Transcript Oil and Progressivism in Early 20th-century Texas 1894: Oil discovered at Corsicana The discovery well of the first Texas oil field. This well was drilled.

Oil and Progressivism in
Early 20th-century Texas
1894: Oil discovered at Corsicana
The discovery well of
the first Texas oil field.
This well was drilled at
Oil Spring by the
Petroleum Prospecting
Company in 1886.
From the book, Texas
Oil & Gas Since 1543,
by Charlie. A. Warner
John H. Galey
Corsicana real estate developers convinced James. M. Guffey and John
H. Galey of Pittsburgh (associates of millionaire Andrew W. Mellon) to
come to Corsicana to help them exploit the region’s deposits of oil. By
1900, their Corsicana field was producing 836,000 barrels a year. In
1897, Corsicana’s town leaders convinced J.S. Cullinan of
Pennsylvania to come to Corsicana found the first successful
commercial refinery in Texas. The J.S. Cullinan Company later merged
with two other firms to form the Magnolio Petroleum Company (later
known as Mobil). As it expanded, the refinery needed new markets for
its petroleum products, and Cullinan convinced the Cotton Belt
Railroad in 1898 to run an experimental locomotive on steam created
by an oil burner. Soon thereafter, most railroads began the switch from
coal- to oil-burning locomotives. (Calvert, De León & Cantrell, p. 245.)
Patillo Higgins of Texas believed
that the salt dome three miles
south of Beaumont known as
Spindletop would be a good site to
drill for petroleum. Captain A.F.
Lucas, a mining engineer, deduced
from his work in Louisiana that
Higgins was probably correct and
decided to join him. (Calvert, De
León & Cantrell, p. 245.)
Patillo Higgins
On January 10, 1901,
Captain A. F Lucas, with
financial backing from
the Mellon interests,
made the most
important oil discovery
in Texas history in
Southeast Texas at
Spindletop
The blending of the technological expertise of the
Hammill brothers of Corsicana and the money of
the Mellon men tapped the Spindletop pool on
January 10, 1901.
For nine days Spindletop spewed oil unchecked,
with between 70,000 and 100,000 barrels flowing
from it daily. As word of the big strike spread,
speculators of all stripes rushed to Beaumont. p.
245.
“The boom that Spindletop triggered would ultimately see oil
surpass both cattle and cotton to become the linchpin of Texas
prosperity.” (Calvert, De León & Cantrell, p. 243.)
Spindletop, Texas oil fire.
Spindletop was the location of the
first Texas oil well.
Oil Created Many Spin-off Industries
Oil-related spin-off industries: refineries, pipelines,
asphalt, tank cars, ocean-going tankers, harbors,
machine shops, oil and gas lawyers, petroleum
engineering, petroleum geology, oil leasing,
automobiles, roads paved, natural gas,
petrochemicals
1930’s era oil rig
East Texas Field
Starting as early as 1898, some
locomotives ran on oil instead of coal.
Rotary drills and improved bits made deeper drilling possible
and expanded the industry in 1926 to West Texas.
“HogTown”—
Desdemona, TX.
Environmental problems:
derricks too close
together, fire, health
hazards, water pollution.
Voluntary standards
ignored. After World War I,
the Railroad Commission
enforced regulation.
Beaumont Saloon near
Spindletop, 1901.
By 1928, Texans owned 250,000 motor vehicles,
and businesses that serviced these vehicles would
become a major industry. (p. 248)
Texas Oil Production:
•1896: 1,000 barrels
•1902: 21 million barrels
•1929: 293 million barrels
Nineteenth-century Texans never dreamed
that oil and the state would become
permanently intertwined in myth and
economics. They had considered themselves
as cotton farmers and cattle ranchers, but
Spindletop changed that, ushering Texas into
the twentieth century with a bang and
making the state ultimately different from its
southern neighbors. The History of Texas,
pp. 243-244.
Percentage of
Texans living in
metropolitan
areas:
1900: 17.1%
1939: 41%
In 1913, Dallas acquired one of the twelve
national branches of the Federal Reserve
System and took on the personality of a
major financial and business center.
The Devastation of
Galveston, 1900
The commission form of city
government, first developed in
Galveston, served as a model for
city reform that spread
throughout the nation.
City Council Members
Program Description:
As the governing body of the City of
Texarkana, Texas, it is the City Council's
responsibility to represent the best interests
of all citizens in Texarkana, Texas, in
enacting local legislation, in determining
City policies and plans, and in adopting
City's budget.
The rapidly growing
number of industrial jobs
continued to make urban
areas more attractive than
the countryside.
Texas cities began to
develop modern amenities.
•Telephone
•Electric lines
•Natural gas
On average, rural workers earned
about one-third less than did their
urban counterparts.
The number of female agricultural workers
decreased by nearly one-half as more women moved
to the cities and the demand for agricultural labor in
general dropped.
Agriculture
“Agriculture remained the major occupation
and source of revenue for Texans into the
1920s. In 1927, for example, the value of
Texas agriculture was three times that of oil
and of manufacturing. And in Texas, cotton
remained king. Texas far outdistanced other
southern states, producing one-third of all
the cotton picked in 1922, a position held
through the end of the decade. No other crop
rivaled cotton in either acreage planted or
value yielded.” See page 253.
