The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 638

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

To this end, boosters of various kinds advertised throughout North America and
Europe to increase the state's population.
Initially various state agencies hoped to increase long-term revenues and bol-
ster Congressional representation by funding campaigns to attract immigrants.
However, the provisions of the 1876 Texas state constitution prohibited these
endeavors as critics saw it as a waste of public money and instead argued that im-
migrants would come of their own volition.
With the state government no longer officially involved, the private sector
went about boosting Texas as a settler's haven. At first, emphasis rested on as-
sumptions that immigrants came to farm and raise livestock. By the turn of the
century the efforts of organizations such as the Texas Commercial Secretaries'
Association turned to the encouragement of a business environment as well. An
exemplary chapter on Galveston illustrates the city's aspirations to become a pre-
mier distribution point for goods and people into Texas and how this led civic
leaders to seek out funding from both the federal government and the railroad
interests.
Much of the immigration literature produced between 1865 and 1915 aimed
at dispelling the negative views of Texas as a broiling hot, disease ridden, lawless
land, hostile to Northerners. Instead, through the dissemination of railroad
pamphlets, letters published in newspapers throughout the United States and
overseas, and replies to private enquiries from "official sources," Texas increas-
ingly appeared as a cosmopolitan region offering opportunities for advancement
and respite from brutal northern winters. Eventually the state's unique culture
and history became a lure for vacationers, each one of whom became a potential
future resident.
Texas's popular reputation as a land of cowboys and oil wells has eclipsed its
true image as an "immigrant state." Rozek declares that over the years from
186o to 1920 Texas's population increased 671 percent (p. 190) and by 1958
the state government once again officially rejoined the effort to lure visitors. The
recent campaigns to advertise Texas as a holiday destination or as a new home to
Texans unfortunately born elsewhere follows in a traditional vein of enticement
literature. Come to Texas effectively displays the origins of these promotional
drives in a concise, well-researched text. This is a commendable work that de-
serves the attention of those readers who wish to discern how Texas became one
of the most populous and powerful states in the Union.
University of Arkansas-Monticello S. M. Duffy
Oklahoma Tough: My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootleggers. By Ron Padgett. (Nor-
man: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003. Pp. xvi+265. Preface, acknowl-
edgments, map, photographs, appendices, notes, annotated bibliography.
ISBN 0-8061-3509-3. $29.95, cloth.)
A "lifetime supply" of deeds, deals, and dudes reveals the dangerous shade of
gray that is Oklahoma political and social life. Ron Padgett's book is a screenplay
in a few years, but is more social commentary than future celluloid magic. It is
the story of a determined son struggling with his image of a father who lived a
rancorous life.

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