The Rebel (Hallettsville, Tex.), Vol. [4], No. 203, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 12, 1915 Page: 2 of 4
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Galveston to
Already we
congratulations from
our veterans who have
atood with ua from Number One.
A great many papers are "bom.
with a mission," and die a-born'
ing. Not so with The BebeL Wo
had a mission, you might call it
a vision of a land in which no
landlord dwelt, and in which each
rupt corporation
Austin has seen in years. We have
excoriated the antis, pilloried Jno.
H. Kirby gg the one prime fraud
of the South, and to top it off and
give good measure we have placed
the Hon. James E. Ferguson so
thoroughly to the limelight a* an
Eighty-Percent, usurer and a de
eeimjr of the people via the land
■§ I ■ S^k foke that he Will be -the
man would live on his own land first one-term governor since thf*
and own his own home, without days of Edn nnd J. Davia,
SLiU*.
fgPPjl ^
workers that they must give up
jail ideas of class antagonism and
allow the aforesaid reformers to
rescue them from the pit of pover-
ty in which they find themselves.
These gentlemen overlook the fact
that if the working class lacks
the virility, the power, and |he de
ever a thought of the wolf of hun
gt'r barking at his door.
Call it a mission, caU it a vis-
ion or call it what you will—un-
less it is brought down from the
elouds of sunguine thought into
the practical workings of every-
day life, no matter how noble or
lofty the idea may be upon which
it is based, it vanishes into thin
air.
Not ho, The Rebel. Our mission
wa* twofold; destructive and con-
structive. • We had to destroy that
which was across our path and
then we had to construct in the
most workmanlike way the pro-
gram that would lead the race in-
to the promised land.
Well did we realise the immen
sity of our task and if there were
Home hours in which our lives were
clouded with the darkness of pes-
simism, the cloud* were dispelled
when bot through with the great
thought that we were engaged in
the greatest, biggest, noblest work
that was ever given men to do,
that of placing the landless man
on the matilesg land. We eoined
that phrase, and thank God, it has
rung around the world.
As to the destructive end, we
clearly saw that the rock in the
road, the bar in our faces was the
prohibition agitation. We knew
our history fairly well, and the
chapter in it that stood out like
a burning bush at night was the
fact that when the Farmers A|
liance was under way and becotn
ing dangerous to the landed inter-
ests in 1886 they launched a pro-
hibition fight and in 1887, the
landed interests with joy over the
faet that the attention of the peo-
ple was withdrawn from those
that robbed them and#directed to
the water wagon. Later when the
Socialist movement wag launched
in the South the prohibition ques-
tion was foisted on the people.
For ten years the agitation con-
tinued and the legislature was
rent in twain over the regulation
of tt man's appetite, in fact, broad
constructive legislation was un-
thought-of. Hence we attacked,
the prohibitionists, while holding
no brief for the antis. Take them
all around man for man, the Donk
pro is a better type of man than
the Donk anti. The Donk anti is
a reactionary rascal in all that the
term iinpliea and he was always
We put through the two great
'and petitions fthat wteret signed
by a hundred thousand people
and were the greatest petitions ev
er presented in Austin. We ma^e
LAND an issue in this state, and
that will remain an issue until it
is settled right and by that we
mean: USE AND OCCUPANCY
SHALL BR THE TITLE TO
LAND.
1 have written more than f in-
tended. I cquld go on and fill
four pages, detailing the achieve-
ments of the four years of The
Rebel's life, but I believe I have
«aid sufficient to indicate the
scope and power of its work. I
am ready to take a Bible oath or
any other oath that you wish, to
the effect that my "practical ex-
perience at the helm of The Re
bel during the past four years
teaches me that there is not one
single solitary thing in America
today to stop the quarter of a mil-
lion heads of families who are
renters in Texas, thousands heads
of families of Oklahoma, the
twenty-thousand heads of fami-
lies in Louisiana, from securing a
home if The Rehel had 100,000
subscribers in Texas, 50,000 in
Oklahoma and 25,000 in Louisi-
ana.