However, cotton failed many farmers.
See falling prices on page 254.
Between 1913 and 1920, the cost of living doubled, yet farm
income did not increase. In 1910, 51.7 of Texas farmers were
tenants. In 1930, 61 percent were tenants (50 percent of
whites, 70 percent of blacks).
Dusting cotton for the boll weevil in
NC, 1920s.
Boll Weevil. In 1921, boll
weevils cost Texans one-third
of their crop. (See pp. 253-
254.)
A small, grayish, long-snouted beetle (Anthonomus grandis) of
Mexico and the southern United States, having adults that
puncture cotton buds and larvae that hatch in and damage
cotton bolls.
Source: Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third
Edition Copyright, 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
The Farmers’ Union, organized in 1902 in Emory, Texas, grew
into the 140,000-member Farmers’ Education and Cooperative
Union. The union had goals similar to the Farmers’ Alliance.
See p. 260.
“As late as 1930, the
population was still
classified as 60 percent
rural.”
“The oil boom in the 1920s
ushered in one of the more
prosperous times that most
Texans could recall. Yet as
late as the end of the
1920s, the state seemed
mired in the past;
agriculture still dominated
the economy, and
segregation still defined
race relations.” (Calvert, De
León & Cantrell, p. 243.)
Blacks were often pressured to work
in the fields during the harvest season.
Location: Kaufman county, Texas
Date: August 1936
Plantation owner's daughter checking the weight of cotton.
USDA Photo by Arthur Rothstein
Location: Corpus Christi (vicinity), Texas
Date: November 1942
Mexican cotton pickers helping to save the cotton crop which was
threatened with ruin because of the wartime manpower shortage.
USDA Photo by: Howard Hollum
The average family size declined from 4.6 in 1910 to 3.5 in 1930.
Many women knew of contraceptive methods and
abortifacients. Children still an economic asset in farm
families. Urban women had fewer children. Foreign-born
women had more children. In 1929, black Texans had a higher
infant mortality rate (25% of black children died within the first
year and shorter life expectancy (white males 59.7, white
females 63.5, black males 47.3, black women 49.2)
African American and
Mexican
Cotton Pickers
Farm women faced the greatest
hardships in caring for their
families and doing farm labor. In
1930, a study of white women: 57%
cooked on wood stoves, 80% used
oil lamps, and 63% washed clothes
on a washboard. Black women:
99% used oil lamps and wood
stoves. 1929 less than 5% of Texas
farms had electricity, less than 8%
indoor plumbing, less than 15%
running water, 60% cars (most
roads were unpaved), 32% phones.
Census takers reported that
60 percent of the rural
population was aged fourteen
and under in 1920, while 32
percent of the village and 27
percent of urban inhabitants
fell within that age group.
Young adults, particularly
young women, tended to
move from farms to urban
areas during period.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 259.)
In 1929, a good picker
earned $4 per day. Yearly
wage of $485.35.
PROGRESSIVISM
Who?
1. Rising middle class of
urban professionals
2. Agrarians
3. Social reformers
What?
1. Good government
2. End corrupt politics
3. Improve rural life
4. Curtail the influence of
large corporations
5. "Purify" society
6. Reform: prison, education,
welfare, suffrage
How?
1. Efficient bureaucracy
2. Public education
The Ram's Horn, 4 April 1896
Texas progressivism differed from previous reform movements
1. Unlike Radical Reconstruction it was an indigenous
movement.
2. Unlike Populism, it operated within the Democrat party.
3. It happened in era where suffrage was being restricted.
All progressives considered recent immigrants and uneducated
Americans as a threat to the middle class. "Consequently,
they saw no clash between social control and social reform."
The graph shows the 10-year moving average of the number of new immigrants
relative to the size of the population. The rate of immigration in the most recent
decade is about one-third the rate at the previous peak at the turn of the century.
Is the new wave of immigrants really new? At 12.8 percent, the proportion of immigrants in the
population was about the same as it has been for most of U.S. history. Foreign-born people made up
9.7 percent of the population in 1850 and rose to 14.7 percent in 1910. The rise in the immigrant
population from 1990 to 2000 was much less dramatic than the one from 1901 to 1910, when the
population was just ninety-two million and the number of immigrants had jumped to 8.8 million.
Source: Jane Guskin and David L. Wilson, The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers (New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2007), 18
Percentage of Foreign-Born People in the U.S. (1880 to 2004)
Southern and Texas
Progressivism
1. Agreed with national progressives in the need for
social control
2. Differed from national progressives in aiming for a
democratic society for whites only
3. Texas progressives were tied to older agrarian
solutions
4. "Texas progressivism carried an inherent antieastern bias . . . ."
Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 280.
Into the Twentieth Century: Governors Sayers and Lanham. Sayers
and Lanham were the last ex-Confederates to serve as governor. Both
men were conservative by nature and desired not to upset the
favorable business climate, which they credited the developing oil and
surging lumber industries with having created. Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 280.
