The Rebel (Hallettsville, Tex.), Vol. [4], No. 195, Ed. 1 Saturday, April 17, 1915 Page: 2 of 4
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UT San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.
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The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Come* that distinguished pro
" landlord,whiskey bibber and law-
yer, M. M. Brooks of Dallas and
lueited on the witness stand at the
Federal Land Hearing what he be-
lie veg in his disordered mind is the
cause of tenantry and it* ac*
companying evils. It is nothing
more nor less than — "SHIFT-
LESSNESS."
With characteristic modesty
This Donk declared that he could
go out into a sparsely settled por-
tion of the nt'iK and even black
his face and pay out a homo.
Judging by hi testimony be-
fore he got to his prospective home
a Donk policeman would put bra-
ckets on hi in, for verily he would
not have sense nough to dodge
one. There i« no record that the
Babbling Brook over paid out a
home. The only reason he has one
now i* because of his genius in sel-
ecting a father.
• • •
But anyhow 1 want to talk ab-
out something besides the senile
utterance! of Brooks. 1 do want
to talk about "this question of
''shiftlessness" that the intellect-
ual light-o'-love called the Gal.-
Dal. News expatiates upon so
drearily in its editorial waste.
The reader will pardon me if I
uhc much space in this great re-
itr fiigious weekly for discussing
_i': 'uhiftlewneffl-'' I do so because I
want to drill an idea into the
winds of the preachers of Texas
of the beneficent effects of cer-
laiu statutory laws upon physic-
al environment and its relation to
morality, not to say efficiency.
? Take, this:
Prof. Enrico Ferri, Europe's
greatest criminologist, who ranks
above Lombroso as a thousand
| candle-power light outshines a
firefly, tells in his great work,
"Socialism and Crime", the his-
j
For it WDg well understood that
if it was a boy the shadow of the
Bridewell was on bis face, and if
a girl the blight of a brothel. So
horrible became the condition that
the British government in self-de-
fense against the growing social
evil, appropriated 2,500,000
pound or ♦12,500,000 which at the
present purchasing prices is equal
to $25,000,000, for the purpose of
trnsporting these bawds and ban-
dit* to Vandiemen's land, New
Zealand, and the Australian colo-
nies generally.
Less than a century has pasted,
and today we find that the change
in physical environment has oper-
ated wondrously upon the morals
of these people. To Australia do
we owe the ballot that is known as
"Australian". The thinkers of the
world arc looking toward New
Zealand for the latest moves in
statecraft along progressive and
humanitarian lines. The doctor
that stands at the bedside of the
sick and with the wand of science
waves back the death angel; the
gentle nurse that with nerves of
iron fights to restore to the ashen
cheek the bloom of health; the or
ator that in advocacy of benefic-
ent legislation for the masses
moves the multitude to • ecstasy
and action; the writer and the
poet with pens tipped with Pro-
methean fire; the inventor and
the statesmen who by their genius
make two blades of grass grow'
where one grew before, arc one
and all lineal descendants of the
men and women who starved and
suffered and rotted in White-
chapel almost, within the lifetime
of our patriarchs.
Viewing this amazing example
on a nation-wide scale, of the
wonderful results that flow from
placing the people in a state where
they have access to a more or less
free land, need our readers won-
der at the zeal of those who are
tory of a depraved woman wh<>, |)|l(l|( [ia„d league and the So-
before her eighteenth year had
sunk 'into the lowest depths of
u vice. At twelve she was seduced,
v at thirteen she was "on the
town"; at fourteen she had made
from pcr-
charged
eialist party's land program?
' • • •
a record for robbery
son; at fifteen she was
with murdering her paramour; at
sixteen, after escaping jail, she
pursued her vile career ;and
at seventeen she was stricken with
a serious illness brought on by ex-
cesses, An examination in the hos-
pital revealed the fact that she
was the victim of an abnormal
physical condition unknown to
herself or friends. A slight, opera-
tion followed, whereupon she lost
all desire for her former mode of
life and two years later became a
sweet-faced Bed Cross nurse and
led a life of .such purity and in-
cessant labor for the afflicted that
she is now recognized as otic of
the model women of Rome.
Methinks The Rebel might, ask
Buncombe Brooks if he would tell
us how this woman's earlier shift-
lessness, her operation and later
life correlated. It would make a
triangle of events that will be
harder to cross than the pons asi-
noruin to the average Democrat,
ii*
To the Ual.-Dal. and other Donk
sheets, let's pull this matter of his-
tory that is as easy of verification
n.Vthe ease just cited:
I ft the first quarter of the last
century, Whitechapel, London,
was a social ulcer. When a child
was born there, the women in the
soggy tenements, instead of ask-
ing: "Is it a lioy or girl!'* would
inquire:
"Is it a whore or a thief? '
In it not n cause f(>r wonder
that 1he mass of the preachers of
the South have been silent upon
the question of the moral advant-
ages accruing from the ownership
of homes!
