land and home. 
SPANISH POLICY TO EXCLUDE IMMIGRANTS. 
Fer one hundred and twenty-eight years, the right to the territory of Texas was controverted between France and Spain. From the period when Louisiana was ceded to Spain by France in 1762 to its retrocession by the treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800, no progress was made in coloniz­ing Texas. From 1762 until 1822, it was the settled policy of Spain and her viceroys in Mexico to keep 'rexas an uninhabited wilderness-a buffer State or hinterland between Anglo-American and Latin civilizations. This feelmg was intensified by the fact that from 1803 to the treaty of De Onis in 1819, the United States also claimed the territory o-f Texas. The treaty of De Onis settled the controversy by making the Sabine River the boundary. I once saw at Monterey, Mexico, the record of a report made by an emissary of Salcedo, the governor of the Mexican in­ternal provinces of the East, who had been sent to visit the American settlements bordering the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. He warned Salcedo of what he termed "the aggressive spirit of the Americans of the North," and then Salcedo wrote to the viceroy that if he had the power he would not permit a bird to fly from the Sabine to the Rio Grande. He wisely feared the land-loving spirit of the Anglo-American, who it must be confessed has not always been over-scrupulous about the means of acquiring new lands, but whose conquests have always carried a higher civilization with them. 
From the day w'hen the policy of excluding alien immigration to Texas was abandoned by Spain, Latin civilization within its borders was doomed. T'he history of heroic achievement presents no parallel to the self-denial and daring displayed by the colonists, who came under the promise of Mexico that each should receive a title to land and home. At no time did they number more than six thousand fighting men, and yet they sustained a successful struggle for ten years against a govern­ment having a population of eight millions, capturing their President and a:t the same time protecting their settlements against hostile Indians. We should never forget that the independence of the Republic of Texas 
was secured by her own people without government aid from any other 
power, and that it was recognized by the great nations of the earth. With­
in sight of this spot can still be seen the house erected here in Austin by 
the French monarch for the residence of his minister to the young Re­
public. 
.ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
I digress to observe that the curious student who imagines that treaties have any other sanction than force for their observance, will find his il­lusion dispelled when he discovers that the treaty of San Ildefonso, and every ·treaty transferring dominion over Texas, including the treaty of annexation to the United Sialtes, secured in terms to the inhabitants the peaceful ownership of their lands and slaves. The destruction of slavery was decreed by God, and though sectional folly prostituted the ballot by conferring it too soon on emancipated ignorance, no intelligent Southern man would now restore the institution. 
FREE HOM.ES .A.ND THE REVOLUTION. 
Security in the individual ownership of land, and the enjoyment of its uses, free from military or church control, were the great factors in pre­cipitating the TexM Revolution of 1836. On the 3rd of November, 1835, fifty-four delegates of the people met in the town ()f San Felipe for con­sultation, in a rude cabin, scarcely large enough to accoII1.II1.odate them, and there proclaimed a provisional g<>Vernment. T·hey did not then announce their independence, but protested against Mexican centraliza­tion of power. They proceeded to organize an army, and being destitute of credit, offered to every soldier one mile square, or 640 acres of land. Among their fir;;t acts was to order all land commissioners, empresarios, and surveyors to cease their operations in locating land until tranquility was restored, and they then solemnly proclaimed that large grants of land made by the governments of the States of Coahuila and Texas were null and void. 'l'he Mexican general, Cos, having been captured in San Antonio, with his army of fourteen hundred men, by four hundred Texas frontien1men, armed -0nly with hunting rifles, the deputies of the people again assembled at Washington on the Braz-0s, where they f-0rmally pro­claimed their independence, after reciting their griev,ances. Never did a convention meet under more desperate surroundings. At that very time Travis and Bowie were holding in check, with a forlorn hope, the armed strength of Mexico, to be immolated at the Alamo, four days after the convention met, no one surviving, but after slaying four times their own number. The convention knew their danger, and knew thrut even then their women and children were :fleeing from the Guadalupe to the Colorado, protected only by the skeleton of a retreating army, under Houston, whieh was destitute of artillery, and with no other ordnance stores than their powder-horns and rifles. At night the fugitives could see the conflagration of their abandoned homes, fired by a ruthless enemy. Thus situated, the convention, in declaring their independence, an­nounced to the world that they were offered the cruel aliernative of abandoning their homes and lands, acquired by many privations, or sub­mitting to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood. 
OONSTITUTI@N .A.ND LA.ND OWNERSHIP. 
While Santa Anna was burning the homes of the people, the constitu­tion was, on the 1 'l'th of March, 1836, signed and promulgated. After wisely balancing the authority of public servants in the distribution of power, so as to secure the general welfare and the administration of 
justice, that constitution declared that no alien should hold land except under title emanating direct from the government, and that every man in the Republic should have fifteen hundred acres of land, whic>h should be forfeited if he left the country to avoid the conflict. They solemnly forbade all new eontracts for colonizing Texas by bestOwing land on any company for that purpose, and forbade legislative relief to existing com­panies. They ordered that the land office should be closed until peace was restored, and denounced as fraudulent a large land grant made by the former government to one General John S. Mason, of New York, in 1834. They also declared null and void a!ll locations of land and titles thereto made for speculation during the five preceding months, when the people of Texas were absent from home, serving under Austin, Frank Johnson, 
and Burleson, in the campaign against Cos. All this was announced while their homes were burning. 
REVOLUTION FOR LAND AND HOMES. 