Joseph D. Sayers (1899-1903)
S.W.T. Lanham (1903-1907)
In 1902, Texas voters approved of a poll tax that disenfranchised
many poor whites and blacks and further limited the possible thirdparty challenges to Democratic hegemony. The Texas legislature
passed many Jim Crow laws, mandating, for example, segregated
railroad facilities. Soon Texas, like many southern states, had
erected an elaborate legal code that racially segregated public and
private facilities. p. 236.
Texas progressive goals
•
•
•
•
•
Electoral reforms
Reforms to benefit labor unions
Tax reforms
Regulation of insurance and banking
Antitrust actions
The 1905 Terrell Election Law, proposed by senior
statesman Alexander W. Terrell, attempted to eliminate
election fraud and bring some uniformity into the process
of selecting candidates by establishing a modern system
of primary elections. p. 281.
The 1905 Terrell Election Law of
election reform did the following:
1. Establish a system of primary
elections
2. Official secret ballot
3. Deadlines for the payment of the
poll tax
4. Primary election on the fourth
Saturday in July
5. File statements of campaign
expenses
“While the poll tax and the Terrell law did much to
clean up elections, the reforms came at the expense
of democracy.” (Calvert, De Leon, Cantrell, 281.)
Impact of electoral reforms:
1.Disenfranchised most black voters.
2. Disenfranchised many poor whites
Historians have estimated that only between 15,000 and 40,000 of
160,000 black males over the age of twenty-one in Texas managed to retain
the right to vote in the 1920s. The tax also eliminated from the electorate
many of the poorest whites—a group that had been all-too-eager to embrace
the radical notions of Populism in the 1890s. Progressives were confident that
eliminating such 'unsavory' elements from politics would go far to clean up he
system.
Turnout in Presidential Elections:
Texas, the South, and the Nation, 1848-2000
SOURCE: texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/.../ slide1.html
NEGROPHOBIA IN THE EARLY
TWENTIETH CENTURY: Historians have
described the early twentieth century as the nadir
of race relations in the United States. Ironically,
Populism, which tried to create a biracial political
coalition, helped to encourage segregation in the
South. Attempting to prevent the formation of any
coalition of blacks and poor white farmers,
establishment Democratic politicians frequently
demonstrated their Negrophobia by accusing blacks
of being genetically inferior to whites and claiming
that such “innate” flaws made blacks a threat to
society. There began a move to make African
Americans, governed by political leaders for whom
they could not vote and segregated by law and
custom into a separate society, permanent
outsiders. The movement largely succeeded.
(Calvert, De León & Cantrell, 4th ed., 257.)
Booker T. Washington
Main Point: We should concentrate on
work and progress. Blacks and whites
need stop fighting, agitating and
relocating. The South will progress if
we work together. We only hurt
ourselves by fighting.
THE MESSAGE FOR BLACKS: Work hard, and do not agitate for equality. Start
at the bottom and work your way up.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic
service, and in the professions. …when it comes to business…, it is
in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the
commercial world…. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap
from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of
us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in
mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and
glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common
occupations of life…. No race can prosper till it learns that there is
as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the
bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.
The wisest among my race understand
that the agitation of questions of social
equality is the extremist folly, and that
progress in the enjoyment of all the
privileges that will come to us must be
the result of severe and constant
struggle rather than of artificial forcing.
However, working together does not
necessary include socializing together.
THE MESSAGE FOR WHITES: We are a loyal and humble people who serve you
well if you treat us well. It is in your interest to encourage and help black
people.
Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you
know, whose fidelity and love you have tested….. Cast down your
bucket among these people who have without strikes and labor wars
tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and
cities, brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, just to
make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the
South. Casting down bucket among my people, helping and
encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to
education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy
your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and
run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as
in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most
patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world
has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing
your children, watching by the sickbed of your mothers and fathers,
and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in
the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion
that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives,….
[We will interlace ] our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life
with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one.
THE MESSAGE FOR WHITES: If white people insist on keeping the Negro down,
they will only be hurting themselves.
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward,
or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute
one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or onethird its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the
business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a
veritable body, of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort
to advance the body politic.
Stamp commemorating Booker T.
Washington
Issue Date: April 7, 1940
SIGNIFICANT FINE POINT FOR BOTH RACES: We do not have to
socialize together, but we should work together for the common
cause of development.
In all things that are purely social we call be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the
hand in all things essential to mutual progress. -- Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Niagara Movement, (1905)
1. We should meet, despite the existence of other
organizations for Negroes.
2. We must complain about common wrongs
toward blacks.
We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt
complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing
exposure of dishonesty and wrong—this is
the ancient, unerring way to liberty, and we
must follow it. (p. 100)
3. In not a single instance has the justice of our
demands been denied, but then come the
excuses.
Fifteenth Amendment:
Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
In 1910, the Texas House of Representatives urged repeal of
the Fifteenth Amendment. Urban blacks acquired some
voting power as city bosses needed their votes.
