Texas Almanac, 1941-1942 Page: 66
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66 TEXAS ALMANAC.-1941-42
ment plants, brick and tile kilns, meat
packing plants, gypsum products plants,
the railroad construction and repair
shops, flour and grist mills, ice factories,
cottonseed products mills, harness fac-
tories and establishments for manufac-
turing miscellaneous products for local
markets. It has been an era of rapid
industrial development, but the indus-
tries that have been established have
been primarily of the pioneering type.
Texas' greatest industrial resources in
the form of raw materials--the textiles
including cotton, wool and mohair--have
brought relatively little manufacturing
development. Only about 2 per cent of
cotton production and no wool and mo-
hair are consumed by Texas mills. These
products are easily and economically
shipped long distances in their raw
form. They belong to the later period of
industrial development-one that should
arrive shortly. With it should come a
multitude of allied industries. Leather
and shoe manufacture is another in-
dustry that has seen only small develop-
ment in Texas, but for which there are
future possibilities. Texas also holds op-
portunities for a long list of chemical
and heavy industrial manufacturing in-
dustries.
The time evidently approaches, too, for
a new chapter in political development of
the state. Although there have been new
phases of political development, such as
founding of the Railroad Commission and
the establishment of banking, insurance
and highway departments, which have
aided civic progress in Texas since the
opening of the century, Texas politically
is today essentially the Texas of 1876
when the present Constitution was
adopted. Civic Reform.
This document, adopted on the heels
of Reconstruction and in a political
psychology that prompted the writing of
needless detail into the fundamental gov-
erning law of the state, has proven a
cumbersome instrument, and there is
growing demand for its drastic revision
or complete abandonment for a new
Constitution. This step, together with
complete overhauling of the state's pres-
ent patchwork administrative and fiscal
systems, is an essential task ahead of
those who will guide Texas into its sec-
ond century of Anglo-American political
development.
In its cultural and social development
the transition of Texas of the immediate
future should be more marked than its
economic and political progress. Not un-
til after the World War was there suf-
ficient surplus wealth, above that ur-
gently needed for material purposes to
greatly encourage the arts. It has been
only during the last ten or fifteen years
that there has 'been sufficient private
wealth as a source of endowment, or
public wealth as a tax source, to encour-
age greatly the higher processes of cul-
tural development other than education.
Texas' Cultural Progress.
For the advancement of education,
there has been public and private effortand sacrifice, even from the days of the
republic. A large part of the public do-
main was set aside for public school pur-
poses and the establishment and mainte-
nance of the University of Texas and
Agricultural and Mechanical College. But
as for public and private patronage of
the arts and sciences, it lagged necessa-
rily among the people of a region
struggling to adjust itself to natural
economic environment and accumulate
sufficient capital for the beginnings of
commercial and industrial development.
So it has been only during recent years
that the library, the museum, the art
gallery, theater, the observatory, the lec-
ture forum have begun to spring up and
art, music and literature to play a con-
siderable part in the lives of Texans. The
severity of the economic depression, in
Texas as elsewhere, somewhat obstruct-
ed this development momentarily, but
with the return of normal economic con-
ditions the cultural development of Tex-
as will go ahead as never before. The
beginning of the second century of
Texas' freedom undoubtedly marks also
the beginning of a new chapter in the
advancement of education and the arts
in this state.
Planning for the Future.
In another respect, the second century
should mark a new era in Texas. It
should be the beginning of conscious de-
velopment in all phases of Texas' social
and economic life. To date, Texas "has
growed like Topsy." Like any region
rich in natural resources, the develop-
ment of Texas has been primarily the
combined, net result of individual effort,
some of which, looked at from the
standpoint of public welfare, has been
good, some of which has not.
Just what the current trend toward
national planning will mean to Texas re-
mains to be seen. It holds for Texas
its advantages and its possible handi-
caps. One great handicap to the devel-
opment of Texas to date has been the
self-centering influence of the older and
better established communities and re-
gions of the nation. If, to the present
advantage of older economic institu-
tions and development is to be added the
force of governmental authority in eco-
nomic affairs in a republic with center
of population and political influence in
the North and East, then Texans may
have to do some planning in competition
with planning in the future, especially
if the customarily one-party state is
found aligned for any considerable time
with a political party opposed to the
national administration. But whatever
the political future or whatever the
course of national planning may be,
there is generally acknowledged to be
need of a consistent and generally rec-
ognized plan of political, economic and
social development in Texas where mag-
nificent distances, inestimable resources,
and incalculable potentiality for diversity
are at once the state's strength and
weakness.
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Texas Almanac, 1941-1942, book, 1941; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117164/m1/68/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.