A history of Texas and Texans, Part 138

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 906

USA > Texas > A history of Texas and Texans > Part 138

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Perhaps a still more important achievement of Mr. Daugherty came while he was chairman of the Dallas Committee on Public Interests. The great railroad cor- porations were then just taking shape throughout the nation, forecasting the tremendous consolidation and con- centration which have been brought about in recent years. These railroads through the west and southwest practically controlled the destinies of the state through which they passed. For one thing they were diverting immigration to Kansas, Colorado and California, at the expense of Texas, which at that time enjoyed few, if any, of the favors since granted by railroad lines and which proved so important a factor in colonizing and developing the state. At the same time an agitation arose in the state for a better adjustment and equaliza- tion of freight rates as well as passenger rates. The result of this was a convention which met in Dallas at the close of 1887, with delegates from all over the state, and a number of vital questions concerning the welfare of Texas and its business interests were discussed, most of which depended upon the proper solution and ad- justment of transportation rates and the betterment of facilities. Out of that convention grew the immigration bureau of the state of Texas, of which Mr. Daugherty was chosen chairman. The railroads had made guarded promises for a series of low rates to go into effect in the following year, but when the time came for putting sneh rates into effect no satisfaction could be obtained by the business interests or the Bureau of Immigration from the railroad officials. The power of a semi-public organ- ization of business interests and citizens in securing an adjustment of transportation difficulties having proved itself unequal to the contest with the railroads, the situ- ation passed into its next phase. Both in the halls of national legislation and in Texas had been gradually growing the sentiment for public control of the great

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transportation facilities of the country, at that time en- tirely confined to the railroads. Mr. Daugherty out of his long experience and study of transportation condi- tions in Texas, and the various limitations and obstacles placed upon the private citizen and local business by the railroad companies, had become a firm advocate of a rail- road commission which might regulate and adjust freight and passenger rates and control the operations of rail- road lines in the interests of all the people rather than for the special privilege of a few. The bad faith prac- ticed by the representatives of the Texas Railways on the committee of which Mr. Daugherty was chairman, as * to immigration rates; the hobbled conditions in which the industrial growth of Texas was held by the unjust policies of her railroad management, keyed Mr. Daugh- erty up to the fighting pitch. He had worked for years, spent his time and his money to secure railroads to Texas, because he believed they could be made the most potent factors in creating its prosperity. Instead of the railroads being managed to perform their true func- tions, he saw their control in the hands of stock and bond gamblers who operated them as stock and bond gambling devices. He saw no way to remedy the evil, except through government ownership or a state railroad commission. To review all his active connection and participation with the discussion and agitation for a railroad commission in Texas would be too long a story. Despite his own and the vigorous advocacy of others for such a commission, the legislature refused to pass a joint resolution authorizing the submission to the voters of Texas an amendment to the constitution authorizing the creation of such a commission. An article written by Mr. Daugherty in favor of the establishment of the railroad commission and offered to the Galveston News for publication had been held up by the editor until the day after the legislature committed itself on this resolution, and was then given to the public. Mr. Daugherty was congratulated on the many strong and forceful arguments contained in that article, and among others convinced James S. Hogg, then attorney general, of the feasibility and necessity of such a state body. Mr. Hogg soon afterwards became active candidate for the office of governor, and one of the principal planks in his platform was the submission of a constitutional amendment authorizing the creation of a state railroad commission. During his subsequent campaign, Mr. Hogg used largely the material supplied by Mr. Daugherty in advocating his new and somewhat radical proposal for the railroad regulating body. Mr. Hogg was chosen governor after a hot campaign, and under the constitu- tional amendment authorizing the creation of a railroad commission, he caused to be enacted a law creating the first efficient commission of that kind possessed by any state of the American Union.