In Nixon v. Herndon (1927)
the U. S. Supreme Court ruled
the all-white primary
unconstitutional. In 1928 the
state legislature defined
political parties as "private
organizations" not subject to
federal law. Until 1944 most
black Texans could not vote.
Thousands gathered in Paris, Texas, for the 1893
lynching of Henry Smith.
Thousands gathered in Paris, Texas, for the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.
Spectacle lynching. The Burning and Lynching of
Jesse Washington, Waco Texas 1916.
Although accurate figures on the lynching of blacks are
lacking, one study estimates that in Texas between 1870
and 1900, extralegal justice was responsible for the
murder of about 500 blacks—only Georgia and Mississippi
exceeded Texas’s numbers in this grisly record. Between
1900 and 1910, Texas mobs murdered more than 100
black people. In 1916 at Waco, approximately 10,000
whites turned out in holiday-like atmosphere to watch a
mob mutilate and burn a black man named Jesse
Washington. (Source: Calvert, De Leon and Cantrell, The
History of Texas, pp. 189, 261-262.)
The lynching of
Lige Daniels.
August 3, 1920,
Center, Texas.
The White Man’s Double Standard
“We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the
man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never
wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but
who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the
stern strife of actual life.”
--Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life
White mobs murdered more than 100 black people
between 1900 and 1910.
White prejudice included animosity toward black troops in
the U.S. Army. Brownsville whites, for example, objected
to the stationing of the all-black Twenty-fifth Infantry at
Fort Brown. In anger, they charged that the troops had
raided the city in 1906 in protest of discriminatory
practices. Later evidence demonstrated the unfairness of
the charges, but at that time President Theodore
Roosevelt had dishonorably discharged 160 of the troops.
(The History of Texas, 261-262)
A black boxer from
Galveston named
Jack Johnson was
world heavyweight
champion from 1908
to 1915, prompting
the legislature to ban
the showing of films
of his fights.
BAILEYISM AND ANTITRUST: Antitrust suits constituted a major element of progressivism.
Progressives believed that restoring competition in the marketplace would attract new
industry to Texas and create a favorable business climate for local investors.
Before World War I, state attorneys prosecuted more than one hundred companies for violating state
antitrust laws. Most famous of these antitrust suits was the Waters-Pierce case, which centered on the
relationship of U.S. Congressman and later Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey and Henry Clay Pierce, the
president of the Waters-Pierce company.
In 1897, Attorney General M. M. Crane brought suit against the Waters-Pierce
company because it was controlled by the Standard Oil trust of New Jersey. Found
in violation of state antimonopoly law, Waters-Pierce was made to forfeit its state
charter, at which point Pierce appealed to Bailey for aid.
Bailey convinced the state to allow a reorganized
Waters-Pierce company to resume conducting business
Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 282-283.
in the state.
In 1905, an investigation revealed that Standard Oil still owned 3,000 shares of
Waters-Pierce stock. As the investigation expanded, affidavits disclosed that
Pierce had employed Bailey as a legal counsel and had loaned him $5,000.
Senator Joseph
Weldon Bailey
During the Campbell administration the legislature passed the Hogg antirailroad
amendments, which:
1. prevented insolvent corporations from operating in Texas
2. prohibited the wholesale granting of railroad passes
3. denied the use of corporate funds for political purposes
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 283-286.)
Other measures Campbell oversaw included:
1. An antinepotism law
Campbell was a genial man who
believed in prohibition but considered
one’s use of alcohol a moral choice,
one outside the realm of politics.
2. Strengthening of antitrust legislation
3. Roberson Insurance Law of 1907, which
required insurance companies to invest at least
75 percent of their resources drawn from Texas
in state real estate and securities.
4. Bank Deposit Guaranty Act (1909-1927)
5. Encouraging the expansion of the Galveston
Plan of city government
6. Creating a department of agriculture
7. Establishing a state library and historical
commission
8. Advocating a more direct democracy through
the use of initiative, referendum and recall
Governor Thomas Campbell (1907-1911)
Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt (1911-1915)
Colquitt favored local option in the
matter of prohibition, ran as a
conservative and aligned himself with
the “wet” forces, who opposed
statewide prohibition.
* Colquitt sent part of the Texas
National Guard to Brownsville to deter
feared attacks by Mexican troops. The
governor condemned President
Wilson’s policies toward Mexico as
weak and urged the president to
intervene more directly in the
Mexican Revolution. (p. 288.)
* “Colquitte’s other principal irritant was that he had inherited a
tax system with too low a tax base. The governor thus faced a
state deficit of $1 million. Meanwhile, the new state
institutions, public education, prison reform, and bureaucracies
in a developing Texas demanded new revenue.” (pp. 285-286.)
Educational reforms
Progressives wanted better schools to serve their children and to
attract new industry.
Despite Texas's relative poverty, between 1890 and 1920 illiteracy
dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest in the South.
Reformers wanted standardization in books, courses,
requirements, and administration.
Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 286-290.
Two types of schools:
• Common schools: rural, administered by trustees, boundaries
could change year-by-year. Most had one building, often one-room
schools with a single teacher. Critics of the one-teacher, common
schools maintained that rural students received an inferior
education. One proposed solution was school consolidation. By
1929, more than 1,500 school consolidations had been
accomplished.
