Governors who have been, and other public men of Texas, Part 7

Author: Kittrell, Norman Goree, 1849-1927
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Houston, Texas, Dealy-Adey-Elgin company
Number of Pages: 320


USA > Texas > Governors who have been, and other public men of Texas > Part 7


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The Governor listened calmly to the explanatory statement, and then with characteristic calmness and deliberation, said: "I am obliged to you, gentlemen, for your proferred assistance. I deeply appreciate it, and I am delighted to have you as guests in the man- sion, and you are welcome to stay as long as it suits your pleasure, unless your stay be with a view of my protection. I need no pro- tection. This mansion belongs to the people of Texas, but for the time being it is my castle and my home. My wife and my children are here, and I can defend them and myself. That mob of which you speak may hang me in effigy if it sees fit on every telegraph pole, and every tree on Congress Avenue, and it will not alarm me, or disturb my equanimity for a moment; but if any man puts his foot within the limits of these grounds with the in- tent to insult me or offer any indignity to my family or myself, I'll be d-d if he goes out again until lie is carried out feet fore- most on a stretcher." The party withdrew and left the Governor with his wife and two small sons.


A man of different mold, a more timid, or at least a more prudent man would, out of abundance of caution, have stayed at home, and not have ventured upon the streets, but "Dick" Coke did not adopt that course. He put on his overcoat and his broad-brimmed felt hat, and took his walking-stick, of very generous size and weight, and went directly to the nearest point on Congress Ave- nue and turned south. In a few moments he came upon a crowd, or bunch of excited men, or drew near to them. He waited to hear what they were saying, and he found out that it was about him. They were, to drop into modern slang, "saying a plenty," and say- ing in rough terms and harsh tones.


He walked up closer before he was recognized, as the street


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lights were not bright. He said: "I hear my name being very freely used, and from the way it is used, it seems I have given great offense and am in danger of being subjected to rough treat- ment. Now, I have come out to ascertain whether the time has come in Texas when a Governor cannot under his official oath exercise the constitutional prerogative of the office of Governor without being abused and assaulted. If any of you, or all of you, are so offended that you feel disposed to offer me insult or vio- lence, I am here, and the time is most opportune and you can begin." They did not begin.


Figuratively speaking, they, like the Roman guard in the garden at Jerusalem, "went backward and fell to the ground." Literally speaking, they vanished into the encircling shadows quickly and the Governor was left alone. He proceeded down the avenue on one side and back on the other, and no man dared to interfere with him, and he returned unharmed and without affront or in- sult having been offered him, to the bosom of his family. No man ever doubted his courage. Those whom he led in battle swore by him.


I heard a man say once in the presence of one of my prede- cessors on the Bench of the 12th District: "I don't like any man like Coke that wears a great flop hat, and long-tail coat, and car- ries a big stick, and hollers when he speaks." The old Judge, to whom the remark was addressed, was aroused to fury in the twinkling of an eye, and said with vehemence: "I like him. I like that flop hat, because I have followed him when he was wearing it on the battlefield. I like to hear him holler, because I have heard him holler, 'Come on, boys,' when the bullets were flying and his men were falling around him. I have seen that bald head shining when with his big hat off, he was in the lead where the fighting was hottest. I like him for all you don't like him for."


The ardent defender of his old commander was, as to courage, a kindred spirit, for though he was as simple as a child, and car- ried a Bible always in his pocket, and lived according to its teachings as he understood them, he would have faced any danger, however great, if he thought he was being imposed on.


I have said that in point of pure intellectual ability Richard Coke never had a superior among the public men of Texas, and I will add, or among those of other states. I anticipate that this sweeping statement will not meet unanimous acceptation, but I do not make it without credible evidence to support it, which evidence I will produce later. I will ask first, why should not Texas have had, or have now within her borders as intellectual a man, or men, as there is, or are, in any other state?


The three familiar adages, "a prophet is not without honor save in his own house and among his own people," "distance lends en-


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chantment to the view," and "familiarity breeds contempt," when correlated and summarized mean, "familiarity lessens apprecia- tion." It is most often the case that we lose our appreciation of the true value of those things to which we become accustomed by long familiarity, and the men around and about us are never as great as those afar off. We cannot readily associate great en- dowment and great achievement with those we meet in the daily walks of life, especially if we have watched them grow up from childhood.


