The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 3
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Southwestern Historical Quarterly and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association.
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The Men of Goliad
that is what we of Texas have been doing ever since. It is
no accident, nor yet is it an error of those charged with responsi-
bility for building the Texan memorials, that this one compares
with the magnificent shaft commemorating San Jacinto as the
faint cold radiance of Polaris compares with the noonday splendor
of a Texan summer sun. That is, and always has been, the Texan
point of view. It is part of the unconscious tribute that we pay
to our self-confidence and racial pride.
2. THE TEXAN REVOLUTION, 1835-1836
As a proving ground of history, the Texan Revolution was unique.
Though fought on a terrain comparable with that of the World
War of 1914-1918, and, as regards the value and area of the con-
tested region, for a comparable prize, the numbers engaged were
so small that the historian can trace the main springs of human
action and human conduct which caused its every move; and the
actuating motives, mental oddities, and moral obliquities of the
participants, their shifting plans-their increasing heart-beats-
as can be done with no other event of similar importance in the
history of the world. Every problem, economic, political, personal,
governmental, emotional, military, and financial, that vexes our
so-called modern era passes beneath the microscope of the student
of history who examines the story of Texas from May, 1835, to
May, 1836. And under the microscope of history, its problems are
seen in clear relief, even as a slow-motion picture passes, in de-
tailed review, action too rapid for the normal eye. Human motives
and human conduct, and human reactions to hardship, ambition,
selfishness and greed, and to a government that is either too arbi-
trary or too weak, are, in all ages, much the same. The United
States, Mexico, and Texas suffered and, from 1835 to 1880, for the
most part, solved all the problems-social, political, economic, and
governmental-that threaten world peace and human happiness
today.
Mexico, in 1834 and 1835, sought relief from the uncertainties
and weaknesses, hardships and petty tyrannies, which arose from
an ill-conceived and badly-working effort at democracy, for which
the Mexican people, not yet accustomed to self-government, were
not prepared, and yielded to the personal dictatorship of General
Santa Anna as a measure of relief from lesser ills. For this error,
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940, periodical, 1940; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101111/m1/11/?rotate=90: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.