• Independent school districts: towns, school boards
GROWING PAINS: TEXAS DEVELOPS A MODERN
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, BUT IS RELUCTANT TO PAY FOR IT.
Between 1890 and 1920, the number of pupils attending Texas public schools
increased by 120 percent. About 73 percent of school-age children attended
some public school in 1920, with a corresponding drop
in illiteracy to 8.3 percent of the population, the lowest
in the South. In turn, state expenditure per student,
taxation for support of education, and teacher salaries
rose. Yet, in 1920 an independent survey ranked Texas
thirty-ninth nationally in quality of education
offered. One problem in improving Texas’s
education system was that the tax base and,
subsequently, the amount spent per pupil were so
low that even dramatic increases in expenditures
never matched the amount spent per pupil in
most northern and midwestern states. Calvert,
DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 287, 289.
Former Mount Pleasant High School building (c. 1927)
In 1919, the legislature passed a law
requiring that all children between the ages
of eight and fourteen attend school for at
least a sixty-day term.
Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 287-288.
Annie Webb Blanton was the first
woman president of the Texas State
Teachers Association (TSTA) and the
first woman to hold statewide office,
superintendent of public instruction
(1918-1922), organized the “Better
Schools Campaign,” which in 1920
helped secure the passage of a
constitutional amendment permitting
districts to raise school taxes above
the original constitutional
restrictions.
Annie Webb Blanton
Teachers were grossly underpaid. In 1920, the average annual salary
for a Texas teacher was $615, or about 55 percent of that of the
average Texas wage earner. Black teachers earned less than did white
ones, and rural teachers earned less than did their urban counterparts.
Annie Webb Blanton asked to no avail that the State Industrial
Commission set a minimum wage for teachers. Some teachers tried to
join or found unions but met Texas hostility toward such organizations.
By 1929, Texas teachers’ salaries averaged $924 per year, as
compared to the national mark of $1,420.
Calvert, De León & Cantrell, 4th ed., 289.
THE IMPACT OF PROGRESSIVISM ON EDUCATION
• Possibly, the major impact of progressivism on
education was not an improved teaching staff, but
rather a change in philosophy. Progressive
educators believed the classroom should be an
environment to stimulate individual learning that
would be relevant to the child's life.
• "Progressive reformers maintained that schools
had a responsibility for the improvement of the
social order. Schools were called upon to
Americanize the foreign born, teach democratic
principles, and impart moral values."
• "Progressives accepted as axiomatic the
Jeffersonian proposition that mass education
produced a more responsible citizenry.”
Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 289-291
A “BACKWARD” PRISON SYSTEM
•
Southern progressives identified the prison system as one of the staterun institutions that defined the South as a backward region of the
country.
•
Progressives and the citizenry wanted prisons to support themselves.
They additionally desired more humane treatment of prisoners and the
standardizing of prison administration and the granting of pardons.
•
Political graft and the spoils system seemed to dominate the
administration and conduct of the penal institutions.
Prisoners:
1. were overworked, underfed and poorly clothed
2. were sometimes shot or whipped to death for minor offenses
3. lacked sex-segregated facilities
4. lacked separation by age and the nature of the crime committed
5. worked in conditions in which basic heath and sanitation precautions
were ignored
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 291-293.)
The growth rate of the prison population was twice
that of the general population.
Prison reform in Campbell administration (1907-11):
1. end of contract-lease system
2. established ten-cent-per-day pay scale
3. eliminated striped uniforms
4. mandated segregation of prisoners
5. improved prison sanitation
Whipping continued.
6. improved medical service. (Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 291-293)
Prison reform in Coquitt administration (1911-15):
1) state-run farms
2) indeterminate sentences
5) concurrent
sentences
3) suspended sentences
6) electric chair
4) parole system
7) better care for
juvenile offenders
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 291-293.)
William Goodrich Jones crusaded for regulation of the
lumber industry. In 1914 he organized the Texas Forestry
Association, a private, nonprofit, nongovernmental
organization, financed by membership dues and
governed by elected representatives from within its
membership. The Texas Forestry Association was
committed to a statewide forest conservation plan to
prevent lumber barons from completely depleting an
area’s timber resources and then simply moving on.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 294)
In 1915 the legislature created the Texas Department of Forestry,
administered as a division of the Agricultural and Mechanical College.