This truth is as old as the ages. When divinity incarnate was on the earth, and by the power of His omnipotence and omniscience, healed the sick, made the lame to leap, and the dead to live, the unbelieving multitude asked with querelous skepticism, "From whence hath He this power. Is He not the son of the carpenter?"


They had known Him in despised Nazareth, and had seen Him grow up to manhood, and did not believe in Him, though His power was revealed before their eyes.


Hundreds of thousands of people now living knew Richard Coke, and, speaking in a figurative sense, the grass has hardly covered his grave. They saw him a tall, ungainly, unpretentious, ungrace- ful man, who went about without bluster or parade, never seeking the limelight. His home was right here among us in Texas-not in Greece or Rome, yet he was a great intellect-his enemies so conceded, but when I say he was the peer intellectually of any man who has ever served in the Senate of the United States at any time, I anticipate dissent from the statement will be emphatic in many quarters, and Webster and Clay and Calhoun and Benton will be cited as evidence against me. They were all intellectually great men, but no age of the world, and no period in the history of any state or nation has possessed a monopoly of wisdom.


When Richard Coke was in the Senate, Roscoe Conkling was there; Allen G. Thurman was there, and Lucius Quintus Curtius Lamar was there, and Matthew Hale Carpenter was there, and I am not prepared to admit that they were not peers of the great quartette of statesmen named above.


Senator Coke and Judge A. W. Terrell both told me that Roscoe Conkling was the ablest men they ever saw, and when asked what member of the Senate he most dreaded in debate, Roscoe Conkling, without hesitation, answered, Allen G. Thurman.


That L. Q. C. Lamar was the peer of the proudest of that great assembly many believe, and many capable judges claimed that as lawyer and orator Matthew Hale Carpenter stood in the front rank of great Americans.


In that august parliament Richard Coke was thrown in contact and, so to speak, in competition, with those men, and if we know how he was esteemed, we can best judge of his ability.


The late Waller S. Baker of Waco, a splendid gentleman and


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able lawyer, accorded me the privilege and pleasure of his friend- ship. Whenever I was in Waco I was his guest in his hospitable home. He told me a short while before his untimely death, which carried sincere sorrow to so many hearts, what estimate was placed upon the ability of Richard Coke by some of his col- leagues.


In the early nineties the Democrats were in the majority in the Senate and the late J. Z. George of Mississippi was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He was concededly a great lawyer. Mr. Baker told me that Senator George said to him: "Mr. Baker, when- ever, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I refer a bill to 'Dick' Coke for a report and he brings it in, the report is never questioned, debated, or discussed, but is at once accepted as the last word in the law on the question."


He told me also that Thomas Francis Bayard, whose grandfather and father preceded him in the Senate from Delaware, and who was for twenty years a Senator from that State, also Minister to England and Secretary of State, said to him: "Mr. Baker, those of us who are now here as colleagues of 'Dick' Coke freely agree that he is the ablest intellect in this body, and many of us believe that there has never been here his intellectual superior since the government was founded." I submit that such testimony is worthy of full faith and credit.


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CHAPTER XI.


The term for which Governor Coke was elected was, under the Constitution of 1869, four years, but the Constitutional Convention which met in the fall of 1875 changed the term to two years, and it was provided that an election should be held, I believe, on Feb- ruary 15, 1876, both for the election of State officers and, if I re- call correctly, all other officers, and for the adoption of the pres- ent Constitution. In fact, the whole State Government machinery was overhauled and changed. The election was held and the Con- stitution was adopted, so all the officers elected took their offices on the third Tuesday in April, 1876.


The State Democratic Convention was held in Galveston in January, 1876. It met first in the Tremont Opera House, corner of Market and Tremont Streets, but the attendance was so large the convention adjourned to Artillery Hall, at the corner of Ave- nue I and Twenty-second Street.


