The Rusk Cherokeean (Rusk, Tex.), Vol. 18, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, March 5, 1937 Page: 2 of 12
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om Finey \Crotc Best Story
On New Birmingham's Glory
THE RUSK CHEROKEEAN, RUSK. CHEROKEE COUNTY. TEXAS, FRIDAY, MARCH 5. 1937
STATESMAN-
• u,
New Birmingham has periodi-
cally been copy for state news-
papers. Of all the columns writ-
ten about it none surpass those
penned by the late Tom Finty
Jr., shortly after he heard of the
burning of the Southern Hotel,
city inonce the center of the city's
gay life and long guardian over
its deserted ruins.
A citizen of the iron boom city
'in its hey-day, Finty was pos-
sessed of those intimate details
which enabled painting the pic-
ture in most colorful fashion. His
story, which first appeared in the
feature section of the Dallas
News, May 9. 1926. has been pres-
erved by Miss Jessie Boone. It
is partially reprinted below.
The Southern Hotel
"The Southern Hotel was a
popular center. Its cuisine was
excellent; so were its wines, ser-
ved over a curly pine bar. Many
royal dinners were served in the
great dining hall. This was also
the scene of many fine balls. It
was in that hostelry that I learn-
ed of the demitaSse ....
Social Life
"The social life of the new
town was largely in the hands of
the Pendenia Club, which staged
many lordly functions. All of us
were rich or thought we soon
would be, and spent money lav-
ishly. For our balls we brought
Mr. Spauling handed his dollars
out in that way. The daily news-
papers of the State printed a
dispatch one day saying that the
force on the construction of thia
line had been doubled. The truth
of the statement was challenged,
whereupon the correspondent
orchestas and flowers from Hous-' gave details. He said that origin-
ton or Dallas. Guests came from ally two men had been employed,
towns and cities as far as 100 j and two more had been added,
miles away. East Texas was But the line was at last completed
drawn closer together. The idea and put into operation. The equip-
evolved that a young gentleman : nwint consisted of one car equip-
should wear burpsides, and soon by one mule. The patronage was
every smart young man in East , not large, as nearly everybody
Texas was so disguised. Not long j owned a road cart or a buggy,
ago I ran into a tin-type of a i The car made poor time on the
young man so bee?': c .ed. For soijie steep hills and after a time the
time he evaded identification; I street railway gave up the ghost,
could not remember having met! Politics in Hogg's Time
just such an Irish immigrant. But I "During the Hogg-Clark cam-
at length I became aware of the paign in 1892, we Clark support-
fact that this picture was made ers charged that the collapse was
. due to the enactment of the alien
-PROPHET
HOGG SOUGHT
CURE FOR
LABOR ILLS
CHAPTER XXII
On Sept. 6, 1904,* former Gov.
James Stephen Hogg addressed
a great Labor Day celebration
at La Porte. Unfortunately, his
words were taken down only in
part by newspaper correspon-
dents reporting the event. But
there are a curiously clairvoyant
quality in these fragments that
were preserved. Judge fqr your-
self how prophetically apt for
today are these 32-year-old para-
graphs dealing with labor, strikes
the plain man, his employer and
the state.
"I shall not discuss labor
strikes, nor suggest the causes
and remedies for them, except
where they directly affect the
people of Texas. After all, we
must first put our own house in
order. All the advice and lectures
we may give can not affect the
when I was just twenty-one
"A quaint old Scotchman with land law in Hogg's first adminis- _ ^
some money came along and pro- tration; that this law frightened , people's affairs in other states,
jected a street railway between English investors upon whom j Rectify wrong conditions in Tex-
New Birmingham and Rusk. Con- company had relied .... We \ as an(j thus let the light of hope
struction proceeded slowly Jor = S rnuch^n ^arne^on
campaign, and although the fight; result from this, but not from in-
New 1037
was in the Democratic party, it
'was necessary to count the large
negro vote. At one stage of the
ii
ermeddling with economic con-
ditions beyond our control.