Hardly less important has been Mr. Daugherty's con- nection with other movements. Governor Hogg appointed him to represent Texas on the good road committee of the United States, a position he held for several years. During that time he issued and distributed at his own expense large quantities of good road literature, brought about a good road convention at Houston, and in other ways did much toward developing public sentiment in Texas, which has latterly borne fruit in the construction of thousands of miles of good macadamized public roads throughout the state. Governor Hogg in 1893 appointed him a delegate to the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, and among the many distinguished represent- atives of the various state delegations was William Jen- nings Bryan. Mr. Daugherty offered in this congress a resolution asking that Congress should enact a law to require the banks of the nation to provide an ample fund to protect their depositors against loss. So far as known this was the first instance in which such a meas- ure was ever publicly advocated, and thus he has a good claim to authorship of the idea of the now popular plan of guaranty of bank deposits. Mr. Daugherty was also

appointed to prepare the address to the people of the United States on the silver question. He was also chosen one of the orators for Silver Day at the World's Fair in Chicago. The address prepared by Mr. Daugh- erty to the people of the United States on the silver ques- . tion at the request of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress was very generally published by the silver press of the nation as campaign literature. When Richard P. Bland, leader of the silver forces in Congress, made his argument in behalf of silver coinage at the special ses- siou of Congress in 1893 he asked the unanimous consent of Congress, which was granted, that said address of Mr. Daugherty might be printed in the Congressional Record as a part of Mr. Bland's argument on the sub- ject, and it was done.

As a citizen of Houston Mr. Daugherty has interested himself in some of the larger projects and movements for the improvement of business and civic conditions. He gave his efforts to the establishment of cotton manu- facturing industries in southern Texas, particularly at Houston, and has been a strong advocate of a measure which would place an embargo upon the exportation of raw cotton. By so taxing exports of this staple that it would be unprofitable to ship it abroad to the foreign mills, Mr. Daugherty believes that local industries would be stimulated and in time all our cotton would be con- sumed in local manufacture, to the great benefit of the entire nation.

In Harris county and vicinity Mr. Daugherty has been a vigorous exponent of the organization of local drainage districts, was made the first chairman of the Harris county Drainage Association. He also took a prominent part in the discussion preceding the organization of the navigation district, a district tributary to the Houston ship channel, and it was due to his suggestion and advo- cacy that all of Harris county was comprised in that dis- triet rather than the limited section of territory first proposed. In 1910, Mr. Daugherty proposed resolutions for the inauguration of a movement to secure the loca- tion on the Gulf coast of Texas of a United States Naval Station, navy yard, dry-dock, arsenal and ordnance factory, and through his influence had these resolutions endorsed at the meetings of the Texas industrial con- gress and of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, both congresses having met in Texas during that year. Among other things Mr. Daugherty has interested him- self in extending the friendly and protective interests and relations of the United States to the Latin American Republic on the south. His broad-minded vision covers a great range of the possibilities and probabilities of the future in both commercial and political history. At the same time Mr. Daugherty is extremely loyal now as al- ways to his home state of Texas, and particularly to his home city of Houston. Concerning the advantages and the opportunities which an alert people must set them- selves to realize in and about this city, he has written the following sentences: "Now is the time for the young, courageous, industrious, economical and temperate of all nations to cast their lot with Houston. Here will dwell demand for muscle, brawn, inventive genius, mechanical skill, financial capacity, executive power and the inherent excellencies that crown success. It is possible for such to weave themselves and their families into the impor- tant factors that will constitute the successful and mighty whole. Do not lament that you did not live in the early days of San Francisco, Chicago, or New York. Opportunities, unexcelled by either of these in their most fortuitous days, now invite you to Houston. The great axis of commerce of the western hemisphere will ulti- mately take its true position on a northwest and south- east line. When the multiplied millions of North, Cen- tral and South America, educated and energized through the methods of progressive civilization, seek to exchange the product of their industry, climate and soil, the short- est line of least resistance will be northwest and south- east. In addition to these, the meeting of the great

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railway systems and steamship interests, in the Houston- Galveston district, have established it as the place for one of the earth's mighty emporiums."