Why i« the question being asked
now when a child is born in Ac
night in a farm house in the
South:
Is it <i renter or a renter's
wife?''
Can these teachers of ours not
see the close association between
poverty and morality? The
Rebel would wish, so that the pun-
ishment showed fit the crime,that
h ' could take the Babbling Brooks
and the Southern editors and
preachers who. prate misunder-
standinglv of "morality" with-
out any understanding of environ-
ment, and place them with their
intellectual and moral peers who
habituate the negro dives of Fort
Worth. Dallas or Baton Rouge,,
and then ship the scurvy nondes-
cripts to a Pacific Island off the
beaten track of shipping, there to
rear their kind while the tillers of
the soil of the South will retake
the land of their fathers, a land
which the words, "shiftless-
and "landlord" will have
blotted from their vocabul-
forever, because they will
have, through their economic and
political organization, so shaped
legislation that the state polity
will co-ordinate with the divine,
moral and fundamental law.
Then they shall not build and
another inhabit; they shall not
plant and another eat.
r {By Covington Hall)
THE REBEL is a POWER, m
i, fully shdwn by reports that
come to m^ over the stir my very
poor articles in defense of Cline,
Range! and their Comrades has
caused in the ranks of the Don-
kocracy from San Antonio to
Washington, D. C. A Rebel pas-
sing thru New Orleans recently
informs me that he had just pas-
sed thru San Antonio and that
there learned that Judge Ander-
son, who handed Cline and Ran-
gel the merciful sentence of 99
years in the pen for striving for
human liberty,was in a "towering
rage" at my article in THE RE
BEL and was "denouncing" the
"unjust implications", as the
Judge put our mild comment on
the sentences, and was likely to
develop a still more "tender con-
science" in his future handling of
the cases.
We are glad to hear the Judge
was upset, for it proves that the
remnants of his conscience are not
all together at ease over its share
in the " justicizing" of these help
loss and defenseless men, whose
only crime, as he must well know,
is that they strove for "land and
liberty" on the soil of Texas, it.
the shadow of the Alamo, that
mighty fortress that is itself a
monument to the martyred heroes
of freedom and the greatest glory
of all liberty-loving Texas, whose
sous and daughters still live in the
Jjoiie Star Siate" and will not,
when they know the truth, alow
injustice to be done in their
names.
Says Helen Keller, the famous
blind genius; "I am indignan
that Mr. Cline and Mr. Rangcl are
still unjuBtly held in prison, all
who trouble to study the facts
with an open mind will be con-
vinced of their innocence", and
she sent $25 to help the boys in
their distress.
MEN and WOMEN of Texas.
Sons and Daughters of the Rebel
Clansmen of all Dixie, will YOIJ
fall behind this noble woman in
WORDS and DEEDS for HU-
MAN LIBERTY!
You Working Men and Work-
ing Farmers of the South, YOU
who have been basely abandoned
in your hour of terrible need by
the politicians of the '' Democrat-
ic" party, will you stand aside
while these same politicians at the
behest of the Plutocrats who have
I robbed us of our native land send
to a worse than living-death these
14 men whose only crime was that
they stood out in the open day, in
the shadow of the Alamo, *~~
HUMAN LIBERTY?
We, the Sotithmen, dare not do
this deed! We dare not so basely
desert the standards of our fath-
ers! Up and at them! Let every
Southman and every true Rebel
everywhere on Earth take up the
cry-.'"Cline and Rangcl and all
their fellow victims must and shall
he freed!"
Push on the fight! Send what
few dimes you can spare to I^jlp
the boys in their distress — they
are practically starving in jail —
too. Mrs. Vera Mayfield, 709 N.
Brazos street. San Antonio. Tex.
"The fight is on — on with the
fight for freedom!"
Ou the 28th of March in the
Sunday editions of the Dallas! The Industrial Relations Com-
News and the Galveston News ap- mission is working in Chicago this
peared a long editorial, attacking week. They are investigating the
Judge E. 0. Meitien of HalletU- j railway situation, and are looking
ville, who recently under the ro- carefully into the strike on the
tation-in-office role, resigned as Harriman lines. Chicago is so far
secretary-treasurer of the Renters away from Hallettsville and work
Union or the Land League of Am- is w pressing that I hope I do not
erica, in which editorial it was de- receive a subpoena from Uncle
finitely stated that he was a Sam ordering me to the Windv
"failure" in blacksmithing, farm- City to tell the story of the stoop-
ing and school teaching business, I menstrike on the Harriman
and that as a result he became a|lines as I know it, particularly in
Socialist agitator and was compli
eating the land situation by mak
ing the tertant discontented.