It sounds more like fiction than history, when it is told that less than six thousand men challenged to the arbitrament of arms a republic con­taining eight millions of people, not only to secure their homes and title to lands, with the right to bear arms to defend them, but to prevent the monopoly of vacant lands by foreign speculators. Their constitution bristles all over with individualism. They had neither silver nor gold, and yet they proclaimed that nothing but silver and gold should be a legal payment for debt. They were destitute of monied corporations, and yet they declared that no power but that of congress should grant a charter of incorporation for any purpose. Their homes were frontier cabins, yet they proclaimed their inviolability, even without title; and that the land once occupied by an actual settler should be secured to him for individual ownership. While guarding against land monopoly, they denounced all others, and in prohibiting perpetuities, they declared that no law of primogeniture or entailment should ever be enacted. Neither plutocracy nor paternalism in government had any place in their vocabulary. 
ANGLO-AMERICAN MEN. 
Such a constitution, made under Sll{!h circumstances, was possible with only one race of men on this globe. Of the fifty-four signers to the plan of the Provisional Government in 1835, and the fifty-seven signers of the constitution of 1836, every man was an Anglo-American, except the two Mexican patriots, Zavala and Navarro. They designated themselves as Anglo-Americans in their declaration of independence. Any other race of men would first have settled rival claims to leadership, and, perhaps, 
fought among themselves in determining who should be king or dictator. 
Those men first made an organic law to secure the rights of person and 
property, and made that law their sovereign. 
The bad and indolent, even of our own race, were expressly excluded 
by the terms of the colonization contracts, under which Texas was set­
tled; for the law that permitted immigration required the strictest proof 
of each immigrant in the country from which he came that he was both 
moral and industrious. The men who emigrated from the United States, 
whose characters brought reproach on Texas men, were not among those 
who achieved her independence, but the camp-followers, who came about 
1842, when independence was secure. Forty-seven years ago, when I first 
located in Texas, very many of Austin's colonists were living here at the 
capital and around it. A manlier and more self-reliant and upright class 
of men I never knew, and the records of the courts will be searched in 
vain t o find that any one of them was ever indicted for a degrading crime. 
CULTURE AMONGST THE TEXAS REVOLUTIONISTS. 
Nor were the men of the young Republic lacking in culture. Their constitution and laws attest their learning. Rusk and Houston, Austin, Lamar, Henderson and Jack, Navarro, Potter, Pease, Robertson, Burnet, and still others, would compare well with the able men who made the Federal Constitution. 
In 1859, I charged a grand jury in Guadalupe County, of sixteen men, twelve of whom were graduates of some college or university. Every member of that grand jury lived on his own farm, ranch, or plantation; for then the ownership of land was among the chief aspirations of all our citizens, and its intelligent culture the sure guaranty of independ­ence. 
Tl<~XAS WOULD NOT PURCHASE PEACE WITH LAND. 
During the contest with Mexico, the Republic did not falter in its fixed purpose never to yield one .acre of land as the price of peace. The inter­vention of England, on whose immense debt against Mexico interest re­mained unpaid, could have been secured by the Minister of Texas to her court at any time. Autonomy under England's protection would have secured peace. Though her sovereignty over our land was temptingly suggested by Lord Palmerston to our Minister, General Hamilton, it was not for a moment entertained. 
.JEALOUSY OF CORPORATIONS. 
Those sturdy builders of free government also guarded with special care against the creation of abnormal wealth by refusing to grant special priv­ileges to peddle behind corporate masks in the daily avocations of men; and during the ten years' struggle with Mexico they made no general law for corporations. But one charter was granted during that time which conferred a special privilege on a corporation to carry cm an industry which the natural man could manage without State aid. During the first two sessions of Congress, covering a period of four years, but eight charters were granted by the Republic; three of which were for education, four for municipal government, and one for navigation and banking, the last in consideration of $25,000, which was never paid oil account of the public indignation excited by its speculative features. 
HOMESTEAD EXEMPTIONS. 
They resolved to secure individual dominion over the home lands 
which their valor had won, and responding to the general demand, Con­
gress exempted from forced sale, at the suit of a creditor, the homestead 
of the ·family, with all implements and tools necessary to its enjoyment 
and use. When afterwards, in 1845, Texas, by a treaty, as a co-equal 
sovereign, entered the Union, her constitution exempted two hundred 
acres of urban land on which the family lived from forced sale at the suit 
of any creditor, and even the husband could not sell wifuout the wife's 
consent. 
The policy of protecting the home against creditors had prevailed 
among the followers of Mahomet for centuries, and helped to make them 
invincible in battle, but never until Texas led the way was it adopted by 
any Christian State. It was a new birth for individualism. It was the 
Babe in the Manger, while Idolatry was on the throne. The example 
was quickly followed by sister States, and now it has nearly made the 
grand circuit of the Union. The shelter under which the family gov­
ernment-the first and most important to man-is administered; the 
castle that shields innocent childhood from the storm; the land on which 
wife and children may toil when the strong arm on which they once 
leaned has crumbled to dust, is thus protected forever, for it is theirs 
against all invaders-its ownership guaranteed by the sovereign power of 
Texas. In this shield, which secures permanent dominion over the home, 
we discover the highest guarantee for the defense of the State against all 
dangers, whether foreign or d(}mestic. By what right can the State ex­
pect the homeless wanderer, who has acquired no foot of land, and who can not find even a burial place outside of the pauper's field, to peril life in her defense? But once identify his aspirations, his interests and his hopes with land and home by the strong bonds of individual ownership; let him feel that they are his against invasion, either by tlre plutocrat or the mob, while alive, and will furnish both food and raiment to his wife and little ones, if he should fall, and the fires of paitriotism will blaze at the very thought, and nerve his arm for their defense. 