On December 19, 1878, Jacamiah Seaman Daugherty married Margaret Cartmel Bryan, a daughter of Daniel and Sarah (Pettit) Bryan of Lexington, Kentucky. Daniel Boone married one of the Bryan family, and sev- eral of its male members accompanied the great path- finder and pioneer to Kentucky, participating with him in the Indian wars and in the development of that mag- nificent blue-grass region, and many of their descendants are yet located around Lexington. Joseph Bryan, M. D., the oldest brother of Mrs. Daugherty, is a distinguished physician and surgeon. It was he who, while in Bellevue Hospital in New York, first introduced plaster of paris jackets in the treatment of weak spines and other weak members of the human body. The five children born to Mr. Daugherty and wife are: Bryan Daugherty, a resi- dent of New York City; Estelle, wife of John T. Judd of Houston; Juliette, wife of Fenwick F. Kendall of Houston; Erin, who died at the age of twenty-five; and J. S., Jr., who died at the age of eighteen. The Daugherty family reside in Houston, at 1202 Walker Avenue.

At the age of almost sixty-four years, with clear mind and sound body and determination, brightened with hope, Xlr. Daugherty still faces his work, both in business and in the public interests. He proposes to devote the best thought and persistent effort of the remainder of his days to giving concrete being to these ideals which he has always cherished, and which will give new meaning and new direction to the industrial growth and civiliza- tion of the great country of which Houston and Texas are at the center. In the past he has been closely identi- fied and always taking a positive side in many important discussions and movements. His attitude is still that of a man of strong conviction and positive belief. Among other things in the modern movements he believes that the woman suffrage plan is a discordant note, and that it is bachelorhood to which woman should direct her blows. He believes that man should be strongly imbued with three loves; that the more perfect these three loves are in him, the better man is he, viz .: the love of the true and living God; the love of country; and the love of and for one good woman, the erowning honor of his home, the inspiration of all that is good and true in hu- manity-the qualities that make for the higher and bet- ter life here; and increase our capacity to better per- ceive and recognize the beekonings of God to the pro- gressive plains of the hereafter.

GEORGE G. SHAW. The legal profession of Kaufman county has in George G. Shaw one of its ablest represent- atives, and the county and city find in him one of the flower of their citizenship. His record for more than two decades has been one of the highest order, and with the passing years he has gathered to himself hon- ors not a few and the proper fruits of his profession have been generously accorded to him. As senior mem- ber of the firm of Shaw, Nash & Nash, leading insur- ance and real estate people of Kaufman, he has been identified with much of the business activities of the place, while his legal practice has been one of far reach- ing order. His official record, too. is one of the utmost importance to the city, and as the executive head of the city of Kaufman, he directed its affairs through one of the most important epochs in municipal devel- opment.

Born on the 29th day of January, 1866, in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, George G. Shaw is the son of Alex- ander and Sarah Ann (Kinard) Shaw, natives of Georgia and South Carolina, respectively. The father was a farmer of modest means who spent his later life in Louisiana. He was born in Greene county, Georgia, of rural pepole, and was there reared to years of comparative maturity, being yet under legal age when he went to Alabama, there joining a company of Con-

federate troops and serving through the Civil war. When the long conflict was at an end he left Alabama, where he had already married Sarah Ann Kinard, and going to Louisiana, he settled on a farm, but death claimed him in April, 1866. His widow survived him until 1902, when she died in Louisiana, where she had long made her home. They were the parents of seven children, briefly mentioned as follows: Mary, who married J. A. Abercrombie, of Louisville, Texas; Mattie J., the wife of D. L. Mckenzie, of Homer, Louisiana; Robert L., of Haynesville, Louisiana: Melissa, the wife of George Duncan of Kaufman county, Texas; Lou, who married John Stratton and lives near Texarkana, Arkansas; · Charles, who died in St. Louis, and George G., who is the immediate subject of this necessarily brief review.