"Almost all the important
campaign a cry came up from strikes have been by employes
Macedonia a negro settlement, Gf corporations. In nearly every
to a company of white men he instance they have been precipi-
rode by my side on the way to jtated by actual or threatened re-
the Macedonian schoolhouse, and auctions of wages, or by the un-
insisted that I should tell him just increase of daily hours of
exactly what to say. Accordingly labor, or by the wanton, arbitrary
I detailed my views in regard to | discharge of employes. Indiffer-
the troubles of New Birmingham. .ence to, or neglect of duty—on
When "Major" was introduced. I the part of the state—is the ori-
he repeated my speech with great i narv cause 0f these troubles,
fidelity and with oratorical flour- I "Undoubtedly this is a serious
ish and pep. But he did not finish j harge, for which a howl of cen-
when his contract with me was j ure by my critics will descend to
over. Instead, he proceeded to the gates of hell, proclaiming
give an entirely different version j reason, political treason! Yet the
of the New Birmingham trouble, j hordes of demons there will sing
with the result that a negro who j back, in harmonious, gutteral re-
could think on his feet absolutely j frain, "Yes, brothers, but that is
demolished him. I called "Major" 1 the truth!'
out of the house and demanded to ! "in all strikes in which corpor-
Give More for
said he,
Bonner)
James
•A
*
Hf
■sJeff
^>o*ce
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Come in and see how SAV-A-STEP
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touch. See the new lighted airplane-type
Cold Dial, with 16 freezing speeds.
Learn about the quiet Slo-Cycle Unit
that runs less—costs less to run. Learn
how the new Vapor-Sealed Cabinet
saves you money. See the huge new
freezer with exclusive reversible door.
Then own these great improvements
and 26 others in the new 1937 Stewart-
Warner-—on the easiest terms we have
ever Offered.
know where he
second speech.
"Why, Marse Tom."
"Mistah Wade (Wade
tole me to say dat."
Macedonia voted for
Stephen Hogg.
Rusk's Attitude
"Conservative men in Rusk
withheld investment in New
Birmingham, waiting for tangible
evidences of stability. Their at-
titude was resented in New Bir
mingham. One of the men from
the new town, a Boston English-
man, unbosomed himself to a
sidewalk group in Rusk one day.
He spoke of mossbackism and
want of co-operation. Whea he
had run down, Wiley Thompson,
a long-time Rusk citizen, looked
up from his whittling and said:
| "Young man, I want to ask you
two questions."
Permission to fire was given.
"You don't like us very veil?"
asked Thompson.
"Not exactly charmed," the
visitor answered.
"Well," said Wiley, "who sent
for you?"
That ended the discussion. . . .
"The Times"
| New Birmingham had a news-
paper that was a humdinger. It
covered the news in metropolitan
style. Why not? It had an able
staff. Charles A. Edwards was the
first editor. With him were his
younger brother; George Mac-
Donald, later publisher of the
Austin Tribune; Dick Collier, lat-
er of the Kansas City Star; and
Sam Houston Jr., youngest son
'of Gen. Sam Houston. The two
Edwardses. MacDonald and Col-
lier came from Wichita, Kansas.
| Charles Edward left New Bir-
mington after about two years
stay and went to Washington, D.
C. to represent the St. Louis Re-
j public. There he gained a national
1 reputation. . . He was succceeded
j as editor of the New Birmingham
I Times by Gen. John M. Claiborne,
late State Senator fro Galveston.
had gotten the j ations are involved, the public
has an interest and should not
hesitate to declare it in a lawful
way. The laws in most states are
radically wrong on the subject
and consequency much injury is
done the people. As a rule cor-
porations are created and endow-
ed with certain governmental
powers which can not be exer-
cised by the citizen, and are let
to do and deal as they please,
without fear of the restraining
hand of the government that gave
them life and placed them in
power over man.
"When a corporation lives with-
in its charter powers in all res-
pects, no complaint is made
against it. Abuse of corporate
privileges is the fruitful source
of strikes and in nearly every
instance is the direct cause of
them.
"Right here is where the state
fails of her duty by permitting
the corporation primarily to take
he illegal step, and to go on un-
restrained in its own offenses to
provoke resentment among men
individually and collcctively.
"So long as the corporation in-
flicts wrong on the whole people
it is seldom any action is taken;
but when it imposes upon its em-
ployes, they complain, and find-
ing no relief in- this, they strike.
Yes, they strike! And at last the
public receives the blow and
must pay for not having their
government take timely action
to correct the first wrong.
"Going down deep to the root
of such troubles, is at fault where-
in it has failed to adopt proper
laws and keep its.corporate creat-
ures under control. It has created
them, endowed them with ex-
traordinary powers, made them
stronger than any man or set of
men, breathed into them perpetu-
al life,guaranteed to them the
protection of the law, and sent
them forth in gum shoes, to
stalk among the people unheard,
unseen and never felt until they
mwM
1U!'—i-U ..
imperiously pass out from under
their charter powers into the
independent realm where suc-
cessful defiance of all laws makes
them the people's oppressors.
'Step by step they have obtain-
ed franchises, easements and pri-
vileges with doubtful legislative
'ntil they ha"; recomc
£>' "!'"-,t impregnable under the law
of vested rights. Thus fortified,
t! • can stand labor conflicts
and make the public foot the bills.
