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ChapterEight The Elder Statesman When he returned from Turkey in the summer of 1897, Alexander W. Terrell was a few months short of his seventieth birthday. He was still vigorous, and his health had even improved during his stay in Constantinople. During the next five years, he and his wife traveled to spas and cooler climates during the summers. Otherwise, Terrell spent time at his home in Del Valle, where he began the writing he had long wanted to do. Poetry, articles about the famous men he had known, and his own memoirs, all were written during this period of relative quiet and reflection. Politics were not forgotten, but after the excitement of the mid1890s , the Texas Democrats had become less receptive to Terrell’s anti-corporate positions. Led by Colonel Edward M. House of Austin, the dominant Democratic faction emphasized taxation and regulatory policies friendly to business. Meanwhile, the rise of Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey added to the scene another personality with whom Terrell did not get along. When Bailey won a United States Senate seat in 1901, it signaled another setback for the forces formerly loyal to James S. Hogg. For the moment, Terrell had no real political base.1 Family issues pressed for Terrell’s attention. His son Howard, now a lawyer in Boonville, Missouri, had a wife, Dora, and two small children, whom the elder Terrell cherished. Howard Terrell, however , was a compulsive gambler and womanizer. He forged checks, stole money from his father, and cheated merchants in Boonville. By 1902 he had deserted his family and moved to the Philippines. There he took up with an actress whom he passed off as his wife. Alexander Terrell supported his daughter-in-law and her children in Fort Worth until his death in 1912.2 gould final 7/18/04 11:14 AM Page 145 Terrell’s mother died in January 1901 at the age of ninety-six. She had resided in Lynchburg, Virginia, for the last twenty-five years of her life with her son J. J. Terrell. Each Christmas her three sons assembled to see her for the holidays. She remained lucid with a good memory until her last brief illness, which the family attributed to stress from the sudden death of a young relative. When he received the news of her sinking condition, Alex Terrell hurried to her bedside, but she died before his arrival.3 During these years away from the center of state politics, Terrell remained a sought-after speaker for ceremonial occasions. In June 1898 he again addressed the University of Texas graduates, this time on the subject of land and its relation to democratic government. Terrell spoke for several hours in an oration studded with references to John Locke, Henry George, and figures from European history. His ability to hold an audience had not diminished. “The populations of great cities are a menace to free institutions,” he proclaimed. Municipal governments, he warned, were dominated by “a discontented majority, composed of foreigners, who are averse to agriculture , adventurers, the indolent, the reckless, and the unfortunate.” On the other hand, he said, “the farm is the nursery of conservatism .” Terrell’s suspicions of cities, minorities, and African Americans would be important elements in his quest for changes in the state’s election laws after 1902.4 In September 1899 Terrell again spoke out about monopolies and the menace of trust power. “The great question,” he told his audience at Hancock’s opera house in Austin, is “industrial freedom for Texas” and “the emancipation of white labor in Texas.” His lengthy examination of the problem led him to recommend the repeal of state laws favoring private corporations, a clear statement in law that “every private manufacturing and trading corporation is a standing menace to the liberties of the people,” and the enactment of laws to bar such enterprises and their products from the state. Citizens could achieve all these results if they instructed their legislators to act when the lawmakers next convened. Thus, he said, “the mercenary politician and the groveling peon of deceptive platforms” could be defeated.5 As with earlier Terrell statements, the speech was reprinted around Texas. One writer told the Houston Post that Terrell was “one of the brainiest men in Texas and thoroughly conservative.” The editor of the Laredo Times said that he “has furnished the means for alexander watkins terrell 146 gould final 7/18/04 11:14 AM Page 146 [3.15.225.173] Project...

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