Critics charged that the Texas Department of Agriculture was too
closely linked to timber barons and not committed enough to
conservation. Under the leadership of Eric O. Siecke, who took over
the agency in 1918, the agency established state parks, taught
scientific reforesting and selective cutting methods, and developed
nurseries for seedlings to replace harvested trees. Nevertheless,
sufficient regulation was never established, and contrary to the policy
in many other states, in Texas no law existed mandating that a
seedling be replanted for each mature tree cut. High prices for lumber
during World War I hastened the exploitation of Texas timber
resources, and the 1920s witnessed the waning of the bonanza period
of the lumber industry. The result was the destruction of the great oldgrowth pine forest of East Texas. (Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 294)
Texas Roads
The Good Roads Movement emerged
around 1910 as the automobile gained
popularity in the South. The Texas
Good Roads Association organized in
1911 with the intent to educate
citizens and the legislature on the
need for a central authority to plan and
maintain a state highway system. In
1916, the Texas Highway Department
was established to promote the
construction of roads with matching
funds from the federal government. But
the program floundered from its
beginnings; the early commissioners
did not cooperate with one another;
and counties continued to make plans
for roads unilaterally, grant their own
contracts for road construction, and
apply individually to the state for
reimbursement. This lack of
cooperation from county to county
denied the state a viable highway
system for many years. (Calvert,
DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 295)
REFORM INTERRUPTED: THE FERGUSON ADMINISTRATION, 1915-1917
• A self-educated lawyer and banker, “Farmer Jim” won two terms as
governor, was impeached, and then dominated the gubernatorial
administrations of his wife (1925-1927, 1933-1935).
• Critics identified the Fergusons with demagoguery and corruption.
Supporters lauded them as friends of the oppressed and tenant
farmers. Ferguson announced his campaign in 1914 with the
statement that Texans were tired of the issue of prohibition. He,
therefore, would ignore it and concentrate on more important topics.
He campaigned in the poorer agricultural districts, promising to limit
the amount of rent that landlords could charge tenant farmers.
• During his first term as governor, his farm tenancy
bill capping farm rents passed.
• During Ferguson’s second term, charges of
corruption intertwined with his deteriorating
relations with the alumni of the University of
Texas. Ferguson wanted more control over
specific items in the school’s budget. His
detractors said that the governor wished in reality
to designate faculty appointments in order to
purge the staff of those who politically opposed
him.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 296-299.)
James E. Ferguson, Governor of
Texas (1914-1917)
“Fergusonism and the Impeachment of Governor James E. Ferguson
• The attack on the University of Texas was complicated by A. and M.
College’s demand for a share of the Permanent University Fund and the
structure of the governing boards of both schools.
• Ferguson charged that some faculty members of the University of Texas
mismanaged state funds and that the university offered an elite and
costly education. He threatened to veto the university’s appropriation if
Robert Vinson, President of the University, and selected faculty members
were not fired. When the university regents and the alumni association
stood firm against the governor’s demands, he made good on his promise
and vetoed the appropriation. Now, the regents put out a call for his
impeachment.
• Due to his opposition woman’s suffrage and prohibition, both the
suffragists and prohibitionists united to support the impeachment of
Ferguson.
• The seeming intermingling of state revenues with the governor’s private
fund (including $156,500 in unpaid loans, later discovered to have
originated from brewing interests) enlisted progressives into the
impeachment camp.
• The legislature commenced impeachment proceeding against Ferguson.
Ferguson resigned to avoid impeachment, but the court of impeachment
acted anyway, removing the governor and banning him from holding
future state offices.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 296-299.)
Governor William P.
Hobby (1917-1921)
Hobby advocated
both woman’s
suffrage and
prohibition.
WOODROW WILSON, AND WORLD WAR I,
1917-1919
When Woodrow Wilson, a
Democrat, won the presidency
in 1912, his victory signaled a
return of the South to national
political power, a place
relinquished to the political
dominance of the Republican
party in the aftermath of the
Civil War. Texans undertook a
major role in Wilson’s 1912
nomination and campaign.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 299.)
Texas progressives considered Wilson a beacon to guide their reform efforts,
and when the war began they transferred their energies into support of his
and the nation’s war efforts.
There were many casualties; 5,170 Texans lost their lives in the
Great War, with more than one-third of these deaths the result of the
1918 Spanish influenza epidemic.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 300.)
Americans burying their dead,
Bois de Consenvoye, France, 8 Nov 1918
Slightly more than
400,000 Texas
women worked
outside the home in
1930, an increase of
about 25 percent over
1920. (p. 251)
The growth of large cities and new technologies
offered Texas women increased employment in
such occupations as telephone operators,
clerical workers, and salespeople. Texas
women accounted for 80 percent of the
teachers, 90 percent of the nurses, and 90
percent of the librarians, but under 2 percent
of the lawyers and physicians.
Women’s Work?
The growth of large cities and new technologies
offered Texas women increased employment in such
occupations as telephone operators, clerical
workers, and salespeople. Some occupations even
became stereotyped as “women’s work.” Texas
women accounted for 80 percent of the teachers, 90
percent of the nurses, and 90 percent of the
librarians, but under 2 percent of the lawyers and
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 251.)
physicians.
Domestic servants waiting for the streetcar on their way to work
early in the morning in Atlanta, Georgia, 1939
Freedwomen washing laundry, Circleville, Texas
Courtesy, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
Source: Texas: The South Meets the West, The View Through African American History
in Journal of the West, Vol. 44, No. 2, (Spring 2005). p. 47.
WOMAN’S SUFFRAGE: In 1919, Governor Will Hobby
requested that the legislature put before the
electorate constitutional amendments enfranchising
women and denying the vote to the foreign born.