Now don't think for a minute
that I am an egotist or swell-head
or anything like that when 1 make
that claim. Any other well-in-
formed man in my shoes could do
the same .thing. Neither myself
nor mv partner, Meitsen, is a ge-
nius. We have accomplished so
many wonderful things the past
I BBm
A number
have asked Th«
Oat caused him to
mind and
States senator for Texas to
Charles A. Culberson Jwo
j?"cUPANCY.
i * $"(£?.■ r"
• ~ ,
Kflebel started
ad movement in the na p^'
hss been bombarded with thee s«*w« find a
PABTNER8 ID PB08TI-
I , TVTIOS.
i srsKfi
. the day before. The late* to come
«* to light about them is from Cor-
■T«,;
able
hence. The Rebel is in a position ** * *" every quarter,cor bodied politicians living off fines
to answer the question most e*ery of the "abject. collected from the ■, unfortunate
thoroogUy: " <* ■ «■ ,«■«■ * pnrttot* Sri/the .tti.-
Co«l Oil Jot *ai not inn be- {J? cropped up ofteneat, goea like trict. The feeo on apportioned
.ire to emancipate tteooelvea, , ,he Uw. How u me o( M011l,
that even if they were led in the
promised land of freedom, by a
good Samaritan capitalist, they
would no more be able to main-
tain that freedom than a wet dish
cloth could stand up like a rug-
ged oak. The working class mu#t
emancipate itself and to do that
The Rebel is profoundly convinc-
ed that every fibre of his being
must be permeated with a senae
of self-reliance. Each worker muat
be like the little boy in the story
that 1 will now tell you:
An expert machinist employed
in the Texas Pacific shops at Fort
Worth, was ordered up the road
'or ton days on a big repair job.
After his Huit ease was packed he
walked down to the gate with his
wife and two children, one a sev-
en-year-old girl, the other a stur-
dy little five years-old boy. After
kissing his wife and daughter, he
shook hands with his boy, mana*
fashion and said:
Now, Billy, you are a strong,
little man, and I want you to take
food care of mama and protect
ier while I am gone." •
"I'll do it, pop," 8aid Bill.
A few hours later, the rriothcr
was putting the children to bed,
and clad it\th«r little nighties,
they knelt beside their couch and
hen the mother commenced that
old-time evening prayer that mil-
Ions of mothers have prayed for
many generations.
'Now I lay me down to sleep,
1 pray the Lord my soul to keep.
God bless papa, God protect ma-
ma."
Right there the little fellow ar-
ose from hiB knees and standing
up to the full height of h}s two-
cause it has been discovered in the
RiggS National Bank fight now
going on at Washington that
Bailey had transactions with that
Standard Oil bank in violation of
this:
willing to
' waltz-me-aroiund-
again-Willie" with the Donk Pro
while the people silently suffered.
Now you can see why in the
very first issue of The Rebel we (fanners of the South by telling
denounced prohibition as a fake them that they arc lazy, shiftless,
and in the second issue we lam- 'indolent, extravagant, filled with
fonr years, for «he «Jopl,. r*^fc ^ *ru"ml hi«
that we have done something that (
was never done in the South be-
fore, and that is, build up a paper
until it has a large general circu-
lation and then tell the plain God
Almighty's truth about conditions
as you see it.
It is now generally known and
soon wilTNb^ universally known,
that every single solitary newspa-
per in the South from the Gal.-
Dal. News, Atlanta Constitution,
down to the smallest country
weekly is muzzled by either the
big or little interests and the peo-
ple are consequently narcotized
by these sheets, and that's why I
say: If you give us the circula-
tion by the eternal God, we will
rip landlordism from the navel to
the chin, and kick its putrid car-
cass into the ditch, and then they
will never insult the hardworking
said
"Mama, God ain't got nothing
to do with this. Papa gave that job
to me, I'm here to protect you.''
The spirit of that little boy is
the right spirit and the Socialist
wishes to sec that same self-reliant
spirit in every tenant and wont
ingman in Texas. Don't look for
some tin gods around the court-
house square, in the form of law
yers, bankers, landlords or court-
house pap-suckerg to help you.
Not only that, don't in your
own organization look to state or
national secretaries, national com-
mitteemen, national executive
committeemen or others wearing
the brief b>dgc of authority, to
of the United States treasury
the Riggs National Bank:
t former Senator Jos-
eph. W. Bailey in violation
of the national banking laws
has been carried on the books
of the Riggs National Bank
for years, a, a debtor to the
institution without security to
the amount of $60,000."
Here we witness again how the
long <k;jrm of Standard Oil
reaches into the senate and cor-
rupts public servants. Bid not
Joe Bailey hold a commission
from the people of Texas and
agree to sell out for 8tandar<l
gold, the Rockefeller outfit so far
from giving him $60,000 out their
Riggs National Bank would not
give him a job as elevator man
in their Broadway building.
