To the President of the United States:
Mr. President—I have not been unmindful of your distinguished permission to write you concerning the condition of the people of Texas suffering from the drouth. Desiring to spare your time and labor so far as possible, I delayed my communication until the investigations should be completed, and my opinions in regard to the extent of their necessities, and the sources from which relief should properly emanate, could be satisfactorily settled in my own mind.
The prime reason for my going in person, to Texas was my entire inability to solve the mystery of why Texas was not equal to the care of its own poor and the meeting of its own calamities. I could not comprehend how a couple of seasons of drouth in one sparsely settled corner of an old State of six millions of acres, with a treasury out of debt, should throw the people of that State upon the charity of the other States, or upon the support of the general government. My investigations brought to light the following perplexed conditions:
She had contending interests between her original cattlemen who wanted the lands left open, and the farmers who came in to settle them up; the former placing every obstacle, like the cutting of fences and driving off stock, in the way of the little immigrant! A second conflicting interest arose between these same original lords of the soil—the free ranchmen—and those, who, through railroad grants or purchase, had become actual owners of land which they desired to sell, and for this purpose, and to this end, held out unwarranted inducements, clothed in glowing descriptions, both false and dangerous, to encourage immigration, for which no preparation against the failure of crops from any cause, or toward the opening of industries of any other kind had been made—not even the taking care to leave a small sum at the discretion of the governor in case any harm might befall these newly invited citizens. The immigrants, on their part, coming, as they had been instructed to believe, into a semi-tropical climate, with exhaustless soil covered with almost perpetual verdure, made no provisions beyond the wants of the hour. One looked long and generally in vain for some trace of a cellar, or storehouse, or barn, or even the marks of some former hayrick, which might betoken some thought of provision for the future on the part of these so-called farmers. Pioneer like, they had wasted what they could not at the moment use. In this condition the drouth struck this section of the country.
Fearing the effect of these conflicting interests, the mistake was made of their coming out of the State to solicit aid, in the place of turning bravely and confidently to the people of her rich Southern sections for help among themselves.
Again, the mistake of overstatement was made, and a population of thousands represented as “starving,” when in reality no one had starved nor was expected to. They were in far too great want, but not “starving.” These statements served to mortify and incense the people, and to turn the strength of nearly the entire press of the State against the statements of those representing the distress, and literally to kill all help from both without and within.
Added to this, the courtesy of the railroads entering the State, and which at the first call for help had generously offered free freight on all gifts for the drouth sufferers, had most unfortunately been abused, and the occasion used by dealers to send goods in free to their customers for sale. This had the effect in ten days to shut off all free railroad transportation into the State, and thus it remains to-day, and the freight on a carload of gift oats from the grain centres of the Northwest would exceed their value when there.
These were a part of the perplexing conditions which confronted me upon my arrival in Albany, January, 1887.
The Legislature was occupied in electing a senator, and so continued during two weeks, paying no attention to the Relief bill before it. Meanwhile, I occupied myself in traveling by private conveyance among the people, learning their conditions from themselves. They suffered every necessity but homelessness, and this was the worst feature in the case. Lacking this, they would have felt justified in going away and seeking plenty in the homes of others; but how to pick up their unfed children and travel out, leaving their few cattle to the cowboys and the farm to the tax collector.
I attempted to write the real state of things to you; but of what use? I might as well have sent you a tangled skein of silk to pick out for the winding. It was clearly no case for a great call for charity from the people at large, neither for governmental aid. Texas was a thousand times equal to it herself, when once she looked it clearly in the face and set about the work. This she at length commenced by an appropriation of $100,000 for food.