This editorial is part of a con-
tinuous attack that the Dallas and
Galveston News have made upon
relation to the manner in which
situation in Texa§ last month.
• • •
And then again my pleasure at
being able to stay at this old bat-
tered desk is again tempered with
seriousness when I review in phil-
osophic reflection the miracle that
has occurred when the federal gov-
ernment has twice come to ray aid
when 1 was in a tight.
The firs^ime was when I found
out who was responsible for the
destruction of life in the Harri-
man strike at iSan Antonio, as in-
at 9:05 a. m. on March lb, 1912, d *tcd "kjvc, and the second time
Engine 804 was blown up. killing.' wlK'n <tlu' government's coin-
26 people in the roundhouse at' mission at Dallas last month after
San Antonio, and how the job was listening to the testimony of land-
done. When I told the story ,0rtl8> m the °* the)r UPP™V
*• al upon The Rebel's position that
there was a land problem in Tex-
tile Commission on Industrial Re- J Thorn well Fay tried to get
lations, upon Judge Meitzcn andjuie indicted by the federal grand
other members of the Rebel force; jury by way of Baker, Parker
and others who testified therein Botts & Garwood, and then the
against the present system of land president of the Sunset Central
tenure. The editorial of The lines lost his official head. Th
News that has reached at least I investigating committee ap-
threc htndrcd thousand people pointed by the Sunset officials u
will be published in full iiV-next San Antonio*in which were in-
week's Rebel and will be thor-1 eluded two United States army of-
oughly dissected in all its phase® I ficers, wa8 put on the scrap pile
by the editor. Mr. Meitzen has by the boiler inspectors of the
written a letter both to the Gal- United States' government who
veston and Dallas News in which came by executive orders to San
he dwells merely on the personal Antonio, wrote the Official report
feature of the attack, A copy of in the technical language used
his letter follows: |by The Rebel seven weeks earlier.
Yes, j am glad I don't have to
"Hallettsville, Tex., Apr. 10, 19151*° Chicago; but Lord what a
' Editor News: 1story —- Frank — Walsh ean
In your issue of Sun-1 ™<*>ver when he goes
day. March 28, I had the honor of the Harriman officials
furnishing the basis for a lengthy I wltl the same energy and skill
editorial on the matter of "Land
Tenantry", because of my testi-
mony before the Committee on In-
dustrial Relations at Dallas,
March 15-19.
"Had you used the space de-
voted to my personality in bring
ing to the attention of your read
irs more of my evidence, they
would have a letter idea of what
that he went after John D. Jr.
For instance if he gets up against
Frank Comerford of Chicago, the
lawyer that saved Carl Person af-
ter the latter killed the private de-
tective that wag sent out by the Il-
linois Central officials to kill him.
However, if I were to go, I
would like to tell about the S. P.
trains that left San Antonio and
is: going on with regard to the land to atop at Converse, 13 miles
jituation in Texas. ou^ vv'l,',fi the engineer, conduct-
" You failed even to fairly state Jor, fireman and brakem.cn went to
my testimony as to my personal | the livery stables to secure horse
activities. So I will, if you please | t^urc to be placed in the boil-
make a few corrections:
First, I did not . quit black-
smithing because I was a "fail-
ure". The Commission's steno-
graphic report will sliow that af-
ter 1 had made a financial success
of mv avocation for ten years I
crs to float in and fill the leaks. I
would like to describe how I was
able to predict, week after week,
with almost mathematical accur-
acy where and how the engines
blew up and lives were lost. Fin-
ally I would like to explain how
as in particular and in the South
generally that is infinitely greater
than the problem that spurred
Michael Davitt and Charles Stew-
art Parnell to action in the Little
Green Isle a generation ago.
Yes these government commis-
sions are good, because, being in
the white light of publicity, they
must turn on the light,but the pity
of it is they do not act until Jhe
sufferings of the multitude in any
one particular line becomes un-
bearable.
It was Bismarckian commissions,
that investigated the Congo atro-
cities after King Leopold of Bel-
gium caused agents to chop off
the right arms of his rubber work
crs.
It was so with the Royal Corn-
commission on a large scale ap-
rible conditions in textile, min-
ing, iron and chemical industries
of England in the forties under
the lash of the Chartist agita-
ion.