Commenting on thia latent ex-
posure of Bailey, Kalamity Bon-
ner in the last Harpoon bays:
Joe, in the "borrowing"
period of his political career,
seems to have hit the interests
right and left for hig share of
the "hard stuff" exacted by
them from the people.
The Riggs National Banic
is the Washington branch of
the City National Bank of
New York, a Standard Oil in-
stitution.
Joseph is counsel for the
plaintiff bank in its suit to
enjoin the Treasury Depart-
ment from investigating af-
fairs and status as a safe,
sound and lawful banking in-
stitution.
When it comes to landing
squarely on the debit and cre-
dit side of bank ledgers, Joe
is as certain of his game as
a German submarine is of its
intended victim.
''If a man hit JQO.OOQ
acres upon which he lives and
has 50,000 head of stock graz-
ing thereon, is he not entitled
to hold that land under the
principle of use and occupan-
cy, as he uses the land and
occupies i^f "
as follows, so aays the Corpus
Christi Daily Caller of May 23:
For each case the county attor-
ney receive, $5, the constable $4,
justices of the peace $3.25, fine
to the state $2. Total $14.25.
The woman pays $2 to the state
and* $12.25 to the Donk fee grab-
bers. These animals have been
. . , . . . A.. _ fitting hungry recently so in the
Let us look into this matter ca- paat three weekg they soaked the
unfoHutate glirUi If or $1002, of
refully:
One of Port Worth s most pro- which $825 went to the fee grab
mnient bankers, Mr. Waggoner, bers, or at the rate of $275 a week,
owns M0,(X)0 acres in the Texas and that money was split among
Panhandle. On this immense do- fiVe officials.)./ County Attorney
mai" , stores, schools, black- Taylor alone pulled down
smith shops garages, hundreds of and yet everyone of the cases was
houses for his army of employes, where the woman entered a plea
besides tens of thousands of heads 0f gnilty and Neither the woman
?f . !e- LSurei>' u <;an truthfully nor the county attorney ever en-
be said that Mr. Waggoner uses te^d the courtroom.
that land and inasmuch as his sons lUe may call this "fee sys-
and his immediate family reside temM bQt ^ ^ ^ looks
there more than six months in a iike about 100 degreeg below high-
year, it can be said that he is liv- way robbery, particulary when we
ing up to the principle of use and consider that when the fee swipers
occupancy. get through with the unfortunate
If we concede that Mr. Wag- girjg ^e landlord grabs them for
goner is using and occupying the hig share; then the profit.mongeh
land, then Mr. KIeberg, of Kle- demands his pound of flesh, the
berg county, Texas, son-in-law of
usurer, restaurant keeper, saloon
Mm King, who with that lady keeper and the other pimps get
and her daughter, own 1,400,000 theirs, all taken from the physical
acres m the Gulf Coast country, desecration of our unfortunate
and who are continually increas gi8terg Ninety-eight out of every
ing their herds, and all of whom hundred of these women would
live on the ranch, must be consid- not within a hundred miles of
ered owners of the 1,400,000 under a brothel were it not that the lMh
the principle of use and oceup- 0f p0Verty would drive them to it.
ancy and these three people What lousy swine these Donks
wuM deed their vast estate to arp anyhow
their heirs and assigns forever.
Looking at "use and occupan- —
cy" In his mattcr-of-fact way we
can readily observe that landlord
ism would continue to thrive in
the future as in the past, if we
THEY VOTE FOR IT.
I do not know how it has work-
iub i.uturt! an iu me pttat, 11 vu ..j • .. * , A T •,
dmdd accept thi, definition of *««£
use and occupancy."
know this that in Lavaca- county
The Rebel believe8 that since
the tatcBtrexposurc of Bailey has '
become public property that not
only will he not ruir for the sen- ■
ate in Texas, but it is extremely
likely that he will never return to
the state. IF he came back to
TexaK now his reception com-
mittee would consist of a half
dozen negro'hack drivers, because
every white Texan with a particle
of self-respect would not want to by
Of comae we do not oeeept it jg' " ^ f
and a gUnce at the Socialist par- he"fe" ™d. «•
ty'a platform will rtow onr tloei- ^
tion. Section 2 of the Farmer. % .b"ng "le,r " ^
,-progmm adopted at the national t
convention of the Socialist petty, P" ."I"1 to }? ™nt"' ?"d Jc
held at Indianapolis says: *' town ,amKr 801,1 h"> wh'le •
actual farmer was bogged down.