CONSERVATISM: OF AGRICULTURE. 
The farm is the nursery of conservatism. The agriculturist, dependent alone upon his own labor and the favor of a benignant Prcviden(!e for support, is never a mendiC'"dilt for State aid, and is generally found an ad­vocate of the doctrine of "equal rights to all, exclusive privileges to none." Sunshine and rain bless his labor, and are the faotors of his prosperity. On these, neither corporations nor trusts, which tend to as­sassinate individualism, can impose their fetters. His capacity to pre­serve social order without the aid of law, was never more forcibly shown than during the few months that elapsed between the surrender of the Confederate Army and the occupation of Texas by the civil and military authorities of the Union. No civil or military government then ~xisted in the interior of the State for three months, and never was social order more perfect than then, in the absence of all government. 
TEXAS REFUSED TO CEDE LAND ON ANNEXATI-ON. 
When, on the fourth of ,Tuly, 1815, the Republic of Texas formally gave her consent to the treaty which made her one of the United States, though she transferred her harbors, navy and forts, she expressly reserved for herself the ownership of her public lands, and stipulated that no new State should be cal'Ved out of her territory without her consent.. History had instructed her statesmen how unstable are all 1human institutions, and they wished a State for their posterity, strong enough to take care of itself. Her Minil:lter informed the State Department at Washington, as the British Premier had been informed, that Texas would never part with one acre of her lands as the price of alliance with any power, but would rather prefer to continue ~ingle-handed her contest with Mexico. The Texas constitution of August 27, 1845, made after the treaty of an­nexation, was submitted to a vote of the people, and at the ·same time one ordinance, and but one ordinance, was voted on. That ordinance condemned contracts made by a president of the Republic which granted land for colonization purposes, and declared tha•t the citizen soldiery have a prior subsistmg right to appropriate that land. It protected every ac­tual settler who had established a home under his contract, but ordered suits against the speculating contractors to cancel their con­tracts, and prohibited legislative relief for them. That ordinance was adopted by an almost unanimous vote. 
GERMAN IMMIGRATION. 
A more liberal policy was pursued toward the German Emigration Company, which was composed of about forty German officers, noblemen and gentlemen, who introduced a self-sustaining colony, which beoame prosperous and independent as cultivators of the soil. Some of their leaders were men of refinement and culture, who were followed by others from the universities, who had participated in the German revolutionary agitation in 1848, and who sought the congenial atmosphere of free institutions. Our experience in Texas has demonstrated that when im­migrants from the north of Europe devote themselves to the cultivation of land, they readily assimilate with our people, and become a conserva­tive element of strength, instead of danger. This is not so with those who seek the city. 
THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND EDUCATION. 
The success of the revolution secured to Texas 233,604,000 acres of land, which is blessed with a climate in which bhe delightful coolness of each night invigorates the body for the la:bors of anoifuer day. If the grandeur of legislative enactments should be measured by their results, surely nothing in ancient or modern times can compare with the magnifi­cence of the gift which Texas revolutionists made, when, fresh from bat­tle, they dedicated one-half of that great public domain to the education of youth. That England which William of Normandy parcelled out to his barons did not equal it in magnitude. Texas has appropriated that land with impartial hand to educate her children, and the children of our former slaves. Over four millions of acres were given also in addition to the counties, for common schools, and nearly two and one-half millions for the University. The three millions which were appropriated to con­struct tht State Capitol, are located north of the sand hills, and are pas­toral lands. 
AGRICULTURE AND TEXAS DEVELOPMENT. 
The progress of Texas in material development during the 34 years that have elapsed since the close of the civil war, has been as marvelous as her revolutionary birth, and it is the outgrowth of our industry on the farm and in the pasture, for we have concentrated no great wealth in large cities, or by commerce or manuiactories. After the close of our civil war in 1865, our taxable values were reduced in 1867 by the aboli­tion of slavery to $170,000,000. Land and the indomitable energy of an impoverished people were alone left to them. Prostmted upon the lap of Mother Earth, Antaeus like, they rose with renewed vigor from her embrace. Behold how well they have wrestled with adversity. In 1890, the true valuation of our taxable values was nearly fourteen hundred 
millions of dollars, eleven hundred millions of which represents our land and improvements, the products of which, in one year, amounted in the aggregate to over $300,000,000. The mendicant is rarely seen in Texas towns, and he is never seen among our rural homes, where plenty abounds everywhere, and where great accumulations of individual wealth are unknown. The census of 1890 shows that seventy per cent of all farms throughout the Union were free from debt and unincumbered. 
DIGNITY OF AGRICULTURE IN 1776 AND 1836. 
In 1776, ninety-seven out of every hundred of our revolutionary ancestors lived on farms, and but three per cent had their homes in towns. During the Texas revolution about the same proportion had rural homes. In 1850, only fifty per cent, and in 1890, less than forty per cent of the people of the United States cultivated the soil. The farm was the birth­place and favorite home of eleven of our presidents during the first fifty years of our national life, beginning with Washington and ending with Mr. Polk. Each desired, like Cicero, after an eventful career, to return to the delights of rural life. Then the great ambition of the professional man, and the merchant as well, was to purchase land and occupy a farm when he retired from business. All this is changed, and the great papers of the city now caricature the farmer as ignorant, rude and unkempt. Thirty years ago the public taste, even in cities, had n<>t been prostituted by what is termed refined society, to appreciate such depraved pleasantry, and the journal indulging in it would have been soon without sub­scribers. 