It was other Royal commission
that investigated the land situa-
tion in Ireland under the lash of
the Land League agitation, that
caused an amelioration of the
landless condition in the Emerald
Isle.
It was Bismackian commissions,
lashed on by Social-Democratic
agitation in Germany, that lead
on to old age pensions, workmen's
insurance and compensation laws.
<iuit because of an injury to my I nothing but irtv inside knowledge
tpine as a result of an accident | that the Southern Pacific officials
vhile shoeing an unruly horse.
"I did not quit farming vbe
cause I could not succeed, L_. .. .
found that T could not have time how one newspaper editor in Tex-
, , , , 3 . _ I l..wl „ nrwl liAninAn
to read and study and keep
were aware of, prevented me from
■ vue J g°'nK over the road to the pen. I
I could not succeed. boTO I would Tike to tell the true story of
m
ncss'
been
aries
"Hiti DESCENT W IIELL IS he asks for "spicy stories within
Even the meanest cur when
cornered will show his teeth. The
land and factory slaves are now
absolutely cornered by the corner-
ers of all the nation's resources,
and starvation knocks with bony
knuckles at millions of shacks and
hovels- In this emergency will the
slaves have the bowels to turn and
fight? We believe they will. If we
didn't ltelieve we'd chuck the en-
tire Rebel plant into the Lavaca
river, and go fishing.
SWIFT."
I#
j$N
&
I&'
"Pitchfork" Smith has left us.
He has gone bag aitd baggage,
body, boots and breeches to the
Democratic party, and the fates
have ordained that he has gone to
the meanest of their ignoble
clans, the rotten saloon element of
Dallas that has Ferguson for a
general, Jake Wolters for a field
marshal and the Anheuser Buseh
interests for commander in chief.
,,As a matter of course he took his
[paper along with him.
! In the last issue of his paper lie
attacks the Dallas Dispatch for
featuring the testimony of Social-
ists that appeared before the com-
mission on Industrial Relations, in
spite of the fact that no unmuzzled
newspaper could do anything else.
In doing this he lined up with the
Dallas News which paper is known
is the last word in reaction. This
situation is illuminated by a
glimpse of his columns in which
the libel law, about Dallas people
which is an invitation to besmirch
the character of men and women
that was well understood and
practiced by the infamous Colonel
Tom Maun whose "Town Topics"
was a putrescent stench* in the
newspaper world ten years ag*>
and who barely escaped Sing Sing
for blackmail, because, perchance,
he knew too much.
Because of previous pressure on
space we take this belated op-
portunity to say that we are glad
he left the Socialist party, a move-
ment that he has never adorned or
understood.
• • •
The Rebel understands that
within one block of the lamented
Wilford A. (Pitchfork^ Smith's
office, his father, M. A. Smith, as-
sisted by a lawyer without brains
and a crowd without red cArdn
numbering 29, practically all of
them Dallas peanut politicians,
called themselves a few short
The orator that introduced J.E
Ferguson at Yoakum before the
primary said that after Jim Fer
guson's deletion each girl Avho
worked in the cotton fields woulc
be adorned like a Goddess, wear
diamonds like a princess, and bo
a queen presiding over a Southern
home. The Rebel wiiJ give one M
lar for a look at each lady
deck d^ut.
and
abreast of the times, and found
lat school teaching required al-
most no capital, and 1 could
make a decent- living and" draw
ent on my farm, and interest on
my notes after selling the farm.
'My testimony weift on to show
tl>F,t J secured a thfoft grade ecr-
i fieate and kept making a success
m the teaching profession until I
ecured a first grade certificate.
"Hence my personal record
shows I was a success as a black-
smith financially, I was a success
as a farmer, and then made, as the
state school records show, a suc-
cess as a school teacher.
"The testimony further shows
that T have l*en teacher on
broader field both economic and
political — on the economic field
as an organizer and lecturer and
official of the Grange, Farmers
Alliance and Renter Union; on
the political field as an editor and
lecturer, during which time I was
elected county judge on an inde
pendent reform ticket, and prac
tically every citizen in Lavaca
county will testify that I conic
have been county judge to this
day were* it not. that1 I pressec
further in the path of reform anc
against the wishes of nine-tenths
of the voters of my county
publicly,. while in office, I espous-
ed the then unpopular cause
Socialism.
as had a "scoop" and decided
within himself not ^publish it
because he had a Weekly paper
and wanted the shopmen to win
and he knew that if the story was
uindled by the daily papers of
argc general emulation that the
jig publicity would make the rail-
road commission act. with the re-
sult that the shopmen's strike
would be won. Then I would like
to tell how the Dallas Dispatch
turned the story down by an ac-
cident. T would like to tell of my
personal experience with the Dal-
las Times-Herald and "the Houston
Chronicle, and bow, in spite "of my
personal pleadings, the biggest
story of how 26 men went dead in
flash and the crownsheet of 804
went half a mile in the sky. Yes I
wish I could tedd that story.