Legislators complied, but the voters defeated both
measure in an election in which all men in the state,
including aliens, could and all women could not cast
ballots. Later that same year, however, the
legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which authorized woman’s suffrage.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 302-303)
PROHIBITION
“The prohibition movement both
gained sustenance from and
nourished the women’s movement. In
a period when women were
considered keepers of morality and
culture, prohibition furnished an
issue that allowed them political
participation in a reform crusade
that did not violate their maleordained societal role. Moreover,
prohibition linked all reformers
together. Progressives saw alcohol
as a corrupter of democratic society
and its sale as a moral evil.”
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 304)
The presence in the antiprohibition
movement of ethnic minorities, Germans
and Mexicans in particular, buttressed the
identification of dry forces as upholders of
Anglo-Saxon democracy. (p. 306)
(Calvert, DeLeón &
Cantrell, p. 304.)
The Baptist Standard best
expressed the drys’ attitude
when it declared that prohibition
was clearly “an issue of AngloSaxon culture” versus the
presumably inferior civilization of
minorities in urban areas. The
identification of ethnic groups
with alcohol paid large dividends
to the prohibitionists in Texas
and elsewhere during World War I
To not drinking alcohol became “patriotic”: people
did not work well with hangovers, alcohol was
needed in the war effort, and saloons corrupted U.S.
servicemen.
In January 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution outlawed the sale of alcoholic
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 304-305.)
beverages.
SUPERPATRIOTISM
• The same surge of patriotism that identified
liquor as un-American in World War I also
encouraged a demand for cultural conformity. A
public suspicion arose of those ideals or people
who might not endorse the points of view of the
majority.
• Texas made pubic criticism of the American
flag, the war effort, the U.S. government, or
soldiers’ uniforms a crime punishable by
imprisonment.
• The legislature mandated that public schools
teach patriotism, fly the American flag, and,
except for foreign-language classes, conduct all
studies in English.
• Sometimes the superpatriotism bordered on
silliness: sauerkraut became known instead as
“liberty cabbage.” Other times it became
hysterical and repressive: violent acts such as
floggings were used to instill patriotism in those
suspected of holding dissenting opinions.
• The antiforeign hysteria melded into an
antiradical crusade after 1917 Communist
revolution in Russia. Now, the state citizenry
frequently defined strikes and demands for civil
rights as un-American and Bolshevik-inspired.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 305-306.)
Progressivism in the 1920s
• Progressivism did not disappear with the triumph of the Republican
party in the 1920 presidential election or with the prosperity of the
following decade. Rather, the drive for patriotism in World War I
encouraged progressives to stress some goals at the expense of
others. Consequently, two strains of progressivism dominated the
politics of the 1920s.
• Since progressives saw no contradiction between reform and social
control, they looked to public schools and other state institutions to
Americanize foreigners, to inculcate middle-class values, and to
protect morality through prohibition. Thus, one faction of progressives
actually had no trouble endorsing attempts by a reborn Ku Klux Klan
and anti-evolution theory crusaders to exercise social control through
enforcing prohibition laws.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 306-307)
• The other emergent faction embraced “business progressivism”
which endeavored to utilize the ideas of efficiency and public service
to effect order and prosperity. Business progressives fought for
administrative reorganization, good roads, and improved schools and
health care; they seemingly ignored the demands of labor unions,
tenant farmers, and proponents of civil rights.
Governor Pat Neff
(1921-1925)
GOVERNOR PAT NEFF: A devout Christian, former speaker of
the state house of representatives, and prosecuting attorney,
Neff espoused progressive goals. He used martial law to
quell violence in the railroad strike at Denison, and he fought
hard for good roads and the initiation of a state park network.
Many of his failures emanated from his attempt to enforce
prohibition laws. While governor, Neff described Texas as
suffering from the worst “crime wave” in its history and asked
the legislature to expand law enforcement agencies and pass
more stringent liquor legislation.
He wanted an increase in the Ranger force, a repeal of the suspended-sentence
law that allowed bootleggers to avoid prison sentences, and a provision for
removing local officials who did not vigorously enforce prohibition laws. When
the legislature failed to respond, he chided the lawmakers for defending
bootleggers.
Neff used his powers as governor and his considerable energy to try to enforce
prohibition, dispatching Rangers to areas of suspected bootlegging activity, and
taking the lead in publicizing campaigns to eradicate liquor consumption.
The controversy over enforcement of prohibition laws made Neff reluctant to
condemn the Ku Klux Klan. He believed that the Klan’s opposition to
bootlegging warranted his support of the organization, regardless of its violent
tactics.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 306-308)
In the 1920s, the
number of women in the
workforce increased.
The increasing number
of white married women
in the workforce
contributed to the
concept of the “New
Woman”: the vibrant
and independent woman
who made her own
decisions, free from
male restrictions and
advice. The History of
Texas, pp. 251-252.
Texas granted more divorces than any other state from 1922-26
THE DECLINE IN AMERICAN MORALS?