When he^ finally got his cotton to
the courthouse square, cotton had
gone down to 7 cents. When the
actual farmer hag to fight banker,
profit taker, the politician and
mother nature all together, he
must feel like the policeman in
"Pinafore" who sang:
"Take one consideration with an*
be seen in the fellow s company what America's greatest aqthori-
becanse of hi„ reputation and then ty on statutory law, Chancellor
again, he might become embarass Kent, meant by ''use and occup-
" To prevent the holding of
land out of use and to elimin-
ate tenantry, we demand that
all farm land not. cultivated
by owners shall be taxed at
its full rental value, and that
ACTUAL use and occupancy
shall be the only title to
land."
This ig what Blacks ton^, meant Tl , .... . ,
"use and occupancy." This is Th° farmer 8 ,lfe 18 not hW
one.
basted the antis. In that second
issue we also doclared our position
on matters of religion, which was
simply "hands off" and then in
the third issue we called for the
organization of a Renters Fnion,
thus commencing our constructive
work.
All old-time Rebel readers now
know what followed:
One hundred and twenty eight
delegates from 28 counties on No-
vember 4, 1911, organized the
Renters Union. The land agita
the sin of Adam and loaded with
individual deliquency.
Now you know where we arc at.
Are you going to give us that cir-
culation. It will be money in your
pocket if you do. It will mean a
certain instead of an uncertain
future. It will safeguard your
family. Suppose you begin to try
to put us on the hundred thousand
mark by sending NOW for a bun-
dle order of the Anniversary Ed-
ition which will be dated July !1.
Remember you get a bundle of
10 copies for a nickle postpaid, 50
, J ® . . *| «*uvt WVU|/'
Socialism, is neither a dream
ed for having to introduce him to ancy." This i8 what Herbert Spen nor an ideal. It is merely the "ef-
m.w a.n<^ adughters cer meant by "use and occupan- ficiency" idea, utilized for the be-
0 ^T,he only comf"rt iat, Joe ey". In short "use and occupan- xiefit of all.
save you from the bondage of ca-1*21 jey" n,eans ACTUAL and oc- =r
pitalism .exposure that has engulfed him is cupancy
^taTtaiS Th _ • ■ • - 4 -
„To"JSSi ^eS «-• * CattEn'a JLwdJL
;lectablf xitcniork,
hfork, of Dallas, to f°r Mr. Kleberg or Mr. Waggoner held at San Antonio less than
^=1:" r^.°1y "8°. "Wch they de-
gold that he who would be free, . .
mOr -"r th± ar inPrdn^ owner,
slogan, that we have carried at SfS "hiP of P«*erics. On the
tion was continued so that on May
12, 1912, tfes Tfixas deM?«tiA ;0,r ^enta, . 200 for a dollar
went into the Socialist party ST thousand for a five dollar bill
Indianapolis, and put through
the masthead of The Rebel for
the past four years:
"The great appear great to us,
Vcause we are on our knees,let us
arise!"
f
Even the well-to-do farmers of
the South who own their home
steads free and^nnineumbered re-
alize that their children and their
children's children must be rent-
Socialist movement,
iOily Joe:.
1 would likt'
again
He says of pull the old time bell-cord and go ^ principle land that is worth-
down the furrow sixy or seventy iMU t v. ■
miles long before the sun goes k P a* pUrp09ea'
down. Methinks, however, they can g owned collective\y. It such
will become wind-foundered be- an 'H^^dualistic type as the
fore they have gone 4ree miles. eattleraan should demand govern-
They certainly could not fill the ment ownerehlP of packeries, why
bill of 14use and occupancy'9 in 110^ next logical step and
the genuine sense of the term. demand and secure government
1 It may be said in passing that ownership of ..grazing lands,
the actual workers who will till us look at this question from
,k;Kr'^vT sys
to have seen
him again in the senate—be-
cause he Mould have added
much that is needed to that
distinguished "body, and
would have placed Texas back
where she belongs as a produ-
cer of great statesmen.
