"N-no? Jedge, p'haps?"
"No, sir; I am simply a plain, every-day citizen of Texas,—not even a member of the legislature or candidate for congress."
"Hump! Say, Maria, I kinder thought as how that slab-sided galoot was a lyin' when he said he was frum Texas."
He could not conceive of a Texan without a title. But Texas will come out all right. I have faith in her future, for many reasons; but chiefly because she has unbounded confidence in herself—because nowhere will you find such local patriotism, such state pride, such love of home as beneath the Lone Star. There are rivalries, but they are not born of bitterness. A Texas is all for Texas.
Within the memory of living men, Oppression's fangs wounded Freedom's snowy breast, and from the ruddy drops Almighty God did make a star, the brightest that ever blessed the world; but ever have the clouds of calumny and the mists of malice obscured its matchless beauty. Slowly but surely the rank vapors are rolling by, and brighter and ever brighter blazes our astral emblem —born in the field of battle, its lullaby the cannon's thunder, its cradle the hearts of the brave, its nurse necessity, its baptismal rite a rain of blood and tears. May it forever be another beacon of Bethlehem to guide us on to a grander future—a harbinger of hope and happiness, an emblem of love and liberty, and in its deathless splendor go ever shining on.
* * * SLAVE OR SOVEREIGN.
STATUS OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN.
[Synopsis of an address delivered by Mr. Brann,
August 10, 1895.]
FELLOW CITIZENS: If I had a million o' money—carefully protected from the income tax by a plutocratic supreme court—I would probably not be here to inquire whether you are Slaves or Sovereigns. And if you could draw your check for seven figures—with any probability of getting it cashed—you would not be here to answer. You'd do just as Dives did: lean back in your luxurious chair and absorb your sangaree, while Lazarus scratched his Populist fleas on your front steps and exploited your garbage barrels for bones. You'd turn up your patrician nose at the lowly proletaire, and if he did but hint that, having created this world's wealth, he was entitled to something better than hand-outs, you'd have an anti-communistic cat-fit and denounce him as an insolent hoodlum who should be comfortably hanged. That's human nature to a hair, and you are all human,—I suppose—even if the politicians do buy you with gas and sell you for gold.
I tell you frankly that I'm complaining, not because of the other fellow's colossal fortune, but because I can't strike the plutocratic combination. I'm dreadfully anxious to accumulate a modest fortune—of about fifty millions— that I may build a comfortable orphan asylum for that vast contingent of Democratic politicians whom the next election will deprive of their "pap."