. George Shaw passed through his youth on the farm his father settled upon in the hill country near Claiborne and there his widowed mother saw to the nurture and rearing of her young brood. A country school education was his, and when he came to Texas in 1884 he was a youth of eighteen years, fitted only for farm labor. He reached Kaufman on November 11, when the election of Grover Cleveland to the presidency was being celebrated, and with his brother Charles, who had accompanied him, engaged in farming in the south end of the county. Despite Mr. Shaw's lack of training, he possessed suf- ficient courage to undertake the teaching of a country school in Henderson, Texas, and he succeeded so well on the first venture that he was induced to perform the same duties the next season. It was about that time that Mr. Shaw determined to make something of his life other than to devote it to the farming industry, for which he had no strong penchant, and he chose the law as a fitting career for one of his endowments and inclinations. He lost no time in beginning a sys- tematie course of study under the direction of Woods & Gossett, local attorneys, and he also took a course of lectures under Capt. Manion, Judge Green J. Clark and Judge Dillard, all of them being men who stood high in the legal profession in the state. In 1891 he was admitted to practice before Judge Anson Rainey, and he inaugurated his career with a civic suit in a justice court, to reach which he was forced to swim a swollen stream. He represented Schoolcraft & Company, suing one Jones for debt, and he won his suit, losing no time in collecting the judgment awarded. Mr. Shaw has a general practice, rather than along any specific lines. In 1908 he was licensed to practice in the su- preme court of Texas, and while at the inauguration cere- monies of President Wilson in Washington in 1913 he went before the United States Supreme Court and se- cured license to practice before the Federal Courts. His law library is a splendid one, representing a judi- cious selection of authorities and reference works and is the most extensive in the city.

In 1896 Mr. Shaw was elected to the office of Mayor of Kaufman, and he served without a break in that office for twelve years. When he took up the duties of his new office, public spirit was at a decidedly low ebb in the city, and a movement was sadly needed to stir up the sleeping civic pride which the people later proved themselves to possess. Needless to say, the election of Mr. Shaw was the impetus needed to arouse the slum- bering city and bring it to a realization of its condi- tion. The first reform was that of the city water supply. The question of a new water plant was launched, and agitation followed sufficient to bring the matter to a vote, with the result that Kaufman today has a pure water system unsurpassed in Texas, with a chemi- ical test of better than ninety-nine per cent pure, and with an adequate service for domestic supply and fire protection. Mr. Shaw retired from the office for the first time in 1908, but was returned to the office after an interval of two years, and he left the public service in the spring of 1912 with a completed water service

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and & splendid new high school accredited to his ad- ministration.

Some twenty years ago he associated himself with Wood Nash in the insurance and real estate business un- der the firm style of Shaw & Nash. Five years later Temple Nash was introduced into the firm, and the present firm of Shaw, Nash & Nash dates from that time. Theirs is one of the most active and alert firms of its kind in the city, and they control a generous pro- portion of the real estate and insurance business of the city.

In politics Mr. Shaw is a stanch Democrat, but his connection with political campaigns has been rather of a local nature. He acquired some slight acquaintance with conventions and convention men as a delegate to state conventions and in 1912 he was chairman of the Kaufman County Central Committee, aiding Governor Colquitt with whatever influence he had at his com- mand in his re-election.

Mr. Shaw is a Master Mason, and is affiliated with all the Masonic bodies in the York and Scottish Rites. He was Grand Marshal at the laying of the corner stone of the Widows and Orphans Masonic Home in Fort Worth in 1900. A member of the Knights of Pythias, he was Outer Guard of the Grand Lodge of Texas in 1912, and is Inner Guard for the year of 1913.

On January 26, 1895, Mr. Shaw was married in Indi- anapolis, Indiana, to Miss Ethel L. Ellis, a daughter of Samuel Ellis, of that city. Mrs. Shaw passed away on February 23, 1902. Mr. Shaw has been identified with the Christian church as a member since 1882, and he has been clerk and treasurer of the church for many years.

WILLIAM TEMPLE NASH, Prominent among the men of Kaufman county, Texas, whose activities along vari- ous lines of endeavor are contributing materially to the progress of this section of the Lone Star State is William Temple Nash, of Kaufman, who is ably main- taining the family reputation for financial ability and business prowess that has ever characterized its mem- bers. He is a son of the late financier, Herbert Temple Nash, of Kaufman, who proved himself one of the able and successful men of affairs of his state.

