“Fellow-citizens, I have fought and bled for my country. I have fought the savage Indian; I have slept on the field of battle with no covering but the heavens; I have marched barefoot till every footstep was marked with blood!”
At the close of his oration one of the leading citizens approached him, wiping the tears from his eyes, and in a voice broken with emotion said:
"My dear man, if you have done all you claim, I’m afeered I’ll have to vote for your opponent, for I’ll be gosh darned if you ain’t done enough for your country already."
The first election in which I took any active part occurred when I was in charge of the mines, and was fought over the question of prohibition. A retired cattleman, who owned a saloon in Uvalde, had been of much assistance to the company and to me personally, and we were under many obligations to him. I had promised him in my own and the company’s name to return favours when called upon. He wired me one day to come in to town, and when I drove over he told me that there was to be an election to vote the county “dry,” and he needed our help. This I promised, and when the election came off the county went “wet” by thirty-five majority, and as our box gave some forty-five “wet” votes, we had been the means of carrying the election. At first there was some talk of throwing out our box on the ground of undue influence, but finally they decided to accept defeat for the present. Uvalde since then has voted “dry,” and in fact the large majority of Texas counties have local prohibition, though the liquor interests have so far kept “dryness” out of State elections. Local prohibition is, however, becoming each year a more prominent factor, and in a few years Texas is sure to be a “dry” State. Last election I was told the fight turned almost entirely on the liquor question, and each candidate, for even trivial positions, was asked where he stood. One candidate, on being asked, as he stepped down from the platform, “Do you drink?” said: “Before I can answer that question truthfully I must know is this meant as an inquiry or an invitation?” I may give the impression from the above that I am in favour of the liquor business. But nothing is further from the truth, as I am a great believer not so much in local prohibition as in national. But with me it was a case of carrying out a promise made, at no matter what cost to my personal views.
Texas is not in all respects so lawless as one might suppose from what I have written; for instance, my father and sister visited me for six weeks in 1896, and they rode about everywhere in perfect safety. On the other hand, while he was there, the superintendent twice borrowed money from him, for petty cash. They, of the staff, were four men in one house, well armed, but “they were not paid to fight,” so they kept no money. Everything was paid by cheques on Uvalde, eighteen miles distant! Nor was this without reason, for twice in that year even town banks were attacked. In one case the employees beat off the robbers; in the other the citizens pursued and hanged them.
CHAPTER XVIII
A "Grandstander"—The Sheriff takes possession—Night Watchman—Monte Jim—Further trouble.
Besides Henry Burns, the sheriff, there was also another man whose re-election I opposed. He was the city marshal of Uvalde, and a regular “grandstander,” as they call a man who is always striking poses. The young man before mentioned as having caused so much trouble on my first fishing trip, got drunk and disorderly once in Uvalde, and some one told the city marshal. Instead of quietly arresting the young fellow, he walked up pompously, drew his pistol, and sticking it in Jim’s face arrested him in the name of the State. To his astonishment Jim made a snatch and took the gun away before the marshal was quite through posing, which was manifestly taking a mean advantage of him. Then Jim said, "Run, you coyote, or I’ll kill you," and run the marshal did, with Jim after him; and at every jump he would shout "Don’t shoot, Jim." Finally Jim tired and let him go, and the marshal never had the nerve to lay any complaint. So at the next election we ran him out.
While I was working on the branch railway to the mine, there was a gang of nine men putting up small bridges and culverts. All the members of this gang were relations, except one man, and he was made the butt of all the jokes and horseplay; and some of them were pretty rough. Finally one day the worm turned and said to his tormentors that he had stood all he was going to stand, then walked off towards their camp, about two miles away. They passed it off with a laugh, thinking they could smooth him down in the evening when they returned to camp. But to their astonishment he turned up again, in about an hour, armed with a shot-gun, and aiming it at his principal tormentor he told him he would give him a minute to say anything he wished to, or to pray if he so desired. The bridgeman told him, at the end of the time, to go ahead and shoot if he intended to, as he was ready. The man stood for a minute hesitating, then turned and walked down to the mines. I had rather liked the fellow, and felt sorry for him, and when I heard of the trouble I went and had a talk with him before he left. I asked him why he had walked four miles for a gun and then not used it. He said, “I intended to kill him up to the last second, and then to wipe out as many of the rest of them as I could. But I could not shoot him while he stood still. If he had come at me, or run away, or if any of the others had moved, I should have fired, but I could not as things were.”
About this time there occurred a rather amusing shooting case in Uvalde. Our head book-keeper was a Texan, the shipping clerk was a New Yorker. They went to town together to celebrate. When they were both half drunk, the Texan asked the other if he had a gun, and on his replying “No” he seemed much shocked, and said he would borrow one for him. This he proceeded to do from a bar-keeper, and handed it to Tom the New Yorker, who, however, was too drunk to put it away in his pocket, and for the rest of the time carried it in his hand. After a few more drinks they got into some argument on the street, and the next minute the Texan was emptying his gun at Tom. The latter was so far gone that he had actually forgotten the gun in his hand, and never used it at all; in fact, he did not know that the Texan was firing at him at all—so he said the next morning in court. Luckily no one was hit, but the book-keeper was fined fifty dollars for “shooting in the city limits.”