"In many ways they seriously
i<—"ve thn general public. They
produce bitter feeling among in-
noc .ru people. They lead to law-
lessness of vicious men. They be-
little municipal government. They
encourage contempt for state au-
tority. They agi*randize the pow-
ers '6f the federal government.
And tl ~y sow the seeds of discord
and r-es.-mlment in the feelings of
th we: kinprr on's children, who
kr jv/ thai in the contest, won or
lc :. r.II the biarne and damage
are laid at the poverty-striken
door of labor.
"It is high time these evils were
remedied. How? My answer is to
pass other corporation laws by
which the causes that provoke or
produce them shall be prevented.
Pattern after a good example
long ago set with railways in this
state. Our laws governing them
are models. Since their adoption,
more than 10 years ago, we have
had no strikes among their oper-
atives. Before those laws were
passed we had frequent, stubborn
tie-ups among them.
"Reference to these laws and
their effects is made deliberately
... to point out the duty of the
people as to labor troubles in the
cities. When I speak of the peo-
ple, I mean every voter in the
state. His duty is to have adopt-
ed and enforced similar laws to
govern every telegraph, tele-
phone, street railway, gas, elec-
tric light and water company in
the state.
Every such company enjoys
public franchises obtained al-
most without cost. These compan-
ies, vested with special privil-
oges, are allowed to load them-
selves down with stocks and
bonds without hindrance of the
law. They usually put them at
about six times the cost of value
of the property and stand ready
to increase them at will. After
they have issued their interest-
bearing, though fraudulent, bonds
they must, pay the intef&t on
them.
"In dull times they resort to the
old, oppressive practice of en-
'ailir!« thn hardship, the IrsrcV-i
on labor bji-: cutting down fprca ,
reducing wages and increasing
hourse; and, unless they have
gone to the limit, they rake the
public to the quick by raising
their tolls or rates as high as
the business will permit.
"Strikes follow. We are then
regaled daily, through the cor-
poration newspapers, with high
moral strains against the evils of
union labor and its wanton stri- ,
kfe3. Every criminal act of idle
thugs, every anarchistic bomb;
every incendiary utterance of
he back-ally gambler, is laid at
the door of labor.
"These guardians of the public
conscience fail to point out the
wrong of the other side. They
do not tell us of the destruction
of competition between these cor-
porations through their vicious
acts of consolidation. They do
not tell us of their watered stocks
and bonds, to pay which the
public must be skinned. They do
rot tell us that to prevent cor-
(Continued on page 8)
ive subscribed to this paper during that
We are proud to say that our farrtiiies on both
sides h
fim;;.
We are not thsv old, but old enough in the
drug business to give you the best service in
our i.ne.
oseiey
PRESCRIPTION DRUGGIST
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A 3 "37 tt.34 Net Co. Ft. 17.2 Sq. Ft. Slielf Space Refrigerator $159.50
f HARLES L. KERR
Exclusive Stewart-Warner Deeler For
Cherokee County
Among the sidelights on Chero-
kee county affairs discovered
through delving into early court-
house records is an account of
what is doubtless the first copy-
right obtained by a Cherokee
county citizen. On May 19, 1847,
Dr. Absalom Denson procured
from the U. S. District Clerk's of-
fice for the District of Texas a
copyright for his volume entitled, |
"The Southern and Western Way-
i bill to Health."
; Dr. Denson had a summer res- j
idence at Lochranzie, the little- j
■ known pioneer Cherokee town on
i the old San Antonio road. His
wife was a cousin of James H.;
Durst.
1 That the doctor did not find all!
; clear financial sailing in the new
' country is evidenced by his soon |
afterward selling all his "interests j
and claims" to his book to James
! Durst for $1350.
Will Dreams Come True?
Every great business is the culmination of a dream, for with-
out visionary thinking there could be no achievement. Every
community is a dream in the process of fulfillment. But wish-
ful thinking is powerless alone.
East Texans have not been thinking, they have been doing!
The past five years are conclusive proof that East Texans
' have been wide awake with that "up an at 'em" spirit. Dreams
have been realized!
The Citizens State Bank has always been a strong booster
for Rusk and East Texas and will continue to be so.
Congratulations to the Rusk Cherokeean on Their 90th Birthday
CITIZENS STATE BANK
MEMBER FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
RUSK, TEXAS
R. J. Meadors of Maydelle, was -jjj
here on business Wednesday.
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Miller, Elton L. The Rusk Cherokeean (Rusk, Tex.), Vol. 18, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, March 5, 1937, newspaper, March 5, 1937; Rusk, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth341794/m1/2/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Singletary Memorial Library.