Governor Coke and Lieutenant Governor Hubbard were, of course, renominated by acclamation, as I believe were the Supreme Court Judges, who had under the then existing Constitution (that of 1869) been appointed by Governor Coke. The Court had been reduced to three. Then followed nominations for Judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals, which was created by the present Con- stitution. Pursuant to the order of procedure adopted, there next came on the nomination of a candidate for Attorney General, and then followed the most dramatic scene ever witnessed in any convention.


The scene was in no sense staged, but was wholly unexpected, and the motives and causes which brought it about, absolutely spontaneous.


While the convention was in session in the opera house in the course of a brief speech made by the late George P. Finlay of Gal- veston he planted an idea in the minds of the members of the convention which brought forth a remarkable harvest. He was a dyed-in-the-wool Confederate, had been a gallant soldier, and was à strikingly handsome man of very impressive appearance.


He said in substance that the time had come to reward some of the brave Confederate soldiers who were qualified for high posi- tion, especially those who had been maimed in battle. He spoke at the psychological moment, and carried the convention with him, though adjournment to the new place of meeting followed close upon his speech. It seemed from the general sentiment of the convention that the nomination would go to that very able lawyer and courtly gentleman, Hon. W. M. Walton, known to thou- sands as "Buck" Walton. He had been elected Attorney General in 1866 and been removed from office as an "impediment to recon- struction," than which no higher tribute could be paid any man.


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The sentiment appeared to be prevalent in the convention that it would be poetic, (or probably a better phrase to use is "his- toric") justice to return him to a position from which he had been driven by military power. The other candidates were, as I recall, Mr. W. B. Brack, then of Sherman, later of El Paso, and a Mr. Jones from some East Texas County.


The candidacy of the latter named gentleman did not appear to be taken seriously, but Mr. Brack was a foeman worthy of even the shining lance of "Buck" Walton.


After the three gentlemen above named had been placed in nomi- nation no other nominations were expected, but another came most unexpectedly.


Dr. M. D. K. Taylor of Marion County, formerly speaker of the House of Representatives, and a most accomplished parliamenta- rian, was President of the convention. In front, and a little to his left, was the Harris County delegation, one of which was Hon. J. C. Hutcheson, who in 1893-4-5-6 was member of Congress from the Houston District. . He had removed to Houston about the year 1874, from Grimes County. There had come to the conven- tion as a delegate from Grimes County a gentleman of whom Captain Hutcheson was very fond, and of whose legal ability he had a justly deserved high opinion. The gentleman was Major H. H. Boone, commonly known as Hannibal Boone.


He had won his title by gallant service in the Confederate Army. While leading a cavalry charge on one of the battle fields in Louis- iana, grasping the bridle reins in one hand and waving his sword, or using his pistol with the other, a bullet from the Federal lines took off part of the thumb and the first and second fingers of his left hand, and his right arm at the shoulder joint, leaving him only the third and little finger of the left hand.


He had come to Galveston with no more idea of being a candi- date before the convention than he had of being translated like Elijah of old, to heaven in a chariot of fire.


He had never held or asked for an office and wanted none, and had not the remotest idea that his name would be mentioned, and it was Captain Hutcheson who sprang the surprise on the conven- tion.


He had been a gallant soldier in Lee's army in the battle fields of his native state, Virginia, and he knew and loved Major Boone, as did every man who knew him. Responsive to the suggestion, if not appeal, of Colonel George P. Finlay before referred to, the con- vention had nominated for Judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals Malcolm D. Ector of Marshall, who lost a leg at Murfreesboro, or Franklin, and Clarence M. Winkler, who won high honor as com- mander of one of the regiments of Hood's Texas Brigade, and the war spirit was in the air.


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Suddenly Captain Hutcheson rose and said: "Mr. President, if we are going to reward with offices brave soldiers, I will nominate a man who is both soldier and lawyer-Hannibal Boone of Grimes County." The action and words of Captain Hutcheson came like "a bolt from the blue" to Major Boone, and he caught Captain Hutcheson by the skirt of his coat and said: "Hutch, don't do that; I don't want any office; sit down," but the Captain would not down.