Verily, verily I say unto you
copies for a quarter, 100 copies ers, if the present system of land , . ' < o ^ 110 lear of want in their old age, Mexico there has lived for
v a 1 tenure continues. The, farmer who * ' because in their working yeai* pipbt years a great "user and "oc-
the now famous Farmers Program
which has been re-emphasized at
the national committee meeting
last month.
carved out a home for himself by
and so on to a hundred thousand jbuying land at $5 to $15 per acre
copies, all at. half a cent apiece, [does not have to possess the wis-
A New York syndicate
they will receive the fuii product who-wag known all over
writer of their toil and when with totter- this continent as Don Tcrrazas.
„T , , , , I dom of a philosopher to know what
Won t you or your local order his 80ng are Up again8t whe*n thev
some copies now ?
MMVMWNMMWMVMMWMMWMWaMMMMMMMMSMWMMaM
Comrade El. Van Horn, Cald-
well county, was so busy with his
crops he could not write, so his
good wife sends their renewal:
"The enclosed to renew the Old
War Horse for another year. We
want a speaker in Caldwell county
this year and if we don't get one
I am tempted to do some work my
self, botg of folks around here
want to subsehibe, but are too
poor.' We hand our paper out to
the neighbors, but our landlord
don't like it much." And thus it
goes. A* soon «* one worker gets
his bearing he wants ihe neigh-
bors to have a chance at the same
self-respect. How much work are1
you doing. Comrade? I
Did you know thit the Laud
League pulled off a strike in Mis-
have to pay $75 to $150 an acre
for the sam« kind of land today.
This may account for so many
fairly well-to-do farmers joining
the Land League of America and
the Socialist party.
said in the St. I*mis Republic two ing steps they go down the west He "used and occupied" one-half
years ago: "If the millionarire eni side of the hill of life, then a the state of Chihuahua. He owned
, .— — owned
owners of the great daily newspa grateful people will be proud to his -by hundred thous-
pers of America and the manag- pension these soldiers of industry ands, "occupied" his ancestral
ing editors would release their for their faithful services to so hacienda and it is of record that
grip for three days and allow the ciety when their forms were erect he, while paying his peons 12 cents
rank and file of the editorial and and their steps were light ■a ^a-v Me*-, boaqted that he was
reportorial staff,, to write what, Thig que8tjon 0f "use and oc-"n8inP and occupying hi8 26,000,-
they actually know and tell the cupancv'* via the cattle route is acres of land. But alas for the
Morics that are suppressed, before on,y U8e(J in thp few ^icultural his revolting peons compel-
The comrades in Oklahoma ar^he thm> ^ ^ tiiere would Rtatcs whcre there are ^ him hterally to walk out of
perfecting their organization to!^' a revolu.tlon ln+ the holdings such as Texas. Oklahoma. ^nd and today
, , , . .the end that the state be carried in'. < °n 11 ar ^ ^ ,Wyoming, Montana Colorado and te.18 a,.rcfupe? .)n Tf8. Angeles,
sour, a couple of weeks ago and 19,fi Jt ig possibe that they will ^ other northwestern states. <^ear thatfl^ar 'ate i« await-.
cam- the Mistletoe state before Now ^ not that the ^ 8 ThTcattle dodge Will not apply '^L^VV . ^ and occu-
we do in Texas, due to the fact truthT " . from the middle west to the A
that we are handicapped by an em Canadian border, and it will sta e n ' eiT^
Why does Joe Bailey live near'not apply in the cattle states and•Iteof^exM in nl^
a fire station in Washington! So if some doubting Thomas should ar ™ In puficiB.,
won and that the renter unions
and the Land League are the on-
ly labor organizations in America
that have never lost a battle iniquitous poll tax law. However
That s record. ^ Let s have some ^ is gratifying to note that we are
more of that kind of scrap. It s ntaking readv to explode
refreshing after looking at Colo-
rado.
'S w.
— a 42- thev can turn the h«K on hlm m qneetion thia, we wonld merelv| The "use and oeenpancv" via
eeniunetre al«U nnder the poll tax,ewe he eateMe. fire becanw of he-,Mi„t „n, to hi(n tt,t thp <1ay of'th(1 ^ ,„7imS eeta
tlye individual cattleman is passing tes has "ot a leg to stand upon.
provision in Texas.
ing saturated in kerosinc.
\
\
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Hickey, T. A. The Rebel (Hallettsville, Tex.), Vol. [4], No. 203, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 12, 1915, newspaper, June 12, 1915; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth394898/m1/2/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UT San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.