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Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 6, 1912
“The Land Renters Union in Texas” by T. A. Hickey, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of September 1912:
[Part I of II]
TO UNDERSTAND the renters union situation it is necessary to know the immense amphitheater upon which the tragedy of their lives is staged. Texas is the largest state in the Union in area. Between El Paso and Texarkana, a distance greater than from Boston to Milwaukee, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Panhandle, there lies 212,000 square miles. This is an area as large as Germany, with 55,000 square miles to spare and 57,000 square miles larger than France. It is sixth in population amongst states, containing 4,000,000 people. Less than five per cent of the population is foreign, thus making it the most American of all the states. The factory system is practically unknown, sixty-five per cent of the people living in small towns, villages, cross-road settlements and farms. More cotton is raised in Texas than in any other geographical division in the world, including the valley of the Nile. The enormous production of this great staple makes Texas the greatest agricultural state in the Union, for cotton still is king.
The people of Texas have never been noted for conservative methods. By tradition and training they are cast in a revolutionary mould. When the great cities of New England, New York and the middle west saw their proletariat bound to the chariot wheels of capitalism without much thought of protest, the Texas worker, the much despised one-gallus fellow at the forks of the creek, was striking fearlessly though blindly at his oppressors.
And thus it has come to pass that the Greenback party, the Union Labor party, the Populist party, the Farmers’ Alliance, the Grange, the Wheel and the Farmers’ Union have in the past reached their highest development in the Lone Star State.
Agricultural Evolution Plain Here.
In no place in the world can the trend of capitalism along the lines of agriculture be observed at first hand as it can in Texas. The great steam plows and mechanical cotton pickers on bonanza farms can be observed side by side with primitive methods of agriculture, that Potiphar’s men might have used in Egypt.
Of still greater benefit to the student of economic development is the fact that this tremendous area has been taken over, within the lives of men now living, by a few great capitalists who possess greater landed possessions than any landlord in Europe ever dreamed of.
I have ridden in buggies over dozens of Texas counties when on a schoolhouse campaign and have had pointed out to me by my driver the great cattle trails over which the cowboys drove their mighty herds to Kansas. The cowboy now is as extinct as the dodo so far as the open country is concerned, and a large number of the survivors are now washing dishes in Chinese restaurants in Fort Worth.
The trail is obliterated, the land is fenced in and the locomotive engineer has taken the place of the cowboy. It is of this fenced-in land that I would write, because, with the coming of the barbed wire the gaunt specter of tenantry raised its head in Texas.
Renters Unknown in 1860.
In 1860 land renters were unknown in Texas. Land could be secured literally for a song. This in spite of the gigantic land frauds that had been going on for years, particulars of which can be found in the chapters on Land Frauds in Texas in Myers’s great work, The History of the United States Supreme Court.
A story is told with much relish in Texas that vividly illustrates how easily land was secured at that time. A cattleman rode across the Concho River in ’60, dropped off his horse at a tent saloon and found himself unable to pour out his liquor because he was shaking all over with laughter.
“What are you laughing at, Mr. Brown?” inquired the bartender. Said Brown: “I met a durned fool across the line in Coke county this morning. I swapped him a section of land for a calf. The durned fool couldn’t read and I’ll be dad gassed if I din’t work off two sections on him.” From this true tale it can be seen that landlordism did not menace the people when the guns roared out at Fort Sumter.
Enormous Land Holdings.
After the war renting commenced. The lines had commenced to tighten even while the armies were battling at the front. Cattle companies fenced in multiplied thousands of acres. The legislature gave away to individuals and corporations many millions of acres. Their gifts to railroads alone amounted to thirty-six and one-half millions of acres, and by the runover system the railroads come into possession of several million acres more. Three million acres was given for the building of the state capitol, which was a scab job. As a result of the wholesale gifts to sharpers the public domain dwindled and enormous land holdings became the order of the day.
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