It chanced that just then the convention was in a good humor, and the members were ready for any kind of excitement, and began to call out: "Trot out your man. We want to see him. Trot him out." Captain Hutcheson said: "Get up, Boone, and go," but the Major held back until the cry: "Trot him out, come out," became so loud and insistent that he could not refuse to respond. He walked slowly to the platform to the left of the President. He was a sincerely modest man, and it was evident when he turned and faced the convention that he was both em- barrassed and full of emotion. He was not a large or impressive- looking man, but his carriage was erect-his step firm, and his manners dignified, and he was a gentleman through and through, and the convention recognized that fact and became quiet so that what he had to say might be heard. He said: "Gentlemen of the Convention: I beg to assure you that I am in no measure re- sponsible for appearing before you today. I did not come here to seek an office. I came as an humble Democrat to represent my people in this convention, and on no other mission. I want no office. I am a candidate for no office, and I am specially desirous that you should know that I am not an object of charity or in need of any office." At that point his voice rose higher, and he said: "And I, above all things, want this convention to know that I ask nothing for this," and at those words he laid his little finger, one of the only two, on his left hand, on the empty sleeve of his coat that was drawn across his breast, and pinned to the left lapel of his coat.


There may have been some in that convention who did not know him, who may have thought that by his words and his action he was seeking to play to the galleries and win votes, but those who knew him as I did, knew that he was as incapable of pretense or dissimulation as is a prattling babe, and was truth and sincerity personified. The gesture with the maimed left hand holding the empty sleeve stirred the convention, and he followed it by lifting his distinet voice, tremulous with emotion until his words rang out as clear and thrilling as a bugle call to battle, and said: "But so help me, God, I would not exchange it for the baton of the Czar of all the Russias."


His earnestness, his evident sincerity, his dignified bearing, had caught the convention, and when he reached his climax of his


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brief speech the members were swept off their feet, and a shout went up that showed he had won a victory which he did not want to win. Major Walton, knightly gentleman that he was, came forward and said had he known that Hannibal Boone could by any possibility have been induced to become a candidate he would not have offered for the place, and the other candidates likewise promptly withdrew. Major Boone in due time qualified, but proved his sincerity when he said he did not want to hold office by declining even to be a candidate for re-election. He en- tered office April 16, 1876, and held, as did all officers elected that year, until the end of 1878, when he moved his family and went back to his home at Navasota, and practiced his profession there until his death, nearly twenty years later. He went to his grave beloved and mourned by his neighbors and friends as few men have been.


Many lawyers who did not know him personally, and had never met him at the bar, were impressed with the idea that sentiment had swept into office a man not qualified to discharge the duties of the position. A lawyer who entertained that idea met me one day on the streets of Galveston and said: "Kittrell, a lot of you fellows played h-1 when you put that country lawyer in the Attorney General's office." I said: "Why? What is on your mind?" He replied: "Why, don't you know that he has advised the Land Commissioner that the Galveston, Brazos & N. G. Ry. is only entitled to alternate land certificates when so and so, and so and so and so and so (naming three law firms) had advised the railroad that it is entitled to straight certificates?"


A member of one of the firms named was Attorney General of Texas at 26 years of age-one member of another of the firms had been Judge of the Supreme Court and was six years later elected Chief Justice. I replied: "Oh, well, it is just a matter of difference of opinion between seven lawyers on one side and one country lawyer on the other." "Yes," he said, "and the city law- yers are going to get out a mandamus and you will see what kind of a lawyer you put in." To the surprise of the three firms, the Supreme Court agreed with the country lawyer.


Shortly after he entered upon the duties of the office of Attor- ney General he gave the Governor an opinion interpreting, as I recall, that section or article of the Constitution relating to the setting apart one-half of the public domain for the purposes of public education.


Certain parties interested in such way, as that this opinion was adverse to their contention, by an action of some kind tested its correctness before the Supreme Court, and again the "country lawyer" was found to be right. If I am not mistaken, in the course of the opinion the court quoted from the opinion of the Attorney General.


