The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954 Page: 68
585 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
gubernatorial choice of the Populists in 1892 implies that before
then he was known to be a reformer in outlook.10
By 1892 Nugent also had a reputation as a good man and a
well informed and intelligently thoughtful one." That he was
thoughtful and serious is certain. A brother wrote that even as a
boy he was "meditative and studious" and without the usual
boyish enthusiasm for sports and play.12 As a man he gave ample
evidence of having explored more than casually the fields of
theology and religion,3 economics, politics, and history.'4 A great
earnestness is evident in the speeches he made as a campaigner;
they were always sober, dignified, and though provoking. They
avoided cliches, aphorisms, platitudes, and shibboleths.
To one of his audiences, Nugent explained what he believed
was the Christian justification for the social unorthodoxy in
Populism. Jesus he characterized as being unorthodox also-a
person who "did not hesitate to denounce wrong, even though
hedged about and protected by social power and influence."
He declared:
Jesus ... saw the fatal tendency of men to think in customary and
institutional lines and He apparently sought to lift His fellows into
10In People's Party in Texas, 118, Martin describes Nugent as a religio-political
idealist and says: "his character came to symbolize the whole reform movement,
to epitomize all that was best of Populism." Martin seems justified in his declara-
tion that Nugent was the focal point of the movement and that the "Nugent
tradition" became the rallying cry for reformers after his death, that he was canon-
ized and regarded as a martyr to the cause.
"xAlthough it opposed Populism in emphatic terms, the conservative Dallas
Morning News consistently accorded Nugent a fine respect as a person of integrity
and intellect.
12J. C. Nugent to Hempstead News in Nugent, Nugent, 19. This undated letter
was obviously written just after Judge Nugent's death.
1sIbid., 297-316. Letters written in the 1870's and 1880's to his brother, J. C.
Nugent, are on these pages. They expound his Swedenborgian theology and show
it to be a foundation for and a justification of a reformer's outlook. Emanual
Swedenborg, eighteenth century theologian from whom stemmed the New Jeru-
salem Church, is the only religionist named. George McDonald, the English writer
of religious novels, however, was praised for having "caught the spirit of the new
age" in his novels.
14Economists named include William Stanley Jevons, David Ricardo, and A. L.
Perry. John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, Thomas Paine,
and John Taylor of Caroline were cited or quoted. In a letter of October 2, 1950,
to W. A. ( MS. in writer's possession), Nugent's son, T. L. Nugent, states that his
father owned and read writings of these men, along with those of Washington
Gladden, Lyman Abbott, Immanuel Kant, Will James, Henry George, Edward
Bellamy, and others.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 57, July 1953 - April, 1954, periodical, 1954; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101152/m1/86/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.