JEFFERSON ON AGRICULTURE. 
Thomas Jefferson, from his Poplar Grove farm, wrote the following memorable words in 1781: "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose hearts He has made his peculiar deposit for genuine and substantial virtue. It is the focus in which He has kept alive that saered fire which otherwise might escape from the earth. Corruption in morals in the mass of culti­vators of earth is a phenomenon of which no nation nor age can furnish an example. It is the mark set on those, who, noc looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their sub­sistence, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Gen­erally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of other classes of cit­izens in any state bears to that of the husbandman, is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and a good enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue and prepares fit tools for the de­signs of ambition. The mobs of great cities add just as much to the sup­port of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body." 
So spoke the author of the American declaration of independence. I make no apology for this lengthy extract. 
Land, the great source and support of life, and self-reliant manhood, must be preserved for the individual ownership and cultivation of men­its owners guarded against all combinations of capital; and those who .cultivate it educated to understand and assert the true dignity of agricul­ture in the scale of employments, or our scheme of republican govern­ment will fail. 
TEACHING OF HISTORY. 
If we can not be guided by reason, let us heed the warnings of history, before luxury and fashion have destroyed us. The most prosperous era for the Roman people was in the early days of the Republic, when, dur­ing peaice, agriculture was the chief employment. Saturn, the patron deity of the farmer, was worshipped in the treasury, where an altar was erected to symbolize their dependence on agriculture. Long after­ward, discontent began, when not only Campania, around Rome, but all Italy was appropriated by rich patricians, in disregard of the law de modo agri. Thousands of scarred veterans, who, with Pompey, had swept the pirates from the Mediterranean, were in the streets of Rome, and could find no work. They threatened social order. Caesar settled them on public land, wrongfully appropriated by the patrician class, and order was restored. It was at that very time when Cicero said that he was "delighted with the cultivation of the land, because it was an employment the pleasures of which were not impaired by old age, and one in which the life of a wise man should be spent--thiat the earth did not rebel against authority, but always gave back with usury what it received." 
Caesar's remedy came too late to save the Republic. The accumulaition of great wealth among patricians enabled them to consolidate the small farms, and there was no longer a Caesar to stop it. With those farmers disappeared the sturdy virtues, for which the presene:e of no number of rich patricians and no amount of style could compensate. A nation that had conquered Europe was then subdued by the revolting tribes from the X orth, among whom interest and loans was not tolerated, and whom Caesar described as men who cultivated the land in severalty, each family exercising dominion over its own. 
It is true that Great Britain, by her geographical isolation, and her colonial and maritime strength, maintains a proud pre-eminence despite of her large landed estates. But it must be remembered that the landed gentry who guide her destiny are men of the University. They knew long ago the oracle of Diana's priestess, and safeguarded the British Isles with wooden walls. England colonizes and cultivates her lands in every clime with men who steady her flag on every sea. Her landed estates are the nurseries of her :fleet, which conveys to her shores wit'h free trade the wealth of every clime. She prospers, yet who can deny that England would solidify her power if she would disestablish her immense landed estate at home, and enlarge the number of her yeomen freeholders. 
We have reached a period in our progress when the tendency to seek cities, instead of land, for support, and the concentration of foreign im­migrants in commercial centers, gives cause for apprehension. 
In the city of New York, there were, in 1890, 1,219,000 people of for­
eign birth, and their children, out of a total population of 1,515,000, and 
there were only 296,083 of niative parentage; so that less than one-third 
of the people of New York City were of native American parentage. Bes­
ton had 304,000 foreign born people and their children, but it had only 
143,000 persons of native American parentage; so that less than one-half 
of Boston people were of native parentage. Chicago had 856,000 who 
were foreign born, and their children, but it had only 243,000 of native 
parentage; so Chicago had less than one-third of her people of 
native parentage. All along the line in the northern and north central 
divisions of States, are seen the cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, 
Detroit, Milwaukee, Jersey City, St. Paul, Harrisburg and Holyoke, in 
which foreign born people and their children outnumber those of native 
parentage, and generally three to one. 
In nearly every city of Massachusetts, the population of foreign born 
and their children outnumber those of native parentage, and in Lowell 
and Pall River, the foreign born, and their children, predominate 
in the ratio of five to one. 
NORTHERN STATES EUROPEANIZED. 
If we consider the entire population, both urban and rural, of the North-Atlantir. and North Central divisions of States, there is little to encourage. Those eighteen Northern States had in 1890 nearly eighteen 
millions of people of foreign parentage, while fourteen Southern States had but little over one million. Twelve Southern States, including Texas, had of foreign born people in 1890, over ten years old, engaged in gainful occupations, but little more than could be found in the little State of New Jersey alone, while New York had more than three times as many as the entire South. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania had more than twice as many of foreign born, and their children, as all the South. Each of the States, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, had more of foreign born people, and their children, than all the States south of the Ohio River. Our New England brother, who boasts of his Anglo­Saxon lineage, finds himself in a lonely minority, on the very land which his ancestors made free; for the process of importing cheap labor for Northern factories has been going on for over half a century, until now societies of sons and daughters of the revolution have been organized in the North to establish the pedigree of the few who remain. The posterity of the stalwart race of New Englanders who triumphed under Washing­
ton at Yorktown have gone West and South-they furnished one president for the Republic of Texas and one governor for the State. 