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Any man who seeks to disparage the ability of a lawyer because he lives in a country town has much to learn. I have spent about eighteen years of my life on the trial bench, several of them in a country district, and I have had before me in the country the best lawyers I ever saw. I heard the late L. B. Hightower, Sr., who for thirty years was judge of the 9th Judicial District of Texas, and who died in November, 1917, make in the courthouse in a country town where I was holding court, the ablest speech in a criminal case that I ever heard or read-such a speech as none of the famous criminal lawyers of America could have ex- celled-barring none. He was representing the side of the State. I shall never forget the exordium of his speech. It was: "Gen- tlemen of the jury: I do not live in your county. I live amid the primeval forests of East Texas, 'far from the madding crowds' ignoble strife,' where the mocking bird sings to his mate, and where the winds make music as they steal through the boughs of the towering pines, around which the yellow jasmine clambers and exhales its rich perfume upon the woodland air. I rarely leave my rural retreat, and would not be here today had it not been my duty to a friend to come to aid in the legal avenging of the murder of trusting innocence."


He did in fact live, as he said, but was at home in history, poetry and the classics. He was a gallant soldier from 1861 to 1865, and was as honest as fearless and as capable a district judge as ever sat upon the bench in Texas. There was no influence on earth that could have swerved him "even in the estimation of an hair" from the rigid perpendicular of judicial impartiality and rectitude.


The desire to pay a richly deserved tribute to one who was my own, and my mother's friend, has caused me to digress from my story of Major Boone, who was the friend and fellow soldier of Judge Hightower. They had dared death on the battlefield to- gether, practiced law at the same bar, and in the heart of both the memories of the Southern Confederacy were cherished with a devotion that naught but death could abate.


When Major Boone was wounded in 1863 he and a noble daugh- ter of Louisiana had plighted their troth, and purposed being married when the war was over, but when he had been maimed for life with characteristic generosity and chivalry, he tendered her a release from her vows.


He said when she had promised to become his wife he was in the full vigor of health and youth (he was about 28 years of age), but he had been maimed and made in a large measure helpless, and he had no right to ask her to become his wife under such changed conditions. She was, however, a typical Southern woman of the old regime. The blood of soldiers and gentlemen ran in her veins, and she declined her gallant lover's chivalrous offer.


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They were married November 25, 1863, and on their way back to the home of Major Boone stopped at my father's home on his plantation, and I am old enough to remember that they did so. They were accompanied by the Major's colored body servant "Ransom," who he kept with him until the faithful negro died.


My father was proud to have the wounded soldier and his coura- geous young wife as his guests, and I have heard him say that when Major Boone offered his fiancee her release, she replied: "If you have body enough to hold your soul, I will marry you." No human body ever encompassed a nobler, knightlier soul than did that of Hannibal Boone.


Some years ago I was in Richmond, Virginia, and visited the Confederate museum, formerly the White House of the Confed- eracy. I saw in the Missouri Room the picture of Major Boone, a very excellent likeness. I said to the lady in charge: "Madam, that picture is improperly placed. It belongs in the Texas Room." She said: "It was not marked or labeled in any way, and we did not know where it belonged." I said: "It belongs in the Texas room, and, Madam, allow me to say to you, you have on these walls the pictures of many gallant Southern heroes, and you will in course of time add many more, but you have not here and will not have, the picture of any man, however exalted may have been his rank, who was worthier to have his picture hung on these walls than was the man whose picture I am pointing to."


Major Boone was a most genial and delightful companion; fond of a good joke and a good story. He often told a joke on me which he enjoyed greatly, and which much amused our mutual friends.


He and I were taking dinner on one occasion with a train crew at a way station, in what might be properly termed a second-class restaurant-the only available place. There was a young lady waiting on the table, who had been, owing to straightened finan- cial conditions of her family, compelled to engage in that kind of service. She had evidently not been accustomed to it, and was obviously much embarrassed.


She was a strikingly beautiful young woman. It might have been said of her, as Appius Claudius said when he first beheld Virginia, the daughter of Virginius-"Such was not Hebe, or Jupiter had sooner, lost his heaven, than changed his cupbearer!" In serving the coffee I turned as she passed, and struck her arm, with the result that the hot coffee was spilled on my shoulders and back. The poor girl almost fainted from embarrassment, and as she apologized, her eyes were tear-dimmed. I assured her no harm had been done, and that it was my fault-not her's, and sought to relieve her discomfiture as much as was possible. Major Boone's sympathies were aroused, and turning to her with that knightly grace with which he might have addressed a queen,




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