The general failure of prohibition enforcement brought
home to many Texas what they defined as a decline in
American morals. The rapidly increasing urbanization
seemed to blur what were once clear moral and
community values. Migration to the city disrupted the
neighborhoods of rural America and, coupled with
more and better transportation facilities, broke up the
extended family. Historians have cited the urban
growth of the United States as creating tensions
between rural and urban Americans. The anxiety
emanated not only from the countryside, but also from
developing southern cities filled with recent foreign
immigrants. The anticity focus of rural Texans
resulted from their perception of urban areas as
hotbeds of disloyal foreigners, religious modernism,
illegal speakeasies, organized crime, morally
suspicious “New Women,” and corrupting modern
music. These tensions were further abetted by the
post-World War I Red Scare and reinforced by the
progressive drive for social control. (pp. 307-308)
The Ku Klux Klan
The Klan professed as its goals the preservation of
patriotism, the purity of women, white supremacy,
and law and order. It opposed radicals, Catholics,
Jews, blacks, Mexicans, the wearing by women of
short skirts, the consumption of “demon rum,” and
continued foreign immigration. By 1922, the
organization had 700,000 members and by 1925,
possibly as many as 5 million. (p. 308)
The New Klan was to be a
secret social organization
that would advocate
patriotism.
THE HOT FLAME OF THE KLAN IN THE 1920S: The motivation
behind the Klan in Texas was more the imposition of moral conformity
than racism and nativism, and the Klan was willing to use extralegal
methods to prevent “moral decay” from spreading throughout the
state. Texas newspapers reported eighty incidents of flogging in 1921.
Klan victims included:
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 310-313.)
1. doctors accused of performing abortions
2. businessmen charged with corrupting young women
3. oil field workers whose rowdy behavior had disturbed the
townspeople of Mexia
BELOW: A group of men dressed in full Klan regalia march
down the street at night with torches, crosses and flags. A
4. husbands who abandoned their wives
crowd of people line the street to watch. Source:
http://www.texasrecord.org/results_single.asp?co=US&ci=Breckenridge&st=T
X&s=119
5. divorcees who set immoral examples
6. as well as pimps, prostitutes, gamblers, thieves, and bootleggers.
The Klan argued that it existed to enforce
law in a time of lawlessness.
By 1923, the Klan’s increased use of
violence had begun to alienate upper- and
middle-class white voters, and the
organization nearly disappeared toward
to the end of the decade. However, its
residue of demands for moral conformity
lived on.
Praying for divine help to fight Moral Decay. But whose
morals? Who are the judges? Is the enemy clear?
Governor Miriam Ferguson (1925-1927)
Miriam A. Ferguson ran for governor in 1924 against the Klan candidate, Felix
Robertson of Dallas. Part of her campaign focused on opposition to the Klan. Much
of her appeal came from the general understanding that her candidacy for governor
was a surrogate campaign for her deposed husband. Thomas Love said Mrs.
Ferguson won because progressives hated the Klan violence more than they hated
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 308-309)
Fergusonism.
One historian summed up the Fergusons’ tenure: “In the murky world of statute
books, there may well have been no illegality, but the Fergusons were guilty of a
flagrant abuse of the ethical standards of public office.”
GOVERNOR MOODY AND BUSINESS PROGRESSIVISM
Governor Moody became a spokesman
for business progressivism. Moody’s
successes were few, yet national
journals cited him along with some other
southern governors as examples of
progressive leaders.
(Calvert, DeLeón & Cantrell, pp. 308, 312.)
Moody’s first term in office had
corresponded to a time of prosperity for
the nation and the state. His second
term witnessed the stock market
collapse of 1929 and the onset of the
Great Depression. Now business
progressivism, which had solidified with
the industrial growth of the 1920s,
collapsed with the shattered economy.
The Great Depression hit Texas farmers
especially hard. Bountiful crops
disguised the economic weakness of
Texas farmers by helping to offset falling
prices for agricultural commodities.
Governor Dan Moody
(1927-1931)
Labor Unions in Texas
Labor Unions never had a strong base in
Texas. Texas State Federation of Labor;
United Mine Workers
Why union membership declined:
1.
Lack of leadership
2.
Hostility of business
3.
Red Scare
4.
Political leadership opposed labor
unions
Open Port Law: prohibited strikes and gave
the governor the authority to intervene
militarily to end strikes.
See pp. 252-253.
The Mexican Revolution
David Siquieros Mural: “Poeple in Arms”
Between 1910 and 1920, between 1.5 and 2
million Mexican lost their lives in the Revolution.
The census takers in
1920 counted almost a
million fewer Mexican
than they had found
only a decade before.
Mexican Americans observed special
days with traditional festivities of
various sorts. Religious holy days
included commemoration of the date
of the apparition of the Virgin of
Guadalupe to Juan Diego in Mexico in
1531 (December 12), All Souls’ Day
(November 2), and Christmas. Fiestas
patrias, which honored the Mexican
historical holidays of independence
(Diez y Seis, September 16) or the date
of the victory of the Battle of Puebla
(Cinco de Mayo), where held in almost
all Tejano communities. (Calvert,
DeLeón & Cantrell, p. 271)
The Virgin Mary
appears to Juan Diego
on the Hill of
Tepeyac—a sacred hill
where the goddess
Tonantzin had dwelt.
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