ANGJ,O-AMERJCAN ELEMENT IN THE SOUTH. 
South of the Ohio River, the descendants of those who established free government in America constitute still the great majority of the people, and maintain their ascendency in the cities, in agriculture, and in influ­ence. Richmond had, in 1890, 40,000 of native parentage, and but 9000 of foreign; Dallas, 22,000 of native parentage, and but 7900 of foreign. Norfolk, Va., had 15,700 of na.tive parentage, and but 2800 of foreign. Chattanooga had 13,000 of native, and but 3000 of foreign. In some of our seaports, like New Orleans, the native element does not maintain its ascendency. Thus, statistics disclose the fact that in no State can now be found a majority of white men of Anglo-American lineage, except in the Southern States, and the controlling element in each and all of them 
is now, as it was in 1776 and 1836, to be found among the tillers rf the soil. Statistics force on us the painful apprehension that the population of the great cities of foe North-Atlantic and North Central divisions of States, may not possess the spirit of true Americanism as those who, in Southern States, own and cultiva·te the soil, feel it. Their populations have come too recently from Europe to permit assimilation, and they have come in defiance of the protests of both native and foreign born laborers who were already here. Their knowledge of our institutions is not ele­vating, for it was chiefly obtained while witnessing or assisting in the corrupt practice of municipal politics. 
AGRICULTURE-NORTH AND SOUTH. 
The census of 1890 revealed the fact that there were in the North At­lantic division of states not so many farms in 1890 as there were in 1880, by thirty-eight thousand. Those farms in which cultivation was aban­doned in 1890, contained 4,04:7,000 acres of land. That division of states includes among others the states of New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. During the same period the number of our farms in the former slaveholding states of the South, had increased 235,000 and in acreage nearly 16,000,000, Texas furnishing over half that amount.. The six states of the North Atlantic division had in 1890 nearly 14,000,000 of people over ten years old, and yet of that number there were but little over 1,000,000 engaged in agriculture. The south Atlantic and south central divisions of the Union, embracing all the former slaveholding states, had in 1890 14,200,000 over ten years of age, a majority of whom derived their support from cultivating the land. Only 350,000 all told were engaged in manufacturing industries, or one in every 22 of South­ern people. 
The nine North-Atlantic states, with a like population, had nearly two millions of people engaged in looking after their machinery. 
INCREASE OF FACTORIES. 
Statistics show that the United States uses a greater amount of horse­power to move its machinery than any other nation in the world, and it is used chiefly in Northern states. This abnormal increase of manufac­turing industry has been caused by government partiality, in fixing im,. post duties, which instead of strengthening has become a destructive parasite on the arm of agricultural industry. The natural tendency has been to build up large cities, in or around which manufacturers cluster for commercial advantage and economy in distribution. Six hundred millions of money were invested in manufacture in New York City and Brooklyn alone. 
CITY POPULATIONS AND FREE GOVERNMENT. 
The populations of great cities are a menace to free institutions. In great commercial and manufacturing centers, the speculative classes transact business by methods more depraved and less regardful of the in­terests of others than would be tolerated among rural populations. The morality of the card gambler is on a higher plane than that of the stock exchange or organized trusts. Promptness in business in cities is more 
regarded than_ plain honesty. Great fortunes are there accumulated by methods which to the honest man seem depraved and criminal. The great city attracts the bold and unscrupulous speculator, because it is a center of trade activity. Thither also flock a great multitude of men who rely on their labor, and who seek wages chiefly as a means of amusement and diversion. To the slums of the cities have been imported the speckled progeny of every race under heaven by unscrupulous capitalists for the cheapness of their labor. There may be heard the jargon of many tongues, like that once heard at Babylon-God's sign that their building was not wise and must stop. Poverty haunts their public places and stays there, for it seems to find consolation in mingling with the mul­titude. The social life of our cities is made up of discordant elements, in which there is small sympathy and no harmony. The incessant and rough attrition between its antagonizing forces is always a threat against the security both of life and property. Hence, a strong municipal gov­
ernment has become a necessity. 
CORRUPTION IN ELECTIONS. 
Municipal government in our great cities is controlled by a free ballot in the hands of a discontented majority composed of foreigners who are averse to agriculture, adventurers, the indolent, the reckless, and the un­fortunate. A free ballot in such hands means a corrupt government. The depraved and ignorant will ally themselves with those who have no capi­tal but their labor. These, in times of enforced idleness, caused by the bad methods of selfish capital, are reinforced by the middle classes through sympathy, and they control the city government. The dema­gogue extols their virtue, deplores their misfortunes, and promises em­ployment as the reward for their votes. 
HOW CAPITAL PROTECTS ITSELF IN CITIES. 
The first resort of capital for protection is persuasion. This is a feeble 
reliance against want and cupidity. Its next resort is fraud. If the pur­
chased ballot fails of success, capital purchases the political bosses of la­
bor after their victory, and thus secures social order and protection. Thus 
spoilation of public revenue and sales of indulgencies are tolerated for 
the sake of individual and property security. This preserves social order, 
but truly interpreted is the despotism of corrupt popular majorities. 
