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Thus the rawboned Republic of Texas clinched its independence. Soon it was recognized as a sovereign nation by the U. S., Great Britain, Belgium, France.
Although most Texans looked to ultimate annexation by the U. S., yet there was one president of the Republic,† Mirabeau B. Lamar, who had a dream of empire.
He saw a cotton and mineral country without tariff restrictions, sending raw materials to England in exchange for manufactured products. England liked this and her agents began to talk turkey with Texans. The U. S. Congress, alarmed lest the "golden moment to obtain Texas" be lost, adopted in 1845 a resolution to annex Texas. A year later the Mexican War broke out, not because of the annexation of Texas, but (according to Editor Molyneaux in Bunker's Monthly) because U. S. soldiers occupied Tamaulipas which was Mexican territory.
Texas Today. Population, 5,308,483.
Area, 265,896 square miles. Manufactured products, more than a billion dollars a year. Cotton crop, average of 4,000,000 bales a year (largest in U. S.). Petroleum, 142,618,000 barrels a year. And then there are cattle, sheep, iron ores, lumber, potash, gypsum, brick clays and helium, which caused Captain W. P. Erwin to predict that Texas will have "the greatest airport the world will ever know." Perhaps it is because they have so much ground to cover that Texans tend to be Iong-legged. Some say Texans are a dizzy race . . . polo ponies ... a Riviera on the Rio Grande . . . black fingers in the sky in the oil fields . . . snow-white balls in the cotton country . . . daylight bank robbers of the younger generation . . .
"Ma"' Ferguson* . . . Dan Moody for Vice President . . . shiny skyscrapers in Dallas, Galveston, Fort Worth ... a harbor for ocean steamers at Houston fifty miles from the sea ... high altitudes good for the lungs, low altitudes good for swimming.
Bank Robbers. An immediate problem in Texas is revealed in the February Bunker's Monthly by W. M. Massie, president of the Texas Bankers' Association. He writes an article justifying his organization's standing offer of reward posted in 1,500 banks: $5,000 for each DEAD ROBBER Not one cent for a hundred live ones Mr. Massie believes that live bank robbers "rarely are identified, more rarely convicted, and most rarely kept in the penitentiary when sent there—all of which operations are troublesome and costly." He points with a banker's pride & joy to the three dead and two wounded robbers, the captured gang and the single successful burglary during the six weeks which the $5,000 rewards have been in effect.