Texas Almanac, 1945-1946 Page: 75

75

chemical and heavy industrial manufac-
turing industries.
Civic Reform.
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.
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 revision or for a
new Constitution. This step, together
with complete overhauling of the state's
present patchwork administrative and
fiscal systems, is an essential task ahead
of those who will guide Texas into its
second century in the sisterhood of
American commonwealths.
Texas' Cultural Progress.
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 First World War was there
sufficient surplus wealth, above that ur-
gently needed for material purposes, to
greatly encourage the arts. It has been

only during the last fifteen or twenty
years that there has been sufficient pri-
vate wealth as a source of endowment,
or public wealth as a tax source, to en-
courage greatly the higher processes of cul-
tural development other than education.
For the advancement of education,
there has been public and private effort
and 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 necessar-
ily among the people of a region strug-
gling to adjust themselves 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, the theater, the observatory, the
lecture forum have begun to spring up
and art, music and literature to play a
considerable part in the lives of Texans.
The severity of the economic depression,
followed by the emergencies of the Sec-
ond World War, has obstructed this de-
velopment momentarily, but with the
return of normal economic conditions the
cultural development of Texas will go
ahead as never before. The beginning
of the second century of Texas' statehood
undoubtedly marks also the beginning of
a new chapter in the advancement of
education and the arts in this state.

Harry A. Lowther Company

141 W. Jackson Blvd.,
Chicago 4, Il1.

NEW 1-MAN POWER SAW
FELLING TREES
Proved in the Lumber Camps '2/
. . now available to farmers and ranchers.
Lowther C-Saw, the new 1-man portable power saw,
first won its spurs in the production of pulpwood 0
Sfor the large paper mills and lumber producers.
S Now it is being introduced to the farm field, enabling fp w
farmers to produce urgently-needed pulpwood and cord-
wood . . and to convert barren underbrush-choked land
5 into grassy productive pasture. --
Send for Circular A, which tells how one man, plus
a Lowther C-Saw, can out-produce six men with the
old-fashioned cross-cut.

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HISTORY OF TEXAS.