Despotism, no matter what may be the form · of government, is ever 
present, for it is a necessity among such as populate our large metropoli­
tan cities. Names are nothing. '"Senatus consultum" was written by a 
Roman emperor on all his decrees, with a servile senate at his heels, long after free government had perished. The constable in uniform, with his pistol at his belt and club in his hand, is never seen among those who till the soil. He is never absent from view in great cities, for without him, the indolent, the vicious, the turbulent, the discontented, the criminal <"lasses (who are always discussing natural rights to land, and never wil­ling to work it) would soon make shipwreck of property rights. The ignorant masses who control our great northern cities, have come too re­cently from the shadow of absolutism to distinguish between liberty and license. 
AGRICULTURE-THE CHIEF BASIS FOR COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. 
Our land is the chief reliance of our commerce, and its products have given our only solid basis for manufacturing enterprise. Labor <;m the farm created and has sustained our trade over the world. That labor produces over 70 per cent in value of all our exports. The grain, meat, and fibre for raiment produced by 40 per cent of our people, who are agriculturists, go abroad to be sold in competition with the world; and yet he who cultivates the land must purchase his manufactured goods in a market from which all competition with the outside world is prac­tically excluded, in plain disregard not only of the spirit of free govern­ment, but of common justice. 
TARIFF PRO'fECTION AND TRUSTS. 
Political economists have almost without exception condemned as un­Ro1md the policy of restricting the movement of commerce. And yet that policy goes hand in hand with trusts, which stifle free competition eyen at home. Great wealth is thus acquired in the manufacturing States, and must find inYestment. It builds cities, to which the sons of agriculture flock to reinforce the army of foreign immigrants. There corporations, united in trusts, having stifled individual competition and seduced labor from the farm, are aible to dictate with imperial power how much of things necessary to man's comfort shall be made; who shall find employment; how much each man shall be paid, and how many hours he may work. Rational freedom can not long survive in the presence of such a power. Liberty and tyranny are neither of them inevitable con­sequences of any form of government, for both depend on the operations of government, whatever may be its form. An absolute monarch may dispense liberty and prosperity to his people, and a representative govern­ment may sustain fraud and oppression. Why should we be surprised at the spirit of turbulent discontent which has threatened social order in our great cities and manufacturing industries in the North? That spirit 
constitutes a real danger, and common prudence would suggest that the national policies which have produced it should be reversed without dis­turbing property rights, when honestly acquired, and without heeding the protests of either plutocrat or corporation. 
LAND OWNERSHIP IN THE SOUTH A CONSERVATIVE FORCE. 
If Massaehusetts or New York should be threatened by their organized and turbulent labor element, on what protecting force could they rely? A regular army, recruited from the ranks of the discontented multitude, -0nce fraternized in Paris with the Commune at the barricades, and mer­cenary aliens from the free cantons of Switzerland were the chief victims in defense of social order; for in France fashion was enthroned in the cities, as it is now with us, and agriculture had been oppressed until it also fraternized with the mob. If New York, which had nearly twenty thousand fewer farms in 1890 than in 1880, should look to the States around her, she would seek help in vain, for the same reckless element is among them all. Consider the magnitude of the danger when we see that over 4,000,000 acres of land in the North Atlantic States, that were cultivated in 1880, were not cultivated in 1890. The conservative people 
who once worked land have gone to town to live, seeking society, and must also be restless. In these Southern States alone, and in portions -0f the West, can still be found the only conservative force-the tillers of the soil-on which, in desperate peril, our institutions can rely. Such were the men who made free government, and with strong hand they will keep it; nor will they change its structure to suit the theories either of the plutocrat or the commune. 
Three years ago the ranks of the discontented and unemployed (who, imitating the methods of the Jacobin, moved upon Washington, to de­mand in person the enactment of laws), organized and recruited their ranks north of the Ohio River. Each year the storm pressure among our brethren of the manufacturing States of the North increases. It is seen in strikes by servants of the loom, the spindle, and the wheel; it is heard in the heart of great cities, in the depths of coal mines, at the flaming -forge, and wherever incorporated and trust enterprise gathers abnormal wealth under permissive laws. Labor has been diverted from its natural channels, while millions of acres of our lands remain uncultivated, and 
men who refuse to seek employment on the farm crowd the cities like moths around a flame, seeking work in the atmosphere of subservience and speculation. 
DISOONTENTED LABOR. 
Discontented labor is organizing and thinking. Each year it gathers strength. What shall we do with it is the problem of the hour. Just such a problem has confronted man in all ages, and good and bad men, like Plato and Cataline, Robespierre, Jack Cade, Henry George, and Bel­lamy, have proposed in various ways to solve it. 
JroTUAL CO-OPE.RATION. 