William Nash, the paternal grandfather of William Temple Nash, came to Texas from near Franklin, Ten- nessee, before the outbreak of the war for independence, and settled at San Augustine. His brother, John D. Nash, or "Jack," as he was familiarly known, who had accompanied him, placed his signature to the Texas declaration of independence and removed, finally, to Bastrop county, while William came to Kaufman county in 1851 and was here poisoned by two ex-slaves close up- on the close of the war. He was a prosperous planter and owned much slave property, and was still in the prime of life when he passed away. William Nash married Miss Louisa Temple, a family of prominence and local renown about Nashville, Tennessee, and she survived her husband many years, passing away at Kaufman dur- ing the 'eighties. Among their children were the fol- lowing: Dempsey, who died a single man at San Augustine, Texas; Llewellyn T., who died in Kaufman county, leaving a family; Charles Cornelius, who served Kaufman county as its treasurer and spent his life as a merchant and stockman; Lucy, who became the wife of Augustus Gardner and passed her life in Kauf- man county : Napoleon B., who left a family here at his death; Herbert T .; Mrs. Dr. Pyle, and Dora, who became the wife of Henry Boykin. The Nashes were ever a pastoral and agrarian people and were conspicu- ous as stockmen and farmers from the time of their advent in Texas.

Herbert Temple Nash was born at San Augustine, Texas, March 9, 1841, the youngest of his father's chil- dren. He was approaching closely upon his majority when the Civil War made soldiers out of all red-blooded Vol. IV-29

men of sound body, and he entered the service of the Confederacy, in General Ross' Brigade, as a member of Captain Hardin's company, of the Sixth Texas Cavalry, Colonel Stone, and was in the Confederate service from early in 1861 until the end of the war. He took part in the engagement with the Indians of the Territory at Chustenola, was in the engagement at Elkhorn Tavern, Arkansas, and his command was dismounted at Desark and sent, with other troops of Price's army, by boat to Memphis, Tennessee, to aid the Confederates operating against the forces of General Grant. He subsequently was in the battles of Corinth, Iuka, Farmington, the Holly Springs raid, Thompson's Station, the service in- cideut to General Johnston's efforts to relieve Vicks- burg, fought Sherman's army across Mississippi to Meridian, then into the Atlanta campaign, where for 100 days there was continuous fighting and skirmishing, and was with his regiment as a part of General Hood's army which went back into Tennessee after the fall of Atlanta and fought at Franklin, Second Murfreesboro and back into Mississippi, where the command sur- rendered to General Canby's department in April, 1865. With the fighting organization of the Waco general, Mr. Nash took part in as many as 100 different en- gagements aud was admired by his comrades and respected by his officers as a brave and gallant soldier.

When resistance was made useless at Appomattox, Mr. Nash resumed his place as a citizen of the Republic of the United States, where he had grown up. Following the local troubles of the negroes soon after the war, he was pursued with others by the authorities for a year or two under suspicion of being implicated in the slaughter of some of the freedmen, but was released upon a hearing and went about the serious affairs of life in a manner which promised success. Mr. Nash manifested a penchant for land. He was such a believer in the future of Texas land that he set about acquiring valu- able tracts in various counties until his possessions em- braced thousands of acres. While he assailed Nature and made the wild grasses yield their place to cotton, he liked the native turf and seemed to regret its passing when settlement demanded the opening of new farms. He reached a position of financial independence within a decade after the war that enabled him to abandon active farming and devote himself to business affairs in Kaufman.

Although for some time embarrassed by the lack of a liberal early education, he overcame this by experience in the affairs of the world which taught him the funda- mentals of business. In 1881 he established a private bank in Kaufman, and conducted it with marked sue- cess, and in 1888, associated with some of the leading men of his town, chartered the First National Bank, with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and was made president of the institution. He remained in that office until his death, March 26, 1912. During the life of its charter-a period of twenty years-the management doubled the capital of the bank, paid annual dividends of ten per cent for nineteen years, and a dividend of thirty-one per cent the last year, besides a surplus of twenty-five per cent on its capital and surplus, amount- ing to twenty-five thousand dollars. In February, 1910, the bank was reorganized with a one hundred thousand- dollar capital and a twenty-five thousand-dollar surplus, and has continued its record-making dividend career.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 138

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960 Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society Number of Pages: 906

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 906