Yes. I'm glad not going to Chi-
cago. but my feelings are temper
ed with regret that I cannot see
lose
In our country we are in the
baby stage of commissions, not on-
ly because our country is so
young, but because until recent
years the workingman had access
to land at low prices. The first
commission on a larpc scale ap-
pointed by President McKinley in
1898 was discharged in ibnominv/
because its conclusions were trans-
parently fraudulent.
The Farm Life Commission of
Roosevelt was so amateurish and
lacking in perspective that it
could not see a land problem in
Texas or anywhere else. It re-
commended whitewash' for barn
doors and a special brand of lice
powder for chickens afflicted with
the pest.
These commissions were perfect-
ly safe and sane for the Texas and
Oklahoma landlords and their
spokesmen, the Gal.-Dal. News.
The present commission evinces
a desire to secure the facts as to
the industrial relations between
master and slave in Artierica, but
let this be ever remembered that
though they speak of the woes of
the workers with the tongues of
angels and write their sorrows
witfi letters of fire, it were all
mere vanity, love's labor lost, un-
less the worker8 themselves have
the character and spirit and brain
and nerve to organize in resistance
the newspaper game at o
range like itiTexas. and see if the
Chicago dailies will handle the si-
tuation in a different, manner j to their exploiters.
from that" which the Dal.-Gal.' And yet some way, somehow
News handled the same Commis- I'm glad I'm not going to Chica-
sion when it investigated the land j go.
SJUIAI iAf¥¥ir¥infWYYWYini—
ly admitted to have placed the | there was, what appeared to me in
land question in the position of | your editorial, a studied attempt
being a paramount issue of the! to strike at me personally for the
tfl state, and by postoffiee record or Purpose of belittling the movement
^ any other test you wish to apply,' "
so
weeks ago a Texas political party.
Thcv were like the three little
tailors ,of Tooley street who issued
the manifesto, declaring themselv-
'We the people of England."
cs
The Rebel was hopeful enough
to believe at one time that "Rev."
M. A. Smith, was leaning toward
Socialism, but it appears that he
had to follow his unfortunate son
out of the Socialist party. But the
two of them are not taking any
other man out of the movement!
Verily, verily, I say unto you
the descent to hell is swift.
I have lived to see that paVty
grow from a handful to the proud
position of the second party in the
state, a position in which I helped,
place it, and seen ray son unani-
mously nominated for governor on
that ticket, that twice in succession
has beaten the Republicans. Bull
Moosers and Prohibition parties.
"I established The New Era in
my home town first as a Populist,
later as a Socialist paper and es-
poused the cause of these
parties in the face of the
orthodox Democratic opposition
and t*een it grow to one of the
largest semi-weeklies in the state
I see no sign of failure as a news-
paperman, one of the most exact-
ing professions than a man can
follow. I have helped launch The
Rebel which is a paper universal-
that I have so dose at heart.
it'is the largest political weekly "Expecting from you the cour-
published in the South. j tesy of giving this communication
"For the reasons sot fortrvi «I oo ill I1 tta Bo o publications
now that 1 am standing ltat th<! me'
above
within ten years of the allotted
span of life given to man, I can
look back to the days of my ado-
lescence and I believe that after
scanning every year I could, if
the end would come tomorrow,
say that I have been a success not
in the sense that I have accumul-
ated more than a modest compet-
ence, but in the sense that I have
tried to do my duty as a citizen by
my fellow-man and leave this
world a little bettejr than I found
it. ■
"You will pardon the use of the
personal pronoun in this commun-
ication. but the style of this letter
was forced upon me because
I remain,
Yours for the Truth,
E. 0. MEITZEN.
Ex-Secretary-Treasurer Land
/ League of America.
The democratic administration
endorsed the cotton pool plan, in
order to escape doing anything
for the relief of the cotton farmer.
The cotton pool was a palpable,
unmistakcable fake. With this
black record before him actual
fanner who will vote in 1916 to
put this bunch of nincompoops in-
to power again, wins the blue rib
bon for being the prize jaSsack of
his township. 1
\
/
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\i
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Hickey, T. A. The Rebel (Hallettsville, Tex.), Vol. [4], No. 195, Ed. 1 Saturday, April 17, 1915, newspaper, April 17, 1915; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth394941/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UT San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.