One class of economic reformers insist that the only means of rescuing labor and capital from impending conflict with each other is by a system of mutual co-operation that will admit labor to participation in the gains of all productive plants. They claim that this could be done under pres­ent industrial institutions, and would meet the essential conditions of industrial reform. This remedy, if all classes were equally intelligent, would tend to create better relations, and must have occurred to the laborer as a panacea for poverty through every era in which he worked for capitalists who grew rich on his labor. As a general remedy it is Utopian. Capital has always schemed for the lowest wage, and labor for the highest. The avarice of the one and the selfishness of the other are not likely to permit a reconstruction of our entire industrial system on a basis which requires mutual confidence. Co-operation in business inter­ests is difficult, even in limited partnerships, and in one family where­the interests of all are identical, but would fail in its general application to all industries until man's nature is changed. But the co-operation of men to secure a reasonable wage is both a right and a duty. Co-operation of men to resist tyranny is always proper. It matters not whether the tyrant oppresses with armed men or the more insidious despotism of cash, co-operant resistance is a duty. But in a free government, when the great majority are either wage earners, or the middle classes, who will sympathize with them when oppressed, resistance must be within the lines of law. If laws be evil, repeal them. If constitutions limit cor­rective legislation, change them; for when any form of government be­comes destructive of the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pur­suit of happiness, it is the right of the people to change it. Whenever lawless force is advised as a remedy for inequalities of fortune, we should remember that what the American man has gained by honest industry is his, and he will be able to keep it against all comers. He typifies in the domain of industry, whether rich or poor, the survival of the fittest, and, while co-operation may diminish his gains, it will never be able to despoil him of his property, if honestly acquired. 
SOCIALISM. 
Social reformers, amongst whom are many good men, now insist that land should be nationalized; that its individual ownership should cease; for that, like air and water, it was the gift of God to the human race, from the use of which none should be excluded. There is nothing new in all this. Such theories have agitated society in all ages. Good men in all ages have considered how best to equalize the conditions of men, and there have always been bad men who have disregarded the divine commands, "Thou shalt not steal,'' and "Thou shalt not covet anything that is thy neighbor's." 
Socialism finds its congenial home in the atmosphere of cities and factories, amongst the foreign born, who are there from choice. No one can assert that such men desire to work the soil. During a residence of nearly half a century in Texas, I have never known one laborer of English or Teutonic origin, of good character and habits, who devoted himself to farm labor, who did not in ten years own his own farm, nor have I ever known such a man seeking work on the farm in vain. I am unable to discover, either in nature or revelation, that any special bene­fits were designed by Providence for the vicious, the lazy, the covetous, and the intemperate, who constitute a large percentum of socialists. Neither can I understand by what right European and Asiatic races, who came into being on the other side of this world, can cross the OC€an, peace­fully invade another race of men who are contented with their laws of property, and then claim that God created them to own Texas land with­out paying for it. 
That which a man acquires by labor or fair trade from another, whether it be land or water, is segregated from the general fund be­stowed by Providence, and is his. Ifit be land, his labor, his title deeds, and occupancy impress it with all the insignia of ownership, and when­ever he is deprived of it without compensation, the act is robbery. 
If it were possible to put in force the theory that all land should be confiscated and held for the use of all men, regardless of individual ownership, the chief incentive to industry would cease, and civilization, deprived of its main reliance, would disappear. 
HENRY GEORGE. 
Equally disastrous would be the scheme of Henry George, which would tax the homestead out of existence by compelling the owner to pay rent on it, for the benefit of the good and the bad, the industrious and the indolent alike. Such schemes would reverse the order of a pro­gressive civilization, and make a man a tenant at will in his own home. They would equalize conditions, but would banish civilization. 
VESTED RIGHTS. 
The right of property once vested represents human labor, and whether the property becomes more or less valuable should not concern those who did not work for it. Society will not contribute to make good a bad investment in property, and it has no right to ask a division of profits in a good one. When vested rights acquired either by labor or fair trade, are destroyed without compensation, the act is wicked and tyrannical, and the government that would tolerate it is a mockery, a delusion, and a fraud. 
SOCIALISM IMPRACTICABLE. 
Men are unequal in their faculties, in their capacity for enjoyment, and for labor; unequal in their ambitions and strength of character; and H1c8e inequalities render impossible the dream of the socialist. He would have society one vast joint stock establishment to obviate compe­tiiion, and in which all would be expected to labor, except, of course, the few who, as salaried officials, would supervise the activities of the rest, and mak1~ distribution of the gains of industry. If the division should be equal and per capita, the selfishness of the competent and industrious would revolt at the manifest injustice; if unequal and inspired by jus­tice, force and not reason must overawe discontent. This would require the constable. But the talent that could keep account of the industries of each man in a State, so as to assign to each his proper gains, would be something marvelous. One life would not be long enough to super­vise the accounts in a State like this. To make labor efficient under such a scheme, it should be directed by an intellect that could assign re­munerative work to every man in the State, and systematize its per­formance. This also would require a capacity that no man possesses. An army to overawe the spirit of revolt would soon be required. Its commander would be, in power, a king. Plato was consistent, for though he wanted his model society controlled by philosophers, he called them kings. Socialism necessitates an advance in virtue up to the standard of Christ to make it harmonize with individual aspirations, or it would fail of its object unless sustained by a force inconsistent with man's freedom. It would destroy that freedom of individual ambition a11d action by virtue of which alorie man progresses in the pursuit of happiness and knowledge. 
Until man's nature is regenerated, all schemes to equalize conditions amongst those whose natural endowments are unequal, would end in disappointment. Men who urge such schemes forget that man is de­praved and desperately wicked. 
TEXAS' EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM. 
Socialism was tried in Texas in 1848 by about forty gentlemen, under the auspices of the German Emigration Company. Many of those social­ists were graduates of universities, and among them was the Hon. Gus­tave Schleicher, afterwards a member of Congress. The Republic gave them land, which they made common property, and on which they re­sided in a charming region fifty miles beyond the frontier settlements. Thus, no type of any other contiguous civilization embarrassed their ex­periment. They lacked neither money nor opportunity. They erected a commodious dwelling to accommodate all. The buffalo and deer were around them to furnish meat, and a virgin soil invited their 1-&bor. Soon one excited discontent because he was always reading and never worked; another would not hunt, but was fond of venison; and still another slept much and never worked. Within twelve months those socialists, who could have supplied educated talent for many university chairs in 
Sociology, abandoned their dream, and a few years ago two lone chim­
neys in Llano county were all that remained to mark the place of their 
habitation. 
However much we may sympathize with the unfortunate of our race, 
still the fact remains that the great majority of our people enjoy in 
plenty, through labor on the farm, the necessaries of life as no other 
people do under the circuit of the sun. The welfare of that great ma­
jority should be the chief aim of government. What, then, shall we 
think of the dreaming philosopher who would submerge the welfare of 
the self-sustaining many to benefit the unhappy minority? The poor ye 
will have with you always, and good laws, like precious ointment, are 
not designed for the exclusive benefit of the unhappy few, but to protect 
the rights of the many, whose industry and charity must feed them. No 
scheme for banishing poverty by making the State a trustee to distribute 
the gains of individual industry, ever originated with any man who 
owned and cultivated land; nor is there one remedy urged to-day which 
has not either been tried and failed, or advocated in ages past. 
Theorize as we may, it should be remembered that those who would 
suppress individualism and enthrone socialism can not number among 
their advocatee one man who has ever demonstrated his capacity in the 
industrial world by areumulating wealth. He who attempts to benefit 
the human race deserves no praise when he attempts it at the expense of others. 
The strength of a free State consists not in its grand enterprises, its corporations, and industrial trusts, its rich men, or its magnificent cities, but in the self-sustaining manhood and the sturdy virtues of its individ­ual citizens. Itis no less true to-day than it was when Mr. Jefferson wrote, that virtue and manhood sicken in the glare of luxury and cities, and find their congenial home with agriculture. Financial depression may paralyze all the industries of the city, but agriculture will sup_ply food and raiment while sunshine and rain continue. Even the bankruptcy of all other employments would bring some benefit to agriculture, for it would once more make economy fashionable. 
Individualism, acting through government, has not failed, but it has blundered in creating corporate powers and permitting their consolida­tions in trusts to invade its domain and accumulate dangerous wealth in the hands of the few. Itwill correct its blunder. Puolic opinion is crys­tallizing. Education is enlarging the domain of thought and resources, and directing public opinion as never before. Publcopinfrm stands behind congresses and kings, and makes and unmakes them. From its decision there can be no appeal, and when aroused to intelligent action, both the socialist and the trust will cower before its stern command. Individual­ism will resume its sway, and agriculture preserve its proper dignity in the scale of employments. 
COUNTRY SCHOOL HOUSE. 
The work of educating the farmer is progressing as never before. Even now he who owns the land he tills looks down with pity on the well dressed adventurers who crowd the city, and who, whilE.l rejoicing in spot­less linen and good apparel, are always hunting for so'me master to em­ploy them to work in the shade. 
I recently listened in a country school house to original orations by farmer youths who never lived a day in town, which would have done credit to students of this University. 
Students of the Umversity: The graduate of this era has a heri:tage both of benefits and responsibilities unprecedented in man's history. The chief reliance of the freest government in this world is in the men of the university. For each student in America who graduates this year there will be five thousand of our youth now at school who will not graduate. Unsolved problems, on which hinge the future of civilization, will confront you. They must be solved by honest and enliglltened thought; and neither Harvard nor Yale can equip you so well as the University of Texas to think for Texas men on Texas soil. 
When in 1837, yonder Capitol Hill was designated by President Lamar one bright morning, after he had chased the buffalo, as the proper seat of future empire, he pointed to this loftier height as the right place for a university, from whose classic shades knowledge could descend to inspire statesmen. May the time quickly come when to that Capitol will hasten from the farm, the workshop, and the office, men of this University to administer the State in all its departments. No longer then would the cause of higher education be a mendicant for aid, nor would the statesman be supplanted by the demagogue. 
Be sure that you are fitted for the life work you select. Are you pre­
paring for a learned profession? Then be certain that nature has com­
missioned you for leadership; for, though there is some room at the top, 
all the paths that lead up are crowded, and many grow hungry by the 
way. In this era of higher education, there is no success for mediocrity. 
If the glare and activities of the city attract you, be sure that you see 
clearly the way, for the caprice of customers breeds subservience, and 
the quicksands of speculation are dangerous. Too often, when a farmer 
removes to the city, a drone has left the hive for whose honey other peo­
ple must work. l£ you will seek independence in agriculture, be assured 
that in no other employment will higher education more surely lead to 
influence and position. If you aspire to a professorship in a university, 
your aim is high, for those who serve best both God and country are 
those who wisely instruct youth. There is no place in a Republic for 
any other aristocracy than that of intellect and learning. From a serene 
height it looks down on the trappings and gewgaws of mere wealth, 
which is more often the result of guile than of honest toil. 
In whatever path you tread, forget not the brotherhood of man, and 
remember that, though now defiled by sin, he was once made in the 
image of your God. Love him and help him in his ignorance ana misery, 
and then, with humble dependence on the Great Martyr of Calvary, you 
may approach without fear that mysterious shore, beyond which flows a 
crystal stream from under the throne of God-the river of everlasting 
I1ife, above which towers, with its all-embracing limbs, the Tree of Life, 
whose glistening leaves are for the healing of the nations.